Nola Read online

  "Is that what you believe?" Nola asked her husband pointedly, pushing her plate away long before she was finished with dinner.

  "No," Brandon answered truthfully, "but I also don't believe that you should be making other women uncomfortable-"

  "Am I making them uncomfortable, or their husbands?" she interrupted sagely.

  Brandon hated it when she was right. "Regardless, you shouldn't be making anyone uncomfortable, since they're your greatest source of information."

  Nola hated it when he was right and she hadn't thought of that. She really liked contributing to the family coffers in any way she could. It was almost as if she had a job, too, although she knew that Brandon would never allow that.

  Dinner was over much more quickly than she would have preferred, and although she suggested a friendly game of Whist, neither of the men took her up on it. Instead, she found herself manhandled up the stairs by her husband, who wasn't looking like he was in the mood to be particularly lenient.

  Once they were in their room, he loosened his grip, and Nola yanked her arm out of his tight grip to go sit on the end of the bed, her arms folded across her chest and a mutinous expression on her face. "There's no need to spank me just because those women got upset at having their eyes opened to the reality of the plight of women in America society. Just because they all live cushy lives of privilege, doesn't mean everyone does."

  Brandon was in the act of getting undressed, but he gave her a questioning look, and she knew exactly what he meant.

  "Yes, I know, I'm one of the privileged ones, so this is coming off as somewhat hypocritical, but I haven't always been quite this privileged. And I've certainly worked with enough women who need some sort of a voice in the government of their own country. You men certainly aren't addressing their causes or concerns."

  He wasn't at all pleased with being lumped in with the "you men" she hated, but she was probably right. Until he'd met her, he certainly hadn't paid much attention to what happened to any women at all, much less the poor and underprivileged. But she'd opened his eyes to a lot of things, and he was doing his best - which generally meant going with her to rallies and making considerable contributions to her various causes.

  Brandon stood directly in front of her and tipped her chin up so that she had to look at him. "I'm not going to argue with you about this. You shouldn't be doing that."

  "Well, I didn't know that I shouldn't be doing that," she answered back bravely.

  "Well, after you get a spanking, you will, won't you? I spent an hour and a half fielding angry phone calls from outraged husbands and even a few impromptu visitations." Naked, he returned to stand in front of her. "I'm sure you must've gotten some sort of feeling about how well you weren't being received, Nola. And, this is a good lesson for you. Not every husband is as understanding and forward thinking as yours."

  Now that had her smiling, despite her fate, especially as he set a knee on the bed and tugged her back onto it with him, leaning down to kiss her lavishly.

  "But perhaps, before your punishment, you want ravishing."

  "Oh, I definitely want."

  They made love, slowly and languorously, taking time to enjoy each other enormously. Their general softening towards each other had only served to heat up their marriage bed. They could barely go a night without reaching for each other and dissolving into this incredible heat they generated when they were in each other's arms.

  As the ogre in him had been tamed, Nola found her inhibitions relaxing quite considerably, and he had introduced her to many more things than she could ever have dreamt of doing with a man. But he had become much more encouraging and much less growly as their relationship had progressed, and he had her doing things that made her blush in the light of day - especially when they did them in the light of day, which he adored doing lately.

  He'd even taken her while they were at work. She was sitting calmly in a chair in front of his desk, going over the minutes of some of the meetings they had attended previously with the CEO of the next company they were looking at and he suddenly picked up the phone and told his secretary that he didn't want to be disturbed for the next two hours.

  And then, in front of God and everyone, in front of the nearly floor to ceiling windows of his huge, imposing office, he proceeded to strip her, kissing each newly exposed area, and managing to shock his bride to her kid shod toes.

  "Brandon! We can't do this here - now!"

  He looked up from nuzzling her neck. "Yes, we can, and we will."

  She knew that tone all too well. It meant there was absolutely no way she was going to get out of it, and her body seemed to adore that prospect; it was already dampening her drawers, which she knew without a doubt that he was going to gloat over when he inevitably discovered it. Until she met him, she'd never been consciously naked during the day - except for baths or while she was getting dressed or undressed. But it was always just a transitional thing that sometimes lasted only a few seconds.

  Brandon, however, reveled in keeping her naked, and displaying her with the sun on her creamy skin. And this time was no exception. He didn't try to expose her at all, he didn't command her to stand in front of the windows or anything, but he did make her stand in the middle of the room without stitch on. Of course, he had locked the door - both the one that led directly to the boardroom and the one out to the elevators, but that didn't really settle her mind, and she couldn't help but fidget from one foot to the other, lacing and unlacing her fingers nervously, and trying to resist the urge to cross her hands over her breasts, which she knew from previous experience would earn her a sharp smack on her bottom.

  What he did do surprised her even more than what she had imagined. He stood in front of her in all of his company president glory and coaxed her onto her knees, then undid his pants and arranged himself so that his member was inches from her face.

  This was something she had only just begun doing for him - at least voluntarily. In coming into her own sexually while under his gentler tutelage, she found that she liked the power she had over him. It was nice to know that he enjoyed it when she touched him at least as much as the reverse, and she had to admit that the rush of power was quite considerable. Brandon wasn't the type of man to let his guard down with anyone - she didn't think that he'd ever even done that with his father. But she knew that when she held him in her mouth, he wasn't thinking about any one or any thing else but what was going on right then and there. He wasn't thinking about the latest merger, he wasn't thinking about stocks, he wasn't thinking about what was for dinner.

  He was thinking about how incredible it felt to have her mouth around him - she knew, because that was all she could think of when he took her into his own mouth.

  She'd never knelt before him, though - they usually made love on their bed, although they had christened the bathroom quite heavily - and she really wasn't sure about the position, until she began to nibble on him and happened to look up.

  He was looking down at her, his expression softer than she'd ever seen it, one hand cupping but not guiding her cheek with the gentlest of touches, and their eyes collided almost violently.

  All of a sudden, Brandon had reached down and grabbed the backs of her thighs, lifting her up and settling her onto him in one smooth motion. Nola sank down on that thick, stiff pole of his inch by nerve filled inch, held in place and completely unable to stop the invasion, helpless and invaded and loving every minute of it.

  She wasn't even able to lock her ankles round him - her legs were too short and his waist was to thickly muscular. He held her as if she didn't weigh a thing; of course his cock was bearing most of her weight and he wasn't about to complain about that. It wasn't long before Nola found her back up against the expensively paneled wall, her husband driving into her roughly, his hands looped behind her back, his fingers curved over her shoulders, keeping her firmly in place to receive the full force of his thrusts.

  Given free reign - such as when they were alone at the Hampton cottage or the cabin at Lake George - Nola found that she was most embarrassingly loud in her pleasure. But she knew that Josh was just outside the door, and she did her best not to make so much as a squeak.

  Brandon, however, lived for the way she screamed when she exploded, and even for those small whimpers she made that only he could hear. He adored that she was so vocal, even though he knew it embarrassed the heck out of her - or maybe because it did. He always made sure that she came along on the ride with him, and this time was no different. He wet one of his fingers in his mouth and reached between them to play with that eager button of hers as he rode her, knowing full well how hot being filled and rubbed drove her out of her mind.

  He loved watching her struggle not to make too much noise - he loved making it that much harder for her to be so demure. He, for one, didn't give a damn if the whole world heard, much less Josh, who was more than likely too wrapped up in what he was doing to pay any attention.

  Brandon had wanted to spend a lot more time letting him pleasure her with that beautiful mouth of hers, but when he'd looked down at her, he just couldn't wait another moment.

  It was the exact opposite of how he felt the night he had to punish her for creating such a furor over the suffrage movement amongst their friends. They took more time coming together that evening than they had in the entire time they were married, and for the first time, he would have to say that they had finally, truly made love.

  In fact, in the aftermath, when he was just holding her loosely and they were both limp with exhaustion, just as he opened his mouth to tell her that he loved her - even though he was going to be roasting her butt within the next few minutes - he was amazed to hear her soft, whispered confession of exactly the same thing from where she was huddled against him.

  "You do?" he asked, elated. "I was just about to say the same thing to you!"

  He hugged her tight, kissing her hard, then settling down to snuggle some more. "I'm sorry I was such a bear to you when we first got married."

  "I'm sorry you were, too," she shot back unrepentantly.

  "Well, I wasn't going to let you run roughshod over me."

  Nola snorted loudly. "Like anyone could."

  "Yes, well, I wanted to establish early on who was going to be in charge. I didn't want to have to be arguing with you about it."

  Her lower lip pouting out impossibly far, she countered, "I never argued, did I?"

  "No, because I wouldn't let you." He kissed the top of her head, knowing that he had to do something now that he really didn't want to do. He couldn't imagine a worse time to have to spank a woman than when they had just revealed their love for each other. But that seemed to be exactly what was happening.

  "And speaking of not letting you, I'm afraid that you're looking at a spanking for trying to recruit amongst our friends."

  "That's not fair!" Nola pouted, knowing it was no use to protest but needing not to go gently into that awful position.

  "Go get me the belt, Nola," he proclaimed as he stepped out from under the warmth of the bedclothes to go stand at the end of the bed.

  She wanted to say no. She wanted to scream and cry at the indignity of it, and she wanted to run away. But Nola didn't do any of those things. Instead, she did exactly as she was told, went to the closet and and fetched it quickly, meetig him at that awful spot and hading him the belt he favored for use on her bottom.

  "You know what to do," was all he said.

  He didn't lecture her this time. He'd really already done that, and Brandon hated to repeat himself. Instead, he simply set about welting every inch of her bottom, then just the barest tops of her thighs. He kept the area he struck very tight, so that he couldn't help but hit the same places over and over again, hopefully driving his point home. If she had been just a bit more virulent in her approach, she could have cost the company - and thus the family - an enormous amount of money, considering that the husbands of the wives she saw socially were the men he dealt with in business every single day.

  And he wasn't about to stand idly by and let her hurt the family, whether she meant to or not, and he meant this to be a severe lesson that he hoped would make her more careful of just that in the future.

  If he had asked, Nola would have told him that he had more than achieved his goal. She had more than learned her lesson when he got through with her. The strap always hurt tremendously when he wielded it, but it seemed that it was a thousand times worse this time, and she wondered if the heights of ecstasy she'd achieved at his hands moments ago had anything to do with it.

  But she was certainly going to keep her mouth shut about suffrage around their friends.

  Besides, she thought to herself when she got her brain back and he finally put the belt to one side, she'd already reached as many women as she thought she would, so there really wasn't any reason to mention it again.

  Women in their - in her - position didn't have much impetus to change things. They were generally well cared for and had everything they wanted - as long as their husbands wanted them to have it. She was somewhat bemused to find herself in very much the same place - and was even more surprised to find how much submitting to her husband excited her in that special way.

  She liked to think, though it might well have simply been a benign form of self delusion, that she remained a strong, independent woman, but she realized that her independence had been severely curtailed, although she had to hand it to Brandon for supporting her in her crusade rather than actively trying to squash her interests. Judging by the reaction to her ideas, the majority of men out there would never have allowed her to continue in her pursuits.

  Brandon tucked her under the covers then joined her there, hugging her tight as they fell asleep in a big heap. For the first time since they'd gotten married, Nola slept in her husband's arms, knowing that wonderful feeling of loving and being loved, and she knew that there was nothing better in this world.

  The very next morning, though, she was unsure of pretty much everything. She awoke with her husband, which had become her custom since she sometimes accompanied him in to work, but her first thought wasn't how much she would have preferred to just sleep the day away, or even what she might want for breakfast.

  In fact it was the direct opposite of what she might want for breakfast. Her first thought was that whatever it was that she had eaten last night - that damned lemon chicken she loved so much - had not set well with her at all, and she bolted to the bathroom with her hand over her mouth.

  Brandon heard the commotion and followed her in, holding her hair out of the way and holding her forehead while she was wracked with violent spasms. He held her until they passed, then carried her limp body back to lay her down gently on the bed.

  Embarrassed at having been so sick for some reason, Nola threw her arm over her face. "I'm sorry. It must've been the chicken, is all I can think."

  Brandon looked at her skeptically, a garbage can from the bathroom held at the ready in his hands, just in case she couldn't make it to the toilet. "I had more of it than you did, and I'm fine."

  "So, I have some sort of stomach flu," she said petulantly, throwing off the covers.

  Brandon replaced them just as quickly, not letting her get out of bed. "If you have a stomach flu, then you're going to stay home. Even if that's not what it is, you're still going to stay home."

  "What else could it be?"

  He could see by her clear face that she truly didn't have any idea that she might be pregnant and this might be morning sickness, and sat down beside her, crowding her over a bit to take her into his arms. "Well, it could be that you're pregnant."

  "I'm pregnant?" she asked, and he had to wonder if she had no idea how that might have happened, either.

  "Well, we don't know that. But one of the early signs is often being sick in the mornings."

  "Oh."

  He kissed her quick on the top of her head, saying, "I'll have the doctor come over this evening. In the mean time, I'll have someone bring up some dry bread or crackers and weak tea. That might help."

  Nola didn't have time to ask him how he knew all this about pregnancy and pregnant women, and she wasn't at all sure she wanted to hear the answer anyway.

  It turned out that the news was very happy - she was pregnant, as proclaimed by the doctor, with whom she had had a fight about just how intimately he wanted to examine her. Brandon had had to come to the poor man's rescue, because Nola had had him backed into a corner in no time at all for the mere suggestion that he might have to lay hands on her.

  He managed to convince her that that was to be expected to a certain extent, especially when one was pregnant, and that it was okay with him, and that he'd be there with her for the whole examination, and he was.

  His father was over the moon, and there was a definite feeling amongst the three of them that they had wished that Alexander had been able to be with them for this event.

  Brandon had assumed that Nola would want to curtail her usual activities because she was enceinte, but that was far from the truth. She might have been incredibly sick in the mornings - and she was - but she just slyly shifted all of her appointments and meetings to the afternoon. She even continued - or wanted to continue - to come into work with him, although he put the kibosh on that rather quickly, and tried to suggest to her that she might want to slow down, but she wasn't having any of it.

  She was still attending rallies - nearby rallies - in her fifth month, when she was quite obviously pregnant. Other ladies of her station didn't set foot outside their houses when they were with child. His wife was off gallivanting hither and yon fighting for women to get the vote.

  She was exhausting herself, and he wasn't going to have any more of it. He finally put his foot down - much later than he should have, as far as he - and Geoffrey - were concerned, at dinner the next night, which she was barely able to stay awake for, although she roused herself more than enough to know that she wasn't at all happy with that pronouncement.

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