Promises Kept Read online

  "Now," he said, in what she had come to think of in the past as his 'lecture tone'. "I know you remember me saying that I expected you to eat three complete meals a day— "

  "But you didn't specify what three meals."

  His eyes closed slowly and she heard him sigh, as if he was trying to take a moment to gather every ounce of patience he possessed, knowing that he was going to need every bit of it.

  "Excuse me?"

  "You didn't say what meals I had to eat. Maybe I was going to ask you to stop later for brunch."

  "No." Short, sweet, and to the point.

  "Linner?" she suggested helpfully.

  "Linner?" he parroted back to her, entirely confused by the unfamiliar term.

  "Yeah, it's an early afternoon meal, too late to be lunch but too early for dinner. See also: lupper."

  He chuckled once at her creativity before he could squelch it, but that was all he allowed himself before saying again, "No."

  "Oh." She sounded deflated, but then perked up again. "Okay, then plan B: you promised not to touch me."

  He eased her over his lap, gathering her flying hands in his right and holding them securely at the small of her back, then adjusted her slightly off balance to keep her from squirming too much. He wished he had remembered to do that when he'd spanked her at her house, but he was out of practice. A big grin spread over his face that she couldn't see as he answered, "Ah, no. I didn't."

  "You did so!" she practically yelled in her vehemence, wanting him to see it her way, of course.

  He removed her jean shorts, and then the pretty flowered panties that clung to her luscious bum. "It's Saturday. Don't you have any Tuesday panties to wear?"

  "No," she retorted in a growly tone. "They're all in the laundry. And someone dragged me out of the house this morning before I got a chance to run a load of wash."

  The sharp crack across her butt wasn't entirely unexpected, but it had her yelping nonetheless.

  "I suggest you work on your tone of voice, Anna. You're not in much of a position to backtalk me."

  All he got in response was more of a growl.

  "And let the record show, if you will recall the conversation in question this morning at approximately nine-thirty a.m., that what I actually said to you was that if you behaved, then I wouldn't have a need or reason to touch you. I most distinctly did not make a promise to you that I have absolutely no intention of keeping."

  Dammit! She had forgotten that the bastard had taken pre-law classes, and aced his LSATs before deciding to commit to a business degree. She should have been more careful to make sure that he had agreed to what she'd said, but she was so flustered by his mere presence that she'd forgotten that very important detail.

  Plan C, here we go! "Okay, well, I want you to let me up and make me that promise."

  "No," he said softly.

  Plan D. "Help!" she yelled, without much courage or conviction, despite the fact she was going to regret it by the time he'd finished decorating her backside. She didn't want to get the police involved, or even just the hotel managers. She wanted to be able to resolve this in her favor without it getting messy, and despite her animosity towards him, she certainly didn't want to do anything that might land him in jail, unfortunately for her.

  The problem was that he clearly believed – as he always had – that disciplining her was in her favor. It helped her to be a more responsible person, better organized, and definitely much safer than she would have been without his presence in her life.

  "Remy, let me up!"

  She heard his sigh, and knew that when it was going to be a harsh punishment like this, he really didn't want to do it. But she also knew that he most definitely would. No matter what she said or did, she was going to get a painful comeuppance, starting right then with the first swat. He didn't even bother to answer her plea, he just began to brighten her bottom from stem to stern while he lectured her.

  "We may have been apart for a while, but don't you think for a moment that I won't tan your hide whenever I think you need it, Anna Nicolette Kenner. And disobeying me right off the bat isn't going to earn you any favors in my book, you know.

  "I know that you heard me tell you what I expected regarding your eating habits—"

  She was already sobbing, and he hadn't even reached for the belt yet, but that didn't stop her from giving him tit for tat. "I didn't agree to that any more than you agreed to not touch me!" she spat out.

  "You agreed to let me touch you years ago, honey. I'm just invoking that right, along with several others after a long dormant period." That sassy attitude wasn't going to serve her very well around him, she would soon discover. "Regardless. It should go without my saying – especially since you've had a problem with eating in the past, that you would be expected to eat healthily, and as far as I'm concerned," he continued after tattooing her bottom almost non stop throughout his speech and speeding his rhythm up even more once he finished, "breakfast, lunch and dinner are what you're supposed to consume. But then you knew that and yet you chose to defy me.

  "You should also remember that I won't put up with defiance. The same thing goes as has always gone with me: if you have a problem with a rule I've made for you, then you can always come and talk to me about. Otherwise, I expect to be obeyed, young lady, and minus the attitude you seem to have developed without my firm hand to keep you in line. You're going to have to dispense with that, too, or your bottom is going to be doing a slow burn for the next two months, and I will promise you that."

  Abby kicked and twisted and put up a fuss, but, as always, found herself subdued in ridiculously easy fashion, held tightly in place to receive every blistering swat he decided to deliver, up and down the length of what had been a creamy white backside but that was now an angry red.

  And the belt was still lying on the bed.

  As usual, she wasn't given much time between one implement and the other. When he got into a rhythm, he didn't like to stop until he was at the end, rather than giving her false hope. So the switch to that awful length of leather was made very smoothly. One moment it was just his hand – and there really wasn't any "just" about that in the least – and the next she both heard the crack and felt the familiar firey sting of the implement she dreaded the most.

  Only about three strokes in and she was ready to agree to eat three round, rectangular or oblong meals a day, too, as long as it meant that he was going to stop flailing her poor rear with that wicked belt. But she knew it wouldn't be over for her anywhere near that easily.

  And it wasn't.

  By the time he lay the strap down on the bed, her backside was a mottled shade of red, verging on purple in some places. As soon as he stopped spanking her, she tried to spring off his lap, which, of course, he wouldn't allow. Instead he helped her turn within the safety of his arms and held her tightly against him. He knew she didn't want to be held, but she was just going to have to get over it. Comforting her after a punishment was as natural as breathing to him, and he knew that it had helped her before. He couldn't think that it wouldn't now.

  And so he rocked her and stroked what there was of her hair, murmuring soothing nothings as her ragged breathing returned to a more normal rhythm.

  And, to his amazement, she fell asleep, right there and then, throbbing bottom and all. When they were together it wasn't at all unusual for him to put her to bed after a spanking, once he'd brought her down from it, of course. But the fact that she could relax enough now to fall asleep in his arms…. It gave him hope.

  Doing his level best not to wake her, he transferred her into a more comfortable position on his bed, then set about getting his own stuff ready. Once he'd done that, he located her key in her pants pocket and went into her room, got Topher ready, even to the point of pilling him. He was again amazed to find it could be done so easily, but the cat seemed drawn to him like a magnet, and anything he wanted to do to him was fine with the cat, as long as Remy continue to pet him while he did it.

  Th
e cat carrier, which was less than his favorite place to be, was a little more of a struggle but he got it done, making sure that Topher was completely secure before opening the door and stashing him in the back of the SUV, still in his crate until they were actually ready to get underway.

  When he had everything packed, he got the still dead asleep Miss Anna redressed, having found a suitable, much looser substitute for her jeans shorts, and carried her out to the car, being excruciatingly careful to place her on her right side where he knew she preferred to sleep anyway and that would also put less pressure on what had to be a very sore bottom.

  After making a sweep of both rooms to make sure that he hadn't forgotten anything, he left both keys on the nightstand and backed out of the room, reached into the back window of the car and let His Majesty out, then quickly got in himself, noting that Anna was still out like a light.

  They were well on their way to Knoxville, somewhere on I81, when she finally awoke, rolling at first into her seat the way she normally would have, but immediately raising her bottom off the not so cushiony seat with a yelp.

  "I have help for that," he crowed, proud of himself for having thought about it, and producing a thick fluffy pillow.

  Although she accepted it gratefully, she couldn't help but needle him as she sat down on even that much soft comfort very gingerly. "Stole a pillow, did you, sticky fingers?"

  He smiled just slightly and said, "I prefer the term 'procured'. Has a much nicer – less larcenous – ring to it." She chuckled a bit, and he was glad to hear her laughing again. "And besides. I left housekeeping a generous tip that more than covered the cost of one lousy pillow. To say nothing of the fact the person who is currently benefiting from my slight kleptomaniac tendencies shouldn't be throwing stones, now should she?"

  That earned him a truly vicious frown from said person.

  "Oh my God, we're half way to Knoxville, aren't we?" she exclaimed when she saw a sign for Roanoke.

  "Pretty near."

  "Did you remember the cat?"

  He gave her a jaundiced look, as if offended that she thought he was irresponsible enough to do that. "No, I left him there with a lighter, some papers and a pound of catnip. Told him to have a good time, on me."

  He got the same look in return – at just about the same level of amusement – until he explained further. "Yes, Little Lord Fauntleroy is in the back, and he's already had his pill —"

  "You pilled him yourself?"

  He found the vehement incredulity in her tone downright insulting. "Yes, I did. I can do things like that, you know. I've been working with animals all my life. I have a degree in animal husbandry."

  "I'll refrain from saying what that particular term always makes me think of," she responded dryly. "And you don't work with animals, you work with cattle. He's a pet, not cattle."

  "Well, I think it's to my distinct advantage that you obviously have a gay cat there. He really didn't give me much trouble, at least until it came to the carrier. And even then, it didn't take me too long to help him see the error of his ways." He threw her a sidelong glance and added, "Kind of like you."

  "Bite me."

  "Bite you? I thought you didn't even want me to touch you? Make up your mind, woman!"

  The rest of that leg of the journey to a smallish town just outside of Knoxville passed without incident. Anna hooked up her IPod and they listened to music while she read books she'd downloaded onto her Kindle, among which was Steven Tyler's latest and the first book in a series she'd been dying to read.

  When they finally found their hotel and got settled, she didn't have to go knocking on Remy's door for dinner. He beat her to it. "Hurry up, woman. I'm hungry!"

  They had decided to try a place that was right across the road, a smallish kind of honky tonk restaurant that had live music. Remy prefered that, as he had played guitar since he could hold it in his hand and had been a part of a couple of reasonably good cover bands back in his high school days.

  The food was fantastic. Remy had a plate of chicken fried steak that was the size of a platter, hanging over the edge and accompanied by a veritable tub of white gravy, steak fries, a fritter and salad.

  Anna didn't usually eat quite as much as Remy required her to. She generally skipped breakfast altogether – which she had learned the hard way was not going to be tolerated by her dinner companion - in favor of a light lunch, then cooked herself a small portion of whatever she wanted for dinner when she got home. But since she wasn't being given that choice and she didn't want to end up as uncomfortably full as she had last night, she opted for a teriyaki grilled chicken breast with summer vegetables on the side and a small salad, knowing Remy was listening carefully to everything she ordered, making very sure she complied with his rule.

  Chapter IX

  "You sure that's going to be enough to fill you up enough, Anna?" he asked, watching her closely as he put his napkin in his lap. "You don't want an appetizer? They have French onion soup."

  "No, thanks," she answered demurely. She was of half a mind to eat just exactly what was required of her and nothing more, but she enjoyed food too much – under normal circumstances – to do that. Instead, she ate a sensible dinner and intended to order one of the big desserts she'd seen on the back of the menu, but she didn't feel the need to tell him that.

  When the waitress came back with their soft drinks, Remy caught her eye. "Do you want something stronger?"

  Anna shrugged. "No, I'm all right, thanks."

  Remy ordered a Fosters for himself then leaned back and indulged himself in his favorite pastime – watching her.

  It took a while for Anna to notice; her head was swiveling around, taking in the décor of the rustic restaurant and bar, but when she finally turned back she found him staring blatantly at her.

  "It's not polite to stare," she chided.

  "I know," he answered unrepentantly, his eyes not moving one iota from her face.

  "Remy, stop!" Anna covered her face with her hands and tried to shift the chair to the side a bit, so that she was no longer directly in his line of sight, but that backfired on her because of her sore bottom, which had her hissing when she sat down.

  "Want me to go get your pillow?" he asked solicitously, loving the way she blushed at the suggestion.

  "No, thank you," she answered primly. Anna could feel her cheeks warming at his suggestion. No, she did not want to sit on a pillow and let everyone in the restaurant know that she had just been spanked.

  "Why not? Not everyone will assume the reason you're using it. Some of them will think you just have hemorrhoids."

  His teasing did not produce the sought after smile.

  But she did eat well, he had to admit, including a generous slice of chocolate and peanut butter cream pie. And in light of all of those calories, he felt it was only right that he assist her in the consumption of it, although it did earn him several slaps on the hand.

  Remy found himself somewhat distracted when the band started playing in the bar, and it made him wish that he'd brought his guitar with him, if only so he could sing her to sleep like he used to. They were doing a really good job of it, too, better than most local bands.

  Anna could see how much he was enjoying the music, and, throwing her napkin onto the table, suggested, "Why don't you go on in and listen to them? I'll head back to my room."

  On impulse, Remy stood and extended his hand to hers. "If you'll come with me."

  "Is that a command?" she asked, eyeing him with not a small amount of suspicion.

  His arm never wavered as he replied quietly, "No, it's a request. Remember how much fun we used to have at the Hollow?"

  They hadn't gone out very much – even then there wasn't much money for that kind of frivolity, not that it had mattered one whit to Anna. But occasionally they had blown off some steam at Frog Hollow, a honky tonk not unlike this place on the outskirts of Darien where all of the locals met and danced and drank and sang karaoke, badly. Very, very badly, some of them.<
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  It had been nearly seven years since she'd gone out. She maintained a life not unlike that of a cloistered nun after moving out of his house. Against her better judgment, she put her hand in his and let him help her up, following his lead to the bar, which was half again as big as the restaurant. No doubt at all as to where the owners made their money in this establishment.

  They found a table near the middle, and a friendly waitress took their drink order, making the helpful suggestion that shots were half price for ladies tonight. "In that case, I'll have a shot of Jim Beam, and my lady'll have a shot of Johnny Walker."

  There had been a time when she would have felt a warmth suffuse her heart at his use of the term "my lady", but now all she felt was an almost nauseous pang in the pit of her stomach. She wondered if she'd ever hear anyone use that term in describing her again in her lifetime.

  If she admitted it, which she rarely did and then only in the deepest darkest night, the truth was that he had spoiled her for other men. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone else calling her his lady would never have anywhere near the impact that it did when he said it. She certainly could have dated in the past six years, or even gotten married. But she'd turned down every invitation anyone issued until the men in her area got the message and stopped bruising their egos on her entirely.

  There had only ever been and, it seemed, only ever would be, one man for her. And he was sitting across the small table from her, seemingly oblivious to her inner turmoil.

  The band played their version of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams," with a man singing the vocals that worked surprisingly well, and Remy dragged her out onto the floor and into his arms. They fell back into those old, familiar positions with dangerous ease. Anna, though, was having a hard time dealing with the irony of the lyrics of the song, since they were so close to what she was going through right that very moment.

  "Does dancing count as touching, I wonder?" he asked aloud of no one in particular as he kissed her hair.