Her Gentle Giant Read online

  "Sold," Ari said.

  "Okay, then. There are three bedrooms down here. The one on the left side of the hall is mine, and then there are two on the right side. Why don't you put her in the first bedroom? My sister sometimes stays in it, and the bed's already made up. It's smaller and closer to both of us. Then you can take the one furthest back on the right. It's bigger and has its own bath, like mine does."

  "Done and done."

  Of course, Emmy awoke just as she was putting her down in the bed, and nothing would soothe her but that Hoyt come see her.

  Ari wasn't going to argue with her. Her mind was too numbed to deal, so she headed back to the foyer and found him locking an incredible number of locks on the door. How could she not have noticed that he had seventy-two locks on his front door?

  When he saw her, he was just finishing. "There is an alarm system. The code is 021713."

  "Okay—"

  "It's Luci's birthday."

  She smiled wanly at that.

  "There are security flood lights around the house and the yard that are motion sensitive, too. I have several guns, but they're all in a locked gun safe in my closet, so no concerns about Emmy."

  "Good."

  "I just want you to feel as safe as possible here."

  "Unka Hoyt!"

  "I've been trying to tell you that your presence is required in the princess' chambers to soothe her back to sleep."

  He was already going that way, after ducking into his bedroom and grabbing an acoustic guitar.

  But by the time they both got there, Luci had done his job for them, having crawled up on Emmy's bed to lie next to her. The little girl was already fast asleep, her arm around the dog.

  "Well, I think I've been replaced!" Hoyt huffed with a smile, tucking his guitar back in his room.

  "Oh, please! I've been replaced twice—once by you, and once by a dog!"

  He put his guitar back and wandered into the kitchen, but Ari was still hanging out by the door as if she might bolt out into the middle of the night if he so much as looked at her crosswise.

  Hoyt peeped around the corner. "How about some wine?" he asked, hoping to coax her further into the house, if she wasn't going to go to bed. She was probably still jazzed and nervous after what had happened, so he wasn't surprised that she didn't want to go to bed yet.

  But he hoped to get her to relax some.

  "Do you have anything stronger? Like Xanax? Or a sledgehammer, maybe?"

  He gave her a considering glance. "You don't really want either of those things, do you?"

  "No, I was just trying to be funny."

  "How about some whiskey?"

  "Fine."

  "How do you take it?"

  "Straight. Twelve fingers, please."

  He grinned. "You want a cask and a big straw?"

  "Perfect!"

  He laughed as he turned away then reappeared in the archway between the living room and the dining room, with a rocks glass in either hand, prepared to spend some time convincing her to come away from the door and sit down with him in the living room.

  But Hoyt was surprised to find that he didn't have to do that.

  As soon as she saw him, Arianne made a beeline for him, hugging him hard, although her arms didn't quite make it around him.

  It was the first time he could remember that she had touched him of her own accord. He knew why she'd done it then—his hands were otherwise occupied. But that didn't negate the fact that she'd come to him, on her own, seeking solace.

  The hug didn't last anywhere near as long as he wanted it to, but that was okay because then she stepped back—not very far—and looked up at him.

  "I just wanted to say thank you—yet again—for dealing with Matt. If you hadn't been there, I would have been on the way back to New York City by now, sporting Lord knows what kind of bruises," she added, ashamed, under her breath.

  Hoyt very much hated to hear that. He handed her the drink and took a deep swallow of his own. "I'm not judging in the least, I want you to know, but why would you have gone with him?"

  "Because he would have threatened to hurt Emmy," she threw back at him. "It's how he kept me with him once she was born." Her voice barely made a sound. "I would let him do anything he wanted to me, but I would not let him touch her."

  He took another healthy swallow at that. "If you had disappeared, I would have come after you," he said, matter-of-factly, as he took her hand and led her to the couch, where he sat down on one end as she plopped down on the other.

  "I believe you would," Ari allowed, downing half of what he'd given her.

  "Slow down," he cautioned. "You don't want to make yourself sick."

  "I won't. I'm small, but I have a surprisingly good capacity for holding my liquor for someone of my size, which I discovered in college."

  Hoyt nodded.

  Ari looked around the place again, having only ever been in it a couple of times. "As I've said before, I seem to be perpetually in your debt. Thank you, too, for taking us in. I wouldn't have been able to sleep in that house since he knows where I live."

  "You are not now, nor will you ever be, in my debt. If anything, it's really the other way around, although I don't think you'll ever believe that."

  "You're right. You did a favor for me when I needed someone to watch Emmy." She ticked things off on her fingers. "You brought me groceries when I needed them—"

  "No matter that you got your bottom blistered for bringing them back?" he suggested with a raised eyebrow and a barely-there grin.

  Ari gave him the eye. "I'm not listing negative consequences. I'm listing the things you've done for me when you have no real obligation to do so, like taking Matt down and opening up your house to us."

  "All things anyone who knew you would do for you."

  Ari snorted and took another mouthful of her drink.

  "Yes, well, you have gotten me to care about two some ones when I would have sworn that I wouldn't—and couldn't—care about a damn thing, and you got me out of my house on several occasions when I rarely go out. Because of you, I know that I can still fight—if not quite as well as I did, well enough to defeat an asshole when I need to. You're going to help me with my book," he ticked off.

  "For which I'm going to be paid, so that's another thing you did for me—you gave me a job."

  "But if you hadn't come along, I might well never have actually started to write the thing again. Hopefully, with you around, I'll actually get it done, and maybe even send it to a publisher! That's one of the goals I have because of you."

  "What's the other?" she asked, not looking at him.

  Hoyt gazed at her but said nothing until she finally turned and met his eyes. She would swear that he'd lowered his voice by several octaves when he answered softly, "You really can't imagine what that might be, Arianne?"

  Her face was brighter than the lamp that was beside her. "Hoyt!"

  "I'm just trying to let you know how I feel. I wasn't exaggerating in the least when I said that I had pretty much given up on finding someone to care about. Someone who could see past what I look like."

  She squirmed uncomfortably at his praise. "It's easy to be nice and get to like someone who is nice to you."

  Hoyt chuckled. "There aren't very many people around here who would call me nice—at least not since I got back from the war, anyway. I came home with a big chip on my shoulder, and I've been nasty to all sorts of people in town because of it. But you and your little girl knocked that thing clean off."

  "I was mortified when I heard Emmy ask to kiss your boo boos!"

  He just smiled. "She was—and is—an angel, just like her mother."

  She was still blushing from the last compliments, and that didn't help!

  "Although her mother keeps getting herself into trouble," Hoyt began in a warning tone.

  "I do not!" Ari drained the last of her glass and got up, intending to get at least another full glass of it. "Would you like me to get you more?"

 
"No, honey, what I want you to do is sit back down while you still can comfortably. I'll go get some more for the both of us."

  She didn't much like how he'd put that at all, but she dutifully sat down and held out her glass to him. "Fill it, please."

  Hoyt didn't answer her but brought her glass back and handed it to her.

  Ari, who was beginning to feel a bit tipsy, took it, then peered down into it. "Hey, this is half empty!"

  "Ah, so you're a pessimist, huh?"

  That got him a glare.

  "Half empty or half full—neither is acceptable."

  She got up to rectify the situation but found the glass taken away from her entirely as Hoyt put it on the end table nearest her on his way by, just before he took her hand.

  "Where're we going?"

  She didn't sound afraid in the least, and he was glad of it.

  "We're going to take care of your disobedience before I put you to bed," he pronounced.

  Ari began to pull back on her hand, but he wouldn't let it go. He wasn't hurting her, but she couldn't break his hold, either.

  Chapter 8

  Hoyt led her toward the back of the house, through the dining room, and out a set of sliders she'd never even noticed before.

  It led to a nice big deck, which he illuminated with one light switch, and then as they walked across it, more began to come on automatically, flooding the backyard with light.

  "Oh wow—this is very nice!"

  "It is, isn't it? I built it a year or so after I got back, just for something to do and as a kind of homemade occupational therapy project. Being active is good for me, as is using my injured parts. It keeps the joints warm, keeps the ligaments and tendons—the ones I have left—from stiffening up, and it's good for my mental health, too. Taking care of Emmy that day did much the same thing for me. She had me laughing almost all the time and breathless from trying to corral her and the dog, neither of whom particularly wanted to be."

  He brought her to the far end of the deck, which had a full, beautiful railing all the way around it. There was patio furniture and a grill out there, too.

  "It must be lovely to sit out here of a summer night."

  "It is, and we will." Hoyt still had hold of her hand and used it to turn her toward him. "But that's not why we're out here, is it, Miss Arianne, hmm?"

  She grew quiet all of a sudden.

  "Why have I brought you out here?" he asked, bringing the back of her hand to his lips to bestow a warm, soft kiss.

  Ari couldn't help but look sheepishly at her feet. "Because."

  "Yes?"

  "Because I got the suitcase out of the back of the truck."

  "That's right." He nodded.

  "But, Hoyt, I'd have done that if I had been alone! I did it all the way down from the city!"

  "That's not the point, Arianne. And what would my point be?"

  Damn, she hated it when he quizzed her like this! It made her feel twice as guilty and chastised as she already did, and she almost—almost—wished he'd just spank her already and get it over with!

  "That you told me not to—that you'd do it."

  "I did, didn't I? But what did you do that's got you getting a spanking?"

  Arianne sighed loudly, just shy of exasperated.

  With another woman, Hoyt might not have been very happy by her displaying that kind of attitude just before she was going to be punished, but with Ari, he was happy that she had unwound enough to show that side of herself to him. He'd curb it if need be—if it became a problem—but for the moment, he let it slide.

  "Because I took it out anyway."

  "That's right. It's not that you did it—I never had any doubt that you could. You're going to be punished because you did it when I told you not to. You disobeyed me, and that'll earn you a good, hard spanking every time." He moved a little away from her. "Now, I want you to take a step closer to the railing and then bend over it. You might find that you want to grab hold of the spindles at some point, and that's okay. They're very sturdy."

  Instead of doing as he asked, she looked apoplectic. "You're going to spank me out here?

  "I am."

  "B-but it's… it's out here!"

  He successfully suppressed a chuckle but couldn't manage to do the same with a smile. "I agree. This is about as out here as it gets."

  "But what about your neighbors?"

  "Don't have any."

  She gestured somewhat wildly toward the back yard. "What about out there?"

  "Honey, I own this whole street and back about twenty-five acres from this point. There's no one around us for miles, I promise you." Then his tone changed to one that was firm and somewhat stern. "Now, I've waited for you to obey me just about as long as I intend to. I suggest you bend yourself over that railing, or I'm going to take you over my knee before I bend you over the railing."

  She gasped but had already begun doing as he demanded, even as she protested, "You wouldn't!"

  He did chuckle deep in his throat at that. "You're too smart to test me, Ari. You know I will."

  Arianne found herself bent pretty perfectly in half. The railing was just about the right height and width.

  She wondered errantly if he had built it that way with this very purpose in mind!

  "Good. Now the same rules apply as when you were over my lap. If you reach back, you're going to lose the use of that hand until I'm done. Stay in position, now, honey, because you'll regret it if you don't."

  That sounded terribly ominous—but instead of her usual fearful reaction, she felt her body slicken naturally at his words.

  But before she could begin to explore what that meant for her, she felt him tug down her shorts. Not far, just to the tops of her thighs. But still. She was outside, bent over, in just a t-shirt and her panties, with her shorts at half-mast.

  And, of course, she couldn't resist trying to make a grab for them, finding her right hand immediately taken captive. The left was pretty much useless already, since he was standing on that side.

  She should have felt trapped, or been scared, or been at least putting up more of a protest, but she couldn't seem to find her way to doing any of those things. She felt controlled and restricted, but there were no warning bells going off in her head.

  This was Hoyt, not her husband, and he had never been anything but kind to her.

  Ari felt him put his hand on her lower back as he said something he felt she needed to hear from him, "You don't have to be quiet when I punish you if you don't want to, Miss Arianne. There's no one around who's going to hear you. Even Emmy's at the front of the house, so she's not going to get an earful."

  He brought his hand back down a bit, but then he simply laid it against her panties. "Are you quiet because of that asshole?"

  Hoyt heard a sound come from her that was like a sob, only he would have bet that she wasn't yet crying. "Y-yes."

  "Well, I don't feel that way. If it hurts, you can feel free to let me know in any way you like. As long as you don't get out of position, nothing you say or do will make the spanking worse—or better. And if you want to—or need to—cry, then you can do that, too, although neither of those things is mandatory. Okay?"

  "Yes."

  He gave her perhaps fifteen hard swats before he asked a question as he smacked a behind that he could feel much better than he could the first time, even though he really wished it was bare. But he wasn't going to require that of her at this point.

  "Why do you think I told you that I'd get the suitcase, Arianne?" he asked, drumming out a relentless beat on her backside.

  She protested more this time than she had previously, tugging constantly against his hold on her arm that kept her in place. And she was having a harder time marshalling her thoughts to answer him. Ari wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or what.

  "Um, uh, because…"

  A harder than usual spank landed dead center of her cheeks, accompanied by an out and out stern, "Answer me, darlin'."

  "Oh! Uh, you're strong
er than I am."

  "Exactly. That's a tall truck with a tall gate, and that suitcase was heavy. I didn't want you to strain yourself lifting it out of the truck or carrying it into the house, for that matter. Especially when it was very easy for me to do."

  He never brought the intensity of the smacks back down again, and her rear end was being lit on fire everywhere his palm connected with her flesh.

  She continued to resist the urge—except for that one outburst—to vocalize more, but the longer he swatted, the harder it was not to cry out or just plain cry! She did move more, not quite kicking up, but shifting her feet and sometimes stamping down when he popped down a particularly crisp whack onto her painful, red skin.

  Ari didn't think this was actually as bad a spanking as he had given her before, but for some reason—her own emotional vulnerability, the booze, she didn't know what—she seemed to feel it more.

  It only took about half the time of the last one before he picked her up and brought her to a glider that was tucked up against the back of the house, arranging her on his lap, and leaning her against him so he took her weight rather than making her lean on her sore behind.

  And as soon as he closed his arms around her, she began to cry, long, deep, hiccoughing sobs. They were eerily silent, but he was just glad she was getting some of her unhappiness out. If he had to spank her daily to help her do that, he would.

  As it was, he simply did what he knew how to do for her. His ugly foot was on the deck, rocking them slowly back and forth, and he brought his good leg up to rest on his bad knee to support her as he indulged himself in crooning to her and touching her gently in all the neutral, undemanding ways he thought she might find soothing.

  And when she actually buried her face in his chest and tentatively wrapped her arms around him, seeking the comfort he so desperately wanted to provide for her, he thought his heart would break.

  He didn't care if they were out there all night. He would hold her for as long as she needed him to, with his good hand making long, sweeping strokes up and down her back, and his gnarly one caressing her cheek and brushing the hair back from her eyes. Hoyt didn't much care if he ever moved again if she didn't want to.