Erotica- Forever His/ Spanking Read online

  She opened her mouth to tell him her correct age, he thought, but suddenly snapped, “Stop! Stop!” She motioned toward the other side of the road where a suitcase and a box sat next to the sign announcing “Templeton.”

  Seth gaped in surprise and quickly did a u-turn to stop a few feet behind the piled items. “Yours?”

  She was out of the truck before he finished his question. She marched indignantly toward the suitcase, grumbling under her breath about someone named Tyrone. Something about she was going to kill him the first chance she got. Something about him butting into her business again, playing matchmaker or some other such nonsense. Seth couldn’t quite catch it all because she seemed to be muttering half in English and half in some language he didn’t understand. But she was ticked off, that he knew for certain.

  He ambled over, tipping up his hat to study the box filled with a peculiar mix of a couple of fancy cameras, a hair dryer, a book on Kama Sutra, and the biggest box of condoms he’d ever seen. Damn interesting stuff she toted around. Of course, his brain immediately began flipping through what kind of pictures would be in that book. And his cock started thickening, lengthening. He could make good use of some of those condoms.

  “Guess you aren’t as innocent as you look,” he said in a husky tone, trying to look away from that box but unable to do so.

  “What are you talking about?” She glanced at him in annoyance, and then followed his gaze to the box. Her eyes widened and she bent over it to hiss, “Dead! He is soooo dead!”

  “This Tyrone person you mumbled about?” Seth forced his gaze away, focused on Teri, which was a mistake. She looked incredibly sexy all puffed up with irritation, her cheeks pink in anger and possibly embarrassment, her pretty mouth pursed in a pout. He wanted to rip open that box of condoms and try one on for size. And he wanted to take her back to his truck, lower the door to the truck bed and bend her over it to sink himself deep into her sweet body. ‘Course he envisioned all of that with her being naked.

  She snapped her fingers in his face. “Wherever you’ve gone off to, cowboy, come back!”

  Heat shimmied up his face and he scowled. He didn’t just think about nailing every woman he came across. There was something different about Teri Pennington, something that made him stop using his brain and made him think with his dick. And that pissed him off. He needed to find some place to dump her off, let her be someone else’s problem.

  He bent down to pick up her suitcase and thrust it at her. Then he lifted the box, forced himself not to look inside it, and strode back to the truck. He set the box in the truck bed, fought down another flash of her bending over the lowered door. “I don’t know what the hell happened to your car, or why your belongings were left here. But I’ll take you back to town. Maybe Maybelle can help you out somehow.”

  She struggled to lift her suitcase high enough to put it in the truck bed and he tugged it out of her hands. The mere touch of their fingers sent a jolt of awareness from his fingertips straight to his dick. Damn thing swelled up and stretched the limits of his jeans. “You’re a powerful lot of trouble,” he growled and shifted awkwardly before he walked to the driver’s door.

  “So I’ve heard many times over the years.” She scurried around to the passenger’s side and climbed in, slamming the door. “You know, you’re the worst white knight in history.”

  They didn’t speak further as Seth raced back into town. Worst white knight? Damn right he was! A true white knight would want to rescue the damsel in distress and then be pleased he’d done so. He wanted to do some hot and naughty with said damsel in distress. To hell with rescuing her. She brought out the animal inside him, the one desperate to mate.

  Maybelle was just about to get into her battered, ancient Cadillac when Seth pulled up beside it. He flung himself out of his truck and stormed over to her. “Her car was gone, weird thing that. She’s got her suitcase, though. And a box.” His face heated again as he thought about what was in the box. “She needs somewhere to stay or a phone to use or something.”

  Teri pranced up next to him and his nostrils flared at her now familiar scent, something soft, something sensual…something different. He inched away from her. “You got room at your place?” he asked Maybelle.

  She shook her head and looked regretfully down at Teri. “Sorry, honey, but my kids and my grandkids are staying with me for a week. I’m full to capacity.” She looked straight at Seth. “You’ve got plenty of room in that big old house of yours.”

  His heart pounded in panic. “It wouldn’t be right.” It wouldn’t be safe, for either of them.

  Maybelle rolled her eyes. “Your last housekeeper lived with you.”

  “I won’t go where I’m not wanted,” Teri stated and spun back toward his truck. She went up on tiptoes and attempted to reach for her suitcase in the truck bed. “Maybe I can get someone else to help me. I’ll set my things in the alley next to the diner and go to that bar. The Boot Scoot or whatever it was.”

  “The hell you will!” Seth barked, shocking himself. He might not want her close to him for obvious reasons, but he sure didn’t want one of them yahoos who’d be there tonight at the bar anywhere near her either.

  Maybelle chuckled and climbed into her car. “Believe I’ll head on home. You two can work out this little problem.”

  She backed up and gave him an odd smile, then waved happily at Teri as she drove off.

  Teri went back to trying to reach into the truck bed. He swatted her bottom. “Stop that!”

  “You hit me!” she accused, glaring at him, but something flared in her eyes. Something more than anger, almost sensual.

  “Smacked your sweet butt,” he corrected. “Because you’re acting nuts. You can’t reach the stuff and you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep on trying.”

  “What do you care?” she said in a pouty manner. Her eyes shimmered with heat. Desire?

  Just as he was about to answer a horn honked and his neighboring rancher leaned out of his pickup to yell out, “You coming to the Boot Scoot?” He grinned at Teri and winked. “Bringing the pretty little blonde? Can I have a dance with her?” He winked again.

  Seth bristled and nudged Teri around the other side of his truck. “I’ve got other plans tonight.”

  Teri glowered back at him. “Stop pushing me.”

  “Need some help, sweet thing?” his neighbor questioned hopefully.

  “I need—“

  Seth took her elbow and escorted her to the passenger’s side. “You need to get in the damn truck.” As she gave him a look meant to shrivel him to nothingness, he was sure, and climbed inside, he called back to his friend, “Show’s over. You can head on to the Boot Scoot now.”

  He heard the other man chortling as he drove away. Shaking his head at his idiocy, Seth walked back around the truck and got inside. She sat waiting for an explanation. He just wished he had one. “You can stay at my ranch until we get your car reported as stolen and arrange for a rental or something.”

  She sighed. “It wasn’t stolen.”

  Cranking on the engine, he gaped at her. “Looked like it to me.”

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  Didn’t he know that! He was a perfect example of it. But he had an odd feeling she was talking about much more than her missing car. He was too tired, too confused to press her about what she meant. “You okay with staying at my place? We don’t have any hotels in Templeton, not even in the next town over. And I don’t particularly want to drive all the way into Emporia or back to Topeka.”

  “You’re inviting me to stay with you? Really?” She glanced at him, clearly shocked.

  He should change his mind. He should suck it up and drive her to Emporia. Yet he couldn’t spit the words out. Idiot man. “At least for tonight.” He’d make damn sure she was gone the next day.

  Chapter Two

  Living with any man could be a trial sometimes and over the long years of her life Teri had been with many men and suffered through many “trials
.” Being around Seth, with his moodiness and his keeping a distance from her, had her at wit’s end. She’d been at the Double S Ranch for just over two weeks now. She thought about moving on every day, but didn’t. He’d told her she could have his battered, old ranch truck when she left. But, though he avoided her as much as possible, he hadn’t pushed her about going. Actually, she thought he liked having her at the ranch, but he would never admit it.

  Teri sat next to him in the big new dual-cab truck he’d recently bought and tried to enjoy the ride back from town. The rolling hills with its tall grass that blew gently in the almost constant breeze usually soothed her. She hadn’t been around cattle and horses much in a long time, but Seth’s ranch had a lot of both. She liked seeing them roaming the hills of his 7,000 acres, liked them at a safe distance. Today, though, even the scenery couldn’t settle her nerves.

  Seth was upset with her. Again.

  Never had she been around a man who could be so volatile, at least around her. With his men, he was the clear leader; confident in everything he did, and all of the dozen cowboys working at the ranch respected him. One of the men, though, made her nervous sometimes: Walker Fremont, the foreman. She felt something dark and dangerous about him. He held secrets inside him, just as she knew Seth did. He kept his distance from her most of the time…from the other men too. The one exception was Seth. The big man was fiercely protective of his boss, although she couldn’t imagine Seth ever needing protection.

  She glanced sideways at Seth and then quietly huffed. With her, he expected obedience to his every order. His word was law. Period. About everything from when he expected meals to be ready to when the laundry needed to be done. He didn’t like excuses or her attempts to be a little less rigid with the daily schedule. They’d gone nose to nose a few times and she wasn’t sure how many more rounds of his temper she would survive without paying some kind of price. She’d seen the strain of holding back in his eyes, in the way his jaw tightened, and in the way he flexed his hands. Still, as angry as he got with her, she wasn’t afraid of him.

  The silence was thick between them. Maybe she should be worried about what might happen when they got back to the house. Again, she didn’t fear him, not even facing a possible blow-up of his tightly-held temper. No, what she feared more than his emotional outburst was her growing reactions to the man himself. She cleaned the house according to his instruction, but she never made up his bed other than to change the sheets once a week. He saw no sense in straightening the covers every morning when he would just be crawling under them that night. She was okay with that little quirk of his. Changing the sheets was hard enough on her. His scent did strange things to her, made her desire him with an almost desperate ache. Battling her near-constant arousal when he was around kept her on edge. At times she wondered if that wasn’t part of his problem with her, that he felt attracted to her and didn’t want to acknowledge it in any way.

  Jarring her from her musings, he pulled into the driveway of the sprawling, two-story log house and killed the engine. Tension radiated from him. As he turned to look at her, his dark chocolate eyes mirrored frustration. “We’re going to settle a few matters,” he gritted out. “You’re not going to like it.”

  Her heart pounded at his warning. So this would be the first explosion. It unnerved her a bit, but she’d known he couldn’t hold his irritation inside much longer. For a second, she considered asking him for the keys to the old truck and grabbing her stuff to head on down the road. She’d missed her assignment at the fair, but there was always another job to land. Instead of doing the sensible thing, she gave a nod and climbed out of the truck.

  He came around to her side and took her by the elbow to escort her into the house. His touch sent tingles all the way to her toes in the new boots he’d insisted she get. “I’m coming with you; you don’t have to drag me.”

  Clearly not having noticed how she had to all but run to keep up with his long strides, he slowed his pace. “Sorry.” Still, he didn’t release her.

  As soon as they stepped into the tiled entry area and he closed the door behind them, he dropped her arm. He hung his Stetson on a wall peg and looked down at her. All sorts of heat tumbled in his eyes. She felt heat, too, low in her body. Her stomach knotted as she waited for whatever would come next.

  She watched his big, ranch-work-hardened chest rise and fall, stretching the limits of his blue chambray shirt. He appeared to be fighting his temper and something else. He released another deep breath and then growled low in his throat. The growl puzzled her in its almost animalistic sound. But she didn’t have time to think about it because he suddenly lowered his head and kissed her. There was nothing sweet and tender about it. He took her mouth with the need of a desperate man. He devoured her, forced her to respond, which she willingly did. Dominance. The word tumbled through her fuzzy brain.

  It took a lot to make Teri’s knees go weak, but this man could certainly do so. Her fingers threaded into his thick, shaggy ebony hair. She balanced on her tiptoes so he didn’t have to strain his neck so much to bend down to her. Her toes were just starting to cramp when he pulled that wonderful mouth from hers.

  She groaned in disappointment and eased back off her tiptoes. He was breathing hard, panting in his attempt to settle down. She was, too. But she wanted more, much more. “Why did you stop?”

  He ignored her breathy question and ruined the magically hot moment. His now familiar scowl returned. Then he reached around to smack his large, calloused hand on her denim-covered bottom. “Upstairs. Now.” He stepped back and pointed toward the stairway leading to the bedrooms.

  “Couldn’t we just kiss again?” Oh, please gods. Let him kiss me again. Her thoughts were still a little scattered from the onslaught to her senses. She couldn’t remember ever being so effected by a man’s kiss.

  He sent another solid swat to her bottom and all the fuzziness disappeared. “That hurt,” she accused, putting her hands over the sting.

  “It’s only going to get worse. I can promise you that.” He pointed at the staircase again.

  She’d never been physically punished in any manner, so this was startling…and intriguing. But she didn’t think she liked the idea of it getting worse. She’d known he was upset with her, but she was annoyed with him, too. “You know, we could talk about what happened.”

  “Don’t need to,” he countered. “I know exactly what you did and so do you.” His thick eyebrows pinched together even more until they were almost one solid line. “You make me crazy sometimes, darlin’.”

  A gift she’d been blessed with all these years: making whatever man she was currently involved with crazy. “I’d say I was sorry, but….” But she wasn’t.

  The two snippy old widows she’d run into now and then in town, the ones who had glared at her that first day in the diner, had finally stomped all over her last nerve. They’d loudly commented about how awful it was that she and Seth were living in sin. How she’d brought this dear, gentle man down to such a low point of morality. Dear, gentle man? Really? She’d put them in their place and not too quietly. Lots of big ears had been listening in the general store where she’d let them have it. Word of the confrontation had spread faster than wildfire to the Feed and Grain Store where Seth had been buying ranch supplies.

  “Understanding why you said those things is one thing, accepting it is another. We’ve talked before about your needing to work harder to get along in the community. How you need to think first before you say something.” His jaw tightened.

  She tilted up her chin. “So I’m being punished because I defended our relationship.” Even as she said the words, she knew it wasn’t true. “Our living situation, that is. We don’t have a relationship.”

  He hesitated and then said, “It’s not what you said that’s leading to a damn unpleasant day for you. It was the tantrum you threw when I got there and insisted you apologize.” His eyes darkened even more and he pointed toward the stairs again. “Corner. Jeans and panties pul
led down. I’ll be up when I’ve cooled down a bit.”

  Teri gaped at him in surprise. “Corner?” She didn’t have a clue what he meant by that. “Jeans and panties pulled down? I don’t think so, buster.” Yes, she might have acted a bit like a brat when he’d stormed into the store. She was mad at the women, irritated that so many people were listening, frustrated that he went all Alpha on her. Maybe she’d called him something she shouldn’t have, a name she’d picked up over the years. She’d slammed her mouth shut immediately after the name had slipped out. But it had been too late. His eyes had smoldered in anger.

  “You will go to one of the empty corners in your room. You will plant yourself there, nose to corner.” He bristled. “And you will shove those jeans and panties down to stand there bare bottomed. If you don’t…well, it will just be worse for you.”

  All of that sounded disgusting. She wrinkled her nose. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I sure as hell do.”

  Then she remembered how she’d knocked over a display of canned jams and jellies. “It was an accident. I said I’d pay for what I broke.” Okay, she’d tried to push the ladies backward in intimidation. They’d moved out of the way and she’d lost her balance against the display. Now she felt guilty for the mess she’d made, for the way she’d embarrassed all of them, including Seth.

  With a sigh, she turned toward the staircase. “Sorry doesn’t cover it, huh?”

  “Not this time. This time your pretty little butt is going to pay big time for everything you broke in the store.”

  * * *

  Teri stared at the corner and wondered why she was here. She didn’t have to do this; she didn’t have to obey Seth’s command. She didn’t have to obey anyone’s commands, especially not some mortal man. Yet she’d marched up the stairs and to this corner between the closet and the triple dresser. Grumbling about the stupidity of her actions, she’d yanked off her boots and kicked them out of the way. Then she’d wriggled her jeans and panties down to mid-thigh, leaving her bare bottom fully exposed. It felt strange, naughty. But then Seth evidently believed she’d been naughty.