Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“That’s the way it is,” he said, stroking her hair as she cried in his lap. “Of course they look at you differently now. You’re a grown woman, a married woman. And they almost lost you. It’s not all recrimination, dearest. Some of it must be relief.”
“It doesn’t feel that way. It feels all recrimination and I deserve it. But oh, how long will that feeling last?”
He lifted her chin with one hand and wiped at her tears with the other. “That’s enough for now, sweet girl. You can’t hold on to all this guilt. Perhaps you need a good, long spanking to dissipate it. A proper, strict spanking to make you feel you’ve paid for your behavior. What do you think?”
“I don’t think I could ever pay for it all,” she said.
“That isn’t a no. Good. I rather feel like dissipating some bad energy myself.”
“By spanking me?”
“I think it’s a perfect solution. Think how soundly we’ll sleep afterward.”
He spoke so lightly of spanking, yet the spankings were serious to her and hurt very much, even when he was being playful. Did she want a spanking now?
Yes. Sort of.
What was happening, that she craved her husband’s discipline even though she hated it?
“What if they hear you punishing me?” she asked, stalling.
“In this great beast of a castle? Not very likely. The walls are two feet thick.”
“I’m not sure…”
“I believe you’ll feel much better afterward. Here, darling. Lie across my lap. I’ll use my hand, though a birch would probably be more effective. It might raise eyebrows if I send for one to be assembled at this late hour.”
Rosalind allowed herself to be lifted, rearranged. Exposed. Her bottom was bared with businesslike alacrity as he flipped up her skirts. Small comfort he wasn’t using a birch—she’d learned his hand could dole out a surprising amount of pain.
“Please remember, Marlow…sir…” She squirmed about to look up at him, pleading. “Remember I am already quite regretful of my behavior.”
He pushed her back into the correct position, her arms before her and her toes neatly pressed to the floor. “No tossing about,” he said in his stern voice. “Take this punishment well, or you’ll only feel more guilt.”
“Yes, my lord.” Her meek, whispered answer held all the tortured emotion she’d been living with. She hoped he would take it away! She hoped he could.
He commenced to spanking her. In the few short weeks of their marriage, she’d come to recognize when his spankings were playful and when they were meant to impart a lesson, and she could already tell she was about to be lessoned. But she deserved it so she held to her control—and her position—as well as she could, though each spank made her body jerk from the stinging pain.
“Ow,” she said softly. “Ow, oww.”
She bit her lip, trying to be quiet. Oh, she had earned this, that was the worst part. The spanks came firm and steadily, the cumulative stinging growing to a sore burn. She pressed her lips together as hard as she could, but at last, a cry broke free.
“Ow. Please, it stings,” she said, wiggling sideways.
He gathered her back into the prime strike zone and resumed punishing her. It did not do to count during hand spankings, as she’d done when he paddled her aboard the Providence. Then, there’d been a set amount and some rest between blows. This spanking went on without respite and though she tried to be good, her control began to slip as her bottom got hotter and hotter.
“Please,” she begged, struggling against his grip. “How long will this spanking go on?”
“Until you seem adequately regretful, darling. As long as you’re fighting me…” He corralled her flailing arm and fixed it firmly at the small of her back. “As long as you’re fighting me, I think you’re not really focusing on what you’ve done or the need to pay penance for it.”
“It was your idea to spank me,” she whimpered.
“It was you who complained of guilt.” He rubbed his hand over her belabored arse cheeks. “I think there’s a battle going on within you, Rosalind. You wish to be perfect all the time. When you aren’t perfect, it’s hard for you to live with yourself.”
She wiped the tears that overflowed onto her cheeks. “That’s true.”
“So, this spanking is a correction. I’m trying to help you, as much as it hurts.”
“I know it. But it does hurt.”
He sighed and pinched one of her exposed, sore bottom cheeks. “Have you had enough of a rest, my little complainer? That’s all this is, a delaying tactic. I will spank you until I feel the punishment is over, as you very well know. And if you don’t seem adequately remorseful when I’ve finished, we shall follow up your spanking with corner time and a lecture, and perhaps a second spanking. Would you like that, Rosalind?”