A New Forever (6 page)

"No! Stop! Please! Clay!" There was nothing she could do. She was over his lap, bare bottomed, in the house that he and April had shared. His hand—broad as a barn and hard as a plank of redwood—was descending over and over onto her well-rounded butt.

Whatever fantasies Elodie might have indulged in regarding what being spanked would be like, were nothing in comparison to the real thing. There was nothing she could do, nothing she could read—online or otherwise—nothing that she could have heard from April about it that would have prepared her for what it was really like to feel two thick thighs beneath her ribcage, supporting her as his left arm lay lightly over the small of her back, trapping her in place as easily and naturally as could be.

She had never felt more vulnerable in her life. Not even when her ex-husband, Randy, was taking her virginity. Then she'd only felt pain and mild disappointment that that was all there was to lovemaking. It wasn't even so much the situation itself. It was that it was Clay. It was
Clay
who was actually delivering the spanking.

Elodie didn't know where to put the pain. It hurt at least a thousand times worse than any spanking she'd ever received as a child, and he wasn't showing any signs of stopping anytime soon. She wiggled and squirmed and tried to buck or arch away from him, but nothing was working—the only thing that she was positive about her future was that that hand was going to continue to distribute its pain all over her rounded bottom and down the backs of each of her thighs.

Those were the worst of all of them. Because of the size of his hand and how little acreage there was back there, he had easily gone over the small territory of her butt once and was ending up having to spank the same place several times, but the worst swats were still on the backs of her thighs, or that tender area just at the crease of her bottom. It was atrocious, and she wasn't at all sure she was going to survive it.

Clay began to lecture just when Elodie was starting to think she was going to go crazy from the searing heat he was creating in her tail. "When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it. It's not as if you didn't know where you were going to end up if you didn't obey me, Elodie. I think I made that perfectly clear. All you had to do was go and get a coat. But no, you had to be stubborn. You West girls are stubborn to the bone—I should have known you weren't that different from your sister."

*****

Bringing up April at a time like this probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but he couldn't help it. The comparisons were inevitable. But this was Elodie, who had probably rarely been spanked in her life, and not April, who had been spanked with a considerable regularity, especially when they were first married. Elodie was sobbing and crying with each swat, and Clay didn't want to be too hard on her this first time. He was sure that, even quiet as she was, she would get herself into more trouble down the road. There would be a time to be harsher with her, he was sure.

But for now, he gave her twenty more hard slaps as he watched each red handprint come up through the already pinkened flesh. When he had finished, she hung over his legs, and he no longer had to worry about whether or not she noticed how hard he was, because he wasn't.

Spanking a woman was a strange thing. In some ways, he found it—aspects of it—unbearably sexy. Having a beautiful young woman over his lap, her bottom revealed and dancing beneath the crack of his hand, the cascade of hair, the enticing wiggle as she tried to get out of what she knew she had coming to her. But the inflicting pain part, that was hard, especially when you cared about the woman you were disciplining, and Clay was of a mind that if you didn't care about her, you shouldn't be touching her like that in the first place.

But he knew that Elodie had a need. He knew she needed someone to watch out for her, for her best interests, even against herself. He knew she needed a strong but gentle hand on her bottom at all times—at least to mentally know that it was there—to remind her that she was cared for by someone.

By him.

He'd been surprising himself for quite some time, but now he realized he was ready to make a small move towards putting his life with April into perspective. Not behind him at all, because she would always be his love, but into the right light. April was gone. There was no bringing her back. And he knew, from the few, scant, uncomfortable talks they had had on the subject, that she wouldn't want him to try to climb into the grave with her in any way—not in grief, and not by trying to smother that grief in work. She would want him to pick up—after a reasonable amount of time to honor her—and go on and have a great life, and be happy.

Most of all, though, she wanted him to find love again. A love like the one they had had. She'd told him so, through tears one night when they were talking about the unspeakable possibility of losing each other.

Tears came to his eyes as Elodie lay panting and crying softly over his lap. He rested his hand—which was probably just about as sore as her bottom—on the small of her back and began to rub. Another situation where he was somewhat at a loss. He couldn't quite comfort Elodie the way he used to comfort April. He could picture the look on her face if he tried, though, and it made him crack a watery smile.

When her breathing had pretty much returned to normal, Clay whispered huskily, "Let me help you up, sweetie."

But she shrugged his hands off as soon as she got back onto her feet, reaching immediately down to pull up her jeans and panties, avoiding his eyes at all costs.

She turned to leave without saying a word to him, still occasionally hiccoughing a sob. Clay reached out, caught the edge of her shirt and pulled her back. "Don't leave like this." He tried to pull her into his arms, but she stayed put as if her feet had been planted in cement, head doggedly down, arms hanging at her sides. So he came to her, opening his arms to wind them around her, but Elodie remained stiff as a board within them. Clay leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

*****

His arms wrapped around her, holding her close, not in a sexual way, but in a manner that offered comfort. But to Elodie it was cold comfort indeed. She didn't want to be standing in the arms of this man who had just seen her bare bottom and spanked it to within an inch of her life. She should be resisting more, she thought, instead allowing herself to melt a little against him. She should be home by now, where she could soak her butt in a bucket of ice. He'd started to rub her upper back and rock back and forth just a little, not enough to disturb her, but just enough to make her feel better than she wanted to. Her tears came more quickly at his kindness. She felt the safety and comfort of him surrounding her, and it made her feel more cared for than she had in years.

"There, there," he murmured against her hair.

And it all felt good. Too damned good. It was just what she wanted, almost, close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades. She was trying to stand there and enjoy and absorb as much as she could of it for later, when she could roll the moments around in her mind at a more leisurely pace. But then she didn't want to enjoy or revel in it—he'd just spanked her! She didn't think she'd ever get over it! He'd taken her over his knees and paddled her with his hand!

Reaching back to rub her bottom, she realized that it looked as though she needed to make a trip to Goodwill, as much as she didn't want to.

Clay looked down at her as she clutched awkwardly at her own butt. "What shall we do together next week?" he asked.

"How about avoid each other entirely?" Elodie suggested sourly, fidgeting within his arms.

Clay squeezed her tight, then let her go. "No, I don't think so. Why don't we go bowling?"

Elodie sighed. Another week without lunches... and a lot of dinners. "Sure." She started to wander towards the door again, wondering if he was going to reclaim her again.

But he didn't. Instead, he drove her home without further incident, and on the way he decided that they'd bowl in a week, then maybe go out to eat. The last thing he said before driving away, though, was that he expected to see her winter coat the next time they met, or what she'd just gotten would resemble friendly pats.

Elodie watched him drive off after tooting his horn, and wandered into her apartment. They'd essentially gone out on two dates. They had kissed—the most amazing kiss of her life. He'd seen her naked from the waist down, and had spanked her—hard. So much for keeping him at a polite distance.

What the hell was she supposed to do now?

When she got back to her place, the first thing Elodie did was go into her bathroom, where there was a full-length mirror on the back of the door. She shucked her jeans and panties down and turned around to see if there was any evidence of her bottom getting smacked, and there was plenty. She was so fair that she could see not only a definite all over pinkness, but also telltale separate and distinct handprints. His hand was so big that he'd gotten all of her butt in one hard whack! The odd thing was that she wasn't appalled, in fact, quite the opposite. Seeing the marks of her spanking made her smile. She actually liked seeing the leftover signs of his discipline. Was she losing her mind?

Elodie climbed into her loosest set of pajamas and sat down gingerly on the side of her bed, snuggling under the covers, even though it was only about six thirty in the evening. She was almost numb—except in some strategic areas; and she was exhausted... yet she was humming with what had happened to her within the past several hours.

Clay didn't spank at all like her father, or what she could remember of being spanked by Daddy, which wasn't much. It was so much more intimate; so much more real, not faraway and fuzzy, to be spanked as an adult. It was a memory that was literally seared into her—brain and bottom. How his legs felt beneath her, crushing her too ample for her figure breasts, the unexpected part of him drilling into her tummy at the same time as she could both feel and hear each swat, distinctly, as it landed. He hadn't attacked her with a barrage of small smacks. They had all been horridly individual and aimed for maximum impact, as her poor sore flesh would certainly attest to.

But it had been Clay's lap that she was over. He was the one who had been staring down at her wobbling hillocks, touching them if somewhat impartially, peering down to instantaneously divine where the next strike should land.

Elodie could barely wrap her mind around what had happened. She should have stayed at home, she thought belatedly, but then jettisoned the thought. He would have come after her in a shot, she knew. There was no hesitation in that man—if what he wanted didn't come to him, he'd go and get it, no doubt about it.

And there was obviously no couth in him, either, since he seemed to be making a move on his dead wife's sister. But she wasn't exactly fighting it. He had seen everything from the waist down! And no doubt his lap was wet from her signs of arousal. Why? How? What was it about this man, the spanking, everything? She couldn't breathe right. She couldn't think right. Nothing about this was right… and yet, the warmth in her body spoke otherwise.

Elodie lay in bed with visions of the only adult spanking she'd ever had dancing in her head, turning it around and around in her mind until she let it go and fell asleep.

*****

Across town, Clay was sitting in his study—the scene of the crime—with a shot of twelve-year-old scotch in front of him. Well, okay, a bottle of twelve-year-old scotch. The shot glass was a mere formality to prevent the complete breakdown of civilization that he knew would surely result if he should drink directly from the bottle like some wino.

Spanking Elodie had been, outwardly, a relatively easy event. He'd given her an order, and made it plain as day clear to her that there would be consequences if she didn't obey him. He didn't know what the big deal was about a winter coat, but that was neither here nor there. She had disobeyed, and in his world—of which she was an ever growing part—that meant a spanking.

But inwardly, spanking her had made him feel two parts guilty for every one part positive. He really believed that spankings helped some women be better than they might on their own, if they didn't have the reinforcement of sound, logical rules. April had been one of those women. She'd positively blossomed under the safe umbrella of his adoring discipline; she'd taken better care of herself, been more aware of her own safety than she probably ever would have if they hadn't gotten together, and he had been strong enough to implement some very painful reminders that he loved her, and he expected her to look out for herself at all times, because of that strong, abiding love.

Elodie was another matter entirely. In some ways, he felt like he had definitely overstepped his brother-in-lawish bounds by spanking her, not to mention when he kissed her at her front door. They hadn't had any other intimate physical connection—unless you counted the mind-blowing kiss—and yet he'd tipped her over and given her a very sound spanking—on the bare bottom. Clay couldn't deny that he was becoming attracted to Elodie—the proof was painfully obvious even as his palm had begun to hurt; he could still have split a diamond with his erection.

Although, thinking back on it, she could have protested a lot more than she did. She acquiesced more quickly than he expected, and although she certainly hadn't appeared to be happy with the turn of events, she hadn't slapped his face or threatened to call the police on him once he'd let her up.

Slightly buzzed, Clay's eyes settled where they always did when he was at his desk—on the photo of April staring back at him, in all her vivid beauty and vitality, with that big grin of hers, and curls like streamers blowing out behind her.

Silently, he raised his glass and nodded in salute to her, his eyes filling with tears. "I love you, April," he said, his speech barely slurred. "Pardon the indiscretion."

He knew that if April had been standing there, she would be laughing at him, that tinkling laugh that always brought a smile to his lips even when he didn't want it to. April would never have wanted him to go through any angst on her account. She was too much of a free spirit—and had been married to the original stodgy guy—to want anything for him but whatever happiness he could carve out of his life. If she wasn't going to be able to be there to drive him crazy, she would be ecstatic if he found someone else to do so.

In fact, she'd probably be tickled pink that the only woman he'd shown any interest in—emotionally, intellectually, and very definitely physically—was Elodie. April had always been selfless and loving. Would she want this? If he were able to ask April for her permission, would she say yes?

Slamming the glass down after draining it, he winked lasciviously at April and hauled himself out of his chair, intent on making it to bed before he collapsed. He accomplished his goal, but barely, falling asleep with a belly full of scotch and a heart full to bursting with Elodie. April. Elodie.