A New Forever (8 page)

"My only spanking, you mean."

"I said exactly what I meant, Elodie," came the steady, even reply. "Whether it's your only spanking remains to be seen."

As far as she was concerned, there was no proper reply to that, so Elodie kept quiet.

Clay laughed again. "Smart girl."

She cleared her throat, anxious to change the topic. "So, how are things on the ranch?"

"Good. Brought on three horses yesterday. They came from a bad situation. Malnourished and neglected, but still young and full of life. Hopefully we can give them that fresh new start they deserve."

Fresh new start they deserve
… Could the same be said for Clay and her?

They chatted for a little while longer, a much more casual conversation than they had probably ever had. It was hard to be staid and staunch with someone who had seen you sobbing over his lap.

Eventually, he let her go, but not before he'd managed to slip into the conversation how much he was enjoying seeing her more often. He also touched on how much it had meant to him to hold her after her spanking. He mentioned that it was the first time he'd held a woman since April, and she could hear the tears in his voice.

That caught Elodie by surprise. She'd known he hadn't been involved with anyone since that awful night, but to hear how seriously he'd been grieving put into stark words... and then to realize that she was the woman he'd broken that streak with. It made her think, long and hard, about where they were going, and whether or not she wanted to be along for the ride.

She sat for a very long time in her chair, in the dark, thinking and twirling her hair.

But Elodie knew, deep down, that she was already caught, like a fish on the line; all he had to do was reel her in… and that it had been that way for many years now—before and after April—and regardless of whether or not anything ever happened between them, more than what had already happened, it would always be that way.

He was everything she wanted, everything she craved.

And she was awfully close to letting him catch her.

Clay was such a creature of habit that even though he'd tried to present their get-togethers as casual, they became as routine as their once a month lunches. They were very carefully planned and scheduled, although he didn't seem to have any sort of length of time for them—sometimes he and Elodie literally spent all day together.

And they were both reveling in it, but they never discussed it. They were each too closed-mouthed about their feelings to bring it up. Clay was afraid that talking about it too much would dispel the fragile tendrils of friendship and camaraderie they'd developed. She was finally starting to unwind with him and relax a little. He'd never realized until he started to get to know her better just how uptight and tense she'd been around him all the time. As her self-protective layers began to come away, like the layers of an onion, and what they revealed was a gorgeous rose beneath.

Elodie would never be flashy and outgoing and the center of everyone's attention, as April had been. She was too shy for that and would never want all eyes on her. But she shone in her own pleasant, soft-spoken way, especially when she was doing or seeing anything to do with art.

He'd taken her to several shows in the surrounding areas, and watching her was like seeing an entirely different person. He'd never seen her so animated. Her face glowed as she took in each painting, but it was as if she was in a trance. One of the exhibits was by impressionists, Monet in particular, and Clay watched her as she stood in front of picture after picture, just absorbing them with a soft, barely there smile of complete understanding and true ecstasy on her face.

And Clay became fully hard right there in the small gallery, in front of God and everyone; so much so that he had to use his coat and try to drape it casually over the front of his pants, and hope no one noticed.

The question that kept throbbing in his mind—and a lot lower—was whether she looked like that just after making love. All relaxed and serene and sated...

He consciously started to touch her more, at first very casually, then much less so, and she hadn't run away—yet—although she did manage to look extremely uncomfortable at times, even though she'd never taken him to task for taking any sorts of liberties. She'd never gotten mad, and seemed to melt into his arms when he held her. Clay felt like he was dealing with a virgin, not really knowing where the landmines of her preferences and tender sensibilities lay, but trying to tiptoe gingerly around them as much as possible.

Surprisingly, and much to his enjoyment, the spankings continued. They were getting to be a bit more frequent than he'd expected, but then she would occasionally come up contrary on some things that surprised him. Like the coat. And letting him pay for things. That was the biggest thing. She had certainly inherited her share of the West pride—more than a large helping. It eventually got so that all he had to do was give her the look, but it took several spankings for them to get to that point.

The worst spanking had been when he'd wanted to take them both down to that museum, especially because he'd come to realize, after a while, that she loved it so much. He'd known her for most of a lifetime and he'd never known that she was a true artist. He knew she liked to paint, but always saw it as a hobby or a casual pastime. Of course, she'd demurred and tried to denigrate herself and her abilities—for which she got herself another look, but he couldn't imagine that she could be bad at anything that lit her up so.

She flat out refused to show him any of her paintings, but he was working on that, slowly but surely. Apparently, all of them were in her apartment, and he hadn't been invited in there yet, either. But he could be patient when he wanted something, and he wanted Elodie. He already loved her platonically, and that had already changed into something he didn't really recognize any longer. But the change with her, was something he welcomed.

The trip to the museum had been the cause of their one and only fight—the others were barely skirmishes, as far as Clay was concerned. They had been lazing around his house, watching the Patriots play football—which was another thing he liked about Elodie. She not only didn't get after him for watching football on a Sunday afternoon, but she liked it, too, and was more animated while they were watching a game then he'd ever seen her before. She leaned forward and literally screamed at the players worse than any head coach, dancing when they did well and berating them searingly when they didn't. It was amazing to see, considering how calm she was usually.

They had a pig out going, with delivered pizza laden with pepperoni and meatball, chips, dip, Reese's peanut butter cups, and Ben and Jerry's. Clay was on a stealth mission to fatten her up, since he knew how sensitive some women could be about their weight, and had very carefully listened to her tastes and rounded up all of her favorites for that day. A spread of half-eaten food lay before them like wounded soldiers on the battlefield, bleeding mozzarella and caramel chocolate ice cream. His offhand suggestion about them going down to San Antonio the following weekend was met with the usual resistance, which he'd grown used to plowing though.

Clay didn't know why she almost always objected to something first, then had to be persuaded to do it, but it was a definite pattern with her. In another woman, he might have seen it as a call for attention, but it seemed very unlikely in Elodie's case. She tried her best to avoid doing anything that might draw attention to her.

Persuasion, though, wasn't working, and the bone of contention was the usual one—the fact that he had offered to pay for everything, and do all the driving. Clay knew that he made probably about twenty times what she did—or more. And it didn't make one bit of difference to him. But then, he could understand her point from the other side of the equation. He couldn't quite say that, if the roles had been reversed, he wouldn't be just as stubborn about it.

But he wasn't about to let the fact that she was poorer than he was dictate what they could and could not do together. He had money, and they were going to spend it. Together. He worked hard for every penny he earned, and it gave him joy to spend it on Elodie.

There was no need to chase her around after their last definitive round, which ended with her sitting further away from him on the couch than she ever had before, her arms folded over her chest, fuming furiously in that subdued way of hers. For a moment, watching her made him smile. Even in anger, except when it came to football, she was so restrained. It made him want to coax her out of that shell, out of those self-imposed proprietary restraints and into his arms with abandon. Just once... well, a lot, but he'd settle for once at first.

Without really thinking about it, he reached a hand behind her and pulled her over his legs. She settled there a lot more naturally now than she had—she'd had enough occasions to end up there, unfortunately for her.

*****

Elodie's complete concentration on her snit—her totally justified snit—had prevented her from noticing exactly what he was doing. And it never paid to be off one's guard around Clay. She thought he was going to apologize, or at least make some sort of conciliatory gesture, since he was the one being a stubborn ass about the situation. If she couldn't afford to do something, then she couldn't afford to. She wasn't going to become some kind of kept woman and let him pay for everything.

She didn't want to know what kind of repayment he might be interested in, even though she knew he was too honorable to be that kind of man. It just made her feel bad that she could barely afford to pay her own way—and more often couldn't—and would probably never manage to treat him to much other than a dinner at their original dive of a diner, if that. And for the first time in her life, Elodie wished she'd paid more attention when her mother had been cooking those wonderful family dinners, because at least then she might have been able to swing making him a dinner, maybe, but since she barely knew which end of the kitchen was up, that wasn't likely.

Being over his lap on the couch was much easier than when he was sitting in a chair. She didn't have to worry about her balance at all. She was getting to be a bit of an expert at getting spanked, unfortunately. It wasn't something she aspired to at all, but he'd spanked her in his study several times, which seemed very formal and almost stilted to her now.

He'd also just caught her and bent her over his arm, very impromptu, like now, when she'd let loose with a string of obscenities one Sunday when it looked like the Pats were going to lose. They had been in the kitchen, during half time, talking about the game and a very badly fumbled ball, and she let out a stream of curses that had startled him for a minute. She didn't generally use language like that, but it wasn't as if she didn't know it. And she liked cheering for a team and was usually alone when she did it, so it was hard to get out of the habit of not screaming at them like a lunatic. Sunday afternoons had been one of the few times Daddy had been home, and it had been a West tradition to hang around and watch the Pats play, so Elodie grew up watching football on Sunday afternoons.

At first, Clay had looked at her like she was some kind of trucker, as if those words couldn't really have come from her mouth. And then his face clouded over. She was quickly learning that that was never a good sign. She could remember a time when he had never looked at her that way, and now it seemed that every other time she glanced at his face, it was pinched tight and frowning at something or other she had done.

She was certainly getting an interesting glimpse into April's life with him, especially since he'd been starting to treat her more like a girlfriend than just his sister-in-law. Elodie was surprised at herself—that she was letting him do what he was doing to her. But she was worse than a heroin addict when it came to Clay, especially once she'd given in to him in one way, it was so nice not to have to be fighting with herself all the time. And his kisses... dear God, his kisses drove her to utter madness!

Since April had died, Elodie had lived in such a guarded state around Clay. Always having to be wary of herself and her own reactions to him. Not wanting to let too much emotion or reaction show around him while she squashed down everything she felt for him and stuffed it into the dark, cobwebbed corners of herself, only to be examined on the darkest of nights when no one would be the wiser.

The way their relationship was developing, though, let her feel so free. He was moving slowly enough that she didn't feel alarmed, and every single thing he did made her body sing... even the spankings, although she wouldn't admit that even under the pain of the worst kind of torture.

But feeling freer meant that she was that much more likely to get into trouble, such as repeated use of the f-word while describing how ridiculous it was that three hundred pound men who were paid exorbitant amounts of money to do something as simple as run up and down a field and catch a pigskin ball still managed to drop it on occasion.

Elodie had seen him coming, with that thundercloud face of his, and had backed away from him, but even in his huge kitchen, there was nowhere to go to avoid him—he was so big, he filled her field of vision when he was still a ways away from her, and his arms were out so that he could catch her easily if she tried to run away.

Instead, he'd tipped her forwards, over his left arm, and brought his right hand down onto her jean-covered butt, very sharply, ten times in a row. The strength of each swat rocked her whole body, lifting her onto her tiptoes. And even though it looked like she should have been able to get away from him fairly easily, there was nothing doing. She wasn't going
anywhere
that he didn't want her to go.

"I didn't realize you possessed the vocabulary of a sailor, my dear. But this is fair warning. If I ever hear a diatribe like that come out of your beautiful mouth again, you won't be able to sit down for a week." He punctuated nearly every word with another painful meeting of palm to rear. "Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

In her heart, Elodie protested the blatant suppression of her right to free speech. It was supposed to be an inalienable right, dammit, and here he was, alienating it all over her butt! She quickly decided, however, that she'd rather end this spanking as soon as possible. She was already on the verge of crying, and he didn't seem to be anywhere near finishing.

In fact, because she hesitated before acquiescing, he got in another ten or so swats. "Apparently, I haven't—"

"Yes, yes, yes, you've made yourself clear, jeez!"

She was already trying to wiggle out of his hold, but he clearly didn't want to let her go. "That didn't sound very contrite to me."

If he didn't cut it out, he was going to hear another string of words he didn't want to, and then she'd be in even worse hot water. In a deliberately syrupy tone, Elodie craned her head back and batted her eyelashes in his direction. "Golly gee whiz, Clay, I think you're coming through loud and clear. I'll never let another cuss word pass my lips, I promise!" She even had the audacity to reach over and cross her heart, or as close to her heart as she could get with his big arm in the way.

Her blatant insincerity had him smiling. He'd turned her loose, and she'd scooted as far away from him as she physically could without stepping outside the house.

Now, the view of the chintz upholstery on the sofa was a bit too up close and personal for her tastes—and the future comfort of her butt. He had her pants and panties down in a split second, and Elodie had to reflect that he was getting too darned good at that, too. That familiar, hard arm was across the small of her back, and an instant later, that first God-awful explosion of searing pain ripped into that tender flesh. "Stop it! What are you doing?" She didn't want to be spanked. She was mad at him, and she wanted to stay mad. If he spanked her, she'd end up crying and feeling sorry and apologizing to him and, as far as she was concerned, she had done nothing that warranted an apology!