Claimed on the Frontier (19 page)

I heard him place the belt on the bed, and then he was pushing me down to the floor. It was chilly in our room and he draped a knitted blanket about my shoulders. I swallowed, wondering where he was going with this next. He placed me between his legs. His eyes met mine, hungry with desire, as his fingers went to his waist and he unbuttoned his trousers. I swallowed eagerly, wondering what would happen next. Many a time he’d pleasured me with his mouth between my legs, and I loved it, soft and sensual, the feel of his tongue on my most sensitive parts causing me to stir and moan, the pleasure nearly excruciating.

Would he have me do the same to him? I’d wondered, but it seemed somehow wanton. Then again, what
wasn’t
wanton there in the room, when we pleasured one another night after night? Now in front of me he was hard, and I felt a wicked pleasure in knowing that I’d caused him to desire me.

He reached for my head and grasped my hair.

“Take your hair down.”

Quickly, I obeyed, my massive waves tumbling below my shoulders as I removed the pins. He grasped fistfuls of my hair, yanking my head so that his manhood grazed my cheek.

“Take me in your mouth.”

I could hardly breathe as I obeyed. He felt silky, both hard and soft, warm in my mouth. I wasn’t sure what to do, but he instructed me, placing one hand firmly at the base of his cock. I tried to remember what he did to me. I sucked a little and swirled my tongue. His responding moan encouraged me. I grinned around him as I sucked harder, a slightly salty taste in my mouth. Over and over I pleasured him, until he seemed to be barely holding onto his restraint.

“On the bed,” he grunted, pulling me up and fairly tossing me on the bed. I was quickly divested of my clothes and he his. The room was cold, though, so he grasped a quilt and tossed it over us, his warm hands on my naked body, pulling me into him as he thrust himself between my legs, edging up, closer and closer to ecstasy. I could still feel the light lashes he’d given me with his belt, still savor his silky taste in my mouth, and every sense of mine seemed full of Aaron: his smell, the sight of his broad shoulders and muscled back, his taste, the feel of his muscles beneath my hands, and finally, the sound of him groaning as he finished within me. I groaned in ecstasy seconds after he did.

I lay on his chest after. He’d brought a bed-warmer in our room and slid it under the thick quilts. I’d dressed in my gown, curled up on his chest, my feet tucked up onto the heat of the bed-warmer, his arms holding me tight. He was so warm and cozy. It was delightful. I loved staying here with him like this.

“Is it right, Aaron?” I whispered.

“What’s that, little one?” His eyes were closed and his voice husky. He was tired. It was time to sleep. But he typically answered my questions patiently, even when he was tired.

“What we do? Is it normal that I enjoy you being—rough with me? Is it right for a woman to take her husband in her mouth? Or for a husband to… do what you do? Are we supposed to be enjoying things like this? And why is it that I may like that you… punish me?”

“You don’t like when I punish you,” he answered in return, his lips curling in a smile. “If you did, you wouldn’t try so hard to obey me, and go as wide-eyed as a barn owl when you think you’ve earned a lickin’. It wouldn’t be very effective, now, would it, if you liked when I punish you?”

I tucked my face against his chest, smiling.

“I really don’t like when you punish me. But that’s not what I mean. Sometimes… when you’re not here and I’m alone, or at night when I can’t sleep, I… think about you taking me across your knee. And it makes me feel tingly inside all over again.”

There was something about him being strong and serious that I loved every bit as much as I liked sitting upon his knee, or curling up on his chest in bed, or when he embraced me when he returned home from the field.

He chuckled.

“Naughty little girl,” he chuckled. “You like that I’m stronger than you. You like that I could overpower you if I wanted to. I think you like knowin’ that.” I did. And there was no denying that the actual physical feeling of him spanking me
could
hurt, but at times didn’t really, and it made me feel physically more attracted to him.

“You don’t worry about what’s right and wrong when I’m with you, girl. You look to me. You trust me to guide you. And if ever a time comes where your heart tells you I’m wrong, you talk to me. But let me guide you. This is my wish for you. Understand?”

I felt a warmth spread through my chest then, different from the times he excited me and different from the times I feared his disapproval. It was a sort of peace that flooded through me. My mind was put to rest.

I snuggled up on his chest as the wind howled outside. It didn’t seem quite right that a girl like me could be so happy. I’d grown up in such misery and discomfort, it felt unusual to be so happy, so often. I wondered how long it could last.

Chapter Ten: Christmas

Winter came to our little town. Our days grew shorter, the nights colder, and Aaron’s chores kept him close to the house. He made preparations for the winter months, wood being stacked as high as I could reach, the barn weatherproofed, our wagon well-oiled and tucked away. Trips to town would be less frequent now, so we laid in a supply of stores, and I put forth my best efforts to make everything last.

Matthew traipsed to school through the piles of snow, when the wind and snow didn’t make it too dangerous to travel. Bundled in boots and layers upon layers of woolen scarves and mittens, the young boys and girls would travel pathways through the snow, warming up by the stove in the center of the one-room schoolhouse. It was the same building that also functioned as our chapel, built solidly, a nice stove in the town center that everyone in town had pitched in to purchase. The benches were hewn from solid oak, sanded and glossy, but none too comfortable to sit on. It was no wonder by the time Matthew came home, he would race through the field with Rascal like a little savage, whooping and hollering, and Aaron would let him. When he stayed at our place for dinner, I’d have to take his clothes and hang them by the fire while he shivered in one of Aaron’s shirts, waiting for his clothes to dry.

And on and on he would talk about Christmas coming. He pretended he didn’t believe in Santa Claus, but I knew he was eager to see what he would find by his stocking come Christmas morning.

The red muffler I knitted for Aaron lay tucked away under my bed. For ma, I’d fashioned a tiny little dried nosegay. Over the fall, I’d gathered a handful of roses and dried them upon my mantel; not because I had any plans for them but because I couldn’t bear to part with the satiny red leaves. They’d dried to a deep crimson, fragile but sturdy. Matthew had fetched a pile of papers for me from the railway station, tied together with a length of satin ribbon. I surmised the ribbon had been discarded or left behind by a traveler, and it looked lovely tied against the dried roses.

Aaron said his family did not exchange gifts with one another. So I didn’t bother my head about Geraldine, Phillip, or Samuel. I did fret about what to give Matthew, and I felt we had to do something. Aaron told me he had something in mind, and to trust him. So, I did.

For some reason, it never crossed my mind to wonder what Aaron would get me. I never had received any gifts for Christmas, and didn’t expect anything this year. It was only my thankfulness in joining the Stanley family that made me eager to gift with something from my heart. I did know I had preparations to make when it came to food. We women were busy, with only a few days left before the holiday. Everyone would visit our home on Christmas Eve, and after church on Christmas Day, the feast would be at ma’s home.

The day before Christmas, I landed myself in a boatload of trouble.

I felt nervous as a church mouse with the whole family coming to our house on Christmas Eve. It seemed I had to please them all. I wanted our home spic and span, as ours was the simplest of the three. We had no stove, and the sitting room was small. As it was, we hardly had enough seats for them all. I wished Aaron hadn’t offered for everyone to come to our place, and told him as much as I bustled around after dinner one day, scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees.

“If you hadn’t been so free with your invitation to all, I wouldn’t have to work my fingers to the bone,” I grumbled.

“Is that right?” he said behind me. I half-expected him to cross the room and take me over his knee, but he didn’t.

“And everyone’s expecting it to be all festive and holiday-like and I’ve never celebrated a holiday in my life. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what people expect.” Still, I scrubbed the floor and wouldn’t look at him. I muttered under my breath, “And it’s all your fault.”

I was acting like a spoiled child and I knew it, but it seemed I couldn’t help myself.

I heard the door shut behind him and my shoulders slumped. I knew I shouldn’t have let my mouth get the best of me and I should’ve kept my tongue. Now, worse than the good spanking I deserved, he was angry with me. And I hated that. There was distance between us, and right before his family was due to come. I felt tears prick my eyes and a lump rose in my throat. I blinked the tears away and returned to the floor. I wasn’t sure if he would come back right away, but I did know that he hadn’t asked me to latch the door behind him, as he always did when he left. So I figured I’d leave it a minute and if he didn’t return, latch it.

But he did return, a moment later. The door opened and I saw his boots enter from the corner of my eye. Then I heard a chair scrape across the floor and Aaron’s voice calling to me.

“Pearl, come here.”

I scowled. I was a third of the way through scouring the floor, convinced if I had even a speck of dirt on it either ma or Geraldine would notice. I did not
want
to “come here.” It had been several weeks since Aaron had put me across his knee, and things had been carrying on at an even keel.

I pretended to ignore him.

He knew I heard him, and he knew I was ignoring him. His voice took on a harder edge, and he seemed almost incredulous.

“Girl, did you hear me?”

“Just a minute,” I groused, scrubbing the floor with renewed vigor. Finally, I rested back on my haunches and glared at him, though I kept my voice painfully polite.

“Yes, sir. What do you need?”

His jaw tightened. His hands rested on his lap as his eyes met mine.

“I need you to obey me,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. I knew I’d likely already crossed the line with my delayed obedience and rudeness, but I didn’t care. Huffing, I rose to my feet. I reasoned he hadn’t taken his palm to my backside in several weeks, so he likely wouldn’t do it now.

I was wrong.

It was then that I noticed his stout quirt on the floor next to his seat. Short but solid, his riding whip suddenly drove the breath from me. It had a braided handle and a flat leather tongue at the very end. I froze.

“What is that doing in here, and when did you bring it in?”

“Delayin’ comin’ to me will only make this go worse for you.”

Now I began to feel a bit afraid. Gingerly, I placed the rag down on the floor near the bucket and walked to him, dragging my feet. He snatched me by the waist and hauled me over to him.

He tapped a finger under my chin. “Young lady, you’ve pushed things far enough, haven’t you?” I stared at his honey-colored eyes.

I scowled in return.

“So that’s how it is, is it? Buttonin’ your lip? Maybe my quirt can make you find your tongue.”

He yanked me over his lap and I gasped as he quickly lifted my skirts and bared me. I felt dwarfed by his size as I dangled over his knee. He quickly overpowered me, as I was so much smaller. I felt him reach for the quirt and I squeezed my eyes shut. I knew it would hurt.

The whip whistled through the air before it landed. I shrieked as the first bite of leather met my backside. He said nothing but slowly, pausing several long seconds between each lash, administered a handful of sound licks. I whimpered. It hurt like the dickens, far worse than his hand, and far worse than his belt ever had. I’d never been whipped with a quirt before. The bite was lasting, the sting nearly unbearable, and it built, each lash stinging harder than the last, with none of the pain dissipating between strokes.

“Ow ow ow ow!” I shouted, kicking my feet back, which only made the swats come harder and faster.

“You’ve done nothin’ but grouse and complain at me now for days,” he muttered, laying into me with another lash of the quirt. “And just now you’ve talked back and treated me disrespectfully, and I’ll not tolerate it.”

Swat after swat fell, and I felt tears come to my eyes.

It hurt, but it wasn’t unbearable. If he’d bent me over the table or laid me over the bed, and had a larger space to swing his quirt, it would’ve been different. His reach was limited with me over his knee. But the tears were surfacing for another reason. I wanted to fight him, and I did, pushing myself off him, but he quickly restrained me. He whipped me until I felt the fight go right out of me. Something crumbled in me and I went limp over his knee. The quirt dropped to the floor. He released me and I fell to my knees, my skirts falling back in place as I buried my head on his lap.

He tucked stray hairs back into the bun at the nape of my neck.

It was then that the tears fell. We stayed that way for a time, my head on his knee, crying softly to myself while he stroked my hair back.

Finally, he spoke quietly. “You needed that.”

I sniffed. I could not explain why I did, but it was true. I had. “Yes, sir,” I whispered.

“You need to know I won’t tolerate this behavior.”

I nodded again.

“Come, now, girl. Come here so that I can hold you,” he said gently.

I lifted my head and felt his hands beneath my shoulders, lifting me up and onto his lap. I cried softly onto his shirt as he held me. My bottom still stung, and I could feel the warmth straight through my skirts.

“Seems a little girl needs to know her place from time to time,” he murmured. “And a good lickin’ will keep the naughty little vixen at bay.”