Federal Discipline (5 page)

Time seemed to slow to syrup. He felt as though he were pushing through some invisible substance. Closing the final yards between Jamie and her suspect seemed to take forever, and the rush of relief he felt when he finally managed to reach out, grab her by the collar and haul her off the suspect was beyond that he'd felt in a very long time.

“That's enough, agent!”

Caught in his grip, Jamie shrugged at him wordlessly. Fortunately for her, Jack had the suspect to deal with. Fortunately for the suspect, he had the sense to stay on the ground. He was panting and wide-eyed, angry as all hell.

“Sir, why did you run?”

“Because I ain't talking to no fucking Feds.”

“Why were you at the crime scene?” Jamie asked the question, though she was still semi-dangling in Jack's grip.

The man's face contorted with disgust at her stupidity. “I live there, fool!”

“I'm going to need to see some identification, sir,” Jack said, starting the process of a normal interview. Too tired out to do anything besides cooperate, the fellow produced some identification, which indicated that he did indeed live at the rundown apartments where the shooting had taken place.

“Thank you, sir,” Jack said, handing the smudged driver's license back to the man. “Did you know the victim, sir?”

Again the face wrinkled up. “I
ain't talking to you, Fed!”

“You're talking right now,” Jamie piped up.

“I mean I ain't telling you nothing, bitch.”

“Well that's just rude,” Jamie said. “There's no need for that language.”

“There wasn't any need to bring me down, slam me into the gutter. I got my kicks scuffed. You gonna buy me new shoes?”

“I'll buy you some soap,” Jack said. “To wash your mouth out with.”

“You trippin’.”

“Actually,” Jamie said, “you were the one tripping.”

“Hey, fuck you, bitch.”

“Don't antagonize the witness, Agent Black,” Jack censured her. He caught her incredulous look, the one that seemed to ask him why he was letting the suspect call her a bitch. “And you, sir, watch your language.”

“Or what, motherfucker?”

“Or you'll find yourself under arrest.”

“Shit! I ain't done nothing 'cept try to get myself a burger.”

“You ran from law enforcement,” Jack said. “That's not smart. At all.”

“I tell you what's not smart. What's not smart is you coming round here, sniffing after some guy you all done whacked. I seen it. I seen the cops shoot him down like a dog.”

“Did you know the deceased?”

“Naw,” the suspect said. “I didn't know him. I don't know nobody, see?”

The witness was beyond uncoop
erative. Jack briefly weighed arresting him, but decided it wouldn't ultimately serve any purpose. Besides, the guy probably had a case against Jamie for the way she'd chased him down.

“Well, sir, thank you for your time,” Jack said, “
Feel free to go on your way.”

“Well shit, thanks very much,
sir
.” The man flipped them both the bird, got up and walked away. Jack figured they were probably safe from any complaints. People in this part of town didn't cooperate with any authorities, even the ones that could help them. It made him feel mildly guilty. Jamie needed to be punished for what she'd done. If it wasn't going to happen through official channels, he'd do it himself.

“You just let him go!” Jamie protested. “He l
ived there! He must have known Mr. Brampton.”

“Never you mind about him,” Jack said, rounding on her. “What the hell do you think you were doing running off like that?”

“He ran. I stopped him running. Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?”

“If someone is an actual suspect, perhaps. You don't go running off after anyone that catches your eye. You certainly don't tackle them. For one, it's severely against protocol and two, you could get yourself seriously injured going toe to toe with men twice your size.”

“I'm not going to let criminals escape just because they're bigger than I am,” Jamie said, setting her lips in a firm line. “If he hadn't run, I wouldn't have chased him.”

“Under some circumstances, your response might have been appropriate, but this was hardly an emergency. Nobody was in any danger. He wasn't a suspect. And he wasn't a criminal.”

“He was a suspect in my mind,” Jamie defended herself all the more. “He was acting suspiciously near a crime scene.”

“Just be more careful, al
l right? What you just did? That was a really good way to get your head blown off for no reason.”

She pouted at him. Pouted. It was difficult for Jack to reconcile the image of a woman who chased down huge men without a trace of fear, then pouted at him afterward.

“Have I made myself clear? Or are you going to need a reminder?”

“Tell you what,” she said. “I'll go get a manicure and you can solve this case. Maybe you can question that wall over there. It will probably give you about as much information as anyone else in this fucking dump has.”

She was being sarcastic, she was losing her temper, and she wasn't the least bit sorry for how she'd behaved. She was an unrepentant brat of a rookie. Jack wasn't going to have that. He still had a hold of her and he used his grip to maneuver her around so his hand could meet with the soft curve of her bottom once, twice, three times. She jumped and squirmed, but he kept a firm hand on her upper arm, following the writhing of her curves with his punitive palm.

“That attitude won't fly with me,” he growled in her ear.

“Not out here!” Jamie complained. “People can see!”

“All anyone can see is a brat getting her bottom spanked,” Jack replied. “You don't want this? You behave yourself and do as you're told.”

“Jack!”

She squealed his name as his hand came down hard across both her cheeks in quick succession. This was no little series of love taps. This was a solid slapping that was no doubt settling a serious sting into her cheeks. She was dancing on her tippy toes as he spanked her toward the car and slapped her bottom firmly as she got in.

“I cannot believe you just did that,” she said, reaching under herself to rub the sting. She gave him a resentful look as he got into the driver's seat. “That was not professional.”

“Neither was going haring off after someone without my say
so. You're a federal agent, not a loose attack dog.”

She bared her teeth in a growl, apparently designed to teach him otherwise.

“Young lady,” he said sternly. “That's more than enough.”

“It's not,” she said. “It's not even a little of enough. Everyone we interviewed saw what you did to me. Did you see the people at their windows? People were laughing.”

“I'd rather leave them with the sight of you getting a smacking you deserve than the sight of you chasing down their own and tossing them in gutters,” Jack replied. “Now put your seat belt on.”

“No.”

“Jamie...” he said warningly. “You're digging yourself a heck of a hole here, my girl.”

“I don't care.”

She was being petulant and borderline rude. Jack knew why. It was because he'd stung her bottom enough to upset her, but not enough to ensure any kind of lesson had been learned. That was the problem when dealing with a strong-willed woman. A few taps weren't enough to do the trick. Nothing but a proper spanking was going to rein her in, and he didn't want to do that in the middle of the ghetto.

“Put your seat belt on, or I'll get out of the car, get you out, pull your pants and panties down and spank you over the hood,” he threatened.

“Oh yeah,” Jamie said. “Good luck explaining that one when I make an official complaint.”

“Seat belt. On. Now.”

“No.”

He sighed and opened his door. She was going to make him do it. She was really going to push him to the very limits. He'd just put one foot out of the car when he heard her seat belt click.

“Fine,” she said. “It's done.”

Looking back over his shoulder, Jack frowned at her. “I shouldn't have to micromanage you this much, agent.”

“You shouldn't spank me either.”

“You want normal rookie discipline,” he said. “Great. I'll send you out to the country for a month to listen to Amish wiretaps.”

“You can't wiretap the Amish,” Jamie pointed out. “They don't use telephones.”

“Precisely. It means you sit out in a shed in the middle of nowhere and you do nothing. It's a time out, basically.
A very long, very boring time out. Is that what you want? Or would you prefer I smacked your butt and we got on with the case?”

Her pout grew deeper as she folded her arms over her chest. “I guess I'd rather go on with the case.”

“Yes,” he said. “You would. Now we're going to go somewhere quiet and I'm going to finish the spanking I started.”

“What?” Her eyes went wide. “Why?”

“Because you haven't begun to learn your lesson yet, my girl,” he said. “Now, shall we go to the park, or...”

“Indoors!” Jamie squeaked. “Somewhere
indoors!”

“There's my place,” Jack suggested.

“I can't believe you're making me agree on where to go so you can spank me,” Jamie said, blushing furiously. “You're... you're...”

“I suggest you don't finish that sentence,” Jack said, putting the car in gear. “My place it is.”

Jamie squirmed in the seat whilst Jack drove. She couldn't quite believe what was happening. Was he really going to drive her back to his place and spank her? Or was it a bluff? She hoped it was a bluff; the alternative was too embarrassing for words.

Glancing over at him once or twice, she screwed up the courage to speak, and to actually apologize. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I know I should listen to you. Please, we don't have to do this.”

“But we do,” he said firmly. “The only reason you're apologizing now is because you can sense that there's about to be a real consequence for your actions. You weren't interested in apologizing before.”

“I was too pumped up,” Jamie tried to explain. “You know, from catching that guy.”

“From running down an innocent member of the public, you mean.”

“Tomayto, tomahto.”

“I'm glad you're still being so flippant,” he said grimly. “Let's see how you feel when you're over my lap.”

“No!” Jamie wailed. “I'm not being flippant. I'm just... please Jack, come on...”

He pulled into a neatly kept driveway in front of a neatly kept apartment building. It wasn't in the good part of the city, but it wasn't in the bad part of the city either. It was in a distinctly average neighborhood, where perfectly average people went about their lives.

Not one of them gave Jamie a second look as she stepped out of the car. That was notably different from what had happened when they'd gotten out of the car in the ghetto. People had taken notice of her there. Every eye had been locked on her. People out there paid attention to what was going on around them, which made it much more frustrating that they wouldn't talk.

“Come on,” Jack said. “Let's go.”

She didn't want to go. She balked at the glass door, reluctant to step over the threshold. Jack came up behind her and slapped her bottom, providing the necessary motivation.

“Cut that out,” she hissed, holding her backside protectively.

“Into the elevator, agent.”

Jamie got into the elevator with a sensation
of mild dread and mild... well, it was excitement. She wasn't keen to experience any disciplinary action Jack had in mind, but as he stepped in beside her, filling the small space with his strong bulk, she experienced a certain physical reaction to his presence.

He pushed the button for the 6
th
floor. A mad, impish impulse took Jamie. She reached out and mashed every button below the 6
th
. Now they'd stop at every floor on the way up.

“You little brat!”

She was covering her bottom, but it soon turned out that made no difference. Jack had no trouble sweeping her hand away from her backside and slapping her cheeks soundly enough that the echo of her howl traveled up and down the elevator shaft.

“You think it is funny? Hmm?” He clamped one hand on the back of her neck and slapped her bottom over and over again.

“It was a joke, Jack,” she squealed, wriggling in his grasp.

“This isn't the time for jokes, you little brat,” Jack growled. “You're being disciplined.”

She was being disciplined, and she didn't much like it. Jack had a certain ease of handling her, a way of touching her body that simultaneously turned her on and made her feel as though he didn't think overly much of her as a sexual being. There was nothing sexy about the way she ended up hopping from foot to foot as the elevator made five unnecessary stops, each time opening onto a floor where her yelps could be heard clearly for a minute.

“Jack! Please!” She begged him for clemency, but he was not in the mood to give it. She sensed she'd crossed one too many lines where he was concerned and was now in some really quite serious trouble. Normally it would involve being written up, but Jack didn't like to leave the mark of his displeasure on paper. He preferred to leave it on her bottom.

“You were warned yesterday,” he said. “Twice. I have no idea why you thought you could misbehave and get away with it, agent.”

The juxtaposition of being lectured like an agent whilst being spanked like a brat left Jamie's head spinning. She felt completely out of control, or rather, she felt completely within Jack's control, which left her subsequently feeling as though she was in more than one spanking's worth of trouble.

Finally they reached the sixth floor. Jack swatted her down the hall and then bade her wait as he unlocked his apartment.

When she stepped inside, she found a very masculine space. There was a large television, before which was positioned an even larger leather couch. It was big enough that she could probably get lost down the back of it. In that moment, that didn't seem like such a terrible proposition.

Jack dropped his keys in a dish beside the door, flicked the latch closed, and strode into his apartment. He sat down dead center of the couch and beckoned to her, crooking his finger in front of his face. “Come over here, pull down your pants and your panties,” he drawled.

“And my panties!” Jamie shook her head emphatically. That was not going to happen. Nope. It didn't matter how damn handsome Jack was – and in that moment he was exceptionally handsome. The hard lines of his face were emphasized by his stern expression in a way that made her stomach quiver.

“There's no point spanking you through cloth,” he said. “Besides, I think being bare bottomed will make the punishment much more memorable.”

“Come on, Jack, please...”

He said nothing. He just crooked his finger.

“I can't do this,” she said, stamping her foot in frustration. There was a whine to her voice, not of complaint, but of uncertainty. What he was asking, it was beyond that which she thought she could give. He wasn't just asking for her to go and get spanked. He was asking her for submission.

“You can, Jamie. Just come here.” He spoke softly, but firmly. There was something hypnotically authoritative about his tone. Something that made the fact he was asking her to come and submit to a spanking not only reasonable, but almost desirable.

Looking into his face, she forgot about the alleged disciplinary aspect of the act entirely. Agent Jack Harley was a very handsome man. Yes, he was no doubt a good decade older than her, but that didn't really seem to matter when his eyes fixed on hers in stern invitation.

Her feet began to move without prompting from her conscious mind. There was no fight, not really. In her soul she'd agreed to this on the first day they'd met. This had been an inevitability. They'd both known it, try as they might to put on a socially acceptable face.

“Good girl,” he praised, reaching out to slide his hands around her waist. She liked the way his grip felt, sure, firm,
warm. He had her entirely under control with only the lightest of touches. When his fingers went to the fastening of her slacks, she made no disagreement. Those adept digits, so close to a part of her anatomy that was beginning to pulse with excitement, she would not have pushed them away for anything in the world.

Cool air kissed the tops of her thighs as he pushed the slacks down to her knees. They fell the rest of the way, pooling in stoic black against his hardwood floor. And then his hands were sliding to the back of her thighs, warmth spreading up her legs as his hands traveled up to a place where he could palm her bottom.

They had not so much as kissed, but there was an intimacy in that moment that captured Jamie. Looking down into his face, she steadied herself with one hand on his shoulder. He felt hard to the touch, a solid rock to balance herself against.

“I'm going to take these down too,” he said, his
voice a low purr as his fingertips breached the line of the legs and slid up under to caress the soft skin of her bottom.

She was melting inside, her breath coming shorter and faster as the thickness of his fingers traced so close to her core. If he were to touch her there, he would find her hot and wet, she was sure of it.

Instead he slid his fingers out of her panties and lifted them to the waistband. Jamie put both hands on his shoulders as he gently drew them down, making her naked from the waist down. The short downy stripe of gold above her otherwise bare mound made him raise a brow slightly and smile as her panties descended her thighs.

And then his hands were moving up the back of her legs in a long caress, his fingers traveling up the inner parts of her thigh almost... almost to the place she was eager for him to touch. She parted her legs to allow him access, but he did not take advantage. Instead, he wrapped an arm around her waist and helped her down to l
ie across his lap and across the couch.

It was a rather comfortable position to begin with. When Jamie felt Jack's hands begin to smooth from the back of her neck all the way down to her bare bottom in long strokes, she sighed and relaxed into a state she'd thought impossible. Under languid caresses, she felt like a cosseted pet, not like someone about to be punished. She stretched out across his lap, laying her head in her hands as she surrendered to the moment.

A soft chuckle above her told her he approved. “Comfortable, are we?”

“Very,” she said. The massaging motion of his hands continued, lulling her further into that state of relaxed submission.

“You do remember why you're here, don't you, Miss Black?”

She had some vague memory of being threatened with a punishment. That seemed very far away in the moment.

“I'm here because you wanted me to take my pants and panties off,” she said archly. The response earned her a light, barely stinging slap to one cheek.

“You're here because you're a rebellious little minx who doesn't take authority seriously.”

“I do take authority seriously,” she protested. “Especially when I'm the authority.”

“That's not what I meant, Jamie.”

She squirmed over his lap, slightly annoyed. “I liked it better when you didn't talk.”

“Oh
, I bet you did,” he said, laying another slap on the opposite cheek. “You liked it better when you thought you were going to get away with all your cheek and disobedience.”

“You seem to like my cheeks right now,” she pointed out.

“They're very nice cheeks,” he agreed, smoothing his palm against the raised rounds. “But this isn't about giving you a nice massage, Jamie. This is about teaching you a lesson.”

She felt his arm snake around her waist and snug her close to his body. She didn't mind that one bit. It was nice to be held that way. It was nice to feel secure and safe and
... “OW!”

He'd smacked her with enough force to
make thousands of little stinging bolts go rushing across her tender skin. She was about to protest when he repeated the treatment, this time a little harder. Jamie could feel her cheeks jiggling under the impact of his palm as he began to spank her – really spank her with swats that weren't delivered with any great speed or even strength, but made her yowl with the power of their sting.

“Jack! This isn't nice!”

“It's not meant to be nice,” he said calmly, holding her in place as she wriggled back and forth. “It's meant to be a lesson, so next time I tell you to do something, you do it without question. And next time you get some impulse in that pretty head of yours, you think twice before acting on it.”

“Jack!” She whined his name as his palm began to descend again, this time with fast, crisp swats that made her hips dance back and forth across his thigh. Jamie didn't feel relaxed anymore, or maybe she did, it was hard to tell when she was focused on the growing heat being slapped into her cheeks by her case agent. “Cut it out!”

“We're not finished yet, Jamie,” he said, his voice kind and calm in stark contrast to her somewhat panicked recitation of his name. “I want you to learn from this.”

A low moan of dismay escaped her lips. What was she supposed to be learning, aside from the fact that being spanked hurt?

He continued spanking, slower and heavier. Each slap bought a gasp to Jamie's lips. She was sore, she was embarrassed, and she was beginning to think that she'd bitten off a lot more than she could chew where Jack Harley was concerned.

“I'm becoming quite fond of you,” he rumbled from on high. “And I want to keep you in one piece, agent.”

“Well you're about to spank my ass right off my ass,” Jamie squealed.

His response was half a slap, which gave way to laughter. “I assure you,” he said. “Your bottom is still very much in place.”

“It doesn't feel like it,” Jamie whined.

“This isn't supposed to be comfortable,” he reassured her. “But this won't so much as leave a mark.”

Jamie stiffened over his lap. That made it sound as though marks might be an option. “What do you mean?”

“I mean your tender bottom isn't going to be harmed by this one little bit,” he said, slapping fast and light until she grasped at the corner of the couch and squealed.

“Jack! Okay! I'm sorry!”

“Are you? What are you sorry for?” He palmed her bottom gently.

“I'm sorry for taking matters into my own hands and chasing that guy. I'm sorry I didn't listen to you.”

“And?”

“And I'm sorry I was rude.”

“More cheeky than outright rude,” he said, “but thank you. Do I have your assurance that you'll be on your best behavior from now on?” He waited a moment for her to reply,
then slapped her bottom when she took too long.