Learning to Blush (26 page)

“Commander,” Jio rushed to say. “I am so, so sorry. So sorry…”

Penny winced, feeling horrible for Jio. She'd never seen a man set to piss himself until this moment. “Lay off of him, Thorton. I shouldn't have said it—it's like offering a starving man a cookie. He's pretty deprived.”

“If I catch you both even alone in the same room again, I will break every bone in your face
one by one
,” Thorton hissed at Jio, and then he jerked his thumb towards the door. “Now leave.”

Jio didn't need to be told twice. He scurried out of the room like a rat from a sinking ship.

Penny turned easily towards Thorton. “Jealous much?” When Thorton turned to her, trying to lay that deadly glare on her, she narrowed her eyes. “What's got your shorts in a bunch? It's just a boob.”

“It's not just a breast, Penny. It's
my
breast.
Mine
,” he snapped. “You're my wife. Get it?”

She rolled her eyes. How could a man be that possessive of anything? Still, she wasn't going to argue. Thorton looked more than angry; he looked tired.

“Keep rolling your eyes, Penny. I'm neigh close to spanking your flirty little ass right here and all the way back to the apartment, anyway. I just need the extra push,” he threatened firmly.

Penny's body went rigid at the threat; remembering their mating, where he belted her in front of a crowded room, came flooding back to her on the instant. She gave an angry gasp. “Thorton, you can't threaten—”

“Oh, I'm
promising
. Not threatening. You're already gonna get it when we get back to the apartment. How dare you lie to me about going to see Fie? I felt like an idiot when he told me that you hadn't, Penny. You looked me right in the eye and you all-out
lied
. You haven't even gone to see Mary, his assistant. You haven't seen anyone!”

So that's what had his shorts all up in a wad before he even walked into the room! Sure, she lied, but she thought it wasn't important that she see a doctor. She felt fine, and even if she didn't, she probably wouldn't have gone. She'd never been to one on Earth, other than the school nurse to get a vaccination or a Band-Aid.

Besides, it was a small enough lie that it didn't warrant punishment. It's not like she would ever expect
him
to get a spanking if her ass ever started to look fat and if asked he would tell her differently. Surely, that sort of lie was on the same plane. It was a white lie.

“Thorton, the only reason I said I went is because you wouldn't stop worrying until I did,” she said with a tone meant to calm him.

“My wife was drugged and enslaved at a brothel on a pirate planet,” he rehashed angrily. “The only thing that could keep me from worrying is if you actually got your clean bill of health. Now I have two things to worry about: your health and the fact that I've mated with a woman who can look me in the face and lie to me that easily. I actually believed you.”

There was actually a look of hurt on his face. Why? She didn't know. “It wasn't a big lie! It was a little one, for your own good!” she assured desperately.

“Well soon you're going over my knee
for your own good
. Right now, you're going to the doctor
for your own good
. Now, for
your own good
, you'd better wipe that look off your face and come here, Girl.” He pointed to the ground right in front of his boots.

She wasn't very excited to scurry right over to him, and she sank lower in her chair than before.

“Now,” he decreed with more of that 'promise' in his eyes.

She swallowed and lifted her chin bravely. “Look here, Thorton,” she said as firmly as she could. “I’m not a kid. If I need to go to the doctor, I’ll go. I feel fine. I don’t need you to tell me what to do, and I’m not going to let you force me down there. Go mind your own business!”

He stomped over to her and yanked her out of the chair by her upper arm and pulled her along his side. “We’re not arguing about this any longer,” Thorton informed her. “I apparently
do
need to tell you what to do, and for the record, you
are
my business. You’re going.” He directed her speedily through the door and into the main hallway of the mothership.

“No!” she shouted stubbornly, dropping her body weight towards the floor. The most vertical part of her body—which was her arm, was help up only by Thorton's grip on her.

Thorton looked left and right and saw people walking back and forth down the hallway, many who were apparently watching the scene but didn’t want to accidentally make eye contact with him. His cheeks began to flush. “Penelope,” he growled, using her full name, which he’d never done. “Stop embarrassing me. Stand up and move.”

“I have rights, Thorton,” she hissed. “I don’t have to go.”

Thorton suddenly bent down, yanked both her arms up, and then dropped his shoulder. She was scooped quite efficiently over his shoulder in one fluid movement.

Noting quickly that her ass was up in the air and her stomach was digging uncomfortably into Thorton’s broad shoulder, she hit her fists against him as he turned around and walked back in the direction of their apartment, which she wanted… At least, she didn't want to go in the direction of the medical bay! But she didn't want to go home like this. “Stop it!” She smacked his back again with the side of her fists. “Put me down, Thorton! This isn’t funny! It hurts!”

“What's going to hurt is the paddling you have coming to you,” he assured grimly, and loud enough that any passersby could have easily heard.

She blanched as a flood of emotions passed over her. Embarrassment, anger, nervousness, excitement…. Nervousness seemed to be the one that stayed. Thorton sounded serious. “Thorton,” she whined, “I don’t wanna go! Don’t make me go, that’s all! You’re just a worry wart!
Thorton!
”

He marched down a hallway, made a turn, and she heard him hit the code to open the door to their apartment. He put her down on the ground and then grabbed her ear, wheeling her towards the nearest corner.

She was hoping her brothers or Mike might have still been where she left them, in front of the television, but the apartment was empty, aside from a piles of crumbs all over the sofa. There was no one to fan Thorton's temper, no one to post-pone Thorton from doing whatever he wanted with her.

“You are ridiculously childish, did you know that? I do not ask that much of you, but I have to fight with you every inch! And you hate it when I embarrass you, but you have no qualms with making me look like I don’t have you under control!”

Her eyes were quickly burning with angry tears. She didn't want to be 'under control'! She didn't want to be treated like a child, and she told him so!

He propelled her into a corner then grabbed both of her arms in his hands and gave her a firm shake. “I
know
you're not a child. You made that perfectly clear by offering Jio a feel. If you were trying to end my friendship with him, that was a great way to go about it,” he snapped at her, pointing a finger to her chest. “Give me one reason why you don't deserve a punishment, Penny, just one,” he demanded of her.

Her cheeks puffed red with anger. “Because it's the twenty-first century, and you have no right! You're
nothing
to me, you—!”

She was interrupted by his angry grunt of, “Okay!” before, without any other warning, he unbuttoned the top of her new skirt deftly and jerked it, her panties, and her leggings down so that they bunched around her knees, except for her skirt which fell down enough to puddle around her ankles.

She gasped, not knowing what to try to cover her up first! How ridiculous she must have looked with a shirt on and her pants down must have been quite a spectacle. She glanced out their living room window which had an all-too good view of space and of any ships about to land in the dock who could see the front end of her when she was like this, so she had to make a decision fast, but eventually she chose to cover her backside, which she had been so good in hiding from her new husband so far. It hadn’t been easy, but he had yet to really get a good look.

She put her hands back to block herself from Thorton’s view, but his hands quickly grabbed her wrists and forced her hands up until her palms were touching her head. “Don’t cover yourself,” he growled, only it wasn’t the growl she had come to love; the one he used when he was talking dirty to her in bed as he played with her. No, Thorton had the growl of a very fed-up husband. “I don’t want you to move. I want you to stand there and think on ways you can be more obedient and honest.”

He walked away and she lowered her hands immediately to cover herself again. She didn’t even like the reflection of her like this in the window.

As soon as her hands touched her exposed bottom, Thorton immediately came back, and turned her around. She was bent over his hip and under his arm in a heartbeat, and his big, strong, calloused hands were smacking down against her bare bottom.

“No!” she squealed miserably, but it was a horrible position. Only her tiptoes were on the ground and her bottom might as well have been in China as far as she was concerned, because twist and turn as she tried, her arms could nowhere near protect herself from any of this humiliation.

“I-am-through-with-being-lenient! You’ve-had-this-coming-for-a-long-time, Little Girl!” he grunted between smacks.

The pain of every single slap deserved attention. Each spank was both sharply painful and then turned into a numbing pain right before it restarted. And his hand just reddened one of her nether-cheeks and then the other.

She screamed. There was no getting away from this. It had already gone on longer than the all-too-familiar belting, and that had left welts on her thighs the whole rest of the day! “Please!” she pleaded. “I’ll be good! I’ll be good! I’m sorry!”

The smacks and the pain continued until she had well-started emitting tears. It was so painful—so painful and so hopeless! He dropped her to her feet and made her face the corner again, this time with a red bottom. He repositioned her hands on the back of her head. “Stay there.”

She slumped, wondering if she could even
imagine
anything so miserable as what just happened. She was sobbing, sweating, shaking, and Thorton was somewhere behind her, watching her. At least she thought so. She couldn’t see his reflection in the glass window next to her corner, but she wouldn’t dare drop her hands now for a million dollars.

After what seemed like hours, Thorton said sternly, “Penny, come here.”

She turned, slowly and pathetically, attempting to make him feel bad for spanking her. But then she gasped when she saw what was in his hand.

She had never seen a paddle in her life before, but she knew that's what he was holding. She held her breath as her body froze, trying to gulp.

“
Penny
,” he warned.

“No!” she sobbed. “No! I said I was sorry!” she pleaded.

“Penny, let’s get this done. Then I’m taking you to Fie and he's going to examine you. Afterwards I'll put you to bed and we'll have a long talk about being alone with other men and egging them on to touch you.”

“It's more casual on Earth! I didn't mean anything by it, I swear!” she argued, and was sincere. Nearly the entire male population of Rogue River beneath the age of twenty-five had at least touched her breasts and maybe even kissed her, but she'd only slept with ten of them. What was a boob, after all? “Touching doesn't mean anything, you can't punish me for not knowing how you'd react!”

He gave her a dubious eye at that, not believing it. “I'm not punishing you for that, we'll actually
talk
about it when we get home, and I will make it painstakingly clear to you that if I catch you in a similar position, you'll rue the day.
This
spanking, and I'm sure there'll be many in the future, is about lying to me and then throwing a tantrum in public when I gave you a direct order.”

He softened slightly, looking frustrated with the betrayed expression on Penny's face. “Look, I know you need time to adjust, that you’re still so young. But when I was your age I certainly knew how to obey a direct order, and after this, I hope you will, too.” He patted his knee and locked his jaw, determined. “Come here.” She had a feeling that he would not tell her again.

She was already sobbing, and by the time she shuffled over to him, with her undies and leggings still around her knees, she was caterwauling. “You can’t do this!” she sobbed as he took her hand when she approached and bent her over his lap. She didn’t struggle—Thorton was so much stronger than her that it seemed ridiculous. “You can’t!”

But he did. And when he did, futile though she knew it to be, she struggled.

The paddle was leather as opposed to wood. Rationally, she would have remembered that leather had more of a give than wood so that it wouldn’t bruise, but she didn’t care—she wasn’t being rational right now. She was losing her mind as she struggled and clawed to get off his lap.

She reached around and even managed to get him to smack the top of her hand with the paddle.

She yelped and cried all the harder. “Damn it, Penny!” Thorton said, stopping for a moment to take her hand and safely pin it to the small of her back. “You need to keep your hands out of my way! I don’t want to hurt you!”

He didn’t want to hurt her? What was he doing now? He was killing her! She could barely even breathe because of all her crying. She was certain she was going to suffocate.

SMACK! SMACK! Even the sound of the paddle was deafening and horrible, even scary.

Just as she thought that it wouldn’t ever end, thinking that somehow she had been killed and went right to hell and this was her eternal punishment, Thorton put the paddle down on the floor by the chair and she felt his cold hand cover her hot, inflamed, swollen skin. He rubbed her bottom extremely gently but her skin still felt like it was prickling against the contact of his skin.

“I’m sorry I had to do that. But I’m not sorry I did it,” he said, a warning.

She sobbed in response. This was wrong! So wrong! He shouldn’t even be looking at her bottom! He shouldn’t be this close! He shouldn’t have spanked it that hard! It was the first time he saw it, and it probably looked like a splotchy tomato at this point.