Savages Recruit (27 page)

“Righto boss,” Ethan made a mock salute. Zora had redirected her attention to her terminal and was ignoring him pointedly. He couldn't exactly blame her for that, though the pang of regret was unpleasant.

He turned around to leave and heard her giggle, a conspiratorial sound that he was excluded from. Glancing out the corner of his eye, he saw the way she leaned towards Ethan in a typically feminine display of casual intimacy. So that was how she was going to play it, was it? She was going to try to work Ethan into the mix. Interesting. Smart too. Ethan would have been Savage's pick if he'd been in her situation.

“Oh Ethan,” he said over his shoulder.

“Yeah boss?” There was a wariness in Ethan's voice, a slight guilt borne of the filthy thoughts Savage was sure would be running through his brain.

“Make sure the assessors get Zora's numbers, okay?”

“Sure thing boss.”

“Better do it, or he'll beat you.” Zora snarked sarcastically.

Savage's shoulders slumped. Was the girl insane? He'd just thrashed the hell out of her not an hour ago and she was already back proving she wasn't scared. A part of him wanted to ignore the challenge, but he knew what would happen if he didn't respond to the comment. She'd take it further, and further and eventually she'd end up with a bullet between the eyes.

Wordlessly he turned back towards her. As he took a step forward, he saw the flicker of genuine fear in her eyes and the way she slumped down in her chair, trying to make herself smaller. But it was too late. “Come with me Ms Matthews,” Savage snapped. To her credit, Zora got out of the chair fairly smartly, her hands going back to clutch at her sore bottom.  “Follow me,” he ordered tersely.

She followed him dutifully back to his office and stood, trembling ever so slightly as he closed the door behind her and gave her a long, hard look. At first she met his gaze, but then she whimpered and looked at the floor. He could see her lips moving slightly, as if she wanted to say something but couldn't quite bring herself to speak. Whether it was from fear or something else, he didn't know.

“Pants down, Matthews,” he ordered.

Her expression was pleading and she uttered a small squeak, as if she was going to beg him for mercy, but then she pressed her lips together and he watched as her hands went to her waist and she pushed her sweatpants down in one almost defiant motion.

“Turn around.”

She turned away from him. He surveyed the damage he'd already done to her bottom. As he'd suspected, there were signs of bruising already coming up. He could see it along the sides of her white cotton panties. It was going to have to be a light, stinging implement for this round.

“Over the desk.”

Savage admired her stoicism as she shuffled forward without looking at him and bent dutifully over the desk. Some might have mistaken her compliance for submission, but he knew she wasn't submitting to him, she was fighting him as hard now as she had been when she kicked and hit him. He walked around the desk and retrieved the short cane from the long drawer, then returned to her side where he made physical contact by placing his large palm on the small of her back. She was bent over nicely at that moment, but he would put money on that changing when the cane lashed down.

“In future, keep your opinions and smart remarks to yourself,” he said, whipping the thin bamboo down across her panty clad seat with a harsh crack. She made a muffled squeaking sound, but to his surprise, she stayed in position. He repeated the treatment, lashing the cane down across the center of her bottom, a stroke that landed just below the one before it. Again she made a stifled sound, but she did not cry out. He'd expected cursing and yelling and her usual barrage of temper but she hadn't spoken a word since he'd commanded her to follow him.

A third cut followed, then a fourth. Grunts were the only sound accompanying those cuts of the cane, and by the time he applied the fifth and the sixth, the grunts had turned into groans. The response was so much unlike her that he began to get quite concerned.

“Zora?” He leaned over to check her and saw that her eyes were pressed tightly closed, but tears were streaming down her face. Her mouth was clamped shut, but she was breathing heavily through her nose, her thighs trembling as she seemed to silently scream. She was trying so damn hard to hide the pain that her body shook with the effort. Savage felt his resolve begin to crumble yet again as he questioned his ability to be the harsh master she needed. “Look at me Matthews,” he ordered briskly. Her eyes snapped open and he saw her defiance written there plain as day. “Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes sir, we have an understanding.” He sighed inwardly. She was so cold. So distant. He didn't like it one bit. “An understand that you're a lying scumbag,” she clarified in a burst of sudden temper.

He had to hide a smile of relief. She was still in there after all. He managed to convert his smile into a hard smirk. “A scumbag that owns your ass, remember that and watch your mouth when you speak to me,” he said, giving her a light, almost playful tap on the rear. For a moment, they were back to their old selves. He knew it couldn't last, but he treasured it regardless.

“There's not going to be anything left of my ass by the time you're done with it,” she observed, the cheek coming back in full force.

Savage shook his head at her. “What am I going to do with you Matthews?”

She sighed as she stood up and started rubbing the sting out of her bottom. “Hit me until one of us gets shot.”

She had no idea how very right she was.

Chapter Eighteen

Image after image zoomed by in front of Zora's eyes. Glued to the screen in front of her, her face lit with the reddish hue of the desert images she inspected, she was like a zoned out zombie. Occasionally, something would catch her eye and she would hit a button to freeze the image. After a more careful inspection she would either decide it was nothing after all and move to the next picture or report the image for further analysis.

Weeks of harsh discipline and distance, not to mention constant supervision from a seemingly endless parade of authoritarian bosses had created a new Zora, a Zora who did her job and little else. Her performance had never been better, her numbers were high and there were even rumors that she might be up for a promotion. If any of those who supervised her transition from free thinking rebel to good little cog in the machine had paid closer attention, they might have noticed the spark of impishness that never entirely left her eye, even when she was engaged in the most punishingly monotonous of work. They might have perhaps considered the possibility that her apparent acquiescence to their extreme demands had come a little too easily. But the powers that were had far too much confidence in their own abilities to break and shape people to consider for a second that one civilian might be smarter than they.

And so Zora sat there, the model of a perfect worker bee. Occasionally she shifted slightly in the ergonomic chair, but that was the only deviation from her profiled activity and it did not draw the ire of the severe looking woman who sat at an elevated desk behind Zora, her hair scraped back into a bun so tight the white skin of her scalp was visible between the graying strands. Kransky was her name. Killer Kransky to those in the know. She probably had a first name, but Zora had never heard anyone use it.

Unlike Savage, Kransky didn't believe in spanking or physical punishment. She believed in berating evildoers at great lengths and assigning them tasks of such mind numbing monotony that it was not uncommon for those subjected to them to break down and cry. Zora had been smart enough to avoid crossing Kransky up to that point, she had been warned about the woman's reputation and she had no interest in moving a pile of Chinese Checkers from one side of a room to the other for days on end, as the last person to anger Kransky had done.

“Matthews!” Zora's name was barked officiously, as it was several times a day. Nobody in the place aside from Ethan seemed to be able to communicate without shouting.

Zora hit the button to stop the scrolling images and looked up from the screen with square eyes that took a moment to readjust to looking at people in the real world. It was Savage, making his first appearance for the better part of a week. “Yeah? I mean, yes, sir?” She added the 'sir' as Kransky made the grunting overtures of what could have been quite a tedious lecture.

“Report to my study. Now.” Savage snapped the order.

For once, she wasn't entirely sure what she'd done wrong. She'd been keeping her head down and working her tail off for weeks and had even been commended by a few of the old hands. Her skills had transferred well to data analysis, and she was being trained in the delicate art and science of gleaning complex webs of information from scattered intel.

After being dismissed by Kransky, she made her way quickly to Savage's study. She knew from the snooping she'd been doing whenever she was unobserved for a few minutes that the rotation they had him on was very heavy indeed, most weeks he was flying to one god forsaken place or another to get shot at. Even if they hadn't been in the queer stand-off they were in, there would have been hardly any time at all to rekindle their flagging relationship. She suspected that this was not an accident. Someone somewhere wanted them separated.

In spite of his occasionally harsh treatment, she missed him. She missed the way the skin around his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the way his body felt when he held her. Not being able to talk to him properly without being spied on by the people in the compound made things even more difficult.

“What did I do wrong?” She asked when she got to his office. He had been looking overly stern when he'd summoned her, but he now looked far more relaxed. Her senses tingled with the sure knowledge that something was afoot.

“Nothing yet,” he rumbled, sitting in one of the stuffed chairs. “But I want to prevent that.” His face grew solemn as he looked at her very sternly indeed, then flickered a small wink in her direction. The little gesture told her everything she needed to know. He was trying to get away with something.

“What do you mean?” She still had no idea what he was on about.

He patted his thigh. “I mean I want you over my lap. Now.” He raised his voice sternly once more.

She frowned, playing her role perfectly. “But I didn't do anything.”

“Think of it as maintenance,” he said with a small smirk. God he was handsome when he did that, the hard lines of his jaw making him look thoroughly rakish. Even sitting down he seemed large to Zora, he made the chair look small with his broad shoulders and tall frame. “What are you waiting for girl?” He prompted her when she did not move, but instead stood there gawping at him like a teenager with a crush.

It had been a long time since they'd been in the same room like this, without prior tension or trouble and Zora found herself feeling rather shy. Usually she could take refuge in defiance and anger, but she wasn't angry about anything and truth be told, she didn't really want to defy Savage either. She wanted to run into his arms and be cuddled and comforted. The nights she'd been spending alone had been very lonely and uncertain indeed. She clasped her hands behind her back and looked down at the floor, hoping he would take pity on her and not spank her too awfully hard for the benefit of anyone who might be watching.

“Come here please Zora,” he repeated his earlier command, but he did so in a softer, more cajoling tone. That was more the Savage she remembered, the man she had given her heart to. She shuffled forward until she was standing next to him, her eyes still averted. He didn't make her do anything else, once she was close enough that he could lay hands on her, he guided her over his lap, settling her in place with her bottom high over his left thigh.

She felt silly and small and very vulnerable as he patted her bottom. She was wearing light cotton pants, rather like scrubs. It was a uniform of sorts that she'd been given to wear by the officer in charge of the uniforms and suchlike. When she'd asked why Ethan didn't have to wear it, she'd been told that Ethan wasn't a class one liability, whatever that was. With Savage being so busy, a lot more people had been bossing her around of late, which she didn't particularly care for. They didn't spank her, but they somehow managed to make her more frustrated and angry than Savage ever had.

“I know it's been a while since we did this, but this is to remind you that I'm looking out for you girl,” he said gruffly. She squirmed in place, pressing her crotch against his thigh in a way she hoped he wouldn't notice. As harsh as their last encounter had been, she was still a woman of passion and satisfying herself night after night was becoming tedious. Even the relatively innocent touch of his thigh against her body was enough to send a warm flushing sensation through her loins.

He slapped her bottom lightly, first on one cheek, then the other, alternating the gentle spanks. It didn't hurt at all, in fact it felt pleasant. He worked like that for a time, building up a little sting in her rear. “I know you've been rather good lately. I want you to keep that up,” he said, giving her a slightly harder slap that made her squeak. “When you've proved yourself here, I won't have to be so hard on you.”

Zora wasn't sure exactly what he meant, she wasn't really listening. She was concentrating on squirming her bottom just enough to make herself feel nice between her legs without arousing his suspicions. It was a difficult task, she had to wait for each slap to land before giving her hips a wriggle.

“Are you listening to me, Zora?” The question was accompanied by a full bottom blow that caught her low across both cheeks and made her grind against his lap.

“Yes sir,” she whispered meekly.

“I'm not sure if you are,” he said, hooking his fingers into the waistband of her pants. “I think this is going to have to be delivered on your panties.” It was all Zora could do not to giggle in glee as he lowered her pants, exposing her white cotton panty clad bottom. “What innocent looking panties,” he noted. She could hear the smile in his voice as he smoothed his hand over her behind, the tips of his fingers just catching the gusset region and providing brief stimulation to her pouting slit.