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Authors: Sue Lyndon

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BOOK: Shana's Guardian
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She stirred the soup on the stove, tasted
it, and added a few more spices before stealing another look out the window at
her new husband.
 
Maybe since she
was now his wife he’d bring her along next time.
 
Yes, she’d bring it up over lunch.
 
He’d been in high spirits for the last
two weeks – since their wedding.
 
She’d also been on her best behavior and hadn’t had a real spanking
since then either.
 
Of course, he
smacked her behind during their playacting in bed, but that didn’t count.
 
A real spanking was when he scolded her,
bent her over the desk in his study, and paddled her butt until she could scarcely
breathe through the painful blows.
 
A real spanking left her sore and blistered for days, remorseful and
humbled.

She shivered, despite the warmth rising
up from the stove.
 
The day would
come that she either disobeyed or displeased him enough to warrant true
discipline at his hands.
 
Would it
be different now that they were married?
 
She felt safe with Daman, she trusted him more than anyone else, yet she
feared the first actual spanking as his wife.

Beth had confessed once that her husband
whipped her with a belt for cursing at him during an argument.
 
It wasn’t unusual for a wife to be
physically disciplined by her husband.
 
Men were the heads of the household, and in this fallen world, women
were property to be sold into marriage.
 
If Daman had arranged a union for her with another man, he would’ve had
to pay a dowry – and considering her age a high one at that.
 
Were the settlement folk raising
eyebrows over this fact?
 
Instead of
paying a man to take her off his hands, Daman saved coin and trading goods by
keeping her for himself.
 
They might
love each other, but the rest of the world wouldn’t know about the deep
feelings that had taken root and grown into a beautiful garden.
 
To most of the world, they probably
looked like a perversion allowed
to exist
only because
of a technicality, the technicality that they weren’t blood relatives.

She returned her attention to the soup
and began slicing the bread she’d baked early in the morning.
 
Daman’s heavy footsteps sounded in the
hallway just as she finished setting the table and placing the final touches on
dinner.

“Smells good,” he said as he rounded the
corner and strode into the kitchen.
 
His work clothes were filthy, but she didn’t mind.
 
She was lucky to have such a hardworking
man to take care of her.

“How’s the bookcase coming along?”
 
She smiled and offered him a towel after
he finished washing his hands in the basin on the counter.

“It’s finished, aside from a coat of
paint.
 
I’m running low on paint
though, so it’ll have to wait until my next trading mission.

Daman sat at the table and Shana served
his meal, and then took her place across from him.

“Mm.
 
Tastes wonderful, as always.”

She blushed at his compliment.
 
“Thank you, Uncle.”
 
She called him Uncle outside of the
bedroom too, and to her delight he didn’t seem to mind.
 
For a reason she couldn’t explain, it
gave her a sense of security.
 
Even
though they were now husband and wife, he would always be the loving uncle who’d
taken care of her during the darkest hour of her life.

“Tell me what’s on your mind, Shana,” he
said.
 
“You’re nearly bursting at
the seams.”

Her mouth dropped open and she felt the
color drain from her face.
 
Why must
Daman read her like a book?
 
Why
couldn’t she be a better actress?
 
She took a deep breath and lifted her chin, hoping she looked more grown
up than she felt.
 
Here goes nothing,
she thought.
 
“I want to accompany
you on your next trading mission.”

“Absolutely not.”
 
The lines on his
face
hardened
and he focused on his meal, deaf to her groan of protest.

“Why not?” she pressed on, pushing back from
the table.
 
“I’m an adult and I’m a
married woman.
 
I’m not a child you
have to look after anymore.
 
I can
take care of myself.”

“The answer is no.
 
It’s dangerous and I won’t have you
setting foot outside this settlement unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
 
His spoon clattered in his bowl and he
sat up straight, glaring across the table at an equally angry Shana.

“I’ve walked outside the settlement
barrier before and nothing bad ever happened,” she reminded him.
 
Once, not long after she turned eighteen,
she snuck away with friends to the gypsy village four miles away.
 
The people there were strange but kind,
and they played the wildest music and danced the night away every night.
 
Of course, when Daman discovered her
transgression after he caught her climbing into her bedroom window the next
morning, he punished her severely.
 
Every evening before bed for a full week, he strapped her bottom and
thighs until her voice grew hoarse from screaming.
 
Okay, so the memory of crossing the
settlement barrier wasn’t exactly a pleasant one, but she didn’t so much as
stub a toe during her brief adventure in the outside world, or “The Dark
World,” as Daman called it.

“I should paddle you for bringing that
up,” he finally said, rising up from his chair.
 
He edged around the table and crossed
his arms over his broad chest.
 
With
his sleeves rolled up to reveal his thick forearms, he looked quite forbidding.

“The only reason no harm came to you that
night was because of pure luck.
 
Outcasts and thieves roam the hills and often prey upon the gypsies.
 
You could’ve been raped or
murdered!”
 
He rarely raised his
voice, but he was shouting now, and his arms dropped to his sides as he turned
his back on Shana.
 
“You are not to
leave Jackson Settlement.”
 
He
stomped out of the kitchen, leaving her to brood at the table alone.

“Overprotective brute,” she muttered,
staring down at her untouched meal.

When she slinked into bed that night, she
was still steaming mad.
 
She turned
over on her side and pretended to be asleep when Daman entered a short while
later.
 
She didn’t plan to speak to
him until he changed his mind about bringing her along on the trading
mission.
 
Daman had left Jackson
Settlement dozens of times with a large group of men and no harm ever came to
any of them.
 
How could he claim the
outside world was so dangerous when nothing bad had happened during any of his
numerous missions?

“I know you’re not sleeping.”
 
The bed dipped and cool air rushed her
legs as he crawled under the covers, pressing his body up against her back.

“Leave me alone,” she said, scooting even
farther to the edge of the bed.
 
If
he thought she’d be intimate with him tonight, he must be crazy.
 
To her relief, he sighed and left the
bed and bedroom altogether without another word.

Good.
 
She had half a mind to sneak off to the
gypsy village one night soon, if only to prove her point that she could take
care of herself.
 
Margery and Beth
had gone with her last time, but now that they were both married too, she
wasn’t sure they’d be willing to undertake an adventure sure to displease their
husbands, especially Beth.

“Let’s get this over with, Shana.”

She jumped up at the sound of her
husband’s gruff voice.
 
He stood in
the doorway, a strap dangling from his hand – the same awful strap he’d
applied to her bare bottom after her interlude with the gypsies.
 
Her stomach flipped and she shook her
head adamantly, only to witness his jaw tense and the steely resolve in his
eyes announce that she couldn’t talk her way out of this punishment.

“Why?” she asked, pulling the covers up
to her chin.

“My word is law in this house, Shana, and
you haven’t respected it today.
 
You’ve been argumentative and I’m sick of your sulking.
 
We need to clear the air.”

Her stomach lurched again.
 
“I haven’t done anything wrong, not
really.
 
You can’t spank me.
 
Please don’t,” she pleaded, yet knew her
protests wouldn’t sway him a bit.

He approached the bed, the menacing strap
still gripped in one hand.
 
“You’ve
behaved disrespectfully to me today and I won’t have it.
 
I care about you and want only what’s
best for you, Shana, and you need to trust my decisions.
 
The roads leading to the trading post
are dangerous.
 
I’ve sheltered you
from the horrors I’ve seen during my trips away, and perhaps I shouldn’t have
done that, but I won’t have you behaving like a petulant child every time you
don’t get your way.”

A twinge of guilt caught Shana unawares,
jarring her out of her anger.
 
She
eyed the strap and gulped.
 
The
memory of how awful it stung still lingered, and she’d do anything to get out
of this punishment.
 
“I’m so sorry,”
she said, lowering her head.
 
“Please forgive me.
 
Please
don’t strap me.
 
I won’t bring up
leaving the settlement again, I promise.”

“You’re going to get the strapping you
deserve, my sweet,” he said, slapping the implement against his palm and
causing her to gasp.
 
“Now stand up
and remove your nightgown and underclothes.
 
If I have to ask twice, I’ll take the
strap to your breasts as well.”

What?
 
Unsure of whether she’d heard him
correctly, she hurried to obey his command.
 
She dreaded this punishment, but she
dreaded the prospect of him strapping her breasts more than her bottom.
 
As she tossed her undergarments toward
her nightgown on the floor, a realization hit her like a slap to the face.
 
Uncle Daman would’ve never strapped his
niece’s breasts, not before they were married.
 
Being punished by
Daman as his wife
would
be different,
and to her mortification, possibly worse.

He sat down on the bed, his back straight
and his shoulders squared.
 
“Come
lay over my lap, Shana.
 
I’m going
to punish you like the naughty little girl you are.”

* * *

The sight of Shana’s
bare
bottom never failed to fire up Daman’s desire.
 
He rubbed one hand over her ass cheeks
and positioned her to his liking over his lap, wrapping one leg around hers to
prevent kicking.
 
He planned to
strap her butt and her thighs using most of his strength, and he didn’t want to
give her the chance to escape, lest he be forced to add additional strokes.

How she’d gotten it in her head to visit
the trading post was beyond him.
 
None of the men allowed their wives or daughters to travel the dangerous
roads.
 
Ever careful, Daman insured
the group he organized was heavily armed and remained vigilant through the
entire trip.
 
Outlaws had attacked
them on a handful of occasions, but none of the Jackson Settlement men had
suffered a casualty in years.
 
Daman
was blessed with a sixth sense when it came to danger, and the men in the
settlement respected him for leading them to and from the trading post with
nary a scratch.

Shana’s presence would be an immense
distraction.
 
All their lives would
be endangered if he couldn’t focus.
 
It was a risk he wasn’t willing to take, especially because he couldn’t
guarantee her safety.
 
The thought
of harm coming to Shana because of her own stubborn foolishness prompted a
resurgence of anger to boil his blood hotter than the mid-July sun.

He tightened his hold on her waist and
raised the strap.
 
It fell with a
resounding crack across her bottom cheeks.
 
Before the first red mark appeared, he swung the strap down, again and
again, covering her flesh from her lower thighs to the middle of her upturned
backside.
 
It didn’t take long for
her whimpers to turn to howls, but he kept on swinging.
 
He intended this lesson to be a memorable
one.
 
He paused near the end and
splayed her cheeks apart with one hand.
 
Setting the strap aside, he gathered moisture from her pussy with his
fingers, keeping her spread wide.

BOOK: Shana's Guardian
3.9Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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