On the Bare (13 page)

I jumped each time I felt his heavy palm, trying not to yelp, but unable to help it. He lectured me the whole time, emphasising each trigger word with a well-placed smack. Bad girl. Naughty. Punishment. It was excruciatingly erotic and I could feel myself writhing shamelessly in spite of myself.

It was no play-spanking, either. He laid it on with a will and my cries and whimpers were genuine. I could feel my flesh reddening under his palm and the pain only intensified the hot throbbing girlish longing.

Mr Sheridan paused and rested his hand on my bottom, stroking the tender flesh. Teasing me. My body was willing him to plunge his hand between my legs and end the torture, but that wasn’t part of his plan. Not yet.

After a short pause he began again, spanking me even harder. Now the stinging smacks made me kick and struggle and when I couldn’t take any more I reached behind to deflect his hand. He simply caught my wrist and pinned it in the small of my back, not breaking his rhythm for an instant.

‘No, young lady,’ he chided. ‘This is long overdue and you’re going to take what’s coming to you.’

With a shudder I reminded myself that I still had the caning to look forward to. I knew he’d stop if I really
insisted
. But those two deadly sins, pride and lust, wouldn’t allow me to consider it. I resolved to see it through to the reward at the end.

His hand rose and fell tirelessly, smacking me again and again, harder and harder. I wriggled and squirmed, but couldn’t escape the stinging smacks. I couldn’t keep silent and I was yelping loudly. What if someone heard? Mr Sheridan didn’t seem worried. I pictured Mr Wilson returning to his office, cocking his head at the sounds coming from next door. Perhaps he was used to this? Mr Sheridan’s very lack of concern was exciting and I sank even further into submission.

Finally, sensing my surrender, he stopped. He had to help me to my feet. I was panting and my face was almost as flushed as my backside. I desperately wanted to rub the stinging flesh, but I still had too much pride to make such a display of myself. My knickers were down around my ankles and I knew better than to replace them. This was only a warm-up, after all. The worst was yet to come.

‘Now then, Adams.’ He was all business. ‘I know that you have considerable ability and are capable of good work. But you need a little incentive. And a lot of discipline.’

He retrieved the cane from his desk and the sense of dread I felt as he cleaved the empty air with it took me right back to the schoolroom in Boston. I gasped and took a step back. I had to bite my lower lip to keep my traitorous tongue from pleading with him to spare me.

He turned the chair around and tapped the back of it with the end of the cane. ‘Over the chair,’ he directed. ‘Raise your skirt.’

It was as though the chair had invisible tendrils that reached out and pulled me to it. I bent down over the high back of it, mortified at the way it raised my bottom up so invitingly. I lifted my skirt up over my back as he had done. It was awful to have to do it myself and I lowered my head, putting my hands on the seat of the chair. It was warm from where he’d been sitting.

Mr Sheridan was behind me and he seemed in no hurry.
He
adjusted my shirttail, smoothing it over my skirt to hold it in place. He ran a hand over my sore backside.

I shivered and let out a little moan.

‘You will learn to apply yourself in my class. I put a great deal of work into teaching you, and I will tolerate nothing less than your best effort in return. Don’t you think that is fair?’

With that he tapped the cane against my backside. I flinched and tensed my bottom in anticipation. This was it. After five years, I was finally going to be caned.

‘I think I’d better ask you that again, Adams. Do you think it is fair?’

I’d thought it was a rhetorical question. ‘Yes, sir,’ I mumbled, drowning in the delicious misery of the moment. I had never felt so completely controlled by a man before. I didn’t want it to end.

‘Six strokes,’ he said. ‘You will count them aloud for me. Say “Thank you, sir” after each one.’

My God.

I felt the cane touch my bottom gently, then glide down over it and up again. It tapped, announcing exactly where it would strike, then rose. I felt rather than saw his arm lift behind me. Then there was the unmistakable
swoosh-thwack!
as it met my tender bottom at last.

For a moment I felt nothing. But a split second later the pain began to bloom in a thin stripe that burned so intensely it felt like ice. It swelled and swelled until it became unendurable and I cried out and leapt up, clutching my backside to soothe away the astonishing sting.

‘Back in position, girl,’ said Mr Sheridan impassively. ‘Next time you do that, it will earn you an extra stroke.’

I stared at him for a moment, horrified. Then I obeyed, gritting my teeth as I waited. The silence was stifling and I suddenly remembered.

‘One,’ I said, my voice a moan of shame. ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Very good.’

Tapping again, and then the same
swoosh-thwack!
The second stroke was even harder, but I forced myself to stay
down
. The white-hot sting eclipsed all other thoughts and I yelped and squirmed over the chair.

I had to take a deep breath before I could count. ‘Two. Thank you, s-sir.’ Oh, this was torture!

The third stroke fell precisely between the first two. His aim was unerring. And again the sensation was unbelievable. I cried out and gripped the edge of the chair to keep my hands in place. If I had been drunk on the intimate erotic power of the spanking, the cane had sobered me completely.

‘Three,’ I made myself say, loathing the tremor in my voice and the humiliation of the words. ‘Thank you, sir.’

I gritted my teeth and braced myself for the fourth stroke, which literally took my breath away. I nearly screamed as it seared another parallel stripe across my burning cheeks. I locked my knees and rose on my toes so I could lower my forehead to the seat of the chair. Breathing fast and shallow, I told myself I had only two more to go. Just two.

Just?

I resumed the position and counted dutifully. I was already learning that Mr Sheridan was not a man to be trifled with. Oh, yes, this would have made an impression on me as a teenager.

The fifth stroke brought tears to my eyes and I could barely keep from grabbing my poor backside. But the terror of even one extra stroke was enough to keep me in place. The revolutionary in me wanted to rebel, but the price was just too high. I bounced up and down on my heels, trying to overcome the agony. But the fire burned even deeper.

I heard my voice counting and it sounded like someone far away.

He delivered the sixth stroke, right in the crease between my bottom and my thighs. And I couldn’t help it – my hands left the seat of the chair and before I knew it I was dancing in place, clutching my poor punished backside and pleading for mercy. This time he got his display.

He shook his head sadly. ‘Back in position, Adams,’ he said. ‘And you were doing so well.’

My precious dignity was gone. ‘Oh, no, please, sir,’ I babbled. ‘Please, I can’t take any more!’

Mr Sheridan merely looked at me, indifferent to my suffering.

I had come so far. I had already taken six of the best. I had invested too much in this little powerplay to back out now.

With great reluctance and dread, I bent back over the chair. He took his time readjusting my skirt and shirttail before laying the cane against my bottom again, tapping it against the burning flesh.

‘Come on, girl,’ he said. ‘It’s nearly over. Make me proud.’

The words of encouragement were unexpected and they made me lift my head. I took hold of the chair seat and stared straight ahead.

At last he gave me the final stroke. It was harder than any of the original six, but I refused to cry out. I crossed my legs, bending at the knees, relishing the heady blend of pleasure and pain as I reconnected with the insistent warmth between my thighs.

‘Six,’ I panted at last. ‘Thank you, sir.’

His hand cupped my aching backside, just near the pantyline, where the worst stroke had fallen. The air around me resonated with electricity. I waited.

Then, moving like a dream spider, his hand crept closer inside. I arched slightly, inviting him with my silence. Another fraction of an inch. My skin prickled. I was trembling. Then I felt his touch. His fingertips grazed the silky dampness and I gasped.

I felt like a rippling reflection of myself and I needed the chair for support.

His voice was a distant echo, but there was another unmistakable sound: his zipper. He gently parted my thighs and I relaxed in his grip as he took hold of me from behind.

‘You see, even the most rebellious girls will surrender in the end,’ he murmured.

Oh, yes.

I went limp as he entered me, my head hanging down to the seat of the chair. I could see my knickers pooled on the floor beside my left foot. I shuddered with each thrust and I uttered soft little squeaks and whimpers as his pelvis slapped against the punished skin of my bottom.

Mr Sheridan entwined a hand in my hair and pulled me up until my back was parallel with the floor. I could just make out our silhouette reflected in the steel filing cabinet against the wall. A dark blur behind a white one. I tried to visualise us. The schoolmaster and his errant schoolgirl, her tie properly knotted, her knickers discarded, her bottom on fire. This was a painful lesson, but one I could see myself learning again. And again.

He pounded into me over and over until the pleasure overtook the pain and he clutched me tightly as he came. But my teacher wasn’t going to leave me unsatisfied. He drew his hands down the front of my body, spreading my legs and my sex with skilled fingers.

‘Have you learned your lesson, naughty girl?’

My body was ready to explode. ‘Oh, yes,’ I breathed, oblivious to everything but the storm of passion in my tingling flesh.

‘Yes
what
?’

He touched my clit and I gasped. That was all it took. The wave broke over me and I surrendered to the pulsing throbbing orgasm as he held me up. Without his support I would have slipped to the floor.

When the euphoria at last began to fade he turned me around. I stood before him in a daze, my eyes unfocused and dreamy.

He was smiling.

‘You see, you
can
learn to apply yourself.’ He patted my bottom and I winced, drawing a hissing breath through my teeth.

Too embarrassed to meet his eyes, I could do nothing but stand there and squirm.

His eyes glinted. ‘I think the American girl is finally learning that she can’t get her way in an English school.’

I had to admit defeat there. I couldn’t argue with the
effectiveness
of his methods. ‘You know, you’re the only man in the world I’ve ever called “sir”.’ I shook my head, still marvelling that he had humbled me so completely.

‘How typically American,’ he said, amused but not surprised.

‘I know, I know, I’m a spoiled ex-colonial.’ And I couldn’t resist adding, ‘But we did defeat you and escape your stifling rule, if you recall.’

‘Ah, that,’ he said with a grin. ‘That was just a tantrum by a rebellious daughter colony. But she knows where to turn for guidance when she’s overstepped the mark. And there are still times when her excesses need to be curbed.’

I blushed and looked down at the floor, savouring the thought.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now about that essay …’

Damsel in Distress

‘
HOLD ON NOW
, miss. I’ve got you.’

Charlie whimpered, tightening her arms around the big man’s neck as he lifted her effortlessly from the hiking trail. She’d torn the knees of her jeans in the fall and she watched blood flecks blossom like tiny flowers on her rescuer’s shirt where her scraped knees rested against his chest. She pressed closer to his warm bulk and closed her eyes against the comforting rhythm of his pace.

‘Not far now,’ he assured her, panting.

She liked his Old West drawl and she felt secure as a child in the cradle of his arms as he carried her down the trail and back to the car park. The perfect ending to her twenty-first birthday.

‘It’s the red Mercedes,’ she said, nodding towards the gleaming convertible sitting in the shade of a tour bus.

He set her gently on her feet and she hobbled to the door to unlock the car. Slowly she manoeuvred herself into the driver’s seat, favouring her right leg.

‘Are you sure you want to drive?’ he asked doubtfully. ‘Maybe you should have someone look at that ankle.’

‘No, it’s OK, I’m all right.’

‘They probably have first aid stuff at the Visitor Centre. It’d be no trouble to take you over there.’

‘That’s very sweet, but I’ll be fine now. My hotel isn’t far.’ She fixed him with an intense gaze, her green eyes sparkling. ‘You saved my life.’

The big man turned bashful, looking at the ground and
grinning
faintly. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Easy enough for me with a little thing like you.’

Charlie returned his grin, pressing her legs together against a flash of warmth as she gave him a last appraising look. His well muscled arms gleamed with sweat from the effort of pulling her back up onto the path and carrying her for half a mile. Even her slight weight had winded him and she felt a little guilty for the trouble she’d put him to.

As she pulled out onto the highway she abandoned her pretence of injury, flooring the accelerator to get back to the hotel room so she could relive the moment in private.

Charlie liked to be rescued. She had been carried down from mountains after countless hiking, skiing and climbing accidents – some of them genuine. She’d been pulled from a few rivers too. Once she had even gone into a burning building purely so she could be slung over a fireman’s shoulder and carried to safety.

She thrived on the feeling of helplessness, enhanced by the competence of her rescuers. Whether she was actually hurt or not, she would play her role, wincing and groaning as appropriate, while her saviour gathered her in his arms and delivered her from danger. Occasionally he would scold her, admonishing her careless behaviour. Blushing and squirming, Charlie would bat her eyes and promise to be good, though more often than not she was already plotting her next adventure.