Page 228 of Wild Mustang Security Firm

The way she’d colored up for even his milder swats meant obviously it had been a while since Avery’s last spanking. Thatwould either work to his advantage or add to the problem. He hoped for the former but was more than prepared to deal with the latter if need be.

“Yes, Sir,” she said, swallowing back tears.

He was glad to hear the honorarium come without prompting. “I’m sorry too. Do you know why?”

Hiccupping, she shook her head. “No, Sir.”

“I’m sorry because I really didn’t want to spank you”—he felt her body stiffen and every instinct he owned keyed into that, as well as how she reacted when he finished—“until after we’d talked.”

Her body did not relax. She lay across his knee, her hands closed up in tight fists where he held her wrists pinned at the small of her back.

“About what?” she said, without a single emotional inflection to help him gauge what she was feeling. That in itself told him plenty.

“About the fact that I’ve been wanting you for a very long time now, but I didn’t think for a second you would be interested in someone who isn’t as dominant as, say, Noah. But when I recognized you and Casey were one and the same…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Let’s just say it’s a good thing I didn’t catch up with you in the parking lot. If I had, little girl, you would not have any doubt in your mind over whether or not I’d really spank you.”

Very subtly, the stiffness in her eased. She cocked her head, though not far enough for him to fully see her face. “R-really?”

“Really do I want you, or really would I have spanked you in the middle of the rodeo parking lot?” he countered with a quirk of a smile. He gave her bottom a fond rub and a pat. “Because I promise, honey, Noah has been encouraging me to go after you for months, and I more than promise that if I’d caught you last night before you’d made it to your car, Casey the Clown wouldhave been de-pantsed for ‘his’ second show of the evening. It’s anybody’s call which the audience would have talked about more.”

She didn’t move, but the one eye that he could see was huge, fixed, and staring at the sofa cushion before her as she digested that tidbit of information. Her bright red bottom clenched beneath his caressing hand. It made him smile.

He patted her again. Time to finish this; the end of her very first spanking from him and the ritual that, if he got his way, she would come to know extremely well.

“Do you understand why Daddy had to spank you?” he asked, letting the drift of his open hand lazily caress from the backs of her thighs to the top of her cherry-hot bottom, up and down, from side to side—a gentle, loving reminder that he didn’t have to be done if she wasn’t yet ready for him to stop. “Baby girl, I think you’ve been risking your neck as a way to compensate for what you really want, and that’s a relationship with a dominant who won’t let you get away with all the sass and belligerence you just gave me, isn’t that right?”

Wilting, Avery bowed her head. She sniffled again. “Yes, Sir.”

“Do you understand that you could have avoided this spanking altogether, if only you hadn’t talked back and gotten snarky with me?”

Her hands, still caught in the grip of his, tightened into fists again. Her bottom squirmed under his hand. “Yes, Sir.”

“If you’re ready to be a good girl, then I want you to sit up on Daddy’s lap so we can talk about the things we need to discuss face to face. Do you think you can do that?”

“Yes, D-Daddy,” she whispered, fumbling over the word.

“There’s a good girl.” He helped her to stand, pausing long enough to strip her the rest of the way out of her jeans and rendering her naked from the waist down, before settling her on his lap again. He had to suppress his grin when she winced.

Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her close. She resisted letting him tuck her head onto his shoulder, but only at first. She was the smallest thing, huddled up against him, every muscle in her little body tense and beginning to tremble, as if any minute she might shatter into a million pieces.

“It’s okay,” he told her, stroking her hair and rubbing her back. And as if that permission were all that she was waiting for, Avery, the strongest, most capable woman he’d ever known, flung her arms around him and burst into great, gulping tears that sounded as though they came from the depths of her soul.

“It’s okay,” he whispered again, rocking her back and forth, whispering and nuzzling, letting her feel his strength and gentleness, forcing her to accept his reassurance and dominance. Thom wasn’t sure how long he held her or how long she cried; he just knew he needed to provide that comfort as much as she needed to accept it.

When her sobs finally dwindled back to sniffles and hiccups, he reached for the handkerchief in his back pocket. Helping her compose herself, he dried her eyes and even held it to her nose, refusing to let her take it from him before she, blushing all the way up to the roots of her hair, blew her nose.

“Better?” he asked, kissing her temple.

She nodded.

“Words, Avery.”

Her fingers fidgeted in the hem of her shirt, though she didn’t try to tug it down far enough to cover to her pretty little pussy from view. “Yes, Daddy.”

“You’re not in trouble anymore. I know we kind of took several presumptive leaps forward in this relationship which you haven’t yet agreed we’re going to have, but when you aren’t in trouble, you don’t have to call me Sir or Daddy. Unless, of course, you want to, in which case that will make me very happy.”

Her brow furrowed, and she stared at her knees but didn’t say anything.

“Ready to answer some questions? I expect some might be uncomfortable to answer, but I also expect you to be brutally honest with me. Can you do that?”

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