Page 32 of On His Ranch

Piper met his eyes, but instead of the ashamed, contrite girl he was expecting, the anger on her face had just intensified. “So what?” she demanded, raising her voice again. Before he could answer, she walked toward him, her foot lashed out, and she knocked over his pail, too.

Chapter 7

If he’d asked, she would have pleaded insanity. Not that she thought she would get the chance to say anything at all.

She didn’t know why she’d done it, really. She’d been nothing but a mass of tense nerves ever since he’d murmured the words,“You called me Daddy.”She’d felt every single one of them reverberate through her, from the top of her head right down to her hot, wet sex.

Piper had tried to act casual, had maybe even succeeded at her game of pretend. But then he’d mentioned her narrow escape yesterday with the gunshot, those dark, probing eyes on her and not missing a thing. She couldn’t help but feel like her secrets were exposed to him, and she didn’t like it one bit.

So she’d acted out, and now he was standing, his six-one figure looming over her. His arms were hanging heavy at his sides, and the thin line of his mouth combined with his flashing eyes told her she was about to suffer the consequences.

“Pants down,” he ordered.

Fleetingly, she thought of disobeying. She could beg, plead with him for forgiveness. But on cue her thighs tingled, and remembering what disobedience had gotten her yesterday, she haltingly pulled down her jeans.

Taking her by the arm, Chase held her on the spot while his other hand flew against her bared bottom delivering sharp, fast spanks that quickly heated her orbs.

“Please!” she screeched, her hand trying to go behind her and cover her bare skin. She got it smacked hard for her trouble and quickly yanked it back in front of her. “I’m sorry!”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word,” Chase said, his words measured as he continued to swat her smarting cheeks. “But by the time we’re through, I promise you will.”

Piper knew he was a man of his word and could do nothing but moan and drum her feet while he spanked. When he stopped and released her, her hands flew to her sore rear.

“Don’t touch,” he snapped, glaring. “We aren’t even close to through. Now you get to go pick yourself a switch.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You… you were serious about that?”

“Keep dawdlin’ and you’ll get a taste of my belt,” he warned.

“But, Chase, I can’t walk out there like this—”

“Alright.” His hands went to his waist. He pulled the brown leather tongue out of the buckle.

“I’m going, just a second, please!” Piper quickly shucked her jeans and panties, stepping out of them. She was more exposed this way, but she could move faster if she didn’t have to waddle. She practically flew out of the barn, trying to move so quickly that it didn’t even occur to her to try to run. After all, how far would she get without pants?

Not to mention, it was embarrassing enough just walking the ranch worried that she’d see Senior at any moment—or worse… Patti. As quickly as she could, she stopped at a tree with low-hanging branches. She selected a fistful of sticks, yanking them from the tree. Unfortunately, the bough swung up and away, then back again. Piper had only managed to get a couple of switches and she didn’t want to risk them not being good enough. It was humiliating enough to be sent outside half-naked once.

So she waited, ass cheeks clenched while she looked nervously from side to side as the bough shook. Finally, it was still enough for her to reach up and grab a few more. She pulled harder this time and was rewarded with three more switches. Breathing a long sigh of relief, she raced back to the barn, unable to resist one more look over her shoulder.

“That was fast,” Chase remarked. “Well, let’s see them.”

She was flushed, both from the excursion and the embarrassment, so she stuck her hand out toward him without comment.

“Uh-uh. You need to clean them off first.”

“What?” She looked from the sticks and foliage in her hand back to him.

“You have to take all the leaves off first. Have a seat.” He nodded toward the stool next to his workbench. “While you do that, I need to make up for lost time.”

He didn’t offer any other explanation or even look to see that she obeyed before he took a seat in front of the cow she’d been milking. He righted the pail and began to milk the cow, the sharp pings echoing one after the other as he did.

Hmph.She stomped over to the workbench and threw the sticks down. She rebelliously decided to stand as she worked, having a giant pity party inside her head.It’s not fair. I can’t believe I stopped here to catch a nap and ended up in this nightmare. If I’d have known that this would happen, I would have kept moving, sore feet be damned!

Piper stamped her foot in frustration, but a quick glance at Chase showed him hard at work and, it seemed, completely unaware of her. Why did that make her even angrier for some reason?

“If you finish before I do, you can just take yourself on over to that corner over there and stand in it,” the cowboy spoke up.

She flushed with humiliation.Okay. Maybe I should have been happy with him ignoring me after all.“No, thank you,” she murmured politely.

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