Page 26 of Taming His Brat

Course he’d already done that and so far, it hadn’t gone well. He sighed as he climbed in beside her and pulled her back against him. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled the sweet smell of strawberries from the shampoo she used. The scent of her relaxed him.

He was bone tired and he wanted to sleep, but his mind kept whirling, looking for solutions to his problems. Most of them seemed, at least at the moment, unsolvable, but he did at least work out her punishment before he finally dropped off much later than normal.

When the alarm went off just a few hours later, he was tempted to shut it off and go back to sleep. His second was experienced and would cover if he wasn’t there. Now and then it did happen that he was late for some reason and when that occurred, Ben had always stepped in to parcel out the assignments with no lapse in authority.

Sometimes Sam wondered if he couldn’t step back from such a heavy schedule and let Ben take over more responsibilities. The older man knew what he was doing and could easily run things without Sam, but it wasn’t really his style to let other people shoulder his work, so he sat up and yawned.

Next to him Charlie had somehow managed to steal most of the covers, and yet still her leg from foot to thigh was bare and exposed. He reached over and settled his hand on her warm skin at the ankle and then slid it all the way up to her ass. He gave one cheek a gentle squeeze and then he followed it up with a hard smack that made it bounce.

It startled her awake and she rolled over wide-eyed. “What!”

He tucked away the grin at her shocked response. “Time to get up, kid.”

She squinted; a look of confusion crossed her face. “Wait… why? I’m not working today.” She could also have pointed out that she rarely went in when he did. She preferred later mornings and was usually still sleeping when he headed to the barn. Contrary to popular belief, not all ranchers were morning people and Charlie proved that.

But little girls who were being punished didn’t get to stroll in after sleeping late as far as he was concerned. “You are now, yeah. You missed yesterday remember? Besides some hard work will help make up for going behind my back on the construction.”

Her mouth dropped open and then snapped shut with a huffing sound. She might have argued if she’d been more awake, not that it would have done her any good.

“You’ve got twenty minutes to be dressed and ready to go. Or else.” He didn’t bother to define the ‘or else’; she’d find out or she wouldn’t. In the meantime, he left her pouting on the bed and went to start the coffee. As usual he’d forgotten to set it up the night before, so it took him a few minutes to get it going.

He pretended not to notice when he saw her crossing to the bathroom out of the corner of his eye, but he kept his eye on the clock. When it hit twenty after and the shower was still running, he shook his head, grabbed a long wooden spoon from the drawer and headed in to drag her out.

They werenoton time to work, but they did get there eventually, and Charlie didn’t offer any backtalk when she got her assignments even though he’d given her the shit jobs—literally.

Chapter Nine

Charlie didn’t remember falling asleep. They’d been sitting in front of the fire and she’d zoned out, happy in his arms and relaxed. Next thing she knew she was being startled awake by a blazing hard spank on her ass—which was still sore from the day before.

Confused and disoriented, she’d just stared at him when he said she was going in to work with him. She didn’t bother to argue. When Sam decided something, he usually stuck to it, especially when it came to punishment. The fact that she hated early mornings was probably factored in as part of it.

She couldn’t say she didn’t deserve it, but that didn’t mean she was happy about it. The plan for her day had involved sleeping in, and then maybe heading up to the big house for brunch with her mom after a long hot shower. Instead, she was getting a short shower so she could go out in the bitter cold morning to work.

Ugh.

She knotted her hair up to keep it dry. No sense washing it and then going out in the cold; it would freeze. But the hot water was nice, and she lost track of time as she stood in the clouds of steam and tried to wake up.

She should have taken the time limit seriously. It was just that she was enjoying the shower and didn’t really think a few minutes would matter. She was often late to one place or another and Sam would growl but most of the time he didn’t get too annoyed.

Things tended to be different when she was already in trouble and that had slipped her mind. Lost in the heat, the sudden blast of cool air as the bathroom door swung open caught her by surprise. It was quickly followed by an uh-oh feeling as she realized she might be in trouble. “I’m almost d—”

But by then he’d yanked back the curtain and had caught her by one arm as his free hand began to pepper her wet butt with dozens of stinging smacks. The shower was still running, and he took advantage of that, turning her to rewet the skin under the spray before giving her another round with the wooden spoon.

It stung like sitting on a fire ant hill and she screeched. There was plenty of twisting and turning as she tried to evade the burning strokes. The spoon was heavy and solid, and the laminate sealant that kept bacteria from soaking in also made it extra stingy. On top of the belt welts from the day before it was anything but pleasant.

She danced around trying to keep her backside to the shower wall so he couldn’t reach it, but he just slapped the outside of her thighs, which were also tender, until she turned on her own. Her nice relaxing shower morphed into a ten-minute workout that involved bending, twisting, and running in place. It had, if nothing else, woken her up.

It was probably a good thing he kept a tight grip on her the whole time, or she might have slipped during the calisthenics. As it was, she was sniffling and spilling real tears before he finally shut off the water and helped her out. Her bottom lip was stuck in a pout, but the gentle way he dried her off did a lot to soothe her.

She tried to take the towel, but he pushed her hands away. “I’ll do it,” he said, as he rubbed the skin dry. He was gentle when he got to the freshly spanked spots and only patted them with a soft touch. She was grateful for that because her rump was throbbing and pulsing from the nasty spoon.

She wasn’t fond of wooden implements on the best of days. Leather could be sexy, but wood was almost never anything but punishment as far as she was concerned. That spoon was going to meet its end in the fireplace one night, and she’d face the consequences for it, but it would be worth it to see it burn up.

Thinking gleefully about its destruction, combined with his gentle care, did help her calm down and by the time he set the towel aside her pout had diminished. She liked it when he took control and took care of her. In some ways it made her feel more like she belonged to him than being held down and spanked did.

So, she stood there and let her eyes drift shut as he patted her down. When he was finished, she had gotten past the attitude and was ready to behave herself again.

“Go get dressed and no more stalling. We’re running late now.” It sounded like he was going for stern, but the order had a loving tone underneath and she couldn’t resist brushing her lips across his before she hurried to the bedroom to grab her clothes.

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