Under His Hand Read online

  Okay, she got it. This had to be about his job, which called for extended, unbroken focus, and if he was worried about her, he might falter at a very deadly task. Given the life-or-death scenarios he faced, the last thing she wanted to do was distract him. She’d let him down, wronged him by disobeying a very specific request. If he felt that strongly about this, then fine. He wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that.

  Best to get it over with.

  She turned and climbed the stairs with far more reluctance than she’d shown on her way down. Drew sat on the bed in her room, his eyes closed, his back to the wall, one leg stretched out in front of him, the other pulled up. His arm rested on his bent knee, the hand dangling forward while the other hand lay on his thigh. A wide swath of moonlight illuminated his face and body, and she saw the tendons of his hands running under skin dusted with fine, white-blond hair. Three knuckles were bruised, nothing unusual.

  His hands had fascinated her from their first meeting—on a brilliantly sunny, San Diego, late winter day after a storm, when the surf pounded the beach in waves the length and height of tractor-trailers and the sand was damp from rain. Drawn to the crash of the surf and the clouds scudding across the sky, she’d spent the entire day sculpting an enormous, whimsical castle complete with thick walls, a moat, drawbridges, and turrets with gargoyles, perched atop a mound of sand carved into unassailable cliffs. Late in the afternoon several surfers who’d survived despite their death wish stopped to examine her work.

  Drew was one of them. A couple inches under six feet, he was so leanly muscled that in his unzipped wet suit she could see veins, tendons, ligaments running under his skin. It was his hands she’d watched, however, as he and his friends circled the castle, sizing up the fanciful structure before identifying weak points and strategizing an attack. Nicks, scabs and scars covered his long, tapering fingers and the backs of his hands, while his palms and fingertips bore calluses from physical use. His hands skimmed over the packed sand, almost but not quite touching the painstakingly molded shapes as he argued with a buddy about climbing techniques. Muscles roped around his wrists and forearms, and his biceps, triceps, deltoid, trapezius and abdominal muscles flexed and released under his skin.

  Any San Diego-raised girl knew navy when she saw it. Marriage-minded girls could pick out officers blocks away. After three years of bartending near the base, Tess correctly guessed rank with nine out of ten guys, and knew the SEALs from the wannabes. Drew was the real deal, and guys like him, with their pick of the beach bunnies, normally didn’t give her the time of day. But he’d looked at her, then at the castle, then back at her again.

  “You did this?”

  She surveyed seven hours of work that would wash away with the next rain, and shrugged. “Yes.”

  “Nobody helped you?”

  “No.”

  He took in her rolled up jeans with the muddy knees, her bare, dirty feet with bright purple toenails matching the purple streaks in her blonde-for-now hair, windblown from two braids, her shapeless hoodie sweater. His eyes showed a frank interest her petite, semi-Goth self rarely attracted.

  “Impressive.”

  After a murmured conversation he transferred his board to a buddy. She stood silently next to him and watched his friends load up their trucks and leave.

  She smiled at him, ready to play the game that would put him in his place at arm’s length. “How are you going to get back to the base?”

  He squinted into the setting sun, then at the nearly empty parking lot, then finally at her. A quirky grin crossed his face. “I was hoping if I bought you dinner you’d give me a ride.”

  “I’d think about it, except I don’t have a car.”

  This time she spoke without a hint of emotion, as if his unexpected invitation hadn’t sent a secret thrill through her. In return she expected disbelief, irritation, even a bit of blame for being so pathetic as to ride the bus. Instead, he threw back his head and laughed at himself, at her, at life, it didn’t matter, because she was done. With his self-deprecating sense of humor and deft, confident hands, he’d won this round.

  While she stood beside him and tried not to gawk at his hands or the gorgeous, anatomy-textbook planes of his torso, he pulled a cell phone out of his backpack and sent a quick text message. Then he introduced himself, helped her rinse her tools and pack them in the canvas tote that held the trash from her picnic lunch. Almost right away a black truck and a red sports car pulled into the nearly empty parking lot. Silent and efficient, a bulky bald guy got out of the truck, tossed a set of keys to Drew and slidt into the passenger seat of the sports car. With a spray of gravel and mud the red vehicle zoomed back onto the highway.

  He palmed the keys and looked at her. “Mexican? Thai? Italian? Your choice.”

  Game over.

  “Well?”

  The brusque question called her back from the windy day by the ocean to the stifling confines of her bedroom, and the black-clad man waiting silently on her bed.

  She spoke in an even, measured tone of voice intended to hide the exasperation simmering inside her. “I get it. You asked me not to do something. I did it, anyway. That was disrespectful. If we’re going to be together I can’t be a burden while you’re…working. In the future I’ll do whatever it takes to stay as safe as possible. And if you need to…spank me…to work this out, I’m ready.”

  There. An admission of guilt plus the proper recognition for his demanding career. That ought to do it.

  After another snort of disbelief, he opened his eyes and turned his he, fixing her with an uncompromising look. “You think I’m doing this for me? Wrong, Tess. Your apology was sincere. I trust you won’t do this again. The spanking is for you.”

  Exasperation exploded into slitty-eyed irritation. “I cannot believe you think I need—”

  His lifted hand cut off her words, then he turned his wrist and beckoned her forward. “You said you were ready. Come here.”

  The temper that got her screamed at, or worse, in every foster home she’d lived in surged red-hot in her throat, but she drew breath, closed her eyes and let it out as she counted to ten. He had a point. She didn’t get his point, but dominating or hurting her wasn’t the issue. She knew that. “Fine, fine. Let’s just get this over with,” she muttered under her breath as she stepped through the doorway and stalked toward the bed.

  A hint of a smile danced around the corners of his mouth before the beckoning hand switched to the closed fist meaning halt. “Take off your top.”

  The heat in his eyes and his intractable tone flipped a switch in her brain. All the confused protests tumbling around in her rational mind sputtered in a crackle of static, then shut off, but her body reacted automatically. She tugged the wet, clinging fabric over her head and let the shirt drop to the floor as she bent forward.

  While she’d intended nothing more than using her hair to hide the aroused flush flooding her cheekbones, a hitch in Drew’s even breathing as he beckoned to her again told her he wasn’t immune to her downcast eyes and nearly naked body. Her hair fell dark against the upper swells of her breasts, and her white panties stood out even against her pale skin. As politically incorrect as it was, she couldn’t blame her thudding heart and watery knees on nerves alone. The stark reality was she was all but naked as she crawled up onto the bed to accept his punishment for her disobedience, and her female, animal body seemed to be operating on an entirely different frequency from her rational brain. Sheer erotic arousal pumped through her veins.

  Drew lifted his hands out of the way so she could lie facedown across his lap in a strange, awkward and more than a little embarrassing alignment of their bodies.

  “Move forward,” he said, his voice soft yet firm.

  In response to his command she shimmied forward, centering her bottom directly over his thighs. His discarded black watchman’s cap lay a few inches away. She gathered it to her and rested her face on her folded forearms as images of how this looked flashed against the movie screen of h
er mind. Mostly naked, over his lap, her bottom perfectly situated for swats.

  “Pull down your panties.”

  Red, telling heat bloomed in her cheeks at the thought of reaching back and baring her bottom for him. The pendulum of her emotions swung wildly between a rather disturbing excitement and sheer vexation. She clenched her teeth to bite back a furious response, then turned her face away from him and reached back to hook her thumbs in the elastic edge of the string bikini briefs. With a little squirming and some help from him, she got her panties down, lifting just enough to let him tug the soaked panel from between her legs. She expected him to slide them down and off, but he left the white fabric at midthigh.

  He stroked his palm over the curve of first one cheek, then the other, the touch soft, gentle, so seductive she let out her breath in a trembling rush, and with the exhalation, melted into his powerful thighs. A lush blend of arousal, embarrassment and nerves made her wiggle her hips in a figure-eight on his lap. When she made contact with his erection, hard and ready against his fly, his hand tightened briefly on her ass.

  “Let’s try again. Why did you leave the windows open?”

  Fuck counting to ten. For that matter, fuck him! Hot, aroused, sweating, confused and emotionally reeling, she sucked in air and pushed up onto her hands and knees. “Damn it, Drew!” she all but shouted as she turned to look at him. “You know why!”

  The muscles in his arm flexed as the hand at the small of her back forced her flat, then crack! A resounding smack landed on the left side of her bottom. Tess jumped and yelped as fire spread from the point of impact.

  “Wrong answer.”

  “Drew, you can’t—”

  Crack! She yelped again, a shock wave of pain blistering through her ass.

  “Whatever you think I can’t do, I can. The windows, Tess. Why?”

  If he intended to keep this up until he got the answer he wanted, she could see the benefit of coming around to his point of view. The only problem was she didn’t know what he wanted her to say, and she told him that.

  Crack! “Think about it, Tess,” he said, with a low, peremptory chuckle. “Take as long as you need.”

  He was amused? “You…you…jerk!”

  The crack of flesh against flesh ricocheted around her bedroom. She jumped again, felt his hand spread in warning against her lower back, and muffled her startled cry in her folded arms.

  It hurt.

  Another measured smack landed in the same place, flat on her bottom. Raw sensation expanded in pulsar waves as he moved to the other cheek and administered five smacks there. A hot ache swelled and spread, much as pleasure did during long, lazy afternoons in bed. He switched sides again, settling into a methodical pace, not so hard and rapid that she felt battered in either body or soul, yet not slow and light enough for her to surface from the pain of each smack’s sharp impact.

  He worked at his task while she twitched and wriggled with each stroke, gripping his cap and trying to choke back the gasps fluttering from her throat. The weight of his hand near her center of gravity anchored her, body and soul. The strength of his thighs under her stomach and legs, the solidity of his abdomen at her side all kept her focused on the painful, erotically charged, emotionally laden moment.

  What the hell was this all about if it wasn’t about her dogged independence and how that affected him? She wouldn’t do it again. He trusted her to keep her word, and he was certainly keeping his. He’d said he would spank her, and here she was, naked and facedown on her quilt, while his relentless hand moved from cheek to cheek and he steadfastly ignored her stifled yelps, which threatened to become sobs as the stinging grew to burning. Despite the undeniable sexy undertone, she knew this wasn’t his first choice of activities on his first night home. He could have ignored the windows, the broken air conditioner and her crushing financial strain in favor of simple sex, pizza delivery and sleep. He could have yelled at her and left. Worse, he could have just turned around in the street.

  But here he was. Doing what he’d said he’d do.

  He hadn’t left when he found the evidence of her disobedience. He’d stayed, and as painful as it was, he’d kept his word. He’d stayed.

  He would stay. No matter what she did.

  The smacks continued inexorably, but realization broke through the burgeoning ache. Deep down, she’d doubted his commitment. She thought he would disappear for real, not because he was mobilized. He’d just leave one day and not come back. Like her father, and then her mother. If she goaded him into it, then she could control when it happened.

  That’s why she’d needed the spanking, both for her lack of trust, and as physical proof that he would keep his word. She could trust him to give her what he said he would. What she needed.

  “I get it,” she gasped over the rhythmic slaps. “I get it! Drew, please!”

  His hand came to rest again on her now stinging, heated bottom, leaving an expectant, vibrant silence. Slowly, carefully, she relaxed her taut, quivering muscles, subsiding into his lap, but while the muscle tension eased, liquid flame burned in her swollen, wet folds. He reached out and gathered her hair in his hand, sending it spilling over her shoulder. Surprised by the temperate touch, she turned her face and looked back at him.

  “Why did you leave the windows open?” he asked gently.

  The truth hurt. It really, really did. More than her ass, in fact. “Because I wanted to see what you’d do if I did.”

  “Even though I told you what I’d do.” He wasn’t asking. He knew. He’d known before she even walked into her bedroom.

  There was a time and place for obstinate defiance. This wasn’t it. “Yes.”

  “And what did you learn, Tess?” His voice was so soft and open she could hardly believe it came from the same man who’d purposefully paddled her into next week.

  “To trust you.” She took a deep breath and let it rush out onto the thin quilt under her hot cheek. “I learned you always keep your word.”

  “Always.” The single word hummed with the unshakable confidence of a United States Navy SEAL. “You tell me to go and I’m gone. But you can’t make me abandon you because you act up.” He caressed her stinging butt. “You can earn yourself another spanking, no problem. But I’m here for the duration.”

  She let out another shuddering sigh as his words sank deep into her psyche, absolution and commitment rushing in to replace fear and abandonment. But her body still had a pressing need for relief. Undulating on his lap generated a sharp, longing twinge when her pubic bone made contact with his hard thigh. She’d never felt this way before, never had urgent, immediate desire thumping under her skin while she lay limp and pliable against his hard body. Soft give and sharp need melting together, and oh, how she wanted him to assuage the ache between her thighs.

  Possessive admiration softened the line of his jaw as Drew slowly scanned her from toes to calves to thighs, lingering at her ass before sliding his gaze up the length of her spine, to her brown hair draped around her sweaty shoulders, then to her face. She didn’t turn away, but let the heat throbbing in her bottom reflect in her eyes as she lifted her butt against his hand.

  Admiration gave way to molten lust. “You want me to finish this,” he said, but he wasn’t asking.

  All she could do was nod.

  He raised his hand and she closed her eyes again, but this time she lifted into the stroke that fell not on the marked, throbbing skin, but rather on the soft inner curve where her buttocks met her thighs. The blow, lighter than the others but carefully placed, sent a sharp shard of heat flashing into her pussy. Once again she jumped and gasped, but even to her own ears the gasp wasn’t one of pain, or shock, but the sound she made when he flicked his tongue against her clit. Which was exactly how this felt, except from the inside out. It felt as if he’d struck sparks in her clit, and the tender flesh swelled in demand.

  She peered over her shoulder again. His eyes locked with hers and he deliberately raised his hand, landing another smack
in the same place, but on the opposite cheek. Sharp, swift pleasure speared through her. The slap was different, the landing spot different, the sensations different, the moan different. Deeper. Throatier. Could have been lust, could have been pain.

  He paused. “Too much?”

  Yes, but oh, so good. “Don’t stop,” she groaned, winding her fingers through the hair gathered at the nape of her neck before she buried her face in her arm again.

  His cock pulsed hard against her hip bone before his hand fell. The pace was slower, giving the pleasure time to build through the fire that exploded with each crack of his hand against her bottom. She found herself rocking back into each stroke, waiting for each one to fall, focusing on the ache expanding in her throbbing clit. The soles of her feet burned, and her nipples rubbed against the worn cotton quilt as she gasped and writhed under each blow.

  Finally, when the ache threatened to destroy her, when she teetered on the edge of all-consuming pleasure, a smack landed that detonated the burgeoning heat. Orgasm flashed bright inside her and rolled to the tips of her fingers and toes as she threw her head back and let out a soft, high-pitched moan.

  When she could rouse herself she felt his hands stroking her back, bottom and thighs. Little tingles chased through the steady pulsations in her ass. She let her arms fall beside her face, gathered her strength and pushed back. As she moved, he pulled her panties off, then put his hands under her elbows to help her upright, supporting her but letting her situate herself as she pleased.

  What pleased her was to straddle his lap, carefully ease her bottom back against his thighs, and look him right in the eye while she tucked her hair behind her ears, wiped at her own eyes with the heels of her hands, licked her swollen lips. He watched each movement, then cupped her cheek and brushed his thumb over her mouth. He threaded his hand through her hair and pulled her down for a hot, swift kiss, his tongue flickering over her lips until she softened against him.