He didn’t even want children. He’d always known he wouldn’t have any. The world was too cruel, too mercurial, to bring something as vulnerable as a child into it. No, he wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t even consider it. Still, he wondered what her children would look like. Serious girls with her sweet face and smart mind.
Dumb boys who needed their mother to keep them in line because their father would rather play with them. Like he hadn’t been able to play as a child.
He shook off the ridiculous maudlin thoughts.
“Don’t spank her too hard,” Damon said, his eyes going back to Weston. He was cleaning up his scene space, his spine perfectly straight and not a hint of expression on his face. Poor bugger seemed to have fallen for the wrong girl.
Of course, he could say the same thing for his Penelope. She’d fallen for the wrong man. At least he thought she’d fallen for him. Sometimes he couldn’t tell. Sometimes he thought she might be perfectly happy to get rid of him at the end of the operation.
Until he commanded her to come to him and she went with such open willingness that he felt like fucking her was finally being home. Sliding into her body was like finding his place in the world.
Ian ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I know. We have to get on the boat tomorrow and I need her fully functional. I thought this would be fun, man.” He huffed a little. “I thought it would be like a second honeymoon. Then you have to fuck it all up by having a crazy stalker asshole. Kill him when you get the chance because it’s screwing with my sex life.”
Trust Tag to make him chuckle. Still, it was easy to see the man had changed. He gave a damn about the people around him. Damon remembered when he was cold, calculating. Tag laughed now. He joked. He had a life.
Was there a life out there for him, too?
“What scene are you running tonight with blondie there? By the way, you look lovely, dear.” For all Tag’s crudeness, he’d always been kind to subs.
“Thank you, Sir.” Her arms tightened around his legs. “Was I not supposed to talk? Are we in high protocol?”
He hadn’t spent enough time with her. He knew it. He’d spent all his time getting his cock inside her and not enough time preparing her. “Calm down, love. We’re going in as a fairly new couple. Ian and Charlotte are going to pose as our sponsors. If anyone asks, we’re still feeling our way. It means that we might have to go to some of the seminars.”
Tag snorted a little. “I can’t wait to see you in Protocol 101 or Plug Your Sub’s Ass in Ten Easy Ways.”
“Why on earth would they want to make it easy?” A good plugging should be work.
“What?” Penelope’s head came off his lap.
He eased her back down. Actually, it might be fun to shock her a bit. “I signed us up for Extreme Figging.”
“I know what that is, Damon. You are not shoving ginger up my bum.”
They had to get a few things straight. He might not have spent enough time with her, but he’d been very plain in his rules. One of them was never to tell him what he couldn’t do, and certainly not in his own bloody club. “Over my lap right now.”
Her head came up, a gorgeous pout on her mouth. “I’m sorry, Master. I meant to say that I don’t think I would enjoy having ginger shoved up my bum and could we please talk about it?”
Not working on him. “If that’s what you meant, then that’s what you should have said. Do I treat you with disrespect in front of our friends? Do you know the rules about how to act when we’re on a dungeon floor?”
She nodded, already sniffling a little. God, she was beautiful. “Yes.”
“What will happen if you do that on the boat?”
“Damn it.” She shook her head. “And now I cursed. It would blow our cover or at the very least draw unwanted attention to us. I’m sorry, Damon.”
“I’m not going to spank you for cursing, love. It would be the height of hypocrisy. I curse quite a bit myself, but try to keep it to a minimum while we’re working and certainly when we’re playing. And yes, it would draw attention to us. So over my lap. It’s a count of twenty.”
“But I apologized.”
“And you can do so again after you’ve received my discipline.” He kept his tone quiet but firm. She was nervous about being in public. He knew damn well she wasn’t scared of the bloody spanking. He’d spanked her several times and every one ended in his cock up her cunt and her screaming out his name. No. She was looking around. Just because Charlotte had talked her into a new wardrobe that showed far too much of her breasts didn’t change the fact that she was nervous. Being naked for him was one thing. He was her lover. This was public punishment, and she’d better bloody get used to it.
Tag didn’t make things easy on her. He simply grinned her way and waggled his eyebrows lasciviously. “I’m looking forward to watching.”
“What are you doing, you pervert?” His wife walked up, her heels clacking against the stone floor. “Are you two being mean to Penny?”
He wasn’t having a bloody minute of that garbage. There was no way he was going to spend the evening placating his sub’s friend. He was grateful to Charlotte for befriending Penelope, but she tended to stick her nose in where it absolutely didn’t belong. “Tag, forget what I said about not spanking her. If she interferes with me the way she did Weston, I’ll chuck you both out of this club and you can spend the night on the street for all I’ll care.”
Tag reached out and grabbed his wife’s hand, and she was over his lap in a heartbeat, his hand raining down on her bum. “I’ve given you an enormous amount of rope, baby, and you are hanging yourself with it. Do you come between a Dom and his sub?”
“She isn’t his sub.” Charlotte’s breath hitched as Ian’s hand came down on her ass. “Chelsea isn’t Simon’s.”
“And she never will be because big sister likes to interfere. She had a safe word. She could have used it. What did you think he was going to do to her?”
The Taggarts continued, dealing with their family drama through spanking. He had his own domestic dispute.
Damon patted his lap. “We’re up to thirty now. Every second you delay adds to the punishment. We have a long ride to Dover in the morning. You can be as uncomfortable as your stubbornness allows.”
She nearly jumped in his lap, but then he noticed that when Penelope finally decided to do something, she tended to leap in with both feet. He had to catch her or she likely would have rolled right off his lap and onto the floor. He found himself with an armful of Penelope, and he’d been right about how lovely she would look in a thong. Her cheeks were round, and he couldn’t help but lay his hands on them and give them a nice squeeze.
He brought his hand down in a sharp arc, enjoying the sound of the smack and the little squeal that came after. He rained down on her, keeping a careful count. He’d told her thirty. She’d done her level best not to make it thirty-one, so she would only get thirty.
But he could spank her all night, really. He laid them all over her cheeks, snapping the string of her thong in between spanks. Her skin got a hot pink sheen to it and she clutched at his ankles, her breath coming out in sexy pants.
He let his hand work, delivering discipline to her arse and the curvy backs of her legs. He stopped when he reached thirty and held his palm flat on the last place he’d spanked, keeping the heat against her flesh. It was definitely time to get her more used to public sex.
There was a party on the Royale tomorrow night, and he suspected it would get a little crazy. He intended to firmly cement their cover before they got to Helsinki.