Chapter Seven
Cassandra
“Cassandra.”
Deo stepped into the room, his livid presence making him seem larger than life.
I moved away from him, to the center of the room. “Deo, I can explain.”
“Three days… I’m gone for three days and what happens? You forget that you are to obey me.”
“No, I just—”
“No?” he said, his left eyebrow arching. His hands behind his back, he walked over to me in three big strides. “No? What did I say?”
“Not to contact any of my friends, but she was the…”
Putting a hand up to stop me, Deo stood silent, but I understood that he was stating he had no interest in hearing my useless excuse. And that was exactly what it was—useless. I knew I should not have answered the call.
He began to pace back and forth before me. “The only way I can keep you safe is if you obey me.” He seemed to become more agitated with every step, every turn. “What do I do with a wife who will not obey?”
I had a pretty good idea of what he would be doing with me. Butterflies entered my stomach, nerves made my knees feel weak, and my fingers twisted among the many layers of my dress. Holding my breath, I watched as the flickering flames of the fire in the fireplace disappeared behind him each time he passed it. Finally, he stopped pacing, giving me a long look before moving to one side of the hearth, drawing my attention as he pulled a chair a few feet away from its place by the fire.
I looked at the chair. Like the other furnishings in the rooms I’d seen, it was beautiful. It was a large wooden piece with thick, sturdy legs. An elegant needlepoint design covered the back and thick cushion of the seat. His frame filled out the chair perfectly as he slowly sat. But that wasn’t what had my eyes going wide. The chair had no arms, leaving plenty of room for a… Blushing hotly, I jerked my eyes to his, wondering if he’d had the chair made for one express purpose… one I really didn’t wish to consider.
Realizing I was telegraphing my nerves with every twist of my fingers, I released my hold and smoothed the soft fabric. “I didn’t think I would, but I do like this dress,” I said. “It’s actually pretty.”
Deo smiled even as he shook his head. “What is that saying? Pretty is as pretty does? You are a very attractive woman, my dear, but you’ll learn that I don’t find disobedience attractive in the least. Now, lay yourself over my knee,” he commanded.
There it was, the controlling Deo whom I had come to crave. The last time Deo had said those words to me, I had laughed in his face. That had earned me not only the spanking he had already planned on giving me, but also what Deo had referred to as ‘extras’. Those had been sharp slaps covering my upper thighs until I was squirming and begging him to stop. Deo had warned me that next time, the ‘extras’ would be with his belt. Still, I hesitated, my face beginning to burn, as I pressed my skirts close to my body.
“Do not make me ask you again,” Deo said, his tone low… dangerous.
Taking slow steps, wondering how I could possibly delay the inevitable as I looked toward the wardrobe, I knew it was too late when I bumped up against his leg.
“Oh… um…”
My husband could speak without opening his mouth. With only the drop of his glance, his single nod, I found myself moving to kneel on the carpet beside his chair. When he gave his leg a pat, I gave him one last beseeching look before lifting myself up and over his knees. Large hands wrapped around my hips, lifting me further up onto his thigh, and tipping me so my bottom was high in the air. I reached down to balance myself with a hand on the floor. The other hand instinctively went to cover my rear.
Deo tsked his disapproval, taking my protective hand and pinning it onto my lower back. With his other hand, he lifted the swishy material of the skirt, folding the many layers over my back. The air was cold, and I shivered as it hit the exposed skin between my boots and my waist.
“What do we have here?” he asked, his hand roaming over my bottom. “All those excuses and yet this proves that you knew you were being disobedient, doesn’t it?”
“No!” I said emphatically, embarrassed at the amused tone of his voice.
“No? Then why is it that you aren’t wearing any panties?”
This was why I’d hesitated to climb over his lap and could feel my face heating with every passing moment.
Lightly, his hand caressed my skin, his fingertips trailing along the curve of my bottom. I could feel the chill bumps raising on my skin. “Cassandra?”
When dressing that evening, I had searched all the drawers but not a single pair of cotton panties, bikini briefs, even a simple pair of boy shorts was to be found. The only bras had been sheer, the cups no more than tiny bits of lace. In fact, the drawers had overflowed with lacy, silky French undergarments that I was much too shy to put on. I had slammed the drawers shut as quickly as I had opened them and chosen to go without.
“I-I… you didn’t provide me with… normal underthings.”
“I provided you with exactly what I wish you to wear. Though it seems I will often have you over my lap which will necessitate my baring your behind, until I do, I expect to see your ass covered,” he chastised.
“Yes, sir,” I said, praying that his prediction was incorrect.
“Very good and I’m glad to see you’ve learned to obey when you are being punished.”
The feeling of his fingers and the power in his words had me so aroused, I cried out in disbelief as the first sharp slap landed on my skin. “Tell me stone walls are soundproof,” I begged, as another slap hit. The sound seemed to echo in the huge room, making my face burn hotter.
“I suggest you worry more about obeying than the acoustics of the room,” Deo replied as he spanked me.
“Well, it is unusual,” I argued. “A man spanking his wife.” His hand landed twice more. I winced at the sting. “It could draw attention, you know.”
“Spanking is far more common than you may think.” Several sharper slaps hit my skin, each one given time to deliver its sting before another joined the fire that was beginning to burn across my ass. “Many in the Ambrosia family have found domestic discipline does wonders in a relationship.”
I almost laughed at the casual conversation we were having, as if we were at the breakfast table, speaking over coffee cups. Instead, I was hanging upside down, hand pinned back, bottom bare, and my husband was spanking me like a naughty child.
Gritting my teeth, I said, “That may be so in Greece, or in families as old as time, but I assure you, in today’s world, there is nothing common about this.” I wriggled my hips to try to avoid the next smack, failing miserably as his hand connected fully against the center of my ass. “What if they do hear? What will they think?”
Deo’s hand tightened its hold on my waist. “I assure you, they all know you are being punished. In fact, Draco is right outside, probably counting the swats.”
Groaning, I was wondering how I would ever face Draco again. Humiliated by my chastisement, I changed the subject. “Did you have this chair built for this purpose?” I asked between clenched teeth.
Deo stopped punishing my bottom. His hand rested on my burning skin. “So many questions. I obviously am not spanking you hard enough if your mind is wandering from your discipline,” he said.
I could hear the annoyance in his voice. “No, no… I’m just—”
“Let’s get you over the bed. I think, on second thought, I will use my belt.”
Not for the first time, nor likely the last, my big mouth just got me into more trouble than I was already in. Not wanting to add fuel to the fire, I promised myself I’d remain silent as Deo raised me from his lap and guided me over to the high four-poster bed. He gestured for me to step up on the stool.
“Torso down,” he said.
I reluctantly obeyed and laid myself over the bed.
“Now, let’s talk about your transgressions, shall we. You directly disobeyed me, resulting in putting your friend in harm’s way. Now Baal is having to retrieve Cynthia, and we will have to figure out how to fold her into our plan.”
“What plan? You haven’t even told me anything. How could I have known?” I muttered, pushing myself up on my elbows to stare at him, my determination to be quiet quickly forgotten.
“You don’t need to know anything to obey me.”
“Knowledge helps prepare a person for…” I lost my ability to speak as Deo’s hand dropped to his waist. Suddenly, the need to be flippant evaporated. “Look, I’m sorry, I…”
“No. Instead of making an apology I am quite sure you don’t mean, I want you to ask me to whip you.”
“What!” He couldn’t possibly be serious. I had never been spanked save the last two days, much less by a leather belt. “I-I can’t!”
“Yes, you can and you shall,” Deo countered. “Doing so will not only put you in the proper mindset for the punishment you have coming, but will teach you that saying ‘I’m sorry’ is nothing but empty words without paying the price for the disobedience you continue to choose.”
The sound of his buckle unlatching had my heart skipping a beat and the skin on my bottom crawling. Still, I was positive I could never do as he ordered. It just wasn’t something a modern woman would request. The soft moan that came from my throat to flutter on the air after hearing the swish of the leather as he pulled it through the loops of his trousers, and the gush of moisture I felt between my legs, told me I was a fool. Modern or ancient, the era didn’t matter. The only thing that did was the feelings that his tone, his actions, his expectations evoked deep inside my very soul. No sarcasm, no flippant tone colored my softly spoken request.
“Please, sir, whip me for disobeying you.”
“Good girl,” he said. “Bare yourself to me.”
Without taking my eyes from the belt as his fist closed around the buckle, assuring nothing but leather would strike my flesh, I reached back and pulled my skirts up to my waist, baring my own bottom for the whipping I’d just requested. As I lay my cheek against the duvet, he stepped up, and as he lifted his arm, I closed my eyes.
If I lived to be a hundred, I’d never forget the sound of his belt whooshing through the air or the crack that sounded the moment the strip of leather sliced across my ass. Without thought, I jumped straight up with a sharp scream. With my hands on my bottom, I rubbed furiously, trying to douse the blaze he’d ignited with a single stroke.
“Oh, my God!” I said, the sting a million times worse than any he’d given me with his hand.
“Position, Cassandra,” Deo said, his tone showing his disapproval. “That jump means we begin the count again.”
I stared at him, my mouth dropping open to protest and yet after a moment, I laid back over the edge of the bed, though was much slower when lifting my skirts once again.
“Ten more.”
I whimpered, unsure how I would manage to remain lying over the bed when the next stroke landed.
“Tell me, Cassandra. What did you vow?”
“To honor and obey you.”
“And have you done that tonight?”
“No, sir,” I quickly replied.
“Very well.” The leather swooshed through the air, and came down again, another line of fire igniting instantly.
I gritted my teeth. My skin burned.
“What do I require to keep you safe?”
“Obedience, sir.” The belt whipped me again. I found myself whimpering as the flare of heat was instantaneous in both my ass and my face. If Draco hadn’t heard the previous spanking, he was hearing the belt meet my behind. I was sure of it.
“Good girl. How many do you have left?”
“Eight, sir.”
“Count them for me.”
One by one, the belt came down onto my ass, covering every inch of my tender skin. He paused between each one to hear my voice quiver out the number we were on. Tears fell from my eyes and my hips started to squirm into the bed. I felt as if I’d sat on the glowing embers of a fire. When I finally called out the number eight, Deo tossed the belt onto the bed, but when I began to lift, he pressed his hand against my back.
“We are not yet done. Did you forget there is more than just having your ass reddened?” His hand slid across my throbbing posterior to dip between my legs, instantly bringing heat to my face.
Memories of what had transpired after my first spanking flooded through me. “No, sir,” I managed, failing to hide my moan when his fingers swept along the seam of my sex.
“Tell me, what is required before your transgression is fully forgiven?” Deo asked, a thick finger pushing into my sheath, the moisture that had pooled with every stroke of his belt making the entry easy.
“Penance.” It was a word of atonement. A word that should have had me feeling remorseful. Reparation… a price required and yet, as his fingers danced along my sex, all I wished was that he’d push the one inside me deeper, fill me fuller, pump into my body with demanding force. Whereas just moments ago my hips had pressed into the mattress to attempt to avoid the sting of leather, now I pushed back, silently begging him to take me. “I’m ready, sir.”
My husband’s chuckle told me that he was acutely aware of exactly what his action was evoking. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said, bending over me, causing my skin to pebble with goosebumps with the puffs of air wafting over my neck, my ear. I shuddered as he licked the skin his breath had warmed and then stiffened when his free hand drew my right buttock away from its twin and the finger that was pleasuring me slipped from my pussy to circle a place I’d never given a single thought to as being seen, much less touched.
“Wh-what are you doing?” I asked, my attempt to shift my hips thwarted when his arm pressed against my tender ass.
“Preparing you to accept the penance you are so ready to make,” he said, parroting my own words that I was suddenly wishing I’d not said so quickly.
“But I thought… I mean, don’t you… aren’t you… last time…”
“You’ll discover that atonement takes many forms. Stop clenching. It will be easier for you if you relax while I prepare you.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that and wasn’t sure I even wanted to know. All I knew was that I didn’t like what his finger was doing… where it was attempting to go.
“Deo… please—”
“It’s ‘sir’ when you’re being punished,” he corrected, ignoring both my plea and my screech of indignation as he pushed his finger into my bottom.
“Stop! Take it out!” I demanded, pressing my palms flat against the bed, arching my back, my feet leaving the stool to curl up. My action did not have the horrid invader retreat but did have me screech again when his other hand lifted and descended with three hard and rapid cracks against my ass.
“We can start anew if necessary,” Deo said, giving my buttock a squeeze.
“No! I mean, please… don’t spank me anymore.”
“Then show me you are truly prepared to make your penance, young lady. Put your feet and tits down and let your cheeks hang loose.”
I didn’t wish to do so, but the three strokes had reignited the fire he’d lit with his belt. Giving a soft whimper, I slowly obeyed, trembling when I felt his finger delve deeper into my most intimate orifice.
“That’s better,” he praised, drawing his finger free.
I took a shuddering breath of relief and then moaned as I felt the pressure against my anus again. The foreign sensation began anew, except this time, the burn was sharper as he invaded me once more.
“No, don’t tense,” Deo said.
“But it hurts,” I wailed. Remembering his words about how punishment was supposed to hurt, I quickly added, “And it’s wrong!”
“No, it’s not wrong,” he countered, my gasp ignored yet again as my muscle lost the battle to keep him out, opening to admit not one but what had to be two of his fingers as they began to scissor apart, stretching me. “Nothing we do together is wrong, be it in pleasure or for discipline.” After several minutes, he withdrew his fingers, drawing another sharp yip from me. Before I could relax, he said, “Reach back and hold your cheeks open.”
“Why?” I asked, not out of defiance, but truly not understanding the request.
“Because I said to and I need both my hands.” That statement had me turning my head from the bed to see him holding something that made me gasp. I watched as he flipped the top of some bottle I hadn’t been aware he’d had, applying a slick-looking ointment to the glass phallus in his hand.
“Where… where did you get that?” I asked.
“Let’s just say that I knew a new wardrobe would not be all you’d need,” he answered. “Now, obey me. Open yourself.”
Almost in slow motion, I put my arms behind me, clasping my tender cheeks and drawing them apart. When his eyebrow arched in disapproval, I forced myself to open wider. Without a word, he dropped the bottle to the bed and placed the phallus against my opening. I instantly turned my eyes away, my face heating.
“You’ll hold this plug in your ass as part of your penance,” he informed me, advancing the plug slowly but firmly into my body.
My gasp became a groan, and when I realized that his very action in such a taboo place had more moisture gathering in my pussy, I buried my face in the duvet. What was wrong with me? How could I find any pleasure in the humiliating act of the penance he was enforcing? But I did… the stretch, the pull, even the burn had the spring inside me coiling tighter, my nipples hardening inside the bodice of my dress where they rubbed against the bed.
“Every inch of you belongs to me.”
It wasn’t so much the plug that he began to pump in and out of my ass, it was the absolute surety of his tone as he spoke that had a wave of submission washing through me. I’d never felt this way before. Like I was so close to being set adrift and yet knew that this man would always be my anchor, my harbor.
I was so lost in this new sensation, this reaffirming of our dynamic, that it took me a moment to realize that the plug wasn’t the only thing pressing into my body. A deep groan escaped the confines of my throat as he slid his thick cock into my pussy. “Oh… oh, God,” I moaned, the words no longer muffled as my head was pulled back, Deo’s fingers fisting the strands of my hair.
“There is no place that is forbidden, no place that will not find my tongue, fingers, cock, or whatever else I wish to fill you with,” Deo said, his hips and the plug pumping, filling me full, demanding my body accept him as my heart and soul already did.
Every thrust, every withdrawal, every tug on my hair had the spring tightening inside me. My mind tried to process what was happening. I no longer cared that others might hear, was no longer concerned that many would judge us for the perversity of the act. All I knew was that somehow, the man who’d spanked me, whipped me, invaded my darkest channel, was driving me toward the cliff’s edge.
“Please… I-I need to come,” I begged, every nerve in my body firing, tingling, threatening to explode.
“Not yet,” Deo said, causing me to give a sharp cry as he drove the plug deep, leaving it buried as he gripped my hips, pulling me back onto his shaft. It was too much and yet… it wasn’t as my body accepted him, opening, balancing precariously on the razor edge between pain and pleasure that had my thoughts clouding as sensation overwhelmed me.
I can’t say how long he made me wait. All I know was that several swats were delivered to my tender cheeks to back me away from the precipice as I begged almost incoherently for permission to release. He pounded into me, his fingers driving the plug in and out of my ass in sync with the pistoning of his cock in my sex until with a final firm tug on my hair, he roared, “Come now!” and my body erupted. My scream rent the room, my limbs flailing, my muscles contracting almost violently as my pussy convulsed around his cock. My cream mingled with his as his cock jerked, erupting again and again to fill me until he finally stilled, remaining buried within me.
All I could do was mewl, whimper, and tremble as his weight descended to press me into the bed, his tug on my hair turning my head so that his mouth could take mine. The kiss was as demanding as his penetration had been, his tongue invading my mouth to sweep inside. By the time he pulled back, we were both breathless.
“Every inch… is mine,” he whispered before pulling from me. The withdrawal of the plug from my ass caused me to gasp again at the sharp bite of pain, my face heating as he scooped me up. Carrying me like a baby, he crossed the room. Seated in his spanking chair, he cradled me in his lap, drawing another moan as my ass took my weight.
He adjusted me in his arms, turning me toward him, his words soothing me, his hand stroking my hair. “Shh. I will do whatever I must to protect you. Even if it hurts.” Pulling away, Deo looked as if he was trying to read my expression. “There is pleasure in the pain for you though, isn’t there?”
Grasping his crisp shirt in my fists, I buried my face in his chest. I couldn’t speak, answering my husband with a nod of my head.
He chuckled. “You are a special woman. You only truly know you are mine when I control you, when I punish you, is that right?”
I gave another silent nod.
“You have wanted this for a long time, haven’t you? A loving keeper to spank you when you are disobedient? To demand a penance is paid? To treat you like his little princess when you are good? To spoil you?”
Wrapping my arms around Deo’s neck, I whispered, “Yes.” The desires I had longed to expose for our entire marriage were finally confirmed by a single word crossing my lips.
“You fought me all of this time. You couldn’t tell me what you wanted. You thought you would no longer be a strong woman if you gave in to your softer desires.”
It was true, but I hadn’t known it until that moment when Deo put it into words. The fights, the screaming, they were all me showing my frustration. Not knowing how to tell Deo that I wanted to release the control I had always clung to. Would I have been able to if I’d known that within him, was this man? The man who took me in hand, made me feel as if I would burst apart with a combination of pain and pleasure? A man I now knew was the one I needed, whom I craved, who made me complete. The one who cherished me, protected me—his to love, spoil, and, yes, to spank.
“Then I will be your loving husband, and you will be my baby girl.”
Hearing the words seemed so natural. So ‘us’. Who we were meant to be. “Thank you, Deo,” I whispered.
“It will be my pleasure,” he answered, his voice choked with emotion.
I had only seen tears in his eyes once, on our wedding day. Looking up from my nest, I saw the evidence of a glistening sheen in my husband’s eyes.