Wrapping Up Christmas (Blushing Books 12 Days of Christmas 9) Read online

  "If I do it correctly, it certainly will."

  "And it's so— so embarrassing and childish."

  He raised an eyebrow at her. "Then it's especially appropriate for the behavior you've been exhibiting since your childhood."

  Keryn stared at him silently, considering her options. "Are you saying our marriage is over if I don't agree?"

  "Never. I can't imagine my life without you, and I'll hold on to you with everything in me for the rest of our lives. If you refuse, we'll simply get up from here and go on with things the best we can. But you need to think hard about what your choice will say about your investment in me and our marriage, but, most of all, in yourself and the kind of person you want to be. Your decision, sweetheart, but I need to know now."

  "This is all about power, isn't it?"

  "I won't deny there is a power component, but it's not about giving up any of yours or adding to mine. It's about whether you trust me and love me enough to yield some of yours for the moment so I can help you correct a fault. In the bigger picture, it's not a power shift; it's a commitment exchange."

  "You tricked me. You knew I would look, didn't you?" Her accusation had been blunt, but her tone had grown soft with sorrow by the end.

  "I honestly didn't—and still don't—think of it as tricking you. I wasn't willing to accept what someone else said about you, so I set up a situation to either prove or disprove it. You have no idea how desperately I wanted that information to be false. I've known the truth for a few days now, and I have to tell you, it has hurt a lot."

  Keryn dropped her head, staring at the hands knotted in her lap. Then she slowly reached for the hairbrush and held it out to him.

  Mark shifted slightly on the couch, his throat suddenly dry and his heart beating fast. He prayed he was doing the right thing.

  "Come here, baby," he said quietly and she looked deeply into his eyes, saw the love there, and placed herself carefully over his lap.

  He saw the muscles in her thighs tighten when he pulled up her nightgown and pooled it at the small of her back.

  "You didn't say it was going to be like this," she protested.

  "No, I didn't. But there are three reasons for a bare-bottom spanking, Keryn. First of all, it really does hurt a little more when there's nothing between you and the smacks. Second, it adds to the embarrassment, just as being over my lap probably does. But, most important from a safety standpoint, it lets me know exactly where I need to put the brush down and when I need to stop. I want you to understand something before we go any further. This spanking is going to hurt. A lot. But it won't cause any injury or even any pain that doesn't go away fairly soon. You'll be sitting carefully for a few hours, maybe, and you'll have some visual reminders if you care to look in the mirror, but none of that will be as important as the impression it makes on your mind. I want you to remember exactly how you feel with your bare bottom over my lap right now, knowing what got you here, and the next time you're tempted to spoil someone's pleasure in providing for you, I want you to think about the sting and that it could all happen again. I'm going to use all three implements—all three of your gifts—but I'm going to start with my hand. We'll call it a warm-up. And don't make the mistake of reaching back to cover your bottom. That will only get you more licks. Are you still willing?"

  She hesitated for a moment, her pretty, plump bottom breaking out in goosebumps from the exposure. "Will you hold my hand?" she finally whispered.

  "Yes, baby, I will. Hold on to me tightly and remember how much I want this to be something that helps you far more than it hurts you."

  He clasped her right hand in his left and rested them on the soft pool of her gown. Then he raised his arm and came down firmly with a smack that flattened her right cheek momentarily and left a pink imprint.

  * * *

  Keryn had never been spanked, unless the occasional teasing smack on her well-covered derriere from a self-identified bottom man like Mark counted.

  That was a very different thing from what she was unexpectedly experiencing over his lap, she suddenly realized.

  He had never aimed a spank at her bare bottom, though, not even in love play, and it was more than a little humiliating to be positioned across his lap like a naughty little girl with her undraped backside left completely vulnerable. It was also painful, far more than she had anticipated when she had made her decision to convince him she wanted to change.

  Surely though, she thought, she could make it through a dozen smacks or so. Wasn't that the prescribed number for unruly students in British schools? She seemed to remember getting that impression somewhere, and it seemed reasonable. So she clamped her jaw and squeezed Mark's hand and tightened the muscles down the back of her body as he matched the first stinging smack with one on the other cheek.

  She had counted six loud claps and three bursts of fire across the summit of each cheek before she began to wriggle a bit, hoping he would leave off smacking the same painful spot each time. She had always been sensitive about the size of her derriere, and she was fairly sure there was more area he could be covering with his punishing hand.

  And, much as she dreaded the prospect, she thought it was surely time for him to employ her presents in the little discipline exercise; unless, of course, he only intended to give her a single spank with each.

  Her husband seemed to have other ideas, though, and he had subjected her to all twelve claps on her firm backside with his hand before she could raise her voice in protest.

  By the time she did—calling out his name and adding a half-shrieked order to stop—he was clearly only now getting serious about the job. He made certain she understood that by laughing at her protest and assuring her he wasn't about to put an end to her punishment; he was, in fact, just getting the hang of the whole thing, he said.

  From that point on, she lost count. It was easy to do, because the smacks seemed to come faster and firmer and less orderly—sometimes he concentrated on one bare, trembling, pink cheek for several smacks before giving attention to the other—and they were accompanied by a scolding that added to her misery.

  "This little game is over, young lady. Do you understand?"

  "Yes! I do, Mark. Please, let me up. It hurts."

  He did, in fact, stop his assault on her tender flesh and rub her bottom gently for a moment.

  "It hurts?"

  "A lot," she protested, pushing herself up as much as his strong arm and hand, clenching hers across her back, would allow.

  "Good to know. It's my first time to spank a bad little girl, you know. I wasn't sure if I was going about it right or not."

  "I don't know about right, but you sure did it hard. And I learned my lesson. I won't ever peek again."

  "Easy for you to say with your bottom all pink, but I made you a promise and we're not close to being through yet. We still have to try out your presents. All of the ones you sneaked a look at."

  "Nooo!" she whined, trying to wriggle backwards off his lap. "I'm through."

  "I'm not. And if you try to avoid the punishment you've got coming, it will end up being harder and longer than you ever bargained for. Now get your naughty bottom back where it belongs and take what you've got coming, little girl."

  She hesitated, pushing against his restraining arm instead of obeying, and had her efforts rewarded with the hardest and fastest smacks yet. She collapsed and began to scramble forward along the couch instead, trying to evade Mark's punishing hand in another direction, but he held her tightly and his firm hand followed her plump little globes unerringly.

  All her struggles earned her was smacks delivered to virgin territory, newly revealed by her squirming. It was when his hand landed, over and over again, on the juncture of her bottom and thighs that she learned the true meaning of distress. She kicked and squirmed and pounded the couch with her free fist and squealed her discomfort, but Mark was undeterred, except to shift his position enough to cause her legs to slide partially off his lap. That left her balanced over his left
thigh and the couch, while he maneuvered his right leg over hers and put an end to at least part of her struggles.

  The change in their positions also made it possible for him to reach the coffee table more easily—an advantage she had cause to regret soon after she found herself more securely displayed for punishment.

  It took her a moment to realize the almost gentle tap-tap of something cool against her overheated nether cheek was the hairbrush that had been her first cause for puzzlement. She had no idea what to expect from it, but the first encounter was a relief of sorts, since it meant Mark was no longer punishing her with stinging smacks of his hard palm and fingers.

  The relief was short-lived.

  From the first firm smack, she developed an ongoing hatred of the implement and let her husband know it with her high-pitched protest.

  "No!" she screamed, lifting her face from the couch and trying to twist around to see if she still had an intact bottom, or if the lightning bolt smack had somehow shattered it.

  "Yes. And there are several more where that came from. Remind yourself why you deserve this. Every time I swat you with this brush"—and he issued another meaty spank that left her blinking back tears and biting her lip—"I want you to tell me if it was worth it to sneak that present open. Was it?" he asked and shifted her right cheek up momentarily when he came in hard at the base.

  She shook her head frantically and he repeated the smack, leaning over to see her face. "I want to hear you say it, little girl."

  "No," she gasped finally, just in time for him to visit the left cheek in the same spot.

  "Was it?"

  "I said n-no," she said, and there was a sob in her voice and a violent tug against his restraining hand.

  The scenario was repeated ten times before she began to cry, and he tossed the brush aside, gently stroking her swollen backside and murmuring softly to her.

  "It's okay, baby. It's okay. We're going to get through this. You're doing great."

  "I-I don't want t-to anymore,"

  "But you need to. Trust me, sweetheart. I know it hurts now, but it will be over soon, and we'll be starting down a better path. I've never heard of anyone dying from a spanking, and you won't be the first, I promise you."

  She wanted to jerk and kick her way free of his restraints, but something held her in place, even though she knew now this was no uncomfortable game. This was a life-changing punishment. And it was not over.

  She barely had time to register the startling fact that, painful and shameful as it was, some part of her was willing to accept it. Not all of her—the part that registered and resisted pain was on full alert. But she was made up of more than nerve endings that were being assaulted, she realized dully, even though she couldn't explain what her approach-avoidance reaction was all about.

  Her naturally self-protective instincts came back in a rush when Mark stopped supplying her with comforting rubs and reached for the wooden spoon. She saw the movement from the corner of her eye and went back into full defensive mode, so that her cherry-red mounds were bunched tightly when he tapped the cooking tool gently against her left cheek.

  She knew a brief moment of relief, since it seemed to her the right side was bearing the brunt of the punishment, but the first bite from the spoon drove all such positive thoughts from her mind.

  The spoon, at work on a landscape already tenderized in the extreme by Mark's hand and the hairbrush, covered a small amount of territory, but it made the effort count.

  He no longer demanded responses from her, but she supplied them anyway, telling him over and over in a tear-clogged voice that she was sorry. His only response was to suggest, without letup in the fiery assault, that she relax her bottom so that it would not hurt quite so much.

  That, she found, was impossible to do, since her body was in prime defensive posture and would not be prevented from trying to dissuade the invader, no matter how self-defeating the gesture was.

  He peppered her trembling cheeks with a good half-dozen smacks around the perimeter before concentrating on filling in the territory within the circles.

  Keryn's sobs tore at his heart, but he continued with a will, lest it all be for nothing and his wife learn only the lesson that he was not a man of his word. He was fascinated by the fact that, while he did not enjoy issuing the punishment, he loved comforting her after each round, and the sight and feel of her hot, trembling mounds was having a definite effect on his own body. Tossing the spoon aside, he permitted himself to fully enjoy the feel of her beneath his palm and even bent to press soft kisses over her taut skin.

  Her sobs became interspersed with soft moans at that, and she wriggled closer into him and softened her grip on his hand a bit.

  "Almost through, baby," he said after a minute, and she began to plead for mercy again as he reached for the crop.

  "You've been a good girl, and I'll make this one shorter, I promise, but it's going to sting in a whole new way. Can you hold on for me?"

  It took Keryn a moment to control her tears and find her voice, but she finally managed a response. "I'm okay, b-but it h-hurts so bad. Please, M-Mark—" but the thought died in a new sob.

  Having never encouraged a horse with a crop, he had no real idea how to use the implement in his hand, but he assumed the double flap of leather at the tip was supposed to guarantee obedience, so he flicked it at the already well-punished base of her right cheek for three quick licks. To be certain, he repeated the assault on the left side, but Keryn's reaction was muted and he knew he would need to make more forceful use of the tool.

  With a sigh, he measured the thin leather-covered shaft of the implement across the fullest part of both cheeks and tapped gently exactly where he wanted to make an impression. Then he raised the crop and brought its length down with a faint whizzing sound, bisecting both blazing, huddled mounds.

  Keryn's shriek, he thought, might well awaken any neighbors still in bed.

  "D-don't," she cried desperately. "It's c-cutting m-me."

  "It's not, sweetheart, although it's raising an impressive white line across all that red I've painted on your bottom. And now it's filling in with a deeper red, but it hasn't broken the skin. I won't let that happen, but you do have to take a few more."

  "Hold me," she begged, and he gathered her in as close to himself as he could for a moment. She burrowed into him and squeezed his hand hard while her cheeks trembled in rhythm with her sobs.

  "I need to finish this, sweetheart," he said after a moment and carefully angled her body out from his a bit so that the next stripes would land exactly where he wanted them to. He was unsure what would happen if one line of pure fire bisected another, and he didn't want to find out.

  There was, he discovered, room for five more parallel punishment marks, but it took a while to lay them down since Keryn did her best to avoid each one while babbling her misery and pleading for mercy in a tear-strained voice.

  When he was finally finished, he laid the crop down carefully and simply covered as much of her punished fundament as he could with a gentle hand.

  "You're my good girl," he whispered softly over and over, "my very good girl. I love you so much, sweetheart."

  Keryn gradually got her hoarse sobs under control and loosened her grip on his fingers.

  "Is it o-over?" she quavered, and when he assured her it was, she tried to rise. She found she needed his help, and while her first impulse was flight, when she had shifted enough to see the gentle look of love on her husband's face, she knew there was only one place she really wanted to be.

  "I'm s-so s-sorry," she quavered and melted into his embrace as he pulled her carefully into his lap, edging her back just enough that her tormented bottom did not have to make contact with his thigh.

  He rocked her gently and rubbed soothing circles on her unmarked hip with one hand as he gently combed her tear-dampened hair away from her face with the other and kissed her softly, over and over.

  "It's all right, angel. It's all right."


  He realized after a few minutes, with a start of amazement, that she had fallen asleep in his arms, and he sat and held her tenderly for almost an hour, praying that she would not hold what had just happened against him when she awoke.

  When her eyes finally fluttered open, they narrowed with the pain of her efforts to move her body, but not before Mark had caught the look of pure adoration there when she saw his face.

  "I'm going to put you over my lap again, baby—no, no, don't be afraid. No more spanking. I want to rub some cream on your bottom. It will help, I promise. And then I have something to tell you. A Christmas surprise."

  The shift in position took a few moments, since her skin was still burning and the muscles beneath were aching in protest, but Keryn was finally stretched out again and her earlier desperate cries were replaced with purrs of pleasure as her husband tenderly stroked cool, comforting cream all over her bottom.

  "I must look awful," she said finally, when he was finished and had helped her back into careful position in his lap again.

  "You look beautiful. All over. I hated having to hurt you, but, I have to tell you, I loved the way your bottom looked and felt between spankings. I wanted to kiss every inch of that hot, red skin and squeeze your cheeks as tight as I could. Maybe I'm admitting to being a bit twisted, although it doesn't feel that way. It feels—so right. Like I am supposed to respond to the way you look and feel."

  "I know," she whispered, her lips brushing his neck when she put her head on his broad shoulder. "I hated the way it felt when you spanked me, but I loved it when you touched me. And part of me—well, part of me needed you to do what you did. I guess I'm perverted, too. But I don't want to test it again any time soon."

  He hugged her close.

  "Ready for your surprise?"

  "As long as it doesn't involve my—my bottom," she said shyly and ducked her head.

  "Nope. That's over. But it does involve the gifts you opened."

  She sat up a little and looked at him with a puzzled frown and a touch of unease.

  "I don't understand."

  He reached for the hairbrush and held it out to her. "Put this away, but not in a hidden place. On your nightstand, I think. I want you to see it—to see all of them—every day, because I want you to remember the pain they can bring if you fall back into nasty habits. But I also want you to remember the good things they represent. I'll be using the brush on your beautiful hair, and it will be even more beautiful, because you have an appointment at Chez Noelle for a complete beauty treatment, top to bottom."