Embraced by Faulkner, Carolyn (books for 8th graders .TXT) 📕

Embraced

By Carolyn Faulkner

©2003

By Carolyn Faulkner / BacksideOfLove.com This work is copyrighted under U.S. law.

NO duplication of any kind, including (but not limited to) electronic, digital or manual duplication, is permitted, except for personal use, without expressed, written consent of the author ([email protected]) Violations of this copyright can be traced digitally, and will be pursued vigorously.

This work of fiction depicts Adoring Discipline, which entails one adult giving another the authority to punish them physically. Neither the author, nor BacksideOfLove.com, depicts, condones, or tolerates the inclusion of involuntary physical abuse in any activity depicted here. Adoring Discipline is a healthy, often therapeutic part of intimate adult relationships for those fulfilled by it.

For more information on Adoring Discipline, please visit http://BacksideOfLove.com

Chapter I

eagan O’Reilly was too exhausted from her three day drive to look where she was going while she Mtried to drag the last of the big suitcases through the screen door of her best friend’s old style ranch house. As she struggled with a big valise in her left hand, she blindly reached into the house to throw the small travel bag onto the floor, to be dealt with later. Much later. 2010 sounded like a good year to her.

But as she reached into what should have been the blank air of the enormous kitchen, her fingers were rudely crunched up against a wall that she knew couldn’t be there. She flexed her fingers, realizing that it was a solid, warm, flesh-wall – as unyielding as the brick kind (and just about as smart, she thought to herself . . .) but much, much sexier. Craning her neck back while still maintaining a death hold on the suitcase, her eyes confirmed the identity of the owner of the chest she’d run into, and she snatched her hand back as if it had been stung.

Mandy Costas – her best friend from college whom she visited religiously in Texas for 2 weeks every summer during Meagan’s summer vacation from teaching fifth grade – had 3

brothers, each slightly more muscular and intimidating than the Carolyn Faulkner

other. Her knuckles had rubbed up against the biggest of them all, of course; the one she knew and liked the least.

When she took her hand back, she realized that he’d relieved her of the smaller bag, and, within seconds, she was being crowded right back out the door as his big bulk overwhelmed her smaller frame, reaching past her to lift the huge suitcase as if it weighed nothing. He deposited it next to the eat-in table.

“Anything else?” He growled, and it came out sounding gruffer than he intended, but he always reacted to her like that. She aroused him. There was no other way to put it. He went for well-rounded women – not fat but proportioned more toward the fifties, Marilyn Monroe- look than the nineties, Kate Moss, one-good-wind-would-knock-her-over-look. Meagan’s red hair had always been long and it had what he assumed to be natural waves and curls

– she never smelled of that nasty permanent solution Mandy was always using – but then he’d never had that much opportunity to smell her, either. Since he was going to be home for the next two weeks while she was here, he was going to have a hard time keeping himself from wrapping his hands up in her soft tresses. He supposed she was pretty but not beautiful, pleasant looking but not a knockout. It was her personality that attracted most people to her.

Meg had an easy way with the grumpiest of people, himself included. She made you want to laugh at life along with her, and he sure needed that some times. If he could just get her to stop going out one door as he was coming in the other . . .

“One more thing, but I’ll get it.”

Meg took as much time as she dared getting Butch’s stuff together. Finally, Yorkie in tow, she entered the kitchen, having no other excuse to avoid the seething, masculine, hunk of man in the kitchen.

- 2 -

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Embraced

Set free by his mistress to explore his summer home, Butch immediately wiggled over to see if Barrett was friendly. “I hope you don’t mind the dog. I usually bring him down, but you’re not usually here.”

He seemed absorbed in the dog. “Sit,” he commanded firmly, and Meagan almost complied herself with the authority in his tone. It made one want to obey – or else. Her mothers’ heart fluttered with pride when Butch complied immediately. “Good dog.” Meg had to turn away momentarily as Barrett scooped up the little dog carefully in one large paw, afraid that her tongue was lolling out of the side of her own mouth, just like the dog’s.

“What’s his name?”

What the hell was that damn dog’s name, anyway? Every rational though had fled her brain as her mind concentrated on the play of muscles just beneath the worn T-shirt he was wearing. She knew they had a light layer of soft hair covering them . . .“Uh -

Butch.”

A grin spread across his face, and Meg caught her breath.

Barrett would never be considered classically good looking, but who the hell cared? From the time he’d first been introduced to her about six years ago, he’d become the prototype for every romance novel hero she ever read about. He was 6’3” and weighed a good 230 at least. With short, raven black hair, steel gray eyes, and muscles on his muscles, you would think from the looks of him that he was all brawn and no brain. But Meg knew from Mandy that though he’d had to quit high school to take care of the four of them when