The Cutthroat by Clive Cussler (audio ebook reader .TXT) 📕

as she drew in long, ragged breaths. He heard her hiss in pain as she brought her jeans up and over her butt cheeks, and noticed that she deliberately left them unzipped and unsnapped. She faced him, saying in a voice husky from crying, “Is there anything else?”

As usual, she managed to do the unexpected. “Uh, no. I usually hold Mandy a while afterwards and comfort her, tell her I love her, then she goes to bed.”

Instead of taking that veiled invitation to sob in his arms, Meg turned and walked stiffly to the door. More than anything in his life, Barrett wanted desperately to cuddle her, tell her

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everything was all right, she was forgiven. He wanted to carry her to his room and just hold her on his big bed, let her cry herself out and kiss the tears from her cheeks. “Meg – “ She stopped him in his tracks with an absolutely devastated look as she closed the door behind her with a terrible, final click.

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Carolyn Faulkner

Chapter IX

lthough it went against everything he wanted to do, Barrett let her go out the door to her lonely room, Athinking she might need some time to come to terms with her spanking. He fairly tingled with the need to comfort her while she sobbed within the confines of his embrace and he had to do something physical or he was going to run after her like an idiot, so he changed into a bathing suit and dove into the deep end of the pool, swimming lap after mindless lap until he was exhausted. Just as he lifted himself out by the side of the pool, Mandy came running toward him. “Do you smell smoke?”

Barrett grinned wryly. “Old smoke, Honey. Meg tried to burn the house down by accident.” He dried himself off with a thick, fluffy towel.

“Oh. What happened?”

“She left two of the burners on the stove on, and the oven mitts caught on fire. It was close when I got in here as to whether or not the kitchen curtains were going to go up, too.”

“Wow!”

“Yeah, wow. I was able to douse it quickly enough, but the house’ll have to be aired out well tomorrow, and we’ll probably

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need to do some touch up painting around the stove. Or rather, Meg will.”

Mandy confronted her brother, suspecting what had happened to Meg as a result of her carelessness. “Is she all right?”

Barrett patted Manda on the shoulder as he walked past her into the house. “Of course she’s fine. She won’t be sitting comfortably any time soon, but she’s fine.”

“You spanked her?!” Mandy followed her brother into the kitchen, not really believing that he’d done it.

“Of course I spanked her! She could’ve burned the whole damned place down, just because she had to see who the ambulance was coming for.” Barrett hung the towel around his neck, opened the fridge, and chugged orange juice right from the jug.

“Was the ambulance coming for you?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Do I look like I needed an ambulance this afternoon?”

Mandy sat in a kitchen chair. “No, but that’s probably what Meg thought.”

Barrett hadn’t considered it from Meagan’s angle, even though it really wasn’t a mitigating factor of her punishment. “No, it was the new hand, Terry Hartman. Got himself gored pretty good, but the Doc says he’ll be fine.”

“Good. I just hope Meg will be,” she muttered under her breath.

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Carolyn Faulkner

He sighed. “You don’t look any the worse for my spanking you. Why would you think Meg would?”

“I don’t know. She’s never been spanked before. I don’t imagine she had any real idea what to expect. I’m sure she never knew how much it hurts.” Her hand went to her own bottom reflexively.

“Hmmmmm.” Something to think about.

Mandy stood up. “Well, I’m going to bed.” She kissed her brother on the cheek.

“You look nice. Did you see Jake?” he added, just to get a rise out of her.

She smacked his arm on her way by, and grumbled the long way to her room about wishing everyone would lay off the idea of her and Jake especially since she couldn’t stand the man . . .

Barrett wandered down the hall to his own room, pausing for a minute at Meg’s door, wondering if he should check in on her.

Deciding against it, he retreated quietly behind his own door, exhausted physically and emotionally.

He awoke early the next morning, as was his habit. Dressed in black jeans and a black t-shirt, he carefully opened the door to Meg’s room, intending to be there in the room with her when she woke, to reassure himself that she was ok. What he saw immediately was her back as she bent over her suitcase, trying to get it closed.

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Meg was having a terrible time getting the blasted zipper to work on the ancient suitcase; she thought it might be easier if she weren’t trying to see it through tear-filled eyes, but as another drop rolled down and off her chin, she knew that wasn’t likely to happen.

That tear landed squarely on the back of the lightly haired paw that had caused her butt cheeks to sting so torturously last night. She met his unfathomable stare with a hopeless look in her eyes. “Going somewhere?” his voice was low and intimate as he searched her face.

She turned back to tug futilely at the offending zipper.

“Back home.”

Barrett