Transgressions by Carolyn Faulkner (the reading list txt) 📕

She knew it wasn't a smart thing to do and she got exactly what she thought she was going to get, but she kept her finger right there while he proceeded to methodically seer every inch of her he could reach, finally tipping her a bit forward so that she had no choice but to put her hands on the ground to steady herself, thus relieving her of the ability to continue to flip him off.

Stubborn wench! She was already quite well tended to, and he hadn't even begun the punishment she'd been brought here for! A part of Enzo wanted to put that session off, but he knew he couldn't. He had told her he would spank her if she disobeyed him and he always followed through on everything he promised, discipline especially. The extra swats she'd accumulated were entirely her own fault, and he wasn't going to extend any sympathy to anyone who acted like a spoiled brat when she clearly knew the consequences.

So, he steeled himself and began again in earnest, letting her distressed cries and the abject tears that inevitably followed, fall ineffectually around him as his hand marched relentlessly up and down skin that, by the time he was through, was a much deeper, even more painful looking red than the cherry he'd told her she could expect.

Eventually, he began to stop occasionally to ask her if she wanted to promise him that it would never, ever happen again, but she was at least as stubborn as she was intriguing, and he could feel her clenching her teeth so that his inquiry was met with a stubborn silence—if one frequently interrupted by gulping and sobbing and hiccupping.

Towards the end, she wasn't even protesting much, just moaning and weeping piteously each time his hand made contact with her roasted backside.

Until, finally, she flung a hand up onto her behind—displaying all five fingers instead of just one this time—careless that she might end up on her head from lack of support, barely breathing, "Stop, please. Stop."

Enzo halted, but he kept his spanking hand over the crest of her feverish cheeks, asking in a deliberately scolding tone, "Is there something you want to say to me, Allegra?"

Want was not exactly how she'd describe it. She had reached a point where she felt she had to give in or face being completely broken by him. She opened her mouth to utter the necessary depressing, degrading promise, but the words wouldn't come out. Tears dripped with each blink onto the concrete floor beneath her, and she could barely catch her breath for sobbing—as he'd predicted—but they still wouldn't come out.

Enzo did his best to provide some encouragement, applying hard, stinging swats very slowly over areas that had already been thoroughly covered.

After about ten more swats, it rushed out of her on a sobbing cry at what passed for full volume at that point, "I promise! I promise!"

He again stopped immediately. "You promise what, Ally?"

She was Ally, now that she'd acquiesced to him, she noticed, anger trying to seep back in, although it was quickly overwhelmed and squelched by the pain. "No one will set foot on your territory again. No one. I promise. Zero tolerance policy." She slumped over him as if every bit of her strength had deserted her and breathed, in barely a sigh, "Zero. Tolerance. Policy."

He almost patted the small of her back. "Excellent."

How she found herself, minutes later, in the back of his limo instead of hers, she couldn't quite say. Those moments after she'd surrendered to him were just that much of a blur, but someone had rearranged her clothes—sans the tights, and now she was kind of draped over him diagonally on her side on his lap. He was holding her close and whispering soothing nothings, occasionally kissing the top of her head, rubbing her back a bit absently. She could feel his phone vibrating in his pants pocket, but he hadn't so much as reached for it to shut it off. He just ignored it in favor of soothing her.

Ally heard him lower the glass between himself and his driver. "Take us to the cabin, Maury, please."

"Sure thing, boss."

Ally tried to stir but he wouldn't allow it—not by anything overt, not saying anything preventative, but by merely contracting his arms and pressing her against the solid—somehow annoyingly comforting—wall of himself.

"But I have meetings I need to attend—things to do." Her words were uttered against the rich cashmere of his coat and muffled into unintelligible murmurings.

Enzo had a good idea what she was saying, though—probably not a lot different from what he would have said if their positions were reversed—he had a business to run and things to do.

But he couldn't stand the idea of having just spanked her as severely as he'd ever spanked anyone in his life and just letting her go on about her business. He wanted…well, if it came down to it, he wasn't sure exactly what he wanted from her, or he wasn't much interested in examining what that might be, but he knew he wanted to spend more time with her than just long enough to blister her behind. And what he wanted, he got, one way or the other.

Too exhausted to argue, she fell into some kind of twilight sleep, almost, where she could hear what was going on around her but couldn't quite bring herself to do anything about it. She knew she should have stood up to him more about the spanking, definitely, and now about whatever it was that he was doing with her, but she felt more exhausted than she'd ever felt in her life, as if all the stress of the past nine or so years—with her father dying and trying to pass the business on to her, and then trying to keep it going while she learned the ropes without him—had coalesced into a pure, bone tiredness that