HIS By Design -Coveting Claire by Helen Karol Page B

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their light-hearted play that was more robust and yet not quite as
sensual as the smacking last night. Both instances were so
different from the first time he spanked Susanna. Like everything
to do with his late wife, it was intense and overwhelming.
    It was only a couple of weeks into their
relationship. He'd woken in the early morning to find her gone from
the bed. Pulling on his jeans, he'd walked out to the deck to see
her coming out of the ocean. At first, he was too mesmerized by the
sight of her voluptuous body to notice the red flags indicating it
was unsafe. Watching her in the shapely one piece she wore for her
daily swim, all he could think about were the things he'd done to
her body the night before. She was beside him on the deck before it
dawned on him. His hold on his temper was a lot weaker in those
days, especially around her.
    He stepped in front of her, his voice tight
with fury. “Damn it, Susanna! We talked about this! Those flags are
up for a reason!”
    She laughed sweeping past him, attempting to
deflect his temper with her condescension. “Don’t be silly, Julian.
It's perfectly safe. I’ve been swimming in this part of the ocean
since before you were born.”
    That did it. It was bad enough she was
risking her safety without trying to play the ‘before you were born
card’. He caught up with her in the bedroom just as she stripped
off her swimsuit. He was so overwhelmed by the terrifying image of
her beautiful body caught in the ocean currents and battered
against the rocks that he wasn’t even distracted by her nakedness.
No way was he losing her over her stubborn disregard for danger.
Acting instinctively, he lifted her in his arms, carried her over
to the bed, sat down, hauled her across his lap and laid into her
relentlessly. His hand hurt for hours afterwards and her beautiful
bottom fared a lot worse. When he finally stopped spanking, she
just lay across his lap, bawling her eyes out.
    It was then it hit him that his impetuous
action could totally screw up the best thing that ever happened to
him. No matter how much she deserved it, she may well throw him out
for this. Hell, she might even have him arrested. The state of her
backside would certainly provide enough evidence. His heart in his
mouth, he just looked down at her wondering what he should do. He
wanted to take her in his arms to comfort her, but he feared her
rejection. He thought maybe he should apologize, but that would
defeat the whole purpose, rendering the spanking and her suffering
pointless.
    In the end, he risked her rejection and stood
by his discipline. Taking her in his arms, he rubbed her back and
held her tenderly while reinforcing his chastisement with a firm
lecture. She buried her face in his shoulder and once she calmed
down and stopped sobbing, offered a hiccupping apology. The
punishment worked. From that day on, she never went in the water
when the red flags were up.
    The lovemaking that followed was even more
profound and passionate than anything they'd shared so far. That
night, she asked him to marry her. Ironically, considering Julian’s
fears, the spanking was what decided her. She was used to everyone,
especially men, kowtowing to her. She'd given up on finding a man
who could rein her in. Gradually spanking and domination crept into
their sex life and they enjoyed scening on occasion, but discipline
was most powerful between them when he employed it as strict
punishment. He lost count of the number of times he turned his
headstrong wife across his knee for a severe spanking or ordered
her into position across the back of the couch for a thorough
strapping. There were even times when she was so willful he had to
hold her, struggling rebelliously, face down on the bed to spank,
paddle and belt her soundly, his arm aching, before she surrendered
in pleading, remorseful sobs, promising to behave.
    Looking back on it so many years later, it
amazed him. He couldn’t imagine ever punishing Claire