Last Dance for Cadence Page 14

  “Sometimes we even call it talking,” Marcus said dryly, getting into the car. He made a visible effort to brighten both his mood and his tone. “Let’s go home, guys.” Putting the car into reverse, he paused to check his watch. “I think I have to make a quick stop at the store first though. Can you boys stay in the car and keep Cadence company while I grab a few things?”

  “Sure,” Michael said, a sentiment promptly echoed by his younger brothers.

  Cadence kept her eyes locked on the front windshield and pretended not to notice when Marcus turned that much-too cheerful look on her next.

  “What about you?” he asked. “You’re not in too big of a hurry to get back to my office, are you?”

  She folded her arms even tighter across her chest, hiking her chin that much higher. “Nope.”

  “Good.” He pulled out of the parking lot, turning the car toward the nearest grocery store. “Because I’ve got a thing or two I want to say to you, but I definitely need a few minutes to cool down first.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Halfway through the grocery trip, Buddy fell asleep in the car. When they got home again, Marcus carried him into the house.

  “Why don’t you go get ready for bed?” Marcus told her. “I’m going to get these guys tucked in for the night, then we’ll talk, okay?”

  “Do I have a choice?” she snipped back, but when he turned around and looked at her, her lips flattened together and her cheeks flushed. Of course she had a choice, and she knew what that choice was every bit as much as he did. “Fine,” she grumbled. “Whatever.”

  Herding Daniel and Michael before him, with Buddy cradled against his shoulder, Marcus was halfway up the stairs when he heard her mutter, “It might just take me all night to get ready.”

  “I might just have to come get you, too,” he called back down over his shoulder.

  All that stubbornness. He shook his head. She was about to find out the hard way exactly what that would bring her.

  “Brush your teeth,” he told his two eldest, then carried the youngest in and laid him on his bed. Buddy woke up long enough to help crawl out of his shoes, but he was much less interested in crawling out of his clothes. Marcus stripped him down and tucked him in, then lifted Daniel up into the top bunk and held up the blankets for Michael to slip into the bottom bunk once he was in his pajamas too.

  “Are you mad at her?” Michael asked as he was tucked in.

  “No. We’re just going to talk about what happened tonight.” Marcus sat down briefly at his bedside. “I guess if you’re concerned, then you must have decided she’s an all right person to get to know.”

  Michael shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know yet.”

  Daniel popped his head down over the edge of the top bunk. “She doesn’t like Carla.”

  “No, she doesn’t, does she?” Marcus tried not to, but he couldn’t help grinning when they did. “Okay, okay. Heads on pillows, eyes closed and remember, be polite to Carla.”

  Michael made a face, but nodded.

  “We will,” Daniel said, pulling himself all the way back up onto the upper bunk.

  Switching on the closet light, Marcus cracked the sliding door, then switched out the main light and left the room. He shut their bedroom door softly, then stood for a moment, just feet from the second story banister that overlooked the entrance hall below. He halfway expected to see Cadence standing exactly where he’d left her, arms still folded and chin still high, but when he edged closer to take a peek, she was nowhere to be seen. She must have followed his advice and gone to get ready for bed.

  That gave him a few minutes at least to get himself prepared, mentally as well as physically. Venturing back downstairs, he headed through the house and back out to the garage to get the groceries he’d bought. It wasn’t much of a sack, just one item, and thank goodness he managed to get to the store just minutes before the manager closed it. Ginger root was one item he was pretty sure Cadence wouldn’t have bought on her own. It was one of those items not often called for in recipes, and she probably didn’t have any inkling about the very particular use he was going to introduce her to tonight.

  It was hard not to think about Stacy then. It had been a very, very rare event when he’d ever had to spank Stacy for the same issue twice, and never had twice occurred in the same night. On the few occasions when something more than a simple spanking had been required, however, ginger root was his first fallback. He knew exactly how it should be prepared.

  For Cadence’s first introduction to it, he’d chosen a relatively thin piece. Stationing himself at the kitchen sink, he took it from the grocery bag and, with a carrot peeler, began to remove the skin. Towards the slightly larger end, he cut a furrow around the circumference to create a notched separation in the length, then scored the section he’d peeled so the juice would be sure to flow. It was very ripe. Very juicy. Depending on just how stubborn Cadence was determined to be, he might have to take to keeping a stock of it in the fridge, just in case. Heck, he smiled, he might even need to start fermenting them, a deed well-known to make the punishing effects of figging all the more miserable.

  From Cadence’s room down the hall, there was very little sound. He thought he heard the tell-tale whisper of running water via the kitchen pipes, which suggested she might be taking a shower, but that was it. Wrapping the prepared ginger root back in the thin plastic of the grocery bag, he settled himself on a stool at the bar to wait her out.

  He checked his watch. Was she going to make him sit here, like she’d promised, until he had no choice but to summon her out to face the music? Or would she come to him, stubborn little chin held high and probably with the hated cane gripped in her hand? He thought he’d given her enough of a spanking earlier, but apparently the effects of his hand hadn’t lasted long enough to make a strong impression. He thought about the hairbrush in his desk, but if he used that tonight, as he probably ought to since that’s what he’d threatened, then he would have to take care to keep it from being too severe. A punishment was only effective if the recipient felt corrected rather than abused, and Cadence was not a practicing submissive. She might have asked for this just as prettily as if she’d brought him the hairbrush and ginger root and begged him to use both on her please, pretty please, but she was still a vanilla and blissfully unaware of what she was asking for.

  Marcus checked his watch, trying to curb his impatience. She was taking her time, that was for sure, but he couldn’t hear the water running anymore, so he’d give her a few minutes more to present herself as he’d asked. He really didn’t want to have to add to her punishment.

  He subconsciously rubbed his right palm against his thigh. Don’t get an erection, he told himself. Now was not the time to be aroused.

  It was hard to help it, though. It had been such a very long time since he’d last been in this kind of situation. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed it—the anticipation that preceded a spanking, the aphrodisiac of planning and preparing the discipline to come, the stab of lust that accompanied the swell of authority already trying now to overtake him.

  He checked the time again. He’d waited long enough. She wasn’t obeying now, she was dawdling. He’d give her a few minutes more, then he was going to teach her a very short, sharp and uncomfortable lesson about why she wasn’t ever going to make him wait like this again.

  Stubborn. So very, very stubborn. That was an aphrodisiac too, whetting his dominant’s appetite to bring her to kneel before him. Figuratively if not literally. He seriously doubted her poor knees could take any more abuse.

  Her bottom, on the other hand…

  That’s it. One last glance at the clock told him they’d been home now for forty minutes, a good twenty minutes longer than he would ever again give her before presenting herself for a well-earned spanking. It was time little Miss Cadence found out exactly who she was dealing with.

  Marcus got up off the stool. Rolling up his shirt sleeves, he tried to pretend his heart wasn’t q
uickening as he made his way out of the kitchen, across the family room and into the short hallway that led to Cadence’s room. There was a definite build in excitement as he approached her closed door. A part of him was already anticipating the proverbial ‘chase’ of finding that door locked against him, but it wasn’t. He tested the knob, just enough to know for sure, then without opening the door, knocked. He was going to bust her butt, but while he certainly didn’t want her to enjoy this, ultimately the goal was not to drive her away. That meant, at least for now, being civilized and polite.

  There was no answering hail. Marcus knocked again, waited just long to enough to wonder, incredulously, almost laughing in fact, if she’d tried to go to bed on him, and then he went inside.

  Her bed was empty. That was the first thing he realized. That there was a light on under the bathroom door was the second. So, still taking a shower? No, he could hear the faint splash of water. A bath, then. After forty minutes, she was definitely dawdling.

  Crossing the room, Marcus knocked there too. “That’s enough, Cadence. Come on, let’s get this over with.”

  Just saying those familiar words gave him a tiny rush of almost forgotten exhilaration. It wasn’t appropriate for the situation, and he knew it, but he could already feel the weight of her lying across his lap with her curved and naked bottom cringing in anticipation of his disapproving hand.

  He’d have to keep tight control over his urges this time. He could rub, he told himself, but he would keep it professional. A well-spanked woman needed to be comforted afterwards, so a little bit of rubbing wasn’t out of line. But he would not kiss her, would not caress her, and he absolutely, positively would not, pull her up off his knees, roll her onto her back and bury his already throbbing, swollen cock into the warm wet heat he knew was waiting for him between her slender thighs.

  “Cadence?” He knocked again. He thought he heard a sniffle, but it might have just been a funny splash of bathwater. Still, it got his attention and his ears honed in, straining to make out the next sound.

  Had he not been listening so closely, he might not have heard her very softly mumbled, “I…I need help.”

  Had the door been locked against him, he’d have broken it in. Cadence didn’t ask for help. That she would right now meant something was seriously, seriously wrong.

  Fortunately, the door wasn’t locked. When he pushed his way inside, catching the bottom of the door on rolls of her discarded clothing, what he found at first did not look like an emergency at all. Cadence lay in the bottom of the tub, cooling water deep enough to cover her legs. She’d pulled the shower curtain over herself in a vain attempt to maintain modesty, but it was obvious that she had already tried for the towel. It lay in a crumple on the floor just under the towel rack, with drips of water showing how she’d tried and strained to reach it, but her reach was just millimeters too short.

  “Go ahead.” She wasn’t crying, but the tears were there, thick in her voice and shining unshed in the blue of her eyes. Her hair was wet, slicked back flat against her head and down her back, although it had been long enough now since she’d washed it that parts on top were already drying. Thin blonde wisps were starting to curl up around her face. She stared straight at the wall ahead and hugged the bottom of the shower curtain over as much of her as could be covered. She didn’t look at him once. “Say it if you want to.”

  “And what exactly am I supposed to say?” Coming into the bathroom, Marcus lowered the seat on the toilet and cautiously sat down.

  “I told you so,” she supplied.

  What was he missing? He looked around the bathroom, but apart from the towel and the way she just sat there, leaned up against the gently sloping back of the tub with her long legs stretched out before her, nothing sprang out at him as being dangerously amiss. His medical eye spotted one…two things, rather: her knees. Swollen to the size of grapefruits, they were so darkly discolored they looked bruised.

  Ignoring the ‘I told you so’, he dug straight for the real problem. “Are you all right?”

  Her expression shifted, undergoing a strain of so many different emotional nuances before finally melting into one of dark humor and despair. She began to laugh, but it sounded almost hysterical right before dissolving suddenly into shoulder-wracking sobs.

  “Fine,” she bawled, and then her quavering voice began to escalate until slowly she was all but shouting and spitting that hateful word as if it were the foulest taste she’d ever held in her mouth. “I’m fine. I’m just fine. I’m always fine! Why do I always say that when I’m anything but fine? No, I’m not fine! I’ll never be fine! I’ll never be fine ever again!”

  Every instinct in his body ached to go to her, to get down on his knees and pull her into his empty arms. But that wasn’t what she needed. He only just managed to hold himself back, listening quietly while she spat out a scathing diatribe aimed solely at herself.

  “I’m crippled. I’m useless! What am I doing here? I can’t do this job! I can’t take care of anybody else. I can’t even take care of myself! Why couldn’t he have hit me higher up, killed me and just been done with it? Why am I so stupid and weak? Why am I just sitting here while everyone else goes on like life is perfectly normal, and all I can do is watch it go and be…and just be fine?” She let go of the shower curtain and covered her face instead, wailing out both pain and frustration that, from the sounds of it, must have been a good year in the seething making.

  Marcus waiting silently, his heart breaking to hold her, and didn’t move. Not until the storm of her tears had abated to hiccupping gasps and sniffles and finally she lowered her hands to wrap her arms back around the shower curtain, holding it to her. Careful to keep his tone calm and even, he simply disregarded everything she’d just said and went back to the meat of the problem. “Cadence, sweetheart, are you all right?”

  Looking at once both miserable and embarrassed, she shook her head. “I’m stuck,” she whispered. “When I try to get up, my knees feel like they’re trying to bend the wrong way. I can’t get up by myself.”

  “Okay.” Reaching in to the tub, Marcus flipped the drain and the water, now quite cool, began to siphon away. He picked up the towel before gently robbing her of the shower curtain, pushing it to the other side of the tub and out of his way. “We’re going to do this in two parts.” He lay the towel over the edge of the tub and then got another out of the cupboard. “I’m going to help you up and sit you down here. Then, if you can get up on your own, great. If not, I’m going to carry you out to bed. Are you ready?”

  She nodded, reaching up to grab onto his shoulders when he squatted. He gripped the edge of the tub for balance, sliding his other arm underneath her to wrap around her waist.

  “On three,” he said. “One…two…lift…”

  She didn’t make a sound, not even when he heard her right knee pop. He hauled her out of the retreating water and set her down to sit on the tub. She sucked air, though, and clutched at both legs, rocking in her pain until it faded back to manageable levels. She probably didn’t realize yet that there were tears flowing freely down her face when she finally opened her eyes and looked at him.

  “Thank you,” she said hoarsely.

  He disregarded that, too. “I’m going to pick you up.”

  “I can manage from here.”

  “No, you can’t. And I’m not going to let you try.” Wrapping her in the second towel, he patted her dry enough not to create an uncomfortable wet spot once he got her to the bed. Sliding his arms around her back and under her swollen knees and, hoping that by doing it fast, he wouldn’t hurt her quite so much, Marcus picked her up.

  She shouted, but only once. After that, teeth gritted, she barely did more than grunt and whimper as he carried her to her bed. He sat her on the edge long enough to peel the blankets back and prop up the pillows. After that, it was a careful juggling act to help bring her legs up onto the mattress without hurting her any more than he absolutely had to. He had to scour both the guest clos
et and his personal closet upstairs to find enough pillows to elevate her knees, and by the time he returned to her room with all those pillows in hand, she had rolled onto her side to face the far wall, tucking only a single pillow between her thighs to keep her knees from resting directly on one another. Half lying on the blankets, she’d also tried to cover as much of herself as she could reach.

  “That’s not going to work,” he told her flatly, but she stayed as she was and didn’t move. “Cadence,” he warned. “Roll over.”

  “I’ll go back to Mama Venia’s tomorrow,” she said, her soft voice flat and dull. “Do you think Brent will give me a day or two to get my car fixed before he makes me leave?”

  “Sweetheart.” Marcus shook his head incredulously. “You’re not going anywhere tomorrow. You’re not going anywhere the day after tomorrow. In fact, you can consider yourself incredibly lucky if I let you out of this bed a week from tomorrow. Baby, you’re grounded.”

  She snorted and moved for the first time, albeit only just enough to fold her arms across her chest.

  Oh, the stubbornness.

  Dropping the pillows where he stood, Marcus circled the bed so she could see by his face just how serious he was. He even lay down beside her, pillowing his head on his own arm as he brought himself face to face and eye to eye with her.

  “You have a date with my hairbrush,” he told her bluntly. “Now, this has delayed that for at least a few days, but if you continue to push me tonight, you are going to find out that spankings aren’t my only method of discipline. Hasn’t your stubbornness hurt you enough for one night? Do you really want a serious punishment on top of all this?”

  “You don’t have to punish me. You’ve already won. I’m leaving whether you let me or not.”

  Now it was his turn to snort, albeit more from annoyed surprise than the show of derision she had given him. “How have I won? And how exactly do you plan to leave when your car isn’t working any better than your legs?”