Читать книгу The Breaking Point - Mariella Starr - Страница 9

Ales walked into the bathroom as Faith stepped from the shower. He’d been in Hancock for three weeks now. Their dedicated time together was getting closer to an end, but if he needed to extend it, he would.

Tyrell, his business partner, had been supportive. Ales was the architect, Tyrell was the business manager, and together they were Benedetti/Monroe Design. They worked well as a team and as partners. They’d been best friends since their first year in college.

Faith had been given a clean bill of health, and the cast had been removed from her foot. She’d been warned to continue restricting her working hours and to get plenty of rest. She still had occasional headaches, and she’d lost quite a bit of weight she didn’t need to lose. Ales suspected that trying to get his wife to pace herself was going to be a problem. Faith had one speed, and that was full-speed charge ahead, all the time. She had never been a champion of rest and relaxation. She had to stay busy all the time.

He’d been trying to take care of her, making her favorite foods, giving her massages, and restricting the hours, she painted. The bruises on her face, chest, and arms had faded and healed. The remaining ones were a few big ones on her legs. Ales had asked the doctor about them, worried they might indicate a problem more serious, but he’d been told they were fading, and it wasn’t uncommon for bruises on the legs to heal slower. To Ales, it was an indication of how hard her body had been abused in the collision. They were sharing the same room, sharing the same bed, but they hadn’t been sharing each other.

He felt himself harden under the towel he had wrapped around his waist. “Let me see those bruises,” he said matter-of-factly, as he sat on the only available seat. Ales turned her naked body around in front of him to inspect the still dark bruises on her thighs.

“Alessandro,” Faith said, running her fingers through his hair and pulling his face against her breasts.

“Don’t do that,” he said raggedly. “I want you so badly, but I don’t want to push. You’re not ready yet.”

“Why don’t you let me decide when I’m ready, or not?” Faith asked. “You come to bed late, knowing that pill I take makes me sleep.”

“I’ve been dealing with business issues late at night,” Ales said, breathing in her natural scent. “I want you to be sure before we start that part of lives again.”

“I think at this point we’ve settled most of our issues,” Faith said. “I haven’t stopped loving you, but I’m beginning to think you’ve lost interest.”

“Sweetheart, I’ve been afraid to ask.”

“You don’t have to ask, all you have to do is make love to me,” Faith said.

Ales stood and dropped his towel. He reached into the shower and turned the water back on.”

There was a knock on the door, and Ricco yelled, “I gotta go!”

Ales stepped over to the door and opened it a crack. “Use one of the other bathrooms, and go fix your breakfast!”

Faith was smiling when he stepped under the pulsating spray of the showerhead. They kissed as he began touching every part of her as if he were discovering something new and precious.

She started to tremble as she felt a throb between her legs. Ales carefully went to his knees, and his mouth went to her center, his tongue was teasing, searching, and thrusting. He spread her legs further apart to allow him more access as his tongue worked magic. Her knees were getting weak, and she felt the support of his strong hands, holding her steady. When he stood, he wrapped his arm around her waist and set her outside the shower as he turned off the water, joining her to towel her dry. Then he stuck his head out the door to make sure the hallway was clear of their son, and carried her to the bedroom across the hall, locked the door behind him, and laid her on the bed gently.

Faith curled her legs around his waist as he sank into her, and began the thrusting that was so familiar to her. Everything below her waist was tingling and trembling.

“Oh, my God!” Faith exclaimed as she orgasmed for the first time in months.

Ales wasn’t through yet. He knew his wife, and he wanted to extend their pleasure as long as possible. He was still buried deep into Faith, and he continued the ritual of thrust and withdraws, faster and harder. Ales was so turned on that he had to muffle his groans and moans.

Faith went over the edge again, her natural response torturing his sex by tightening around him, but he still wouldn’t allow himself the pleasure of coming until she bucked under him again. Raising himself on his forearms, he pounded into her until he couldn’t control himself any longer, and he let go to enjoy those few fleeting moments of pure heaven.

Ales buried his face into his wife’s still damp hair and pulled her against him, and from the bed. They darted across the hall naked, and he turned the shower on again. They washed each other, and Ales even shampooed her hair, being careful to work around the red scar where the stitches had been removed.

“Was I too rough?”

“No,” Faith said truthfully. “You’ve never been too rough.”

He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. “Does this mean we’re getting back to normal?”

Faith nodded. “Normal, as our new normal. Not our old normal.”

“We can be a work in progress,” Ales said with a grin, and he wrapped her into her robe for crossing the hallway this time. “We’d better get downstairs. Without supervision, Ricco will eat a full box of sugar-coated cereal, and then we’ll be peeling him off the ceiling for the next couple of hours.”

“He knows better,” Faith said, opening her closet.

“Sure he does, but he’s a boy. All the warnings in the world won’t stop him, if he thinks he’ll get away with it,” Ales said with a laugh. “Arms up!” He pushed a tee shirt over her arms and her head and torso. “How is the rib? I didn’t put too much weight on you, did I?”

“I’m fine,” Faith said. “As long as I raise my arms slowly, and don’t lift anything heavy, I’m okay.”

“We have to go to either Cumberland or Hagerstown today. It’s time for car shopping, and we want to take advantage of the July 4^th sales,” Ales said as he continued helping his wife get dressed. “I think Hagerstown would be our best bet. There are more dealerships there.” Faith still hurt if she tried to bend over, so she sat on the bed, and he slid her feet into sandals.

“Why can’t I go with Jill or Carrie?” Faith asked.

“Because they don’t know diddlysquat about vehicles,” Ales retorted.

“The last two times we went looking for cars, we got into arguments,” she reminded him.

Ales frowned. “My concern is safety for you and Ricco, and the kids you haul around.”

“My concern is that I am going to be stuck with a vehicle I hate again!” Faith said forcefully.

“You didn’t hate the Subaru.”

“Yes, I did! You drove it in one day, and said: ‘I got a good deal, and they even took the old wreck as a trade-in.’ You handed me the keys, and I didn’t get one single word of input on what I wanted to drive.”

“Ouch!” Ales said, wincing, and he sat beside her on the bed. “I did do that, didn’t I? In my defense, your car had left you sitting on the side of the road three times in three weeks. Even the mechanic said there was no hope of resurrecting it, without spending a lot more money than it was worth. It was unreliable, and an accident waiting to happen.”

“I know, but it still wasn’t right,” Faith said. She didn’t want to heap any more guilt on her husband, although she was going to make her position clear. “It was my car. I should have had a say in what I drive. It was blue!”

“What’s wrong with blue?”

“How long have you lived with me?” Faith asked with exasperation. “What color do I constantly veto? I’m an artist, and I love color, but what color will I not wear or use for decorating or much of anything, except as a tiny accent?”

“Blue,” he answered. “You don’t like the color blue.”

“Specifically royal blue, or anything close to it,” Faith said. “What color was the Subaru?”

“Blue,” Ales admitted reluctantly. “Blue, and gray, with a blue interior.”

“Royal blue,” Faith said in a disgusted tone of voice. “There are a thousand shades of blue, you could have picked, and I would have been okay with it. You picked a vehicle that was royal blue. I was offended every time I got into the driver’s seat! I used to have wishful daydreams of someone running into it and totaling it. Those dreams weren’t of me being inside it at the time, of course. They were more like someone running into it in a parking lot when it was empty.”

“I get it. At the time, it was a good bargain, and I wasn’t thinking about your color sensibilities.” He raised his hand when her eyes flashed with temper.

“I’m not making fun of your color issues. I’ll stay out of it, except for the mechanics, the safety issues, and bargaining for it. It’s your car, you get to choose it,” Ales said. “Thanks to our living in a ‘fault-based’ state, the insurance company has already settled. Our lawyer took care of that by threatening them with a lawsuit. Considering the severity of your injuries and their problematic client whom they hadn’t canceled from her insurance policy yet, they didn’t have a leg to stand on. The personal injury money is yours. You can save it, or use it however you want.”

“That’s not how we do things,” Faith said. “We share, and it was quite substantial. I still can’t believe they hadn’t canceled her auto insurance. I’m sure someone lost their job over that snafu. I think I would like to put part of the money toward the cost of my degree. I get a discount because I teach there, but it’s still going to be a whopping bill.”

“Nope,” Ales said, shaking his head. “You quit your studies to help pay for mine. I’m paying for yours, or more correctly, we are paying for them together from our shared finances. It’s fair, Faith. What you do with the personal injury settlement is your business. I wasn’t the one hurt.”

“We’re in this together,” Faith said. “Okay, how about we use the replacement costs for the Subaru against the new vehicle, and I bank the settlement for now. We can decide on what to do with it later.”

“I can agree to that,” Ales said. “We never have taken your dream vacation to the British Isles, Ireland, and Scotland. Come on, I’ll drive you to the car lots, and you get to decide what you want, within reason.”

“Who gets to determine what is reasonable?”

“Don’t push it,” he growled, and he gave her a stinging swat across her bottom.

“Faith, choose one,” Ales said later the next afternoon. He sounded frustrated because he was. He was standing in the hot sun, and dripping with sweat in the high humidity. They had been on the car lots for two days. “We’ve test-driven sixteen vehicles. You’ve taken notes on every one of them. Please, make a decision.”

“Don’t exaggerate! I’ve driven twelve cars. Can’t we come back later? Give me time to go through my notes and think about it?”

“Fine, but you’re the one who is going to be without a car to get around. We promised Ricco we’d take him to the Orioles game tonight. I had to pull a lot of strings to get those tickets, and they cost a fortune.

“The car lots are closed on Sunday, and for the 4^th of July holiday. I have to return to work Tuesday morning. You’re going to be stuck without a vehicle until Friday or Saturday of next week, because my first week is going to be hell. Then we can spend the next weekend driving to these same lots again. By then, the cars you are interested in will have been sold.”

Faith walked off, somewhat frustrated herself. “Asshole,” she grumbled.

“What was that?” Ales demanded with a frown.

“I didn’t say anything,” Faith denied. “It’s between the seafoam green one here or the pearl gold at the last dealership.”

“Why is it between those two vehicles? Is it because you like the features of the vehicles or because you like the colors?” Ales asked.

“Both. I like the built-in GPS with the back-up screen in the seafoam green the best. The gray interior won’t show wear and tear when it’s loaded with kids and sports equipment,” she said. “It also has three rows of seats, and the two back seats fold out of the way for hauling stuff. We can also add fog lights as an option, and I think that’s important considering we have fog almost every morning, from fall through the spring months.”

“That makes more sense than picking a car by color,” Ales said approvingly, and he ignored the look of frustration she gave him. “I think that’s it then. You are about to become the owner of a slightly used Toyota Sequoia. Good choice.”

Ales walked over to the salesman who had been standing to the side while they discussed the deal. Faith didn’t like negotiating over anything, even at a yard sale. She loved a good price, but she wasn’t going to haggle for it.

The salesman shook her husband’s hand and walked off toward the showroom, and she joined Ales.

“Let’s go sign the paperwork,” he said to Faith.

As they were walking across the lot, Ales leaned over and whispered into his wife’s ear. “That disrespectful name-calling is going to cost you. I think a spanking is long overdue.”

“What?” Faith exclaimed.

“You know the rules,” Ales said firmly. “Tonight, you get a refresher course.”

Faith sat outside in the large sitting area of the showroom. She let Ales do the haggling on large purchases, mostly because she hated doing it herself. She sat in a soft, comfortable chair and wondered if she’d be sitting this easy later. Returning to the principles by which they had lived earlier in their marriage wasn’t going to be easy. She looked around at the sea of new or slightly used vehicles.

When they’d first met, both of them had been driving beat-up used models, which Ales and his friends had managed to keep running after every breakdown. Since they’d married, they had managed to buy slightly used vehicles or dealer test drive models, with low mileage, but with a significant reduction in price. One fundamental concept, Faith and Ales had agreed upon when they married, was keeping their debts low, and living within their means. They knew far too many students who were drowning in debt.

A windfall from an elderly great-uncle of the Benedetti family had helped Ales and his sisters, ease into adulthood. It had given both Jill and Carrie down payments for purchasing their homes. It had allowed Ales the collateral he needed to start his architecture firm, and they had a nest egg when it was necessary to use it.

When they were forced to purchase a significant expense, such as a refrigerator or a vehicle, they paid for it in cash, from what they fondly called Uncle Tito’s account. Then they unfailingly paid the principle in monthly payments. That way, their savings remained stable, and they didn’t have to pay high-interest rates on their purchases. They also considered Uncle Tito’s account, Ricco’s college fund, and they added to it regularly.

When Faith’s parents had died within a month of each other, one of a heart attack, and the other of a broken heart, she had inherited their home, and their savings, but inheritance taxes had eaten into most of it. She was thankful that she had been able to keep the house. Her parents had paid for most of her college expenses, so she didn’t have much college debt.

Ales walked from the dealership office smiling. “If we hang around for about an hour, you’ll be able to drive it home,” Ales said, and he picked up Faith’s hand and kissed it. “You look reflective, what are you thinking? Are you happy about your choice?”

“It has nothing to do with the car,” Faith said. “I was thinking about our finances and how lucky we’ve been. We graduated from college with very little student debt, and your Uncle Tito’s inheritance has made our lives much easier than most young couples.”

“It did,” Ales agreed. “Who knew he had that kind of money stashed away? We didn’t. Mom didn’t. He was Dad’s brother, but she was livid that he didn’t leave her part of the inheritance. That was because Uncle Tito never liked our mother, although she didn’t see it that way.

“He lived in a tiny little track home built after WWII. The inheritance allowed Tyrell and me to go into business, and then you got your dream job of teaching at Frostburg. We have done well. I’m going to stop at the grocery store on the way home for tail-gate food.”

“I’ll drive straight home,” Faith said. “You won’t listen to my suggestions when it comes to manly food anyway. It will save us an argument over junk food.”

“Good idea,” Ales agreed, nodding his head, but he looked into her eyes seriously. “Please, drive carefully!”

Faith called her neighbor Tracy London as soon as she entered the house. Ricco hadn’t wanted to go car shopping. He had wanted to spend time with his new friends. A phone call had granted that permission, and now she was calling Tracy to retrieve her son.

Ricco came running. He was all over the new vehicle for a few minutes, and then he lost interest and ran off to play with his friends.

Faith had known Tracy all her life, although she’d been Tracy Winchester during her school days. They had been good friends, having grown up across the street from each other. They’d been in the same classes from first- through the twelfth-grade. They’d gone their separate ways after high school, although they still considered each other good friends.

Tracy had stayed local and had worked as a waitress in her parents’ restaurant. Apparently, she and her husband had purchased her parents’ home when the senior Winchesters had retired to live in Florida. Tracy was still the overseer of the family-owned restaurant. They saw each other occasionally, but Faith hadn’t seen her old friend this trip because of her injuries.

Faith left the door unlocked for Ricco and went upstairs to work on a painting she’d started.

“Hello? Hello?”

A female voice broke through Faith’s concentration, and she set her brush aside and walked to the top of the stairs.

“Tracy, come on up,” Faith yelled down the stairwell. They hugged when Tracy made it to the third floor.

“I read about your accident in the newspaper, but I didn’t want to bother you while you were recuperating,” Tracy said. “I saw you when you first got here, and you were in rough shape. It scared the crap out of me!”

“When I first got here, I didn’t want to be seen by anyone. I looked like a monster from a horror movie. I have appreciated the casseroles and food dishes you’ve sent over. I’m getting better every day,” Faith said. “It’s been... wow... it’s been almost eight weeks since the accident.”

Tracy’s eyes went to the scar in Faith’s hairline, and Faith fiddled with her bangs. “I know, it looks awful, I have to be careful when I go out to cover it.”

“It’s not that noticeable,” Tracy said. “Ricco said you’re staying here for the summer. I haven’t been in this house since, well, you know, since you lost your parents. It’s like walking through an art gallery!”

“My parents were my biggest fans,” Faith said. “We don’t spend a lot of time here, and I love the way my mother decorated the house. It looks like a time capsule of the past on the exterior, but inside she picked furniture that works without being stuffy. There are a few antiques here and there. I’m just thankful they aren’t that gruesome gothic style my grandmother favored.

“It might be a little narcissistic, considering most of the wall decorations, but I gave all these pieces to my parents. A few of these drawings were drawn when I wasn’t much older than Ricco. Now, my home is beginning to fill with his work.”

“I’m going to come back and take the time to study every single painting,” Tracy promised. “What I came over for was to ask if you and your husband would like a kid-free weekend? I know Ales is returning to work Tuesday. I’m not nosing into your business, but Ricco talks, and I keep my ears open because I try to stay one step ahead of those boys getting into trouble.”

“Oh, I understand that. I do the same with Ricco,” Faith admitted.

“Sooo,” Tracy said, extending the word, and smiling. “Of course, I know Ales, but honey, that man of yours is just getting more handsome with every year. He’s got the older ladies on our street peeking through their lace curtains every time he drives up, or is working in the yard. The old grannies are having hot flashes again! You grew up here, and you know what the street gossip is like.”

“Anyway, Curtis, and I, and Jayden, and Byron are going to an Orioles game tonight, and we have a spare ticket. Curtis is an old school chum of one of the players, so he gets free tickets occasionally.

“We’ve got tonight, and the next three days planned. We’re going to the game at Camden Yards tonight, and we’ll stay at a motel we like about fifteen miles outside of the city. My husband is definitely a country boy, and he doesn’t like going into cities—any of them. Tomorrow we’ll drive into Baltimore, again and spend Saturday at Harbor Place going to all the places the boys want to visit, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Odditorium, the Aquarium, and the Science Center, and we’ll get our fix of fresh seafood.

“When we leave Baltimore, we’ll drive to Frederick to my brother Dwain’s house. We’ll be spending two nights there, and we’ll take in a Saturday evening Keys game at the Harry Grove Stadium. There will be fireworks after the game. Sunday, we’ll have a family get-together with all my brothers and their families. We’ll have a barbecue, and go to another fireworks display. We’ll be doing pretty much the same Monday, and then we’ll head home. I’ll be exhausted, and the boys and Curtis will have fulfilled their baseball fix for the summer. We’d like to invite Ricco to go with us so we won’t waste the ticket.

“I thought you might enjoy a kid-free weekend. God knows, we parents don’t get them very often, and maybe you could do the same for us, minus the baseball marathon. I know this is short notice, but we’re leaving in a couple of hours, so we can try to avoid the traffic.”

“Goodness,” Faith exclaimed, smiling. Tracy still talked a mile a minute. “We have tickets for the game tonight, but we might sacrifice them for a kid-free weekend.”

“You can still go, just minus your kid,” Tracy said, grinning. “If you don’t go, believe me, we can find someone to take the tickets. With one extra ticket, if we’d offered it to one of my brothers they would have fought over it. With three extra tickets, they could all go, and their wives would owe you a big favor for getting those lug-heads out of their hair for a few hours.”

Faith laughed. “Ales is a huge baseball fan, so I’ll have to talk to him when he gets home.”

“I want to go!” Ricco’s voice came from the winding staircase, and he joined them in the hallway. “We’ll get to go to Harbor Place. Aunt Carrie thinks it’s not safe, but Mr. London is a deputy for the Sheriff’s Department. He’d be able to keep us safe! He carries a gun!”

“Only when he’s in uniform,” Tracy interjected, giving Faith a smile over his head.

“Dad and I still have to discuss it,” Faith warned her son. “Tracy, if I send Ricco over with a backpack and one ticket, you’ll know he’s going to be your guest for the weekend, and maybe you can still give away the extra ticket. We will be going to the game. If I send him over with a backpack and three tickets, he’s yours until you bring him back. We will return the favor.”

“Yeah!” Ricco shouted, and he ran down the stairs and darted into his room.

Tracy and Faith walked the stairs at a slower pace, and Tracy stopped at a portrait of Ales, Faith had painted years earlier.

She looked over her shoulder at Faith. “He was gorgeous then. Now he’s just plain eatable.”

“Tracy!” Faith exclaimed.

Tracy laughed. “Honey, I’m honest to a fault and aren’t you lucky that I have a man of my own, that I love to pieces. When it’s my weekend, oh là là!” She wiggled her bottom. “I am going to be prepared!”

Ales considered the offer for all of ten seconds. “I’ll take Ricco over, and give them the tickets and some cash, so they’re not footing the entire bill. A hotdog at the stadium is six bucks.”

“I didn’t think you’d give up an Orioles game so easily,” Faith said.

“You’re kidding?” Ales exclaimed. “A baseball game or alone time with my wife—it’s a no brainer. I’ve already called Jill and told her we wouldn’t be at her 4^th of July picnic. I won’t tell you what her response was.”

“Was it dirty?” Faith asked with a grin.

“Very,” Ales growled, shaking his head.

Ales walked Ricco over with a small duffle bag, and he spoke with Curtis London. He’d met the deputy before, and he knew Tracy had been a childhood friend of his wife. He kept an eye on the street, watching Curtis London navigate the downward slope slowly as was the habit of all the residents. There were concrete pillars on the outside of the sidewalk across the narrow, steep street, so if a vehicle coming down the steep hill lost their brakes, they wouldn’t plow into the building across from the stop sign. Those pillars would do significant damage to the front end of a vehicle, and probably to the occupants, but they would save the lives of the people in the offices behind the pillars.

He walked into the kitchen, where Faith was storing away the last of the groceries he’d brought home. “You brought home a lot of tailgate food,” she scolded.

“It won’t go to waste with an eight-year-old in the house,” he mumbled as he kissed her. “My tailgating this weekend involves your tail, and we might as well get started. We’re rolling back time.”

“Now?”

“Now!” Ales said, and he bent over, tossed her over his shoulder, and carried her up the stairs, with Faith giggling. He dumped her on their bed, closed, and locked the door, although they were alone. He reached for her tee shirt, pulled it over her head carefully, and unhooked her bra.

Faith was naked in a matter of seconds. Ales stripped himself, and then sat on the bed. He pulled her over and onto his lap.

“I love you, sweetheart, but this has been a long time coming. It’s not your fault. It’s mine for letting you get sassy and disrespectful. We’ve been letting each other get away with a lot that we shouldn’t have tolerated. Neither of us has been holding the other to the line, on what we agreed upon as the principles of our marriage. I told you I was going to give you a spanking, and I am. Calling me an asshole jump-started this.”

“Now?” Faith questioned.

“What better time? Who is the head of our house?” Ales asked.

“You are,” Faith said.

“I am, and you agreed to certain principles of a lifestyle, didn’t you?”

Faith nodded, and she felt a hard spank across her bare bottom. “Yes, I did,” she said aloud.

“Spanking was a regular part of our courtship and our early married life,” Ales reminded his wife, positioning Faith over his lap. He stroked her beautiful, curvy buttocks. He’d always been a butt man, and his wife’s bottom was perfect. Perfect for spanking and perfect for other sexual activities they enjoyed. “It’s been a long time since we had a spanking. How often did we have them?”

Faith knew the routine of his questions. It was more of a reminder that he was in charge, although he had forgotten or ignored it for a long time. He’d always given her spankings when he thought she deserved one.

“We never kept track, and it was usually about every two weeks,” she admitted.

“More like once a week,” Ales corrected her with a hard spank.

“I was younger then, and immature. I hadn’t learned to keep my mouth shut!”

“Calling me an asshole was immature,” Ales said, rubbing his hand across her bottom. “How do you feel about being disciplined?”

“I never liked spankings. No one wants their butt toasted, but they do relieve a lot of tension between us!” Faith admitted.

“Because you don’t want to face conflict, and you allow it to fester and grow into anger. Then, you explode and it gets you into trouble every time,” Ales said as he rubbed his hand across her bottom and he gave her a stinging swat.

“I questioned my mother once when I heard Daddy spanking her. I must have been six or seven. She told me that being spanked is just of way of showing a woman or a child they’ve crossed a line, between being good and bad,” Faith said closing her eyes with the memory. “Momma said Daddy spanked her because he loved her, just as she spanked me because she loved me and wanted me to be a better person.”

“They did, and I do. We love each other, and spankings have never harmed our relationship,” Ales agreed. “We agreed on practicing a D/D marriage, but I haven’t lived up to my part of the bargain for quite some time. I never stopped spanking you when we were being intimate, but I did stop spanking you for misbehavior. That stops now.

“I’m not sure how our basic agreements fell to the side, but I’m not going to let it happen again. You’re a woman who needs to be reminded that snide remarks and tit-for-tat behavior won’t be tolerated. I’m also going to depend on you to keep me in check, so I don’t abuse my position. You need to speak up, but lately, I think you’ve been channeling my sister! I need you to speak up just don’t carry it too far. And, don’t forget, she gets her ass striped quite often by her husband! Mack uses a paddle!”

Faith raised her eyes to him in surprise. “Really?”

“Each to their own, and whatever works between them is their business,” Ales said. “I wouldn’t, and Jill would hate me for saying this, but she can be a lot like our mother, so she probably has it coming. You are the polar opposite, and I’d like you to stay that way. You just need to stop hiding your feelings. Are we in agreement in this?”

“Yes,” Faith said, and she found herself keenly awaiting another strike of his hand.

“Good,” Ales said, laying a stinging hard spank across her buttocks. Several more hard whacks elicited a squeal and a yelp. He spanked every inch of her beautiful bottom, turning it bright pink, except around the lingering bruise at the top of her thigh. Spanking his wife made Ales feel more in control, more of the dominant they had agreed was his role. It wasn’t what some called toxic masculinity, and he would never let labels define him. The only woman he had to please was his wife, and spanking her, hearing that satisfying smack when his hand landed on her bottom, had always turned him on. Spanking revved Faith’s libido, too!

Faith could feel the heat on her buttocks, as well as an increasing need in her lower regions. There was an exciting tingly feeling swirling around inside her. Still, she had to endure the spanking, and she could admit to herself that she had missed this part of her relationship with Ales. He was a commanding husband, but only during the most private parts of their lives.

Early in their dating, they had decided to maintain a D/D relationship. When Ales had expressed his position, and that he believed in spanking, he’d thought it would be the end of their relationship. He had been surprised to discover that Faith had been raised by parents who lived the same lifestyle he wanted to adopt.

Faith had been raised by parents who believed a husband had the right to spank his wife. Her father, after a closed-door meeting with Ales, had agreed that he thought Ales was a good match for his impetuous daughter. He’d told her new boyfriend that if he ever needed advice on how to handle his daughter, Ales was to call him.

Ales took the spanking to the point where she was crying, and then he pulled her into his arms. He reminded Faith of the many reasons they were together, and he reassured her of how much he loved her. He kissed and began to stroke her, and she melted under his touch.

Ales laid Faith on the bed on her stomach. He began to give her a massage, his lips trailing behind whatever part he was attending. He wandered around her back to her still stinging buttocks. He pulled her to her knees and thrust several fingers into her, pumping them inside.

Faith knew what was coming, and she shivered, wanting him inside her desperately. What followed was a wild ride of thrusting, pumping, and spanking of her already stinging bottom. When they lay spent, exhausted, and trying to catch their breath, she wished it wasn’t over, but she knew she had to allow him time to recoup his strength for another round.