“Sir?” she whispered before he fitted the ball gag into her mouth.

“Yes?”

“I miss my maintenance spankings.” Every morning they spent together, before, even if he was running late, she got at least a quick, bare-handed spanking over his lap, usually once he was already dressed.

Somehow, that made it even hotter for her, to be naked across his thighs, feeling the fabric of his cargo pants rubbing against her flesh while he firmly pinned her down by the neck with his left hand and smacked her ass with his right.

Even if it meant waking her up and rolling her over to deliver several stinging swats to her ass, she got them.

She’d needed them.

She’d wanted them.

If they had the day to spend together, or he wasn’t running late, he took his time and sometimes even used a paddle or other implement to make it sting even more. On his days off, he’d give her spankings so good she was still feeling them that evening, and usually spent her day wet because she’d wiggle in her office chair just to feel the burn in her ass.

His stern expression dissolved as he burst into laughter. “Is that what you just remembered, sweetheart? Maintenance spankings?”

She nodded.

He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Then starting tomorrow morning, you’ll get your maintenance spankings again. It’ll be my pleasure.”

He fit the ball gag into her mouth and waited until she had it positioned where she wanted it to buckle it behind her head.

Then he shifted positions, sitting next to her, his back to her and his left arm pressed into the backs of her knees. He picked up the cane with his right and looked at her. “Ready?”

She nodded.

She felt him slowly rub the cane up and down the backsides of her thighs, the crease where they joined her ass cheeks, and down her ass. Up and down, building the tension.

Then he paused it in that damn crease and she took a deep breath.

Zwwip. The snap as it struck her there, all the way across, tore a scream from her as she bit down on the gag with her jaw tightly clenched.

He looked back at her, once again calm and stern, all playfulness gone. “One,” he said.

She nodded, tears of pain coursing down her cheeks.

He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said they would hurt.

She couldn’t have loved him any more or harder in that moment if she’d tried. He wouldn’t let her get away with disobeying him. He was in charge.

He owned her.

He waited until she settled down for a moment, once again stroking the cane up and down her flesh. Where he’d stop and take the second stroke, only he knew.

Zwwip. Right across the center of her ass cheeks, every bit as hard as the first. As she struggled to process it through her scream of pain, she delighted in the fact the welts from that stroke would still hurt in a couple of days.

If she was lucky.

“That’s two.” He drew it out, all eleven strokes hard and biting and leaving her a screaming, sobbing mess by the time he finished and put down the cane.

“There’s my good girl,” he cooed, his fingers softly stroking and soothing her flesh.

Then they came to a stop over her clit. In a flash, her sobs turned to moans as he slipped two fingers inside her pussy as deeply as he could.

“You are a very, very wet girl,” he said. “You have really missed your spankings, haven’t you?”

She forced her eyes open and nodded.

The grin on his face only made her clit throb harder. “Such a good girl.”

He reached into the bag and pulled something else out. She couldn’t see exactly what, but then she heard a soft click and a hum.

Rob left her no time to process that. He filled her pussy again with his fingers and pressed the vibrator against her clit with his other hand.

The scream around the ball gag this time was far louder, and not from pain.

Her back arched even as her body betrayed her, humping against his hand and the vibrator as much as she could immobilized.

“Such a good girl,” he cooed again. “You took your punishment so well, you earned a reward.”

She threw her head back and moaned, the orgasm expanding, overwhelming. Yes, punishment was always followed by a reward, even when the maintenance spankings weren’t on a daily basis if he didn’t have time.

Her Master wasn’t an idiot. He’d learned well from Seth and Tony and the others, meting overwhelming pleasure with overwhelming pain and rewiring her body to crave every bit of it.

She had no idea how long he kept her coming. All she knew was she gave thanks it was a battery operated vibrator and not the more intense—and electrically powered—Hitachi.

Eventually, he let out a chuckle and switched the vibrator off. Panting, she tried to catch her breath, eyes closed.

Even through the last echoes of pleasure she felt the stinging, burning stripes of the cane marks across her flesh.

And, despite the gaping holes in her memory, she finally felt complete.

* * *

Rob had to force himself to give her all eleven strokes. Seeing her obvious distress before he started was the only thing that made him hold on to his reserve and follow through.

His memories of their hours of conversation, hundreds of hours, maybe, with her curled in his lap and talking. About her asking him, before, to never let her talk her way out of punishment, especially if he thought she’d earned it.

Her begging him to never let her get away with anything or push him around.

The memory of Steve confiding in him just a month after Rob collared her that he didn’t know what Rob had done to Laura, but to never stop doing it. That she seemed relaxed and peaceful for the first time in her life.

How his initial reluctance to take the firm control she told him she craved had eventually morphed into his need to keep her in hand, as much for his own sake as for hers.

In a career where he controlled very little, where he witnessed so many bad things on a daily basis, where chaos and even violence caused others pain and suffering that he frequently felt helpless to stop, this was the blissful center of his universe. Keeping her happy and loved. Controlling what happened and ensuring that peace and calm ruled their household.

She strictly ruled the rest of her world, her business. Lives literally depended on that exacting level of control she had, inspiring and training students who could die if they didn’t do what she told them, how she told them, and when she told them.

She needed the release from the stress. She needed him to be someone she could always count on to retain that control, even if she pushed the boundaries and tried to test him.

They really were two halves of a kinky little whole.

After removing the ball gag, he held the vibrator up to her lips. Without coaxing she opened, licking and sucking it clean and earning herself another laugh.

“That’s my good girl.”

He released her legs from the spreader bar and untied the rope harness, freeing her. Then he finally shed his own clothes and lay down next to her, kissing her neck, nibbling on her ear.

“I want you, Sir,” she gasped. “Please.” She sat up and swung a leg over him but he stopped her.

“Wait.” He reached behind him, trying to get to his pants.

She pulled his hand back. “No.”

Their eyes locked. “Laur, we need—”

She silenced him with a finger on his lips and shook her head. Her eyes smoldered in the firelight. “Please, Sir. No.”

There was a determined set to her jaw he knew all too well. He let her pull his hand back and place it on her hip. His other followed suit and she leaned forward and kissed him long and tenderly. Sitting up, she smiled and teased him with her hips, gliding the length of his engorged cock back and forth through her wet folds.

She still remembered how to do that.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked.

“Don’t you?”

He smiled. “Mrs. Carlton, you know what you’re doing to me, don’t you?”

She nodded, closing her eyes and enjoying it. “Having fun, aren’t you?” she asked.

He laughed. “Oh yes.”

“Okay then.”

He tried one more time just to make sure. “I know we discussed this…before. Are you sure this is what you want?”

She nodded.

He grabbed her hips and lifted her, then settled her down onto the full length of his cock. He had to hold her still for a moment, not wanting to explode just yet. Her slick cunt tightly gripped his cock, a perfect fit.

Everything about them seemed to fit perfectly together.

Once he knew he had himself under control, he let her take the lead. In a few minutes, when he knew he couldn’t take it anymore, he began thrusting up into her, rocking together, easily finding a rhythm.

She still knew how make him moan. He gently stroked her clit with his thumb, bringing her almost to the edge. When he knew she was ready he thrust up hard, met her strokes, their eyes locked.

He waited until her eyes dropped closed, letting out a soft cry at the same time her pussy clenched around his cock. That’s when he finally let go and moaned, exploding inside her and filling her with his cum. When it was over she collapsed on top of him and he wrapped his arms around her, drawing a blanket up over them.

The fire crackled beside them, defining their entire world. No fear, no worries, no hurts, only them entwined and the comforting house and the fire to warm them. Just when he thought she was asleep she kissed the side of his neck.