A Hard Man… Is Good To Find
Carolyn Faulkner
Published by Blushing Books at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 by Blushing Books and Carolyn Faulkner
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Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
ISBN 978-1-93552-52-1
Cover Design: ABCD Graphics and Design
This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.
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Chapter One
Her nipples were hard, dammit!
Kelsey tried to shrug her shoulders surreptitiously, casting a furtive eye around to see if anyone else had noticed her body's inappropriate response to a certain man's presence just a few feet away. Luckily, her silk shirt and short jacket had a loose enough fit that the gyrations did the trick without her having to spend the next half hour hunched over like Quasimodo.
Never mind that it was a funeral, for God's sake - and for one of her best friends, Calliope Jenks, psychic extraordinaire. As Callie'd said herself many times before, she may be old but she wasn't dead. Kelsey's already reddened eyes flooded instantly with tears through her small, watery smile. Callie wouldn't have taken any offense at Kelsey's middle-aged body having a mind of its own, if there was one thing Calliope had thoroughly enjoyed, it was being right. She would have been tickled pink, partly because she had had a ribald sense of humor and would have heartily appreciated the irony of sexual arousal during a celebration of her death, and partly because she'd've known exactly who it was that caused such a startling reaction in Kelsey.
The culprit was standing across the grave from her - not that there was a crush of mourners; it was just the two of them, Callie's younger sister, and a few of her neighbors. Well, Kelsey thought with a wry twist of her lips, they always were on the opposite side of pretty much everything, why not a funereal service? She let her eyes flicker over him quickly. At least he wasn't wearing those annoying mirrored sunglasses that she hated and he favored. Kelsey bit her lip as her eyes took in his tanned face. It wasn't a handsome face by any means but rather a hard, interesting field of planes and angles, almost no curves or rounded edges to speak of. His eyes were dark, nose sharp, and his lips . . .
She gave a short sigh, almost a whimper, feeling an annoyingly familiar but unwelcome warmth flow through her body to settle achingly between her legs. Her eyes swept rapidly down over the impressive breadth of his shoulders, heavy with muscle, the taut, flat stomach she knew lay beneath that oxford cloth shirt, down to where his hands - ohhhh Lord,, the thought of those hands wielding any sort of an implement was enough to make her shiver - were clasped beneath the waist of his charcoal dress pants. Kelsey frowned, noting his unusual stance - somewhat hunched as her own had been a few seconds ago, with his fingers splayed as if he was trying to cover up something that lay behind them.
Her brow furrowed in thought. What could he be hiding? she mused just long enough for the information to filter through her dirty, active little mind. Her lips formed a startled "o" of surprise when she realized that he was trying to conceal an even more blatant reaction than hers! If his hands and feet were no lie, it was probably a considerable reaction, and she couldn't help a catty grin as she saw him shift almost nervously. Nah. Clint Duncan nervous? Never! Even embarrassed was pushing it some.
Another quick glance at his face caught him staring back at her with the usual assessing boldness. She had an almost uncontrollable urge to stick her tongue out at him, but decided that would be completely tacky, and Callie did not deserve tacky behavior at a service in her honor. Ruthlessly, Kelsey dragged her gaze away from his to the rich, mahogany urn surrounded by beautiful arrangements of yellow roses - Callie's favorite.
Father O'Ryan's monotone voice droned, "Let us bow our heads in prayer: Our Father -"
Kelsey heard Clint's deep voice as he chanted the familiar words to the Lord's Prayer, and another sharp fever-chill washed over her already aching breasts, making them swell against the confining lace of her pink bra. Oh, man, no matter how many prayers she uttered now, she knew she was definitely going straight to hell when she died for feeling like this - do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars! Kelsey muttered to herself, scrunching her shoulders uncomfortably again. She glared quickly at Clint and their eyes collided again - the bastard had a shit-eating grin on his face; he knew what was happening to her; there was no doubt.
Scowling, she bent her head again and studied her shoes, trying unsuccessfully to appear pious and innocent although the religious ceremony was for the benefit of the mourners. Callie had been a child of the world and subscribed to no particular religious philosophy, as a matter of fact her most firm belief was in the inherent intelligence of Chaos Theory. The thought of Callie's total irreverence brought a smile to Kelsey's face as the service ended quietly, and, after hugging everyone there - with one large, brooding exception - Kelsey turned to the priest, a small stipend already in her hand.
But just as she was going to touch the Father's arm to get his attention away from Bridie, Callie's vivacious younger sister, she found her path blocked by a behemoth in a dark gray suit, who pumped Father Ryan's hand up and down several times, saying, "Wonderful service, Father," as he held out a modest pile of folded bills.
Unable to resist, Kelsey smacked Clint on the arm, hurting her hand in the process. "I was going to pay him, Duncan!"
Clint didn't acknowledge either the hit or her presence, moving deliberately so that all she could see was the vast pinstriped expanse of his back. "Here you go, Father," she heard him say.
"Dammit, Clint," Kelsey grabbed his arm and tried to move him, without managing to budge him even a millimeter. So she shouldered past him as best she could, almost standing on top of the poor, shocked priest in her haste to offer her own money for his services. "I'm paying him!"
Father Ryan, God love him, was of the old school, and he'd known Kelsey since she was in diapers. "Kelsey Elizabeth Donohue! Language! I know your parents taught you better than that!"
She could hear Clint sniggering under his breath, but Kelsey was only somewhat subdued by the scolding. "Sorry, Father," she muttered, pressing her own packet of bills into his hand.
"I already paid him, Princess," came the smug statement from behind and well above her head.
That condescending nickname grated on her like nothing else, and he knew it, which was why he'd used it. "Well, then, he's been paid twice due to your own stubborn stupidity, hasn't he?" Kelsey turned to face her annoying adversary, hands on her hips, ready for a fight as always around him. They had gone nose to nose innumerable times before - since the first time they'd met, frankly - and undoubtedly would again. Kelsey had never backed down, despite the drastic differences in their sizes, and she wasn't about to start now.
But before she could begin, Bridie put a firm hand on either of them. "Surely the two of you're not going to be disrespectful enough to start another one of your donnybrooks over my sainted sister's grave, aire ya'?"
Kelsey had always noticed how Bridie's Irish accent was always exaggerated when she was a mite upset. "No," Kelsey answered, realizing that she had no choice but to lay off. "I won't fight here and now. I'm sorry." She dropped a warm kiss on Bridie's soft cheek, getting a sharp whiff of Youth Dew in the process, but she couldn't resist brushing past Clint and growling low under her breath. She didn't know what it was about that man that set her on edge, but he drove her absolutely crazy - in more ways than one.
Callie had not wanted a wake - in truth she hadn't wanted the formal funeral, either, but she had recognized the living's need to grieve and had consented to the small grave-side service. "Have a party," she'd said repeatedly as the end drew near. "Have fun." At one point, she'd even whispered saucily to Kelsey, "Grab a hold of that Duncan man and give him the ride of his life!"
Kelsey had snorted and, she thought in retrospect, protested way too much at the time. Callie had known. She always knew what was in "her girl's" heart. When Kelsey finally got to her car in the small family cemetery, she stood for a moment, looking out over the rich green hills surrounding the small hamlet of Gordon's Cross, Vermont, remembering Callie in her own way and in her own sore heart as the tears once again dripped down her cheeks.
Kelsey lifted her face to the sun, almost defiantly whispering out loud, "Good bye, old girl. I loved you, and I'm gonna miss you a lot."
"So am I," came the low, masculine rumble from behind her.
Startled, she whirled, quickly swiping the backs of her hands over her cheeks. She hated to cry in front of anyone in the first place, and Duncan was the last person in the world she would want to show any weakness to. Clint took in the devastated look on her face and her puffy red eyes, making the split second, probably life-threatening decision to pull her into his arms. He hated to see a woman cry, and somehow, Kelsey's tears - even though she annoyed the pee out of him unfailingly at every given chance - made him feel worse than most. She was not the vulnerable type, especially not around him, and seeing her looking so hurt made his chest squeeze painfully even more than it already had from the moment he'd heard about Callie's death. Clint knew that Kelsey had been there with the old girl to the devastating end, as he had wanted to be but couldn't since duty called. He knew it couldn't have been easy for the little pain in the arse to see one of her best friends pass on, no matter how expected it had been after that long illness.
Kelsey "oofed" softly as she was brought none-too-gently up against the rock hardness of his chest. She didn't want to find being wrapped in those strong arms comforting, but she did, relaxing into him against her will until she felt something hard poking against her lower tummy. Clint's ham-sized hand spread itself possessively just above where her ample bottom rounded out the suit's A-line skirt, not letting her step back from him when she tried to. Kelsey began to struggle in earnest, but wasn't going anywhere until he decided to let her go. "Stay still." His breath was warm on her scalp, and she could hear as well as feel it when he took a deep breath, his nose buried in her hair.
"Not on a bet - let me go!"
It was mere seconds before she found herself entirely immobile, and practically lifted off her feet which made her lie even closer against that impressive ridge of flesh in his pants. Clint wore a smug grin on his face the whole time. "I said be still."
"Pretty soon I'm going to be unconscious, you big lummox!" she panted, still wiggling to her last breath. The tremendous pressure around her ribs eased somewhat, but not enough that she could escape. "I always knew you were weird - you've been hard as a spike through the whole funeral, you pervert!"
Those arms contracted again in warning, then loosened slightly. "Listen to your friendly neighborhood police officer. Relax. And I wouldn't be throwing those particular stones myself, if I were you, considering that your little nipples were pebbled through most of it, too."
Incensed and embarrassed that he had noticed a response in her that he had caused and she'd been wholly unable to control, Kelsey started to swing her feet, hoping to kick him, but good.
She found herself on solid ground instantly, but was no less trapped than before. "You're just askin' for it, aren't you? You'll have to be careful, you might just get it."
Startled, and wary of the direction this conversation was heading, Kelsey snorted. "Not from you, I'm not."
"Kels!" Randy's high, nasally-challenged voice squeaked its way into her ears.
"Here comes Junior," Clint commented snidely.
Kelsey didn't know and didn't care about whatever it was that Clint Duncan had against her boyfriend. As far as she was concerned, Officer Duncan could piss up a rope. This time, though, when she tried to wiggle free, he let her, and she practically sprinted to Randy who, as usual, was too preoccupied to kiss her hello. He never kissed her goodbye, either, and disdained pretty much every other form of physical affection, including, much to her disgust and frustration, sex. But here and now, in front of that noseybody Clint, who was positively leering at them, was not the time for that discussion.
Kelsey took a hold of an arm that it would never have occurred to Randy to have offered, automatically making unwanted and unfavorable comparisons between the size of Randy's arm and the size of Clint's arms . . . Don't go there! She tried to squelch the thought, but didn't quite succeed. Not every man was built like a combination of Schwartzenegger and Hulk Hogan, and not every woman appreciated such flashy and unnecessary bulk in a man.
Unfortunately, Kelsey was one of those shallow women who liked men with obvious muscles, and who were taller than she was - Randy was exactly her height, slim but trim. Almost delicate. There was absolutely nothing delicate about Duncan, including his language and his Neanderthal attitude towards women.
Clint had a bit of a reputation around town. He was a ladies man, and made no apologies about it. Everything he did and his whole attitude towards women screamed self-confidence and an arrogance that drove Kelsey up a wall. He could - and did - go out with a different woman practically each week, with absolutely no pretense of trying to establish a "relationship" with any of them, no matter how much they might cry afterwards, and despite the fact that he was hardly in the bloom of his youth at forty-three. He was scrupulously honest with his women about what he wanted and what he expected, and yet most of the fairer sex would gladly stand in line twice, and they practically fought over him whenever he entered a room. Kelsey shuddered involuntarily. She had no intention of standing in line for a scrap of his attention, no matter how her body tried to convince her that she should.
He must be damned good in bed, she thought, following Randy with a frown. At least his women were getting some. Randy barely touched her, and treated her more like a friend than a girlfriend. It was true that they had a lot of the same interests - computers and science fiction being the top two - but Kelsey was beginning to worry that he was just as happy to have her as a pal. She wanted fairly frequent, hot and heavy sex, and the more she looked at Randy's slight shoulders and wiry build, the more she thought back to how wonderful it had felt to be held tight against Clint's blatant, raging erection. At least he felt something and displayed it, however involuntarily.
"Kelsey?"
Randy had found the person he'd been looking for. Thom Cannizarro - of the Law Offices of Cannizarro, Esposito, and Finch- stepped forward and hugged Kelsey warmly. Kels took a deep breath of Lauder for Men and let herself relax for the first time in a long while. Thom always smelled so damned good!
"Ahem. If you two are through groping each other . . .?" Clint asked as Kelsey lay her head on Thom's broad, expensively clad shoulder. She hadn't realized that Clint had been behind them, and wondered at the note of possessiveness in his voice. Why on Earth would he be possessive of her? And why hadn't Randy asked that question?!
Instead, Randy had cornered poor Father Ryan about when St. Theresa's was going to step into the twenty-first century and get its computers wired together in a network. Kelsey could tell that that was what he was talking about even though he was several feet away and facing away from her, because he was moving his body about and waving his arms passionately. She snorted. If only she could get him to throw some of that passion her way, but then her butt was not stamped with a Windows logo and she was beginning to doubt that he thought she had any interesting ports into which he might want to stick his Ethernet connection . . .
Thom was speaking and Kelsey had missed most of it watching Randy buttonhole the poor beleaguered priest. " - so I want to see the two of you in my office. What time would be convenient?" He looked at Kelsey expectantly.
Kels wished fervently that she had heard the first part of the conversation. "Refresh my memory - "
Thom - and Clint the Neanderthal - frowned down at her. "Translation: you were daydreaming while I was talking and didn't hear a word of what I said." He had no right at all to the long suffering sigh he emitted, so Kelsey hit him sharply.
"I was not daydreaming. I was thinking over the day's events so I could write about them later."
"Sure you were." Neither of them looked liked they'd bought her excuse at all. Thom deigned to repeat himself, albeit impatiently. "I was saying that you two need to be present at the reading of Callie's will."
That was a stark reminder of why they were all there. "Oh. I hope she didn't leave me anything. I told her specifically not to."
Clint couldn't resist needling her. Maybe it would take her mind off things to get mad at him. "Well, Callie was a woman, which means she was going to be contrary and do the exact opposite of what you wanted her to do, like all women. She probably left you the whole freakin' estate."
Kelsey was suddenly too tired to try to come up with a snappy reply, so she didn't say a thing. She just locked eyes with Duncan and rawly let hers fill to overflowing with tears before she trudged away.
"Aw, son of a bitch," she heard Clint curse, but she couldn't even work up a smile as Father Ryan chided him, too, for "language, language". Kelsey felt better at not having been the only one the priest ended up shaking his head over.
At least he didn't follow her this time, for which she was eternally grateful. Kelsey knew that if just one more person hugged her or patted her on the back, she would lose it entirely. She was halfway home, blissfully alone, before she remembered that she hadn't set any time to meet with Thom, so she called his secretary, Anna, and told her what days and times worked for her, then told her to call back with a finalized time. When Kelsey finally walked into her small apartment, cluttered as it was with books and cats and computer stuff, she didn't even pause on her way to her bedroom for a good, long cry.
It was more than a week before Thom's secretary could manage to get everyone rounded up in the same room on the same day at the same time. There were only five of them - Thom, his secretary, Bridie, Duncan, and Kelsey, but Anna would have said it was like trying to convene a meeting of the G-7 with everyone's weird schedules. Bridie did a lot of volunteer and part-time work to make ends meet, and Clint was a Lieutenant in the town police force. Kelsey was the only one - being a bookstore manger - who had a regular schedule. But she'd done it.
Thom sat behind his big mahogany desk after making sure that everyone was as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. "Callie wasn't much for formality, as you all know, so she specifically asked that I not read her Last Will and Testament with all that 'legal folderol', as she so quaintly put it." Everyone laughed softly. That sure sounded like the Callie they all knew! "But I do have it written up inclusive of folderol, in case anyone here wishes to contest it. It is a valid will, and this is going to be fairly short."
Kelsey frowned, wondering why Thom thought someone might contest the will. Whatever Callie left her - probably some small monetary gift - was fine with her. She'd loved Callie the person, not whatever she owned, which Kelsey knew wasn't much, anyway.
"To her sister, Bridget Marie Harrington: her investments and all monies therein, as well as any furnishings you would like from her house, minus several bequests to charities - the American Lung Association, Shambala, and the American Cancer Society are the biggest of those." Thom passed Bridie a paper. "I believe that this is an accounting of the remaining monies, and I have also begun the paperwork to transfer that sum into your name."
Bridie stood up and kissed him on the cheek, making the lawyer blush brightly under his tan. "Thank you, Thom my boy."
Kelsey smiled, wondering how Thom, who was in his mid-forties and the father of three, felt about being called a boy, but she valiantly resisted mentioning it.
But if Bridie didn't get the house, who did?
Thom cleared his throat and shuffled his papers restlessly, almost as if he didn't want to go any further with the reading. "Don't thank me, thank Callie. That takes care of all of her property with the exception of the house."
Clint frowned, sensing impending disaster. What had that cantankerous old woman done with her beloved house?
"Although it's highly unusual, and I did try to talk her out of it, it was Callie's dying wish that her two favorite people in the world - besides her sister, of course - should have her house." Thom looked over the rim of his half-glasses pointedly at Clint and Kelsey. "That would be you two."
"Huh?" came the shocked reply in stereo.
"The terms are as follows, and I believe I'm quoting here, 'let the two of them live in my house for eighteen months together. At the end of that time, they can sell it and split the profits if they like - granted they haven't murdered each other outright. However, it is my fervent wish that they would use this time to come to their senses and' . . . well, uh, she does get a little graphic here about you two getting together in the, ah, biblical sense of the word." He cleared his throat awkwardly, as if his tie was creeping up on him. " 'If either of you should leave before the time is up for longer than twenty-four hours, you will forfeit your half of the house and its proceeds to the other.' She does say that her money is on the two of you, and that she hopes you will live in the house together forever and, I'm quoting a more mild passage, 'have wild monkey sex in every room of the house at least once a day'."
There was a loud silence when Thom finished reading, and then Kelsey began to giggle. She knew it was wholly inappropriate, but she couldn't help it. Callie always liked to have the last word, the old coot. And this time she'd done it quite ingeniously. Callie also knew how much Kelsey loved the big old ranch house she'd lived in on the edge of town, but Kelsey had no designs in that area. Bridie should have inherited the house along with her sister's investments.
"She really did have her money on you two, you know," Bridie was saying in her high-pitched lilt. "There it 'tis, listed down here on the bottom," she showed everyone the entry Thom had made at Callie's behest. "Five hundred dollars: bet with Bridie and Thom about Clint and my girl," the ledger said, plain as day.
Kelsey got up to squat next to Bridie's chair. "But that should be your house, Bridie!"
The older woman patted Kelsey's hand. "No, dearie. That wasn't our family home; the ranch was the house that Callie and her husband bought after they married. It was always so full of love. She wanted that for you and Clint - for the house to be filled with your own love and lust . . . for life, of course."
"But Callie knew that we can barely stand to be in the same room together without killing each other - " Clint stood up, angrily shoving his fists into his pockets.
Despite the setting, Kelsey couldn't resist needling him. "Yeah, she knew you were a raving lunatic but she kept you as a friend, anyway. No accounting for some people's taste . . ."
Clint rounded on her, ready for a fight, but Thom interrupted as the voice of reason. "Enough, enough. The whole town knows you two can't stand each other, but for whatever reason Callie thought you'all protested too much and that there was some spark there. Whether she was right or wrong is a moot point - the question comes down to: can you two spend that much time together and live to tell about it? Do you even want to? Maybe one of you'd rather just forfeit without even trying and just give your half up to the other. Maybe neither one of you wants to deal with this mess, and, in which case, the proceeds of the house once it's sold will go to charity."
That idea grated on Kelsey. She loved that house at least as much as Callie had. It was a big ranch house, with a huge master bedroom, bow windows with window seats in the dining and living rooms, a large country kitchen with every appliance known to man, and it was done in country blue with flowered upholstery accents that Kelsey had helped Callie pick out several years ago when she'd gone on a redecorating binge.
Kelsey was already arranging furniture in her mind when Clint asked a disgustingly practical question. "When do you have to have our answers?"
"By the fifteenth of the month."
That was less than a week away.
The somber group filed out of his office minutes later, with Clint and Kelsey pulling up the rear as they walked to their respective cars. As she put the key in the lock of her beat up old Volkswagen, Kelsey happened to look up and caught Clint staring at her while opening up his big brawny truck. Clint smiled wolfishly, winked at her, then got in. Kelsey gave him the good old-fashioned one-finger salute, and clamored into her own vehicle, revving the engine angrily as he laid rubber leaving the parking lot.
Isn't that just like a police officer? she thought. Do as I say, not as I do.
God she hated that man! How the hell was she going to put up with him on a day to day basis for eighteen months without hitting him upside the head with a two by four and being hauled in for murder? She didn't know the answer to that question, but she did know that she wanted that damned house, and if she had to live, eat, and sleep with the Devil himself, then so be it.
Sleep with? Perish the thought!
Kelsey shuddered, but she recognized the truth of the matter: as much as she detested Clint Duncan, her body absolutely adored him, responding sexually to his presence every time, much to her embarrassment.
Even as she refused to even thing of the possibility of Callie's prophecy coming true, she had to acknowledge the fact that her nipples had been painfully spiked through the whole meeting, and her panties were soaked right through her hose, dammit! Around him, her body definitely had a mind of its own. With what she wanted from a man, she knew she could never consider Clint as a potential anything, not that she ever would.
The fact that her late night fantasies were filled with daring, forbidden thoughts of him taking her in hand was something her conscious mind flatly refused to explore. That was an impossibility. There was no way that she'd ever let the big oaf close enough to her to do that, anyway - or that she'd ever trust him enough to make herself that vulnerable to him.
She hated him. Kelsey just had to keep repeating that fact to herself, like a mantra, even as her mind conjured images of herself stretched over those powerful thighs, getting the spanking of her life.
Nope. Not gonna happen. Not in this lifetime, anyway, she gunned the car out of the lot, her bottom tingling at the thought of submitting to him in that way.
Chapter Two
Requisite tie askew and shirt and pants thoroughly wrinkled, as if he'd retrieved them from the floor of his bedroom before donning them, Clint Duncan sank into his desk chair as bonelessly as possible for someone of his size, sighing exasperatedly and automatically reaching down quickly to try to adjust himself before he ended up singing soprano in the Policemen's Choir. He grimaced, thinking that having to do that was becoming an annoyingly frequent habit. Hoping to distract himself from the source of both his consternation and his rampant excitement, he signed into the precinct's email - not that there was usually anything in the least interesting to him in his inbox - birthday wishes and notifications of births and retirements and assorted administrative and housekeeping types of things. Generally, he avoided it like the plague for just those reasons.
Heck, he avoided computers in general. He didn't want to email someone back and forth - or, worse than that, instant message complete strangers. If he wanted to talk to someone, he'd pick up the damned phone and do it. Computers were a menace to society, as far as he was concerned. He hated them with a passion.
A social butterfly he was not. Heck, he smiled wryly, he was barely paper trained, as Kelsey was infinitely fond of reminding him. Just the thought of her sent a jolt of electricity into his groin, distracting him from his distraction. Damn, that woman drove him up a wall! She could get to him faster than anyone else on the planet.
He was supposed to be cool, calm, and collected at all times, and - when she was nowhere near and not eating away at his composure from inside his mind - he was - always self-assured, always competent and serious. Nothing could get to him. Clint was a cop with nearly twenty years of experience in criminal justice. He'd been a Security Police officer in the Air Force - a Captain when he'd retired. Law enforcement had really been his only career, his only real interest since he could remember. Even when he was a kid and played cops and robbers in the street, dodging pretend bullets by ducking behind parked cars, his mom said that he'd always refused to be a robber just on general principles, although Clint himself had no recollection of being quite that righteous.
He just knew he liked being the one in control - and that was, most usually in his limited childhood experience, a police officer. They got to carry guns and handcuffs - which, later on in life came to have an entirely different use from what they taught in any academy - and drive fast without fear of getting a ticket. People were supposed to do as they said.
What could possibly be greater than that? his precocious young mind had decided, and from that point on, he could never really see himself as anything else.
The Air Force had beckoned only as a way to get his degree without owing an arm and three legs to the government in loans, and, as they were at that point hurting for warm bodies in the military, he was pretty much able to pick where he wanted to go. Security Police had fit him just perfectly. Naturally conscientious and damned good at what he did, the young airman was cited several times for bravery and received several medals while enlisted, and had a solid gold reputation, so much so that when he'd graduated from college the Wing, Base, and Security Police Squadron Commanders all wrote letters of recommendation for him to get into Officers' Training School.
Clint hadn't intended to make a career out of soldiering, necessarily, but it to appealed to him, and he was excelling at it, so he became a "retread" officer, having spent a hitch and a half as enlisted but then becoming an officer and doing pretty well at that, too.
When he retired out of the military, though, he knew that he wanted to get back into the trenches and be a police officer. He could do all of the bureaucratic crap that was necessary to get the big money, but he didn't like it. He much preferred to be on the front lines. Since he'd grown up in Gordon's Cross, and, almost on a whim when he was up visiting from where he'd settled near Boston, he'd put in his application for police officer in the small burg.
The phone call had come three days later, offering him the chance to start the battery of tests that might get him into the next academy. He'd jumped at the offer, and graduated six months later. A year and a half after that, he'd made detective, and he would be perfectly happy to retired out in another eighteen years without ever having been anything but. It was his calling, his avocation.
Clint was a single-minded kind of a guy - almost tunnel-visioned when he was working on a case. But lately someone - whose initials were Kelsey Donahue - was getting into his mind and making him . . . he shifted uncomfortably in his chair again . . . hard. He'd been like granite around her since they'd met entirely by chance one evening when he was home on leave. With nothing much else on his plate, Clint decided on the spur of the moment to stop by Callie's place, and she introduced him to the little spitfire, with words - for his ears only, of course - to the effect that if he was a smart boy, he'd have his way with Kelsey as soon as possible and never let her go from there.
Clint had to shake his head and chuckle as he waded through the more than two hundred messages, not really reading them but skimming subject lines and "from" lines to see if there was anything that caught his eye - and almost nothing did.
That offhand, off-color remark was so reminiscent of Callie. Clint had gotten to know her through his mother's sister . . . and in spite of his mother's tacit disapproval of her bohemian ways, Clint and Callie had become fast friends. As an only child of older parents, Clint had no one close by to play games with and Callie filled that void. She was an inveterate card player and had quickly taught that spongey mind of his everything from canasta to poker and blackjack, regularly beating him out of his allowance without so much as a by-your-leave until he caught on to the subtler nuances and then the odds evened out a little.
Callie never treated him as a child - she'd been straight-talking from the first, not pulling any punches, and the older Clint got the more he appreciated that. She'd supported his decision to join the Air Force - another of the many times she was at loggerheads with his mother. Callie thought it would be a wonderful way for him to escape the confines of Gordon's Cross and spread his wings some, when he was young and didn't have any responsibilities. She'd cautioned him repeatedly, though, to make damned sure that he didn't end up with any little Clints running around before he wanted to, making him blush when almost no one or nothing could have. She'd given him his first package of condoms when he was twelve, and, over the course of their relationship had always been entirely truthful with him about sex. Callie had been the one to give him what resembled the only "sex talk" he was likely to get in his life, gently but forthrightly emphasizing the incredible pleasure - physical, emotional, and spiritual as well as the tremendous responsibility of taking that plunge. His father certainly wasn't likely to talk to him about it.
They'd remained very good friends even when he'd been sent away, writing back and forth quite religiously, and Clint had made it a point to stop by to see his old friend every time he got home on leave, and once he'd settled there they had had a regular poker night every other week or so with several of Callie's cronies.
She'd congratulated him when he'd entered into an impromptu, thankfully very brief, unhappy marriage to a woman who looked at an Air Force officer and saw dollar signs, and hadn't said "I told you so" once, no matter the considerable temptation. Cute little cupie-doll Eileen Sawyer - a teacher in the American school on Base - had dazzled him in the bedroom like no other woman, while she spent every cent they made combined, and then some.
Clint frowned as his eyes lit on something in his box marked urgent, just as someone dumped a load of mail on his desk, which he promptly ignored.
The message made his blood run cold for a moment, until he brought it under control. After reading it closely, he was almost able to dismiss it, but not quite. It was too close to him. Not enough time had passed. The letter informed him that Jerry Travis, an extremely violent and vengeful killer that Clint had been instrumental in capturing several years ago - near the beginning of his career here - was going up before a parole board at the end of the month.
Parole. Clint couldn't believe it. A vicious man like that being considered for release. Hell, he was still getting the occasional threatening letter - anonymous, of course - that was obviously from Travis. Clint had taken three bullets and nearly died in the firefight that had finally brought him down . . . Travis had set his sights on the brash detective - taunting him and the entire department with anonymous letters and a message left near his last victim, promising that Duncan was next on his list. The small squad of detectives on the force pulled together and got the job done.
It certainly wasn't unheard of that such a small town would have a homicidal maniac in its midst, but it was unusual. Thus there had been a lot of press attention from all over the world, especially as the body count rose. They had evidence that linked him to the murders of four pretty young women, and they liked him for at least another four.
Luckily, they'd been ready for him, and since the obviously disturbed individual had been incarcerated, no more bodies had turned up.
But Travis came from money, and he had an extremely good attorney who picked apart the police procedures used to nab him and got him an extremely reduced sentence that was, frankly, a slap in the face to everyone who had worked so hard to bring him in.
Well, it looked like he was going to be making a trip to that parole hearing - not that he truly expected that the man was going to be released, Clint thought, his lips tight, jaw clenched as he reached for the phone to call and sign up to speak to the board against ever letting that man out into society again.
While he was on hold, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, an unbidden picture creeping into his mind that had nothing to do with the situation at hand: Kelsey's wonderfully rounded curves filling his hands as he settled into her, spreading her open, stretching that hot, tight glove around him unbearably as he -
Sitting up abruptly, he shook his head like a dog with a recalcitrant stuffed toy. Damn! Would he never be able to get that woman out of his head? Even a real-life life or death threat like Travis couldn't keep her from invading his consciousness. And he knew better than to look down, knowing his body was already caught up in the flash-fantasy, hook, line, and sinker.
Maybe if he got this blasted situation with Callie's house settled, he'd be able to think again without unbidden pictures of that too-well-blessed shrew popping into his head.
After he'd let the powers that be know that he would be attending and speaking rather vehemently on the behalf of the state, he jabbed the disconnect button and punched in the second most aggravating person he'd ever met in his life, a small smile creeping over his face as he thought that she was, however, probably just a little less of a threat to him.
But not by much, came the wry thought, as he had to rearrange things again for his own comfort while waiting for her to answer.
"You know better than that, Kelsey Donahue." The voice came from above her; most things were above her, though, since she was lying unceremoniously draped over Clint's lap for the umpteenth time that day, red-roasted bottom again bouncing beneath the painfully loving application of his hand.
"C-Clint - Cliiiiiiinnnnnnntttttt! Stop!" she babbled incoherently, not at all sure she could tolerate yet another stinging bout of swollen, swelling handprints on her tender derriere.
But the horrid cracking of flesh on flesh did not diminish or falter, despite her pleas. "Now, you know that I'm not going to stop spanking you until I'm sure that you've learned your lesson, young lady. You know that I'm never going to let you get off easy when you disobey me - today should prove that to you. This is what, your fourth session here in the past eight hours - most of which were the direct result of your sassy mouth? I'm beginning to think you like being put over my knee like a naughty little girl - you're spending so much time here. But I'll always do whatever it takes to bring you back into line, Kelsey. That's what I'm here for - to remind you - and your bottom - that I'm the one in charge of your behavior, and that I'll always be here to correct you when you need it."
The heat and hurt in her bottom were unbearable, and he showed absolutely no signs of stopping. None. She danced around as much as she could - as much as she dared - which was never enough so that he missed a swat, of course; his strong arm around her would never allow for that. That was part of the awfulness of being disciplined by him - the true and complete physical helplessness, along with the feeling of being reduced to feeling like she was about four years old, with her pink cotton elastic-waist shorts bunched around her ankle socks, along with the white cotton panties which were the only ones he allowed her to wear, twisted and tight, binding her as effectively as any leather cuffs could.
It was the last part of every spanking, where he smacked her as hard as he could over her already broiled skin, driving her well beyond coherence to where she couldn't even beg for it to end, but could only make pathetic attempts to deal with the consequences he brought to her actions.
When he was finally done, when he felt that he had impressed his point on her to the fullest extent possible, Clint's hold on her waist loosened, but he didn't release her; his big palm rested at the small of her back, and she knew exactly what that meant from prior painful experience: "Stay still, stay right where I've put you, or else." The fingers of the very hand that had just wreaked havoc on her tender skin began to probe gently between her legs, the bulk of his fingers twisting gently to coax them apart, forcing her to straddle his knee and display herself quite obscenely.
Her voice gravelly and hoarse from the moans and groans he'd inspired with pain not three minutes ago, Kelsey couldn't keep herself from debasing herself further by begging him not to touch her that way, not like this.
It was, of course, as if she hadn't spoken a word. Clint did with her body whatever he preferred . . . and that usually meant either incredibly hard to bear discipline, or blinding, all-consuming orgasms that left her feeling at least as drained.
Her body was opened, carefully, gently, in direct contrast to the way he'd punished her. To her complete mortification, she knew that he could both see and feel just how her body had responded - unconsciously- to the way he had always chosen to reaffirm his rules.
"Even this time, you loved it, Kelsey," his breath ghosted across her seared flesh. "Even though you were already so well-roasted. Or maybe because you were."
She felt him collect her dew on his fingertips, then bring the liquid gold deposit a few inches further up between her legs to the button of flesh that yearned for it, yearned for any touch he might grant her, especially that long, slick stroking he favored as he cradled the tasty bit between index and middle fingers, always surrounding her with himself, never letting up on the exquisite sensations he knew he was eliciting from her eager, juicy body -
"Muh-rrrr-OOW!" Hunter - Kelsey's tabby mutt pound-kitty chose that exact, atrocious time to alert her that - as far as he was concerned - it was time to get up by butting his cold, wet nose up against hers and announcing his presence loudly while tap-dancing on her breasts with his big, pointy feet.
Kelsey awoke abruptly, just about ready to do bodily harm to the poor cat when she realized that she was never going to find out how that wondrous fantasy dream ended . . . not that she couldn't guess. Her body was primed for release, blood still thrumming through her most delicate areas, creating that unspeakable ache she would just have to live with - at least until tonight. She didn't have time to take care of things this morning, unfortunately.
It was only seven-thirty, and there was no need for her to get up, really, although she always did for fear of becoming a lazybones who got nothing accomplished during the day, Kelsey decided that since she'd been so rudely awakened, she might as well do something productive. All the time she was getting herself dressed, she refused to allow herself to dwell on the fact that her subconscious seemed quite willing to make Clint the star of her sex dreams. It wasn't like it hadn't happened before; she grimaced at the face in the mirror while brushing her teeth with added vigor. They were always dreams about her submitting to him - as if, she kidded herself hollowly - being spanked or caned or duly chastised with any number of implements her mind had put at his disposal, then brought to pleasure in varied ways. And she almost always found the most stunning satisfaction in them - unless the cat got to her first, that is.
She liked to delude herself into thinking that the hero - such as he was - in her dreams could have been any man - even just a cute guy off the street or a particularly good looking waiting at a restaurant.
But somehow, for some unknown reason that she staunchly refused to investigate further, it was always Clint Duncan. Never anyone else. He had been the star of her fantasies since before she knew what sexual satisfaction was, and Kelsey would give her life before she ever let him find out about that fact.
She didn't like Clint Duncan. She didn't, she chanted. He was domineering and ill-mannered and ill-tempered and rough. He was everything she detested like in a man . . . well, except maybe the domineering part. Deep, deep down in her heart, where she rarely let anyone else look, and where she rarely ventured herself except by accident, Kelsey wanted a man who would not be afraid to take control of her. Not in a nasty, control-freak way, and not in a way that would be unhealthy for her or for them. But in a natural, fifties-ish way . . . Despite her egalitarian tendencies, she wanted a man who would take charge and take care of her.
But she still really hadn't come to grips with that idea herself, and if she was asked she'd deny it to the Heavens. Loudly. How ridiculous for a woman of the twenty-first century to want to have to live in an "I Love Lucy" type of relationship, where she would be expected to submit to and obey her husband in all things, lest he physically chastise her like a little girl for any little mishap, where he was the undisputed head of the household, and she was expected to do as she was told.
As she slipped a sweatshirt over her head, completely naughty thoughts slipped surreptitiously back into her head . . . thoughts of lying beneath Clint as he eased into her, rubbing her striped red bottom against the mattress as he swelled inside her, suckling at her nipples and driving into her hard -
The phone trilled loudly in the silence as she stood there breathing heavily at her thoughts, face flushed and nipples tight. In an unusually grumpy tone at the constant interruptions at the crack of dawn, Kelsey snatched up the phone. "Yeah, what?"
A purely masculine snort greeted her ears. "That's a helluva way to answer the phone, Princess."
God, she hated him - and she hated that blasted nickname even worse! It made her sound as if she laid back and had people waiting on her hand and foot, and nothing could have been further from the truth. Just because she had generous parents who gave her lots of things - as well as lots of love - didn't make her a useless person. Just because she didn't get up and go out into the world every day didn't mean that she didn't work - she did. It just happened to be on a computer at home rather than at an office building or manufacturing plant.
"Bite me," she snapped off, inches away from slamming the receiver down like a petulant child. Until then, she'd been able to avoid thinking about what the hell was she going to do with him and the terms of Callie's will. She had a bad feeling that that was why he was calling.
"That can be arranged, but you probably won't like it," he returned laconically. Clint was thinking that he didn't want to bite her at all. Instead, he wanted to put her over his lap and redden those teasing globes - to keep her princessishness tightly in line, and keep her only to himself.
A mental picture of that wimpy, nerdy Randy popped into his head, and his jaw tightened. She needed a man with a firm hand - someone who wasn't afraid to lay down the law and back it up by applying the flat of his hand to her rump when the situation warranted it.
It was her turn to snort indelicately in his ear. "In your dreams." No, in yours, her subconscious corrected her automatically, but she ignored that annoyingly persistent little voice.
That came uncomfortably close to his reality lately, so his response was a little gruff. "Enough chit-chat. What're we going to do about the house?"
Kelsey sighed with exaggerated patience while cradling the phone between her cheek and shoulder as she pulled on her socks and shoes. "I've already told you. I'll buy you out. I've got an appointment with a mortgage loan officer, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to buy out your interest in it and keep it for myself." She very quietly kept her own counsel about the fact that she didn't have a lot of hope that she'd get the loan, considering how much her income had dropped since she'd started writing, to say nothing of the debt load she already had. A mortgage company was probably going to run screaming from her application, but he didn't need to know that.
"I never heard anything about that, Princess - "
"Stop calling me that!" she practically yelled, despite the fact that she'd never yelled at anyone in her life. This man drove her straight up a wall, every time they came within fifty feet of each other . . . Continuing in a considerably quieter tone, "I didn't tell you directly - I told Thom to tell you."
"Whatsa' matter? You can't pick up the phone and call me yourself, Princess?" he baited.
"Please! Not if I can help it!" she snorted derisively in his ear.
Clint's jaw clenched tightly. "What if I want the house for myself?"
Kelsey's jaw dropped open. It would be just like the stinker to go after something simply because he knew she wanted it. "Then I suggest you start filling out mortgage applications, too, although I don't know why you'd want a house when you barely spend any time at home as it is."
"How would you know how much time I spend at home?"
"I was just assuming - "
"Well, don't," he commanded crisply, and for a moment she could see him in his Air Force Officer uniform giving her a direct order as if she was an Airman Basic. "I always liked Callie's house."
"She told me that you did nothing but complain to her about how big it was and how much upkeep there was - "
"It was big and a lot of upkeep for a seventy-whatever year old woman!"
"It'll be a lot of work for whoever gets it."
"I'm not afraid of hard work - unlike some people, I get up and go to work every day."
She'd
been waiting for him to make some sort of crack about her profession,
and it didn't matter how many times he did, she always rose to the
bait - at least at first. "I work just as hard as you do,
buddy-boy - "
He was laughing so uproariously she knew he'd
drown out anything more that she said, so she lay in wait for him to
calm down. "Ahhhh, little girl," he lamented in a falsely
sympathetic tone, still chuckling occasionally, "you sure do
tell some whoppers - someone oughta warm your seat good for saying
such things."
Despite the fact that - to her disgust - both her bottom and the area between her legs clenched tightly at his casual words, Kelsey was not amused. She also hated to be called "little girl" as if she was a five year old. But she resolved to remain silent. She'd decided that she wasn't going to let him needle her any more about her writing. She was moderately successful, and darned proud of herself because of it.
Since she didn't seem to want to play anymore, he came right to the point of his call - well, one of them, anyway. "I figured we should get together and try to talk this whole situation out, see if we can't come to some sort of amicable agreement."
Kelsey's eyebrow hurt, it was so far into her hairline. "I can't see how that would really do us any good. I can argue you with you quite proficiently from the comfort of my apartment."
Clint wasn't any too happy that she was turning him down outright, without even really considering the possibility that a face to face meeting might help things . . . not that he was desperate to see her or anything of the sort, of course. "Well, that's fine, but I never thought you were a chicken, but if you're that afraid of me - "
She rose to the bait like a trooper. "I certainly am not chicken, and I am most definitely not afraid of you, believe me," she fairly sneered. "How about seven-thirty tomorrow night at Chico's?" she challenged boldly, suggesting a popular Mexican restaurant.
He couldn't suppress a soft snicker. "You afraid to come to my place?" he challenged. Clint didn't know where that came from, exactly - he didn't allow very many people - beyond his buddies and even those were few and far between - into the inner sanctum of his apartment, much less a woman he professed to hate outright. Even his occasional girlfriends - much more occasional that some people might think, frankly - were rarely invited to share his private, personal space.
His place? Her conscience squeaked. But I don't wanna go to his place - it's much too intimate! I don't wanna see the Neanderthal in his natural habitat! What if he conks me over the head with a club and drags me into his cave? There were probably dirty socks and underwear all over the floor, and green, furry dishes under the couch, mating . . . Not that her housekeeping tendencies were particularly anal. She'd been known to be a tad lax in that area on occasion.