Chapter One

 

Veronica crept stealthily into the foyer of the house and quietly closed the door behind her. The click was so subtle that even standing right there she hardly heard the tiny noise.

"Where have you been!" her husband's voice roared from the living room.

Obviously, she'd not been as quiet as she thought. Veronica's face drew up into a terrified squint; then taking a deep breath, she relaxed and straightened, pressing her hands to the front of her short dress smoothing the wrinkles in the fabric.

"Now!" he boomed again.

"It's now or never," she thought to herself.

Sashaying her curvaceous hips, the ditsy redhead moved with a slutty swagger beyond the open French doors. She couldn't see her husband's face since his leather chair faced into the room; but feeling the intensity of his anger, she knew there'd be a battle she'd just as soon avoid.

The room was awash with the mellow light from the fireplace. Her husband had been reading-probably profit summaries or sales reports-how dull-his feet on the hassock as though he'd been there a long time. The Robert Germans' living room was a comfortable place-modern, functional and warm. And for Veronica it was usually her sanctuary so opposite the Old World extravagance of Rutledge House-the family fortress on the hill. For a few moments, morning and evening she could pretend that the other part of her life didn't exist. Though she now made her home in a Paris Cove condo, most of her day was still spent cloistered in the stuffy rooms of her Rutledge Vineyard office. Oh, of course they were quaint-too damned quaint for her tastes. It was so much better for her disposition to come home every night to the simplicity of her own home. She should be loving it now, though she supposed that wouldn't happen until she found a way to pacify her pissed-off husband.

Maybe she could honey-coat their way into bed. Sometimes when he was furious, sex just sort of happened instead of the more painful consequences he probably had planned well in advance of his first booming command.

"Robert, sweetheart. It's nearly midnight-" It was actually just past eleven-thirty. "I thought you'd be in bed by now," she said coming around to his side and sidling in against his shoulder, hoping she could plop right down on his lap. "I bet you're tired and could use a backrub, what do ya say?"

Robert wasn't interested-at least not yet.

Veronica's brassy curls had an unnatural look as the firelight reflected off the surface. Her face was seductive and impish, her lips forming a kittenish pout while her blue eyes steamed sensuously. A few drinks always loosened the last vestiges of propriety in the lusty tart-and tonight was no different.

"Why the hell would I be in bed when my wife's not home?"

"You knew I was going out with Leeza Little."

"I did not."

"Oh, you just forgot," she purred, trying again to get into his lap. A few playful strokes at his crotch, he'd be putty in her hands. Robert was a sucker for late night sex-probably why he was so pissed in the first place: he'd been horny and she wasn't there.

"You've been where, Veronica?" Robert snapped off his next question.

"I told you, out with Leeza."

"Drinking." He smelled the liquor on her breath.

"Oh, not much," she said. Ah, she should have rinsed with mouthwash before she entered the house. Then, too, she was tipsy and not thinking straight. Why did he always have to find out?

"I think you're drunk!" Robert caught his wife's wrist as he rose from his chair.

"No, please, darling!" Her voluptuous body still oozed with an alluring charm, which normally delighted Robert German. But since he'd been fuming for nearly two hours, he was much too pissed to let sex get in the way of his plans.

"You're driving drunk again after your license was suspended," he reminded her with a lethal glare in his bronze eyes.

"No! I'm not drunk at all," she swore pleadingly. "Just a glass of wine. Honest."

"You've had a half-dozen if you've had one." He pulled her toward the side of the room, opened one closet door in a long line of whitewashed cabinets, and withdrew a ten-inch paddle from its hook. Veronica immediately tried pulling away from his firm grasp of her hand.

"Honey, I'm sorry. It really wasn't much." Her worried eyes pleaded for mercy as she gazed at the dreadful thing. There were ten identical holes drilled through the thick surface making it the worst possible implement he could choose.

"Don't even try. You've made me so angry, there's no way you're getting out of this."

"But, darling, really," she tugged more without results. Though Robert was a husky man, there was not an ounce of fat on his six-foot frame. At forty-one he still lifted weights and every muscle in his powerful arms and chest was as firm as it had been at twenty-one. Being a passionate man about everything in his life, he was passionate about what needed to be done. Just five-foot two in her stocking feet, Veronica was no match for his brawn when he was as determined as he was now.

"Don't fight me," he said with a steely twist in his delivery. Returning to his chair, he sat at the edge of the seat and upended his wife over his lap. Her pale blue dress was short enough for the hem to ride up high on her fleshy thighs, nearly uncovering his target without any effort on his part. But holding her with a firm left hand at her waist, Robert completely bared her ass with one swipe of his right hand. Once her dress was over her hips, he had only to pull down her tiny black panties. "What a little slut," he thought to himself seeing her underwear. If he'd been paying attention at all-and with his more than healthy libido he usually did-he would have seen the black outline of her underwear through the nearly colorless fabric of her dress. Of course, she dressed that way purposely. Rutledge women, whether by birth or marriage, were all alike-steamy, sexual temptresses with few morals, and lacking the restraints that made other women dress more modestly. Maybe it had something to do with Rutledge men that made their wives and girlfriends so risqué. Not only did Rutledge men openly appreciate the attributes of libidinous women; they knew how to handle them when they went too far-just as Robert was handling his Rutledge woman now. Veronica might be the most prurient of the lot-since she was a Rutledge by birth.

"Out attracting a new boyfriend, are we?" he managed to say as he teasingly pulled the slip of black fabric off her ass. Letting the silly thong slide down her thighs, it rested at her knees, left to dangle there until he finished.

Veronica's behind was the palest of pinks, just a slight hue on the skin where she wasn't tan. That untanned sliver of skin had been getting smaller and smaller as the years went by. Veronica loved to sunbathe, and if Robert hadn't forbid it, she would have done so in the nude. Actually, he might like the look of her backside with no tan lines, but loved, even more, denying his wife those things she wanted so passionately-kept the sparks flying. If there was ever a couple who lit up the sky with fireworks, it was Robert and Veronica German.

"Oh, please, darling," she could sound so terribly desperate.

"It's useless, babe, your bum's gonna pay tonight." He loved that term for the female derriere, just as he loved the look of a bright red behind once it had been vigorously punished. Veronica had a fine ass: round, dimpled at the top, its two broad and fleshy cheeks spread out nicely when she was lying over his lap. Often he could glimpse the sex pouch between her thighs. But now her legs were pressed together tightly as though they were locked in position. He chuckled under his breath knowing that would soon change.

With the paddle gripped tightly in his large palm, Robert raised it to shoulder height. "No!" she cried as the first strike smacked her naked rear. He kept on. "Ouch, no, no." He was peppering her determinedly, with some strikes brisk and others slow. Some were hard, some harder still, and others deliberately lighter as though he were about to quit. By the time he reached the second round of ten, she was flailing, and crying, and gyrating so madly that he had to pause. "I can't stand it, please." Her desperate wail sounded so pitiful.

Veronica hated this paddle-no, hated was not a strong enough word. She loathed it, despised it, wished it off the face of the planet every time she was spanked with the damnable thing. Once she tried swiping it from the closet and disposing of it in the trash. When Robert discovered it there-as though he had some sixth sense clueing him in to her scheme (he never fooled with anything once it was in the dumpster), she got the paddling of her life. He could forgive a lot of things and others he let slide; but this overt rebellion was too deliberate a crime not to punish with a most befitting taste of that drilled wood.

"You can stand a lot more than you think," Robert scolded. "I'm just getting started and we're in for a long ride tonight."