Chapter Ten

He didn't get home until after eleven the next morning. Teddy had picked him up, and they'd had the loudest discussion they had ever had in their longtime employer/employee, but much more than that, friendship. Teddy had saved his bacon more times than Sabin could count, especially early on, when he was much more prone to do stupid, impulsive things. Teddy taught him the value of the long con, the long game.

And thus, Teddy "Fingers" Calabrese was—in part—responsible for the incredible turn in his relationship with Honey. So, he couldn't be too mad at him—although he was inches from killing him with his bare hands, too, for letting her come down there.

Sabin stood for a moment at the back door, took a deep breath, and opened it, grinning stupidly while saying in a singsong tone that he knew was wholly inappropriate—but then, that was his sense of humor sometimes—"Honey, I'm home!"

Like the fifties, sit-com husband he would never, ever be.

But there was no response.

Nothing.

He wasn't sure quite what he expected, but complete silence wasn't it.

Anger. That was what he expected. He was fully prepared for her to fly at him in a rage, although he knew that wouldn't have been usual for her. She wasn't an angry person. But then, these were far from usual circumstances, and she would have been well within her rights as his girlfriend to have done exactly that.

And he would have taken it. He would have protected himself, but he would have let her beat him, if that was what she needed to do. It would have been like a hummingbird attacking a bull, but he would have stood perfectly still for it. For her. And no one else on the planet.

"Honey?" he called out again, moving through the house to find no trace of her—not in the kitchen, dining room, or den, nor in their bedroom or the bathroom.

That was when he raced back through the house, looking for actual traces of her, wondering if she had up and left him in the middle of the night. It would have been hard to do with Teddy out there, but he wouldn't put it past her.

But, no, her iPad was on the arm of the couch where it usually was, her purse was on the little table by the door, and he had her car keys in his pocket, come to think of it. So, she had to be somewhere in the house, didn't she?

On his next sweep through, he took a more methodical approach and realized that the only door he hadn't opened was the one to his office, because she never went in there.

And of course, that was where he found her, curled up into one of those impossible female knots in his big chair, fast asleep. Sabin came to stand next to her, noting how pale she looked and the fact that there were very dark circles beneath her eyes. He would bet she got very little sleep last night, and, although he was relieved to have found her and wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms, he found himself loath to wake her.

He turned around, trying to be as quiet as he could, and headed for the door again.

Of course, when one is trying to be quiet is the time one makes the most noise inadvertently.

He hadn't taken more than three steps away from her when something small and fierce body-slammed into him from behind, glomming onto him like a tiny barnacle.

Sabin had hardly expected such an enthusiastic reception, considering the situation, but he wasn't about to reject it, either. So, he turned slowly to face her, and she literally climbed up him, latching herself onto him with legs and arms and tucking her head onto his chest.

His arms naturally curled around her and he kissed the top of her head, enjoying the warmth of her in his arms.

Then her head reeled back, and she jumped down to stand in front of him, running her hands over him like he was a prize stallion and she was someone who was considering buying him. "Are you hurt? Are you okay?"

And when he didn't answer her immediately, she demanded, grabbing the lapels of his suit and trying to shake him but failing miserably at it, "Answer me, goddammit! Are you all right?"

"Yes, my darling. I'm fine. I promise." She threw herself at him again, and he much preferred her that way, although he did love her fierceness. "I wasn't at Alcatraz, you know."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew he should never have said them.

And so did she.

Honey ripped herself away from him and stood in front of him—carefully out of arm's reach—arms crossed over her chest and looking terribly hurt. Her lower lip trembled as she scolded, with good reason, "Don't you dare be flippant about this to me, Sabin Northrup," in a tight, alarmingly neutral tone.

He managed to look contrite—and mean it. "I'm sorry. I'm very sorry, for that, and for everything about last night."

Again, she flung herself at him, clinging for all she was worth. And trembling. And sobbing. Both, in ways he could not bear. He'd held her enough times when she'd been crying in conjunction with a spanking, but this was entirely different. The angst and fear—damn, he'd caused her to be afraid—she felt was completely his fault, and he didn't know how he'd ever make it up to her. He couldn't drag himself over the coals enough to ever forgive himself, and he knew he'd be damned lucky if she forgave him, for what had been a very bad lapse in judgment on his part that had landed him in jail and made her feel the need to go down there to see him.

Sabin lifted her into his arms and brought her to sit on his lap in the big chair in which she'd fallen asleep, letting her cry it out as he rubbed her back and shoulders, kissing those curls at the top of her head and patting her bottom occasionally to try to soothe her.

When she'd wound down to hiccoughing sobs, he held her head to his chest and asked, "How did you end up in my office?" He wanted to call her Honey B, but he wasn't sure really where they were at this point, so he didn't.

She sniffed loudly, and he handed her a Kleenex. "Your chair smells of you and it comforted me."

When he heard that, he had a feeling that things might just work out all right, despite the idiocy of him ending up arrested.

"Ahh, that's cute."

Honey leaned up and glared at him, not at all cutely. "You didn't say I couldn't come in here."

"Why would I say that?" He shrugged. "I don't think I've told you that you can't go anywhere on the premises, have I?"

"No, but you probably should have." She reached onto his desk and grabbed two pieces of paper, which she gave to him.

"It's the bill for your move. So what?" He threw them back on the desk.

"First of all, I had no idea that was what it cost."

Sabin smacked a kiss loudly on her temple. "That's because it's nothing for you to worry about." If last night had never happened, he would have been reminding her—very pointedly—that she wasn't allowed to say anything about the money he spent on her.

She was clenching her jaw, and that was definitely not the part of her that he liked to have her clench. "Yes, but you apparently called for a quote from them a full two weeks before I decided to move in."

He was unflappable. "I knew you'd come around eventually," he replied with a shrug, nibbling lightly on her ear.

"Oh, much more likely, you were planning to just move me, lock, stock and barrel, without me having agreed to do so."

Sabin craned his head back a little. "So?"

"So?" she parroted back. "So, that's not right! It would have been very high-handed—or underhanded?" she questioned in the middle of her sentence, "of you to do, and I don't like it!"

"So noted," he agreed placidly.

She pushed hard against his shoulders with both hands. "Sabin! Do you agree that it would not have been the right thing to do or not?"

He sighed with annoying calm. "I didn't do it, so I guess I agree."

"You guess?"

She sounded utterly outraged, and he had to smile. "This is what you're mad about this morning, sweetheart? Really?"

"Yes!"

"There's not something else you'd like to talk to me about, especially since this is old news. You're here with me, where you belong. I wanted you to decide to come to me of your own accord, but, yes, if it had taken much longer, I would have taken that choice away from you. Either way, you ended up where you should be, and I'm not going to apologize for something I didn't actually do."

"But you would have!" she pointed out.

"I've already admitted that, but the fact is that I didn't."

Honey opened her mouth again to protest, but he pre-empted her with a somewhat stern look.

"And I'm not going to discuss this matter—which, I will remind you, was resolved by you—with you any further."

She went into a full on, lower lip bulging pout, and he chuckled, hugging her tightly to him.

"Is there anything else you'd like to talk to me about?"

Still looking sulky, she answered, "Of course, there is! How the fuck were you stupid enough to get yourself arrested?" She smacked his shoulder sharply. "And I thought you were legit? You've been telling me—crowing to me—all this time, about how you managed to get out, Michael, but then I turn the TV on and see you being hauled off to jail! Which is it, gangster boy?"

He had to grin at that last nickname. "The charges are about something that happened before I became pretty much completely clean."

"Pretty much?"

"Well, marijuana isn't federally legal, and I do deal in that, so pretty much is the right phrase."

That seemed to placate her some, and her expression and demeanor changed entirely when she began to lean into him rather than away from, picking at the top button of his white shirt and asking in a small voice, "Are you going to end up in prison, Sabin?"

He could see that she was trying valiantly not to be, but she was on the verge of tears.

"No, baby girl." He rubbed a big hand up and down her back. "I have an obscenely expensive lawyer, who will make sure that will not happen."

She sniffled a little then looked up at him, tears tracing down her cheeks. "You promise?"

"Yes, Honey. I promise. I'm not going anywhere."

With that, she threw herself against him again, weeping fit to break his heart, and he rocked them both.

He wanted to take her to bed—and punish her for various misdeeds of her own—the two very strong impulses were running neck and neck, especially since, to his intense surprise, she didn't seem to want to kill him or move out, but he wanted to get something off his chest first.

"I want to apologize to you, Honey."

She moved just enough away from him to see his eyes. "What'd you do? You were only in there one night—did you already find a husband?"

That made him laugh out loud. "I'm serious, sweetheart." He let his fingers cup her cheek and kept his eyes on hers while he spoke. "I'm so sorry to have so, I don't know, violently interrupted our little idyll. I like being with you so much, and I adore having you as my submissive and being your lover. I'm just anti-social enough that I really like it just being the two of us ninety-nine percent of the time."

"I do, too," she nodded.

"But I will forever be sorry that you saw me like that." He consciously stopped there, although he certainly had more to say about the fact that she had—as he regarded her part in that.

Honey caught his chin in her hand. "Don't be. It was quite the experience, I'll admit, but you know how naïve I am. Frankly, you've kept me that way."

"I never wanted to entangle you in that aspect of my life, ever."

"I know, but it's okay."

"Really?" He sounded frankly incredulous.

"Yes. I might not have had to confront it head on until last night, but it wasn't as if I didn't know who you are—or were—and it's never stopped me from being your friend. Why would I let it stop me from being more than that?"

"Oh my God, woman!" he breathed huskily, hugging her almost too tightly. "You are unbelievable!"

Before she knew it, he had rucked up her nightgown, torn off her panties, and thrust himself inside her.

"Jesus, you're even wet now!" Sabin groaned as he sank into her.

"I'm," breath, "always," breath, "wet," breath, "around," breath, "you," she confessed as he fucked her hard, holding her down so that she could barely move, yet slamming himself into her with a strength that jarred her entire body.

Sabin tugged her loose, flowing nightie over her head then gathered her wrists behind her, hearing Honey moan loudly at being restrained like that. As he watched her breasts bounce with the force of his thrusts, he growled, "We're going to have a conversation after this that you're not going to like at all."

"No!"

"Oh, yes, my dear. You deliberately disobeyed me, and you are going to learn the hard way not to do that again." He could feel her juices sluicing down his cock as he talked to her like this, and he was getting himself even hotter just thinking about doing what he was threatening to do. He couldn't last much longer, and three powerful, teeth clattering plunges later, he lost control—and very nearly consciousness—as he came with a wild spray of semen inside her.

Sabin missed her clenching around him, but that would come later, and so would she—maybe.

And, once he'd recovered, he realized that there was no reason to delay her punishment for a moment longer.

Honey had been cuddled in his arms as the mixture of their juices dripped out of her still unsatisfied pussy, feeling safer than she had in the past eighteen hours or so. She'd meant every word of what she'd said to him. It wasn't as if she'd gotten into their relationship, at the very beginning, not knowing who and what he was. And at that point, instead of being ninety-nine percent legit and one percent not so much, it was the opposite. Perhaps not quite that bad, but he was definitely more gangster than not.

But he'd never presented that side of himself to her. Oh, he'd been subtly dominant with her from the beginning, but she'd never had to deal with what had happened last night. Seeing him on the television, handcuffed and being hauled off to jail was very disturbing to her—for his sake.

As she was musing about her feelings, he picked her up and off him, standing her to one side as he got up and used a long arm to literally sweep everything off that anally organized desk.

Honey just stood there—amazed—as he did it. Phones, baskets, and a shit ton of paperwork tumbled to the floor as he turned to her.

"The moment of your comeuppance is at hand, my Honey B." His words were soft, as were his eyes, but his tone was steely firm.

Sabin took her arm and, with a hand on the small of her back, guided her to bend over his desk as he said one word, "Position."

She began to tremble immediately, and he knew it wasn't from cold. But she also, wisely, did as she was told, grabbing for the far edge of the desk with her fingers, straightening her legs and spreading them, as well as going up on tiptoe, which she didn't have much choice about, since the desk was rather high to accommodate his height.

"Do you want a pillow for your head? And are you otherwise comfortable, Honey? You're going to be here for a while, I'm afraid," he asked solicitously. "Need me to turn the heat up?"

He was going to do that enough on his own. "No, thank you, Sir."

"Ah! I see you do remember what you are supposed to be calling me."

She craned her head back. "That's not fair! I was very stressed, and—and I should get a special dispensation for that situation!"

"And are you to be the arbiter of that dispensation, then, my girl?" he asked in a conversational tone, while rubbing his hand over her bare, exposed behind.

"No," she whispered.

"I didn't hear that."

"No, Sir," she replied more loudly.

"Well, I'm glad we've gotten that settled." Honey could hear him moving around some, opening drawers, and turning away for a moment, she thought, but she couldn't really see him very well, since he was behind her.

But then he put several things next to her, up by her head, so that she could see them. One was a small butt plug. She'd never done anything along those lines before, but he was slowly introducing her to it, and it was Sabin's contention that she got much wetter and came much harder, when her bottom was plugged, than when it wasn't.

Honey wasn't at all sure that she agreed with that assessment, but then, she wasn't given much choice about whether or not she wore one. She had a safe word with him that she'd not had occasion to use, even when he was pressing something into her bottom. He was very careful of her, always checking in, and making sure that she was okay when she whimpered or moaned, but again, he was more of a mind that those were as a result of the pleasure she was deriving from what he was doing, rather than anything unpleasant or painful.

The second, was a paddle she'd never seen before. It was wooden and had many holes drilled into it, and she hated it on sight.

And the third, was a cane that she knew existed—and that he kept it in here, in the umbrella stand. But she'd never made its acquaintance before, and she wasn't at all interested in doing so now.

"Show yourself to me, Honey."

Oh, God, she hated this! She had to reach back and pull her own cheeks apart, and it was horrendously, terribly, horribly embarrassing! But she was also smart enough not to refuse doing so.

When her cheeks were splayed for him, Sabin dabbed a generous bit of lube on her little bottom hole, after having already liberally done the same to the smallest plug he'd ever bought. A true beginner's plug, which he'd bought specifically for her.

"Keep your feet down, and your cheeks spread for me, Honey. You're going to be plugged for this punishment."

Honey could feel the nose of that thing nuzzling against her rose.

"And because this is a punishment, and you've taken this plug many times before with no problems, I'm not going to go as slowly as I usually do."

"As slowly"? Honey thought. He didn't go slowly at all. She barely had time to register that it was being pressed against her when it was slipped all the way up inside her!

"Unnhhh!"

Then he pulled back on it bit, as if he was trying to make sure that it was well seated.

"I don't think I've gotten it quite right. I'll have to try a few more times, I think, before it's where it needs to be."

"No! Uh, no, stop! Ah, no!" she groaned as she found herself, essentially, being fucked by the plug as he kept pressing it in and pulling it out of her, until he decided that it was where it should be, which was where it had always been in the first place.

Then his hand moved from that embarrassing part of her body to reach further along her groove. "You are sopping wet, Honey. That's no way to start a punishment." Sabin deliberately wiped away as much of her drippings that had mixed with his as he could—so much the better to tell how turned on she got by the punishment itself.

When he straightened, he put his hand on her bottom, palm over the flange of the plug, as if to keep it in, when she couldn't push it out if she'd wanted to. He'd said that she was delightfully tight back there, and he wasn't exaggerating.

"Do you remember when I called you the night I got arrested, Honey?" he asked casually.

"Yes, Sir."

"And do you remember that I told you I wanted you to come down to see me at the police station?"

"No, Sir."

"That's right, because I didn't say that, did I?"

Honey was already near tears. "No, Sir."

"Do you remember what I did say, my naughty, naughty girl?"

She closed her eyes as she answered him. "You said that you wanted me to stay at home until you got here."

He began to fiddle with the flange again, turning it slowly and, thus, the plug inside her.

"That's right. And did I say anything else that you remember?"

Her entire body clenched at the unusual sensations he was creating. "Y-you said n-no matter what."

"Yes, I did, very specifically use that phrase."

Suddenly, he let go of the flange and began spanking her quite viciously, each swat landing with much more strength than he had ever used with her, sometimes emphasizing his words as he spoke. "And you just told me, almost verbatim, what I said, even though you apparently couldn't remember it—and refused to obey it—last night, not long after I said it to you, when you made your way down to the police station, hmm?"

Honey attempted to defend herself, although she knew it was useless. "I…ow…was in shock. Oh! And I forgot. Ahhh!"

"I'll give you the shock, Miss Honey," he continued, ignoring both her tears and her painful exclamations. "But you must always obey me—shocked or not."

He was spanking down her bottom but very slowly, administering five horrendous swats in each place before moving on. Then he began again, this time going down the backs of her legs, too. That was what got him the most agonized response.

"Oh, ow, no! Stop! Please!"

She kicked up a bit, too, as he was setting fire to that sensitive flesh.

When he'd finished with that truly evil pattern, he began to spank her directly over the middle of her backside—which was exactly where the end of the plug was.

Honey had never been punished with the plug in before, and it made things exponentially worse in a couple of particular ways. Any time his palm connected with her flesh, she automatically clenched her muscles, which gave her a rude reminder of the invader he'd put inside her. And then, when he began to spank her such that his palm landed right on top of the plug, he sent a jolt through her, as if he was trying to drive the flange into her, too.

Not only was she acutely aware of every inch of the flesh he was expertly scourging, but she was also hyper aware that her bottom hole was being held open by that evil implement.

As a result of his efforts, Honey was already a mass of tears before he switched to the paddle, which he placed against her rear end while keeping a hand on the small of her back. "If you move out of position, Honey, I will begin again," he stated very calmly.

The first loud, wholly unbearable smack of that solid wooden implement against her cheeks made her yelp loud and long, that exclamation lasting into the next one. And as long as he wielded that unyielding paddle, she never wasn't in the middle of a moan, a yelp, or, near the end, an outright scream. Each swat had her moving as much as she could, but that wasn't much. She most definitely didn't want him to start this all over again.

And the paddle and the plug were a horrible mix. Every time he delivered a weighty smack, it didn't hurt, exactly, but it felt very uncomfortable, still. He paddled her so long that she thought he was never going to stop. But when he did, she wished he hadn't.

The cane was placed against cheeks that were fire engine red, swollen and stinging unbearably, and that wicked instrument was only going to compound those conditions very badly.

"The cane is going to make you think that the rest of it was love pats, Honey. But I want you to learn this lesson well. You are to obey me, especially when you're shocked, and especially when you don't want to. I'd ask you if you're ready, but since you've never felt the cane before, I don't think you can be. I'm going to give you twenty-four, in sets of six. And, as with the paddle, if you break position, I'll start again."

Then he said something unexpected. "I love you, Honey Jacobsen."

And it began.

Honey didn't think that she'd ever howled before in her life, but she learned how to during this last, worst part of her punishment. The first stroke set fire to her backside in a concentrated raised red line, but it did the same thing to her mind. She couldn't think, or reason, or tell herself that it would be over eventually.

All she could do was feel, and the only thing she could feel was a searing, stinging pain, the likes of which she had never before encountered—and never wanted to again.

Yet the strokes kept coming, although he wasn't delivering them in any kind of hurry. He snapped his wrist; she screamed and cried, and her entire body shook. It was as if he waited for her to endure a complete reaction to one strike before moving on to the next. Sabin was very methodical, making certain the cane never landed anywhere that it wasn't supposed to. He gave her twelve on the bottom, and twelve across the backs of her thighs, which was what caused her the most consternation, based on her reactions.

And he didn't blame her in the least. But he would have her obey him, without question, most importantly, in a situation like that.

It took quite a while to raise those very sore looking ridges on her bottom, and he knew they would each remember every one of them in a different way.

He hadn't asked her to keep count, because he found that to be an unnecessary affectation, and when he'd delivered the last one, he turned and put the cane back where it belonged before returning the paddle to his desk drawer.

Then he leaned over her, having to use a reasonable amount of strength to get her to let go of the far edge of the desk, massaging her cramped fingers and rubbing her incredibly—understandably—tense shoulders. When she made to get up, he whispered, "Don't move just yet, angel."

Instead, he sat down in his big chair, rolling it closer to her and very gently turning her over, making certain that it was his strong arms that supported her bottom and that no part of it touched the desk, but leaving the rest of her sprawled over it as she continued to sob softly in the aftermath.

Sabin moved the chair close enough that her legs were kept spread merely because he was perched between them, and she was displayed—in all of her well punished glory—at just the perfect height for him to have her in the way he most wanted at that moment, even though he knew that it was going to be a challenge. He liked challenges, especially when they involved her.

He knew she was in a lot of pain at the moment, but when he tapped the plug that was still lodged between her roasted cheeks, she groaned—and not in pain. Then he slipped at first two, and then three, fingers into her little cunny, sighing out a tension he hadn't known he was holding when they were practically deluged with her cream.

And then he set his mouth to her, never once lifting it from her clit again as he fucked her slowly and powerfully with those thick fingers of his, while at first not succeeding in getting the response from her that he wanted as he lapped at her with his tongue, until he reached down between them with his other hand to tug threateningly at the plug.

Honey's guttural groan at that told him everything he needed to know, and from there he used all three positions against her until she made the transition from feeling mostly pain, all at once, to feeling unbelievable pleasure. Sabin knew the moment it happened to her, and he redoubled his efforts. She had to have a lot of aches bottled up from the time he had been denying her this, and he intended to satisfy every one of them.

And he did.

When she was close, he whispered against her privates, "That's it. You've been well punished, and now you're going to be well pleasured, because I'm allowing it. You're not to hold back one bit, Honey. I want to hear you scream."

And he did—for about three seconds, and then she fainted dead away. At first, Sabin panicked, as anyone would, but then he realized what had happened.

When she came to, he was patting her cheek very gently. "Back with me, my dear?" he smiled as he leaned over her.

"Yes, oh my God, did I faint?"

"You did!" he informed her, looking terribly self-satisfied.

"Oh, God, I'm so sorry!"

"Don't be, baby girl. It's one of the highlights of my life!" Then he rocked his hips against her, and she realized that he was inside her. "I wanted to bring you back already claimed. You are so wet—I know I say that every time, but you are."

She was blushing beautifully as he looked down at her.

Then he looked incredibly serious as he framed her face with his palms. "I love you, Honey."

"I love—"

He put his finger over her lips. "No, don't say it back yet. I mean I love you. Really love you. Not just as my best, dearest friend, but as a man, as your lover, and as your Dom. I love you so much, I can hardly bear it." He began to thrust slowly into her, his eyes never leaving hers. "You don't have to say it back to me. I'm okay with you loving me as a friend."

Honey did the same thing to his precious face. "Sabin," she began with as much gravitas as he had. "My Sir. I adore you. I loved you beyond all reason as a friend, and with the changes that we've made lately, that's become so much more. I love you, too—as your friend, and your lover, and your submissive."

Sabin grinned down at her, and she smiled up at him, just before he bent down to kiss her—long and slow and deep. When he lifted his head, he whispered against her lips, "I will never let you go, you know."

Honey wrapped her arms and legs around him, welcoming him even more deeply into her and loving the sound of his groan of pleasure at that. "You had better not," she growled up at him.

As he moved powerfully within her, Sabin reached down between them to strum her clit. "Don't faint on me again, huh? My heart couldn't take it."

"I'll try not to, Sir." She grinned up at him.

When she came—orchestrated by him to be first, as usual—it was as raw and wild and profound and moving for him as it was for her when he lost it in her arms.

When they finally ended up in bed together, long moments later, he spooned himself around her, whispering into her ear, "I meant what I said, you know—about loving you."

"Good, because so did I."

He squeezed her tightly at that.

Moments later, he asked, "Should we fly to Vegas and get married in an Elvis chapel?"

"Only if you want to marry the woman you were going to do that with originally."

"So that's a no?"

"That's definitely a no, Sir."

The End Blushing Books Blushing Books is the oldest eBook publisher on the web. We've been running websites that publish steamy romance and erotica since 1999, and we have been selling eBooks since 2003. We have free and promotional offerings that change weekly, so please do visit us at http://www.blushingbooks.com/free.

Blushing Books Newsletter Please join the

to receive updates & special promotional offers.

You can also join by using your mobile phone:

Just text BLUSHING to 22828.

Every month, one new sign up via text messaging will

receive a $25.00 Amazon gift card so sign up today!