Page 32

“Jacob! What are you doing?” I giggled, trying to wriggle off his lap at realizing my ass was up in the air.

But my giggles died instantly when Jacob secured me in place by maneuvering one of his legs over the back of mine and placing a hand between my shoulder blades. “I need you to hold still for this, angel.”

Panic slithered its way through me, his serious tone of voice adding to my building fear. “Can you let me up? What are you doing?” I asked again, thrashing to get free of his grasp, but failing.

“Calm down, Charlotte,” he replied, his voice once again taking on its soothing lullaby. “The sooner we start, the sooner this will be over.”

My panic ramped up, piercing my chest and making it hard to breathe, but my mind ceased to stop working when Jacob moved his free hand to run up my bare thigh, lifting the hem of my dress to reveal my panties.

I stopped wriggling, lifting my head so I could peek over my shoulder. “Jacob, what…”

His hand cupped my ass cheek and squeezed, cutting off my useless question. When he turned his gaze to me, a sad smile stretched across his lips. “Angel, I really don’t want to have to do this, but-”

“Do what?” I cried, my voice shrill.

Jacob sighed heavily, pausing from stroking his hand over my ass cheek. “I have to punish you for your behavior yesterday, angel. You acted like a child, you swore at me, and then, when I wanted to talk about it later in the evening, you were a brat. You need to learn that that kind of behavior is unacceptable.”

“Jacob-”

“Shh, angel,” he cooed, moving his hand to hook a finger into the waistband of my panties. “You’ll be a good girl while I punish you, and then I’ll make you feel better, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay!” I snapped, blinding panic propelling me to try to push up again.

Smack.

The sound of Jacob’s palm crashing against my ass cheek reverberated around the room before the pain registered. Red-hot stinging, as if I’d been stung by a thousand bees spread across my flesh, and a scream burst from my mouth before I could stop it. After another futile attempt to break free of Jacob’s firm grip on me, the tears brimming in my eyes began to fall.

“That was your one and only warning, angel,” Jacob said, caressing the skin he’d slapped. “You can scream and cry as much as you like, but you will hold still, and you will take your punishment.”

Tears streamed down my face as if a waterpipe had burst, and snot ran from my nose and into my mouth from where I was helpless but to hang my head down. “Jacob, please. You don’t have to do this,” I sobbed through the searing pain spreading over my ass cheek.

“I do, angel.” He replaced his fingers in the waistband of my panties and slid them down to expose the globes of my ass. “But I really hope you learn from this so I only have to do this once. It breaks my heart to see you hurting.”

Not giving me time to prepare, he brought his hand down again, smacking it against the other ass cheek. I howled as blinding agony tore through my body, and a piercing screech flew from my mouth, traveling out of the open balcony doors.

Jacob stroked my burning cheeks tenderly, as if he hadn’t been the one to cause the pain. “That’s it. Let it out, angel,” he cooed. “No one can hear you scream except me.” His hand slammed down again, covering both cheeks, and the fire blazing on my skin spread like wildfire through my body. “You’re going to count now, Charlotte,” Jacob said, though I barely heard him over my sobs. “We’re going to count to ten; that was number two.”

“Three! That was number three!” I bawled, unsure how I was going to tolerate one more hit, let alone seven more.

A dark chuckle reached my ears, sounding so unlike the man I had come to know. “Nice try, angel. But I did tell you that the first one was a warning. Just for that, we’ll make it eleven.” Slap! I screamed, my fingers curling into the palms of my hand and my nails digging into the flesh. “Count, Charlotte.”

“Three,” I choked out through my tears.

“Good girl.”

The fourth one came next, followed in quick succession by the fifth and sixth. With every strike, my screams grew louder, and I silently prayed that someone on the mainland would hear me and send the coastguard to investigate the wails of a tortured girl.

Jacob focused on spanking my ass, while my entire body ached from the agony coursing through it. Bile churned in my stomach, the pain so intense that I thought I was going to vomit the beef Wellington I’d devoured.

Smack!

“Seven.”

Smack!

“Eight.”

I braced for the next strike, only for Jacob’s fingers to brush lightly over my raw skin. “Your ass is such a pretty shade of red, angel. I won’t lie, there is a part of me that hopes you misbehave again, just so I can make your ass look like this again.”