Read Sinful for Free Online Page B

tantalizingly softly, “Who’s going to stop me? Are you telling me that – bare bottomed – you’d flag a stranger in the parking lot to come over and help you? Because I can tell you that is the only way I’ll ever discipline you. It’s the only way that works.”
    Her mouth snapped shut as she glared at him.
    “Three.”
    “Brandt!” Her outrage was palpable, but he was merciless.
    “I can promise you, Lita, that if you let me get to five, you will find yourself over my lap getting spanked when we’re finished with dinner. I am dead serious.”
    When she sat there, clearly flabbergasted, unable to even begin to process what he was promising, he murmured, almost regretfully, “Four.”
    “All right!” She glared at him, angrier than she had been in a very long time, and she was still just beginning to learn how to experience anger rather than suppressing it, as she had been expected to do all her life. “They were all quite surprised when I refused to go to bed with them. There wasn’t a one of them that I would have slept with voluntarily, and one of them in particular seemed to feel that involuntary was just fine with him, too, since he’d paid for my meal. Luckily, when I began to date, Marielle suggested that I keep pepper spray in my purse, and I had to use it on that occasion.”
    During her sad little speech, she had stared at her plate, her enjoyment of the dessert forgotten, certain that he was gloating at having gotten her to capitulate to him. But she was dead wrong, and when he reached across the table to lift her chin so that she had to look at him, she saw the truth of how he felt about what she said written all over his face.
    He was livid – not at her, but at whoever it was that had felt that taking her out for dinner, or whatever, entitled him to the use of her body, whether she wanted him to or not. “It would make me very happy if you would give me the name of that man, and I’ll make sure he never threatens you or any other woman in the future over the price of a dinner.”
    There was a muscle ticking in his jaw, and she had seen that happen to her father, too, when he was very, very angry. But then, it was always a situation where she was being punished for something that was her fault – whether it actually was or not. If she had been the one in charge when something went wrong, then she would be the one her father chastised for any sort of failing in his eyes.
    But Brandt was angry for an entirely different reason, and he even wanted to go so far as to go beat up some man he’d never met on her behalf because he’d made her feel threatened.
    She found it was darned near impossible to stay mad at someone like that.
    “Eat the rest of your dessert,” he encouraged, digging into his own.
    She made a good dent in it, but he ended up finishing it.
    When he brought her home, already having opened the door for her and turned on an inside light, he prepared to leave her on her doorstep with an affectionate hug that he let her set the limit for. She couldn’t help but stop him with a question that had been niggling at the back of her mind as he trotted down the steps on the way to his truck. “Brandt?”
    He turned back to her immediately, leaning on the stair railing with an almost smile on his face. “Yes, Miss Lita?”
    She smiled, knowing he was teasing, not mocking, her. “You really wouldn’t have... well... you know... done that... would you?”
    It was his turn to cross his arms across his chest, no smile in evidence. “What do you think?”
    She thought for a long moment, then said, “I think I’m going to quit while I’m ahead.” She never heard him come up behind her, but when she turned to go into her apartment, she felt a sharp swat to her behind that had her dropping her purse in favor of grabbing the offended body part.
    From behind her, she heard him say, soft and low, “I mean what I say, Lita. You’ll do well to remember that,” just before she heard the