Her head snapped up and their eyes met. There was silence for a long moment and then he sighed.
“Here’s the thing, Charlie, I want a relationship with you. What we have now feels too casual for me to take responsibility for your behavior. Fun and games is one thing, but you want a deeper commitment from me. And for me to take that on I’m gonna need a deeper commitment from you.”
She froze. Her mouth went dry and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what to say. It wasn’t that she couldn’t see herself with him; she loved him. She’d always loved him and that had never been the problem. “I…”
He put a finger against her lips interrupting whatever she’d been about to say. “Think about it later. I don’t have the energy to make life decisions tonight and I don’t think you do either, Charlie girl.”
He swung her up into his arms and carried her into the bedroom to give her all the attention she’d been missing. His suggestion, or maybe it was an ultimatum, lingered there in her thoughts as he undressed her and began to bite, lick, and suck his way across her body, but the sensations left no room for coherent thought and it was pushed out of her head.
Later, when she was spooned in his arms and half-asleep she tried to revisit it. It was the last thing on her mind as she drifted off into dreams and that was probably why she later woke up from a terrifying nightmare about…well, she couldn’t remember what it was about exactly, but she knew it had something to do with marrying Sam.
It left her with a feeling of being trapped that she carried with her throughout the day, and it put a halt to any thought of agreeing with his plan. It made sense. She could see that it was only fair of him to want to be in a relationship with someone he was disciplining; she just wasn’t ready for that and she was determined to get her way on the issue since she hadn’t really managed it on anything else.
She should have known better.
Now that the haying was over, she’d gone back to showing up looking for jobs when she felt like pitching in, but with the workload slowed to normal her participation was optional. She’d ride a horse out to check on the grazing cattle herd, help with moving them to a new field, even muck a stall on occasion but she was no longer a much-needed set of hands.
What she was though was bored. Without an assigned set of daily chores to keep her busy, and no schoolwork to fall back on, she didn’t really have a set routine. It left her antsy and full of restless energy.
She shopped in town, she went for walks, and she worked when she felt like it but none of it seemed to have a purpose. Finally, it got to her. She decided she needed a change and realized it was long past time she stopped sleeping in a bedroom that had been decorated with a kid in mind.
It took her three days to pack up her room, rip down all the old posters, and repaint it in a more adult color scheme that consisted of various shades of green. She splurged and ordered a brand-new bedroom set that caught some attention when it was delivered.
Sam watched the men carrying things in from afar and then wandered over as she was signing the paperwork. “New bed?” he asked casually.
“Yeah, figured it was about time I had an adult bed instead of the princess canopy my dad got me when I was ten. Can’t act like a kid forever, right?” She watched as they carried out the old bed and loaded it into the truck. The gauzy canopy was crushed into a ball and tossed on top; she winced and had to look away.
He made a noncommittal ‘hmming’ sound and she looked at him. “What?”
“Nothing, nice big bed. Does that mean you’re thinking of inviting me over, finally?”
Well, the twin bed had been one of the excuses she’d given for always going to his house, but they both know that hadn’t really been the issue. She hesitated, then shrugged. “Maybe.” She still balked at doing that; even now that she understood why the boundary was there, she still couldn’t step over it.
It was frustrating and all the home improvement projects in the world couldn’t fix her emotional mess—but she did give it her best try. Room by room she cleared out the baggage from her childhood and replaced it with new things until finally she could walk through the house without seeing her father’s ghost everywhere.
The scent of his tobacco and cologne still lingered which meant her next project was washing and painting all the walls fresh. Sam offered to help when he saw her hauling in dozens of paint cans, and she needed someone taller to reach the high spots so she gave in, as she’d always known she would eventually.
It wasn’t as difficult having him in the house as she’d thought it would be. They fell back into an easy camaraderie that she remembered from before everything had gone wrong. Working, teasing, and occasionally making a mess with the paint because they were playing around. All that was missing was her dad telling them to settle down before they broke something.
They laughed a lot and the rooms were slowly brightened and changed. She would work on it on and off throughout the day, and he would come over for an hour or two after everyone had gone home to assist. The changes seemed to be helping her mood.
But she didn’t invite him into her bedroom, and she could tell he was disappointed. His house continued to be the only place they made love and it was still on her terms. She showed up when she wanted to, and most of the time he accepted it, but she could see it was wearing on him. She just didn’t know what to do about it. She didn’t have an answer for him, not the one he wanted anyway.
And despite sassing him every chance she got, sometimes in front of the hands, sometimes not, she still hadn’t managed to push him into giving her anything that she would consider a real punishment. The tight line of lips and the jumping muscle in his cheek said she was stepping all over his last nerve, but he held out longer than she would have expected.
She wasn’t sure what had inspired him to think outside the box, but one afternoon she pushed too far and found out that punishment didn’t necessarily have to be the obvious sort. He took advantage of the quiet in the late afternoon. The workers who hadn’t already left for the day were finishing up so they could go.
The main barn was empty except for the horses so she wasn’t too concerned about being overheard when she started giving Sam an uppity attitude for criticizing the job she was doing as she raked out the soiled hay.
“Don’t you have something else to be doing?” She rolled her eyes and turned away from him muttering, “Like I don’t know how to clean a fucking stall,” just loud enough for him to hear.
Suddenly he was pressed right up against her back. His arm snaked around her waist and pulled her tight against him. She felt his nose brush the bare skin of her neck and shivered.
“You keep going with that mouth of yours and you’ll regret it, Charlie. Bad girls don’t get rewards from me,” he said against the shell of her ear.
She bit her lip, and then took a slow deep breath in an effort to get control of her hormones. Her stomach was doing dizzying flips inside and she wondered, not for the first time, if she really wanted to go down this route. Getting Sam to take control completely was a given. Eventually it would happen, she knew it.
But once it did there would be no turning back, and she knew that too. “Not too worried, Sam. I mean you said you weren’t interested in being in charge of me unless we were in a relationship, right? Seems like that means I’ve got free range here.” She didn’t feel as smug as she sounded.
