Saving Sophia Read online

  He continued to thumb her clit while moving his finger back into her wet pleasure, a dexterous move that took some practice. Her eagerness was amazing as she moved in unison with his hand, and her spasms returned quickly. Moans turned to subtle whimpers and eventually to full-blown cries. Her body attempted to crumble toward the ground, but he held her easily as his fingers reached even further into her need.

  When she was spent, her eyes opened to reveal a subtle surprise. It was almost as though she’d forgotten he was there. His cock grew even harder, and he rubbed against her thigh. “Are we playing next weekend?”

  Sophia simply nodded, but Marcus waited with a stern look until she said, “Yes, sir.”

  He rewarded her with an easy grin. “The guy who’s collared you is a lucky man, little girl.”

  * * *

  The memory of his fingers invading her sex stayed long after he left and it took almost fifteen minutes before she acknowledged what she’d agreed to. She couldn’t erase the touch of his lips or his fingers. She’d never felt such a strong tie to another human being. Her lone serious boyfriend was obviously nothing more than a male acquaintance whose companionship was taken away as easily as it was offered.

  Marcus’ smooth body mixed with collars and dungeons, but the resulting confusion was more than she could process. Shaking her head to return to safe solitude, Sophia settled into the dirt. Work always brought clarity, and Cloudcroft’s beautiful gardens were an easy responsibility. She spent hours digging through leaves and winter’s loss to find the beginnings of life. To connect a little further, she removed the thick pair of work gloves to run her fingers through the soil and breathed the crisp fresh scent of springtime.

  When she was done with the flower beds, she found the small garden tractor and mowed the lawns. She may not have had a driver’s license, but she’d long since learned how to use power equipment. A small dead tree near the woods was lost quickly to a chainsaw, and the tractor helped her move the logs to a pile near the barn.

  It was hours before Bella found her. Dirt was encrusted on Sophia’s clothes and rammed under her fingernails. Loose hairs escaped from her ponytail and mud made her boots unrecognizable. But the content expression on Sophia’s face was apparent, and she grinned when Bella tapped her on the shoulder.

  Bella whistled, “Boy, you look like shit. And I think you like it too.”

  She laughed loudly, and met Bella’s gaze easily. “It’s been amazing. I just love working outside, but I’m starving. I need to get some lunch.”

  “Lunch? Shit, girlfriend, I came to tell you that we eat dinner in fifteen minutes. Meg will skin you alive if you track dirt into her kitchen. There’s an enclosed outdoor shower by the barn with soap and shampoo. I left you a clean towel and some of your clothes. You’d better get moving, but I wouldn’t tell the boys you missed lunch. Not eating around here is a serious crime.”

  She didn’t have a watch, but the late hour caused her serious mood to return. Before she ran to the shower, she remembered her conversations with Marcus. “What does it mean if you wear somebody’s collar?”

  Bella was in a hurry and answered with a simple shrug. “It’s more serious than just playing. It means you’re committed to them.”

  Every new piece of information expanded her imagination and the titillating results formed from a deep spot between her legs. She washed quickly, pulled her long hair into a wet ponytail, and dressed in the utilitarian gray sweats and t-shirt. Even with her fast action, the family was already sitting at the table by the time she got to the kitchen, and she cringed at the scowls from the three dominant men.

  Before she could make her excuses, she felt the twinges of a physical uncertainty completely unrelated to the sexual arousal she’d felt under Marcus’ touch. She took a breath and tried to focus, but the room spun in dangerous circles as the four adults blended into one creature. She put her hand to the back of a soft leather chair, but her new roommates’ concerned voices were lost just before everything went black.

  When her eyes opened again, she was lying on the kitchen couch with Marcus’ concerned face hovering by her side. An unsuccessful attempt to sit up and push a bag of ice off her forehead earned his scowl, but the same room-spinning dizziness left no choice but to lie back down.

  Jack spoke first. “Sophia? Can you hear me?” When Sophia reluctantly opened her eyes a second time, Linc and Jack stood beside Marcus, and little Bella was in tears.

  “I’m fine, everybody. I just need a minute.” She tried to push the ice bag aside a second time, but the sensitive lump on her head cemented the realization she’d done more than get dizzy. She’d hit something. Hard.

  Marcus gently pushed her back to the couch. “Keep the ice bag. You hit your head when you passed out. A friend of ours is a doctor, and he’s on his way. Has this ever happened before? How do you feel now?”

  Bella spoke softly. “I think she needs food, guys. She hasn’t eaten much today.”

  Linc’s glare was truly frightening. “How much is ‘not much,’ Sophia?”

  Physical weakness blended with overall uncertainty to generate a quiet whimper, and Bella moved quickly between them. “Lincoln Sullivan, you may think you are a kind and gentle man, but you scare the shit out of people. Back off.”

  Marcus remained suspicious. “Have you eaten anything besides that little bowl of cornflakes this morning?”

  When her eyes went to the floor, the men had their answer, and Marcus continued scolding. “You had one small bowl of cereal then spent seven solid hours doing manual labor? You’re lucky passing out is all you did.”

  Jack’s eyebrow twitched as though it had a little life of its own, and his frown mirrored his brother’s. Sophia wiggled away from all of them while Bella tried to take over. “Jack, get some pasta over here. Marcus, help her sit up a little. Linc…” She searched for a chore and finally sighed, “…just go sit at the table and stop being so scary.”

  Thankfully, all three men followed tiny Bella’s orders and gave Sophia a little breathing room. When Jack brought the pasta, however, Marcus insisted on feeding her one forkful at a time. Her feeble protests were met with a stone wall of dominance and an icy scowl. “Do what you’re told, Sophia. I saw you with a fucking chainsaw an hour ago. You’re not going to be dizzy for long. When I paddle your ass over risking a limb, you’re going to want me to remember a whole lot of cooperation.”

  The threat did nothing to calm either girl’s nerves, and they exchanged a look of horror. Bella started to speak before her husband cut her off with another scowl. “Go eat dinner, little wolf. Marcus has this. Dan’s going to be here soon to let us know if we should take her to a hospital.”

  The calorie-heavy pasta helped, and her strength returned slowly until Marcus finally allowed her to finish feeding herself. When Dr. Daniel Garcia arrived, he pronounced her bruised, but not concussed. “She’ll be fine, guys,” he proclaimed before helping himself to the leftover pasta at the stove.

  She turned to her tall, dark shadow. “I’m sorry, Marcus. I just hadn’t worked outside in months, and I was having so much fun. I forgot about eating.”

  He rubbed her leg gently. “I have to admit that the sight of a smoking hot, leggy woman with a chainsaw was a turn-on that I enjoyed. Just promise me it won’t happen again. Three meals a day and extra calories when you’re doing so much physical labor.”

  Sophia tried a shaky laugh. “Come on. It’s not like I couldn’t afford to lose a few pounds. I’m built like a cow.”

  Marcus didn’t share her humor. “Did you just call yourself fat?” His voice could have cut ice, and Sophia didn’t know how to answer.

  “Because if you did,” he said in the same tone, “that will just add to the intensity of your spanking.”

  Sophia’s eyes grew wide with abject fear, but Bella was instantly by her side. “I think I’ll just take her to bed now. She must be exhausted. Don’t worry, Marcus. I’ll see that she’s settled.”

  The room
came to a grinding halt as the four dominant men stared at Bella. Jack snapped his fingers and pointed to his side. “You aren’t interfering with Marcus and Sophia, are you, Bella?”

  Even Sophia knew she didn’t have a choice. With one last pleading look in her direction, Bella mouthed ‘safe word’ and reluctantly followed Jack out of the room. When Linc and Dan made plans to finish with brandy in the upstairs study, she was left alone with Marcus and his scowling displeasure.

  The need to speak overrode her shyness. “Please don’t spank me, Marcus. I won’t do it again. I promise, I’ll eat better.”

  Marcus lowered his glare. “I can’t wait to play with you, but discipline is different. That was a stupid move, and you could have been hurt. You know how this works. Unless a spanking is a hard limit, drop the pants, and let’s get this over with.”

  A hard limit sounded like a wonderful out, but she had no idea how to play that card. A word that was defined as safe also appealed to her but screaming red just felt silly. Her breathing slowed to a crawl while she tried to process her current predicament. A little over twenty-four hours earlier, she’d considered a lonely homeless shelter, but tonight faced a real, full-blown spanking because somebody cared that she might have gotten hurt.

  Breath returned out of sheer survival, but she still fought the urge to run. There had to be a locked door or something between her bottom and his hand. She looked frantically around the room but before she could move, the memory of his giant fingers enveloped between her wet lips awakened something a little deeper inside her pussy. When she added the image of Bella’s pink bottom bent over the porch rail, the deep electrical circuits focused into one very wet spot. In a weak attempt to stop her need, she pulled her thighs together to make flight physically and mentally impossible.

  Marcus’ voice interrupted her muddled thoughts. “I’ve already told you once, little girl. Lose your pants and let’s get this over with.”

  The only way to extricate herself from his punishment was to tell the truth; she’d never been spanked, and yesterday was the first time that she’d even heard the word ‘submission’ in a sexual context. Bella and Tami would take the spanking she deserved, but even more frightening, the news would mean the end of her stay at Cloudcroft. Marcus would likely drop her off at the homeless shelter himself. Quite simply, she didn’t want to leave any of them.

  A tiny tear escaped as the sum of all her losses clearly rested with one decision. She swallowed hard and squeaked, “Yes, sir.”

  He crossed his arms and waited patiently while Sophia slipped out of her baggy sweats. She hesitated over her panties, but his frown clarified the message, and she stepped out of them with as much grace as she could manage. A slight gleam came to his eyes as he surveyed the tiny hairs that protected her secrets, and she blushed even further.

  With a futile attempt to pull her t-shirt over her very virgin bottom, she stood while he settled himself on the big leather recliner and patted his lap. “Over my knee, Sophia.”

  Mortification ran deep and the telling blush crept slowly down her entire body. It took four of the deepest breaths imaginable before her feet would take a step. His hands grew in size before her eyes, and their movement seemed to drop to slow motion.

  Any other lap would not have been able to take her height, but Marcus did not have just any lap. She fit perfectly over his long legs as he adjusted her ass to the correct angle to meet his correction. Her hands grabbed his calf in a failed attempt at safety, and her feet didn’t quite reach the floor. She had no idea what to expect so she closed her eyes tightly, and her entire body tensed.

  Instead of a correction, he tantalized the nerves on her bottom with a gentle touch. Tiny traces of his fingertips created light, swirling patterns across her skin that teased her vaginal walls into the play. The new sensations were overwhelming but when she tried to wiggle away, he locked her firmly into place with a quick scissoring of his leg. “Hold still, Sophia, and mind what I say. I’m not going to fight you on this.”

  Trapped between his firm thighs, she went under his control with her glistening apex exposed to his sight. A simple touch to her wetness caused her to gasp, and he chuckled with his new information. “I think you might like this, little girl. Now, what did you do wrong?”

  Her voice sounded like it belonged to an alien. “I… uh… didn’t take care of myself. I didn’t eat lunch. I used the heavy equipment when I could have been hurt.” Even without seeing his face, she knew he would expect a full accounting of her misdeeds, so she didn’t miss a thing. “And you didn’t like it when I called myself fat.”

  His warm palm cupped her ass with another gentle movement. The tantalizing effect of his skin on hers became an unwilling aphrodisiac to her growing need, and she almost allowed herself pleasure from his touch. Despite her embarrassment, she wiggled her bottom to encourage a second exploration of her swollen sex.

  Instead, he delivered a stinging smack, and Sophia gasped. The simple pain electrified thousands of nerve endings in her bottom to fuel the wetness between her legs. Before she could fully register the first connection, he delivered a half a dozen more. As he layered one on top of the other, a warm glow fought its way out of her body, and she bit her lower lip to keep her emotions under control.

  By the seventh smack, he’d picked up his intensity and the warmth turned to sting and finally, they just plain hurt. Instead of layering, he circled her bottom with a random pattern that worked closer to her upper thighs. When he connected a little lower to the place where she preferred to sit, the sting built on her already established nerve endings and she yelped, “Ow… that hurts…”

  Sophia’s failed attempt to wiggle out of his powerful grasp made her feel tiny but there was no escaping his control. Given no other options, she began to cry. It was an emotion she’d seldom allowed, but under Marcus’ hand, real tears escaped. She begged, “I promise… I won’t do it again. Please. Please. Ow. It hurts.”

  He met her bottom with a stinging correction more times than she thought possible. The tenderness intertwined with a hormonal release, and genuine sobbing took over. Used to keeping her emotions to herself, the alien display of tears left her as mortified as the thought of her burning, hot bottom exposed to his gaze.

  His hand finally slowed before he stopped altogether. With no appropriate reaction, she buried her face further away from his sight while her sniffling continued.

  In a surprisingly gentle move, he rubbed the redness carefully to work the muscles deep in her core. His physical connection provided a foreign comfort, and she struggled to reconcile the emotion with her need to cry. The sting slowly subsided along with her hormones, and a gentle warmth relaxed her entire body.

  He lifted her to his lap. “Easy, Sophia. It’s all over. You were a good girl. I’m proud of you.”

  The quiet praise inexplicably opened a second floodgate of emotions, and her tears returned with a vengeance. Faced with no alternative, she soaked the front of his shirt. Every time she thought she could win the battle to pull herself together, his comfort reached further into her armor and more tears escaped her heavy shield. He placed no demands and waited until she returned to some sense of normal. He finally murmured, “It’s okay, kiddo. I’ve got you.”

  She wiped the tears with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry. I… I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I don’t usually cry… and… it didn’t hurt that bad. I’m really very quiet.”

  He smiled. “Well, maybe that’s the first thing we need to work on changing. Quiet never did anybody any good.”

  * * *

  With the wedding party already settling in, Friday was spent making the final touches to the grounds. Jack had assigned his staff to install the tents and chairs while Bella and Sophia potted dozens of annuals to increase the color.

  “You know,” said Sophia quietly. “I think they would have bought potted plants, anyway. There is no way the rhododendrons would have been enough.”

  Bella frowned. �
�You mean they played me?”

  “Uh… I can’t say that. I just think there are a lot more flowers here than you cut off the plants.”

  While Bella mumbled about the ‘stupid sons of bitches’ who controlled her ass, Meg and Marcus set up the food tables. Cloudcroft was an intimate venue so it was a small wedding, but they’d still hired extra help from the neighboring towns for the weekend and a half dozen people ran to do their bidding.

  “Hey, Sophia,” said Marcus as he wrapped his arms around her in a quick hug. “Do you want a few extra hours this weekend? We could use another waitress.”

  The unfamiliar intimacy behind his touch brought a delightful tingle, and she jumped at the chance to fill the nonexistent savings account. “You bet. I’ll work as many hours as you’ll give me. I have a job during the school year waiting tables, but it’s really tough to make ends meet. Health insurance alone costs me a fortune.”

  When it was discovered that Sophia lacked the appropriate shirt, he said, “Tell Bella you need one. I think there are a few extras in the house someplace.”

  The unexpected smack on her ass caused her to jump a mile. Clearly designed as a causal connection to move her along, she had no response but to stare. Marcus just smirked. “Better get used to it. That’s just how we say hello and goodbye around here.”

  A million thoughts went through her head as she registered Marcus’ move. When the glimmer in his eyes caught hers, she rewarded him with her first beaming smile since arriving at Cloudcroft.

  On Saturday morning, the resort provided an impressive breakfast for the wedding guests, and Sophia manned by the buffet to allow the rest of the staff to work the kitchen. Only Jack excused himself, but Bella explained, “He’ll be back later. He looks great in leather, but we’d all starve to death if he had to cook more than scrambled eggs. He’s much better off with his arm halfway up a pregnant mare’s birth canal.”

  The wedding started promptly at 4:00 p.m. What began as a beautiful day gave way to cloudy overcast and eventually some serious rain. The bride was devastated, and the tears were almost as torrential as the showers pouring against the windows.