Quinlan's Quest (Quinlan O'Connor Book 1) Read online

  “Thanks for giving me a call. I owe you,” Quinn reiterated to his co-worker.

  “Nah, we take care of our own. You take care of your lady there.”

  Cheyenne began to grumble to which Quinn swatted her butt twice and told her she was not to speak. He was too angry to talk to her and needed to calm down, so she would be well advised to, this once, mind. Cheyenne had thought to answer him back. Then one look at his face told her that since she did not have a death wish, and that is what she would be making if she said anything, silence, in this case, was golden.

  They were about five miles from the club, and he called ahead to see if one of the rooms was available. He told them to reserve it. He walked in, grabbed his bag the attendant held up to him as he entered and said for no one to disturb them. Quinn stood with barely contained control while he waited for Cheyenne to take off her shoes, and then led her upstairs. As they passed Tony, the second-floor security, he looked as though he felt sorry for her. That couldn’t be good thought Cheyenne.

  As she was hauled upstairs to the room set aside for his pleasure, she wondered just what was going to happen. She knew that he often said that one of these days she was going to do something that took the option of letting her off easy out of his hands. He said he hoped she was ready for the consequences of that choice. He also stated that he would dread that day. It was pretty obvious that she must have made that mistake tonight and that the consequences were soon to come her way. He did not look like he was dreading it but she sure was.

  Her apprehension rose as they climbed the stairs and her fear deepened as they walked the hallway to the last room. It was the punishment room. She remembered Quinn showing her the room and talking to her about what was in that room. He also said that when he had to take her there, it was because she had done something he couldn’t let pass with a few swats to the bottom or a chewing out.

  * * *

  Quinn opened the door and looked at Cheyenne’s face as he led her past him into the room. She stopped at the threshold, but he put his hand to the small of her back and guided her further so he could shut the door.

  “Quinn, please…”

  Quinn seemed to hesitate as though he knew she understood she was in some big trouble with her man and he didn’t want to do what he would need to do.

  “Honey, come climb in my lap. I am still pretty upset so just sit with me while I calm down.” She curled up in his lap that she fit so well in and sniffled while playing with the buttons on his shirt. She started to explain, and he shut her down quickly. She continued to feel like the naughty girl that she was sure he saw her as while she waited for him to speak.

  After a bit, he said, “Sit at my feet, piscín.” Cheyenne seemed to understand he was still angry as he continued to sit in the armchair, his eyes closed. She took her socks off and sat on the thick floor mat leaning her head on his hard thigh. She let him run his hands through her long silky hair. He had said it calmed him, and she wanted to help calm him. Quinn accepted her offering, and they sat for a bit with tears sliding down Cheyenne’s face and Quinn finger combing her hair.

  Finally, he leaned down and kissed her head, bringing her up to his lap again to settle into the crook of his arm, placing her head on his shoulder. Cheyenne’s tears falling quicker as she knew she had crossed the line with him. She fervently prayed she could just go back and undo things but she couldn’t.

  “Sweetheart, I’m sorry, but you put yourself in danger, quite a lot of danger tonight by getting into the car with a driver who was drunk. I can’t let that slide. You have become so incredibly important to me over these last months that I don’t think that I could survive the loss of you, and what about your mother, what would she do without you?”

  Quinn waited before continuing but in a louder voice for her subdued tears had begun in earnest. Her instant sobriety having some lingering after effects. “I am going to spank you. Not a couple of swats to your butt but a real, honest to goodness, tanning and you are going to let me.”

  “Quinn, I don’t want you to spank me. I’m really, really sorry.”

  “Cheyenne, listen to me. I can’t let you get away with risking your life, knowingly. I have grown to love you. I feel I could spend my life with you. If I cannot spank you to let you know how much you mean to me and how much I don’t ever want you to do that again, then I can’t stay in this relationship. I can’t be happy in this relationship. I can’t worry every time you are out with others that you will do something stupid and not ever come home because of it.”

  He waited for a moment. Quinn was good at allowing his words and lessons to sink in before continuing. Her sobs calmed, and she knew this was a turning point for them. It was her decision to make. He would not make it for her. A crossroads of monumental proportions and she resented having to make the choice.

  “I’m trying to be careful here, piscín. I’m trying to walk with thoughtful steps, but I meant what I said. I am not going to spend every waking hour worried about you and have all my dreams playing out death scenes. This is who I am, Cheyenne. I am not like my brothers in that I discipline. I punish, and you know it. You agreed to it. How I do it most often is warming bottoms. I don’t hit you in that I am cruel, leave bruises, do any harm, but I do make an impression when one is needed. And,” he paused just long enough for Cheyenne to have some real fear that he might be ending the best relationship she, and if he were to be believed, he had ever had. “Muirnín, you have to let me do it if you want to stay in a relationship with me. You will have to accept all that I am for us to be together. Just as I agree that you run your own business, have bar nights that are not always the best idea and continue to try in so many ways to show you can take care of yourself without me that challenge my sense of safety for you.”

  Again, he waited, and Cheyenne turned on her waterworks again. She threw herself out of his lap. She yelled and paced in between sobs that racked her body at times.

  “I hate this. I didn’t do it purposely. She looked at him, entreating him to understand. “I didn’t think she had much to drink. She didn’t look drunk, just a little happy.”

  He reached out to her as though to console her, but this was not the time. This was the decision time. She could say no, and they were through. However, if she said yes, she knew that he would have to fully punish her. He was right. It was who he was and who they were together. She wanted him to keep her forever in the shelter of his love and protection.

  “No matter what your decision tonight, piscín, I lose tonight. Either I have to punish you or lose you. I don’t want to do either, but you have forced my hand. If I don’t punish you, your trust in us, in me to follow through will be tainted, and I won’t be true to you or myself. If you chose to leave, I have lost the love of my life.” Cheyenne groaned.

  “This is not fair. It isn’t fair how much I have come to rely on you to always be there in the last months. It’s not fair that I’m not sure I can survive without the feeling of safety you give me. It’s not fair that I know that everything will be all right if you are with me.”

  She stomped her bare foot and lifted the straight-backed chair to throw but, watching Quinn stare intently at her, encouraged her to set it back down with a thud.

  “I want to be angry with you for telling me this and making me choose domestic discipline or to end everything. I'm upset, damn it. It’s plain not fair that I can’t let you go. I love you, too much.”

  * * *

  Quinn understood this was difficult for her, but she needed to dial it down some before he was forced to make a stand that he did not want to make. He prayed she would round the corner soon. Cheyenne threw an implement across the room and watched it bounce off the back wall, clattering to the floor. Quinn watched her lose some of her defiance then and turned her surprised eyes on him. It was so damn cute. But if she chose to stay, he would have to add that to her punishment list. Finally, her tears slowed, her sobs stopped and with it, her heaving chest calmed. She hiccupped, her next w
ords much quieter.

  “I knew I should have told them to take a cab, or I should have. I want to yell at you that it wasn’t my fault, but I don’t have any fight left. I know you keep telling me, and I guess I thought you never would actually, earnestly punish me, or maybe I thought I couldn’t do anything that bad. Maybe I needed you to prove your word. I don’t know. What I do know with a great certainty, is if you don’t, I will keep pushing or somewhere inside I will be hurt that you didn’t. I will feel less valuable to you. I can’t live without you, or your guidance.”

  Quinn could hear his mind chanting, good girl. That’s my baby, my piscín. However, he knew enough not to say it aloud. He tried hard not to smile as she continued.

  Cheyenne’s hand flew to her mouth, standing straighter and eyes huge. “But I have to be in the wedding tomorrow afternoon and how am I going to do that if you do this tonight? I’ll be all discolored, and everyone will know. Then there is sitting at the reception…”

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing they usually marry standing up, don’t you? What they will know if they see anything, is that someone cares enough, cherishes you so completely that they showed you in a very tangible way that you are important to them. You are so important to me, piscín. I am not going to bruise you, honey, I love you. But you have still not agreed.”

  “I agree, may the saints preserve me, I agree. Spank me. Love me. Keep me.”

  Quinn opened his arms and Cheyenne ran into them. He kissed her.

  “Thank you, muirnin, for trusting me. I promise not to violate that trust knowingly. Are you ready, then?”

  After a few more moments and a few more pleadings from Cheyenne, Quinn was done with the prelude. He asked again with more steel in his voice, “Are we good, you ready?”

  “No.” Then she looked at him and expressing an enormous sigh, she said, “Yes.”

  “Strip.”

  Cheyenne looked into his eyes, and she knew he could see an internal war, the last stronghold, going down in smoke. He watched with rising passion as she stripped her clothes off and dropped them in a pile at her feet.

  “Well, I think it’s about time we introduce this spanking bench to you, my love. You remember what it looks like to be on one, so climb up.”

  Quinn’s tone changed back to the taskmaster. He was no longer discussing options, he was no longer explaining things, and he was preparing to discipline his lovely lady. His voice carried the no-nonsense authority that he knew Cheyenne loved at any other time but punishments. This was not going to be the ten swats because she chose to stay late with someone that could have been dangerous. It isn’t the one where she earned two swats for standing on the back of a chair. It was going to be the one that made a lasting impression on her. He watched her tremble slightly, and he wondered if it was from fear or anticipation, or both. Quinn was taking charge. He would always take charge when he needed to. After tonight, she would know it.

  Quinn could see there was some fear in her eyes for the process and the act of discipline, but she did not fear him. He had watched her carefully, and she trusted him. She shivered but leaned into him unconsciously. This would be all right. If he had been closer to home, she would have been laid out over the back of the sofa, after having gone a round on his lap for warm up. But here he could warm her up and then complete the punishment without moving her. Then he would bring her down in the large leather armchair they just left. He smiled to himself, he was sure none of his brothers had ever used this to spank their sweeties although he was sure they all paddled their darlings from time to time. Even Andrew tapped Caoimhe, who was a most compliant wife, a time or two in exasperation.

  After Quinn moved her hair out of the way with a hair tie accompanied by the half-hearted protests of Cheyenne, Quinn put the Velcro bindings around her upper arms. He then moved to her thighs, and calves after checking to see if she thought she could do without them. She didn’t think she would be able to be still enough and might fall off. Quinn knew he wouldn’t let her but agreed it would work better if she were restrained. It helped her feel submissive and accept the punishment.

  After making sure she was comfortable and she was well positioned, he spent a few moments rubbing her back, her arms, legs and bottom trying to raise the blood and sensitize her some. Being totally undressed would not encourage anything but feeling the chastisement. Cheyenne made one last plea for leniency.

  “I wonder how many of your friends will be sporting a well-spanked bottom tomorrow to show how loved and cherished they are?”

  “If they are lucky, none of them.” That brought on the first swat.

  “That’s, too bad for them, then because they will be repeating the same mistakes but with one less participant.”

  Several better aimed swats met with Cheyenne’s rounded derrière and some well-placed massaging of her cheeks brought the warmth that would stop bruising to the surface. Quinn had laid out a few items for him to choose from as he spanked his darling. Ultimately, he only restarted once for swearing. The little minx was questioning his morals and then his mother’s morals, which prompted the restarting of the punishment. It quickly stopped the swearing.

  He then threatened once that if she did not stop screaming, he would gag her, which stopped her again. Because it was her first real, full-blown spanking from him, he allowed her to use the word yellow if it was getting too much for her. He would give her a break and talk to her about it, but no “red” was allowed. This was discipline, not a scene. To which Cheyenne mumbled something about whatever happened to the submissive being the one with control. That was swiftly answered with several more swats to the sit spot, the sweet spot he liked to call it accompanied by her profuse apology.

  “You were in full control of this punishment. You did what you knew was not right, and now you are being punished, which is what you expected to happen.”

  Cheyenne thought that she was close to crying yellow several times, but it was as though Quinn could read her mind for he changed implements or positions or rubbed her bottom. He took his time and made each stroke count. He was speaking to her when he changed things up, exchanging implements and checking for possible harshness. Then when she finally broke down crying, which she never did until Quinlan came into her life, she began apologizing in earnest.

  She begged him to please forgive her. Promises poured out that she would never get in another car with someone who had been drinking and her very real sorrow at worrying him. It was his cue to stop. He admired her bright shiny red bottom, murmured comforting words and all the while, he appreciated the thoroughness of his punishment. He cooed and rubbed her back as he unstrapped her and allowed her to gain some control of her tears.

  Apologies were nice but not necessary. He had made his point. He would hold her now, cuddle and comfort her. While he would always discipline, he would always comfort. He was not as some he knew who took it to corner time or had them further humiliate themselves by showing the whole of the great room their reddened and disciplined bottom, he was not into that. Did he like a little spark in his play? You bet. Did he go into onerous submission or protocol? Not unless it was for punishment. Ah, but he did love his implements. He decided it was time to up the game and introduce her soon to the other things play had to offer. They had not even touched the medical room yet.

  Aftercare, whether it was at the end of a scene or punishment, was crucial for Quinlan, and he kissed and cuddled Cheyenne, drying her tears and discussing the expectations of safety. He also loved her body, permitting her to take his cock in her mouth just long enough to allow her to feel more in control. She had told him it did that for her among other things.

  Then he took her back home to comfort and love on her.

  Cheyenne put her hands under his still untucked shirt and ran her hands hungrily over his hard stomach. “Quinn, we love each other, and we have both had sex before, so please make love to me.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I want to make love to you so very much, but we need to wait
until we are married. I don’t want something to happen, and you regret anything we did. Things that we can never undo. You are perfect for me, but we need to wait.” He waited for a response.

  “Fine. I know I said it was okay, but it’s getting so very hard.”

  “I know. Let me help you out. I can relieve your stress,” he offered as his hand slipped under her sundress to slide into her panties. “I want you to know how very much I love you and that you turn me on like no other woman ever has, but I want everything to be perfect.”

  “Is it because I still seem to blow you off too often? Do what I want to do?”

  “I love that you can do things on your own and that you don’t need me to do everything for you. Your independence is so important to our relationship. But sometimes I need the control. Earlier tonight, I took back the reins because I was so upset about the chances you took but now you can have some of it back.”

  “It isn’t because you really punished me this time?”

  He smiled lovingly. “No, baby, it’s because we had that session that I want to make sure you know how much I love you and respect the woman you are. I just can’t stand back and let some of your choices go unchecked. Your choices are yours to make but you belong to me, and that means I am responsible for the outcome so you need to behave within the lines I draw.”

  “I know, but sometimes I don’t want to, or I don’t notice, like tonight.”

  “And now you know what happens when that occurs.” His hand cupped her mons and elicited an almost tortured moan from her. He began the play part of the evening with no complaints from the other participant.