Chapter 44

44

Coach (Emmett)

This was my fault. I’d let it go on too long.

Neglected my responsibility and gave him the benefit of the doubt.

You know what that got me?

A super brat.

A super brat with no sense of self-preservation and a hearing problem. Because I knew sure as shit that I’d asked that boy if he was okay to swim. More than once. I even told him to take a pass.

He got in the pool anyway. And now look. Just fucking look.

Took ten years off my damn life because I had to leap into the water to get him. I swear to God, this boy was going to be the death of me.

I’ll die happy.

Don’t start with that sappy shit, Emmett. You have a brat to deal with. It was time this boy faced some consequences.

After the incident in the river—the one where we both nearly drowned—I went easy on him because, you know, near death and the impending meet. And before that because, well… because of everything else.

This was the wrong approach. Clearly.

Well, no more.

It was past time I daddied the fuck out of this brat.

“Goldilocks!” I hollered from the bedroom door. “Get in here!”

He appeared in the bathroom doorway, a wary look in his wide blue eyes. Maybe he was trying for innocent, but I knew better. And the compression sleeve wrapped around his bicep reminded me exactly how diabolical he could be.

It was sprained. That’s right. Overdid it so much that he’d sprained the muscle. And the leg cramps? Also from poor conditioning, overuse, and, likely, poor nutrition. I made him get an IV filled with electrolytes before we came home.

Just picturing that damn line sticking out of the back of his hand made me angry all over again.

“You bellowed?” he said, bratting like the brat he was.

“Shut the door,” I told him from my seat at the foot of the bed.

“You can’t shut it yourself?”

I stared at him stonily until he did as he was told.

The second he turned around, I said, “Drop your pants.”

He paused. “What?”

“Drop. Your. Pants.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re going to find out there are consequences to your delinquency.”

A little bit of interest bolted behind his eyes, and I smothered a smile, keeping my expression serious. “If I have to say it again, I’m going to make you stand in the corner.”

He scoffed.

I shot up off the bed and flew across the room, grabbing him by the narrow waist and plopping him in the corner, face first.

“What the hell, Em?” he yelled, immediately turning.

I caught him and pushed him into the damn corner until his nose was buried in it. “That’s Daddy to you,” I rumbled just behind his shoulder, moving close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from my body but not close enough to touch.

“What are you doing?” he asked, trying to turn his head to look at me, but I caught it and turned him back to face the wall. “I told you to stand in the corner, and I meant it. That means you stand there and stare at the wall and nothing else until I say you can move. You got it?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Good,” I growled, then grasped the sides of his pant legs and tugged his sweats down so the elastic waistband was around his thighs.

He made a sound and leaned to pull them back up, but I snarled and he stopped.

“Now you can stand there with your nose in the corner with that bare ass hanging out for the whole room to see and know that when you’re finished, I’m gonna spank it until it’s three shades pinker than that lacey thong you’re wearing.”

His entire body jolted, and he started to spin again.

Smack! The sharp pop of my hand meeting his bare ass filled the room.

He grunted and fell into the corner, palms catching himself on the wall.

“Jesus, Emmett!”

“Daddy.” I corrected.

“You can’t seriously think I’m going to stand in a corner and wait for a spanking,” he smarted off. But he kept his nose to the wall.

“Oh, yes, you are,” I said, moving back to the foot of the bed and sitting down. There was a pink handprint on his delicious ass, and it made me anticipate making both cheeks flush with color. “Do you know why?”

He fidgeted a little, the band of the pants around his thighs preventing him from moving too much. He was wearing a purple crop top, the perfect shirt to show off his narrow waist and the ass I was about to spank some more. The thick lace band of his hot-pink thong rode high, arching above his hips, accentuating his hipbones. The way the strip of lace disappeared between his cheeks was the perfect game of hide-and-seek and also going to be the perfect torture as it rubbed against him while I paddled that ass.

“I asked you a question.” I reminded him.

He went silent, and I knew he didn’t remember it. This punishment was already scrambling his brain.

Good.

“Do you know why you’re getting a spanking?”

“Because you’re a sadist,” he spat.

I laughed. “Because you’re a naughty brat who needs to be punished for all the shit he’s pulled.”

“I haven’t done shit.”

I raised my eyebrow, knowing he couldn’t see it. “Is that so?”

He made a sound.

“Then why are you still standing there in the corner if you know you shouldn’t be punished?”

“Because you’re a scary bastard.”

“Oh, that mouth,” I murmured, getting up and strolling close. I knew he felt my presence because he tried to arch into it but got denied. “If you really think I’m a scary bastard, you know where the door is. If you really think you don’t need to be punished, now’s the time to leave.”

I moved away from him, all the way across the room, giving him ample time and space to bolt.

He didn’t move.

“Seems someone knows they’ve been acting up,” I observed. “Maybe you know you need to be punished and to have some boundaries set in place. Has anyone ever spanked you before?”

“No.” His voice was raspier than before.

“Some spankings, like today’s, are so you can learn a lesson. But sometimes you might just want one, and you can ask. I’ll give you whatever you need.”

“Why would anyone ask to get their ass beat?” he snarked.

“You may find that it’s an outlet of sorts. A way to let out built-up emotion or hurt you’ve been holding on to for too long. You might like the fight of it, the way I hold you down and make you burn until that burn gives way to something that feels a lot like bliss.”

“Whatever.”

“Your safe word is red.” I informed him. “If we start and you really don’t like it, if it makes you feel hurt or confused or even degraded, then you say your safe word and it all stops. Spankings are not conditional to being with me.”

“Then why do them?” He wanted to know.

“Because I think you need it.”

He said nothing but squirmed a little more where he stood.

“What’s your safe word?”

“Red.”

After that, the room fell silent. I moved around, pulling a bottle of lube and a bottle of lotion out of a drawer and tossing them on the bed. I went to the kitchen and got a glass of water and put it on the nightstand. Then I went to the bathroom and washed my hands.

When I came back, Bodhi was trembling slightly.

“Turn around.”

He did, shuffling a little because of his pants.

“Are you ready for your spanking?”

“No. I’ll never let you spank me,” he professed, but even as he spoke the denial, he nodded his head in assent.

Eyes narrowing, I lowered myself onto the foot of the bed, feet flat on the floor. “Is that so?”

“Get bent, Daddy.”

It was the use of the D-word that made me sure this was part of his game and he was remembering weeks ago when I’d told him I wouldn’t force him but I would make him if he wanted.

“The only one getting bent right now is you,” I said, hardening my voice. “Bent right over my knee.”

His hard dick jerked beneath the hot-pink material. Yeah. He needed this.

I crooked my finger at him. “Come here.”

He took a step and nearly stumbled, cock bobbing beneath the lace. Frustrated, he pushed at the pants so he could walk.

I tsked. “No. Leave them exactly as I had them.”

“I can’t walk,” he complained.

I stared at him, unblinking, until he pulled them back up so the band was tight around his thighs.

Laying my palms on my thighs, I watched him awkwardly close the distance between us. His cheeks flamed, the flush spreading all the way to the back of his neck, which was on full display because he no longer had any hair.

His eyes went everywhere but on me, and I knew he felt vulnerable and exposed.

Good.

The second he was standing in front of me, I took a moment to appreciate the diamond stud winking in his navel, the way the pink straps hugged his hips, and the way his dick strained against the lace.

After dragging my eyes over him, I turned my face, almost dismissing him, not looking at him at all. He shifted uncomfortably, feeling the loss of my attention, wanting it back even though having it was embarrassing as hell.

He lasted only a minute before whimpering lightly. The whimper turned into a gasp when I snatched him off his feet and turned him over my knees, facedown in my lap.

His feet scrambled for purchase, but it was difficult to find because the band of his pants kept him from spreading his thighs wide. The soft material of the crop top rode up as he wiggled, his stomach and chest brushing against my jeans.

One hand grasped the comforter and the other dangled toward the floor.

Using my arm, I adjusted him, settling him so he was exactly where I wanted him, ass in the air, pelvis flush against my thighs.

“You sure?” I asked, checking in one last time.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“What’s your safe word?”

“Red.”

The buzz of anticipation, of finally having this brat where I wanted him, of finally claiming him completely, burned through my belly, making me almost lightheaded.

This might have been a punishment, but it was also going to be so, so good.