Free My Naughty Minette by Annabel Joseph

but she couldn’t seem to summon real tears in her frustration. At last, August appeared and stood regarding her, one hand on his hip.
    “What are you doing?”
    “What do you think?” she said. “I’m crying.”
    “You’re faking,” he snapped. “Those are false tears. But that can be remedied.” He took her arm and pulled her inside. The footman shut the door behind them with an unsubtle bang as August pulled her across the library to his desk. It was her turn to ask, or rather shriek, “What are you doing?”
    He sat in his chair and threw her over his lap. “I’m doing what I’ve wanted to do ever since I woke up a week ago and found you in my arms.”
    Oh goodness, this wasn’t the outcome she’d hoped for at all.
    “I won’t cry anymore if it upsets you so,” she said, trying to squirm off his thighs. “I can be perfectly quiet if I try. I’ll go up to bed, silent as a mouse.”
    “You had your chance to go to bed silent as a mouse. Instead you stood outside my library door and treated the entire household to your ridiculous histrionics.”
    He flipped up the skirts of her dressing gown, brushed aside her shift, and brought his palm down hard against her bare bottom. He spanked one cheek and then the other, hot, sharp slaps that made her yelp in alarm. “Oh, please, you can’t spank a bride on her wedding night! I believe it’s against the law.”
    But then she remembered that Lord Townsend had spanked Aurelia on her wedding night, and that any man in England might spank his wife whenever he wanted to. “I’m sorry,” she said instead, trying a different tack. “I ought to have gone to bed, but I wanted to tell you—oh—
ow!
”
    The more she talked, the more he increased the intensity of his spanks. She threw a hand back to cover her smarting bottom. “Please! Please stop!”
    “Move your hand.”
    “I can’t.”
    “Move your hand, or I’ll spank you with your paddle and it will feel considerably worse.”
    “It’s not
my
paddle,” she said peevishly.
    “It has your initials on it,” he replied. “And I can see why. I asked you very clearly to go up to bed and let me finish my work. Instead you’ve annoyed me until I have no choice but to discipline you. Now answer me. Do you want a paddling or not?”
    Tears welled in her eyes at his heartless scolding. His hand rested on her scorched skin, warm and large. It reminded her of his touches, his caresses. He had been happy to caress her when he didn’t know who she was. “I don’t want the paddle,” she said, sniffling.
    “Then move your hand. You won’t be warned again.”
    The paddle looked evil, but August’s hand was pretty awful too. She jerked and squiggled as he resumed her punishment. No matter how she struggled, he only collected her tighter, spanking her steadily all over her bottom until the whole of it throbbed. The only way she could stop herself throwing her hands behind her was to make them into fists and press them to her mouth. Tears of indignation flowed down her cheeks.
    “This is the worst wedding night ever,” she cried as she kicked at an especially smarting blow. “And you are the meanest, most horrible husband in the world.”
    “That’s probably so,” said August. “Because I won’t tolerate stubborn and annoying wives.” He paused, and then Minette felt a whoosh and an explosion of fresh, stinging pain from the paddle.
    “
Nooo
,” she screamed. “That hurts too much.”
    She looked over her shoulder to see him regarding the implement with admiration. “It does pack a wallop. Do you need any more spanking, or have you finished being naughty for the night?”
    “I’ve finished, I promise.”
    He put the paddle down and hauled her to her feet. She could still feel the rectangular outline of the paddle across her bottom cheeks. Worse, she couldn’t seem to stop sniffling and crying like an infant. He tipped her face up and made her meet his gaze. “You’ve had that coming to you,