Free Rod of Correction: Taken and Tamed by Carolyn Faulkner Page B

steel.  He thought it must have been difficult to always have to be that way as a businesswoman.  In his experience, most women had a softer side, one that, as career women, he’d found they had to lock away in order to succeed.
    “Do you like other animals as much as you like the birds?” he asked, just out of curiosity.
    “All of them, although I don’t own any, because it wouldn’t be fair to the dog or cat or horse or whatever, Sir.”
    He nodded, having reached the same conclusion himself.
    “Your skin is so soft,” he marveled, trailing his fingertips down the groove of her spine, all the way to the top of her cleft.  The birds, having breakfasted with them, had left to their own pursuits, and in the silence he could hear the way she sucked in her breath when he arrived there – in anticipation, no doubt, of what he might subject her to.
    It ended up being something that wasn’t too horrible, she guessed, if there had only been one instance of it.  He had pressed himself – his rock hard maleness – up into her quim, withdrawing it triumphantly, covered in her slick juices.
    “Are you always like this?” he asked.
    Sunny laughed nervously, her eyes flittering to his and then quickly away.  “No, Sir.”
    “Ahhh.  Must be the fresh country air.”
    Not wanting to contribute to his ego, which didn’t need any help as far as she could tell, she didn’t bother correcting him.
    This was just the first of many such inspections he conducted, whenever the mood struck him, for the rest of her time with him.  In the middle of lunch, while they were watching a gold mine of H+ episodes.  In his cozy den, curled up on the big overstuffed couch – over which she’d already been draped once – and at the end of what constituted dinner, which was leftover pizza and party food from the night before.
    “I won’t always let you eat like this, you know.”  He had prohibited her from feeding herself entirely, as he’d found he enjoyed the process so much, and it allowed him to make sure she ate in sufficient quantities, and – usually – not junk food, but this was an unusual situation.
    Sunny had caught his occasional references to the idea that this wasn’t just a weekend lost in time.   Despite how much she was enjoying it, she wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to commit to more, because she knew that she’d then be taking on someone who would be at least as demanding as her job, and she wasn’t sure she could do it, even for this . . . for him.  It was hard enough not to run into his study and try to find his safe when she thought he wasn’t looking, but he always was looking at her, watching out for her, making sure she was comfortable and had everything she wanted or needed.
    She wasn’t at all sure that he was going to be willing to let her go.  She could see the headlines now . . .
    “You won’t, huh, Sir?”
    He did like how that title sounded coming from those beautiful lips.  “Nope.  Except for poker nights . . . well, weekends, because of the leftovers, and two cinnamon buns a week, I eat much more healthily than this, normally, and I run five miles every day.”
    Sunny snorted.  “If I’m running, you’d better run, too, because there’s going to be an out of control eighteen wheeler not far behind me.”
    That got a chuckle.  She liked his laugh and wished he would do more of it, although she knew it went against his serious grain, but then so did poker nights.  He was gravedigger serious most of the time but poker nights he seemed to relax a lot.  Apparently he let it all hang out the rest of the weekend, too, considering neither of them had worn clothes since the night before, and her impromptu theft of his shirt didn’t count.
    “What did you say?” he asked, realizing something was missing from the end of her sentence. 
    “Just thinking out loud, Sir,” she mused airily.
    They hadn’t just eaten and talked, which would have been more than enough for her.