Unexpected Consequences by Cara Bristol Read Free Book Online Page B

there something wrong?”
    Melania’s befuddled brain formed the words to insist she was perfectly fine, but when she opened her mouth, she said, “Jared hit me.”
    She didn’t mean to phrase it that way—didn’t mean to say it at all—but the harsh-sounding words popped out, and she couldn’t retrieve them. She didn’t know who was more shocked—Liz, Candi, or herself. Silence filled the kitchen.
    “What? Where?” Liz spoke first, scrutinizing Melania’s face as if searching for injury.
    “Are you okay?” Candi touched her arm.
    “Tell me what happened,” Liz said.
    “Do you want to sit down?” Candi gestured to a wooden barstool at the counter.
    Sit down? God, no. Melania shook her head.
    She hardly knew these women, and besides, they were her guests. Revealing her personal humiliation seemed inappropriate, but as they hovered over her, their facial expressions knitted with concern and kindness, the urge to unburden herself proved too great to resist.
    Melania bit her lip. Strangely, she didn’t want them to think badly of Jared. “I did something Jared told me not to, and I tried to hide it so he wouldn’t be mad. But he found out.” Tears of pain and shame pricked her eyes. “He hit me. With a paddle.” She omitted how he’d restrained her.
    “Where did he hit you?” Liz repeated.
    “In his study.”
    “I mean where on your anatomy.”
    “My…my bottom.” Heat flooded Melania’s face. She felt guilty for not readily admitting she and Jared had a domestic discipline marriage, but she feared people wouldn’t understand. Heck, she didn’t understand, and she’d agreed to it. That her husband had thought her behavior warranted correction and had spanked her was embarrassing.
    “You mean he spanked you?” The tension seemed to leave Liz’s body, and she exchanged an odd glance with Candi.
    Melania nodded. “Yes.”
    Candi smiled and hugged her. “Oh Mel, that’s what it was. A spanking. Welcome to the club.” She released her and giggled. “That first one always rocks you a little. But it’s one of the ones you remember fondly forever.”
    Fondly? Melania’s jaw dropped in shock and confusion, her gaze ping-ponging between the women.
    Liz nodded enthusiastically. “I still remember my first spanking more than twenty-five years ago. Otis paddled me the evening before we got married. I had morphed into a bridezilla, and the night before the wedding, he let me know that was unacceptable behavior.” She laughed. “I was the blushing bride, all right, but it wasn’t my face that was rosy!”
    Melania could not have heard what she thought she heard. “You’re both spanked by your husbands? And you’re okay with it?”
    The women nodded.
    “It’s that thing we do.” Liz shrugged. “You know that.”
    Melania frowned.
    “Don’t you?” The older woman narrowed her eyes with concern. “Didn’t you and Jared discuss discipline before you married? He didn’t tell you he’d spank you if he thought you needed it?”
    Jared had raised the issue on several occasions. However, Melania had only half listened, more interested in planning the perfect wedding than in discussing something she thought would never happen. And what adult woman expected to be spanked? Slowly Melania nodded. “We agreed that he would lead our household and would handle discipline. I was fine with that part. More than fine. That’s what I wanted,” she admitted. That was what she thought she had wanted. Now that she had a more complete idea of what was involved, she wasn’t sure.
    Melania was aghast at her naïveté. “He did say he might spank me,” she confessed.
    Liz looked at her. “Did you think he was kidding?”
    “No.” Melania shook her head then lifted her shoulders. “I thought I wouldn’t do anything that he thought would warrant a spanking. Or that it would be more of a pretend thing than real discipline.” She remembered the eroticism of the spanking she’d received the other