Anna's Contract (2 page)

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Anna nodded and walked over to the couch. Then she sat and crossed her legs. Caden ran his gaze over her body. His eyes were hungry and inappropriate.

From behind her bangs, Anna returned the look.

Caden Morning leaned forward on the desk. Somehow, a few buttons had come undone on his shirt in the few seconds she took to move to her new position, and salt-and-pepper chest hair poured forth like a frozen wave. He still wore his stern expression, but the lines around his mouth’s corners appeared to be wrinkles eroded in place from the remains of recent smiles.

His eyes gazed like Puffy stared at her when she poured milk. Like he could use a mind-trick to get her to put the milk in a bowl on the floor, the way a predator looks at food.

Anna crossed her legs and then cursed herself for wearing her strappy black leather heels. They suggested sex and bondage.

They were too racy for work.

Staring at her, Caden Morning typed something on his phone with one hand.

three

Clarice Tolling, Branch Manager for the Tampa office, bustled into the room. She wore a sharp blue dress with thin black striping. Pale cream colored heels and gold earrings topped off her outfit.

“Sit, Clarice,” Mr. Morning ordered.

Anna pulled at the mid-thigh hem of her pencil skirt, trying to better cover her legs. The soft couch cushions made it hard for her to keep her skirt from riding up her thighs.

“Mister Morning, I’m so sorry. I should’ve caught her sooner.”

“True. More, if she had the proper respect for you as her supervisor, she’d have told you right away.” Morning put his hands together in front of him, appearing to inspect his platinum watch. “A thing like this could bring down a Branch Manager, you know.”

Clarice Tolling sat forward in her chair, her face turning the same color as her shoes. Anna suppressed a giggle.

At least I’m not the only one being yelled at today.

“What can I do?”

“The Employee Handbook gives you the right to punish her. Physically.”

Anna shrieked inside. Not Tolling. She was older than Anna, in her forties and always a stickler for the rules. Many times had Miss Tolling stared at the clock when Anna returned from her breaks, though Anna always made sure to scurry back to her cubicle well before the fifteen minutes passed.

“Yes, sir, I will give her my best—.”

Mr. Morning cut in, “That’s not what I want, Clarice.”

She licked her lips. “What do you want, sir?”

“I want you to ask me to punish her. In writing. Say you’re not sure you are capable.”

“But…I’ll be fired!”

“I can just pass a verbal request up to the old man.”

Caden Morning raised his eyebrows.

“The written request I’ll keep in my personal files.”

“Oh.”

“Right. That’ll provide me with insurance. I like to have something on the people who work for me.” Caden met Anna’s eyes. She found a fingernail that needed attention.

“So, after you punish her, this will conclude the issue? I won’t face any negative consequences?”

“Your concern for your staff is touching,”

“I’m not the one who stole from the company,” Clarice Tolling sniffed.

Caden’s voice went softer. “After Anna’s punishment today, if all goes as planned, I won’t say anything more about her theft or how long it took you to uncover it.”

Clarice looked at Anna for the first time since she’d bustled into the room.

“She’s young. Don’t be too hard on her.”

A flush rose over Anna’s cheeks. Caden and Clarice spoke if she were a piece of furniture. Or a junior employee caught stealing, which she was. Yeah, she’d taken the money, but the company gave it to her. She did wrong, but she was still a person. They shouldn’t talk about beating her for her mistake. Caden and Miss Tolling shouldn’t even think about it. Anna could not afford to lose her job, so she kept her smile plastered to her face and tried her best to ignore their comments. Anna tried to control her emotions, her eyes watering with the effort.

“I’m not going to be gentle with her. She stole from the company. If she is to stay employed her, we need to make sure she feels the full depth and severity of her crime.”

Caden Morning pushed the chair back and stood.

“I need to take care of a few things before we start. Clarice, please respond to any inquiries Miss Whitehorse has.”

four

“Do you have any questions, Anna?”

Anna looked up from her contract. She tried to understand the legalese, but the long sentences full of semi-colons blurred in her eyes. Her tears stained the pages.

“Oh, Miss Tolling, do I really have to?”

Clarice Tolling frowned at her. “Our contracts are written by excellent lawyers, Anna. Do you have the money to pay the company back?”

“No, I don’t. I’m broke.”

“What happened to all the extra salary we gave you?

Anna winced. Her mother’s physical therapy, her sister’s orphanage. And lots of lattes. Then there had been the diet pills and the herbal weight-loss remedies.

“I spent it all.” She had a hard time getting the words out and even she could barely hear herself say them.

Clarice Tolling tapped her foot and stared at the ceiling. “Well then, you don’t have much choice. If you get fired, you’ll end up bankrupt. Out on the street. No more of those expensive coffee drinks you sneak out for at all hours. Don’t think I don’t notice. I’d think of how you like to spend money when he tells you to take your punishment.”

“Is he mean? Will it be hard?”

“I’ve never been on the wrong side of him. Not before I hired you, anyway.”

Anna sobbed.

“I’ve heard that he’s harsh, but fair. What you did was awful, Anna. If the company pays one person too much, they may not have enough to pay another. If you let this go on, which it seems you planned to, other people would have suffered.”

“And this says you can punish me any way you want?”

“You always have a choice. You can say ‘I quit’ at any time, and he’ll have to stop. It’s better for the company if you quit, you know. You’ll owe us the money either way, but if we have to fire you, the paperwork is substantial.”

“I don’t want to quit. I don’t want to get fired.”

“Well, then, you have an easy choice. Take your punishment.”

“Will he just use his…his hand?” Anna sniffed.

“He arrived this morning with an impressive briefcase. I don’t think it has any papers in it, because he does all his work with his Smartphone.”

“I can’t believe I have to go through with this. It’s the twenty-first century, for cripes’ sake.”

“I can’t believe you sat in this office and smiled at me while taking extra money home every week, Anna. My trust feels violated.”

It’s not your trust that’s facing physical punishment.

“I know it was wrong.”

“Once he’s satisfied with your discipline, you can come back to work. We’ll dock your check until it’s all paid back, but there won’t be any other consequences.”

Anna dropped the papers on the desk before her and sobbed into her hands.

Clarice Tolling marched from the room.

five

Less than a minute later, the door slammed open and Caden Morning strode through. He carried a long case. It exuded maleness from its midnight surface held together with even blacker stitching. He set his satchel on the mahogany-brown leather mini-sofa next to Anna, and then strode over to sit on the edge of the desk.

“Please come over here and sit in this chair.”

Anna pushed herself from the soft cushions. She struggled to get up, her thighs opening. Caden looked down at her, his blue eyes wide. Mortified, she closed her legs but the horse had left the barn with a flash of her panties in its mouth.

Anna wobbled over and sat in the straight backed chair in front of the Branch Manager’s big desk. She blushed bright scarlet red and peeked at him from under her long lashes.

Something is wrong with me. I don’t act this way, heart all fluttering just because a man looks at me. Maybe it’s my birth control. I just switched from the IUD to the new pill. My emotions are whacked out from the change.

“Have you accepted my right to punish you, Anna?”

She nodded.

“You have to say yes.” He pointed to the Smartphone on the desk, showing a sound recording app on the pocket sized screen.

All she needed to do was to say she quit, and she could walk out of here, never having been punished by this man. This incredible and gorgeous man with the ash colored hair and the arrogant stare, who sat there daring her to say no with his eyes.

Saying no would leave her free, but in debt and facing charges from Darco, Inc. Her mother would be on the street with her, or worse, Anna would have to move into the dingy condo with her mother’s five cats and the overflowing litter boxes and the terrazzo floors she’d drooled on as a baby. Going back would be the ultimate admission of defeat, much worse than letting this man spank her.

This devilishly handsome man who made her heart beat like a drum.

It was the twenty-first century, how bad could the punishment be? Maybe he would give her a few whacks with some rubber whip like in the best-seller with the wicked stepmother. After a little pain, Anna could continue with her life. Without the bill collectors and eviction notices. Without the police. Without jailtime.

“Yes.” A soft gasp escaped her.

“I accept your right to punish me for stealing from the company.”

Despite her brave thoughts, her lower lip trembled.

“Good. Your contract allows me to do just about anything to punish you so long as we avoid permanent injury. You should realize this before we start. Theft of company funds is a crime just short of murder in my book. If you want me to treat you with less harshness, you’ll need to behave with complete obedience.”

“Mr. Morning, I will do anything you tell me to, please be gentle.”

“I’ve been called many things by those who know me. So far, no one has ever called me gentle.” Speaking over his shoulder, Caden Morning sauntered to the couch and sat.

“Come and stand in front of me,” He pointed to a spot between his feet.

Anna walked over and stopped a bit back.

He snapped his fingers. “Closer, right here.”

She shuffled forward. “Like this?”

“Don’t make me tell you twice, Anna, it irritates me.”

“I’m sorry, sir. You scare me.”

“You should be scared, Anna. But you should also listen to me and do what I tell you. You’ll have less to worry about if you do.”

He leaned back into the soft leather of the couch.

“Now, lift your skirt up so I can see your legs and panties.”

Letting out her breath, Anna closed her eyes. She reached down and lifted her skirt, showing him her smooth, pudgy thighs, the black lace covering her sex. Did her contract really enable him to order her to do this?

Caden’s gaze roamed from the leather straps around her ankles all the way up her tan legs to the translucent cloth covering her sex. He breathed faster.

He cupped her left thigh with his hand, and then stroked his fingers softly over her bottom. Caden pulled at the strap between her cheeks, twanging it like a guitar string. Anna Whitehorse wore a thong to work under her sexy pencil skirt and above her strappy shoes.

Why did I pick today to wear a thong?

She knew why. Last night, she’d been horny and someone told her that the Regional Manager would be coming in. The office buzzed with tales of his incredible looks, and though Anna had not any real hope of seeing such an exalted personage when he visited the local branch, she put together her sexiest outfit.

Just in case.

Now the day had gone horribly wrong and she wished she could go back in time and put on her high-necked gray dress and her beige flats. Today was definitely not the right day to go for the sexy secretary look she put together and somehow pulled off.

Will he notice how my thong matches my bra?

Caden Morning’s hand seared a path down her abdomen to her thigh.

If he keeps up his explorations, he will soon discover that a Brazilian was one of the things I splurged my extra income on.

The music of their combined breath mixed with her occasional whines of protest, filled the room.

six

“Lie down, over my lap. It’s time for your punishment.”

Instead, she knelt in front of him and put her hands on his knees. Her eyes sparkled with tears. “Please, Mister Morning, don’t spank me. I’ll do whatever you like if you don’t hurt me.”

Anna eyes filled with tears. He just sat there with a cruel smile. She couldn’t let him spank her. She had not been spanked since the nuns at Saint Monica’s used the strap on her for staying awake late and experimenting with her roommate. It had been bad enough then, and it would be worse here, in her boss’s office. At work, where she should be a respected adult, Caden Morning meant to spank her like a schoolgirl.