Boxed Set: Innocent Immigrant (12 page)

At the noon meal, I discovered Griff freshly washed and dressed in formal trousers and a freshly laundered shirt. He certainly looked handsome, and Ari passed as many long glances at him as I did.

I sent him a questioning look, but he told me to finish my meal and that he would talk with me after. When we were done I stood to clear away the dishes but Griff asked me to join him and Ari in the drawing room.

I swear I could not enter that room without blushing when my eyes rested on
the chair
. What made it worse was that it seemed to be Griff’s favourite. First he bid me to take a seat on the settee; Ari sat in the rocker and Griff again settled in the spanking chair, as I’d come to call it.

My stomach dropped as I noted the solemn faces of the two men. Having made up my mind to accept Griff’s proposal of marriage, had he now had a change of heart?

“I visited Doctor Blandford this morning to arrange our wedding ceremony. Unfortunately, he cannot proceed without a marriage licence.”

I can’t say I didn’t feel humiliated by his excuse to get out of wedding me, but if I pretended to believe it, I could maintain my self-respect.

I stood. I had few belongings to pack and could be out of the house in an hour.

Griff frowned at me. “Sit down, Katie. This afternoon I’ll take the steamer to Auckland and secure the correct paperwork. I have other business to attend to in the city, so my return should be no later than Monday.”

Was he letting me down by degree, thinking he could return from Auckland and say that the licence was unprocurable? This was my chance to salvage some dignity. “I can see what a burden I’ve become. If you’d instead allow me to go to Auckland, I can be off your hands and get on with making a new life for myself.”

At my words, Griff’s face turned thunderous like the thick dirty clouds I’d seen gathering overhead before a storm.

“The only trouble you are, Katie, is that you’re a distraction, in the best possible way. One more word of you leaving will see you across my lap. Do you think I’m so desperate that I would marry someone I considered a burden? That would suggest a complete lack of respect for my wife and for me...not to mention Ari. Provided I have the licence, Blandford will be here a week from today to marry us. You will not set foot in Auckland until I am able to accompany you as your husband.”

For the most peculiar reason, his stern words and voice made me yearn for him. His eyes burned as he watched me, and respectfully I deferred, lowering my gaze to his feet. My heart was rapid in my chest, and I knew not whether a shallow breath or one deep to the pit of my stomach, would help it slow. Inexplicably, tears welled in my eyes, and I swiped the back of my hand across them. He would not see me cry.

“Come to me.” His voice may have gentled, but his eyes still blazed.

My legs were quite unsteady as I crossed the room. I wondered if it was to do with the way my heart hammered, or the way he looked at me like the picture that hung in the small schoolroom at the Girls’ Home, of a wolf about to take a lamb.

I shifted my gaze to his lap, and his casual, elegant hand that rested there. I knew what trouble that hand could give me, and the thought of it made me draw another sharp breath. Between my legs was heavy; perhaps the numbness I’d noticed in my legs was spreading, and soon my entire body would feel this way.

I could not possibly forget the other night, the way I’d draped across his thighs.

It seemed to take forever to reach him but once I did, I vowed to show Griff I had remembered my lesson. I bent my knees, as gracefully as the odd feeling in them allowed, and carefully lowered my body across his thighs.

“Good God, Katie.” His words came as a painful exhalation.

What could I have possibly done wrong now?

“Can you believe this, Ari?” he said with a stronger voice.

“Hardly, but it’s a very beautiful gesture.”

“Do you need a spanking, Katie, hmm?”

The softness of his voice stirred me.

“I need whatever it is you wish to give me,” I spoke into the cloth of his trousers, my face burning with shame.

He placed a hand on my buttocks over the skirts of my dress. “Tell me how a spanking makes you feel?”

I couldn’t explain that to him. He would think my mind had gone if I told him being spanked made me believe he cared for me. Tears came again as my emotions, confused at what I tried to express, sought release.

In a quick move, he spun me so that I was cradled in his lap. He ran a finger through my tears, tracing down one cheek, beneath my chin, then up the other side. “I’m more than happy to give you a spanking, if that’s what you need, sweetheart. But when I called you over, it was to hold you like this. I don’t like to see you cry from sadness or dismay. Tell me, why the tears?”

I shook my head because I didn’t know why and I couldn’t trust my voice to speak. I wanted to stay curled in his lap, my cheek against his chest, listening to the steady
bump-bump
of his heartbeat.

“I think you’re all caught up in here”—he tapped my forehead—“and here”—he tapped my chest, right where my heart still raced like the express train. “I think a spanking will help let all that pressure out.”

Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure, and I told him so, even suggesting being held this way was probably all I needed.

“And when I release you, you’ll be right back at the start again, fussing and fretting, and feeling caught up inside. We’ll get this done, and I can leave for Auckland knowing that my pretty Katie is happy back here, waiting with Ari for me. Round you go, now.”

He reversed his previous move, and I was back across his lap. I heard footsteps across the boards and realised Ari had come for a closer look. Why had I shown my feelings to these men, only to end up in this position?

“Bare her for me, Ari.”

My skirts were lifted and in a quick moment I felt a tug on the string of my drawers, then they fell away. “No,” I cried as my bottom was bared.

Griff’s hand rubbed my cheeks, making me feel somehow not so naked. “I’m going to help you settle, sweetheart. You’re all wound like a watch spring and have no idea what you want anymore. Let me take care you.”

Ari crouched beside me, as he had the other time. It was he who held my skirt bunched at my waist. He tipped my chin and winked. “You’re going to be alright; we’ll make sure of that.”

I tugged my chin from his hold. I wouldn’t give in to his soft eyes and gentle words this time because his actions had shown he could be as mean as Griff when the moment struck him. As I freed my chin, the first broad slap of Griff’s hand connected with my bottom. It was a shock, and I cried out before pressing my lips tight and holding them between my teeth. That would be the one and only sound he’d have the satisfaction of hearing from me.

He’d started harder than the last time, and it surprised me I could remember each stroke and blow as if it had been a lesson I’d learned by rote from a school journal. My bottom seared with heat as Griff kept a steady rhythm, first one cheek, then the other. Both men had chuckled when I’d pulled from Ari’s grip. Since then, there’d not been a sound in the room beyond the slap of Griff’s cupped hand and the increasingly noisy way the three of us breathed.

“I can keep this up all day, little one, so you have to let me know when you’ve had enough.”

“You have a boat to catch,” I huffed at him.

“There’ll be another boat tomorrow.”

“I’ve had enough, then,” I wailed.

Ari lifted my hair and stroked a finger beneath my eyes. “Not until we see some tears, darlin’.”

The strikes came swift and fast, causing more heat than pain, but it was relentless. I flailed and tried to crawl my way from Griff’s lap, but he simply held me fast, ignoring my struggles, and continued the spanking.

Finally I stepped away from my pride and succumbed. He was stronger than me, able to hold me, care for me and protect me, and it was then I allowed myself to sink into him. Beneath me I felt the structure of his thighs, and the insistent erect cock between them. Above me the rise and fall of his chest and the tireless scorch of his punishing hand.

“Let it out, sweetheart. It’s okay to cry.”

I don’t know who spoke, or if either of them spoke at all, but I surrendered and with that came the tears. Huge sobs burst from my chest as if forced out by every blow. And still the spanking continued. My face became sodden; the tears had run into my hair and dripped from my nose. My sobs had turned to gulps for air, and then it stopped. Everything stopped except my tears, and the burning across my cheeks, and the heaving breaths of the three of us in the room.

Eventually, Griff stood and carried me over to the sofa. He kept my skirt bunched up, my buttocks bare, and again, Ari crouched as he rubbed a salve into my skin to cool the intense heat. My tears had ceased, but I remained buried within the curl of my body until Griff, with his gentle murmurs and stroking of my hair, finally eased me apart.

Ari returned with a cool cloth and washed my face, wiping the perspiration and tears from my hairline. These two men caring for me was not something I’d ever experienced and the way it made me feel safe, feel part of something that wasn’t just me trying to look out for myself, was overpowering.

Griff and Ari chattered over me for some time, allowing me to return to my normal senses, as it were, at my own pace. Ari brought me sweet tea, and when I sat up to drink, Griff arranged my skirts to a more modest state of dress. My drawers, though, I could see were still over by the chair where I’d been spanked.

“You did well, Katie, and you’ll feel even better after you’ve rested. I must leave now, for the boat. While I’m away, you’re to sleep with Ari in his bed. However, no fucking!”

I jerked in surprise at his use of such a word in front of me.

“You may, however, touch each other, and I’m sure Ari will enjoy showing you how to pleasure a man, although there will be no orgasms, either. I want you both on edge, as I certainly will be, by the time I return.”

My mind was still confused, and it wasn’t until later that the reality of Griff’s order set in.

Maraea had been called to take Griff in the buggy to meet the steamship. I had hoped to go along for the ride, but the men simply shook their heads.

“Too soon, Katie. You’ll have to be married before you’re allowed in town without one of us to accompany you.”

This time their protectiveness gave me a rush of pleasure. I was no longer alone in this world, and the notion of having not just one, but three people watching out for me certainly made me feel adored.

And within a week, I was to be married.

Book 2, Part 6

ARI

“What do you mean, she’s gone?”

I’d been alerted to trouble by the speed Maraea raced the buggy up the track to the stables, because she always drove carefully. Against my instincts and Griff’s express wishes, I had allowed Katie to travel into town with Maraea. They were only supposed to meet Griff’s boat, but the two of them pestered me so much I agreed they could leave earlier than necessary and visit the store.

“Two Elders from the Mission took her. We had been in the drapers, and I sent Keiti outside while I bought some lace to make her a wedding veil. I wanted to surprise her, so I made an excuse for her to leave the premises. Mrs. Gooding was packaging the lace, and I looked outside to see the men talking to Keiti. I hurried to pay and ran from the premises, and Keiti was gone.”

Maraea was fighting for breath as she told me her story, and as it unfolded, I found I too could hardly breathe. Griff would kill me for allowing Katie to get away.

“Are you certain the Elders took her and that she didn’t simply wander into another of the shops?”
Or run away
, I thought grimly.

“You think I didn’t look?”

“Of course you looked, I’m sorry to have thought that.”

“James Murphy had his buggy parked up by the drapers, and he told me Keiti was taken by the two men. He said she looked frightened and distressed.”

I couldn’t even think about Katie’s state of mind if the Mission elders had taken her. New to the town, unfamiliar with our ways...she must have been terrified.

“Has Griff’s boat arrived?”

I could see by Maraea’s face I had just doubled her anxiety.

“I didn’t look, Ari. I was in such a hurry to get help for Keiti that I forgot to look for Griff.”

“You wait here, I’ll go and get him, and we’ll get our Katie back.”

I climbed into the buggy and turned the horse back towards town. I would have been faster on a saddle horse, but they were all in the fields grazing. It would have wasted too much time to catch and saddle one for myself and another for Griff.

On the coast road into town, I could see Griff’s boat at anchor just off the shore. The punt to ferry the passengers to the beach was already against the ship’s hull. The timing looked good as I would be likely to arrive at the beach about the same time as the punt. I expected to receive Griff’s full wrath, but my only concern was finding Katie.

I stopped the buggy at the top of the track that took those on foot over the sand dunes, not caring whether it blocked the way for others meeting the boat. People called out greetings, and I waved as I ran down the beach. The punt was almost ashore, the sea reasonably calm so that those rowing didn’t have to worry about waiting for a break in the waves before navigating the last few yards to the beach.

I waded into the sea and grabbed the bow giving it a hefty pull.

Griff looked pleased, and then puzzled to see me. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

I didn’t want the others around us to know what had happened, given that few people knew about Katie, so I kept my reply simple. “A small problem,” I called to him over the general chaos that the arrival of the punt engendered.

Griff was alongside me in a flash. “Take my goods to my office,” he called to Wiremu, his foreman, before taking tight hold of my arm.

“Has something happened to Katie?”

“It appears she’s been taking by the Mission Elders.”

“If you think that’s funny, Ari—”