The Cherished One

The Cherished One

By

Carolyn Faulkner

©2012 by Blushing Books® and Carolyn Faulkner

Copyright © 2012 by Blushing Books® and Carolyn Faulkner

All rights reserved.  No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Faulkner, Carolyn

The Cherished One

eBook ISBN: 978-1-60968-777-9

Cover Design by Korey Mae Johnson

Images provided by Bigstock.com

This book is intended for
adults only
.  Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults.  Nothing in this book should be interpreted as advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.

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Chapter One

It was pre-early morning, well before dawn, where he needed it to be, in the magnificent stillness of the night.  The room was pitch-black, but it might as well have been lit like a stadium, as far as he was concerned.  His eyes knew no deficit; he eagerly drank in every detail of the lusciously curved woman who was curled in the middle of their bed, even all these years as if she’d been seeking his non-existent heat and scent, as he sought hers every second he was conscious.

She was sound asleep; as well she should be, considering the activities of last evening. She slept in her favorite position, on her right side, right leg extended, left drawn up, pillow scrunched to within an inch of its life beneath her head, those long red curls – what had attracted him to her immediately, on sight so long ago, flowing out behind her as if she were flying through the air instead of safe in Morpheus’ arms.

As always unable to resist, Dag reached out from where he stood, fully dressed, leaning over the bed that still radiated that special essence that was hers and hers alone, breathing deeply of it once last time and let one of those eager burnished curls claim his finger, tightening around it with the same soft strength as she would, had she known what he was planning.

He let the errant lock fall, following its descent along the curve of her creamy, flawless backside until it became slightly less flawless where wondrous cheeks betrayed the loving discipline he had applied there hours before.  They still wore the rosy red blush of his avid attentions – signs of his handprint as well as the shape of the hairbrush he’d used - and the tip of his index finger naturally sought their increased warmth.

Fawna stirred at his touch, as he should have known she would, and Dag stilled, unnaturally so, until she settled again, and his eyes settled where they had spent most of their time while she had been sleeping:  those two seemingly innocuous dots on her neck, until he forced himself away from them.  Fixating there wasn’t going to change what had happened.

Or what had to happen.

One last sweep of their room, long ago reserved only for romance that only last night had been blazingly so, all the lavender scented candles - her favorite - had long since been extinguished, the beautiful antique oil lamps extinguished, the fresh roses he had bought well away from any flames and nearer to her, where they would naturally thrive and fill the air with that unmistakable scent.

Dag took a deep, entirely unnecessary breath.  He’d made many exits in his life, said goodbye to his heart in very many different ways, but none as painful as this.  He almost couldn’t make himself do it, but he knew he had to.  He’d allowed her to be hurt in a way that she had every right to expect to be protected from, and there was precious little he could have done about it.  What use was he to her if he couldn’t keep his enemies from threatening her like that?  She could have been killed right in front of his eyes, exactly as he had killed another innocent soul.  And what if he ended up destroying – yet again – that which he only sought to cherish?

He would not – could not – exist if that happened again.

He would eagerly embrace the sun rather than endanger a sliver of this – his – woman’s essence.

As if departing a great ruler, Daggar backed away from her, bowing somewhat, feeling he was able to give her only the slightest part of the true honor she was due, as a lady, as his woman, as he faded away from her.

For good.

For
her
good.

***

Fawna rolled and stretched, claiming much more of the bed than she knew was hers, but knowing he wasn’t going to be there by the sun she could feel was peeping through the lacy bedroom curtains.  She had to give it to Dag.  He wouldn’t let his handicap effect her decorating tastes in the least.  She was all for blackout measures, so he would be more comfortable during the day, but he’d merely smiled that sometimes quite annoyingly beatific smile of his and assured her that he didn’t much miss the daytime any more, and that she was free to decorate any which way she liked.

Fawna had figured he might have come to regret that statement, considering that he spent a reasonable amount of his time in an extremely feminine environment, but he’d never said a word against her choices, so she’d let it be.  She’d gone a bit crazy, even for herself, she had to admit, and the bedroom was a frilly girl’s romp.  It had tickled her, at first, to see her monstrously male, testosterone oozing man lying in a room that reeked of pastel pinks and purples and delicate laces and flowers, but somehow nothing – but nothing – managed to dent his masculinity in the least.  And she found that their room became a wonderful, sensual refuge – even when she was being spanked, which, particularly in the beginning of their relationship, had been alarmingly frequent, and even later in their time together hadn’t become nearly as occasional as she would say she would have preferred.

Something small exploded in a sneeze under the duvet, then rooted its way towards the warmth of the curve of her waist.  Cookie, her somewhat asthmatic Chihuahua, who was not to be outdone by Teo, her pure white, bulimic, gay male cat, who promptly demanded to occupy – none too reticently – the other side.  Cookie didn’t like Dag at all, which Dag found somewhat surprising, since he had always been able to call all manner of canids.  Apparently, no one had told Cookie that.  Teo, however, adored him, an affection that Dag did his best to discourage, but his firm but gentle attempts at disaffection only seemed to make Teo love him just that that much more.  Teo’s unrequited love was a source of constant amusement to Fawna, and a thorn in Dag’s side that he bore with his usual stoicism.

Fawna stretched again, a full body indulgence complete with a long, throaty moan that, if it had been a lesser quality apartment, might have awakened their neighbors - disturbing the animals and ignoring their protests.  She was extremely careful not to rub her bottom against the silk sheets, having learned long ago that overnight was definitely not long enough to recover from one of Dag’s spankings.

That man was going to be the death of her yet.  She could see the headlines – “Death by Spanking”.  Fawna wasn’t at all sure whether it was the spanking that was going to kill her or the sex.  Because last night he had broken one of his cardinal rules.

And rules – order – was extremely important to Dag, along with obedience, especially as pertained to Fawna.  He’d always felt, since they’d met, that she didn’t have nearly enough rules in her life, and she had long since learned to obey first and ask questions later.  Although she’d certainly never admit it to him, she thought he was right.  She was the doted upon only girl, and the youngest, and her family, much to her older brother’s disgust, had pretty much let her get away with murder.  Her parents hadn’t expected much from her in the way of behavior, beyond the basics of not being hauled home by the police or getting hooked on drugs.

She’d managed to avoid those pitfalls, along with unwanted pregnancy, and had basically been a good girl, but she’d definitely been a spoiled princess, and she wasn’t much into changing that status.  After all, it had certainly worked for her!

Then last night the spanking had been different somehow, and followed by something it had never been followed by before, due to his own rule:  pleasure.  He had long since decreed that, if she were going to be punished, then he wasn’t going to reward her by making love to her ; not that he ever denied his own desire for her.  Indeed, spanking her made him absolutely rock hard, although she knew there was a definite dichotomy at work there, because she knew that he detested hurting her.  But if she was over his lap when he punished her, which was a favorite position for the both of them for the physical closeness, his arousal was undeniable as it poked uncomfortably into her stomach the entire time.

So, she often found herself being made love to after a spanking, lying on her recently singed bottom, feeling everything that she always felt when he loved her – his strong, sure hands on the parts of her that only he had access to - rubbing and squeezing, pinching just slightly, rasping her open every time as if it were her first, making her gasp at his size, her body never quite learning to accommodate him easily as he stroked himself up against her over and over again - only he made very sure that it never came to a culmination for her.  And she knew that wasn’t easy, since she was so connected to him that his mere voice – in or out of her head – could set her off, and being spanked – as awful as it was, and it definitely was, especially at the time – made her terribly buttery, as he called it, in and of itself.

He would tweak and suckle at her nipples, deep kiss her for long moments, even taste of the very heart of her before possessing her, but would very carefully steer away from the exact movements that he knew would afford her the release she would sometimes literally beg for, while availing himself of his own explosive culmination.  Then he would tuck her against him, spoon fashion, her seared rear pressed back against his now flagging manhood, still throbbing with need of him, only to remain sorely unsatisfied until he deemed she might find release.

Last night was different, though, in more ways than she could put into words.  He had taken her out to her favorite little restaurant – a hole in the wall place that you didn’t have to dress up for but she did, purely to see the look of possession in his eyes when she finally made it out of the smallish dressing room slash punishment room just off their master bedroom in a clingy silk and lace sheath that loved every curve she owned.  Small gold, diamond and pink sapphire droplets hung from her ears, matching the droplet that nestled at the top of her cleavage, where she knew his tongue watered to be.

She’d been surprised when he’d offered to take her out.  He was supposed to be furious with her.  Why wasn’t he lining up implements and telling her she’d better hope she had enough pillows to last her, because she wasn’t going to be sitting comfortably for quite some time?  That was what she’d come to expect from Dag.  He almost never yelled at her.  Well, he had last night, but that had been the extenuating circumstances that she would have sworn would have earned her a doozy of a punishment.  He rarely needed to yell, and considered it to be a considerable loss of control, especially in front of a woman.  She could count on one hand the number of times she’d heard him raise his voice.  He didn’t need to, dammit.  All he needed to do was reach for the hairbrush he kept on the nightstand.