Myka and the Millionaire Page 19

  Myka teared up at the emotion. “You’re welcome.”

  She was proud to see that he displayed the book in his kitchen, and hoped that the closeness they developed the past few days would last. For her, it cemented the fact that she was falling in love with him, irrevocably. She hoped he felt a small fraction of what she did.

  Myka healed quickly from the pneumonia, feeling normal again in less than a week, grateful that he had taken such great care of her. That Saturday evening, they relaxed and watched a movie together and ate popcorn. While the credits rolled, Gabriel told her smugly, “You know why you got well so fast? It’s the soup, ma chèrie. You may think it was your penicillin, but I know better.”

  Myka pushed his arm. “Big talker. It was definitely five star, though. You are a good chef.” She glanced at her laptop case. “But I need to get started on some work. Kylee just sent me a huge list of things she wants done ASAP. I’m probably going to have to pull another all-nighter, especially with all the Aero Logistics stuff I have going on. I’m freaking out and I need to go over my latest presentation for them with a fine-tooth comb to make sure it’s totally perfect. Maybe two or three all-nighters like last time.” She rolled her eyes and looked to him for commiseration.

  Gabriel smiled, but then his gaze became pensive. “Myka,” he told her seriously. “Do you remember what I told you before you got sick?”

  She frowned, not sure. Then realization dawned. “But I couldn’t see the doctor right away, or sleep. It was crazy, Gabriel! You have no idea how my job goes sometimes, okay? Kylee wanted something, and what she wants she gets. And then Christopher needed—”

  “You run your job. Your job doesn’t run you. How can you expect to make it in business if you can’t establish clear boundaries for yourself?” He sounded frustrated. “Taking sensible care of your own health is the most basic thing. And you didn’t do it.”

  “My job is the most important thing, Gabe.” Her voice was tight. “You’re a hard worker, yourself. Why can’t respect it when I do it, too? You don’t have a monopoly on success.”

  “Hard work is one thing. Working yourself ragged over non-critical fluff is another.”

  “So now my job’s stupid and unimportant?”

  He shook his head, not raising his voice. “I think the problem is that sometimes you focus so hard on the end result of perfection that you obsess too hard over the details. I’ve seen you sometimes spend an hour choosing between two fonts for Kylee’s web updates, or take an entire evening revising your Aero Logistics foils after they’re already perfect, when you could be doing something more purposeful. That is not time well spent.”

  “It is well spent. I get good results,” she snapped.

  He was silent for a long minute. He bit his lip and tapped his fingers on his leg, and finally slapped his thigh once, as if coming to a decision. He stood up and gave her a long look. “We’re going to try something. I want you to meet me in the bedroom in ten minutes. Understand?”

  She shrugged, pretty sure she knew what he was planning. Even so, her pulse skittered into high gear when she entered the room and saw the paddle on the bed. Gabriel was in the chair, his arms crossed.

  “Why—is that there?” she asked, pointing at the paddle.

  Gabriel didn’t raise his voice. “Sit down next to it, and see if you can think why.”

  She didn’t want to, but she sat down.

  “Pick it up,” he ordered.

  Myka gulped, then did as ordered. “It’s—heavy.”

  “Mmm.” He nodded. “Tell me why I’m going to use it on you in a few minutes. No, don’t put it down. Keep holding it, like that. Yes.”

  “Because you think you’re smarter than I am.” A tear rolled down her face.

  He shook his head. “That’s not true. And that’s not why. I’m going to spank you to remind you to put yourself and your health first. You’re smart enough, brilliant actually, to keep yourself as a priority and still excel at both jobs.”

  “So you do see the irony here, right? You plan to hurt me because I hurt myself? Eye for an eye?” Myka scoffed at him. “Or should I say, ass for an ass?”

  His voice was even. “Is that what you really think?”

  She shrugged. “What I really think? Is that you should hug me and tell me it’s all going to be okay, instead of spanking me. I think you should say, oh, I’m sorry you have a crazy bitch boss from hell who runs you ragged. I value doing excellent work, Gabriel, no matter how many hours it takes.”

  “See, that’s the thing. As an independent consultant, Myka, you need to figure out how to get your excellent work accomplished without letting a crazy bitch boss run you ragged. You need to find that balance, that power.”

  Myka snapped, “Well, we’re not all PhDs here.”

  “You don’t need a PhD. You need respect for yourself and your abilities. If you let people walk all over you, they’ll keep doing it.”

  “That’s not what it’s like.” She was incredibly frustrated with his inability to understand.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  “Right now?”

  “You have one minute before I start adding on strokes. We’re starting at fifteen hard ones. This paddle is going to sting like the devil, too.”

  “For the record, I don’t think this is fair at all.” But she took off her jeans, her shirt, her panties. When she unsnapped her bra, she glanced at him, nervous. “This isn’t what we usually do.”

  “Maybe it should be.” His voice was low. “If it helps.”

  “What if I say no?” Her voice was defiant.

  “Say it now and I stop. Otherwise, bend over.” He stood up. “Over the bed. Reach out. Then spread your legs.”

  “I don’t want to.” She crossed her arms, suddenly anxious. “I don’t think it will do any good.”

  “I do. That’s five extra. Do you want more? This is already going to hurt.”

  “No!” She felt tears starting to leak. “I don’t understand how this is supposed to help.”

  “You’ll see after it’s done. Do you trust me?”

  She nodded.

  “Then trust me to try this. Think of it as a means to an end. Now bend over.”

  Myka found herself leaning over the bed and widening her stance. Her heart beat so fast she could barely gulp in air.

  “Breathe,” he soothed her. “Relax your body. Keep your hands in front of you, or fold them under your chest, but no reaching back. I’m not going to do more than you can handle. It’s punishment, not torture. I know your limits, and you, mine.”

  She nodded. “O-okay.” Not sure she could handle a paddling without interfering, she folded her arms under her body and clenched her hands in anticipation.

  When the paddle fell the first time, the pain was unbelievable. There had been no warm-up, and her butt was out of practice. She screamed and jumped up, her arms automatically flying out. “No, God! It hurts,” she cried.

  “Back down. Control yourself. You just earned another five.”

  “No, you can’t, I can’t even handle that one,” she argued, but Gabriel did not seem sympathetic. “You can and you will. Get in position.”

  She folded her arms back, and spread her legs, and then the awful burn arose again when the paddle fell a second time. Better prepared, she was able to keep her body in check, but she shook with the effort. “It hurts,” she gasped.

  He didn’t answer, but raised the paddle and cracked it down again, hard. Again. Again. Each spank was deliberate and severe and unlike anything she’d experienced so far. By the time he reached eight, she was bawling. “Please, stop,” she gulped. “I’m sorry, I’ll do better next time, I’ll do the time management thing, I will!”

  He slapped her hard on the sit spot, and then again in the exact place, and the pain made her knees buckle; good thing she was already lying on the bed, because her legs kicked up like a marionette.

  “What will you do better next time?” he asked, landing another one jus
t below his previous strokes.

  “Aaah! I’ll plan my time. I’ll budget time. I’ll make sure that I get proper time for rest so I stay healthy, no matter what.”

  He slapped at the base of her thighs several times. “How?” Two more on her ass, then a volley she couldn’t count.

  “God, I don’t know! I can’t think! Fuck! That hurts!” she wailed, stepping fast from one foot to the other, but when the paddle landed again, she shrieked, “I won’t cave in to unreasonable demands. I’ll set a sensible schedule and stick to it. If she is being unfair, I will push back. I’ll talk to the manager. I’ll—ow ow ow ow ow!”

  “So you’ll make yourself a priority, is that what you’re saying?” He continued spanking.

  “Yes, ouch! God, fuck, ow! You’re killing me! Gabriel, please, please, yellow! I need a break.”

  “It’s okay. You’re done. We’re done.” He rubbed her ass, and she gasped and flinched away from his touch.

  “I know this hurt.” His voice was rough. “It hurt me too, to do this. But I need you to take this seriously. Do you?”

  “Yes, yes, I do!” She was desperate.

  “Look me in the eye and promise me that you’ll treat yourself better than you treat that Kylee.”

  He pulled her up and held her body by the upper arms, and she gazed up at him through a veil of tears. “I will. I will treat myself better than I treat Kylee.”

  “I respect the hell out of you for working so intensely. There’s a line between working smarter and just working harder. You’ll find that line.”

  “I get it. I’ll stay on the right side of the work line. I will.”

  “Okay.” He folded her into his arms, and she collapsed into a new batch of sobs. “Okay.” He stroked her hair and whispered into her ear. “It’s done. You took it. Good girl. Relax now.”

  He pulled her onto the bed and she nestled into his arms, crying into his shirt.

  “I know. I know.” He soothed her, then pulled the cover over the both of them when she started to shiver. “It is going to be all right, you know. And I am sorry.”

  Myka scowled at him. “See? You can say the words. Why didn’t you say that at the beginning and skip the pain? You made me bleed.”

  “I did no such thing.” His voice was taut. “I spanked you. It will be sore, maybe a few bruises.”

  “I’m joking,” she snapped. “Ha, ha.”

  He sighed. “You’re angry. But who are you angry at? Let it out. You couldn’t do it before, not the right way. Maybe you can now.”

  She shrugged one shoulder and suddenly she started sobbing anew. “I’m angry at Kylee! She’s a stupid idiot little whiny bitch, and I hate being her slave. I’m angry at Christopher for being such an asshole.”

  “And?”

  The realization hit her hard and poured out with a sob. “But I’m mad at myself the most. I am worth more than that, I am. I wish I hadn’t stayed up all night and made myself skip the doctor and sleeping to jump through their hoops. It wasn’t critical work. Nobody was dying. I wasn’t performing a life-saving surgery. I only did it because it was easier to say yes than to push back. I need to have more confidence in myself.”

  “Now that you see it, are you going to make changes?” His voice was serious.

  She nodded. “Yes. I was scared they’d yell at me. And I overdo things and spend a huge amount of time on presentations and font choices because I worry it’s not perfect. I want everything I do to be perfect so I can get ahead. I need to do my best.”

  “You should do your best. The problem is when you start putting in too many hours to get very little incremental gains. There’s a line between putting in the extra work and putting in insane extra work that doesn’t do much. It’s like revving your engine while sitting at a stoplight. Do the revving when it’s necessary, not all the time.”

  She nodded. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to balance that?”

  “Yes. But I have confidence in you to figure it out, now that you recognize the problem. I’m always available if you want to bounce ideas off of someone.”

  She nodded, sucked in a stray sob. “Okay.”

  He got up and retrieved a bottle of lotion. “Let me put this on you.”

  “Don’t bother. I read studies saying that arnica and aloe have absolutely zero real effect on butt healing. You might as well rub lard into my ass.”

  He laughed. “Humor me.”

  Myka rolled over and hissed at the cool touch of the lotion, but after a few minutes the ungodly sting began to tame under his gentle ministrations. “It helps,” she grudgingly admitted.

  “Maybe it’s the rubbing that helps,” he suggested, “but either way, I want you to relax. Think about how important you are, okay? Let yourself fall asleep thinking about how valuable you are, how special, and how you’re never going to let that girl walk all over you again. How you’re going to figure out the work smarter method and respect yourself and your own time. How you’ll ask me for help if you need it.”

  “You’ll help me?” Her voice was small.

  “Of course, Myka. Any time you ask. Anything you want.” He sounded sincere.

  “Then can you coach me—maybe, help me with time management ideas? I’ve never been this busy before, and I need to get on top of it.”

  “Tomorrow we’ll sit down together and work out a schedule for it, okay? Now you rest.”

  Myka nodded into the pillow. A heavy lethargy fell over her limbs, and for a few minutes she relaxed into his touch, enjoying the light press of his fingers, the gliding strokes of his thumbs along the base of her ass cheeks. Then she fell asleep.

  * * *

  In the morning, she touched her ass and found it sore, but not as much as it was after some of their more aggressive ‘funishment’ sessions. Would she let him punish her again like that?

  On the one hand, she had come to some sharp, clear realizations about herself—things that she might have kept denying to herself without his interference. And for a kinky girl like her who enjoyed rough play during sex, the punishment spanking had been able to launch her into a healthy emotional catharsis without causing lasting damage, mentally or physically.

  But it seemed too over the top submissive and a little bit weak to need that. She wanted to be the kind of mature person who could fix big personal issues with insight and clever decisions, and who didn’t need a spanking to see the truth.

  Besides, even if it might help sometimes—it was too intimate. It was the kind of thing one might accept from a kinky dom lover who was also a life partner, a boyfriend, a husband. Perhaps if they were together for real someday, she’d reconsider—but that was a dangerous thought, one she needed to push away, so she turned her thoughts to the day and the work ahead of her.

  * * *

  A few weeks later, while she was working on her laptop on his couch, Gabriel surprised her with tickets to the East Coast. “I have a conference,” he explained, sitting beside her, “and you have three days off. Come with me. This way I don’t need to try any crazy long-distance phone fucking.”

  “Mmm.” Myka stood in front of him and touched his crotch. “You’re big, but not big enough to stretch all the way across the country.”

  He smacked her butt. “Want me to stretch you out?” He lowered his voice. “I want you in the bedroom in ten minutes, naked, kneeling.”

  “Later!” Myka laughed and retreated. “I have some work to do.”

  He tried to grab at her, but she darted away. “Seriously. I can’t right now, Gabriel. I need to get this program finished. It’s not nit-picking; it’s real stuff. I swear. Two or three hours, tops. Then I can play with you.”

  Gabriel put his hands up and sighed in mock frustration. “I understand. But please, try to finish quickly, ma chèrie. I want my sweet sub in the bedroom, ready to play.”

  * * *

  As she packed in her hotel room later, she called Lourdes. “He’s taking me to Maine! A small town on the coast, where he has a conf
erence.”

  “Oh, sure. Maine is known as the jet rocket capital of the world.” Lourdes giggled. “Totally an excuse for a vacation, right?”

  “I don’t care! I’m so excited that he wants to go somewhere cool with me.”

  Lourdes grew quiet. “I’m glad you said that. It seems like all you do is spend time at his house, doing—whatever it is that you two… do. And that’s great. But I think you need to do other things too, outside of sex.”

  Myka sighed. “The problem is that I don’t know what we are as a couple. I mean, we agreed in the beginning that it was temporary and physical. But we do everything that real couples do, at least some of the time. I mean, we—talk about stuff. We laugh. We go to dinner. He’s been spending a ton of time helping me learn these cool ways to do project management. It’s like having my own private consultant. God, I could never afford to hire a coach with his skills if we weren’t… together.”

  Her voice quivered as she continued, “It’s, to me, it’s real. But to him? I don’t know.”

  “Are you crying?” Lourdes’ voice sounded accusing and sad.

  “No. Yes. A little.”

  “You’re in love with him.” Lourdes wasn’t asking. Her voice was somber. “Oh, Myka.”

  “Yeah. I am. But he said from the beginning that he’s not looking for love, and when I start to get too emotional, he pulls back. The other day I was joking around and I accidentally said something silly about how my boyfriend has the nicest eyelashes, and I said it in front of his friends at the club, and everyone laughed. Later, in private, he pointed out that I’m not his boyfriend. And then he got all distant.”

  “That sounds like an asshole move. I hope you denied him sex that night.”

  “Uh. Well.”

  Myka didn’t want to say that he’d turned almost instantly into the strict dom, and not the kind and loving one who’d disciplined her with a lecture on how she was the more important thing in the world.

  No, this time he worked her hard. He spanked her with the belt until she cried and begged. Then he turned her over and cropped her nipples, and fucked her without letting her come. He made her stand in the corner for over thirty minutes, naked. When he was hard again, he had her kneel on the kitchen floor and suck him off. Finally he propped her up on the counter and ordered her to masturbate to orgasm by rubbing herself against the handle of a wooden spoon, which was humiliating, even though she came hard.