Forever Wife Read online

  She’d been thirteen and in the eighth grade. It was at the high point of her infatuation with Vidar and her parents began to follow Vidar’s suggestions to reign in their daughter a bit. She had brought home a less than stellar report card and was told that she couldn’t attend the horse show for which she had been practicing for months. She dissolved into tears and ran up the grand staircase in the foyer of their town home to throw herself onto her bed, dissolving into a wet, unhappy lump.

  Of course her mother had immediately raced after her, holding and comforting her, rocking her gently and reminding her how much they loved her. She had immediately relented, relating to her daughter that she should be thankful they hadn’t done what Vidar had said he would do if his own daughter had come home with a report card like that.

  Not sure she wanted to know, Elizabeth had raised her head from her mother’s shoulder and asked, “What?”

  Liz had never seen her mother blush like that. Lydia Shelburne was a wonderful, warm, loving woman, but she was very conservative. “He wanted us to spank you. Said you needed a good spanking for not being more diligent in your studies.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes dilated at the thought; an unexpected electric tingle shot through her bottom – and down there – between her legs, causing her to suck in her breath. Liz leaned towards nerdiness and had been a bookworm since she could hold one in her hands. It wasn’t languages or history that had gotten her into trouble – she was interested in both of those subjects, and so she did well in them. The problem was math and science, which she despised and had carefully avoided.

  “But you know neither your father nor I could ever raise a hand to you. But he’s right about one thing – grades like that aren’t going to get you into college. You need to pay more attention in class. We’ll get you a tutor. That’ll help.”

  Liz had gone to sleep with tantalizing visions of the man who stirred such unusual feelings within her. And that summer she had spent an hour a day chained (not really) to the dining table while the boring high school nerd they hired tried to coach her in math and science.

  She paused next before the life-size portrait of her parents. Her mother’s sweet, gentle smile. Her father’s handsome face. They were so young in the portrait – much younger than she had ever known them to be. Mom wore a beautiful lace gown her mother had made for her with imported Belgian lace. The gown was here somewhere… in a box in their bedroom probably. Mom used to tell Liz that one day the dress would be hers. She told her she didn’t have to wear it, that it might be terribly out of date, but she was welcome to cut it apart and use it in the making of her own dress.

  Liz had been horrified by the thought. The dress was a one-of-a-kind treasure! Made by her grandmother, worn by her mother… if Vidar ever proposed, she would wear that dress down the aisle!

  Tired from her late night telephone schedule, Liz curled up on the couch in the living room for a nap.

  Chapter Six

  Vidar couldn’t wait to get back to her. The separation, although it had only been a matter of days, was physically painful. He needed her! He needed her in his life and he needed her now!

  He had lost a few investors for the casino project, but it wasn’t quite the disaster Rick made it out to be. Vidar could have built the casino himself. He just didn’t like to draw attention to his wealth, and by getting the town’s people to invest in it, they would be more likely to support it and reap the benefits of the new business in their community. What bothered him most about their withdrawal was that they no longer seemed to think of the casino as a good thing.

  Were they nuts?

  And to think it was all that Tracy Gates’ fault! Liz’s childhood friend – he’d never liked that girl. She was too impulsive, too reckless, and used to weedle Beth into most of her harebrained ideas. He just hoped that Beth was not involved with her on this. He hated to think about them being on opposite sides of this issue. Surely she had to realize that the best thing for them would be to sell the cabin and move on?

  Maybe he’d put a spell on Tracy and she would suddenly decide to move to Morocco.

  No, he couldn’t risk hurting Beth like that. But just wait until he got hold of Tracy! He had a few thousand things he’d like to say to her.

  Nearing the camp, he felt something shimmer. It was faint, barely there… the protection spells. They were firm around the camp, but the extra bit he had added to protect Beth in his absence, that part of flickering. Startled, he lunged up the stairs and threw open the door.

  There she was, sleeping soundly on the sofa, the afternoon sun spilling around her like a golden mantle. He smiled, at peace now that he could see her. He wondered why the protection spell was flickering, for she didn’t seem to be in any danger. Maybe she was just hungry. He wandered into the kitchen to fix her something for dinner.

  What he saw had him furious enough to spank someone! Or rather, what he didn’t see. What he didn’t see was food. No leftovers in the fridge. No bread crumbs on the counter. No empty containers in the trash. Other than a package of ramen soup, there was absolutely nothing in the house to eat and that alone could hardly be considered as actual “food”.

  “Beth,” he said sternly, approaching the sofa where she slept.

  She awoke with a start, at first confused, then overjoyed. “Vidar! You made it!”

  “Beth,” he said again, struggling to keep from smiling. All he wanted to do was drag her into the bedroom and make love to her until they were both mindless and exhausted… but something about the weakened condition of protection spell irritated him. The spell had practically worn itself out keeping her healthy. That meant that she was endangering her own health! If not for his spell, she would be very, very sick right now!

  “What have you had to eat today?”

  The seemingly non sequitur confused her. “Eat?”

  “Yes, what have you eaten today?”

  She got to her feet, stamping one foot as though it had fallen asleep while she napped. “Are you hungry?” she said, trying to sound normal, but he could hear her elevated pulse quite clearly. “I could make you some Ramen Soup.” She went to the kitchen, limping a little on her tingly foot.

  “That doesn’t constitute real food.”

  “There’s coffee. Or at least, there was,” she said, rinsing out the empty pot.

  “It’s six o’clock at night. Are you telling me that the only thing you’ve had to eat since breakfast is nothing?”

  She glared up at him, not even worrying about the consequences, somehow. “I told you I had coffee -”

  “Coffee’s not food, and don’t take that tone with me, Elizabeth Dagmar Shelburne.”

  Oh-oh… that couldn’t be good. He never called her by her full name unless he was really angry. Liz used to hate her middle name. It was so dumb, so unusual, until one time when she’d said something and had seen the hurt look cross his face. Her mom had told her later that Dagmar was his mother’s name. From that moment on, she had decided that it was something special. She discovered it was a Scandinavian name that meant “glorious” and was the name of royalty.

  She put a hand against his chest as though to calm him down. “Don’t worry so much, Vidar. You’ll give yourself wrinkles.” She rose up on her toes and planted a chaste kiss on his cheek. Then she walked away, leaving him speechless.

  She didn’t get far. As she neared the door, it slammed shut. Somehow it locked, as well. She whirled around, ready to argue with him, but stopped short at the dark look he shot her.

  “Why is there nothing here to eat,” he demanded.

  “I haven’t been here long,” she said. “And I just haven’t had time to go shopping.”

  “You’ve had all week! What did you think you were doing, starving yourself like that!”

  “I’m not starving,” she snapped defensively. “And I just, uh, I forgot?” Her voice sounded unsure, and she knew she wasn’t very convincing.

  Vidar pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her. She mi
ght have found the gesture comforting, except the next moment his big hand swatted her bottom quite firmly.

  “Ow! Stop that!”

  “Can you tell me truthfully that you’ve been eating three square meals a day, Elizabeth?”

  Liz sighed, and Vidar knew that he had his answer. Then she tried to change the subject, a tactic she had employed often as a child. “How did you manage to close the door like that?”

  The rumble of his chuckle vibrated in her ear. “Magic,” he whispered, “and stop trying to change the subject.”

  He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat, rearranging her and before she could decipher just what he was about, she found herself over his lap – the absolute last place she wanted to be. Already he had her jeans down, exposing her panties and long, bare thighs.

  “Let me up this instant!” she fairly screeched. Wiggling or twisting or writhing got her nothing but thoroughly exhausted. She wasn’t anywhere near ready to throw in the towel, unfortunately she didn’t have the strength or the stamina to do anything about the fact that his fingers were already tugging down her underwear, baring her bottom with an excruciating, humiliating leisure that taunted her with her helplessness. “You are not going to spank me!” she yelled as her heart sank. Her jeans and panties hit the carpet in a heap along with her shoes.

  Worse yet was when his big hand finally claimed her bare bottom. All of her frantic squirming halted immediately as she caught her breath with an audible moan.

  An almost unbearable warmth spread from beneath his possessive palm and into every one of her alarmingly nearby nooks, so much so that she had to exert tremendous strength of will to not start squirming again, but for an entirely different reason.

  Now that had him perked up like nothing else could. She had groaned at his touch – not in pain, because he hadn’t even administered the first swat yet – and not very loudly, but with unmistakable desire. That made it a thousand-fold harder for him to continue along his chosen path, but he wasn’t about to abandon any punishment session that he had started. He just couldn’t do it, for her sake. She needed to know that he finished what he started, especially when it came to her discipline, which was something he took very seriously – and intended to continue to do so in the future. Vidar knew that consistency – as well as any basic style of discipline – had been lacking in her upbringing, but he intended to remedy that now. The fact she was a grown woman had nothing to do with it.

  He didn’t want to let her soft cry distract him, despite the fact it already had to a large extent. So Vidar did his best to ignore it, knowing all the while that he was just indulging in the worst kind of self-torture, by continuing to make sure that he had her safely-positioned and well-controlled. He’d found that being gently restrained often calmed women in the face of a spanking, so he put one leg carefully over hers, efficiently trapping her in place.

  “Vidar! You can’t be serious! Let me up, now!”

  He loved the sound of his name on her lips. But he couldn’t let her continue to delude herself into thinking she could talk her way out of this situation. All it took was one casual swat to her upturned bottom to get her to quiet down.

  “I suggest you do your best to be meek and mild, Beth. I told you many times how I felt about you skipping meals.”

  As much as she wanted to spit back in his face that she would gladly have eaten something if she’d had any money to buy groceries, she knew that doing so would only get her into even more trouble.

  “And what was it that I said to you on the subject, Elizabeth?”

  She wanted to pretend that she hadn’t even heard his autocratic edict, but the truth was that, even now, she remembered everything he’d ever said to her, every syllable.

  While she was debating about whether she wanted to answer him, Vidar – who never had been the most patient of people – decided to give her some incentive, in the form of a very hard volley of smacks to that enticing little bottom.

  “Ow! Stop! No! I’ll tell you!”

  “Damn straight you will. You could save yourself a bit of hurt if you’d just obeyed me in the first place, Beth,” he scolded. “Keep that in mind for future reference.”

  Frowning deeply at being chided like a five-year-old, and blushing in places she would rather not think about right now, she paraphrased what he’d told her: “You said something – a long time ago - about me being too skinny – which is patently ridiculous, by the way –” All her aside got her was another crisp smack, “ – and that I shouldn’t be skipping meals and endangering my health. You said I could snack a little every few hours or do the three meals a day thing, but that you expected that I would eat regularly every day, and that you’d make me sorry if you found out I didn’t.”

  So she had heard him after all. Miracles never ceased. Now to get her to obey him.

  “And you’re about to find out that I wasn’t kidding about making you sorry.”

  He wasn’t, and she most certainly was.

  Her dilemma was that, although the spanking was tremendously uncomfortable, it was what she had craved from him all along – ever since her mother had told her that he thought she ought to be taken in hand exactly like this all those years ago. Now he was doing just that, and besides all of the moaning and crying and – with humiliating speed – begging she was doing as he blistered her bottom, she knew that other parts of her were also pulsating with each swat. She was growing ever more damp with each passing second that she spent under his control, in a reaction that she knew of no way to stop.

  Her body wanted him desperately – wanted her to be his completely, to turn herself over to him and allow him free reign to discipline her – or make love to her – at will. But her mind was going to fight that compulsion to its dying breath, if necessary, it seemed, at least until the spanking began.

  The harder and longer he swatted, the more her juices threatened to drip down onto his pants, and the further away every conscious, practical thought became until she was a crying mass, futilely kicking her feet, nearly impossible with his leg across hers. She occasionally issued an imploring, “Please!”, remembering from her last time over his knee that nothing she could do or say would stop him until he felt she had thoroughly learned her lesson.

  Vidar didn’t stop until he had seared every square inch of her flesh, from the crest of her bottom to the backs of her knees. It made him crazy to think that she could hurt herself like that – endanger her health, and for what? She was underweight, by at least ten pounds, maybe more. Did she need counseling?

  When he finally began to lift her into his arms to comfort her, she did her best to protest the manhandling, but was much too tired and physically exhausted to make much of an effort.

  “Stop that,” he whispered, easily subduing her attempts to get out of his embrace. Instead he pulled her even more tightly against him, almost smothering her against his chest, one big hand still claiming that ravaged bottom, as if to remind her that he wouldn’t hesitate to put her over his lap again.

  Dear God his arms felt good around her! She had never been held quite this tightly. It was restrictive, but in a good way. Liz literally couldn’t move, and she knew she should have been outraged by that idea, but none of that bubbled to the surface. Instead there was a feeling of sheer contentment that her brain recognized as big trouble, but the rest of her was only too happy to indulge in it as long as he wanted.

  If Vidar was surprised by her sudden acquiescence, he made no sign of it, he merely held and rocked her gently, occasionally dropping a kiss on the top of her head. He expected that he’d be taking her out for dinner, but something about her position shifted. She felt a bit heavier, more relaxed, and then he noted her even breathing. The poor thing was nearly asleep in his arms. He sat, unmoving, just cradling his precious burden as his mind flooded him with conflicting thoughts.

  What if she reacted the same as she had the last time? What if tomorrow when she awoke, she screamed that she never wanted to see him again? But no, sh
e recently told him that she had said that out of embarrassment because she had had a crush on him. Past tense. But what about that small moan? At the start of the spanking, she had moaned, and not from fear but – desire.

  He kissed her again, this time a bit more firmly, as he gently stroked her hair to rouse her. “Come on, Beth. Let me take you out for dinner.”

  “Hm?” She moved, not much, as she was still held firmly in his arms. “Um, I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  “Nothing to be sorry for, dear. But let’s get you dressed properly and I’ll take you out for dinner. Think you can sit still that long?”

  * * * * *

  They ended up at a small family-owned steakhouse that had opened since he’d left the area, and he had to admit he was pleasantly surprised. He’d had misgivings about eating at a no-name steakhouse – it almost seemed cafeteria-like in that you ordered your meal first – except for dessert – and then were seated. It was in an old rehabilitated Victorian house brought back to its original splendor, and the food – although simple – was superbly done – even the rib, which hung over the plate on which it was presented.

  He should have tried to suss her out, find out what was going on inside that amazingly complicated mind of hers, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Instead, he just wanted to enjoy the evening – vowing in the back of his mind that it was only one of many dinners out with her.

  Liz dug through her small purse, pulling out a bottle of pain relievers. He scowled, taking the bottle from her. “You don’t really think that’s going to help after a spanking, do you?”

  “Vidar, stop saying that word! Anyone could hear you!”

  “Answer me.”

  “I need those,” she said, her expression unreadable. “Ever since the accident.”

  “What accident?” his demeanor changed instantly. He was alert and back in protective mode.