Behave Page 2

  The cop nodded to her partner who reached in through their open car door and touched the screen on the dashboard computer. “Got an address,” he called back.

  “He’s staying in there tonight.” Hal gestured toward the hotel.

  The cops nodded their thanks, spoke quickly to the EMT workers who were loading the body, with the blanket pulled up over the man’s face into their ambulance, and then took off for the hotel.

  Lainie spun to face Hal. “What do you know about Mason? Other than he pays big bucks toward your campaign?”

  “He used to work for the opposition, but he changed parties. He’s a big supporter now. I know he can be a pain when he’s drunk, but I have no idea how he could witness something like this and then vanish.”

  “If you find out that he’s into something illegal, will you keep taking his money so you can stay in office?”

  Hal stared hard at her. “You must really enjoy thinking the worst of me, don’t you?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Easy there, Lainie. You sound more like a lawyer than a med student.”

  “Are you avoiding my question?”

  His hands gripped her. “No, Lainie. I don’t avoid anything. And I would not accept money from a criminal. All right?” He held tightly to her shoulders. “Now it’s your turn. Why do you sound so much like a lawyer? I believe you’re a student, or you wouldn’t be waiting tables. Law student?”

  Fair’s fair. “Medical,” she said. “What I told the cops, that’s the truth.”

  “And that’s why you know your way around CPR,” he said.

  “I fuckin’ hope so,” she said. “After four years of grinding study.”

  One hand slipped down and patted her bottom. “You’re going to come work for me,” he said, “and learn, maybe the hard way, to watch your language. If Mason had anything to do with that accident, he’s dangerous. And I don’t want you to have to deal with him if you end up working at another banquet he attends. He shows up everywhere.”

  “That’s rich. You don’t want me to deal with him, so, you’ve decided I’m going to work for you. I think that’s my choice, don’t you? I’ve handled him so far. And I plan to find out if he had anything to do with that man’s death tonight. I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you can’t pay me to do what you want. No. Fucking. Way. I’ve had enough of staying within the limits of courtesy with creeps tonight, and I’m off shift now.” She slipped her hand between his palm and her buttocks, grabbed his wrist, and pulled it up and out, past the waist of her short, uniform skirt, ignoring the spark of electricity his touch there generated. “Good night.”

  “You have a price,” he said. “As I said. Everyone does. Name it.”

  She turned away and strode toward her car, which was still stopped by the sidewalk next to the hotel driveway. “Stop trying to goddamn buy me.”

  His long legs made it easy for him to keep pace with her. “No,” he said. “I’m not going to stop. Are you planning to use that foul mouth of yours on patients when you start working with them? Are you going to swear at them, too?”

  “Of course not. I’m not an idiot.” She stopped at her car. His limo was still across the street. As she got into the driver’s seat, he opened the passenger door and slipped inside, sitting next to her.

  “Your limo’s waiting right there.” She pointed to the black stretch. “What are you doing?”

  “Waiting for you to say yes. Name your price.”

  “Please get out of my car.”

  “Agree to work for me.”

  “No. How many fucking times do I have to say it? No, no, no.”

  Without a word, he shoved open the passenger door, stepped out, and whipped around to her side. He yanked open her door, grabbed both her arms and pulled her to her feet. With his foot, he closed the door, and before she could react, he had an iron arm around her and was half carrying her with him across the street to the limo. The driver was standing by the door, holding it open.

  Chapter Two

  “Thanks, Tom,” Hal said, pushing Lainie inside, into the back seat. “Take a walk.”

  Tom nodded and strolled away.

  Hal slid in beside her and closed the door. He turned, angling his long legs toward her. “You prove to me you can string three sentences together without swearing.”

  “Why the fuck should I?”

  “Here’s why.” In one swift movement, his hands wrapped hard around her ribs, and he half lifted her, pulling her across his thighs, face down.

  Lainie screamed. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “This.” His large hand slipped under her coat, found her miniskirt, and pulled it up. He caught hold of the waist of her pantyhose, and moving his hand back and forth under the elastic, moved it over her bottom, and down to her knees. Her panties followed. Then he pulled her underwear lower still. Chilly night air rushed across her exposed legs and bottom.

  She twisted frantically, trying to turn herself to face upward, and reached her hands down to pull up her clothes. “Let go of me,” she yelled.

  He grabbed her wrist and pulled it up from the waist of her clothes, now loose around her calves. With one hand, he gripped both her wrists and held them straight out above her head. She bucked, and he smacked her buttocks, one hard slap.

  “Stop that,” she shouted, outraged.

  “That,” he said, “was a warm up for what’s coming.”

  She felt a hand on the small of her back, holding her down against his hard thighs. Her legs hung down on one side of his, and her arms, on his other side, were immobilized in his grip when he started spanking her. One stinging slap made her buttocks quiver. Another made her flesh jump again. “Stop it,” she screamed. “You have no right.”

  He kept spanking her. She was mortified by the feel of her behind shimmying under each blow. The smarting spanks stung more each time he struck her; the stinging became burning skin and the pain increased. She squirmed. “Stop it,” she screamed again. “That hurts, stop it.”

  He clamped his hand down harder on the small of her back. “You’re going to listen to me,” he said, and then with each blow, “You’re going to clean up that mouth and stop being so stubborn.”

  She bucked upward, her bottom lifting now between spanks. She writhed against the hand that held her against his iron thighs, twisting and pulling desperately against the grip on her wrists while the rain of spanks kept coming. Another spanking blow, and another. The already stinging flesh of her behind burned hotter. The pounding had started on the peaks of her buttocks, and the pain was sharper with each slap, but now he was moving the strikes down to the underside of her buttocks.

  “Are you ready to listen to me?” he asked, never altering the rhythm of his powerful hand coming down on her behind.

  “No, how dare you!” Her words came out, jumping with each whack. Damn, this hurt. Her pride, and her bottom were screaming for mercy, but she wouldn’t give in. With her lips shut tightly against the screams and sobs she was dying to let out, she panted against the pain. It didn’t seem possible, but the spanks grew harder, the pain sharper, her buttocks quivered non-stop. Her flesh ached and her skin burned. Suddenly she couldn’t hold back her cries, and they exploded out of her. “No,” she screamed, “don’t. Stop it. No, please, no more.” The spanking kept up. From the curve of her buttocks, back up to the middle, smack after smack. She wriggled and bucked wildly. She sobbed in agony, crushed now and desperate for the spanking to stop.

  And miraculously, his hand stilled, his palm rested on her bruised bottom. Lightly, he stroked the still quivering flesh. She hung across his lap, drained, humiliated, crying now from shame. “Please,” she whimpered, “please, please. Don’t do that anymore.”

  He leaned down to murmur in her ear, “You may not have a price, but you’re going to work for me where I can keep an eye on you, and if this is the only way to get you there, then so be it.” His hand on her lower back eased up, and he tugged up her p
anties, and then her pantyhose. When the garments stopped at her hips, where she lay across his legs on her pelvis, he said, “Lift up your bottom,” and she did. He slipped her clothing up, over her burning buttocks and she flinched. Grateful her backside was covered, and freed from his grip, she yanked her skirt down, lifting her buttocks again as she did, grabbed his thigh, and turned herself over, gasping with pain when her sore behind connected with his leg.

  Hands around her waist, he lifted her and placed her to sit beside him. She cried out at the pain as her weight pressed her bottom onto the car seat. “You’re not going to be comfortable sitting for a while,” he said. “I know because you’re not the first woman I’ve imparted a sore hind end to. But believe me, I don’t enjoy your pain. You’re a brilliant woman with a bright future and I’m not going to let you jeopardize that because you don’t feel like controlling your mouth. You might think you can make that type of discipline kick in anytime you want, but it doesn’t work that way. You have a bad habit now, and sooner or later, you’re bound to let that language slip, and you’ll drive people away. You can’t take it back once it’s out. This is something I know from experience. Not from swearing, but when you’re in the public eye, you learn to keep control and make that your habit, or you fail fast.”

  Fresh sobs erupted. She dropped her face into her hands, crying and gasping out her words. “I work so hard,” she said, “to be the best doctor I can, and then I find a man in the street, and I can’t save him. He died under my care.” Strong arms wrapped around her and pulled her close. She clung, arms around his neck, and cried into his shoulder, the flannel of his suit jacket soft against her wet cheek.

  He stroked her hair and cupped the nape of her neck. “That poor man died before you could start CPR,” Hal said. “He died before you touched him. He was gone already.”

  “Maybe,” she whispered.

  “Definitely.” She had stopped crying and was resting quietly against his shoulder. “Now,” he said, “I’m going to have your car driven to your house, and I’m going to take you to my place for the night.”

  She wanted to say, “Hell no,” but stopped herself. “I want to go home,” she said. “Please.”

  “All right.” He patted her back. “Since you ask so nicely.” He stepped out of the car and called to Tom. “Get someone to drive the lady’s car to her place.” He looked inside. “What’s your last name, Lainie?”

  “Sam,” she said, sniffing.

  “And your address?”

  “Thirty-One Compton Place.”

  He repeated the address to Tom, who pulled out his phone and made a call. Hal turned back to her. “Give me your keys.”

  “They’re in the car. Remember, you didn’t exactly give me time to take them out of the ignition.”

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t.” He stared hard at her and his eyebrows raised and lowered.

  His tone was a reminder to her of why, with no warning and at the speed of light, he had yanked her out of her car and into his. Heat crept into her face, and her bottom tingled.

  Tom opened the driver’s door, gave Hal a nod, and said, “Done sir. I know the man who’ll deliver her car. He’s dependable. Where would you like to go now?”

  “We’ll take the young lady home. Same address.”

  What a presumption. Still in shock from the spanking he’d felt entitled to deliver, anger replaced sorrow for the man who’d died, and embarrassment at being stripped and smacked as he manhandled her.

  Lainie’s behind felt hot and punished, and when Tom nodded at her, acknowledging that he would drive to her address, she was sure he knew about her painful and mortifying spanking. But he merely slid into position behind the wheel. The stretch was so long, she barely heard the front door close from her seat in the back with Hal.

  She fought to control what she wanted to tell him, to ask him how the fuck he dared to touch her at all, much less inflict such pain on her behind.

  Hal took her hand. “Working for me will never interfere with your studies,” he said, looking at her, his dark eyes almost black in the dim interior of the limo. “I wouldn’t allow that. You have a choice of positions. Which would you prefer, event planning, speech writing, or something more social, greeting visitors, or people who attend my functions? I’d have someone keep an eye out for Mason, keep him away from you.”

  Was the man never going to stop? Carefully she pulled back her hand and snatched back a smart retort before it passed her lips. She had to say no without bringing on another pounding on her behind. She was used to being direct, maybe asking him outright was the best way. “What will you do if I say no?”

  “Depends how you say it, doesn’t it?”

  Right, that was the answer. She just wanted to get home without him touching the already bruised part of her anatomy again. Or hearing him tell her how to speak. And she definitely did not want to answer his relentless demand that she work for him. She wanted to say, Right, I’ll work for you. When hell freezes over. Instead, she said, “Thank you for the offer, but I do have a job with flexible hours and no responsibility. It’s a good fit for me, as a student.”

  He leaned back, faced front, then turned to her and smiled. “I’ll give it another day,” he said. “You’ll be on my staff before the next election.”

  The car stopped, and Lainie saw they were in front of the suite she rented on the ground floor of a converted house. Her unit was in the front, and knowing she’d be coming home late, she’d left the lights on. Home safe, thank god. And she’d soon be free of this man.

  Tom appeared at her door, pulled it open, and handed her out. Hal followed. She looked up at him, alarmed. “I’m walking you to your door,” he said. “That’s all. And I’ll look around, make sure there’s no one inside.”

  Papers and books were piled and strewn everywhere. He probably lived in a mansion with a huge staff to clean it. She didn’t want him looking around inside her suite; but, desperate to end the night, she could only hope it was true that he would just do a safety check.

  At her door, she opened it, and he preceded her into her small hallway. He walked through her living room, her kitchen, and into her bedroom. “All right,” he said. “I’ll let you get some rest.” He pulled a flat gold case from the breast pocket of his jacket, opened it, and slipped out a card, handing it to her. “Call me, if you hear or see anything unusual. If you even think you could be in danger. Mason saw you trying to save that injured pedestrian tonight, and if he had anything to do with the accident, I don’t know what he’s capable of. So, you call me first if you need help.”

  Lainie wondered, sarcastically, if she should salute as she said, “Yes, I will. But I’m fine, I’ve lived here for four years and I’ve never had a problem.”

  He held out his hand, palm up, and said, “Give me your phone.”

  “Why?”

  He stared at her, then glanced down at her purse and back to her. Her pulse quickened and her buttocks tingled. She felt around inside her bag and found her phone. Anything to get him out of her home.

  He took it from her hand and peered at it. Then he began to program it with his thumb. “If anything happens, and I mean anything, if your neighbors have a fight, or a dog barks, or a bird poops on your window, you call me and I’ll get the police here faster than nine-one-one can. I think you’ve learned tonight that a call from me has power with emergency services. And, that it’s better for you to do what I tell you.” He wrapped his arms tightly around her and one hand slipped down to tap her bottom. “If I find out there was any disturbance here and you didn’t call me for help, you don’t want to know what the consequences to your hind end will be.”

  Her behind twitched.

  When he finally left, she closed and locked the door behind him, and shot the bolt home. His card slipped from her hand and she let it as she dropped her phone onto her hallway table.

  Brushing her teeth in front of her bathroom mirror, the surprise of feeling the huge, empty space of her apartme
nt hit her like a compression push on her heart. Always too busy, too engrossed in her studies and her dedication to medicine to notice she was alone, this was the first time the awareness that there was no other person here swept over her and she shivered. It wasn’t possible that she could miss a man who had just taken it upon himself to spank her bare buttocks until she broke down and begged him to stop.

  ***

  A hand over her mouth awakened her. Hal? A series of images flashed through her mind like lightening, ending with falling into bed. Alone. Still groggy with exhaustion, but with her heart pounding, she thought she was having a nightmare and grabbed for the hand. Fingertips of steel dug into the sensitive sides of her jaws and she heard her own muffled whimper.

  “Don’t make a sound,” Mason’s whiny voice said softly. “Nod to show me you understand.”

  Lainie nodded against the grip on her face.

  “I’m going to let go so we can have a little talk. And you will not scream, right?”

  Another nod released the claw over her mouth.

  When Mason sat, the bed caved beneath him until she almost rolled toward his bulk.

  She kept her voice quiet. “What are you doing here? Get out.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Don’t even bother, you jumped up little piece of ass.” His words were still mushy from the drinking he’d done earlier and he smelled like a distillery. “I told you I’d getchu alone, so here I am.”

  Where was her phone? Probably still in the hallway where she’d dropped her purse. She didn’t have a chance of calling for help, much less calling Hal, unless she could convince Mason to let her walk out of the room. “I have to pee. Badly.”

  His laugh was a garbled, wet snort. “You better not think I’m stupid,” he said, “ ‘caush I really hate that.” A hand grabbed her breast so hard a gasp flew out of her.

  She forced herself to talk through the searing ache. “You’re going to be soaked with urine if you don’t let me go.”

  “Shuddup.” The grip on her breast tightened, pain shot through her and air whooshed out of her chest as he leaned a thick forearm on her ribs. He was bending over her, the alcohol fumes stronger. “I saw you tonight, trying to save somebody who didn’t know when to mind his own business. I think you might’ve seen me there. You’re not gonna make the same mistake he did, are you? You know when to stay outa the way.”