Bolts of passion hit her like lightning, burning through her to her core. Her lungs couldn’t get enough air. This man was something else.
“Yes, Daddy,” she whispered, breathless. “I understand.”
He held her close for a few minutes more and she relaxed against him, enjoying the strength of his arms around her and his hard body against her like a shield. In his arms, she felt special. Desired. It was a new feeling for her and she liked it.
But far too soon, reality burst through her bubble.
“You need to get back to work now, little girl,” Matthew said softly. He pushed her back gently, away from him, so she was standing upright. “You will take that sore bottom back to your desk and sit on it like nothing is wrong.”
“Yes, Daddy,” she agreed, feeling her face heat up as shame flooded her. What if her work colleagues knew what had just gone on behind Matthew’s closed office door? Don’t be stupid, they’re not going to know, her more rational inner self insisted. Why would they even suspect such a thing? But she would know. And having to sit on her burning butt and face her work colleagues, when they had all seen her hauled into Matthew’s office, would be embarrassing.
She walked to the door.
“Have you had breakfast?”
Matthew’s question stopped her in her tracks and she turned to look at him. She shook her head. “No. There wasn’t time,” she admitted. “If I’d stopped for breakfast I would have been even later to work than what I already was.”
His frown made her heart thump. “You need to eat, little girl. No more missing meals, you hear me? We’ve already established that it’s a non-negotiable rule; next time you will be punished.”
Jilly clenched her thighs tightly together in an attempt to stem the throbbing there as she felt her face flame and her stinging bottom clench involuntarily at the thought of the ruler being applied firmly to it again. As if in response, her tummy rumbled in hunger. Loudly. Matthew raised an eyebrow and all Jilly could do was grin sheepishly.
“Back to work, little girl,” he commanded gruffly. “I will bring a muffin to your desk. You do like muffins, don’t you?”
“Yes, Daddy.” She nodded. “Thank you.”
Walking back down the hallway was like a walk of shame. Although she looked at the floor so she didn’t have to look at her work colleagues, she could feel all their eyes on her. It wasn’t often that secretaries got ordered into the senior partners’ offices under such circumstances, and speculation over what happened to her in there would probably be fodder for gossip for ages. Unless Janice put as tight a rein on everybody else as she did with her and Vanessa.
Sinking gingerly into her chair, she snuck a surreptitious glance across at Janice and her heart sank. So much for her putting a stop to any gossip. The smug smirk on her face was a mile wide.
Jilly could feel her face flaming as she squirmed awkwardly in her chair, trying to find a comfortable position so she could tackle the pile of paperwork stacked up in front of her. Slowly, the eyes of her colleagues left her and she tried to focus on her work but her mind was awhirl. It didn’t seem real, what had happened in Matthew’s office. It seemed like a dream, a bizarre one, from which she would awaken at any second. Except the tenderness in her butt was proof that it wasn’t. She really was his—he had claimed her, and she had proclaimed herself his. His words ran through her mind, her skin still tingled where he had touched it.
But she felt guilty. Her eviction notice lay there in the back of her mind, tormenting her. Should she tell him? She couldn’t, not yet. Not until she knew he really was trustworthy, that he wasn’t going to just take her heart and trample on it as Cameron had done. Choosing to be submissive to him and letting him take care of her at work and even being punished by him here in the office was one thing. But laying herself fully bare to him and exposing her vulnerability was quite another. Her eviction notice affected not only her, but Lily as well. And all she could think of was Cameron. Once Lily had been in the picture, Cameron had scarpered. Jilly wasn’t going to let that happen to her a second time.
She was flipping through a sheaf of papers, trying to get Matthew out of her mind and focus on her work instead when a pen hit her in the back of her head. Annoyed, she spun around. Vanessa was grinning. “You okay?” she mouthed.
Jilly nodded.
“What happened in there? You still have a job?” she stage-whispered across the small space.
“I’ll tell you later,” Jilly mouthed back, seeing Matthew striding purposefully down the hallway. Her smarting bottom clenched. The last thing she wanted to do was come to his attention again and get herself into more trouble. And there would be trouble, if she was caught gossiping with Vanessa during work hours, no doubt about it. He hadn’t expressly stated that in his office when he was outlining the rules, but she knew.
A few minutes later, when she’d finally managed to get Matthew and the spanking out of her head and her focus on her work, he came up silently behind her and placed a steaming, buttered blueberry muffin on her desk. He’d gone to a lot of effort for her: he’d obviously bought it from the snack box in the staffroom, taken it out of the wrapper, heated it in the microwave, sliced it in half, put it on a plate and buttered it. The care he’d taken just in bringing her a simple breakfast made her smile. He was so
