After a notorious outlaw guns down her father, eighteen-year-old Maggie Curtin is dead set on revenge. The only thing standing in her way is Travis Quill, a bounty hunter who is determined to find the outlaw for himself and even more determined to see that Maggie doesn’t get involved. But Maggie is a sure shot with her rifle, and despite Travis’ warnings—and the bare-bottom belt whipping he gives her when she defies him—she sets out to track down her father’s killer.
Deciding at last that the headstrong girl is not going to give up, Travis finally agrees to bring her along, though he’s more than ready to tan her bare backside if she doesn’t obey him on the journey. As they travel the west together in search of their man, Travis soon finds that he delights in showing Maggie the world outside her small town. Try as he might to resist her, it isn’t long before he is also showing the blushing girl all the ways a man can please a woman.
But with the outlaw still on the loose, their newfound romance will have to take a back seat until he is caught. Travis knows it’s high time for Maggie to start trusting his decisions, but will she finally learn to do as she’s told before she gets them both killed?
Author: Emily Tilton
eBook Price: $4.95
Length: 48,200 Words
Excerpt
Travis helped her up out of the dirt, put his arm around her shoulder, and led her, as she sobbed a little, toward the back door. “Maggie,” he called over his shoulder, “go wait for me in the barn.”
He saw the defiant look come back into Maggie’s face, but she turned and stalked off in the direction of the barn.
She was standing there with her arms crossed, right in the big barn door, as if she were guarding it against him, when Travis arrived.
“I think we need to go inside, Maggie,” Travis said quietly. “I don’t think you want your mama to hear you gettin’ a whuppin’.”
“A what?” Maggie said with astonishment on her face now.
“I have a feeling you’ve heard the word, missy, even if I can tell for certain that you’ve never had one. I know your pa wasn’t a bad man, despite bein’ an outlaw, but it’s pretty clear to me that he wasn’t around here enough to teach you how to behave. I’m not fixin’ to give you lessons, but I need to get you and your ma somewhere safe, and if I have to give you a spankin’ like a little girl to make it clear that you’re going to do as I say, that’s what I’m going to do right now.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Maggie said. Her eyes darted to either side, looking around him, clearly trying to see whether she could get away from him.
“Last chance, missy,” Travis said. “Are you going to come with me and your ma?”
Maggie took off like a shot toward the wheat field, so fast that Travis almost missed grabbing her. But his reflexes were so well-trained from the war and from bounty hunting that his arm instinctively went around her waist as she tried to get by.
“I should lower these britches and whup you right out here, so that your ma does hear what a willful, foolish daughter she’s got. But I’m a decent man, Maggie. Come on into the barn with me and we’ll get you over my lap.”
Maggie struggled uselessly against his strong left arm. Travis sighed, and began to haul her into the barn, making for a hay bale that stood against the wall, ready to be broken up for fodder.
“You’re just making it worse for yourself, Maggie,” he said. “If you get over my lap like a good girl, I won’t make the spankin’ last very long. Just until you say you’ll come with your ma.”
“God dammit, mister, what do you think you’re doing? You’re not my pa, and you’re not in charge of me!”
“You’re right that I’m not your pa,” Travis said, hauling her over his lap now. “But I am most definitely in charge of you, as long as I need to be to keep you safe. Now are you going to get these dungarees down for me, or am I going to have to take them down myself?”
Maggie didn’t answer. Instead she just kept struggling and kicking against him, trying to get some leverage against him so that she could wrench herself free.
“If you don’t settle down and take your spankin’, missy, I’m going to tie you up, take my belt off, and tan your hide good with it,” Travis said. He looked down at her squirming backside in the blue work pants, covered in dirt, and even bearing bloodstains from her pa. He wished he didn’t have to do this.
“I’m not goin’ with you!” Maggie yelled. “You can spank me as long as you want!”
Travis was not a man to back down from a challenge, and these words removed his last compunction about disciplining this girl. She clearly had some very good qualities, but he could see with every passing moment how right he had been about her upbringing: she badly needed a man to take her in hand. He had no plans whatsoever to be that man, but he didn’t want to have to tie her across his horse—and he couldn’t because he had to bring Big Frank back too—and the spanking would clearly do her a world of good.
Holding her firmly around the waist with his left arm, over his lap, he reached his right hand under to find her belt buckle. Maggie responded by screaming like a wildcat and thrashing so hard that for a moment he thought he might actually lose his grip. But he found the buckle, he worked it undone, and then he started to open the button.
Maggie seemed to realize then that Travis actually intended to bare her bottom, and for a moment her thrashing grew even wilder, but then she clearly understood that he was stronger than she was, and in the absence of her Winchester she was going to have to take the discipline he saw fit to give her.
“Fine!” she said angrily. “Get your damn hands off there. I’ll take ‘em down for you, so you can see how much good spankin’ me does ya.”
But Travis wasn’t one to forego the pleasure of taking down a girl’s britches. Something about Maggie being dressed like a man fascinated him, and he had to admit that she herself seemed an interesting girl. She had given him the responsibility to discipline her, by refusing to let him keep her safe, and now she had to learn the consequences—not just the red backside she was going to get, but the embarrassment of having a man bare that backside.
“Lost your chance,” Travis said simply; he undid the button and pulled down the dungarees to reveal an undeniably cute little bottom—taut, round, and squirming. Keeping a tight hold around her waist, he began to spank it, without warning or ceremony.