Daddy’s Ranch: A Cowboy Daddy Romance by Dinah McLeod – Extended Preview

“Did it ever occur to you, Ashley, if you had just told me the truth, told me you wanted to stay home, that I would have let you?”

I peeked up at him to see if he was teasing. Nope. Dead serious. I swallowed hard and offered the only answer I could. “No. It didn’t.” The words came out tremulous.

Justin ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Well, I would have. But the fact is you didn’t choose to be honest with me. What is our rule?”

I loved the way he called it our rule, even though I knew I wouldn’t like what I had to say next. “To tell the truth.”

“Right. And you broke that rule.”

Surely he didn’t expect me to answer that, right?

“Twice.”

My head snapped up. “That’s not fair!”

He met my indignation with level-headed coolness. “From where I sit, it’s not only fair, it’s accurate.”

“But… but… I didn’t!” I moaned, feeling all of eight years old. Maybe the humiliating position he held me in was what did it.

“Excuse me?” Justin arched a warning brow. “I seem to recall somethin’ about you being sick.”

“Oh.” My lower lip protruded. “Well… yes. But only because I didn’t know if you would understand!”

He was a fair and reasonable daddy. I could see him considering my arguments, weighing the merits. It helped me relax, if only slightly. I knew I was in trouble no matter what, but the question was, how much?

“I’m sorry, I know we haven’t been doin’ this long, but that does not mean I can condone lying for my little girl. New rule: no lying. Period.”

I scowled. “I’m not sure how I’m going to remember all these new rules,” I muttered, my lips drawing down in a pout. “Are you going to write them down?”

A sharp, resounding smack landed down the center of my butt.

“Ow!” I cried out as the pain shot across my tender skin. I reached back to rub, but Daddy easily caught my wrist.

“Maybe I’ll have you write them down,” he suggested.

I shuddered—not just at the thought, but his suddenly severe tone. “I’m sorry, Daddy. No lying,” I repeated dutifully.

“Good. Now that we got that settled, there’s the matter of your punishment.”

My lower lip poked out—equal parts petulance and defiance—but I thought better of commenting this time.

“I’m gonna spank you, of course,” he said, musing to himself. “But then what?”

I opened my mouth to protest, to insist a spanking was bad enough, but the residual pain tingling along the center of my butt stopped me.

“Okay, I’ve decided,” he said in his solemn Southern drawl. “First, we’re gonna start with your warmup.”

I winced at the new pressure against my lower back. Not that it hurt, but it indicated my punishment was about to begin. Not that he started right away. In fact, he paused so long I craned my head around to look at him.

As soon as my eyes landed on him, he spoke. “I want you to know that this is going to be a very different kind of spankin’.”

I thought of the stinging smacks he’d laid on the center of my butt before sending me to work yesterday. “But you’ve spanked me before.”

Daddy chuckled. “I gave your bottom a good tingle, that’s all. This is different.”

“But—”

“There’s no explainin’ it to you. I’m just gonna have to show you. Just remember no matter how much it hurts, you earned this punishment.” And then he began. He hiked my gown up further, and the cool air kissed my backside, an eerie, unwelcome reminder of what I had coming.

I didn’t know if Daddy had given that little speech to freak me out, or to make the punishment worse, but it had worked whether he meant it to or not! He hadn’t even started, and already my belly was a mass of knots and my eyes prickled with preemptive, anxious tears.

But nothing could have prepared me. I could tell the difference from the first sharp, resounding smack. And once he began, his massive, callused hand smacking against my defenseless bare bottom, he didn’t stop. He began at the top curve of my butt, then went from cheek to cheek without even the slightest pause between spanks.

They didn’t hurt, exactly. They were firm, thorough spanks, but they landed again and again, raining down without ceasing. And as he worked his way down, I couldn’t be sure whether they had increased in strength or if it was just because they wouldn’t stop. But either way, before he’d even reached the lower curve of my ass I was gasping and writhing over his lap. I would have begged for mercy, too, if I’d been able to catch my breath.

As the burning assault continued, the pain spreading to cover the entire surface of my orbs, the tears that prickled my eyes began to fall. As soon as the drops of remorse hit my cheeks, I let go. What started out as a soft sniffle became a wail, which morphed into a bawling fest. Then I tried to wiggle my butt out of spankable range, which only resulted in a firmer grip on my lower back and three rapid-fire, heavy-handed smacks to my lower thighs.

“Yeow!” I cried out, arching my back.

“Behave and be still,” he growled in a voice that was so fierce it didn’t even sound like his.

If I hadn’t been afraid by now—and I was too smart not to be be—that would have done it.

Even though I obeyed and went stiff as a board draped over his knees, it didn’t matter. I’d made him mad, and the harrowing intensity he’d delivered with those spanks to my thighs was only slightly lessened when he went back to walloping my behind.

“That hurts!” I screamed. I meant it to be filled to the brim with anger, but as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I burst into tears. And not the quiet, polite tears, but a full-on roar of keening that made me know my throat would be sore in the morning. Not my best moment.

“It’s s’posed to hurt,” he informed me, his hand in rhythmic tempo as he continued his blistering assault on my plump globes.

The burn built as the smacks continued. The pain was an ache that reached deeper, burrowing into my skin like a searing flame.

“Not… this… much!” I protested, scissoring my legs. “Daddy! Please!”

“You be still,” he commanded. Chastising licks rained down, one atop the other. He’d worked his way back up my ass, retracing the path of fire he’d already lit. “I won’t tell you again.” He punctuated the warning with firm smacks that cracked off my bottom sounding like shots fired from a gun.

But it wasn’t what it sounded like that worried me. I hardly had time to think about it, because this new, fresh assault on my blistered rear was more than I could take.

And then it got worse. Because through the haze of my tears I could see something in his hand. “What… what is that?” I gasped.

“A ruler paddle.”

The words sounded nonchalant to my ears, matter of fact and nothing more. But they inspired fear that shot through me like the tremor of an earthquake. “Wh-what’s that…? Daddy?” I added as an afterthought, hoping that it might inspire leniency.

He held it out for my inspection. It was the same size as a ruler, but was made of varnished wood and was at least three inches thick.

I swallowed hard. “What… what are you gonna use that for, Daddy?”

“You know what it’s for. It’s for blistering your naughty behind.”

I moaned piteously. “Please, Daddy, please. I won’t ever lie again, I swear! I won’t! Not ever!”

“That’s good to hear. And to make sure you always remember that promise, I’m gonna use this paddle here to impart a damn good lesson.”

“But… but… I’ll be good!”

“I expect you to. You lie still and keep that promise.” Then he went back to work.

From the very first swat of that wood against my tender, throbbing cheek, I was in agony. I had thought it couldn’t get worse, but I knew in that instant just how wrong I’d been. My tears became a hot flood gushing from bleary, sore eyes. Cries became desolate wails, mixed in with the steady whap! of the wood smacking into my skin.

It was the worst spanking anyone had ever received. I was sure of it.

“Daddy…” I wailed miserably.

“Almost there,” he said, his voice soothing even as he continued to deliver hard, chastising licks.

I wanted to fight. I wanted to roll out of the way, to stop this. But I also had just made a promise, and just as Justin had said, I remembered it even as I desperately wanted to do whatever I could to stop the torment I was in.

“Almost there,” he said again.

I knew my daddy didn’t like to repeat himself, so I got the feeling there was a special reason for him doing it this time.

“Brace yourself.”

A gasp wrenched from my parted lips, and I would have protested except I couldn’t speak. So I grabbed a fistful of bedsheet in one hand and gripped his leg in the other.

The hard, unforgiving wood slammed into the skin just below my bottom, where I sat. The pain was immediate and it was intense. The burn moved across my thighs and left me spluttering in disbelief. I had never felt anything like it, and I hoped to God I never would again.

But before I could even give voice to my most desperate hopes, another smack landed just below the first. It seared into my skin with angry fingers of pain.

“You will not lie. Not to me, not to anyone. Ever again.” His order was so quiet, spoken with such quiet conviction, I almost didn’t hear it. Another kiss of that wooden paddle placed even lower on my thighs jump-started my hearing.

“Yes, Sir. I w-won’t lie, S-Sir. Not to y-you.” I licked my lips between stuttered words. “O-or to an-any o-one.”

“Good girl,” he murmured, caressing the curve of my ass.

I shivered. His hand felt good, even on my blazing rear. The mixture of pain and pleasure threatened to send me off a cliff.

Without warning, another solid swat landed, leaving a throbbing soreness in its wake.

“Are we d-done y-yet?” I ground out through gritted teeth as more tears dropped onto my wet cheeks.

“Have you learned your lesson yet?”

“Yes, Sir! Yes, Daddy! Please!”

“Okay.”

I was so shocked, I lifted my head, struggling to see his expression through my blurred vision. “Re-really?”

“Yes, really. As soon as you show me you’re my good girl.”

“How… how do I do that, Sir?”

“Spread your legs.”

I wanted to show him that I meant it, that I would be his good girl, I really did. But at the same time, I knew it was not pleasure he had in mind. I couldn’t even have said how I knew—I just felt it in my bones.

He waited me out, showing so much patience that it gave me the courage to do what he asked of me.

My legs quivered as I slid them apart, but I managed.

As soon as I had, the punishing ruler spanked the inside of my tender thighs.

“Owww!” I moaned at the top of my voice. It smarted like I’d sat on a hornet’s nest and was now paying the price.

Another ruler smack landed, then another. He worked the ruler back and forth until my thighs screamed for mercy.

Sobs racked my body. I cried so hard that tears burned my eyes and pieces of hair stuck to my face. By the time my cries softened enough to hear anything other than my own hoarse wails, I realized he had set the ruler down.

“You wanna sit up now?”

“Mmm-hmm,” was all I could manage.

Justin helped me up, holding me on his lap.

I’d never had anything touch my thighs even approaching the sting of that ruler and I’d had no idea how much it would hurt even once the spanking was over. I had to open my thighs to keep them from touching and causing even more pain than I was already in. At that moment, my blistered ass on his hard knee, my thighs wide as they throbbed, I had never felt sorrier for myself.

“I’m sor-ry,” I croaked out, ducking my head and laying it on his chest.

“I don’t like spanking you,” he began.

My hand went in search of his cock and finding it my fingers wrapped around his hard shaft. “Yes, you do,” I giggled.

When another spank hit the side of my leg, I yelped and looked up at him with wide, betrayed eyes.

“No backtalk—remember?”

I hadn’t, not until the sting on my leg reminded me. “This is going to be hard, isn’t it?” I sniffled.

“It will take time for both of us to get used to,” he soothed, caressing the side of my face. “But I reckon it’ll be more than worth it.”

How did he do that? With nothing more than a lopsided smile and a wink, he set me at ease even though my ass and thighs screamed at me to hate him forever.

“Now, for the rest of your punishment.”

“What?” I yelped. “You mean—” But I stopped my screech of indignation when he held up a warning finger.

“I take lying very seriously, little Ashley, as you’re about to find out.”