Nola (13 page)

What he did do
surprised her even more than what she had imagined. He stood in front of her in
all of his company president glory and coaxed her onto her knees, then undid
his pants and arranged himself so that his member was inches from her face.

This was
something she had only just begun doing for him - at least voluntarily. In
coming into her own sexually while under his gentler tutelage, she found that
she liked the power she had over him. It was nice to know that he enjoyed it
when she touched him at least as much as the
reverse,
and she had to admit that the rush of power was quite considerable. Brandon
wasn't the type of man to let his guard down with anyone - she didn't think
that he'd ever even done that with his father. But she knew that when she held
him in her mouth, he wasn't thinking about any one or
any
thing
else but what was going on right then and there. He wasn't
thinking about the latest merger, he wasn't thinking about stocks, he wasn't
thinking about what was for dinner.

He was thinking
about how incredible it felt to have her mouth around him - she knew, because
that was all she could think
of
when he took her into
his own mouth.

She'd never
knelt before him, though - they usually made love on their bed, although they
had christened the bathroom quite heavily - and she really wasn't sure about
the position, until she began to nibble on him and happened to look up.

He was looking down
at her, his expression softer than she'd ever seen it, one hand cupping but not
guiding her cheek with the gentlest of touches, and their eyes collided almost
violently.

All of a sudden,
Brandon had reached down and grabbed the backs of her thighs, lifting her up
and settling her onto him in one smooth motion. Nola sank down on that thick,
stiff pole of his inch by nerve filled inch, held in place and completely
unable to stop the invasion, helpless and invaded and loving every minute of
it.

She wasn't even
able to lock her ankles round him - her legs were too short and his waist was
to thickly muscular. He held her as if she didn't weigh a thing; of course his
cock was bearing most of her weight and he wasn't about to complain about that.
It wasn't long before Nola found her back up against the expensively paneled
wall, her husband driving into her roughly,
his
hands
looped behind her back, his fingers curved over her shoulders, keeping her
firmly in place to receive the full force of his thrusts.

Given free reign
- such as when they were alone at the Hampton cottage or the cabin at Lake
George - Nola found that she was most embarrassingly loud in her pleasure. But
she knew that Josh was just outside the door, and she did her best not to make
so much as a squeak.

Brandon,
however, lived for the way she screamed when she exploded, and even for those
small whimpers she made that only he could hear. He adored that she was so
vocal, even though he knew it embarrassed the heck out of her - or maybe
because it did. He always made sure that she came along on the ride with him,
and this time was no different. He wet one of his fingers in his mouth and
reached between them to play with that eager button of hers as he rode her,
knowing full well how hot being filled and rubbed drove her out of her mind.

He loved
watching her struggle not to make too much noise - he loved making it that much
harder for her to be so demure. He, for one, didn't give a damn if the whole
world heard, much less Josh, who was more than likely too wrapped up in what he
was doing to pay any attention.

Brandon had
wanted to spend a lot more time letting him pleasure her with that beautiful
mouth of hers, but when he'd looked down at her, he just couldn't wait another
moment.

It was the exact
opposite of how he felt the night he had to punish her for creating such a
furor over the suffrage movement amongst their friends. They took more time
coming together that evening than they had in the entire time they were
married, and for the first time, he would have to say that they had finally,
truly made love.

In fact, in the
aftermath, when he was just holding her loosely and they were both limp with
exhaustion, just as he opened his mouth to tell her that he loved her - even
though he was going to be roasting her butt within the next few minutes - he
was amazed to hear her soft, whispered confession of exactly the same thing
from where she was huddled against him.

"You do?" he
asked, elated. "I was just about to say the same thing to you!"

He hugged her
tight, kissing her hard,
then
settling down to snuggle
some more. "I'm sorry I was such a bear to you when we first got married."

"I'm sorry you
were, too," she shot back unrepentantly.

"Well, I wasn't
going to let you run roughshod over me."

Nola snorted
loudly.
"Like anyone could."

"Yes, well, I
wanted to establish early on who was going to be in charge. I didn't want to
have to be arguing with you about it."

Her lower lip
pouting out impossibly far, she countered, "I never argued, did I?"

"No,
because I wouldn't let you."
He kissed the top of her head, knowing
that he had to do something now that he really didn't want to do. He couldn't
imagine a worse time to have to spank a woman than when they had just revealed
their love for each other. But that seemed to be exactly what was happening.

"And speaking of
not letting you, I'm afraid that you're looking at a spanking for trying to
recruit amongst our friends."

"That's not
fair!" Nola pouted, knowing it was no use to protest but needing not to go
gently into that awful position.

"Go get me the
belt, Nola," he proclaimed as he stepped out from under the warmth of the
bedclothes to go stand at the end of the bed.

She wanted to
say no. She wanted to scream and cry at the indignity of it, and she wanted to
run away. But Nola didn't do any of those things. Instead, she did exactly as
she was told, went to the closet and
and
fetched it
quickly,
meetig
him at that awful spot and
hading
him the belt he favored for use on her bottom.

"You know what
to do," was all he said.

He didn't
lecture her this time. He'd really already done that, and Brandon hated to
repeat himself. Instead, he simply set about welting every inch of her bottom,
then just the barest tops of her thighs. He kept the area he struck very tight,
so that he couldn't help but hit the same places over and over again, hopefully
driving his point home. If she had been just a bit more virulent in her
approach, she could have cost the company - and thus the family - an enormous
amount of money, considering that the husbands of the wives she saw socially
were the men he dealt with in business every single day.

And he wasn't
about to stand idly by and let her hurt the family, whether she meant to or
not, and he meant this to be a severe lesson that he hoped would make her more
careful of just that in the future.

If he had asked,
Nola would have told him that he had more than achieved his goal. She had more
than learned her lesson when he got through with her. The strap always hurt
tremendously when he wielded it, but it seemed that it was a thousand times
worse this time, and she wondered if the heights of ecstasy she'd achieved at
his hands moments ago had anything to do with it.

But she was
certainly going to keep her mouth shut about suffrage around their friends.

Besides, she
thought to herself when she got her brain back and he finally put the belt to
one side, she'd already reached as many women as she thought she would, so
there really wasn't any reason to mention it again.

Women in their -
in her - position didn't have much impetus to change things. They were
generally well cared for and had everything they wanted - as long as their
husbands wanted them to have it. She was somewhat bemused to find herself in
very much the same place - and was even more surprised to find how much
submitting to her husband excited her in that special way.

She liked to
think, though it might well have simply been a benign form of self delusion,
that she remained a strong, independent woman, but she realized that her
independence had been severely curtailed, although she had to hand it to
Brandon for supporting her in her crusade rather than actively trying to squash
her interests. Judging by the reaction to her ideas, the majority of men out
there would never have allowed her to continue in her pursuits.

Brandon tucked
her under the covers then joined her there, hugging her tight as they fell
asleep in a big heap. For the first time since they'd gotten married, Nola
slept in her husband's arms, knowing that wonderful feeling of loving and being
loved, and she knew that there was nothing better in this world.

The very next
morning, though, she was unsure of pretty much everything. She awoke with her
husband, which had become her custom since she sometimes accompanied him in to
work, but her first thought wasn't how much she would have preferred to just
sleep the day away, or even what she might want for breakfast.

In fact it was
the direct opposite of what she might want for breakfast. Her first thought was
that whatever it was that she had eaten last night - that damned lemon chicken
she loved so much - had not set well with her at all, and she bolted to the
bathroom with her hand over her mouth.

Brandon heard
the commotion and followed her in, holding her hair out of the way and holding
her forehead while she was wracked with violent spasms. He held her until they
passed, then carried her limp body back to lay her down gently on the bed.

Embarrassed at
having been so sick for some reason, Nola threw her arm over her face. "I'm
sorry. It must've been the chicken, is all I can think."

Brandon looked
at her
skeptically,
a garbage can from the bathroom
held at the ready in his hands, just in case she couldn't make it to the
toilet. "I had more of it than you did, and I'm fine."

"So, I have some
sort of stomach flu," she said petulantly, throwing off the covers.

Brandon replaced
them just as quickly, not letting her get out of bed. "If you have
a stomach
flu, then you're going to stay home. Even if
that's not what it is, you're still going to stay home."

"What else could
it be?"

He could see by
her clear face that she truly didn't have any idea that she might be pregnant
and this might be morning sickness, and sat down beside her, crowding her over
a bit to take her into his arms. "Well, it could be that you're pregnant."

"I'm pregnant?"
she asked, and he had to wonder if she had no idea how that might have
happened, either.

"Well, we don't
know that. But one of the early signs is often being sick in the mornings."

"Oh."

He kissed her
quick on the top of her head, saying, "I'll have the doctor come over this
evening. In the mean time, I'll have someone bring up some dry bread or
crackers and weak tea. That might help."

Nola didn't have
time to ask him how he knew all this about pregnancy and pregnant women, and
she wasn't at all sure she wanted to hear the answer anyway.

It turned out
that the news was very happy - she was pregnant, as proclaimed by the doctor,
with whom she had had a fight about just how intimately he wanted to examine
her. Brandon had had to come to the poor man's rescue, because Nola had had him
backed into a corner in no time at all for the mere suggestion that he might
have to lay hands on her.

He managed to
convince her that that was to be expected to a certain extent, especially
when
one was pregnant, and that it was okay with him, and
that he'd be there with her for the whole examination, and he was.

His father was
over the moon, and there was a definite feeling amongst the three of them that
they had wished that Alexander had been able to be with them for this event.

Brandon had
assumed that Nola would want to curtail her usual activities because she was
enceinte, but that was far from the truth. She might have been incredibly sick
in the mornings - and she was - but she just slyly shifted all of her
appointments and meetings to the afternoon. She even continued - or wanted to
continue - to come into work with him, although he put the kibosh on that
rather quickly, and tried to suggest to her that she might want to slow down,
but she wasn't having any of it.

She was still
attending rallies - nearby rallies - in her fifth month, when she was quite
obviously pregnant. Other ladies of her station didn't set foot outside their
houses when they were with child. His wife was off gallivanting hither and yon
fighting for women to get the vote.

She was
exhausting herself, and he wasn't going to have any more of it. He finally put
his foot down - much later than he should have, as far as he - and Geoffrey -
were
concerned, at dinner the next night, which she was
barely able to stay awake for, although she roused herself more than enough to
know that she wasn't at all happy with that pronouncement.