Submitting Sarah (Montana Maiden Series Book 4) (2 page)

"I heard of your father's passing. I'm sorry for your loss," Tagg murmured, his tone respectful.

My father didn't care for my stepmother, Devney, or me. He'd only married her to hide his love for another man. He'd been overprotective of both of us, confining us to the ranch to ensure his secret. I stopped attending school in town when I was twelve and had remained on the ranch ever since, learning from Devney and all the books that filled the vast library. Seven years of isolation. When my father died last week, I considered myself finally free of a man's control. But I'd been wrong. I would not weep for my father; I did not mourn him. Only the life that he'd kept from me.

"If no longer your father, whose protection are you under?" Tagg asked.

"I don't know what you mean," I replied sharply. I looked down at my legs, watched the droplets of water slide down, avoiding their gazes. I could see the dark straps of the harness clearly through the transparent shift.

"You can't live in Liberty and not be under a man's protection. The Jenkins Ranch is quite a spread. I'd worry for your stepmother's safety now that she's a widow. Devney's her name, right?" Garrett questioned.

I could only nod in confirmation. There were only so many people who lived in the area and my father was a prominent, albeit cantankerous, member of the community. Even though Devney and I hadn't step foot in town in years didn't mean people weren't familiar with us.

"Do you refuse to tell us who your protector is?"

I lifted my chin, looked Garrett in the eye. "I do."

He gave a decisive nod. "Very well. Then you will go over my knee and I will spank your ass red until you tell."

GARRETT

Sarah's eyes widened at my statement. It wasn't a threat. I intended to spank her into compliance. When we discovered her, sitting at the water's edge with her legs spread wide, her shift crumpled up about her waist as she worked frantically to free herself from the harness, our world had drastically changed. It was like she was a mythical water sprite, come to rest on the shore, her red hair in fiery contrast to her alabaster skin. When she'd glanced up at us in surprise, her green eyes flared, and her full lips fell open into an “O” that had me thinking of that same mouth rounded in a similar, yet wider, around my cock.

Standing, she didn't even reach my shoulders. She was so petite. At first glance, she could have been mistaken for a slip of a girl. But up close and with her shift completely transparent, it was more than clear she was all woman. Her hips were slim, her breasts a high, firm and small handful. Her erect nipples, dark pink and large, jutted out against the thin fabric that barely, and not very successfully, covered her. The fabric clung to the dark leather that covered her pussy, yet some of the blatant and bold red hair at the apex of her thighs peeked through. Even her legs, trim and muscled, were clearly defined.

Why was she here on our land? From her evasiveness and falsehoods - she was a terrible liar – we assumed she'd run away. There was no doubt she was under a man's protection; the harness spoke volumes for her situation. Sarah Jenkins. Holy hell. I'd heard of her, even remember seeing her when she was just a child, before her father had kept her isolated on his ranch. Her red hair had always set her apart. But that had been years ago. She'd been a child then, but no longer.

Even if I didn't know who she was, it was obvious she was from Liberty. Nowhere else did a man protect a woman's maidenhead by fashioning a leather belt with a strip that ran between a woman's legs covering her pussy. She'd been confused when I mentioned a dildo and a plug, a clear indication she most assuredly wasn't married. A wife from Liberty would be extremely familiar with both. A maiden would have nothing in her pussy or ass. Only once she was married and rightfully claimed did a husband fill her the way he saw fit.

Sarah didn't seem the least bit distraught by her father's death. Being confined to the ranch for all these years might not have been pleasant for her, but he'd protected her from everything. I could thank the man for that if he wasn't six feet under because here she was, just for Tagg and me.

Her protector was clearly nowhere about, therefore that role fell to Tagg and me by proxy. Once we removed the harness, and we'd have to soon, she'd belong to us. Practically naked as she was now, she already did. Her maidenhead may still be intact, but her virtue was not. Regardless, we needed the name of her protector to tell him of her whereabouts and to claim her properly. She would tell us. I'd spank it out of her, if required.

Glancing about, I found a boulder that would work perfectly for her spanking. Sitting down upon the hard surface, I patted my thigh. "Bring her over, brother."

Her eyes widened and her skin paled even further. As she shook her head, tangles of red hair caught on the damp skin of her back. "No! I don't want to."

"You don't have to want it," Tagg said, his voice gentle, even though his intent was clear as he took her arm. "All you have to do is answer our questions. And tell the truth when you do."

She shook her head vehemently. "No."

It was unclear if she was saying no to the spanking or to answering the questions. Neither “no” was acceptable. It was obvious, at least to both of us, that we would have our way. In this, and everything else. "Very well," Tagg replied.

He easily lifted her up into his arms, small as she was. Placing her over my knees was no hardship for him, even as she struggled against him. Spreading my hand across her lower back, seeing the firm globes of her ass clearly through her wet shift, was no hardship for
me
.

She wiggled and shifted, fighting my hold, which only made my cock rise beneath her belly. There was no reason to soothe her, not yet at least. Not until we had the answers we wanted. Nothing I could do would put her at ease except turning our backs and letting her run off. But based on her actions when we discovered her, the harness was a hindrance for her. She couldn't perform the most basic of bodily functions easily without it removed.

If we undid the lock at her lower back for her, it was an outright claiming on our part. Whoever put it on her did it for just such situations. Running away, however, changed that. She forced herself, albeit unknowingly, into our protection.

And so my hand came down on her ass with a resounding smack.

She bucked at the surprise of it. "Ow!" she cried, wriggling even more. "You can't do this to me!"

"Never been spanked before?" I asked.

"No, of course not!" she hissed after my hand came down again.

I couldn't help but smile. Tagg watched how her flesh jiggled with each strike I landed. Over and over I spanked her until her ass was a bright pink and she was breathing hard. Her initially chilled skin now had a sheen of perspiration.

"We are your protectors now. In order to take care of you, you must answer our questions. Since you refuse, you are being spanked. This is
your
choice, Sarah."

She remained tight lipped.

Smack.

"Who do you belong to?" I asked.

Smack.

"No one! My father's dead. You
know
that. Now stop spanking me!"

Not until I had the answers I wanted.
Smack.

"Who put the harness on you?"

Smack. Smack.

"Please, stop, that hurts!"

I wasn't hurting her. Stinging her pride most assuredly, but I would never hurt her. If she calmed down enough, she'd realize that.

"Who put the harness on you?" I repeated.

Smack.

"Doctor Graham!" she wailed. With her admission, her shoulders slumped down and she began to cry. Not tears of pain, but frustration. Frustration that she'd been caught, that she'd been discovered practically naked, and that she'd been given a spanking.

I ran my palm over the places I'd turned bright pink, soothing them. "Good girl. That wasn't so difficult now, was it?"

Doctor Graham was a friend of ours. We were of a similar age, grew up together and had been caught in similar wild antics as boys, along with the Bridger brothers and Ian McKenzie, Liberty's sheriff. Tagg and I had stayed on the family ranch and took over the running of it when our parents died, but Doc had gone off to medical school back east, before returning and becoming Liberty's sole doctor. We’d seen him earlier in the week when we went into Liberty for supplies, but he’d not mentioned Sarah to us then.

Thankfully - and wisely - he saw fit to bring Devney and Sarah to town and under his protection instead of leaving her alone on the ranch. I could only imagine the vultures that were circling the new widow for that sizable spread and the money that went with it. And Sarah? Hell, just looking at her I knew any man would claim her on sight.

If she'd stayed in Liberty under our friend's protection and not run off, she might have had a say in her spouse. Doc would have ensured she was well matched. Now, however, she would be married to Tagg and me, regardless of her personal preference.

She didn't respond to my question.

"You are under Doctor Graham's protection?" I asked. The town doctor or the sheriff were the only two unmarried men who could offer protection to a woman without being forced to marry her. Their roles as civil servants gave them this responsibility, whether they wished it or not. Sarah would remain with Doc and in a harness until a family member could claim her, or, if none were alive, until she married.

"Yes," she sobbed. "I have no one else to do so."

"You’re a maiden?" Tagg asked, coming around to stand beside me. He'd crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at her prone form.

"Yes," she answered easily. She spoke to the ground beneath her.

Lifting her up carefully, I positioned her to stand between my thighs, my hands on her waist. She was so tiny I could almost span her girth with my fingers. Sitting as I was, we were at eye level. Her green eyes were glassy and bright with unshed tears. One slipped down her flushed cheek and I wiped it away with my thumb.

"You have two choices, Sarah."

She bit her lip and sighed, flicked her gaze to me, then up at my brother.

"We take you back to Liberty to Doctor Graham."

Her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned as her back stiffened. That didn't seem to appeal to her. "Or...," she murmured.

"Or you become under our protection instead," Tagg added.

She tried to back up, shaking her head, but I held her in place easily enough. A lock of hair fell down across her face and she tucked it behind her ear. "No. Absolutely not. I could also get back on my horse and continue riding east."

"I bet that harness is going to be an issue for you soon enough," I commented.

Her cheeks flamed.

"I'll take it off of you right now," I offered.

Hope lit her eyes, then wariness. She was smart to see motive behind my statement. "But...."

"I'll take it off, but since Doc isn't here, we'll be the ones in charge of your maidenhead."

She darted her gaze between us once again. "Both of you?"

"Both of us," Tagg confirmed with a nod of his head. "We're brothers. We run the ranch together and we protect a woman together."

The word he didn't use was
claim.
By taking the harness off Sarah, we were claiming her. She just didn't know it.

TAGG

Sarah was beautiful. Utterly beautiful, with hair red like a burning sunset, long and thick down her back. She was so petite, so dainty, that I felt sure I would break her, hurt her just by holding her arm. She was such a fragile thing, until I looked in her eyes. There, I could see a stubbornness that made her a feisty force to be reckoned with. She clearly had a mind of her own, and a sharp one at that. Somehow she'd escaped Doc's clutches and made it as far as our ranch. But the one thing she hadn't considered, probably hadn't even known existed until very recently, was the harness she wore over her pussy.

When I saw her on the ground, trying to cut the thick leather with such intense focus that she hadn't heard us approach, I knew if she'd have time, she would have completed her task. She wanted us to let her go, so she could follow through with whatever plan she'd contrived.

Like hell we'd let her go.

There was no need to even talk with Garrett about it; we were of similar minds here. I had less than pure thoughts of her; no doubt Garrett did as well. But we were both gentlemen, unlike the next man - or men - who might come upon her. My jaw clenched tightly at what could have happened to her if we hadn't found her. There were outlaws, ranch hands who hadn't seen a woman in a month, and drunkards more than eager to find a woman, willing or not. This untamed land was not safe for a woman alone. The fact that she'd been isolated on her father's ranch for years made her even more vulnerable. She didn't know it, but we'd saved her.

"Fine," she fumed. "I just need you to remove the harness."

"Sarah," I said, forcing her to tilt her head up to look at me. When she did, I continued. "Just to be clear. Unlike Doc, we won't be protecting you for another man, your future husband. We take the belt off, we take you."

Her mouth fell open and I saw her little pink tongue. "Take me?"

"Like Garrett said, we'll be in charge of your maidenhead. That means we decide when we take it."

"You?" She pointed at both of us, confused.

"Us."

She stepped back and Garrett let her go. Her shift had dried so that it no longer clung to her luscious body, now only offering a hint of a curve of breast, the tight peak of a nipple, the swell of her hip. The rest was hidden, yet burned into my brain. I didn't need to see it to
see
it.

"I will keep it upon my person then." She nodded as if validating her choice with herself. She was so self assured it was stunning to watch. Her father might have offered her protection, but he didn't make her biddable like the women we knew who bowed to their father or protector's wishes, or her husband's. Most of Liberty women were so submissive that they'd become meek. When we showed Sarah our dominance - and it was only a matter of when - she would learn her true power. By submitting, she would be the one in control.

It was difficult to discern if her change of opinion was because it would be the two of us taking her, claiming her, fucking her together, or if she needed more time to formulate some kind of escape. Perhaps both. As if we'd let her go. Any fears she might have about being claimed by two men could easily be assuaged, one orgasm at a time.

Garrett sighed and stood. Between the two of us, I was the taller, however he was broader and heavier. Regardless, the two of us together were quite formidable and I was impressed by her lack of fear, the way she stood her ground, even though it was slowly sinking from beneath her, like quicksand.