A Wilder Heart Read online

“Mmm hmm, come on.”

  “No,” Aster said, digging her heels in. “I’m not coming on until we understand each other.”

  “I think we do understand one another,” Owen said. “I understand that you’re a spoiled little girl who wants to have her own way and you understand that you’re going to be spanked if you keep acting up. That’s a pretty simple understanding.”

  Aster’s eyes narrowed as her mouth fell open in outrage. “How... what... that is not the understanding. The understanding is that if you put a finger on me again I’ll make you regret it.”

  “Aster, are you packed?” Owen ignored her threat, probably trying to avoid further conflict. “We will need to leave in an hour, so I suggest you stop wasting time fighting with me and get ready.”

  “I’ll waste time fighting with you if I want to,” Aster snapped. “You’re not in charge of me, understand? You provide me a service.”

  He did not like the statement and probably not the tone either, judging by the way his expression changed. He had been keeping up a professional veneer of detachment, but after Aster’s scathing words a disciplinary light suddenly danced in his eyes. “In a minute I’m going to provide you the service of smacking your butt until you’re sorry.”

  Aster picked up a hairbrush from her suitcase and held it out at him in a vaguely menacing manner. “Don’t you dare come near me.”

  Owen’s smirk returned as he looked at the hairbrush, then at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “What do you mean?” Aster frowned and looked at the hairbrush. It was a perfectly nice, large, wooden-backed brush with a plethora of bristles. True, it wasn’t the most fearsome weapon in the world, but it was better than nothing.

  “You’ve picked what you want to be spanked with, I see,” he said, his mouth spreading in a rakish grin. “A hairbrush is just what you need, I agree.”

  “Shut up!” Aster swiftly put the brush behind her back. “That was not what I meant.”

  “Are you sure?” He was thoroughly amused now. That was one of the most maddening things about him, the way that he seemed to find her simultaneously something to laugh at and something to discipline. She really couldn’t believe her father was inflicting such a man upon her.

  “You’re ridiculous,” she said, stuffing the brush deep into her suitcase just in case he was serious about using it on her person. “That’s utterly... that’s barbaric, that’s what it is.”

  “Of course, you prefer being spanked by hand,” Owen replied, his lips still twisted in a smile.

  The problem was that she strongly suspected that he was not joking. Aster sat down on her bed, protecting the relevant area just in case Owen should get any silly ideas.

  “Go away,” she said. “I’ll be ready when I’m ready.”

  “You need a lesson in manners,” Owen observed. “And you’re going to get one if you don’t apologize for being so rude.”

  “I am not,” Aster said. “I’ll scream the house down if you dare touch me.”

  “Mmm hmm,” Owen said. “And what are you going to do when we’re in New Zealand?”

  “I’ll scream the country down,” Aster replied.

  Owen shook his head at her, his expression a mixture of disappointment and decision. “You’re definitely in for a few good sound spankings.”

  “No, I’m not,” Aster replied. “And I’m not scared of your threats either.”

  “They’re not threats. They’re warnings, and given the way you’re ignoring them, it’s only a matter of time before you end up with a sore backside.”

  Thoroughly embarrassed by the way he was speaking to her and the way it made her feel, Aster reached into her suitcase, plucked out a pair of rolled socks and threw them at him.

  “You do like to throw things, don’t you?” he growled as he advanced upon her. Aster squealed and scrambled back, but she was far too slow. He caught her by the ankle, flipped her over onto her stomach and plied his palm against her skirt-clad bottom half a dozen times.

  Squirming against her coverlet, Aster squealed muffled complaints.

  “You do NOT throw things,” Owen lectured, emphasizing the ‘not’ with a particularly hard slap.

  “It was a sock, you giant pussy!”

  It was maybe not the best idea to throw an insult at the man whose hard hand was burning her cheeks, but Aster was well down a path of disobedient defiance and she really didn’t care. He might be able to spank her, but there was no way she was going to let him know that it affected her in any way. She was also not going to take it lying down. She clawed her way up the bed, grabbed one of her many pillows and smacked it against Owen as hard as she could. The pillow caught him in the face, momentarily blocking the spanking.

  “You brat,” he laughed, pushing it away and returning to the task at hand. Her skirt was riding up her thighs, providing less and less protection and less and less modesty.

  She wielded the pillow again, catching him once more about the head. This time he did not laugh, he spanked her harder so she yowled at the top of her lungs. The thin fabric of skirt and panties was doing very little to protect her from the repeated whacking of the flat of his hand, and her wriggling and fighting was fairly ineffective as well.

  “Stop it!” Aster squealed, kicking out at him. She caught him in the lower abdomen and didn’t feel the slightest bit bad about it given that he was hitting her bottom.

  “Feisty,” he noted, using one strong arm to sweep her leg away. “And spoiled,” he said, slapping her low across her cheeks under the rise of her skirt. “But you’re not going to fight your way out of this.”

  Aster wriggled around and kicked out again. This time she didn’t make any kind of contact because Owen was ready for her. He knelt on the bed next to her, making it impossible to kick him and slid his hand along the length of her back and onto the nape of her neck. There he kept his grip as he slapped her now panty-clad bottom over and over.

  Unwilling to lose, Aster bucked up, got her knees under her belly and rolled away from him. The movement neatly dislodged his grip and simultaneously got her bottom out of the firing line. She ended up on her side, panting with her arms outstretched toward Owen to dissuade him from grabbing her again.

  The bed was a mess and so was she. He was not. His tousle-haired charm was at its height as he grinned at her with that broad smile which made him heart-stoppingly handsome. “Bit of a scrapper, aren’t you?”

  Aster had never thought of herself as such, but she was proving to be a lot of things she’d never thought of herself as. She nodded and pushed her hair out of her face. “You expect me to just lie there and let you spank me?”

  “Once you’ve had a bit of training.” He winked.

  She had no idea what he meant by that, but she was glad the spanking had stopped for the moment. That didn’t mean her bottom didn’t hurt, it was beset with a slow blaze, which was sinking through her flesh in spite of the fact that his palm was no longer falling.

  “That was not okay,” she muttered, rubbing her backside.

  “I agree,” Owen said. “You were rude.”

  “I was!” Aster stared at him. “I don’t think it matters what I do if you hit me.”

  “And I think you need to learn that consequences exist,” Owen replied. “You’ve been protected from them all your life as far as I can tell. A little heat in your cheeks isn’t going to hurt you.”

  Aster threw the pillow at him to prove that she had not learned anything. He caught it before it hit him and put it back on her bed.

  “I don’t have time to wrestle with you right now,” he said. “We really do have to get ready to leave. I’ll spank you in New Zealand.”

  “You damn well won’t.”

  “I bloody well will,” he said with another one of those rakish little winks. “You’ve got forty minutes. Get packing.”

  “I’m already packed,” Aster said, reaching into her suitcase and finding something else to throw at him. Thin fabric flew through the air
and landed on his lap. This time he didn’t look as annoyed as the previous times, and when Aster saw what she’d thrown, she knew why. It was a red lace thong.

  “Give that back,” she said, snatching it out of his lap.

  He stood up, effectively standing over her still curled up form. “Thirty-nine minutes, he said. “Hope you’re ready, because we’re leaving on time.”

  There was no way they were leaving on time. Aster was going to make sure of that. Maybe it was petty revenge, but petty revenge was better than no revenge. As Owen left the room, she started unpacking her suitcase. When he returned twenty minutes later to give her the twenty-minute notice, she had returned all her clothes to their respective places and the open, empty suitcase was sitting on the bed.

  “What’s this?”

  “What’s what?” Aster asked the question innocently. She was flicking through one of the magazines with her face on the front of it, and was gratified to see that everyone in it was possessed of such incredible flaws that hers seemed minimized as a result.

  “You’re not ready.” His tone was flat.

  “Oh, I’m ready,” Aster said with a smirk of her own. “Ready to do whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it, because I don’t take orders from employees.”

  Owen’s hands went to his hips as he looked at her with an expression that spoke to frustration. “Aster, we’re flying half way around the world in less than three hours. This isn’t the time to be a spoiled little brat.”

  “I don’t see how that relates to me,” Aster said, shrugging. “I’m just doing whatever I want, as is my right.” She flipped through a few more pages, ignoring him until he walked to the side of her bed, grabbed the magazine out of her hand and rolled it up in his own.

  “You have three seconds to get up and get packing.”

  “Or what?”

  Three seconds elapsed more quickly than Aster had imagined and she found the answer to her question when he took her by the arm and once more flipped her over onto her stomach, bringing the rolled magazine down on her skirt-clad bottom. It wasn’t at all painful, but it was embarrassing to be swatted that way.

  “Get. Up. And. Pack,” he said, bringing the magazine down across her bottom with each and every word. “Or I’ll get rid of this magazine and use that hairbrush.”

  Aster squirmed around in an effort to free herself from his grasp, but he had a much better grip this time and her wriggling around only lead to more swatting.

  “Are you going to pack? Or are you going to keep testing me?” He paused a moment, leaving her splayed on the bed with her free hand angling back to protect her cheeks. That earned her a swat to the palm of her hand.

  “Owen!” Aster squealed his name. “Let me go already!”

  To her surprise, he let her go. She sat up, pushed her hair out of her face and scowled at him. “You have to stop doing that.”

  “I’ll stop doing that when you stop being a brat,” he informed her. “Now pack.”

  “In a bit.”

  “No. Now.” He planted himself by the side of her bed, folding his arms across his chest.

  “Are you just going to stand there?”

  “I’m going to make sure you actually get ready, yes,” he said. “Seeing as you’ve proven that you need supervision.”

  Aster sighed deeply. “Go away and let me get ready.”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m not getting ready.”

  “Fine. Get your hairbrush then, and get over my knee. I’ve had about enough of this.”

  Aster screwed her face up at Owen, unable to believe how he was treating her. He was so damn overbearing. A small part of her knew it was because she’d spent the day alternately throwing things and then refusing to prepare for her flight, but the larger part of her put the blame on him. He rubbed her the wrong way. Actually, he smacked her the wrong way.

  “You’ve had about enough of this,” she said. “How do you think I feel?”

  “Why don’t you tell me how you feel?” he suggested. “Seeing as you’re obviously all twisted up about something.”

  Did he really want to know how she felt? Somehow Aster doubted that. He was a smack first, ask questions later kind of guy. Though, now that she thought about it, he had already smacked her, so maybe this was the asking questions part of proceedings.

  “I feel like I’ve had a hard couple of days,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been mocked by everyone in the country, if not the world and now I have you... doing things to me.”

  “Well,” he said. “If you pack, I can promise you in twelve or so hours you’ll only have one of those problems.” He smiled one of those charming little smiles at her, and just for a moment, Aster felt better.

  Chapter Three

  The following hours passed in a whirl. There was a tearful but excited farewell to her father, and then a frankly tense ride to the airport. Aster had not traveled much internationally. Unlike other children of the rich and privileged, her world had been kept deliberately pedestrian for much of her life. Scholastic pursuits had kept her largely grounded, so this would be her first trip overseas, and a big one at that. New Zealand lay half a day away, in the very corner of the globe. She knew globes didn’t technically have corners, but if the world had a corner, New Zealand was in it, far away from almost everything else. Well, apart from Australia, but Australia was also pretty far away from everything, unless you counted Indonesia... and Thailand...

  “Aster, put away the atlas, we need to board,” Owen said, tapping her on the knee.

  Aster had purchased the book at the airport bookstore, it being one of the very few items there that didn’t have her mug shot prominently displayed on the cover. It had proved to be quite an interesting read, second only to the New Zealand guidebook that she’d also purchased.

  “Says here that New Zealanders are relaxed, friendly and down to earth,” Aster said. “What happened to you?”

  “Cute,” Owen drawled as they headed toward the plane.

  “Doesn’t say anything at all about New Zealand men being overbearing, domineering and paternalistic,” Aster said, squinting at the pages.

  “Those are some big words,” Owen replied. “None of them change the fact that you got what you deserved. And you’ll get a lot more if you keep it up.”

  “Keep what up? Objecting to your heavy-handed approach to being a bodyguard? You know you’re supposed to get rough with people who might want to hurt me. You’re not supposed to get rough with me.”

  Owen put his hand lightly on the back of her neck. “I’m not even close to getting rough with you,” he said in a low growl.

  She squirmed in response, excited by what sounded like carnal promise in his voice. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was just a casual statement, but she couldn’t help her mind wandering as they boarded the plane and were seated in the very comfortable area in the front where the chairs were wide and the air hostesses had broader smiles. She caught a brief glance of the rear of the plane where seats half the size were packed in next to one another with only a thin plastic armrest between them.

  “People sit back there the whole time?” She screwed her nose up. “That doesn’t seem comfortable.”

  “It’s not,” Owen said, stretching his legs out next to her. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”

  “I know exactly how lucky I am,” Aster disagreed. “I’m not like those other Hollywood brats. I’ve never even lived in Hollywood. I went to a regular school, I did regular things.”

  “How many ponies did you have growing up?”

  “Five, why?”

  “What was your first car?”

  “An Aston Mar—” Aster shook her head. “No. You can’t say that made me spoiled.”

  Owen smiled and shook his head. “You don’t know what regular is, Aster. It’s okay. It’s not your fault. You didn’t spoil yourself.”

  “I’m not spoiled! My father went out of his way to make sure I wasn’t.”

  “Your fathe
r went out of his way to make sure you were protected. It’s not the same thing as making sure you weren’t spoiled.”

  “I’ve worked hard for what I’ve got,” Aster said, knowing that wasn’t entirely true. “I mean, I’ve worked hard to do well in school...” she trailed off because Owen was looking at her with an expression that told her he wasn’t going to believe her no matter what she said.

  “You’re a judgmental jerk.” She scowled at him. “And you’re not very nice.” She put her headset on and started toying with the monitor in front of her. She was more than annoyed at Owen, she was hurt. He’d made a whole lot of judgments about her after only knowing her for a matter of hours.

  The flight to New Zealand was long and uneventful. Aster watched movies and studiously ignored Owen for most of it before taking a nap and waking just minutes before the pilot announced their arrival in Wellington.

  Wellington was a cute little boutique city. The capital, so her guidebook informed her. It hardly seemed big enough. Upon disembarking Aster was swept through the airport by Owen. It was an unnecessary precaution, as nobody seemed to notice her at all. She made her way through the airport without a single flash going off in her direction and was swept off to a high-rise hotel in the very center of the city.

  Her suite was well appointed with all the creature comforts she’d come to expect, in fact once the curtains were drawn she could have been anywhere in the world.

  Owen had a room in the suite, but she had barely spoken to him since boarding the plane and she did not intend to start just because they were alone in a foreign land. She intended to spend a few days relaxing and exploring on her own. He could traipse along if he liked, but she was not going to interact with him any more than was absolutely necessary. Owen could take his patronizing attitude and his penchant for physical discipline and put them both where the sun did not shine.

  “I’ll give you one thing,” he said as he secured the doors. “You’re really dedicated to sulking.”

  Sulking. Of course he thought she was pouting. It hadn’t occurred to him that he was the one who had done wrong.