A Wilder Heart Read online

Aster went to bed without speaking to him. She was tired and very much out of sorts and the only fix for that she knew was sleep.

  * * *

  Aster was awoken in the middle of the night by her bed performing a vigorous jig. Sitting bolt upright, she stared as the pictures on the walls shimmied back and forth and what she’d once regarded as a fairly solid place to sleep danced to the tune of a deep rumble which seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

  Screaming seemed like the only logical option, so she took it. A second later her door burst open and Owen came in just as the world stopped moving.

  “What the hell was that?” Aster shrieked.

  “Earthquake,” Owen said. “Just a small one, don’t worry about it.”

  “Don’t worry about it?” Aster could barely breathe. Her heart was pounding and her limbs felt weak. She was flooded with adrenaline and wide awake in a strange land where the earth moved violently and unexpectedly.

  “They happen,” he said. “You must have felt them in Los Angeles from time to time.”

  “I grew up in Montana. The ground doesn’t move there.”

  “Ah, well,” he said in soothing tones. “Nothing to worry about. Just one of the faults letting off a little steam, that’s all.”

  Aster clutched at the sheets reflexively as another little wobble took her in its sway. “You don’t know that. What if that was a warning for another one? What if everything falls down? What if...” she trailed off into a sob.

  Owen came forward and wrapped her in a hug. It was the first real contact they’d had that wasn’t a smack and she found herself tense at first for not expecting it. Slowly she relaxed and let herself breathe, finding that he had a very pleasant male scent, which was almost as calming as his enveloping arms.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

  A tear slipped out between Aster’s lashes as a feeling of overwhelming security came over her. She had not counted on how different New Zealand would be. She’d never really given any thought to how New Zealand would be at all. She’d just had a vague notion of benign sheep and mountains and such.

  “I’m scared,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest, which she suddenly noticed was bare. He was wearing pajama pants but nothing covered his upper body, which she discovered was toned and strong. She could feel his muscles rippling with the simple motion of the hug as he held her close and tried his best to soothe her.

  “I know,” he said, stroking her hair. “They can be scary. But it’s over now. You can go back to sleep.”

  “I don’t think I can sleep,” she said, shaking her head vigorously. “Put the lights on please.”

  Owen got up and put the lights on then came and sat at the end of her bed. Aster pulled the sheets up around her neck and frowned at him. “Why didn’t you tell me about them?”

  “About the earthquakes? I can’t predict them I’m afraid.”

  “Something should be done about them,” Aster complained. “You can’t just have the earth shaking whenever it feels like it. There are people up here. Buildings up here.”

  “If only there was a way to control the planet,” Owen said. “But there are forces beyond everyone’s control. We just have to deal with them as best we can.”

  He was probably right, but that didn’t make it easier. She didn’t like earthquakes. She wasn’t sure New Zealand was going to be as nice or as friendly or as laid back as the guidebooks said. It had already produced at least one Owen and an earthquake. Yes, he made her feel secure when the ground was moving, but she couldn’t forget everything he’d done prior to that.

  “You probably think I’m probably too spoiled to handle an earthquake,” she muttered.

  “Are you trying to start an argument? Think that will make you feel better?” He lowered his head and gave her one of his raised brow looks. “You want a post-quake spanking, is that it?”

  Aster scowled and just barely restrained the impulse to throw her pillow at him, knowing he would take that as an affirmative answer. Even more annoying was the fact that he was sort of right. An argument would take her mind off how scared she was.

  “Lie down,” he said, his voice low and soothing. “I’ll stay with you until you’re asleep, make sure the quakes don’t get you.”

  “You don’t need to talk to me like I’m a baby,” Aster snapped.

  “Lie down,” he repeated. “You can’t go to sleep sitting up all tense like that.”

  “Maybe I don’t need to sleep. Maybe I can just get up. Start the day early. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “It’s three in the morning,” Owen informed her. “You need to sleep so you can get into the right rhythm. Just lie down.”

  “No,” Aster growled. “I’m going to stay sitting up.”

  “Fine,” Owen said. “Do you want a Milo?”

  “What’s a Milo?”

  “It’s a malted chocolate drink,” he said. “It’s quite popular here.”

  “Fine,” she said, rather ungraciously. “I may as well try it.”

  Owen nodded and went to make it. Finding herself alone in her room, Aster decided she didn’t like that very much and followed after him. She found him in the kitchen, boiling a kettle. Two mugs were sitting on the counter top, each filled with a grainy brown powder.

  “So this is Milo?” She gave it an experimental sniff.

  “It is,” he said as the kettle finished boiling. Milk and hot water were put into the mugs and the entire concoction was stirred into a creamy brown drink.

  He handed her one of the mugs and she took a tentative taste. It was like chocolate, but richer and deeper in flavor.

  “Tasty,” she said, cupping her hands around the mug and enjoying its warmth.

  “And here are some vanilla wine biscuits,” Owen said. “There’s no wine in them, they’re just plain cookies.”

  The vanilla wines were thin, pale beige rounds, which didn’t have much in the way of taste until they were dipped in the Milo, at which point they became sweet and chocolaty and entirely delicious.

  “Okay, this is good,” she said, smiling a little. “This is really good.”

  “Glad you like it,” Owen said “There’re all sorts of fine cuisines to sample here.”

  “Fine cuisine,” Aster giggled. There was nothing fine about the mug of Milo or the crumbly cookies, but it was very nice, very solid. Dependable. A bit like Owen.

  He drank his Milo leaning against the refrigerator, watching her as she sat on a tall stool and made her way through a decent amount of the packet of the oddly named vanilla wine biscuits.

  “Feeling better?”

  “A little,” she said. “That was sort of exciting, actually. How often do they happen?”

  “It depends,” he said. “Sometimes you can go years without feeling one, sometimes we get quite a few in a cluster. Occasionally there’s a very, very big one but they tend to come hundreds of years apart.”

  “So that might be the only earthquake I ever feel,” Aster mused. “It wasn’t that bad, I guess.”

  “It put you in a better mood than you were in before it,” Owen noted. “Maybe you have a taste for danger.”

  “A taste for danger?” Aster grinned at the idea. “I never really did anything dangerous before.”

  “Of course not,” Owen said in a tone she didn’t like.

  “What do you mean of course not? I could have done dangerous things.”

  “You’d be more aware of your surroundings if you had,” Owen said. “You don’t notice where other people are and what they’re doing. That’s how you got set up in the first place with those drugs. That’s why I’m here with you now.”

  “Anyone could have gotten set up,” Aster replied. “I was having a good night out. Don’t tell me you’re always aware of your surroundings. Don’t tell me you never get caught out.”

  “It’s my job not to be caught out.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not on 24/7,” Aster replied. �
�You’re not as good as you think you are.”

  “Well, thanks for that vote of confidence,” Owen replied. “For your sake, let’s hope you’re wrong.” He flickered a wink at her, not at all concerned by her lack of faith in him. Aster wondered what made him so very sure of himself. She also wondered how she might prove him wrong. Owen needed taking down a peg or two, that was for certain.

  “I think I’m ready to go back to sleep now,” she said, keeping her crafty thoughts to herself. “Thanks for the Milo.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “Sleep well.”

  Aster put another cookie in her mouth and wandered off in the direction of her bedroom. The earth seemed to have settled down again, and so did she.

  * * *

  “Oh, dammit! Aster!”

  The clock beside her bed read eight AM as Aster heard her name shouted from the direction of Owen’s room. Grinning her way out of sleep, she wandered out of her room just in time to see Owen emerge from his wearing a pair of jeans which were nice aside from the fact that they were covered in remnants of cookies and Milo, both of which had been poured into his suitcase some time in the night.

  “What the hell, Aster?” He glowered at her with a new kind of annoyance she’d not seen before.

  “Why are you blaming me for this?”

  “Who else would have done it?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged with a grin. “You told me you never got caught out. You’re always aware of your surroundings and of who is around you. How could this possibly have happened without your knowledge?”

  He growled and kicked off his pants, standing in his boxer shorts. “That’s it,” he said. “I’m going to spank your ass red.”

  Aster squealed as he came toward her and made an attempt at escape, hurdling the back of the couch. He came around the side, so she made a dash across the suite and into his room, slamming the doors shut and bolting them before he could reach her.

  She heard his palm slap the door. “Aster! Open up!”

  “No!” She shouted back. “You’re not going to get all handsy with me just because I proved you wrong.”

  “You didn’t prove me wrong,” he growled through the door. “You sneaked into my room and poured Milo into my suitcase.”

  “Proving that you aren’t always aware of your surroundings,” Aster snapped back. “This is your fault, not mine.”

  “My fault?” She heard his dark chuckle. Then he moved away. She figured she’d won for the moment and retreated to sit on his bed and watch television. A little while later she heard a quiet clinking sound near the door. She perked up and looked, wondering what was happening. The door was locked from her side, so surely...

  She watched the handle turn and squealed. Dammit! He was in the room; he was coming forward with his hands outstretched, his powerful thighs propelling him toward her.

  “Get away from me,” Aster squealed. It was too late. He was upon her in a flash, taking her by the forearm and hauling her over his body. Before she knew what was happening he was spanking her again, slaps falling hard and fast against her panty-clad bottom. Post-quake, she had gone to bed in nothing but a tight vest and panties. That had been a mistake.

  “I did not need this today, Aster,” he said in lecturing tones as his hand bounced against her bottom.

  “Well all you needed to do to avoid it was be aware of your surroundings,” she shot back, nailing that point home.

  “I’ll make certain that I’m aware of what you’re getting up to, that’s for sure,” Owen replied, stinging her bare upper thigh with a firm slap. “You’re trouble, Aster Wilder.”

  “You brought it on yourself,” she squealed. “Let me go!”

  “Let you go? I don’t think so.” He put his fingers inside the back of her panties and pulled them down, exposing her bare skin. “This is going to teach you a lesson.”

  “No, it won’t!” Aster squealed the words. “Put my panties back on!”

  “Panties are for good girls who don’t go around messing with their bodyguards,” Owen informed her. “You don’t deserve panties.”

  Aster blushed at his words and his tone and the knowledge that he could probably see every intimate part of her person.

  “You have no right to treat me like this.”

  “You gave me the right when you pulled your prank,” he replied, swatting her cheeks. The slaps were not as hard as they had been. They were light, almost forgiving in their intensity, but they were still falling nonetheless. His hand was warm against her bottom, his long, thick fingers strong and comforting as they soothed her with gentle strokes in between swats.

  Aster squirmed, finding herself completely trapped with relatively little effort. His arm wrapped around her waist and held her firmly against the hard plane of his abdomen. Her flailing did very little to help her. She was caught wriggling half-naked against his thighs, her pussy brushing against his bare skin.

  “Owen!” She squealed his name like a plea. “We’re not wearing clothes! This isn’t right!”

  He paused for a moment. “Bad girls get spanked on their bare bottoms,” he informed her. “This isn’t sexual, don’t worry about that.”

  He might have said that it wasn’t sexual, but she could feel a ridge of excitement against her hip through his boxers.

  “You can’t make it not sexual just by saying it’s not,” Aster squeaked. “I can feel you.”

  “You’re an attractive young lady,” Owen admitted. “But trust me. This is for disciplinary purposes only. You need to learn to behave yourself.” He swatted her bottom again, several times, each of which caused her to squeak and squirm anew. “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes!” Aster gave in not because she was sorry for what she’d done, but because she could feel herself starting to become more aroused than was good for her. She could not allow herself to become a writhing wanton over his thighs. “I’m sorry!”

  “Are you now?” His palm settled low on her cheeks. “You don’t sound sorry. You sound... like you’re in a hurry to get off my lap.”

  “How does sorry sound?” Aster whimpered the words. She had not been intimate with many men in her life. She had made love before, but somehow that experience was not nearly as powerful as this one, in which he hadn’t so much as laid a finger on any of the traditionally erogenous zones aside from her bottom.

  “Sorry sounds like you promise you won’t do that again. I would say it also sounds like you will behave yourself for the rest of this trip, but that would probably be a promise you can’t keep. So how about this? You don’t mess with my personal belongings.”

  “Fine!” Aster agreed. “Okay!”

  “You really don’t like this, do you?” There was a smile in his voice as he patted her bottom with a gentle hand.

  “Let me up, Owen! I promised!”

  “And are you sorry?”

  “I am,” Aster whimpered. “Very!”

  He snugged her close against his body and delivered ten more hard swats, five to each cheek. She yelped and wriggled through each of them, worried that maybe he wouldn’t stop, maybe he wouldn’t forgive her, and maybe she wouldn’t be able to contain herself. Her body was responding to him in ways that didn’t make any sense to the rational part of her mind, which was shocked at being spanked bare. She could feel tendrils of excitement unfurling low in her loins, her juices beginning to flow around lips, which were engorging with need.

  “Owen! I’m sorry!” Even to her own ears she sounded plaintive and slightly pathetic, so eager to get off his lap and get some measure of dignity and plausible deniability back. If this went on much longer he was going to know what effect he had on her and then she would have not a leg to stand on. He would know that he had the ability to make her nipples harden and her pussy drip. He would know that she was close to losing control and turning into a wanton woman who would spread her legs for him.

  “Now that sounds a little more real,” he said, patting her bottom. A moment later, Aster sigh
ed with relief as he pulled her panties back up from her thighs and settled them over her bottom. By the time she stood up, she had almost convinced herself that it wasn’t so bad. Yes, her bottom was hot and sore, but he didn’t know about the rest of it.

  One glance down at his leg made her stomach sink. She saw a glistening, a little trace of moisture – her wetness was spread across his leg. He gleamed with her mark.

  Chapter Four

  Aster held her breath, hoping that he would not notice the traces of arousal she had left on his thigh. He reached out and slapped her firmly on the backside. “Go on,” he said. “Go get some breakfast.”

  Owen didn’t seem to notice the clear signs of her physical lust. If he did notice, he didn’t care. Her arousal, hell, even his arousal didn’t seem to matter to him. He was sending her on her way as if nothing of any note had happened, aside from the spanking of her bottom, which was becoming so common an occurrence that it probably wasn’t noteworthy for him.

  Aster left his room before he could decide to punish her again, rubbing her cheeks as she went. She wished that she’d worn more clothing. Being in her underclothes made it difficult to stalk away with any measure of decorum, especially knowing that the flesh around her panties was a bright red hue.

  She retired to her room, showered and put on the thickest denim jeans she owned. She also made sure to stuff her back pockets with tissues. If he swatted her now, he’d get nothing but padding. Checking her derriere out in the mirror, Aster was pleased with its shapeliness. A tight blue and tan argyle V-neck sweater completed the outfit, making her look simultaneously bookish and curvaceous.

  When she made her way out to the kitchen she found Owen there already, eating toast. He nodded and saluted with a crust as she perused the room service menu, then picked up the phone and called down to reception.

  A thick New Zealand accent greeted her. “Miragey Hewtul. Huw can I hulp yew?”

  “This is Aster Wilder,” she said. “I’d like some pancakes, please.”

  “Puncukes,” the voice at the other end of the line said. “Unythung ulse?”

  “Er,” Aster held back a giggle. “Some chocolate milk, please.”