Full Circle (14 page)

Jack had spanked Josie in the past, but those were spankings delivered to a child, who only understood that a light smack on the bottom was punishment for misbehavior. This spanking was to a woman, his woman, who insisted on defying what he considered his right to protect her from making bad decisions. He knew enough of her past exploits and the independent streak that put her in danger. She was smart and independent, but she wasn't invincible. She was a woman, his woman, five-and-half feet of stubborn female, and it was his job to keep her safe. He was not going to allow it anymore. He wanted Josie to understand there were consequences to her decisions.

Jack never missed a swing. He was into a rhythm delivering a well earned spanking and was not settling for anything less. When he had reddened her bottom thoroughly, he turned his attention to her delicate sit spot and peppered her lower buttocks, evenly reddening it.

When he stopped, he could feel the heat of her reddened cheeks. He gently stroked that beautiful bottom, lifted her and swung her up into his arms. He carried her to the bed and lay down beside her. Josie burrowed into a pillow, crying, so he pulled her up and against his chest, and let her cry. He hoped she wasn't going to order him out of her house and out of her life. He hoped there would be a few regrets in the mix and that she would recognize he was not going to allow her to put her life in danger. He was still having mental visions of her crushed under the rubble of that old house. He pulled her close, rocking her gently until she fell asleep.

Josie woke up to the smell of coffee and an empty bed. Empty of Jack that is. She rolled over and sucked in her breath, wincing at the tenderness in her bottom, but made her way into the master bathroom. When the tub filled, she turned on the jets and gingerly sank into the bubbling water, leaning back and enjoying one of life's best luxuries. She heard the bathroom door open, but didn't bother opening her eyes.

Jack watched Josie's face, the emotions and pleasure as she relaxed in the water of a ridiculously large Jacuzzi tub. She looked like that when he brought her to orgasm. He'd brought up coffee, toast and strawberries, and he saw no reason not to enjoy them or her at the same time. He stripped out of his clothes, climbed into the tub and nudged her over until he could settle her back down on top of him as he stretched out.

"Who designed this bathroom for you," he asked, stroking his hand over her body.

Josie peered through lazy, sultry eyes and looked around. "I did, every tile and fixture, the colors, the towels, every single detail was planned and executed by me. After living in Washington, D.C. where my rent was more than half my monthly salary, and the bathroom was so small that when I opened the door it hit the toilet, I decided I wanted pure luxury. I could afford it, and I got it."

"I thank you. I rarely get in a tub because they are usually too small for me to fit comfortably. This one could change my mind about always taking showers. How are you feeling?"

"At the moment, wonderful," Josie whispered, nuzzling in under his chin.

"Are you angry?" Jack asked.

"You toasted my ass, Jack. You accomplished your goal. My ass is sore."

"Did you learn anything from it?" Jack asked firmly.

Josie blinked. "Yeah, not to screw around with you. Living with a dominant man is not always fun."

"That wasn't the goal," Jack said, lightly rubbing his hand over her bottom. "The goal was to make you realize that you have to consider your actions. You matter to me, Josie, you always have."

"You were gone a long time, Jack. A man that looks like you attracts women like bees to honey. You've had women, probably a lot of them. You weren't exactly pining for me."

"My share," Jack agreed, "but my work kept me on the move. I never considered having a long-term relationship with anyone. I had a couple of short-term ones, but they were more about sex than commitment. You are important. You are about commitment."

"So we're the blind leading the blind here," she whispered.

"I'm not going into this blind," Jack said. "I felt something for you when you were a kid. I thought it was pity, but there was some understanding mixed in there too. I knew you had to learn the limits of what you could and could not do. Your upbringing was not terrific. God knows your uncle was not capable of taking care of a kid. You grew up right in front of me, a rotten little hellion, but I knew why you did what you did. You needed attention—good or bad—and where most people ignored you, I didn't. I hunted you down and made you pay for your devilment. When I pulled you out of that car where that boy had his hands all over you, I wanted to kill him. Yes, I know it was Jimmy, but I cannot think of him that way. If I do, the urge to smash his face in comes back, and I'm liable to punch his lights out."

"Jack, that was twenty years ago!" Josie protested.

"I know, but time has not diminished how I felt that night or how I feel now. That was the first time I realized you were growing up. I didn't like my reaction to it. It drove me a little crazy knowing he was touching you. I walked away because you were a kid, and I was a grown man. In my mind, what I was feeling for you, well, it wasn't right, and I didn't want to view myself as a pervert, so I left."

"You left Rawlings because of me?" Josie asked, incredulous at his admission.

"No, but it was a factor," Jack said. "I left for college, and I had no reason to return. My joining the Navy was a knee-jerk response to my father and grandfather threatening to cut off my college funds unless I switched my degree from architecture to agriculture or theology. I should have gotten a job, worked my way through college like you did and thumbed my nose at them. Instead, I was young, angry and determined to break away from their deceit and purse strings, so I joined the Navy. Although it drastically changed my career path, I never regretted it until recently. That corporate mentality that you despise so much has also infiltrated into the ranks of the military services. Everyone is out for themselves. That wasn't what I signed up for back in the day." Jack sat up, turned off the jets, reached out of the tub and pulled his wallet from his jeans. He handed a towel to Josie along with his wallet. "Dry your hands and look in the back compartment, and be careful. Don't drop my wallet in the tub."

Josie complied and opening the wallet pulled out an old tattered envelope enclosed in a plastic zip-locked bag. The writing on the envelope was smudged and faded. She opened it and pulled out a letter creased from folds, holes worn through in the corner folds."

"That letter caught up with me five months into my first deployment in a war zone," Jack said. "I've carried it for the last seventeen years as a good-luck talisman, along with this." He picked the chain up from his chest and showed it to her. It was his military identification tags along with the St. Christopher medal she had included in the letter.

"All those years," Josie whispered. "Why?"

"Because you cared, and there wasn't another soul in the world that did," Jack said truthfully. "You reached out to me when my father died. I was in Kuwait, and Iraq, although that was not public knowledge at the time. The Navy informed me of his death, but we were in the middle of a critical mission and they couldn't extract me from the team. I still don't know what decision I would have made, had that not been taken away from me. I was still very angry in those days. It took the letter a while to reach me and, when it did, I was in the hospital. The good luck charm was too late for that incident, but you were so sweet in that letter, so naive in your writing. You wrote that you were proud of me. I was a long way from home, even if it was a home I didn't want to return to, and I needed a connection. Your letter was sweet and honest. Kuwait was anything but that. It seemed fitting that it was you. As weak as the connection was between us, I needed to keep it close. It mattered."

"Why didn't you write or come home?" Josie demanded.

"I thought it was better to let you get on with your life," Jack admitted. "You did. I did. Everything works out in its own way in its own time. I'm back, Josie, and I'm staying. I'm not dealing with a child or adolescent girl anymore. I'm dealing with a grown woman. Back then, those eight years between us was a wide chasm, now they don't mean anything and they don't put up a barrier between us. I want you, Josie."

"You have me," Josie admitted.

"No, I mean it. I want you permanently and physically in my life. I don't take relationships lightly. I want you as mine. I want all of you. I am a dominant man who believes in domestic discipline, but I'm not a chauvinist. I respect women and I'm very proud of your accomplishments. That said; I still can't shake the idea that it's my responsibility to take care of you. I can't show you a truer respect than wanting and needing to protect you, care for you, and love you. Whatever you need from me, Josie, it's my job to provide it."

Josie captured Jack's lips in a sensuously simmering kiss, savoring him. She took pleasure in titillating his senses. She withdrew at last and felt his erection, hard and ready, seeking her. She pulled herself up and straddled him, taking him slowly into her body, torturing him and enjoying being in control.

"Josie?" Jack gasped.

"You can have me, Jack. If you need to claim me as your woman, I'm yours. I need to claim you as my man too, and I need one other thing."

"What," Jack demanded.

"Time," she whispered.

Groggy from lack of sleep, Josie slapped at her cell phone until she realized it wasn't her cell phone ringing, but the house phone. The house phone, which of course, was not in its docking station as none of the house phones ever seemed to be! She rolled out of bed, following the sound until she found a receiver under a stack of books beside the window seat.

Jack got up and went to the bathroom, catching her attention as he was gloriously naked and had a butt truly worthy of admiration. She finished her call and wished she hadn't taken it. She walked into the bathroom and stood outside the shower.

"Jack!"

"Join me." Jack reached for her, but she stepped back, looking serious. "What?" he demanded.

"Finish up and get dressed," Josie said in a serious voice. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Jack knew something was wrong when he entered the bedroom, and Josie came in from another direction still damp from the shower, toweling off and getting dressed in her uniform. She had gone to another bathroom instead of joining him in the shower.

"What's wrong?" he demanded.

Josie looked up. "That was Sheriff Malone. The crew that Fire Chief Miller left at the fire were raking through the debris early this morning looking for hot spots that might reignite. They found a body."

"A what," Jack exclaimed. "Who?"

Josie looked distressed. "They don't know. Right now, they can't even tell if it's male or female. The state police investigators, fire inspectors and arson investigators—it's all under county and state jurisdiction now. They're on their way. It's your house, Jack, so you're going to be the first-line suspect."

"Why me?"

"I know you didn't have anything to do with it," Josie explained. "I'm merely warning you. An investigator's initial suspect is the easiest target because more than forty percent of the time that is the guilty party. It's your house. They'll target you first."

"Christ, Josie, I've only been back for a few days and most of that time I've spent with you!"

"I know, and I'll tell them," Josie said, "but you're going to have to go down to the sheriff's office. We'll wait there together. In a couple of hours, all hell is going to break loose."

Josie, Jack and Jimmy Richards sat in the sheriff's office for hours. The first investigator to come in was Rich Webber from the Kiowa County Homicide division. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations sent their homicide detectives, Gene Tooney and Louisa Gains.

Since Josie, Jack, Jimmy and his crew were the only people known to be on the site, the investigators questioned them each separately and extensively. Up next were the fire and arson investigators, Wayne Allen and Leon Bridger. Both of them asked questions similar to those from homicide, and they received similar answers.

Everyone repeatedly went over Jack's whereabouts for the last several months until he'd had enough. He demanded to see all five investigators together and he let them have it.

"Mr. Rawlings, this is highly irregular," Gene Tooney began, but Jack cut him off.