Page 103 of Hot Ghost Summer

“It wasn’t just for one cow,” I blurt in anger. “It was for all the cows.”

A cooling finger trails the path of my spine. “Explain.”

“The herd,” I manage between sucking breaths. “Jim’s herd… they helped me… save Brigid. So… I saved ’em.”

Firm, borderline painful, Hollis’s hands knead the stinging flesh of my arse. “The ghost cows? You set them free?”

“Yeah.” Unbidden, tears blur my vision, and I scrunch my eyes shut. “Yeah, I took ’em t’ the farm. T’ be with Bridge.”

The whisper of movement is all the warning I get before a hard, flat shock hits my system. A rapid volley of fresh smacks, delivered with open palms, turns a localised prickle into a broad, burning glow.

“Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.” Hollis counts out loud, while millions of tiny, sharp pricks buzz just beneath the surface of my skin. “You told me that like it justifies what you did. Nothing, I repeat nothing will ever justify your breaking that rule. We’ll call it rule zero.”

Another smack, followed by my sudden intake of breath. “Eighteen.”

Another.

“Nineteen,” I breathe.

Then a ringing stillness: the calm before the storm.

“I’m proud of you,” Hollis admits quietly.

The first of my tears fall, his praise punching a hole clear through the wall that holds my emotions at bay.

“And I’ve never been more scared.” His honesty tightens my chest, turning my breaths ragged.

“Twenty,” I call out as another sudden spike of heat sears my skin.

He rubs his palms over my flesh, abrading it. “You saved them, but who was there to save you?”

A rush of conflicting feelings threatens to drag me under: guilt, shame, relief, and surrender.

“You,” I choke out. “You saved me.”

“And I always will. Even from yourself.”

His promise shatters me. Narrows all my focus down to only the immediate sensation of his skin on mine, and the raw response my body offers in return.

“Twenty-one, -two, and -three,” I sob, uncaring for the obscene amount of drool and tears that soak Hollis’s trousers. Even his soothing caresses are torturous now.

He brings his hand down in another stinging slap.

“Twenty-four,” I cry out, but it’s an aborted sound.

It’s not just the slap of skin on skin that’s wound me to fever pitch. The echo of each contact reverberates through every cell in my body as if he’s splicing his name into my DNA.

I brace for twenty-five, but instead of the final blow, he lowers his head so that when he speaks, his cool breath ghosts my overheated flesh. “Do you understand now?”

He sucks a bruising kiss directly onto my right arse cheek.

Broken and rebuilt by his hand—at his mercy—that tension that had been coiled tight inside me suddenly snaps. That edge I’ve been cresting this whole time falls away.

My back arches, and I tip over into a dizzying freefall that sends shudders rolling through my entire body.

A hot rush of pure relief floods my system as my orgasm overcomes me.

Boneless and spent, I clutch his leg, my fingertips biting into his muscles while I drag in ragged breaths.