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  “Hey, I’m not saying I wouldn’t welcome the opportunity to turn her over my lap and give that ass of hers a good spanking. Pretty ass like that, who wouldn’t?”

  Benjamin raised his eyebrows. “Speak for yourself there Logan. I think I could resist.”

  “Yeah, well you’ve already got Jon’s backside to spank whenever you feel like it. You’re a lucky guy.”

  “Hey don’t you start getting designs on Jonathon. That guy is not available.”

  Logan laughed. “I’ll bear that in mind. Anyways, Steppings, that’s enough jawing. Time to get back on these bikes and see if we can get over to Buffalo Creek before the sun goes down.”

  Kirsty was feeling slightly apprehensive about her first time driving with Logan. She had tried not to think about Logan too much. She didn’t want to obsess over the guy just because he was pretty much the only person she had had any sort of conversation with since she had arrived at Corbin’s Bend unless you counted the few conversations she’d had with Kelli. Those had been as short as Kirsty could possibly make them without seeming rude.

  Of course, the reason that Kirsty hadn’t spoken to any of her other neighbors was because she had been going out of her way to avoid them. She’d checked out the notice board posted inside the community center and knew without a doubt that she had no intention of going to any of Corbin’s Bend ‘social’ events. Potlucks and quizzes? No thanks. The funny thing was, when she’s decided to move to a community based on an appreciation of spanking, it had seemed like such an audacious, alternative thing to do. She was going to be with eccentric kinksters who lived their rules outside of society’s norms! Thing was, that didn’t seem to translate to much excitement in practice. The place felt about as alternative as joining the Caravan Club.

  When Logan offered her a driving lesson on Saturday, she was quick to accept. She wasn’t totally sure whether she liked the guy yet, but at least he was closer in age to her than her parents and was unlikely to ask her join a sewing bee.

  She hoped he wouldn’t ask her what she had been up to since Tuesday because, apart from her first driving lessons, she wouldn’t have very much to tell him. She told herself she was taking full advantage of not having to work for a living for the first time in her adult life. She made sure to arrange her driving lessons for the morning so that she could crack open a bottle of wine with her lunch and then had generally spent the afternoon reading kinky romance books on her Kindle and enjoying a bit of self-love. Hey, it was a hobby. Albeit one that she wasn’t necessarily going to share with Logan, especially given the fact that he had prominently featured in quite a few of those afternoon fantasies.

  Because Logan was a good looking guy, there was no question about it. Tall, gorgeous and with the sort of muscles that made a girl want to take a guy’s shirt off just to get a better look. The thought of having him take her over his knee for a spanking was currently her number one top masturbation fantasy.

  But she didn’t want it to happen if it was not going to lead to anything. After her split from Ryan, Kirsty had decided to spend some time playing the field. She’d spent enough time being the good devoted girlfriend and it had ended up getting her absolutely nowhere. A few months of guilt-free and string-free sex with a bunch of gorgeous and willing participants would be just what the doctor ordered.

  The thing she learned from that experience – apart from the fact that surprisingly few guys are willing to smack a girl’s backside with a hairbrush on a first date – was that Kirsty was really, really bad at one night stands. They just didn’t work for her. The boring fact of the matter was, she had realized that the number one way of achieving sexual satisfaction was to be with a guy who she actually cared about.

  So any sexy fantasies about Logan would have to remain just that – fantasies until Kirsty could be sure whether she had any feelings for the guy other than enjoying spending time chatting and occasionally being annoyed beyond question.

  She was pleased to see him when his car drove up outside her house and grinned when he got out and held the driver door open for her. Such a gentleman.

  “How did your first lessons go?” he asked.

  “Brilliant! Guess how many crashes I’ve had so far?” She held her hands in front of his face with all her fingers folded down. “Zero! I’m a natural.”

  Logan chuckled. “Glad to hear it. You ready to take on the mean streets of Corbin’s Bend?”

  Kirsty had still maintained her zero crash record by the end of her lesson with Logan. “You know,” she said as she got out of the car, “it’s actually a good thing I didn’t learn to drive before I left England. I would have had to unlearn everything I knew. And this way I’m learning how to drive on the wrong side of the road from the start.”

  “Yeah. You might not want to think of it as the ‘wrong side of the road’ while you’re learning, though – just a handy tip.”

  “Hey, I might be an all-American girl as far as my citizenship is concerned, but don’t think you are going to get me to acclimatize to your crazy American ways of doing things that quickly.”

  Logan laughed. “Are you doing anything tonight?”

  “Nope.” Was he asking her on a date?

  “There’s an end-of-summer party at the community pool. You should go along. It will give you the opportunity to meet some people.”

  Kirsty tried not to feel disappointed that it wasn’t the offer of a date. In fact, it wasn’t even clear whether he planned to be going to the party himself.

  Maybe he had better things to do with his evening than stand around chit-chatting with a bunch of middle-aged housewives and their husbands.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t really think that’s my type of thing.”

  “Think about it.”

  In the end, Kirsty did go. She didn’t want to admit to herself that it was probably less to do with wanting to meet her neighbors and more because she was looking for more opportunities to spend time with Logan. For all his faults, she really was beginning to feel quite attracted to the guy.

  Once there, she wished she hadn’t bothered. The men, it seemed, all buggered off to the man cave, leaving the women to chat amongst themselves around the pool with the kids. Kirsty was kind of pissed off at the sexism of it all.

  One of the women came over to introduce herself. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Erin. Do you want to come over and join us?”

  “Sure thanks. I’m Kirsty.” And allowed herself to be guided over to where a bunch of women stood sipping mocktails and watching their kids as they played around the pool.

  “Hey, everyone. This is Kirsty. Kirsty, this is Carol, Teri and Julie.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Kirsty.

  “Carol’s daughter Brittany is over there playing with Julie’s daughter Teresa and my two, Avery and Jordan. The two boys over there trying to set up camp are Julie’s son, Mark and Teri’s nephew, Ben,” said Erin, pointing out each of the children in turn.

  Kirsty nodded, but she wasn’t really interested. She barely remembered the names of the adults she had just been introduced to. She knew there was no chance of her remembering any of the kids’ names. Never having had much to do with them, Kirsty really couldn’t summon up any kind of enthusiasm about children. Parents certainly seemed to find them interesting, but as far as she was concerned, they just seemed to be not-yet-finished people.

  As well as the two children Erin had pointed out, Julie had a third younger daughter that she was holding in her arms. “And this is Cora,” she said. “Do you have any children, Kirsty?”

  “Um, no. No kids.”

  “Are you here with your partner?” asked Teri.

  “No, no husband either. I’m here on my own,” said Kirsty, hating the way that she had framed her response. She made herself sound so pathetic.

  “So where you from originally, Kirsty? Is that an English accent?” asked Carol.

  “Yeah. I’m from East London.”

  “I’d love to go to L
ondon some day,” said Erin. “Are you missing it?”

  God, yes, thought Kirsty. She realized at the moment she would love nothing more than to be back in the dirty, noisy, historic, anonymous East End of London and far away from the shiny, suburban newly-built Pleasantville world she’d landed herself in. She thought it best not to say that, though and just shrugged by way of a response.

  The conversation turned to the new school year and Kirsty began to feel like a bit of a spare part. Everyone else here was married; they were mostly stay-at-home moms whose kids all knew one another. Kirsty didn’t feel like there was a single aspect of the conversation to which she could contribute.

  Excusing herself from the group, she told the other women that she was going out for a smoke.

  Once she was outside the pool area, she leaned against a wall and lit up. She felt lonely and bored and unnecessary. When her cigarette was finished, Kirsty found she had no desire to return to the gaggle of women by the pool. She remained where she was, staring into space. She wished she hadn’t left her bag behind. If she had brought it out with her, she would have been able to go home now without having to go back and explain herself.

  Someone walked towards her. It was getting dark, but there was no mistaking that silhouette. “Hey, Logan,” she said.

  “Hi, Kirsty. Erin said you’d been hiding out here for twenty minutes. Seems like a long time just to smoke a cigarette.”

  Kirsty shrugged in response.

  “You ready to come back now?” Logan asked.

  “Actually, I’m thinking of calling it a night. I might just head off home now.” Kirsty tried to walk past Logan, but he held onto her shoulders.

  “Why don’t you give it a chance? Corbin’s Bend is the friendliest place on Earth, but you have to actually try talking to people.”

  Kirsty was annoyed at Logan’s assumption that she must be the one at fault. That she was somehow socializing wrong. “I don’t have anything in common with them.”

  “Sure you do. You all came to Corbin’s Bend for one reason.”

  “Oh, what the fuck has that got to do with anything? We’re not about to all start spanking one another. Christ, Logan, they’re really boring. This whole fucking place is boring. Hanging out with a bunch of identikit suburban housewives really doesn’t do it for me. An evening with the Stepford Wives isn’t my idea of a good night out.”

  She shook off the hand on her shoulder and he didn’t resist. He looked angry, but she didn’t care. She walked back to the pool area, collected her bag and then walked out again without talking to anyone.

  The next morning, Kirsty was awoken by the doorbell. She stumbled to the door and opened it to see Logan standing there.

  He looked gorgeous as usual with his light brown, attractively mussed hair, his muscular body and his sturdy boots. It made her all the more conscious of what a mess she probably looked right now given that she was wearing a hastily thrown-on t-shirt and sweat pants. She had the remains of yesterday’s makeup - which she hadn’t got around to removing the night before - smeared down her face.

  “Fuck, Logan,” she said as she turned and headed back in towards the kitchen. “Aren’t you sick of me yet?”

  He walked in through the door that she had left ajar. “Not quite yet,” he said.

  Kirsty flipped on the electric kettle and turned round to face him, her bottom resting on the edge of the counter. “So what’s this in aid of?”

  “Seems to me that if someone is living right in the heart of the Rocky Mountains and still managing to find life boring, then they’re probably doing something wrong. You got any hiking boots?”

  Kirsty shook her head.

  “Well, go and put on whatever you’ve got and we’ll head off as soon as you’re ready. I’m taking you hiking.”

  “Ooh, really?” Her interest was piqued. That actually sounded kind of cool. “Can I have a cup of tea first?”

  “I’ll make it. You go and get dressed.”

  Logan was surprised that Kirsty had managed to get herself dressed in under ten minutes. She hadn’t been exactly happy to see him when he’d turned up at her door, but the suggestion of heading up the mountains had sparked some enthusiasm. She had a smile on her face when she emerged from her bedroom dressed in jeans, a sweater and Ugg boots and he had handed her a cup of tea. Her face, though still plastered in more make up than any other girl he knew would wear, was still probably the closest thing to a ‘natural look’ that he had ever seen on her.

  She pulled a face when she tasted his attempt at tea-making. “Ugh, Logan. You haven’t got a clue how to make a decent cup of tea, have you?” she asked. His dreadful tea-making skills didn’t seem to have any negative impact on her overall mood though, and she actually seemed pretty excited at the prospect of a trip to the mountains.

  “What mountain are we going to climb?” she asked.

  “Mount Evans. We’re not climbing the whole thing. But there’s a great trail for beginners there. You’ll see some amazing views.”

  Kirsty finished the tea and followed Logan out to his car. Her attitude couldn’t have been more different from her mood the evening before. Probably, Logan conceded, because she was actually getting out of Corbin’s Bend for a bit. Until she passed her driving test, Kirsty was stuck in Corbin’s Bend with pretty limited options for going anywhere. Feeling confined was probably not helping her general outlook.

  It was slow progress up the mountain, but what Kirsty lacked in experience – and appropriate footwear – she more than made up for in her enthusiasm. Logan didn’t mind that they were covering ground at about a quarter of his usual speed.

  Kirsty exclaimed at the amazing views and the sheer scale of the surrounding flora. When Logan mentioned that they were walking along Bear Creek, her eyes were as wide as saucers. “There are bears here?”

  “Yeah. Don’t worry. It’s not dangerous as long as you’re sensible.”

  “Oh my fucking god, that’s brilliant,” said Kirsty excitedly. “Proper actual bears living out here like proper actual wild creatures.”

  “That’s the plan. It is a nature reserve.”

  “Oh is that what your forest service does? The one you work for?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “We’re all about maintaining the diversity of the wildlife here. Including the bears.”

  “I definitely won’t worry in that case. You know what you’re doing. You’ll take care of me.”

  Logan was surprised by how pleased he felt at her last comment. He liked her saying that she trusted him to take care of her. Even if she was half-joking.

  When they got back to Corbin’s Bend, Logan asked Kirsty if she wanted to come back to his place for a coffee. He then immediately worried that it sounded like a come-on.

  “I mean, it’ll have to be a quick one,” he amended hastily. “I’m meeting up with Jonathon and Benjamin later.”

  “Sure. I’d love to,” said Kirsty. “It’ll give me the chance to see what the inside of your house looks like at last.”

  “Well, I hope you won’t be too disappointed,” said Logan.

  “I’m sure it’ll be nicer than mine,” replied Kirsty.

  “Given that your home décor currently consists of a borrowed camp bed and several piles of dirty laundry, I’m not sure that’s saying much.”

  “True,” agreed Kirsty. “I’ve decided to go for the ‘Living In A Squat’ vibe. I think I’ve really managed to pull it off.”

  Once inside, Kirsty barely glanced at Logan’s furnishings anyway. Her attention was entirely taken up by the huge scruffy black cat that came padding towards them as they entered the room.

  “Hello there, buster,” said Kirsty, immediately sinking to her knees and scratching the carpet to get the cat’s attention. “Who are you?”

  “Oh that’s Jinx. He doesn’t normally like new people…” Logan’s voice trailed off as it was evident that whatever Jinx’s usual take on new people, it clearly didn’t apply to Kirsty who he was welcoming
like a long-lost friend.

  “Hey there, Jinxy,” Kirsty crooned, scratching him behind his ears and causing the cat to flop down on his side and roll his head back in pleasure.

  “Well you two have clearly hit off. I’ll go and make coffee.” He glanced back at Kirsty as he headed to the kitchen and saw that she had her face buried in the cat’s belly fur and was kissing Jinx repeatedly while he stretched out and purred like a Harley Davidson. “Mind you don’t get furballs,” he called.

  When Logan came back into the living room, Jinx was still sprawled out on the floor, purring at a hundred decibels. Kirsty was rubbing him all over with the bottom of her t-shirt for some reason, and Jinx was clearly loving it. Logan’s eye was immediately drawn to the expanse of midriff that Kirsty was exposing as she pulled her t-shirt away from her body to rub the cat. He caught a tantalizing glimpse of a black lacy bra.

  “What are you doing, there?”

  Kirsty looked up and then grinned rather shamefacedly. “May have accidentally got make-up on your cat when I was smooshing him with my face. Sorry.”

  Logan laughed. He thought back to the previous evening at the party and wished the other residents of Corbin’s Bend could see Kirsty as she had been today – letting her guard down and just enjoying herself. He had actually felt embarrassed about her behavior the night before. He didn’t know why. It’s not like they were even dating, but he still had felt the need to apologize to the group of women who had tried to involve Kirsty in their conversation. “It’s okay,” Erin Cunningham had reassured him. “Some people can take a little while to get properly settled in to Corbin’s Bend. I know I did. She’ll start to feel a bit more at home soon.”

  He hoped that was the case. He really wanted Kirsty to feel settled into Corbin’s Bend life. It was nice to see her just letting herself go and enjoying climbing the mountains or just cuddling his cat. Apart from anything else, he liked seeing her happy for a change.