"Never been spanked before?" I asked.
"No, of course not!" she hissed after my hand came down again.
I couldn't help but smile. Tagg watched how her flesh jiggled with each strike I landed. Over and over I spanked her until her ass was a bright pink and she was breathing hard. Her initially chilled skin now had a sheen of perspiration.
"We are your protectors now. In order to take care of you, you must answer our questions. Since you refuse, you are being spanked. This is your choice, Sarah."
She remained tight lipped.
Smack.
"Who do you belong to?" I asked.
Smack.
"No one! My father's dead. You know that. Now stop spanking me!"
Not until I had the answers I wanted. Smack.
"Who put the harness on you?"
Smack. Smack.
"Please, stop, that hurts!"
I wasn't hurting her. Stinging her pride most assuredly, but I would never hurt her. If she calmed down enough, she'd realize that.
"Who put the harness on you?" I repeated.
Smack.
"Doctor Graham!" she wailed. With her admission, her shoulders slumped down and she began to cry. Not tears of pain, but frustration. Frustration that she'd been caught, that she'd been discovered practically naked, and that she'd been given a spanking.
I ran my palm over the places I'd turned bright pink, soothing them. "Good girl. That wasn't so difficult now, was it?"
Doctor Graham was a friend of ours. We were of a similar age, grew up together and had been caught in similar wild antics as boys, along with the Bridger brothers and Ian McKenzie, Liberty's sheriff. Tagg and I had stayed on the family ranch and took over the running of it when our parents died, but Doc had gone off to medical school back east, before returning and becoming Liberty's sole doctor. We’d seen him earlier in the week when we went into Liberty for supplies, but he’d not mentioned Sarah to us then.
Thankfully - and wisely - he saw fit to bring Devney and Sarah to town and under his protection instead of leaving her alone on the ranch. I could only imagine the vultures that were circling the new widow for that sizable spread and the money that went with it. And Sarah? Hell, just looking at her I knew any man would claim her on sight.
If she'd stayed in Liberty under our friend's protection and not run off, she might have had a say in her spouse. Doc would have ensured she was well matched. Now, however, she would be married to Tagg and me, regardless of her personal preference.
She didn't respond to my question.
"You are under Doctor Graham's protection?" I asked. The town doctor or the sheriff were the only two unmarried men who could offer protection to a woman without being forced to marry her. Their roles as civil servants gave them this responsibility, whether they wished it or not. Sarah would remain with Doc and in a harness until a family member could claim her, or, if none were alive, until she married.
"Yes," she sobbed. "I have no one else to do so."
"You’re a maiden?" Tagg asked, coming around to stand beside me. He'd crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at her prone form.
"Yes," she answered easily. She spoke to the ground beneath her.
Lifting her up carefully, I positioned her to stand between my thighs, my hands on her waist. She was so tiny I could almost span her girth with my fingers. Sitting as I was, we were at eye level. Her green eyes were glassy and bright with unshed tears. One slipped down her flushed cheek and I wiped it away with my thumb.
"You have two choices, Sarah."
She bit her lip and sighed, flicked her gaze to me, then up at my brother.
"We take you back to Liberty to Doctor Graham."