Chapter 6: Birthday Spankings
The smell of bacon and coffee, not the silent alarm, woke him. It was disorienting. Bucky opened his eyes to gray dawn light and an empty space beside him, but the tension didn’t coil. The domestic sounds from the kitchen were a different kind of signal.
He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and padded out, his senses cataloguing the room out of habit. Nothing out of place. The fire was banked. The monitors were dark.
She stood at the stove, her back to him. Her curls were a wild halo in the early light. She was wearing one of his old flannel shirts, the fabric straining across her shoulders and hanging open over the sides of her pronounced belly. Beneath it, he caught a glimpse of thin straps. Not a tank top.
“You’re up early,” he said, his voice rough.
She turned, a smile already on her face. “Happy birthday.”
He’d forgotten. The date meant nothing, just a marker on a calendar that had rarely tracked anything good. But she remembered. On the counter was a plate stacked with pancakes, a single candle jammed into the top one, burned almost to the stump. Next to it sat a ludicrously wrapped package, small and lumpy.
“Pancakes,” he stated.
“Your favorite. With the blueberries inside, not just on top.” She brought the plate over, setting it on the table. “Make a wish.”
He looked at the dying candle, then at her. “I don’t need to.”
“Everyone needs to.” She nudged him. “Come on. Before it goes out.”
He leaned forward, briefly meeting her eyes before blowing. The flame died with a wisp of smoke. He wished, abruptly and fiercely, for the continuation of this exact moment. For the safety of this kitchen.
“Open your gift.” She was buzzing with contained excitement.
He tore the paper. Inside was a mug. It was chunky, handmade, glazed in a streaky, chaotic green. It was lopsided. On the side, in clumsy black lettering, it read: WORLD’S OKAYEST DAD.
He stared at it. A sound escaped him—a short, sharp exhalation that was almost a laugh. It felt strange in his throat. “Okayest?”
“Realistic goals,” she said, her grin widening. “I made it in that pottery class I took in town last month. Ruth’s sister runs it. It’s ugly as sin, but it holds coffee.”
He ran his thumb over the uneven letters. Dad. It wasn’t a title he’d ever imagined earning, not with his own father’s voice still a poison echo in his head. Worthless. Weak. He set the mug down carefully. “It’s perfect.”
She kissed him then, soft and lingering. “There’s more,” she whispered against his lips.
With a deliberate slowness, she stepped back. Her fingers went to the buttons of the flannel shirt. She undid them one by one, letting the fabric fall open. Underneath was not sleepwear.
It was lace. A bralette of dark ivory, the cups straining to contain the full, heavy swell of her breasts, her dark nipples visible behind the intricate pattern. Below the magnificent curve of her belly, where a thin panel of matching lace barely covered her, the waistband of the panties rode low, dipping beneath the tight, round prominence.
He stopped breathing. She was a fucking vision. Ripeness incarnate. His.
“Christ, Sol.” The words were torn from him.
“Do you like it?” She did a slow turn, showing him how the lace disappeared between the cheeks of her ass. “I ordered it months ago. Wasn’t sure it would still fit.”
He was on his feet, the chair scraping loudly. He crossed the space in two strides. His hands weren’t gentle. They gripped her hips, possessive, turning her back to face him. He palmed the heavy weight of her breast through the lace, thumb brushing her nipple. She gasped.
“You did this on purpose,” he growled, leaning down to bite her shoulder. “Dressed up like a present. Knowing what it does to me.”
“Yes.” Her head fell back against his chest. “Your birthday. My rules.”
“Your rules?” He chuckled, a dark, warm sound. He spun her around, bent her over the kitchen table, right next to the plate of cooling pancakes. Her cheek pressed against the woodgrain. He pushed the flannel shirt off her shoulders, baring her back. His hand came down on the lace-covered swell of her ass in a sharp, crisp spank.
The sound was loud in the quiet kitchen. She yelped, then moaned.
“My house,” he said, landing another, harder. The skin beneath the lace blossomed pink. “My table. My pregnant girl. My rules.”
she panted, pushing her ass back into his next strike.
He hooked his fingers in the sides of the panties and dragged them down her thighs. She stepped out of them, legs wide. He ran a hand over the heated skin of her ass, then lower, through her wetness. She was soaked. “Look at this. Dripping for me. This what you wanted when you put this fucking lace on?”
“Yes.”
He unbuttoned his sweats, freeing himself. He was painfully hard. He didn’t enter her. He rubbed the head of his cock through her folds, teasing, painting her with her own wetness. He leaned over her, his mouth at her ear. “You feel how full you are? With my baby?”
“So full,” she whined, pushing back, trying to take him inside.
He spanked her again, right on the same spot. She cried out. “I asked you a question.”
“I feel it! I feel him, and I feel you, and I’m so full, Bucky, please—”
He drove into her with one deep, relentless thrust. She screamed, her body clamping around him in a vice. He set a brutal pace, fucking her over the table, his hands gripping her hips hard enough to leave bruises. The table shook. The “Okayest Dad” mug wobbled.
“That’s it, baby girl,” he grunted, each snap of his hips punctuating his words. “Take your birthday present. Gonna fill you up even more. Gonna pump my cum so deep into you, you’ll taste it.”
His crude words shattered her. Her orgasm ripped through her, a raw, loud thing that made her shudder and clamp around him, milking him. He followed, a guttural roar torn from his chest as he emptied himself inside her, pushing deep, claiming. He stayed there, buried, panting against her spine, as the aftershocks rolled through them both.
Slowly, he pulled out. He turned her, catching her as her legs buckled. He held her up, his forehead against hers. They breathed the same air.
“The pancakes are cold,” she mumbled into his neck.
“Don’t care.”
They ended up eating them anyway, standing at the counter, sharing the lopsided mug of coffee. He wore his sweats. She wore the flannel shirt, open, the lace bralette still on beneath. The marks on her ass were a warm, secret glow.
Later, he worked on reinforcing the gate to the chicken coop. She sat on a stump nearby, sanding a piece of wood for a new shelf, her movements slow and content. The sun climbed.
The admission hung between them. He thought of her hidden past, the fragments she’d let slip—a controlled childhood, a life of audits and numbers used as armor. This cabin, her garden, her pottery, was her manifesto. He understood that better than anyone.
He finished the gate, testing its swing. “It’s secure.”
She came over, leaning into his side. He dropped a kiss on her hair, smelling sunshine and sawdust. “Good,” she said.
The afternoon bled into evening. They made a stew, the kind that simmered for hours. She chopped vegetables. Browned meat. He watched her, this woman who could dissect a financial fraud and knead a loaf of bread with the same fierce concentration.
That night in bed, he traced the stretch marks on her belly, silvering lines in the moonlight. She watched him, her eyes soft.
“You’ll be more than okay,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. He just laid his palm flat over the place where their son slept and felt the sturdy kick against his hand. A promise, or a challenge. He wasn’t sure yet.
But her breathing evened out into sleep beside him, and he lay awake listening to the safe, familiar sounds of the perimeter, holding both her wish and his own fear in the dark, waiting for dawn.