The Breaking Point. Mariella Starr

decided to maintain a D/D relationship. When Ales had expressed his position, and that he believed in spanking, he’d thought it would be the end of their relationship. He had been surprised to discover that Faith had been raised by parents who lived the same lifestyle he wanted to adopt.

      Faith had been raised by parents who believed a husband had the right to spank his wife. Her father, after a closed-door meeting with Ales, had agreed that he thought Ales was a good match for his impetuous daughter. He’d told her new boyfriend that if he ever needed advice on how to handle his daughter, Ales was to call him.

      Ales took the spanking to the point where she was crying, and then he pulled her into his arms. He reminded Faith of the many reasons they were together, and he reassured her of how much he loved her. He kissed and began to stroke her, and she melted under his touch.

      Ales laid Faith on the bed on her stomach. He began to give her a massage, his lips trailing behind whatever part he was attending. He wandered around her back to her still stinging buttocks. He pulled her to her knees and thrust several fingers into her, pumping them inside.

      Faith knew what was coming, and she shivered, wanting him inside her desperately. What followed was a wild ride of thrusting, pumping, and spanking of her already stinging bottom. When they lay spent, exhausted, and trying to catch their breath, she wished it wasn’t over, but she knew she had to allow him time to recoup his strength for another round.

      Chapter 5

      “It’s Monday, right?” Ales asked, laying his face against Faith’s breasts.

      “It’s Monday, July 4^th, Independence Day,” she said. She glanced over at the bedside clock. “We have approximately two hours. Then, Ricco is going to come tearing through the house, wanting to tell us every detail of his weekend.”

      “Hmmm,” was his answer. “I don’t think this has happened since our early days.”

      “What?”

      “I’m sexed out! We’ve had our own firework display going on this weekend, and we rarely left this bed,” Ales said, grinning. He rolled over and spread-eagled across the bed. “I couldn’t get it up if I needed to. Man, it was worth it!”

      “I’ll say,” Faith agreed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I need you to go to work tomorrow. I need to recover from our sexathon, and I didn’t put a single stroke of paint on canvas this weekend.”

      Ales rose over her and kissed her soundly. “You needed the distraction, and Ricco is on guard duty while I’m gone. If you work more than two-hours at a stretch, without an hour of rest between sessions, and more than six hours a day, I’m going to paddle your bottom good when I get home. Set the timers.”

      “He’s worse than you,” Faith complained.

      “It’s for your own good,” Ales said, climbing from the bed. “We do need to do this more often. Just because we’re working parents doesn’t mean we have to forget who we are to each other. We need to reverse our priorities, our relationship, and family first, work second. We need to take the time, and not let things fester between us. We need to do a date night. We need to get away from our daily routines.”

      “Carrie and John do it, and it’s not easy with his fireman’s schedule,” Faith said. “Sometimes, they borrow his brother’s RV, park it somewhere, and enjoy a little bit of time away from the kids.”

      “You’re preaching to the choir. It shouldn’t be that hard for us, we only have the one,” Ales said and kissed her again. “Maybe we can trade-off with them. As much as I hate to say this, we need to get dressed.”

      “I’ll start dinner,” Faith said. “After two days of junk food, Ricco might be hyper. I hope they didn’t let him go too crazy with junk food.”

      “You’re already worrying, and we agreed a long time ago to let him be a kid and try to keep our helicopter parent tendencies turned off. Unless he has an allergic reaction, and none have appeared so far, let him be a boy!”

      He smacked her lightly across the bottom and Faith winced because her bottom really was sore. She’d had more sex in the last three days, then in the past six months. Since her being spanked during sex was part of how they liked doing it, those stinging swats on top of a real spanking had left her with a very tender sit down.

      The next morning, Ales left for Cumberland at daybreak. It was a forty-mile drive, but he wanted to get in early to review his company’s current projects and workload. He’d been checking in every night long after Faith was asleep, but he knew there would be a backlog of things to handle.

      Faith started painting as soon as his car pulled away from the curb.

      At precisely eight o’clock, her phone rang, and it was her husband.

      “Put your brush down, and go relax for an hour!” Ales said firmly. “I saw the lights go on in your studio when I stopped at the end of the street. Remember, I have spy’s watching you. Gotta go! Love you!”

      Faith smiled at his casual ‘Love You’ remark. It had been a while since he’d remembered to tell her that too, and they had always been a demonstrative couple. She tossed her brush into a jar of cleaner and peered into Ricco’s bedroom on her way downstairs. Usually, an early riser, he was exhausted from his busy weekend and was sleeping in. They hadn’t been able to contain him the previous evening. She and Ales had listened to a verbal rerun of everything he’d seen and done, including nine innings of two different baseball games.

      She started pulling together the ingredients to make a breakfast casserole that was both nutritious and liked by her guys. What her son didn’t eat would be frozen in serving sizes that both Ales and Ricco could thaw and heat in the microwave. While she was rummaging in the cabinets, she also assembled the ingredients to make brownies. Everyone liked brownies, and she wanted to treat Tracy’s family as a thank you.

      Faith had brought her sketchbook with her. When she did things that required her attention, she relied on timers. Cooking was one of those things. Faith had the unique ability to focus so much on what she was doing that she could exclude whatever was going on around her. If she wasn’t in the same room as the timers, she didn’t hear them or remember that she had something cooking or in the oven. She had a long history of burnt offerings. Hence, the sketchbook. She would sit at the kitchen island, and sketch and she set multiple timers. She didn’t dare leave the room.

      When the timers dinged, she removed the casserole and the large pan of brownies, setting them aside to cool. She opened her sketchbook to finish the charcoal etching when someone rang the doorbell.

      “Hello,” Faith said, opening the door for Tracy and her mother. “Mrs. Winchester, I haven’t seen you in years! Florida must agree with you, you haven’t aged a bit.”

      “It does, and you’re old enough to call me Laura,” the older woman said, pulling her into a hug. “You’re also old enough to know you shouldn’t tell lies!”

      “I was telling Mom about your accident, and she had to come and see for herself that you were okay,” Tracy said.

      “I have recovered,” Faith said. “I was just making brownies as a thank you to Tracy for the kid-free weekend. Ricco told me you were at Dwain’s over the weekend. Come in.”

      “Are we interrupting anything?” Tracy asked.

      “No, actually, you’ll be keeping me from getting into trouble,” Faith said. “I’m allowed to work two hours, and then I have to take a time-out supposedly to rest. It’s the doctor’s recommendation, but it’s my husband’s orders.”

      “Do you have time to give us a tour?” Tracy asked. “I really do want to take my time and look at your paintings.”

      “Have at it,” Faith said with a smile and took on a deliberate snooty stance and voice. “Who am I to deny my public?” They all laughed.

      “Give