I hesitate, only now fully realizing that a spanking means I have to bare my ass. I glance around and see that there are a few people standing a respectful distance away. They’re watching our scene play out, and while my reasonable side insists that I should want to melt into the floor with mortification, the real me is actually turned on by the existence of the audience.

I comply and tug the pants down enough to expose my ass.

What I don’t do is tug down my thong, too. Which means that the audience sees my bare cheeks, but not my waxed pussy. I catch Riley’s eye, swallow, and position myself over his knee.

For a moment, he doesn’t move, and I hold my breath, afraid he’s going to make me stand up and pull down the thong, even though my ass is completely bared to him and anyone else who cares to look.

But he takes pity on me, gently cupping his hand over the curve of my rear and then stroking in gentle circles as he murmurs, “So lovely.”

I close my eyes, relaxing under his ministrations. The chair is low enough that I’m comfortable in this position, and I moan slightly in anticipation and longing when he says, “You were naughty not to remove your thong. For that, you’ll need to be punished.”

He rubs my ass, and then I feel the first sting of his palm on my tender skin. I gasp, the hot prickles of pain like tiny electric shocks. I feel drunk. On submission. On exhibition. On this wild new sensuality that is coursing through me, the explosion of flowers from a garden I didn’t even realize I’d planted during my walk through this place with Lyle and Matthew.

A garden that only Riley could make bloom.

His hand comes down on my ass again, and I draw a tremulous breath, imagining the red rising on my ass. A garden, all right, I think. A rose garden.

He spanks me eight more times, rubbing my tender skin gently with each stroke. And when he’s done, he opens a small bottle that is sitting in a square storage area in the arm of the chair, then spreads a soothing oil over my sore flesh before sliding his hand down over the curve of my ass to find my core.