Good Intentions

6

"There's one more thing I have to add," Nick began. "Remember when you partially stayed the night at the bookstore? Do you remember what I said to you? "

Leo shook his head. All he could recall was that he was extremely exhausted that night, so Nick's words must've flown past his ears.

"I told you that if you tried to escape, there would be consequences and you will be punished," he informed him.

"I-I don't remember hearing you say that," Leo said nervously. Now that he was reminded, he could vaguely remember Nick bringing up the topic of consequences, but he didn't really believe he'd do something serious. Although he was intimidating at times, he seemed care-free too.

"It doesn't matter, you will be punished either way. You ran away from your alpha when you knew damn well I wanted you to stay. You've worried me and caused trouble for not only the public, but for my men. If I don't punish you, you're going to think it's okay to do it something like that again.

"But it's not fair!" Leo whined and snatched his hand away from Nick's hold.

"But you knew that this was going to happen, so you must obey. Don't worry, I'll leave you with two choices. Either you can leave this room and face a more severe punishment the next time you do a mistake, or you can stay here, take the punishment, and I'll reconsider all future punishments I have planned. How does that sound?" He took Leo's hand once more and kissed each finger individually, and Leo heart did the thing. The thing where it was light into a flame and floated inside him until his mind was cloudy with smoke.

When Leo didn't answer, Nick continued. "I don't want to hurt you, Leo. I just want to do this because I think it would be best for you. You're a stubborn spirit, you know that? You must be given a lesson before you get any more wild."

"So you won't lock me up? You're not going to starve me? You won't light my fingertips on fire?"

"I'm your mate, not your torturer," Nick said. "Hmm, it'll hurt a bit, but that depends on your tastes."

Leo's eyes widened. "What do you have planned?"

"If you remove your pants and underwear and sit across my lap, I'll be glad to show you."

He stared at him hard, his brows strewn together. "You're going to spank me?"

"Yes."

He wasn't expecting that. Spanking was something he had never experienced himself before, but he thought it couldn't be that bad. It didn't seem like a severe punishment, and he would take it if it meant not having to face worse ones in the future.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay," Leo repeated. "I'll do it."

Strangely, Leo found himself agreeing to this too easily. Normally he'd try to put on a fight and argue about how this would be damaging to his ego, but he wasn't in the mood to be uncooperative. He accepted that maybe running off wasn't the wisest option and although he wasn't too sure how he felt about the punishment, he was going to take it. He knew it would be better to get it over with, and it would benefit him in the future since it meant Nick would reconsider any future punishments. He would just have to obey.

For now.

---

A couple of minutes later, Leo was stripped naked from the waist down and was over Nick's lap as he sat on his sofa in the corner of his study. He felt extremely awkward and exposed and began to question why he even agreed to this in the first place. He almost wanted to tell Nick he couldn't continue with this and that having worse punishments in the future would be okay if it meant sparing him from the heavy embarrassment. Leo was glad that Nick couldn't see his face because it was beet-red.