Back in Florida, Andie stood in the corner of the master bedroom of their two-bedroom condo. Her panties were tucked around her knees and her little crop top stopped short of her hips, revealing the whole expanse of her brightly blushing bottom.

Andie had asked for the spanking. It was well deserved, and she had a feeling that Eric would have let her off the hook had she not mentioned it. But, she needed it, and Eric understood her well enough to follow through on her request.

She was spanked on her bare bottom, over his lap, until she was whimpering with each swat of his broad hand. It was a lengthy spanking, and she felt exhausted and flushed by the end. After lifting her from his knee, he set her in the corner where she had been standing for the past ten minutes.

Above everything else she hated corner-time.

Never, at any other point in their relationship, did Andie feel more subdued than when she was forced to stand in the corner.

Resisting the urge to huff indignantly at her current position, Andie reached a hand back to rub gingerly at her sore backside. A disapproving tut from somewhere in the room startled her, and she snatched her hand forward again. She didn't think he had returned to the room yet.

"Naughty little Andie," the disapproval continued as she heard Eric approach from behind.

"I'm sorry," she replied quickly.

Eric's warm hand replaced her's on her throbbing bottom, and he applied gentle pressure as he smoothed gentle circles across her red cheeks.

Andie sighed and her eyes fluttered shut. She leaned back into Eric's chest, and his free hand smoothed up and down her bare arm.

"You took your spanking like such a good girl," he told her. "But we aren't finished. I spanked you per your request, but now I'm going to spank you for all the reasons you deserve to be spanked."

He turned her in his arms and she clung to him, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist.

"But I thought that's what that spanking was for... I thought that you weren't going to spank me, and I felt that I deserved it."

Lifting her chin with his hand. "You certainly do deserve it, and far more than a mild spanking across my knee."

Andie huffed at his use of the word "mild" whilst describing her discipline. It had hurt! She settled for dropping her chin and pouting at her feet instead. But she was only allowed a second before Eric lifted her chin again.

"Come now, sweet girl... You left without a word, breaking our promise to speak to me when your anxieties started to get the best of you. And then you braved a cross-country road trip all by yourself—which took at least five years off my life. If you thought you were going to get away with a little spanking on your bare bottom..." he trailed off, shaking his head with a bemused smile.

Scowling, Andie fidgeted nervously. "Then why did you spank me? You could have told me that you were planning on disciplining me and then I wouldn't have an additional sore bottom!"

Eric smiled patiently at Andie's whining. "I could have, yes. But I don't think an additional sore bottom is such a bad thing for this specific infraction. I'm tempted to deliver a sore bottom every night this week."

Andie gulped. "No, that's all right."

Chuckling Eric tweaked her nose as if she were no more than five years old. "You have no say in the matter, little girl."

Grumbling, Andie rubbed the tweak from her nose as if it smudged her skin. Then she crossed her arms and turned her face away from Eric.

"What's wrong, baby?"

"I don't like feeling in trouble..." Andie muttered softly. "I thought it was over."

"It is over, sweetheart. You're home, you have the support of your best friend, you're safe, and I don't believe you'll ever get the itch to leave again. I genuinely feel like we have crossed a hurdle. But..." he paused to duck his head and capture her lips with his in a brief kiss. "Daddy believes that further discipline is necessary, and you wouldn't argue with your daddy, would you?"

Eric's words were her undoing. How did the word "daddy" have such an effect on her?

Whining half-heartedly, Andie dragged her feet as "her daddy" led her towards their bed. Her white panties fell from her knees and onto the floor. When he sat at the edge of the mattress and tipped her over his knee, she felt nearly naked and very vulnerable for the additional punishment that Eric felt she deserved.

With the palm of his hand, he spanked her left cheek. "When you're feeling anxious about us, what do you do?"

"Talk to you."

He spanked her right cheek.

"And when you come to me about your anxieties, what do I tell you?"

"That you love me..."

He spanked her right cheek again. "And?"

"Ow! And that...that you'll show me that you love me every single day so that I never doubt it and feel the need to leave."

His hand caressed her left cheek, all pink from her previous spanking, before delivering another sharp swat. She yipped but remained obediently still.

"And if you were to feel the need to leave..." Eric continued. "What did I promise you would happen if you followed through on that urge?"

"You...promised to... paddle my bottom."

Eric spanked her bottom twice on the same spot. "That's right," he answered her as she hissed through the stinging pain in her backside.

"I have paddled you before, haven't I? When you were an ornery little teenager I took the back of a hairbrush to your bare bottom. You didn't like that, did you?"

"No!" she mewled as he steadily spanked the center of her bottom, catching both cheeks in his large hand.

"I'm sorry?"

"No, Daddy!" she corrected herself breathlessly, whining as she worked hard to keep her bottom still over Eric's lap.

"And when I caught you nearly leaving not long ago, I placed you on all fours on this very bed and paddled your bare bottom, didn't I?"

"Yes, Daddy," Andie cried as Eric continued to steadily spank her bottom, alternating cheeks.

"That wasn't very enjoyable, was it?"

"No, Daddy!"

"And yet, you still ran away..."

Eric paused to rub gentle circles across Andie's burning skin, allowing her a moment to catch her breath.

"So, since the threat of a paddling didn't keep you from ignoring our promise to one another, I think the only appropriate punishment would be to incorporate the use of an entirely new implement."

Andie groaned nervously. "Like what?"

Eric didn't answer. Instead, Andie felt him shift, and then heard the intimidating sound of his belt buckle coming undone, and then the slithering hiss of his belt being pulled through the loops of his jeans.

"Oh..." Andie whined. "Please, Daddy... No."

"Oh, yes, sweetheart... I think a whipping across your bare bottom is exactly what you need."

Crying pitifully to herself, Andie lowered her head as Eric tipped her bottom higher across his knee. Then...

Wap!

The first lash of the belt was followed by a steady series of licks that gradually moved from the center of her bottom to the lowest curve of her bottom, and then back up. He wasn't striking very hard; he had folded the belt in half and then wrapped the majority of it around his hand, so the part that struck her wasn't very long. It didn't lash at her like she expected it to—instead, it thudded against her bottom in an awful stinging slap.

Andie didn't fight him. She laid across his lap perfectly still and cried quietly to herself as her daddy whipped her bare bottom. It hurt fiercely, but it was the kind of hurt that she trusted because it was delivered by the man who would never give her more than she could handle.

After several minutes of steadily whipping her bottom, Eric transferred the belt to the hand that laid firmly across the small of Andie's back. Then his hand replaced the belt and he finished her punishment with a hand spanking that made her feel like a little girl.

"We're not going do this again. Are we, Andie?"

"No, Daddy," Andie cried softly.

"And if you run off like that again?"

"D-daddy will whip my bare bottom..."

Eric stopped spanking her and lifted her up until she was sitting on his lap. Then, he cupped her tear-stained face and forced her eyes on his.

"I will find you, and I will remind you that I love you and that despite your fears, and despite you running away, I will continue to love you, and nothing will ever, ever change that."

Andie launched herself forward and into Eric's chest where she wrapped her arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder. He dropped the belt to the floor and wrapped his arms tightly around her in a full embrace that was so engulfing, that she felt as if it was healing all the hurt she had ever experienced in her young life.

"And then I will whip your bare bottom," he concluded firmly in her ear, to which she nodded in understanding. They stayed that way until Andie's cries had subsided. Once she was silent, Eric gently drew her back. She looked up at him with blinking, sleepy eyes.

"Are you all right, my sweet girl?"

She answered with a nod.

"Was I too hard on you?"

She answered with a shake of her head.

"Can you answer me properly?"

Andie swallowed, but her reply still came out as a soft croak: "No, Daddy... You weren't too hard on me."

Eric's grip tightened around her. "I love you, baby girl."

"I love you too, Daddy," she replied in a whisper, closing her eyes and leaning herself into his embrace.

They were quiet for a moment before she said: "I miss Teddy."

"I know you do," Eric consoled, smoothing his hand up and down her back. "But it was nice of him to stay behind and get on better terms with Morgan, don't you think?"

"Yes... He's such a good person."

"Yes, he is."

Andie distracted herself momentarily by playing with the buttons of his shirt before speaking again.

"Do you think they could...?" she trailed off, lifting her eyes and meeting Eric's.

"It's possible," he answered with a thoughtful nod. "Does that bother you?" he asked when Andie lowered her head as if disappointed by his answer.

"No. I mean... I want him to be happy. I just..."

"...not ready to share him?"

Andie nodded, once again lifting her eyes. "Yeah... How did you know?"

"Because I know that what you have with him is a special friendship, and even if he finds himself in a relationship, I know he wouldn't trade his friendship with you for anything in the world."

"You think so?"

"Absolutely. I know how important he is to you, and vice versa. If I wasn't so aware of how madly in love you are with me, then I might be a little jealous," he said, nuzzling close to her face and growling playfully.

Giggling, Andie scrunched up into a ball as Eric's lips tickled her behind the ear.

"At least I have a backup if anything ever happens between us," she teased. Eric's fingers attacked her sides and she erupted into a fit of squeals.

"Excuse me, little girl," Eric growled through her fit of breathless giggles. "I'll be the only Daddy you ever have. Got it?"

"Yes! Yes! I understand!"

He stopped and she caught her breath, giggling softly to herself as she pretzeled her way back into his embrace.

"I'll never have another Daddy... Ever."

With a sigh, he held her close. "I love you, Andie. Always."

"I love you, Eric."

It was just like that moment back in her childhood bedroom all those years ago, after she had lied to him about Morgan's whereabouts. It was the only real punishment she had ever endured from him—the others were delivered based on less-serious infractions.

Afterward, as she settled her tears, he held her, and they talked about her concerns with her best friend. Morgan was still her best friend, but she had another now—Teddy. He was just as important to her, in a new and different way that felt exceptionally special to her. She feared losing him.

And just like all those years ago in her small bedroom with the wooden floors and soft blue lamp in the corner, Eric rubbed her back and told her it would be OK.

At the time, she never would have imagined how the next six years would play out; that she would spend all of that time without him—mourning his absence, pining over the brief time they shared, replacing him with weaker, less-than-ideal boyfriends... Never knowing that one day, she would feel like that young girl again—loved, disciplined, and in the arms of the boy who broke her heart all those years ago.

And this time, it was him who was refusing to let her go. It was him who was chasing her across the country. It was him who worked to convince her every day how perfect they were for each other.

Eric loved her.

And at last, after all these years, she felt whole again.

The End.