She turned her face to the mattress as the image registered, and her arousal shrank—again. A soft whisper above her led to the mattress jostling on the other side, and then she felt Lucas’s lips near her ear, speaking so that only she could hear.
“We’re working on your self-esteem later, baby. I love all of your dimples, but I was referring to the ones in your cheeks when you smile. Damn it, I wish you could see the vision you make right now, trusting us to take care of you, to pleasure you…to protect you. Your body is perfect. The way you move, the sparkle in your eyes, and the way you carry yourself, when you’re not feeling self-conscious, is so sexy.”
She wanted to believe them. She did.
Josh ran his fingers through her long hair, inspiring shudders. “You don’t believe in yourself the way we do, baby girl. It’s up to us to change that. It’s also up to us to punish our naughty little nymph.”
Shit. She’d forgotten. Why had Joseph scripted her as a naughty little nymph in need of discipline? Her brain had skimmed over that detail without weighing the ramifications.
Josh said, “What do you think, gentlemen?”
“Spank her.” She recognized the voice as belonging to the first lumberjack to speak earlier, the one who’d wanted Josh and Lucas to share her with all of them.
“Make her suck you off.”
“Don’t let her come!” Their numerous suggestions confirmed they hadn’t wandered off discreetly to other kinky pursuits when Lucas had brought out the blindfold.
“Tickle her.” The voice was Lucas’s.
While the others kept making suggestions for punishments, Josh leaned over to her and squeezed her shoulder. Had he observed the way she’d tensed at Lucas’s suggestion? He smoothed the hair hanging in her face over her shoulder and said, “Are you ticklish, little nymph?”
“Y-yes.”
“Interesting.”
“Please, Josh. I don’t want to be tickled.”
“Do you need to use your safe word?”
If she did, the scene would end, and they’d put a lot of effort into it. “No, but…”
“Fair enough.”
“You won’t tickle me?” she asked, hoping like hell for a spanking or something else.
With a chuckle, he said, “I didn’t say that, now did I?” He tugged her hair gently and whispered, “You have a safe word if you need it.”
Lucas said, “Sounded like she’d rather have a spanking.” She could hear the mirth in his voice, and considered kicking out at him, but she bit her lip and held still.
I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Damned evil Abbott brothers.
Her insides clenched, and her mind warred with itself. She hated being tickled because she was guaranteed to pee or hurt someone trying to get away. She’d probably wind up face planting off of the bed. But they’d realize that and subdue her, and that thought got her even wetter.
Fine, I’ll just pee on them. It’d serve ’em right. And they have to sleep sometime.
The next second, she drew a sharp breath as a white-hot shiver raced across her skin from her shoulders to her hips, leaving a wickedly ticklish sensation in its wake and raising the hairs on her arms. It shouldn’t have felt good but ohhhhh… Her long, shaky moan was met by silence. Gooseflesh trailed down her spine, over her hips, and down the backs of her legs, and she almost collapsed on her forearms at the arresting sensation.
“I’m not sure that’s much of a punishment, Josh,” one of the lumberjacks said. “She sounded like it felt good.”
When they’d suggested tickling, she’d expected jabbing fingertips dug into her ribs, in the way she hated and couldn’t escape from. She’d expected tickles beneath her armpits, at her waist, the bottoms of her feet, and at her collarbones. Not this. She was liable to come if he continued.
Josh chuckled mercilessly and reversed the motion, this time dragging the edges of his fingernails lightly in a track heading back in the direction he’d come. She couldn’t control the shudders at the light tickling touch, and she panted and grew twitchy as he reached her ribs and slowed down.
“Oh God!” She was in paroxysms as he drew light, torturous circles over her lower ribs, edging higher. Hot and cold chills rippled through her body.
Over the pounding of her pulse in her ears, she barely heard him mutter, “Stay still, or I’ll have the others hold you down.”
Holding still seemed like part of the punishment, but she went statue still, internalizing the tremors until her tummy wobbled and her arms shook.
He raked his fingernails down in another white-hot track, and she cried out when, instead of continuing on down her legs, he stopped near her hips and traced her tailbone over and over with a lighter touch, making her ass and thighs twitch and undulate. Her face felt as if it was flaming with embarrassment at the way he had her gyrating. She was his marionette, moving and writhing at his command.