I didn’t realize he was turning me to show the others the result of my punishment until I heard their gasps, but I already knew it was bad. The throbbing burn and sting were like nothing I’d ever felt before. I’d never even been hand spanked as a child, much less birched.
“It hurts,” I said, hiding my face in his chest, tentatively reaching back to touch my sore, tender bottom.
“I imagine it does,” Gabriel said, taking my hands and pulling them away. “But there are worse things than a birching, Evangeline.”
I looked up to find him studying me, and saw only concern in his eyes now. I wondered what he meant by what he said, that there were worse things than a birching. Was it a threat? Somehow, I didn’t think so. There was a tender, raw pain in his eyes that called to me. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know him, this man, this giant of a man who could beat me in one breath and hold me so tenderly in the next.
Chapter Five
Gabriel reluctantly handed her to one of the girls, the one she’d been bound to originally, who also picked up her discarded clothes and covered her as best as she could while walking her back to the line. Evangeline went, but turned to glance once more at him. He held her gaze until she looked away.
The switches he’d used now lay innocuously on the ground by the stump. He kicked them away, the image of her kneeling so obediently before him, bent deeply, offered for his punishment, burned a permanent image into his mind. He’d not whipped a woman in a very long time. Syn took more pleasure from that, and Gabriel didn’t mind leaving it to him. But today, when she’d chosen him rather than his brother to punish her, something had stirred inside him. Something alongside the thickening of his cock at the thought of whipping her, at the sight of her naked body, her bared bottom spread for him, the glimpse of her pretty pink pussy from between her cheeks, her sweet submission. Granted, she’d chosen him thinking he might be the lesser of two evils, but he hoped she’d learned today that there was no lesser, not between himself and his brother.#p#分页标题#e#
Gabriel didn’t like what he had to do with the girls, but their fate had been sealed when Gallaston had chosen them for his cargo. At least when Gabriel sold them, he would know they were safe, or he hoped so anyway. Either way, they had no choice. In Gabriel’s world, choice was a privilege, not a right.
Gabriel looked up to find Syn watching him, the expression in his eyes more inquisitive than harsh. Syn had changed over the years. He had hardened. His heart had grown a little colder, a little darker. But Gabriel couldn’t blame him, could he?
“She’s under your skin, brother,” Syn said, adjusting the crotch of his pants. “It’s been a long time since a woman’s gotten under your skin.”
“And yours,” Gabriel said, bending to pick up the branches to busy himself, not wanting to meet his brother’s eyes.
“Nah. Just a nice piece of ass.”
Gabriel stopped and turned to Syn. “They’re all a nice piece of ass. Gallaston has good taste. There’s something about her that’s got your attention though. Don’t deny it.”
Emotion flashed through Syn’s eyes but he was quick to shield it. “Well, she’ll likely be gone fast anyway. No way the men Remy’s lining up for the auction will pass her up.”
Gabriel’s mouth tightened. Although Remy was trustworthy, Gabriel didn’t want to know the details of how he came to know the men who would be bidding on the girls.
Syn stood watching him. That was the trouble with Syn, he could always read what Gabriel was thinking and vice versa. They were close, had been since they were kids. There was only a year difference between them and they were used to being together, trusting only each other.
“When are they coming?” Gabriel asked. The plan was to sell the girls, and no matter how unsavory the thought was, they had to do it. And he knew that as much as Syn tried to act casual about it, he didn’t like it any more than Gabriel did.
“Over the next few days.”
“Remy’s screened them?”
“Always, brother. You ready to tell them what’s going on?”
Gabriel nodded, his face tight. “May as well get it over with.”
“We’ve never kept one,” Syn said while they walked, his gaze straight ahead.
Gabriel’s thoughts were in exactly the same place, but there wasn’t room for that line of thinking. “And we’re not going to start.”
He walked off toward the RV to find the ointment he’d promised Evangeline.
Syn stared after his brother. Gabriel could be a real pain in the ass sometimes. Syn often wondered if Gabriel realized he wasn’t the only one who suffered after Laney’s overdose. She was his sister too, even if she and Gabe had been closer.