“She got off.”
“She did, and then she crashed hard. It’s okay. It happens sometimes.”
Vandal shushed me even though I wasn’t making a sound, his hands gentle on my hair, smoothing it away from my face, trailing down to wipe away my tears with his thumbs. He was still wearing his T-shirt, and he smelled like himself and not some stranger my imagination had turned him into. I inhaled deeply, trying to reassure myself that although they liked playing hard, they’d never do the things I’d been imagining.
Zero lay down behind me, spooning around me, making me feel cocooned in warmth.
“I’m sorry,” Zero murmured in my ear. “I took things too far. I should have stopped.” He cleared his throat and kissed me behind the ear, making me shiver, but not unpleasantly. The gentle touch of his lips there made me feel valued. “Why didn’t she safeword?”
“She’s a tough girl and likes walking the edge, but something freaked her out. What was it, Sadie?” he asked me like he actually gave fuck. My name anchored me. He thought of me as a person, not simply a toy.
I sorted through the carousel of my thoughts, trying to pick out exactly which horse had been the rickety one.
“I’m not sure,” I mumbled against his chest. “I think it was my imagination right at the end. You said something about breeding me at the beginning and it got mixed up with the feel of you coming inside me and the role of the captive girl in Zero’s book, and me feeling disposable and then…” I tried to think of how to finish my statement, but my thoughts were a jumble, and I wasn’t sure if there was any way they could understand.
Zero bottomed for Vandal, but that didn’t mean they played games like this. It didn’t mean he had any clue where my mind had drifted.
“You were too lost to safeword.”
I nodded against his chest, and Zero made a regretful sound.
“It was hot—I was good until the very end.”
Zero skimmed a hand down my side and grabbed onto my thigh with a sweet possessiveness. “Was it me making you clean up?”
“No. That was gross, but it wasn’t that.” I started laughing. “I just didn’t want to die in there.”
“Shit, kid. You don’t know us better than that?”
“I have an overactive imagination.”
“I wonder what that’s like?” Vandal mused.
“No clue,” Zero replied. It felt like he was smiling against my hair.
Warm and safe, I let myself gradually slide into sleep, their hands petting me and their murmurs dying away.
Chapter 21
“Why isn’t Zero coming with us?” I asked as the truck purred along the highway. The new pavement in this section was so new it almost felt like we were parked somewhere instead of going twenty over the speed limit.
“Zero has work to do. Are you that afraid of being alone with me?”
“You aren’t always the nicest person.”
“You like it when I’m not nice to you,” he pointed out. He picked up his phone, and I grabbed it out of his hand.
“No texting with me in the truck. Kill yourself if you want, you’re not taking me with you.”
He made a gesture at me as if he had a talkative puppet on his hand. “You’ve got a bossy mouth for a girl who supposedly doesn’t like getting punished.”
I went hot all over and ducked my head away from him, my cheeks burning.
“There’s no need to be ashamed of how much you like being disciplined.”
“I don’t!”
“So what’s your favorite? Being spanked or being sodomized?”
I opened my mouth to tell him off, but all I could do was sit there agape.
“That answers that question.”
“Shut up!” I squeaked.
“I guess I should have asked if you prefer your punishments with or without lube.”
He hit a bump—I could almost swear it was on purpose, considering the smoothness of the highway—and I was reminded of the bruises on my butt and the metal plug he’d coaxed into my asshole before we’d left. I hadn’t even done anything wrong. Apparently, it had been a ‘just in case you’re thinking about getting sassy on the trip’ preventative measure.
“Is your pretty pussy leaking all over the place again? If you make a mess on that seat you’ll be cleaning it up before we even start shopping.”
“Why are you like this?”
“You’re the one who came looking for me, remember? Like they say—if you don’t like sodomy, stay out of my cottage.”
“I’m pretty sure the idiom is, ‘if you don’t like the heat stay out of the kitchen.’”
“I like mine better.”
“You would.”
“I may have a thing for making people uncomfortable.”
“Really? I never would have noticed.”
He was smiling at the road. I loved seeing him smile—even more if it was because of me. The last read-through of his book had gone well, and I could tell how relieved he was by the change in his demeanor since the day he’d sent it in. He was almost euphoric sometimes, instead of always being grim or surly.
I wriggled in the seat, trying to make the butt plug less uncomfortable. “I think you just like sodomy so much because you get to spend quality time with assholes, like yourself.”
He pulled over to the shoulder so fast we left a plume of dust in our wake. I gasped and he popped my seatbelt off, hauling me across his lap and giving me five sharp smacks on the ass, jarring the hard plug as the steering wheel dug into my side. Without comment, he shoved me back into my seat then buckled me in, driving away as though the interlude had never happened.
My butt was throbbing against the warm leather, and I shifted in discomfort, trying to find a way to sit that would let me ignore the way my pussy had heated from the brief manhandling.
“What? Did I hurt your feelings?” I grumbled.
“No. I just like mauling your ass, and you gave me a convenient excuse.” He flashed me a grin, and I rolled my eyes. “You’ve got a big wet spot on those panties, by the way.”
“I have so much boy cum leaking out of me I’m not sure how I can be blamed for the mess.”
“Do some Kegels or something.”
“That’s not how it works, jerkface.”
He chuckled and shook his head in mock disappointment. “You and I both know that mess is all from you. You want us so bad you can’t help it. You’re like a helpless little blow-up doll with a libido a rabbit would envy.”
“If I’m so dumb, why are you getting me to read for you?”
“You’re like a constant fucking blowjob for my ego.”
“Fuck you.”
“You’re going to have to wait for that, little monster.”
Now we were both smiling to ourselves and staring out the window in companionable silence. I wasn’t sure how I was going to go back to living alone and not having anyone to fight, goof around, or talk with, or anyone to hold me at night, but at least I’d have memories like this. At least I knew that relationships like this were possible.
“Okay, you stole my phone, so put some music on.”