“Okay, easy, easy.” He pulls me back into place with one hand at the base of my spine, gripping the jumpsuit. This garment makes me way too easy to control. I need to invest in something more tearaway. “Settle down, baby.”
“I’m not a baby! I’m not your baby! Lemme go. Now!” My voice is reaching a pitch so high even I can’t hear it anymore.
“Let her go.”
I never expected Jason to come to my aid, but he picks me up bodily off Soren’s lap, puts me down on the ground while keeping hold of my arm, and proceeds to spank me hard with six hard smacks to each of my cheeks.
“There,” he says, as I dance and writhe in his grasp. “You’ve had a spanking. Go get in bed. Now.”
I can’t believe it, but I do as I’m told. I’m all too pleased to scurry away from both men. Soren is fucking intense. Too intense. Jason is confrontational and mean, but he’s simple. He doesn’t get under my skin. He doesn’t get in my head. He just smacks my ass and makes demands I then fail to fulfill. I know where I am with him. I have no idea where I will end up with Soren.
Jason
“What was that?”
Soren asks me the question once we’ve got her in bed and probably asleep. She’s quiet at least, and we know where she is. With this girl, that feels like a triumph.
Soren’s a smart guy, but he has no idea what to do with this brat. He’s overwhelming her by trying to be sensitive with her.
“She’s sensitive,” I explain. “That’s why you’ve got to be rough with her.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“I mean if you’re all intense and slow and insist on talking about feelings, she’s going to freak out.”
“So your suggestion is not to bother with her feelings or try to get through to her in a more meaningful way. It’s just smack her ass and send her to bed?”
“Exactly.”
“It’s that simple?”
“Yep,” I tell him. “It’s that simple.”
4
Aslin
I wake up in the middle of the night with no idea where I am. I wake Jason and Soren up as well, on account of the fact I’m screaming. This happens from time to time. It’s not something that usually bothers anybody, but I’m not usually sleeping in an open-walled gazebo with two military men.
Upon hearing my incoherent shrieks, they startle awake. Jason is on his feet and reaching for a weapon. Soren doesn’t go for a gun; he comes for me instead.
“What’s wrong?” Soren wraps his arms around me.
“I want to go home.” I don’t sound powerful anymore. I sound small, and scared. It’s a lie. I don’t want to go home. I want to get as far away from home as humanly possible. I would have thought this was it, but the demons have followed me into the night. There’s really no escaping what I left behind. Even when I consciously forget it, it comes back to get me when I have no control over my mind at all.
“I know,” Soren soothes me, patting my ass. “It’s okay to feel homesick. It’s normal, even. This is a very different world for you, in a lot of ways.”
He’s way too nice. He has no idea what is going on with me, or what darkness follows. He’s so prepared to view me as a helpless little girl with a nightmare. Fine. I’m not explaining myself to him. I can’t even imagine how that would go. He’d lose his fucking mind.
I’m starting to feel a little better. The human contact is nice. Very soothing. Especially the way his big hand keeps sliding back and forth over my rear, soothing away the same spanking he gave me a couple hours ago. Outside the gazebo the stars are calm, and the breeze is cool. Everything is okay. I don’t know how, or why. But everything is okay.
“Time to sleep now. You don’t need to go anywhere tonight. Tonight, all you need to do is relax,” Soren says. He pulls his roll over to mine and embraces me as if we’ve known one another for months, or maybe even years. The easy intimacy is a little confusing. Is this part of the service they offer? Are they jungle gigolos? I’m guessing not. If they were, they’d probably be more amenable to being paid off.
I’m not in the mood to question this right now. I’m getting what I need, somehow. It almost feels magical. I let Soren pull me close. I let him snug me against his shirtless body. I take what he’s offering, and I hope it is not a huge mistake.
I feel safe for the first time in a long time.
And I sleep.
“Up. Get. Up.”
I open my eyes to a rough demand in the dark. Okay, not the dark. There are hints of day on the distant horizon. At first, I don’t know what’s going on. I think it’s something terrible. My fingers curl into a fist, and that fist shoots straight out from under the covers and catches my assailant dead center of his handsome face. There’s a crunching sound, followed by a rough curse.