Page 55 of Lesson In Forgiveness

Elias stopped in his tracks, then turned slowly. One dark eyebrow arched high. “I really don’t want to know.”

The giant screen came alive, controlled by the remote in Callie’s hands. As her men settled into their seats in the semi-darkness and she hunkered down in her fort, music burst from the speakers.

Blearily, Tabitha tried to give the strange puppet-like things her attention. The heat in her ass was distracting for all the wrong reasons; it no longer flared with the burn, but simply hummed beneath her skin like some built-in heat pad. The onesie fabric felt rough and scratchy against her abused flesh.

The TV show moved from one episode to another, and her vulnerable mental state—laid open by the spanking and Grit’s tenderness—began to shift as the villainous creatures triggered something down in the recesses of her soul.

The tired fog clouding her brain cleared slowly, making room for the anxiety building in her chest. Whimpering softly, she squirmed closer to Grit, not quite understanding why puppets—however evil they might be—were eliciting this feeling inside her.

“Are you in pain?” Grit whispered, his fingers stilling.

She shook her head, burying her face in his lap, but the nasty cackle from the screen chilled her down to the bone.

It sounded like Dominic—ominous and malevolent.

Quickly, Grit removed her blanket, then scooped her up, agilely shifting her around until her sensitive rear was cradled by his thighs, his arm around her back. The blanket came around her again. “Little tiger, you know they’re not real, right? It’s all mechanics and puppetry.”

“I don’t like the voices. The noise.” They were like fingernails down a chalkboard to her ears.

“Do you want me to take you back to our room?”

Oh hell, now she just sounded pathetic. A grown woman, one with countless amounts of blood on her hands, unable to stand an animatronic creature because she had daddy issues.

Besides, if they returned to Grit’s room, she’d have to spend the next few hours before they went to bed with him, alone. As soon as he was asleep… well, she was going to miss watching him slumber.

“No,” she muttered.

“Everything okay?” Elias’s voice cut through the dimness, low and concerned.

“It’s fine,” Grit assured him in the same volume. “The Skeksis are freaking her out. I’ve got her.”

“They gave Callie nightmares for a week the first time she watched it.” Evander joined in the hushed conversation. “Now it’s all she wants to watch.”

From the fort, Callie chimed in, “Shush, Daddies, this is a good bit!”

“Sorry, minx. We’ll be quiet.”

A soft huff answered him, followed by the rustle of a candy wrapper.

Humming thoughtfully under his breath, Grit pressed a kiss to her head through the onesie hood, then proceeded to shift her yet again. This time with her sore bottom directly on his thighs, her ass tucked against his erection, and her eyes facing the screen. The blanket draped over her front.

The hood was tugged off as she squirmed uncomfortably.

“Sit still, little tiger. I don’t need you to give me ideas now, do I?” His mouth touched the shell of her ear, his words little more than a waft of warm breath. “Be a good girl and let me distract you from the scary beasts.”

She supposed he couldn’t do too much to her here. The light from the screen illuminated the room subtly, occasionally darkening to shadows as the story continued. Elias was close enough to see them, and Evander was on just the other side of him.

Being naked in front of them wasn’t problematic—hell, if she’d given herself the green light on Eli’s contract, she’d have crawled into bed with him long enough to get the job done if needed—but allowing them to see her at her most vulnerable, trapped in a panic attack, giving them inside knowledge to her triggers…

No.

Grit nuzzled a spot beneath her ear that made her hips twitch, then nibbled his way down her neck. “Unzip the onesie, Tabitha. All the way down, if you please.”

“I—”

“Ah-ah,” he admonished, quickly cutting off her protest. “We don’t want to make the Little mad, do we? My name—my real name—is your safeword. Remember it?”

“R-Rory.” Tabitha swallowed hard.

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