“I don’t . . . I don’t know if you can!” she cried. “They just happen. There’s no way to stop them.”
“Does something trigger them?” Alexei asked.
Tamsyn shook her head. “They just come. In them . . . I’m pinned down. I can’t move. I can’t see or hear anything. My arms and legs are tied and I’m so scared because I know . . . I’m going to be hurt.”
She was careful to make it sound very generalized. She didn’t want them to know that the nightmares stemmed from actual real-life events.
Both of them paused for a moment, then their fingers started moving again. Alexei moved his mouth to her nipple.
“Poor baby. We know you don’t like to be pinned down while being blindfolded.”
No. That was a limit for her. She could handle being bound if she was still able to see and hear. Or vice versa.
But not both at the same time.
“Maybe it was having both of us in bed with her,” Alexei said.
Oh no.
She hated the guilt in his voice. This wasn’t his fault. In any way.
“No, that wasn’t it. I’ve had plenty of nightmares when I’ve been in bed with just one of you or on my own.”
Uh-oh.
That might have been the wrong thing to say. She gulped as they went still.
“So you have had these nightmares before and not told us,” Alexei said in a low voice.
“Um. Can I plead the fifth?” she asked worriedly.
“That’s not the way it works, naughty girl,” Salem told her. “Also we’re not actually American.”
“Worth a try.”
Alexei withdrew his fingers from her pussy and ran them over her nipples before leaning down to suck. He moaned. “Fucking delicious. It’s too bad you need to be punished for keeping things from us.”
“That’s so not fair!” she cried. “I’m sure that you guys keep things from me.”
“Yes, but the difference is that everything we hold back is to do with work. Or doesn’t affect our health and wellbeing. These nightmares affect you. They wake you up, they frighten you, they make it hard to sleep. And, also, by keeping this stuff from us, you’re keeping us from performing our job. From doing something that is important to us. And that is looking after you.”
Crap.
That made her feel so seen and so cherished and protected.
But she didn’t deserve any of it.
“And if you say you don’t deserve any of that, I will spank you until you can’t sit comfortably for the rest of the day,” Alexei told her.
“Why wouldn’t I deserve that? Of course I do. I’m wonderful.”
Lies. Lies. Lies.
“You are,” Salem told her. “You also need to learn not to keep anything from us. How shall we punish our naughty girl?”
“I need to come!” she cried.
“Hmm, I don’t think she should be allowed to come.”