"Okay.Good.Thank you," I say, relieved they aren't involving the police."So what are you going to do to punish me?Spank me?"I say, laughing and hoping they would laugh too, and the ice would be broken, and we'd be best friends and everything would be okay.
"You're a quick study, Ms.Hagen," Layton says with a smile on his face that just transforms his features from dark and dominant to dark and sexy.
I carry on laughing.Until I start to choke.
"Wait.What?You said I was a quick study?"I stutter."You're going to spank me?"I cry.
"Oh yeah,” Jasper says, way too amused for my liking.
"You can't be serious," I say.Of course they're messing with me.Trying to scare me.
"Well, not if you tell us the real reason you're so interested in the pearls."
These men are going to give me whiplash.
"But you said you think I might be telling the truth about not wanting to steal them.That's the truth."
But I'm buying time.That's not what their last demand meant.They want to know why I'm clearly so obsessed with those pearls.
Fuck.
"I think they're pretty, like I said, and I wanted to hold them in my hands.That's it.Nothing else to it."
"That's only half the truth,” Jasper says quietly.
I sweep my gaze over each of them.I struggle to breathe as they remove their suit jackets, then their ties before they start to roll the sleeves of their shirts up, revealing forearms that are ripped with thick veins and littered with tattoos.
Oh god no.
I raise my chin and recalibrate.
"If I take this spanking, will you let me leave?"
"You would have served a sufficient punishment, and your slate will be clean."
I nod.It's a spanking.I'm not afraid of a little heated kerfuffle on my butt with their hands.So, it will sting a little.Who cares.
I nod once, then make a run for it.
I don't care if I have to run out into the street in this sheet, but I'm not taking a spanking from them.I would die if they touched me.
