Blake, Abby - Hot Inspiration [A Bride for Eight Brothers 5] (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever) (2 page)

Chapter Two

“Roll over, little one.”

Lachlan touched the red streaks on Mikayla’s ass as Brock pushed her onto her knees and pushed her head forward onto the mattress. Between the spanking and the flogging, her skin was probably already tender. He really wished what he was about to do wasn’t necessary, but if Mikayla refused to call a halt to their love play when things got too intense, there was a good chance they could hurt her accidentally. Sometimes BDSM was dangerous, and refusing to use her safe word could have serious consequences.

She jumped as Lachlan’s hand landed hard against her sore flesh, but she didn’t say anything, just held herself rigid and waited for the next. Brock gave him a look of sympathy then moved to the other side of the bed and spanked her ass with his big hand.

Mikayla grunted, obviously in pain, but she buried her face in the pillows and held still. Frustrated by her refusal, Lachlan landed another blow in the same spot as the first. She cried out, the sound muffled by the pillow, but didn’t use her safe word—or even her time-out word. Brock smacked her even harder, and they both heard her sob.

But again she held herself rigid.

“Are you comfortable, sub?”

She was silent for a moment, and it was obvious she was trying to find her voice, but then she gave them the exact wrong answer. “Yes, Sirs.”

Lachlan’s hand shook, and he looked to his brother for reassurance. They didn’t want to hurt her, yet Mikayla didn’t trust them enough to call a halt to their play. Did she think they would leave her if she used her safe word?

“Bullshit,” Brock said as he smacked her ass again. “Damn it, Mikayla. Use your fucking safe word or God help me I will spank your ass until it glows in the dark.”

She yelped as his hand hit the same place, but this time she scurried away. Even with the blindfold, it was obvious she was crying as she rolled onto her side.

But she still didn’t use her safe word.

“Mikayla,” Brock said in his deepest, most dominating voice. “Say your safe word or get back into position.” She flinched at his words, almost like he’d smacked her again, even though neither Brock nor Lachlan moved.

Lachlan had never heard his brother sound as frustrated as he did at that moment. His hands were shaking, and it was obvious that he didn’t want to spank her any more than Lachlan did, but if Mikayla refused to use her safe word, then they couldn’t play the type of bondage games they all enjoyed.

Lachlan went to gather her in his embrace, unable to see her so upset. Hell, he’d live a lifetime of vanilla sex rather than put her through this a moment longer. But Brock held his arm out, a clear signal for Lachlan to stop. Lachlan swallowed hard, hoping that Brock could get through to their beautiful wife.

“Y–yellow,” she managed to mumble through her tears.

Brock looked completely flabbergasted by her answer. Yellow was supposed to be a signal for her to call a time-out, but it was obvious that Mikayla was finished. She needed more than a time out. She needed to call a complete halt.

“Fine,” Brock said, sounding exasperated. “I’ll give you one minute and then I want you back in position.”

Mikayla gasped, and it sounded like the word “no” escaped her lips, but Brock held Lachlan back once more. Brock rummaged through his drawers, found what he was looking for, and headed back to the bed. He made certain to slap the leather belt against his hand a few times to let Mikayla know what was coming. Her ass looked so sore that Lachlan knew the belt would be very painful.

“That’s one minute, sub. Back in position.”

Unbelievably, Mikayla moved back into position, her head down, her ass up.

“Damn it, Mikayla,” Lachlan said as Brock moved back into position and went to hit her with the belt.

Mikayla moved, and Lachlan could see the relief on Brock’s face as his blow missed its mark.

“I can’t hear you, Mikayla. Say. Your Damn. Safe word!”

“Red,” she said as a sob tore from her throat. Brock immediately dropped the belt and gathered her into his arms. She clung to him, shaking violently as Lachlan smoothed a hand over her hair.

“Good girl,” Brock said shakily. Lachlan pressed a kiss to the top of her head and then turned to the bathroom to go run a cold bath. There was a good chance that Mikayla wouldn’t sit comfortably for quite a while, but at least the cool water would sooth the stinging flesh and help reduce any swelling.

* * * *

Brock held his stubborn wife in his arms as tears flowed down his own cheeks. He hadn’t realized just how insecure Mikayla had been feeling until she’d tried to give him everything she thought he wanted at a huge risk to herself. Their sex life was intense and amazing, but if he couldn’t trust her to use her safe word, then they wouldn’t be able to play this way any longer.

He tried to hold her sore flesh away from his lap, but it meant he couldn’t remove her blindfold. He considered leaving her blinded to his own reaction but knew she needed to see how much this lesson had hurt them all.

“Take off the blindfold,” he said quietly. She moved immediately to comply, but she kept her eyes closed. “Look at me.”

She finally opened her eyes, blinking against the harsh light for a moment before she was able to focus on his face. She cried harder and whispered the words “I’m sorry” over and over.

“Why are you sorry, Mikayla?”

“I’m s–sorry I failed you.” She wiped a hand down her face as she made an obvious effort to hide her distress.

“How did you fail, baby girl?” She shrugged, sucking in air awkwardly, clearly trying to rein in her emotions and hide from him once more. “How did you fail, baby girl?” he repeated more forcefully.

“I couldn’t give you what you want.”

“And what exactly do you think we want, Mikayla.” Again she shrugged.

Lachlan came back into the room, his concern written clearly on his face.

“Answer him, Mikayla,” Lachlan said in a softer tone than Brock could’ve managed at this moment.

“I–I’m s–sorry. I just don’t want to lose you. I don’t know h–how I’d live w–without you.”

“You think we’re going to leave you?”

She took a deep, halting breath but nodded when the words wouldn’t leave her mouth.

“Damn it, Mikayla,” Lachlan said in a voice so angry even Brock flinched in surprise. “We will never leave you. We love you. You know that.”

Mikayla’s anger seemed to stir, and she sat up in Brock’s lap, oblivious to the pain she must be feeling. “But how long before you resent me for not giving you a family?” She wiped angrily at the tears that still flowed down her face. “What happens when you realize I’m too much of a coward to do the right thing and get out of the way?” She struggled to climb off Brock’s lap, so he helped her to her feet and watched in amazement as she stalked toward Lachlan. “One day we’ll be old and gray,” she yelled angrily, “and you’ll look at our empty lives and wonder why you didn’t set me aside and find a woman who could give you the family you deserve.”

“No,” Lachlan said quietly. “I’ll look back at our lives and know that I spent it with my soul mate. I’ll count every one of our days together as a blessing, and I will never, ever regret loving you.”

“None of us will,” Bryce said from the doorway.

Mikayla nearly leapt from her skin, obviously surprised by the appearance of the rest of her husbands. They’d all known what Brock and Lachlan had planned, and with the practically paper thin interior walls of the station, Brock had been a little surprised that none of them had stepped in when things had gotten so intense. But he was grateful that his brothers trusted him to get to the bottom of Mikayla’s issues.

“Mikayla,” Matt said as he moved closer to the woman crying in Brock’s arms. “We love you, the real you, not the woman you’ve been pretending to be.” He knelt on the floor beside Brock and touched his wife’s face gently with his fingers. “The woman I fell in love with has a temper as volatile as my own. She doesn’t let any of us run her life. She makes her own choices and decisions and somehow holds her own against eight husbands willing to coddle her.”

“And she knows when to use her safe word,” Lachlan said as he took her from Brock’s arms and carried her into the bathroom.

Brock glanced around at his brothers. It was obvious they all felt relieved to have Mikayla’s issues out in the open. It was also obvious that they each had a plan on how to handle their wife’s insecurities in the future.

“I think maybe we need to remind our beautiful wife of all the reasons she fell in love with us,” John said as he headed toward the door. Brock nodded his agreement.

“She seems to have forgotten,” Matt said with a nod of his head.

“She has been working too hard,” Ryan added.

“Perhaps it’s time for a little fun.” Ty said it with a straight face, but they all managed to smile at his suggestion. Life had been way too serious in recent times. Maybe fun was exactly what Mikayla needed.

* * * *

Mikayla sank gratefully into the cold bath water. Her ass still felt like it was on fire, and no amount of crying or emotional outburst was going to let her forget it.

Lachlan saw her flinch, and he leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss to her mouth.

“Do you understand why we had to do this?” he asked as he pulled away.

His quiet question brought tears to her eyes once more. She’d barely realized the change in her own behavior, but Brock and Lachlan had been absolutely right. She’d been growing more and more concerned over the past few months that one day they would become tired of her and find no reason to stay married.

She nodded in answer to his question, but found her voice when his eyes narrowed at her silent agreement. “Yes, I’m sorry that it was necessary.” She shuffled a little in the bath to find a more comfortable position. “I didn’t mean to do what I did. It just sort of happened.”

Lachlan smoothed the hair from her eyes. “Little one, you need to trust us, all of us. No one is going to leave just because you express an opinion. Hell, your sassy, take-none-of-our-bullshit attitude is what made us fall for you in the first place.” She smiled softly, remembering some of the arguments she’d had with them over the past couple years. Mikayla and her husbands had disagreed on many, many occasions, but they’d always found a compromise.

And besides, arguing lead to makeup sex.

She grinned as the thought flitted through her head, but Lachlan laughed and leaned back against the wall. “Whatever that thought was, I dare say it’ll be a while before you find it comfortable enough to follow through.”

She stuck her tongue out at him and suddenly, as if a massive weight had lifted from her shoulders, felt like her old self. Stunned at how far she drifted from her own personality, she fell backward onto her ass. She hissed as the tender flesh touched the rough bottom of the bath.

“Why are you so sore, Mikayla?” Lachlan asked in his most dominant voice.

She eyed him incredulously, unwilling to hide her reactions any more as memories of the hardest spanking she’d ever experienced sent horrible goose bumps all over her spine. She was about to start one of those arguments they all claimed to have missed when the answer to his question finally sank into her brain. Damn, she felt lucky that she’d moved away from the leather belt.

“Because I didn’t use my safe word.”

Lachlan nodded, stepped closer, and grasped her chin so that she had no choice but to look him in the eyes. “Little one, trust goes both ways. We need to be able to trust you to use your safe word. If you don’t, we could hurt you quite seriously in some of the games we play.”

She closed her eyes as tears threatened to fall again. She could see she’d hurt him badly, but all she could do was promise to use her safe word in the future. Hopefully, she could rebuild the trust between her and Lachlan and Brock quickly. Although, she suspected as she once again moved to try and ease the pain in her ass, this wasn’t going to be her last sore bottom anytime soon.

Chapter Three

“No, you have the day off,” Ryan said, blocking the doorway as she tried to enter the lab.

“But—” Mikayla managed to say before a hand covered her mouth.

“No buts,” Ryan said with a mischievous grin. “You’ve been working way too hard. Why don’t you go spend some time with Matt and Bryce? They’ve got today off, too.”