Then he turned to Hammer. “She’s figured it out, mate.”

“Good.” Hammer looked incredibly pleased. “I knew it wouldn’t take long. Are you warmer now?”

“I am. Thank you.”

“Glad to hear it. Let’s begin.”

They hadn’t yet? From the anticipation on their faces, she guessed not. Her tummy knotted. “I’m ready, Sirs.”

“Stand up, love,” Liam instructed.

Raine did, biting her lip as she watched them walk toward the tall wooden cross.

“Strip and come to us, precious,” Hammer ordered. “You can leave the socks on if you’d like.”

Questions swirled through her brain. They’d centered this task around communication, so she would have to talk. That probably meant she would have to give them some painful truths before they rewarded her with their touch.

Shoving down her tinges of disquiet, Raine dropped the blanket and pulled at the silky ribbon tying the baby-doll together just under her breasts. The sheer fabric parted. She shrugged it off her shoulders, letting it caress her arms before it pooled on the floor. Cool air brushed her nipples. A quiver of anticipation sailed up her spine. Her thong turned damp, and she peeled it off, tossing it aside. She’d warmed enough to ditch the socks. Not an inch of her remained hidden. Raw and hungry, Liam’s and Hammer’s hot stares scraped over her flesh.

The sense of her utter nudity filled her, making her aware of every breath, every heartbeat, every step as she crossed the room.

Neither said a word as Liam clutched her shoulders and pressed her back against the cool, glossy cross. It towered over her. The wooden slabs intersected beneath her shoulder blades.

She trembled as Hammer bent to the box on the floor and pulled four fleece-lined cuffs free. He tossed two of them to Liam. In silence, they bound her wrists and ankles, surrounding them in softness. Then they worked in tandem, attaching long, slender carbiner clips to her cuffs before aligning her with the cross and securing her to the lowest eyebolts. She had to stretch her legs a bit wide to reach.

Liam smiled. “You’re such a wee thing.”

Raine frowned up at him. “Hey, I’m over five feet tall, thank you.”

Hammer trailed his fingers down the sensitive flesh under her arm. “By a whole quarter of an inch.”

She huffed. “Half inch—and it’s an important half inch.”

“That it is.” Liam brushed a kiss over her lips. “I hope to have the chance to feel every inch of you again.”

“So do I.” Hammer nipped at her ear.

Her breath caught. If she’d been wearing panties, they would have melted. Though they’d just affixed her to the cross, Raine wondered how much more sensual torture she could endure before she screamed. She’d almost rather talk.

“Now that you’re strung up nice and pretty, we’re going to ask you some questions,” Liam instructed. “You’ll answer every damn one of them, too.”

That made her nervous; Hammer was usually the more demanding of the two.

“We’ll give you a choice. We can do this the easy way…” He looked in Liam’s direction.

With a grin, Liam bent to her breast and licked one nipple with a teasing flick, then sucked the bud deep into his mouth. She felt the jolt all the way to her clit and gasped in a startled breath.

“Or we can do this the hard way.” Hammer gave her a tight smile and bent to the wooden box again, withdrawing a TENS unit.

Her eyes went wide. She’d seen a sub jolt and twist and scream attached to the electrical device. She’d also seen them moan and beg and come. Everything depended on where the electrodes were attached and how intense the Dom made the impulses. Raine didn’t have many illusions; Hammer didn’t know her body exactly, but he knew what to do with the unit itself. It wouldn’t take him long to figure out how to get the reaction he wanted.

Macen left the room for a brief second and returned with a folding chair, which he opened directly beside her. But he didn’t sit, just set the device on the padded seat, within easy reach. He attached one pad to her bare pubic bone, then another right on top of her clit. As he turned the thing on, she tensed, but still couldn’t precisely brace for the tingling jolt that crept across her skin and up her nerve endings. Logically, stimulation there should give her pleasure. This felt like a whole bunch of ants crawling where they didn’t belong.

Raine tossed her head back and clenched her fists. “Shit!”

“Tsk, tsk, love. We haven’t even started and your mouth has turned foul. I won’t have it.” Liam slapped her thigh. “Hammer?”

“On it.” He turned the device down to something bearable. Just as she took a deep breath, he turned it back up, a smidge higher than before. “What’s it going to be?”

“Sorry, Sir,” she managed to say. “It slipped out. Please turn it down.”

They stared at her, watching her writhe for a long moment before Hammer slowly reached for the unit and turned it off. “You’re aware of your two choices?”

“Very much, Sir.”

“Excellent. Because we can do this all night long.” His superior smile looked every bit smug. “Your safe word?”

She turned her gaze to Liam. He knew it, but clearly he meant to make her say it aloud. “Paris.”

“Duly noted.” Hammer’s fingers hovered over the dials on the TENS unit, as if he just waited for the opportunity to light her up again.

“Did you have a favorite teacher in school?” Liam asked.

Raine frowned. She’d run away. When she’d returned, she’d given them a pronouncement she thought was life altering: She wanted to learn to open herself to them. And this is what they wanted to know? “Um…yeah. Third grade. Mrs. Denton.”

Hammer rewarded her with a caress of her breast, a thumb across her nipple, and a hot kiss just below her ear. “Are you comfortable having Beck and Seth here with us?”

“Yes, Sir,” she managed to answer, despite the distraction. “They’re easy to talk to.”

“Why?” Liam caressed his way up her thigh, then glided his fingertips along the cheek of her ass.

“Because…” Focusing with their hands caressing her bare skin was more than a little challenging. “They don’t have any expectations. They just listen and offer advice.”

“You’re doing a fine job, Raine.” Liam bent to her nipple and took one in his mouth.

As he sucked hard, Hammer toyed with the other. “What’s your favorite ice cream?”

“Caramel Caribou.”

Liam frowned, backing away to stare at her. “What the devil is that?”

“Another necessity to have on hand for that time of the month,” Hammer teased. “After the migraine, she turns into a sugar fiend.”

“That’s not true,” she protested.

“Oh, it’s not?” Hammer reached for the TENS unit.

“Okay, maybe so,” Raine rushed to say. “Yes, I like ice cream then, Sir.”

Hammer chuckled and his hand drifted away from the device. “Tell him what’s in it.”

“It’s toffee ice cream with caramel cups and ribbons. There’s a chocolate flavor, too.” She sighed.

“That’s right, precious.” He looked at Liam. “Another favorite of hers.”

“Would you rather have ice cream now or…” Liam brushed his fingertip up the insides of her thigh, caressing into her folds before easing two fingers inside her. “This?”

Raine swallowed back a gasp. “Definitely this.”

Hammer chuckled. “Right answer.”

She basked in pleasure, then Hammer added to it, pressing himself against her chest and looking straight into her eyes before he took her mouth, demanding everything clear down to her soul.

When Liam rubbed at a sensitive spot inside her, Hammer swallowed her moan.

Liam eased his fingers deeper. “Are you wet for us, love?”

With a last peck, Hammer lifted from the kiss and braced his elbow on the cross above her, still watching her intently. “Yes or no?”

Raine wanted to point out that Liam had his fingers up her pussy, so he’d be the first to know. Just a guess, but a flippant response would only halt the bliss they’d been heaping on her, and Hammer would turn the TENS unit on again. She hated feeling like ants crawled in her cooch.

“Yes,” she admitted. “I have been since you first put me in the car. I’ve wanted you two all day.”

“Lovely answer,” Liam crooned. “Even more than we asked for.”

“So good, precious.” Hammer bent to scrape his teeth over her nipple. A flash of pain mellowed quickly and coalesced into a pleasurable hum.

Liam circled against the sensitive spot high and deep inside her. “We’re talking. It’s not terribly painful now, is it?”

Answering—hell, speaking at all—was becoming difficult. Desire gnawed at her, stealing breath, robbing thought. Raine wanted nothing more than to melt against them, beg, do anything to keep these sensations coming.

“No, Sir. It’s heaven.”

The smirk rolling across Hammer’s face was her only warning that her task was about to become much harder. “Why did you give your virginity to Zak?”

Raine jolted. Liam withdrew, and they both stepped back. There it was, the blindside. This was the same damn game Liam had played with her last time she’d come to the lodge, but instead of punishing her with pickles, they’d devised something more physical and sinister.

Blurting the answer to this question opened up that vulnerable place inside of her that always made her want to shrink back and hide, but she had zero doubt that if she didn’t at least try to get it out, they would not only turn that little dial and make her suffer, but she’d fail them.

“To get your attention,” she admitted.

Hammer neither rewarded nor punished—yet. “You had it. I saw you every day. We talked about school, work, your friends, the club. I answered questions, ate meals with you, took you shopping. You had most of my attention.”

Looking back over those years, Raine realized Hammer was right. “That’s not what I meant. You spent every day with me, yes.” She bit her lip. Now, it was going to get painful. “You spent every night with someone else.”

“You were barely eighteen, Raine.”

“But I was eighteen, a legal adult. I was tired of you treating me like a child. I thought having sex would prove to you that I wasn’t a kid. I didn’t think you wanted my virginity.”

“I would have killed for it.”

The gravity in his tone quieted her. She’d done something she deeply regretted, and it had hurt him. What if she’d learned to communicate years ago? “If I had told you that I wanted to give it to you then…?”

“You never made me that offer, so we’ll never know what I would have done. Did Zak make you feel special and treasured that night?”

Damn it, he knew the answer to this question. Regret poured hot through her. The shame she’d felt that night scalded its way inside her veins again, black, ugly, devastating. “You know he treated me like trash.”

“Because he was a player. And an asshole. I banned him from Shadows after I beat the fuck out of him.”

“So you tried to manipulate Hammer into giving you what you wanted instead of communicating?” Liam questioned. “Sex was the last thing your fragile heart needed at the time, but you took matters into your own hands and had a terrible experience. Do I have that right?”

Humiliation scraped at her as fat tears burned her cheeks. “Yes. But I didn’t know what to do. Growing up, anything I made the mistake of admitting I wanted was immediately taken away, destroyed, or killed. If I didn’t want any more broken CDs or dead puppies, I had to keep my mouth shut. In my head, if I told Hammer how I felt, he’d only spurn me. Or worse, kick me out and never speak to me again.”

Both men stood staring at her for a long, silent moment, as if absorbing her words. Then they moved in quickly, surrounding her, their hands and lips soothing her freshly opened wounds. Hammer kissed away her tears, his broad fingers stroking her hair, offering comfort. Liam enveloped her and tilted his head to capture her lips and swallow her sobs. When he lifted away, he gripped her so tenderly, as if trying to keep her from shattering in his hands.

“I would never have cast you aside, sweet girl,” Hammer breathed as he caught her gaze in his. “You’re the most precious gift life has ever given me. I may not have shown it, but I’ve treasured every single day you’ve been with me.”

She saw love in his eyes. It was there, just like Beck had sworn. At that moment, it didn’t matter if Hammer could say the words or not, she saw it, felt it, drank it in, and filled herself with every ounce of it.

How many years had she convinced herself that he didn’t care? How many ways had she tried to coerce his affection because she simply hadn’t asked? So much wasted time, energy, and heartache. It was too late to change the past. All she could do was move forward, knowing she had his love now. And that if she wanted to keep this connection growing, they had to talk.