Free The Erotic Dark by Nina Lane Page B

she encountered the look on Kruin’s face and knew that she had pushed them too far. He folded his napkin and rested it alongside his plate before he stood and went around the table.
    Lydia flinched as he approached. Her skin was hot with anger, her eyes flashing. When Kruin snapped his fingers, she wished she could snatch her impulsive words back, especially since he had just reprimanded her less than two hours ago.
    “Stand up, Lydia,” Kruin ordered.
    Her heart hammered like a drum inside her chest. She couldn’t move, her fingers tightening around the fork. She realized in that instant she had not reached the limits of her fear, that dread could sink to fathomless depths in her blood.
    “Did you hear me?” Kruin’s voice was like thunder.
    Lydia pushed her chair back and stood, her legs trembling. She thought she might fear Kruin more than Preston and Gabriel combined. She couldn’t look at either of the other two men, but she felt Preston’s amused and satisfied smile as if it were burning into her skin.
    “Since you want so badly to know,” Kruin said coldly, “I’ll tell you now to lift your skirt.”
    Chagrined, Lydia forced her fingers to curl around the cotton of her dress as fear swamped her previous anger. She pulled her skirt over her bare legs and thighs, exposing the round flesh of her bottom to Kruin’s dark gaze.
    Before she could speak, he pushed her plates to the side and laid his big hand flat across her lower back. Pressing her down onto the table, his muscular leg nudged between her thighs to spread them apart. Her shaved labia spread like the throat of a flower, exposing the tight hole whose pleasures only Preston had thus far experienced.
    “Kruin, I—”
    “Quiet!”
    Lydia gasped when his blunt fingers pressed into her sex, running along the pleats with an expert touch. To her further shock, her secret lips swelled in response, her nipples stiffening against the cool tabletop. Her hips thrust involuntarily backward, but met with empty air since Kruin had taken his hand away.
    “She is already wet,” he informed the other two men, much to Lydia’s dismay. “Lydia, you are no longer allowed to achieve satisfaction without explicit permission. Do you understand?”
    Lydia pressed her forehead against the wood and nodded, even as she wondered if she had the willpower to prevent herself from succumbing to the eruptions of rapture. She gave a little shriek when Kruin’s hand slapped her bare rump.
    “Do you?” he repeated.
    “Yes! Yes, I understand.”
    “Good. Gabriel.” Kruin nodded at the younger man.
    Lydia’s eyes widened with alarm as Gabriel moved into her line of vision, his hands working the buckle of his belt. With a few movements, he removed it and reached across the table to wrap it around her wrists.
    He fastened the other end of the belt to an opposite chair, forcing Lydia’s body to stretch so tautly that she had to rise to the tips of her toes to remain in contact with the ground. The position provided the men behind her with a delicious view of her elongated body, the curve of her hips descending into the tense muscles of her legs and pointed toes just barely brushing against the plush rug.
    Aghast, Lydia stared at Gabriel in a desperate hope that somehow he would voice a protest over what was about to take place. Then she noticed the heavy bulge already straining at the front of his trousers, and her hopes dissolved like salt in boiling water.
    Disappointment settled heavily into her skin, for she had come to think of Gabriel as the gentle soul of the triad. Instead, as the evidence presented, the mere anticipation of her punishment incited a raging arousal in him.
    For an instant, Gabriel’s green eyes seared into hers as if to remind her that she deserved the punishment about to be dispensed. That she had no one to blame but herself for her current, degraded position.
    She swallowed past a growing lump in her throat as she felt Kruin push her skirt farther