Chapter Five
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Alessia
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"Please, may I have my dress back?" I say, forcing myself to be clear, but it's hard with my lip trembling.
Okay. I need to get a grip. I've done way more complex things than trying to escape three billionaires' penthouse apartment.
I have to stand my ground.
"Give me back my clothes," I say. Yes, I'll take my bra and panties back as well. To hell with their fetishes. They're rich enough to buy their own.
I'm on a tight budget, and honestly, I would prefer a tub of ice cream from the Cinematic Ice Cream Store than to buy new underwear. Besides, I'm a virgin. No one is going to see what's under my clothes, and that's the way I like it.
"Ms. Hagen, you must understand how this looks. We come home from a very intense meeting to find a strange woman in our bed—" Garrison says.
I force myself to pay attention to his words and not the cadence of his voice. It’s imperative I focus on his words, since my nipples aren't going to help me survive this.
"It's a guest bed," I correct.
"It's still our bed," Jasper says. My ears perk up. He sounds exactly the way he looks: a deep, sexy, raking quality to his voice that coats my skin with honey and makes me want to lick him.
I don't know why I want to lick him when I'm the one covered in honey at the sound of his voice. "I just want to lick him,” I tell myself, silently annoyed. This is not the time to lose my head.
"But it's not. You don't sleep in here," I insist.
"It's in our apartment, so it makes it our bed," Layton says, and oh boy.
My knees buckle a little, and I have to press my thighs together to stop my clit from singing. I don't think my clit can sing, can it?
Oh my god, what if I'm a rarity and my clit hums when it's near extremely sexy men I want to lick? I press down so hard on my thighs I nearly pass out.
Okay, what is going on with me? Being this dramatic is Clover's forte. She was exactly this way with her three billionaire crushes. And I don't have love crushes on them. I mean, I have a lust crush on them. Only that.
"Semantics," I grit under the onslaught of these men, and they've each only said less than two sentences to me so far.
"Still our bed," Garrison adds.
"Fine. Carry on," I say, losing that battle.
"We come home to find a strange naked woman in our bed—"
"But I'm not a stranger. I'm Alessia. I own the cleaning company you hired. We're not strangers anymore. I spoke to your PA, she knows me.”
"I said strange," Jasper says with a killer smile on his lips.
"Right." Strange. I can't argue there. "Carry on."
The sooner they get out whatever they want to say, the sooner I can leave. No more interrupting.
"And she has a set of very precious, and currently priceless, pearls in her hand. Do you know those are the last of their kind?"
I do but I pretend not to.
"I did not, in fact. They were just very pretty to look at, and then I fell asleep. It's all a big mistake. A misunderstanding. Absolutely nothing nefarious at all."
“Even if you are telling the truth about the pearls and that you weren't here to steal them, we still have that other matter."
"What other matter?" I ask. Yep. I'm playing dumb.
"The liberties you've taken in our apartment do need a little punishment, Ms. Hagen, don't you think?" Garrison asks, so smoothly if I weren't finally paying attention, I would think he was telling me a bedtime story.
"Punishment?" I say, swallowing hard. "You mean you're going to hand me over to the cops for using your washer and falling asleep in a bed you yourselves don't even sleep in?"
"We handle our business on our way. There won't be any cops involved."
"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.