Page 17 of Their Pup to Tame

“So, it was your choice then?” Aspen asked, shrewd as ever.

I swore he never missed a thing.

“Let’s just say it was a mutual decision between me and my uncles,” I replied, because it had stung to have them shake their heads when the stitches came out and proclaim the damage to be too bad to hide beneath mesh.

They hadn’t called me damaged, never once, and they’d been pissed as hell and teed off at the person who’d hurt me, butbusiness was business, and my scars would have hurt the bottom line when people lost all interest in seeing me up there.

“I see,” Aspen grumbled.

“Well, I don’t,” Parker declared. “Did you want to quit dancing or not?”

“Sort of,” I hedged. “Dancing was nowhere near as much fun as getting to toss people out on their asses.”

“But…”

Damn, okay, behind the playboy façade was yet another dude that didn’t miss anything either. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing yet.

Sighing, I rubbed the back of my neck and decided to give them the full story, since Aspen had already seen my scars.

“I got jumped in the alley behind the club by a guy I kneed in the balls when he grabbed me while I was dancing. My uncles installed a rolling gate afterward, but yeah, I came out in a hoodie, and he blindsided me, carved me up, and beat the shit out of me. It might have been worse if my cousin Glen hadn’t come out for a smoke. By the time my uncles got ahold of the guy, Glen had already broken his arm, wrist, fingers, and who knows what else. He kept stomping while the guy screamed. I passed out while my uncles were beating the hell out of him and woke up in the hospital.”

“Did they let him live?” Aspen asked.

“Barely,” I replied.

“Not sure if I would have.”

Okay, that sounded way too bloodthirsty for the man kicked back in the easy chair. The tone was threatening; the growl raised the hair along my arms, yet there were no warning bells in the back of my head. There was just this warm, sunny sensation that spread through my chest and made my stomach clench every time he got outraged on my behalf.

“We’d have needed a hell of a bail fund for the mess we’d have made,” Parker mused, and there went that sunny feeling again. Heat blooming until I squirmed a little, more than ready to go back to the movie.

“Would have been time for an OnlyFans page at that point,” Aspen declared, laughing as he hit play.

“Okay, wait a damned minute,” Parker said, prompting Aspen to hit pause again.

We were never going to get through this movie, though I was starting to be alright with that.

“What?” Aspen asked.

“After what I saw last night, you would have no problem at all making a killing on OnlyFans,” Parker pointed out. “I cannot believe you broke the whip out.”

“That was one of the best parts,” I muttered.

“Oh, you liked that, did you?” Parker said. “So did I.”

“He loved it,” Aspen said, meeting my gaze with a smirk that made that warm, molten feeling flood through my body again.

Shit, I was getting turned on.

“Do you ever use it on anyone, or is it just for show?” I asked, since he was obviously fucking flirting, so turnabout was fair play.

I hoped.

“That one is for show,” Aspen declared. “But I have an impressive collection of lonely toys waiting for someone to be bonded to.”

“If you’re offering, you can consider me an eager volunteer,” I replied.

“As soon as those stitches come out, you’ll get your wish,” he declared. “But not before then.”