Page 94 of Cowboy Daddies

“Or theirs,” Levi adds. “Whether you are ours or not, you really need to knock that off. It’s not becoming, and it's bad for your mental health.” He adds a few hard swats of his own, leaving me wondering why they care so much.

Why I don’t care enough.

Tears spring to my eyes as I realize what they are saying is true. I have been hurting myself. Bullying myself. One thought at a time. Too old. Too frumpy. Too big. Not pretty enough. Every day for years I’ve been chipping away at my own self-worth. Disgusted, I swipe away my tears. They are spanking me like a child and I’m crying like one. I feel ridiculous, but there’s something else. I feel… relieved.

Like I’ve been waiting for years for someone to call me out on my bullshit. My friends do occasionally, I guess, but for some reason, it doesn’t quite hit the same when they say it. I always thought they were just being nice. Just because they don’t want me to say those things doesn't mean they aren’t true.

But now, ass up across the laps of two much younger, extremely gorgeous men, getting spanked like a naughty child… it sinks in. I do need to stop being so mean to myself. I have a lot of value. I’m funny, smart, generous, kind, and even kind of pretty. Laughter bubbles up in my chest, escaping my lips in a huff.

“Okay!” I cry when a hand smacks the lower part of my ass. “You’re right. I’m sorry!”

“Sorry isn’t good enough,” Tripp answers, his serious-sounding voice sending chills down my spine. “Tell me the truth.”

The truth? For a moment, my brain stutters. I haven’t been lying. What is he asking for? And then it hits me. The realizations I’ve come to are the truth, and the things I’ve been saying about myself for years are the lies. I spoke the lies out loud for so long, giving them power. Now I need to do the same with the truth.

I open my mouth to do so, and stop short. It’s much harder to say I’m pretty than it is to say I’m fat. It’s much easier to say I’m old then it is to say I’m funny and smart and hardworking and kind. But I force the words past my lips, trying them out. “I’m… kind of pretty,” I say adding the modifier in order to not sound vain.

“Kind of?” Levi scoffs, slapping my ass hard. “Woman, you’re gorgeous. Beautiful. Stunning Even. It’s okay to admit it. Say it like you mean it.”

“Um…okay.”

“We’re waiting.” Tripp rains down a volley of smacks across the tops of my thighs to accentuate his point. It stings like a bitch and fresh tears spring to my eyes.

“I’m… pretty.” I drop the modifier but don’t go quite as far as Levi did.

“It’s a start,” Tripp concedes, pausing his onslaught and rubbing my hot aching flesh with his calloused hand.

“That means keep going.” Levi isn’t as pleased and he renews spanking. His hand isn’t as hard as Tripp’s but it hurts all the same and I know my ass must be glowing bright red and covered in handprints.

“I’m…” Dammit. Why is this so hard?

“I’m… smart.” I finally say. It’s not something I’ve ever contested and the words slide out easily.

Levi keeps spanking.

“I’m funny!” I cry, desperate for him to stop. “And kind! And I work hard. And um… I’m a good friend.”

“All true,” Tripp says and I stop myself from retorting that he just met me, and he hasn’t been here long enough to know that.

“What else?”

I frown, and though he can’t see my face, he offers me a lifeline anyway. “You say you’re an old woman.”

“Well, I’m not young…” He wants me to tell the truth and that’s the truth.

“You’re not, but the way you say old woman bugs me. Like you think your age lessens you.” He smacks my ass again, but softly, almost like he doesn’t mean it. “It doesn’t,” he continues. “And you’re not old. You still have a lot of life left, a lot to give, a lot to experience. Yet, it seems like you’ve just… given up.”

“Okay, that’s not fair!” I cry, rearing up a little to look over my shoulder at him. “You don’t know what it’s like to be in your forties. Everything stops working, everything slows down and life just gets… harder.”

“Maybe so,” he concedes. “But old is not a death sentence. Old is experience, wisdom, and a new chapter to embrace. Old is realizing life moves quickly and you should go after what you want with no time to waste.”

He might be smarter than me, despite the fact that I must have at least a decade on him. He’s right. Again. I have the life experience people in their twenties and thirties don’t, and though I feel old and useless sometimes, I’m not. I’m very much alive and have the wisdom and experience to know what I want and what I don't.

And I want them. Tonight. Now. If I really am beautiful, and smart and funny and kind, and the whole package as they say, that should be easy enough, despite their claims that tonight is just about getting to know each other and the town.

That becomes my new mission.

Chapter Five