Oh shit! In my state of confusion at them coming at me because of a smell. I hadn't considered that my dress was so loose that when they lifted the skirt, they'd be able to see up to my ribs.

"Answer me, dammit!" Vanquish roared.

"What is it?" Racer was dying of curiosity. He dropped to his knees to peer under as well.

I closed my eyes against the humiliation. "Old cloth."

"You've no underwear but you have that?" Hunter asked incredulously. "Bad plan."

"What are you hiding, Rabbit?" Vanquish demanded.

"Just-just me." I stuttered out.

My body. I was trying to be unassuming.

"You're trying to hide what you look like?" Racer sounded almost insulted.

And they all looked it.

***

"Hold her." Vanquish barked. "I'm going to find out what the hell is going on here."

While he unclipped his dagger from the sheath at his hip and withdrew it, Racer had sat atop my thighs and quickly unknotted the rope at my waist. Peeling open my cloak.

"I've never seen her open this thing." He murmured. Realizing it.

I'd been in their village for a little under a year and no one had seen me without the cloak. I'd taken the Border Guard's words to heart. And wore it always.

He saw the bodice which was half laced so it hung limply to keep from emphasizing any shape and to accommodate the thickness around my waist.

"We gotta see what's going on under here." Racer twisted to give Vanquish a long look before the green-eyed one of them headed underneath my clothes. Curiosity made Racer frown.

Racer hopped forward to straddle my hips just under my breasts. Pinning me so I couldn't get away from what Vanquish was doing.

"No! Get off me!" I pushed at his chest to dislodge him.

He looked at me with a quizzical glance. Looking at my hands then my face under the hood of my cloak. "You actually thought you could move me? You're too bloody tiny."

He's right. I was starting to panic.

Vanquish had headed under my skirt with the blade and I could feel his hot chest against my pelvis and thighs.

Making me writhe slightly against some odd ache low.

"Damn woman, contain yourself!" Vanquish was muffled under my skirt. "Your scent is destroying me."

What does that mean?

I felt jerking at my waist and my back being lifted as he pulled and cut at the cloth encircling me.

A sudden rush of air along my flat belly told me he'd freed my skin.

He paused. And I felt the sudden brush of fingertips along my crease. Where the ache was generating.

He made a low purring sound before climbing out from under my clothes on his elbows. Dragging the length of cloth with him and pitching it over his shoulder as he sat up.

"What'd you find up there?" Vanquish asked.

Hunter had rose to walk next to Racer and was staring down at me. He hooked a finger under my bodice and peered beneath it. "There's more up here."