Kyle hadn’t missed Alison leaving Trent’s room early, like some walk of shame she tried to hide.
Her scent hadn’t changed, so they hadn’t had sex, but they’d still spent the night in there together.
She’d had the choice to pick any room and had chosen his.
Jealousy wasn’t what Kyle felt. He didn’t tend to get jealous, not even with Trent, who he wasn’t exactly close with. Instead, it was interest.
He liked a puzzle, something to figure out, and Alison sure was a puzzle worth spending some time on.
“Morning,” he said as she entered the kitchen.
Her jump said she hadn’t expected him to already be there, and a petty part of Kyle enjoyed startling her. It was probably the same childish part that wanted to pull her hair until she paid attention to him.
Seems I’m a bit of a brat myself.
After one sharp look, she smoothed her hands over her shirt and tried to pretend she wasn’t annoyed—probably because being annoyed made her admit she’d been startled. “Morning.”
“Sleep well?”
She went to the coffee pot and poured herself a cup into one of the mugs set out in front of it. “Yeah, I did.” Her sharp words created a clear message—don’t ask.
Too bad Kyle didn’t care for boundaries. “Why’d you pick Trent?”
She poured in a splash of cream before turning, holding the mug between her hands. “He seemed like he needed it.”
That’s what I thought.
Damn, she was more observant, and sweeter, than he’d have expected, especially from the girl who’d broken his nose. “And you thought that made it your job?”
Her shoulders rose in a quick shrug before she brought the coffee to her lips and took a slow sip. Her expression as she savored it was sinful, a soft moan leaving her. Once she’d swallowed it down, she lifted her gaze to him again. “Why’s he like that? I have to admit, when he was ordering me around, I didn’t expect him to be that fragile.”
Kyle considered telling her to ask Trent, but the tight-lipped bastard would never say anything. He liked to put forward his best face, his ‘I am an island to myself’ persona. “Let’s just say he’s seen the bad side of what men can do. He’s always taken it the hardest. I think playing that part hit him harder than he thought it would.”
“I always figured alphas…” She paused, pressing her lips together as if reconsidering. “Especially dominant ones, wouldn’t want someone to help them.”
Kyle huffed a soft laugh, crossing his feet at the ankles while he leaned against the kitchen counter. “That’s just what we like to pretend sometimes. The fact is that alphas, and Doms, need help too. We aren’t superhuman. We screw up, we get upset, we have days where we just can’t deal with shit. Trent, he’s steady as they come for the most part, but even he has his triggers, those things that wiggle a blade right into a crack he already has. And you? I figure you’re exactly the balm he needed last night to help.”
The snort Alison let out was full of disbelief. “I doubt that. I’m just the only one who isn’t mad enough at him to go talk to him.”
“You really don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
Kyle tapped his fingers against his coffee. “You’ve spent little time around alphas and it shows. You’ve got this simplified view, where alphas are these hulking laws-unto-themselves and omegas scamper around their feet trying not to get crushed. Is that another lesson your father gave you?”
Her eyes closed and she breathed in the tendrils of steam from her coffee. “Yeah, it was. My mother wasn’t my father’s mate by choice. She was a slave—bought and paid for—and the only omegas I knew growing up were slaves, too.”
Kyle’s stomach dropped. Her father had been a piece of work—he knew that—but to think she’d grown up knowing her mother was a slave? That would warp any child, especially one who had to see where she expected her life to end up, too. “What happened to her?”
“She killed herself when I was ten. I used to be angry about it, felt like she abandoned me, but I realized as I got older that she’d been dead long before then. A beta male who had worked as her bodyguard faked my death, setting a fire to help cover it all up.”
“He took care of you after that?”
“Somewhat. He set me up in the home of an omega he knew, and he visited me when he could, got me started on training. Eventually he never came back, when I was sixteen. It didn’t shock me because that’s the world.” She let out a hard laugh. “My father used to tell me that omegas were treasures, and just like any treasure, you do what is best for it whether it likes it or not.”
Kyle pressed his lips together, wanting to tell her it would be okay but knowing that wouldn’t be welcome. “I’m sorry,” he tried instead. “That’s no life for a kid.”
“Maybe not, but it let me see the truth. Trust me, those alphas weren’t breaking down while their mates comforted them. It was very much a one-sided thing. After that? When I got out and grew up, I can’t say I’ve seen much better. Do you have any idea how many alphas I’ve had deal with to get an omega help?” She shook her head, her curly hair shifting around her shadowed face. “Try to tell me all you want how things are different, but I’ve learned to go by experience, and my experience hasn’t been good. I figure, as someone who works specifically on omega crimes, you’d get that.”
Kyle fought back the wave of images that threatened to wash over him. He’d seen the worst, things that he had locked away. He wasn’t Daniel or Trent, who were haunted by those memories. Instead, he managed to keep them at bay.
“I’ve seen some bad shit, no doubt. I’ve made it my life to try and stop it, to do what I can to fix it.”
“Don’t you reach a point where you realize it isn’t just some of the time? Once, twice, sure. I could chalk up all the violence and pain to being a rare occurrence. When it happens enough, though, doesn’t it ever become the norm?”
Hadn’t Kyle thought the same? He recalled, at the start, when he’d still gone to therapy after especially hard cases. The therapist had spoken of such things, and he’d admitted to worrying about that very thing, to feeling a crushing weight that perhaps alphas were simply bad at their core.
Eventually Kyle had gone the way of most veteran agents and decided therapy didn’t help. He’d buried down those feelings beneath his job and a large layer of ‘don’t fucking think about it’.
“You can’t see all that and not have it affect you,” she pressed.
“It affects me,” he admitted, his gaze down. “It affects everyone. Trent? He lost his career and his friends when he walked away, then made it his mission to help battered women. Dan? He let himself keep his hopeless romantic fantasies of finding someone who would fit into our lives and fix it all. Me? Well, I just have a dark sense of humor from it.”
Alison stared at him for a long, silent moment, as though digging through the bullshit he’d said and deciding if she believed it.
When she spoke, however, her words were the last thing he’d expected her to say. “I want to put sex back on the table.”
“What now?” Real eloquent.
She sat up, as though trying to look as in control as possible. “I know I said no kissing and no sex. Well, the kissing thing is already out of the window, and I want to take off the sex limit.”
“And why’s that? What changed your mind?” Her phrasing said she’d kissed Trent the night before.
“Like you just said—this is all temporary. You guys don’t want to settle down with an omega, and I don’t want a mate, let alone an alpha, so why leave that limit up? Why not take the chance to actually experience this all?” Her voice quivered the barest amount, as if she was trying everything she had to keep it from shaking.
Maybe Kyle should have reassured her or done something to make her feel better, but he just wasn’t that sort of person. Plus, the only time he got the upper hand was when she was tied up or flustered. Might as well take advantage of it. “So you’re telling me that the next time we get to play, you wouldn’t mind taking a cock—or three?”
Ah, there was that beautiful flush on her freckled cheeks, and right on the tail of that? Her scent blossomed, telling him exactly what she thought of that the suggestion.
And hell, Kyle figured it sounded like a great plan to him.
* * * *
“So, no idea what crawled up her ass?” Daniel sat outside with Trent and Kyle, all having fled the house to avoid the raging omega inside. Funny how only a tiny female could send the three of them running for cover.
“Not a clue,” Kyle said.
Trent snorted softly. “She was happy after she left my room. I’m putting this one in your court.”
Daniel lifted an eyebrow to look over at Trent. “I figured it had been so long for you, you didn’t remember how to make women happy anymore.”
“Like riding a bike, buddy.”
The banter came so easily, Daniel stilled for a moment. Falling into old habits, into the old routines, all made it so easy to forget that this was temporary. But did it have to be?
“You know, after this—” Daniel started to say.
The humor in Trent’s face slid free. “Don’t go there. We both know the answer.”
“Come on. You can’t tell me you haven’t liked being under the same roof, that you don’t like doing something important.”
“What I’m doing is important, even if it isn’t working for the FBI. I don’t know when you’ll ever figure out that your life doesn’t need to revolve around them, that there is more out there than that.”
“More? Maybe, but nothing better. Think about it, Trent.”
Trent shook his head. “No need to. I’m not going back to the FBI, not ever, and as long as you all work there, I think we all know where our relationship sits.”
Up shit creek.
“We could kick each other in the balls down here or we could let Alison have a try. Who wants to face her?” Kyle asked, drawing them back on topic.
“I wouldn’t mind paddling her ass for the attitude,” Daniel admitted, a grin across his lips as he pictured the way she’d squirm. “But I have a feeling that wouldn’t work so well to deal with this. It’d just give her another reason to be pissed at us.”
“Like she needs a reason,” Trent muttered.
“She should have come and talked to us.” Daniel sighed, stretching his leg. “She might be the most difficult woman I’ve ever known. This could have been dealt with in all of a minute, but instead? Instead she carries on. I feel like that definitely breaks a rule or two. There’s the one about talking to us.”
“She’s wearing a leather jacket, with a turtleneck. That’s clearly a clothing infraction,” Kyle tagged on.
Trent nodded, tucking his thumbs into his pockets. “She’s never been punished before. We shouldn’t let her rack up too many things before we talk to her.”
Trent, forever a pushover.
“You’re too soft-hearted,” Daniel said. “If keeping her in line was up to you, she’d have a strap-on and you’d be bent over before you knew what was happening.”
“Not all of us enjoy women crying as much as you do,” Trent snapped back.
Daniel only smiled wider. “I bet her pretty green eyes would glisten nicely.”
Trent’s narrowed eyes said he wanted to argue, but Kyle stepped in. “We’ll go easy-ish, don’t worry. I’m thinking maybe dinner tonight could be a more hands-on experience.”
Daniel wasn’t sure what exactly that meant, but as if he’d reject such an offer. Kyle tended to be devious when it came to fun and games, which meant whatever he had in mind, they’d all enjoy it.
Well, Alison might not the entire time—it was a punishment, after all—but by the end of the night?
He was pretty sure they’d all go to sleep satisfied.
* * * *
Alison bit down on the gag Kyle had put in her mouth, pressing her teeth into the black ball there.
Kyle had smiled so nicely while he’d put it in and buckled it behind her head. He’d ignored her glaring and the threats she’d offered up at first. ‘You’re already in trouble, sugar,’ he’d said as if they were discussing her new shoes rather than her punishment. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t add to it by threatening me?’
That had quieted her down.
Daniel came up to her, and suddenly she felt out of her element. She’d worn a bikini like they’d requested, and when Daniel looked at her like that, she felt very underdressed. In fact, when he had that look in his eyes, she figured she could use a full set of plate armor.
Daniel grasped her waist and settled her on the coffee table.
She tried to argue, but the ball gag prevented her from doing anything but making some mumbled noises.
Daniel took her thigh and strapped something around it. She leaned up on her elbows to watch, but Kyle set a hand on the center of her chest and pushed her back down. The chill of the table crept into her bare back.
Daniel strapped the same sort of thing to her right leg. They fit snugly but weren’t too constricting. He caught her wrists and after another few clicks, she found she couldn’t pull her hands up again. He’d hooked her cuffs to the straps on her thighs, rendering her unable to move beyond a slight writhing.
She lifted her head, but somehow glaring between her knees at Daniel just didn’t have the same weight when she was trussed up as she was.
“Not quite done,” he said and took a long silver bar out, holding it up.
I don’t know what you’re planning to do with that but I suggest you don’t put it anywhere near me, was what she’d intended to say. Instead, a lot of garbled noise was all that made its way past the gag.
Daniel only chuckled, and how that sound could be both threatening and charming, she had no idea. He hooked the bar between her thighs, which made her spread her knees wide and kept her from closing them.
Kyle had a plate of food which he set on his lap as he took a spot to her right, in one of the chairs he’d pulled closer. Trent did the same to her left, and Dan—the bastard—sat on the bottom edge of the table, meaning he was placed between her spread thighs.
“So, pet.” Trent stroked his fingers over her cheek, drawing her focus there. “Do you know why you’re in trouble?”
Of course. She shook her head.
He tsk’d softly. “Lying isn’t going to make this any better for you. In fact, the gag was my idea so you didn’t get yourself in trouble anymore. Do you recall rule one?”
Alison will discuss any concerns or worries with one of the alphas. Of course she recalled it. She nodded once, a quick jerk of her head.
“Very good. You’ve been storming around and slamming things and making it clear you have something to discuss with us, but you haven’t. We gave you all day and evening to fess up, to tell us what you were worried about. Instead of doing that, you decided to be rude, to break other rules like the dress code, and be generally unpleasant.”
Because you are a bunch of assholes who talked me into sleeping with you instead of focusing on what’s important. If only her look could accurately portray that all.
“She sure has a lot of fire,” Kyle said, taking a bite of fruit from his plate. The melon made his fingers glisten. He reached out with that hand and hooked the edge of her bikini top cup with his pinky. A tug exposed her breast, and he stroked the fruit-juice-covered fingers over her nipple. “There’s only two ways to deal with fire like that. You can let it burn out or try to douse it.” He leaned forward and dragged his tongue across her nipple, licking off the juice he’d left. “I actually like your fire, so I don’t want to douse it. Still, it needs to be dealt with. I figure we’ll have some fun helping it burn until it’s out.”
The cool air breezed across her hardened nipple, and she gasped. It wasn’t just the touch, but all of it. It was the intense stares, the restraint, the way Kyle spoke. They didn’t talk as if they cared for her input. Instead, they simply informed her of what would happen.
As much as she liked that, a flutter of unease ran through her.
Trent moved her bikini, then cupped that breast with his large, warm hand.
“If you need to safe word or stop, tap the table, pet.”
That helped, that he’d known her fear without ever having to have her say it.
It let her pull in a breath, but that only pressed her nipple more firmly into Kyle’s rough palm.
“Now, we discussed a few ways to deal with this,” Kyle continued, though with the two of them toying with her breasts, it was hard to focus on what he said. “Trent wanted a stern word, Daniel wanted to turn your ass red—”
How quickly she moaned from that terrified her. What the hell? She was an adult woman, one to be feared and respected. She was not some silly child who would get spanked.
And yet she couldn’t shake the way it turned her on, the way she pictured the sting from Daniel’s hand against her ass.
What the hell is wrong with me? It had to be them, something they did to her, because she had never been this person.
Daniel let out a groan, low as he stroked his hand up her thigh. “Your reaction says it wouldn’t have been a great punishment, but rest assured, sweet, we’ll get there.” He ran his fingers up her leg and brushed her slit through the suit.
And right then, she really wanted to beg him to go farther. She wanted to feel his thick fingers pressing into her, preparing her for his cock.
“So, why don’t you just relax while we talk, since you don’t seem to want to offer any input?”
The words made her eyebrows furrow. She’d expected them to talk to her, to force her to answer, to listen to them. What sort of lesson was ignoring her?
Daniel slid his fingers beneath her suit and stroked up to her clit, rubbing with such direct attention that she shifted as if to get away.
Unfortunately, it only reminded her that her wrists were bound to her thighs and a spreader bar kept her knees open.
“Next week I thought we’d rent a couple movies,” Kyle said.
The conversation made her give him a look as though to ask him what the fuck he was doing, talking about movies as if she wasn’t spread out and almost naked before them.
Kyle didn’t even look her way, rolling her nipple between his fingers, as he discussed new movies.
Trent responded, toying with the breast on his side, and when he wasn’t speaking, he offered teasing kisses to her chest, her side, and took her hardened nipple into the warmth of his mouth.
Daniel was the worst. He untied the strings at the side of her bikini so the bottom fell off, then he really went to work. He used both hands, pressing two fingers deep into her while his other teased her clit. He was rough and focused, and despite trying to pay attention to their conversation, Alison couldn’t keep track.
It floated away, stolen by the stroke of their fingers, their lips. They acted as though she wasn’t there, using her body, driving her hard toward a release with impersonal and impassionate touches.
Her back arched as the first rush of sensation ran through her. She cried out against her gag, her eyes shut tight, the tension in her body snapping apart as she came on Daniel’s talented fingers.
And when she could pull in a breath, when the ringing in her ears stopped, Daniel’s voice came to her. “I heard that movie isn’t any good. Let’s go for action, instead.”
They’re still talking about movies?
Her skin burned and a strange shame ran through her that they’d care so little about what was happening to her.
And even more so, they didn’t stop. If anything, her first orgasm spurred them on.
It reminded her of being on the swing, where they’d been merciless with pleasing her, as though they got a sick thrill from forcing her to endure each growing release. Of course, that time their focus had been on her.
She whimpered, twisted on the table, but they paid her no mind. She kept her eyes closed this time, and it only made the feelings that much stronger.
Daniel hooked his fingers up, and when he pressed against the front of her pussy, it sent powerful shocks of sensation arcing her.
Lips wrapped around her left nipple and sucked hard before teeth scraped across it. And still they talked about nothing.
She was drowning between them, and they couldn’t care less. It broke her down as she could do nothing but feel, taking whatever they gave her.
The second orgasm made her hips lift, her toes curling against the table. She couldn’t breathe through it, her lungs freezing as everything inside her seized.
This time, she didn’t get to catch her breath. Instead, Kyle and Trent worked her nipples harder, pinching them roughly. Kyle slapped at the hard nub, catching it and making her whimper.
She had only a moment to wonder what Daniel was up to when he pulled his fingers from her before warm breath flowed over her cunt. She figured out his plan as his tongue delved deep into her, pointed and insistent. He moved up to circle her clit.
That wasn’t it, though. She felt empty, but she couldn’t even beg him to put his fingers back into her, not with the gag. Instead, she felt his wet finger against her ass.
He didn’t wait, didn’t ask, didn’t give her a chance to worry before he pressed into her. It was only one finger, she thought, but it felt impossibly thick inside her ass. He sucked her clit, tormenting it with hard draws as he set a hard rhythm with his finger.
“I already saw that,” Kyle said as he tugged her nipple, forcing her to arch off the table.
“Well, it isn’t all about you,” Trent countered.
It all mixed together. Her overstimulated body, the way she felt entirely cut off from the alphas despite the fact that they were touching her so intimately. Daniel nipped her swollen clit, and that shoved her over the edge again.
The orgasm hit her so hard the entire world drifted away.
Daniel knew when she was done. It wasn’t hard to tell, not when she broke so beautifully. He’d pushed her hard, wanting her to feel out of control and overwhelmed, and sure enough, she’d shattered with that third orgasm.
Daniel pulled his fingers from her, unhooked the spreader bar, then grabbed her around the waist. A quick lift and he settled her into his lap, her hands still bound to her thighs. Trent undid her gag, and she opened and closed her mouth when he pulled it away.
Trent stayed standing and massaged the joints of her jaw.
Wetness tracked down her cheeks, and she looked downright drugged there, more open than he’d seen her before.
Which was exactly what he wanted. “You didn’t like that, did you?”
She shook her head.
“You know why we did it?” When she didn’t, he continued. “Because that’s what you’re doing, sweet. You’re trying to keep us out, not talking to us, not letting us help you. You need to realize that we want to help you, that we need to know what you’re thinking, what you want, what bothers you. If you don’t tell us, it’s no different than being on that table, just like that.”
She shivered, and Kyle wrapped a throw blanket around her before he took his spot at Daniel’s side.
“Now, what happened today? What got you so upset?” Kyle asked, his voice soft and coaxing.
Still high on her orgasms and reaction, she didn’t look into their eyes, but answered in an almost sleepy voice. “This is taking forever.”
“What? The case?”
She nodded. “I’m here, playing this stupid game with you, and she’s going through fuck only knows what. I can’t let her die,” she said against his neck.
“Who?”
“Anne.”
That made him still. Why hadn’t he put it all together sooner? Her chasing the slavers, risking herself? He’d thought it was because they were a danger to the omegas she protected, but that wasn’t it. “One of the omegas who was taken by slavers is your friend, right?” No wonder she’d put herself through this hell.
Alison nodded but didn’t pull away. That felt like a small miracle, how she only curled tighter against his chest, as though he were her only real comfort.
He looked over her shoulder to meet Kyle’s gaze.
Clearly, tomorrow, once she’d come back to her senses, they’d need to have one hell of a conversation.
He was growing tired of her secrets.