Sitting around the dining table felt disingenuous. Trent avoided the situation by standing and occasionally pacing.
He’d already gotten an earful from both Daniel and Kyle about how they had to have this talk. Granted, Trent had never cared for deep conversations, for the type that risked emotions and exposing of one’s feelings. He still knew they were necessary sometimes.
This is definitely a time one is needed.
However, the alphas had been working at a distance for too long. They had clearly forgotten exactly how to handle skittish omegas.
Alison might have proven herself strong and capable, but that didn’t change that she was as skittish as far as they were concerned. The difference? Others would run, but she’d bare her teeth. If Daniel had pushed her much further, she’d have turned around and stormed out. The armor going up was easy to spot if someone was looking for it.
So she’d needed a bit of time to settle her nerves.
The next conversation wasn’t going to be an easy one, not for her and not for them.
Which was a damn pity, because negotiations were supposed to be fun. Nerve-wracking, sure, like a first date, but they were meant to be an exploration, a chance to glimpse another person in a new way.
Instead, this would be uncomfortable and clinical.
The pad of her footsteps was so soft he nearly didn’t catch it. It was her scent that came down first, something soft and sweeter than he’d have figured for a woman as tough as she was.
She wore the same outfit. Pants rolled up to just below her mid-calf and a loose black shirt paired with black sneakers. Her hair still held those curls, and her full lips gave her that youthful look that was so deceiving.
Alison brought her gaze up, meeting Trent’s. Shit. Caught staring not five seconds in. Great job, idiot. He tore his eyes away, as if that would undo it. He didn’t blame himself for his reaction—if anyone understood basic biological reactions, if was him—but he tried not to unnerve her any more than he had to.
A chair scraped against the tile floor, and he turned back to find that she’d taken a seat at the table as far away from the other two seated alphas as she could.
Kyle spoke first. “How’s your room?”
“Fine.” Her short, sharp response didn’t bode well for a nice friendly chat.
Kyle leaned back as if giving up.
Daniel took over. “Look, we’re not trying to make you uncomfortable here. We have to figure out how this will work. For undercover work, people typically have a lot of training before trying it. The last thing I want is to end up upsetting you or making you feel uncomfortable.”
Alison crossed her arms and set her elbows on the table. “Let’s get one thing straight, all right? I spoke with Tiffany—I know you all handle this slavery ring taskforce and that before then, you focused on other large-scale omega crimes. I am not some broken damsel who needs you to walk carefully around me. I’m not one of your charity cases.”
“No one thinks you’re weak,” Daniel went on. “If we did, we’d never have agreed to this. There have been former slaves who have offered to help, to play the part you’re going to play, but we turned them down because it wouldn’t have been right to put them in that position. Trust me, if we thought you were broken, you wouldn’t be here.”
Her eyes narrowed, but Alison didn’t say anything back. Did she believe them or did she think they were bullshitting her?
The desire to figure her out, to learn her tells, ate at Trent and he filed it all away for later. Even if this were all make-believe, he still needed to deal with her, and the more he learned about her, the more he realized he’d need his best game to do so.
“Even if you’re totally solid,” Kyle added in, “that doesn’t change that we need to agree on what’s expected. Going into this blind isn’t going to help anyone.”
“I’ve spent six months on this job. I’m not going anywhere blind. We’ll have someone from the association come and do two visits to ensure you do have a slave for sale and to take down all information in order for accurate pricing and pairing. The actual auction is set for just under two months away, but the location won’t be told until the day of. During the auction, you’ll be allowed to stay with me until payment had been remitted from a buyer. There are usually about thirty omegas in an auction. How am I doing on understanding?” She spoke quickly, as if rushing out all the information.
Trent rubbed his thumb across his jaw. He’d bet that usually worked. She’d toss out facts rapidly, unsettling those around her, making herself sound arrogant enough that no one challenged her.
Too bad it was a ploy. He saw the uncertainty in her pretty green eyes. She was tough and committed, but that didn’t erase her worries.
A crease appeared in Daniel’s cheek. “Yeah, you’ve got the basics. None of that addresses that we’ll have to go through those meetings, that you’ll have to play a part, that we all will have to play one. That means we’ve got to be clear about how that’ll go and what limits there are.”
“Limits.” She huffed a mocking sound out. “Slaves don’t get limits.”
“You aren’t a slave, though, and the last thing I want is to risk stumbling over some trigger you have. We might not actually be your Doms, but we’re going to be stepping into that role for a while. That means honesty.”
And there is was, the widening of her eyes, the quickening of her breath. So, she’s not a fan of honesty, huh?
Kyle went next. “I promise that we won’t lie to you, Alison. We won’t do anything you tell us is off limits.”
His reassurance should have helped, but her body only seemed to grow more tense. “I don’t need kid gloves. We have a job to do and anything we need to do to find the fucking auction is fine with me.”
Kyle pressed his lips together.
Which meant it was Trent’s turn. He pulled a chair out directly next to her, one that made her lean away slightly when he sat. “Have you ever been in any consensual power exchange situation?”
She shook her head.
“Do you have a history of abuse or sexual assault? Anything we should know about that could cause you to freeze or panic?”
Again, she shook her head.
The fact that she answered surprised no one more than Trent, but he’d guess that using her own no-nonsense tone had helped. He didn’t play the ‘I’m so worried about you’ card, but rather spoke as if filling out forms at a doctor’s office. Being seen as weak seemed to be a hot button for Alison.
“Why are you so nervous around us, then?”
That question shook her loose from her open and honest moment, though. Her eyes narrowed and she curled her hands into fists. “Maybe because I don’t care for arrogant alphas who think they have a right to pry around inside my head. I’m here to do a job and, to be quite honest, you need me more than I need you.”
Lie. They needed one another, from what he could see.
Still, he let her keep the lie this time. “In order to pose as someone who had been our slave for weeks—especially since our cover is a trio who sells extremely high-dollar slaves with training—you’re going to need to learn. There isn’t any way to do that other than to actually train you.”
She blinked, slowly, followed by a loud swallow. Even still, her voice kept its almost bored and more than a little hostile tone. “If you just want a slave, I’m sure there are plenty of omegas willing to play your sick little games.”
Trent snorted. “We’ve had plenty of omegas who enjoyed our little games, and I’m going to bet you’d be more trouble than all of them put together, but no, this isn’t some game. How the hell do you expect to play a part you’ve never experienced? You’ll need to get comfortable with us around you. You’ll need to look like you’ve spent the last few weeks being trained by us and the only way for that to happen is to actually train you.” When she opened her mouth, he held a hand up so he could finish. “With limitations and safe words, of course. That is the point of good communication, so you can say ‘don’t pull my hair,’ and we’ll know to never do that. Without, we could stumble on a hard limit for you we were never aware of.”
She shifted in her chair, most of her attitude dissipating.
It made Trent wonder…what’s beneath all that attitude? If she actually let her guard down, if she stopped fighting just to fight, what would he find beneath it? Someone shy? Someone who loved praise? A person who got off on humiliation?
He normally loved this time, when he was able to find out the secrets that every female kept close, to see how she was unique, to discover all the beautiful things she hid.
Except then he reminded himself—that wasn’t the point with Alison. They would only discover what they needed to in order to complete their task.
Daniel leaned in, his elbows on the table and his normal good-guy expression in place. “Don’t think you’re the only one uncomfortable in this, Alison. This is new territory for us, too. We’ve established that you don’t have any experience with this sort of relationship, no large traumas involving men or alphas, so why don’t we give you your homework, then you can go on to bed?”
“Homework?” Her look went past disrespectful to downright mean. “I haven’t done homework since I was in high school, and honestly? I didn’t do it then, either.”
Daniel laughed and pushed a stapled pack of papers across the table to her. Trent knew what was in them—they all did. They’d written those up years ago, and just seeing a glimpse of them reminded him far too much of their old lives.
She flipped through the first few pages, her cheeks going pink at what she found. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Not at all,” Daniel said. “Fill that out—thoroughly and honestly—and you won’t even have to discuss it with us.”
Trent could see it all in his head—the questions about her medical history, her personal history, about her hard limits and experience. They were the same packets they’d go over with potential subs back when they’d played more seriously. The thought of Alison filling it out made him uncomfortably turned on, and he struggled to keep it from showing.
This was proving to be far more interesting than it had any right to. She seemed to awaken things in him he’d thought were gone, a part of him that wanted to really take her, to watch her come undone, to taste each little shocked moan when he pulled passions from her she had no idea were there.
That can’t happen, though. He sighed as he shook his head, trying to drive home the most important part. This is just a game, and that makes her off limits.
* * * *
Kyle chuckled as he read over Alison’s paperwork. She’d left it on the kitchen table as though that was the end of it. Girl has no idea.
She’d answered all of nothing. A few questions had smart-ass remarks—after the anal sex question she’d put ‘only if I can shove something up your ass first’—and the rest were blank. Saying she’d half-assed it would be giving the girl way too much credit.
“She’s going to have a rough two months,” Trent said as they got ready to go have a talk with her.
“Funny thing is, I don’t think she’s even all that opposed to some of this. I think she just likes to be difficult,” Kyle responded. “It’s like she fights with herself and decides she should argue, so she does.”
Daniel offered a grin as he picked up the water bottles they’d pulled from the fridge. “I don’t mind a brat one bit.”
“You will when it isn’t one you get to have fun with,” Kyle pointed out.
Daniel’s smile fell, as though someone had just dashed his hopes. After another moment, the smirk came back. “Hell, I’ll take a little emotional torture, and you know she isn’t going to be happy about redoing this.”
Kyle chuckled, ready for the wild omega to have herself a world-class hissy fit over being forced to not only actually answer the questions but do so with them there. Then again, since giving her space hadn’t convinced her to be forthright, he didn’t mind changing up tactics.
She was lying out by the large indoor pool, and Kyle damn near lost his balance when he saw her. She’d been stunning in those tight pants she’d worn the first night, but they were nothing compared to this. She wore a bikini that showed off her amazing figure. It wasn’t the sort of body a woman got from not eating, but instead one honed by hard work. The black of it stood out against her pale skin, and the large sunglasses on her face only made her look even more like some doe.
He caught himself before he face-planted into the concrete floor and spilled all the food on the plate. Still, the action caused enough noise that she lifted her head to look in their direction.
And damn, he’d had no idea a person could feel an eye roll, but there it was.
She suddenly looked like a sulking teenager annoyed by her parents’ presence. “Yes?”
“Need to have a talk,” Daniel said.
“Haven’t we talked enough?”
“Sure, if you actually said anything. However, since you decided to phone in the questionnaire, we’ll need to try it again.”
She sat up, then pushed up her glasses so they rested on her head. “I told you everything you’re going to get out of me.”
The screeching of the patio chairs against the concrete grated on Kyle’s senses, but the slowness of it helped to send the message. They were in no hurry and she couldn’t maneuver or manipulate them. Once the chairs were moved over—three, since they left her on the ground—Kyle handed over a fresh packet of papers and a pen.
She narrowed her eyes. “No. You don’t need to know any of this.”
Kyle offered her the same stubborn look back. “Actually, we do, and this isn’t negotiable. It’s about the only thing that isn’t, sugar.”
She snorted at the nickname. “What are you going to do? Refuse to work with me?”
Playing hardball? Kyle wasn’t sure if that was her just being difficult or if she was truly that uncomfortable with the idea of sharing her past with them.
He leaned back in his chair as if it didn’t matter to him a bit. “Yeah, we will.”
That got to her. She sat up tall. “You’re bluffing. You need me for this.”
“Yeah, we do need you, but we won’t hesitate to call it off if we need to. We won’t do this the wrong way, won’t put you or us in danger by going into it when you won’t even fill out a simple form. I mean, Alison, if you couldn’t trust us to even tell you some of our history, would you ever want to put your life in our hands? Would you think we could handle a case like this then?”
She shifted to her knees, the action seeming almost instinctual in a way that Kyle tried to ignore. “You didn’t fill one out,” she argued.
“That’s where you’re wrong, sweet.” Daniel held up the three packets the alphas had filled out. “This isn’t a one-way street. We aren’t asking anything from you that we won’t do. In case you didn’t know, my safe word is red and I am not into pegging.”
Her eyebrows inched toward one another.
Daniel’s laugh was downright pleased. “Oh, you are too much fun. Doesn’t really matter what pegging is right now. My point is, this all goes both ways. You want to know about us? It’s here. Now, are you going to be a good girl and fill that out?”
She blew out a hard breath but nodded. She might not like it, but apparently, she’d damn well do it.
And Kyle had to admit, he couldn’t wait to hear her answers.
I wonder how much trouble I’d get in for rebreaking Kyle’s nose…
Probably quite a bit. If they threatened to pull the plug on the case over paperwork, she suspected broken bones was one of those hard limits they’d talked about.
She held her hands out for the paper.
“Uh-huh, pet,” Trent said. “You had your chance. I want to make sure each answer is satisfactory, so we’ll ask, you’ll answer, and I’ll write it down. Don’t like it? Then next time, do as you’re asked the first time.”
Alison’s mouth hung open. She’d never been spoken to like that, at least not since she’d become an adult.
And yet all the indignation in the world didn’t change what needed to happen. “Fine,” she muttered and crossed her arms. Only after a too-long stare by Kyle did she realize the action made her breasts press together and gave her a hell of a lot of cleavage. She stopped immediately and ignored his chuckle.
The first questions were easy. Medical history—only a tricky shoulder that acted up from time to time—and personal history. That one she was vague about.
Trent’s lifted eyebrow meant he’d caught it, but they let it go. Her childhood wasn’t relevant, and she had no desire to put it on the table for them to dissect.
“Virgin?” Kyle asked.
She offered up her best deadpan stare. “I’m thirty. Of course I’m not a virgin.”
“Have you ever slept with an alpha?”
Her sputtering likely answered that one for her. “I really think that is going too far.”
Daniel answered in that voice that seemed to have endless patience and amusement. “These questions are here for a reason. If you’ve never slept with an alpha, you don’t know what it feels like to be knotted. That matters. If you don’t know what it’s like to be around alphas, you’ve got no idea the sort of pull they can have.”
“That’s sex. We aren’t having sex, so why do you need any of this?”
Trent sighed, setting the pen on the paper before giving her a look that seemed to lock her gaze to his. “Because this is the exact paperwork we would have done if you really were a slave. If we were really training you, we’d know all this. What happens if during a meeting, the person there asks about deep throating? I say you’re good at it for short periods of time, but you say you hate it. We’re playing the part of people who actually train and know about the omega we’re selling, and there’s no other way to do that than to actually take the steps. I don’t want to argue with you every step of the way, Alison, so you need to decide if you want to do this or not. If not, you’re free to walk out.”
That got her attention. Where Kyle had made a similar threat, Trent meant it. She had no idea what sat there in the shadows of his eyes, but this seemed personal. He would let her walk out if she kept pushing.
She took a deep breath, then released it slowly. “No, I’ve never slept with an alpha.”
Trent nodded and sat back, writing down the answer.
Daniel asked the next questions. “For the next ones, I need you to answer first if you’ve tried it or not, then a one, two or three for interest. One means yes, two means maybe and three means it is a hard limit.”
Her body heated as she knew what was coming. Of course, she’d looked through the list, even if she hadn’t answered most of it. So many things on there that she hadn’t even been aware people did, let alone enjoyed.
She’d thought herself sexually free, since she’d screwed men in bars and motel rooms plenty of times, yet just half a page into their little packet, she’d felt like an old lady who had no idea what the kids got up to anymore. At least it made most of the answers easy. She’d done little of what they’d mentioned, though it was her answers of two that surprised her the most. She hadn’t tried them, but the moment her brain got going on those pictures, she’d known they were maybes.
I’m the least experienced whore ever.
She found herself really regretting her little act of rebellion right about the time Trent’s deep, rough voice started rumbling out all those things like items at an all-you-can-eat buffet. She felt like checking them all off. Yes, I’ll take an order of bondage with a side of spanking and maybe a little double penetration to finish off the meal.
“Pet.” Trent’s voice forced her gaze up to his intense dark eyes.
It took a moment for her to realize he hadn’t been asking her a question, but rather using pet as a name to get her attention. She blinked, waiting for the outrage to hit and finding none. She chalked that up to being so horribly turned on she couldn’t think straight.
“I asked if you had a safe word you wanted to use.”
Oh. “Um, stop?”
His smile was simply unfair. A man who looked as intimidating as he did shouldn’t also have a killer grin. “Usually we’d use red, but I want something you can say even if we’re being watched. How about ‘master?’ Call any of us master, and we’ll know you need to stop whatever is going on. If we’re alone, it will be an immediate end and check-in. If we have someone from the slavery ring here, we’ll ease off whatever is happening and try to fix the issue.”
Alison swallowed hard, the word master feeling heavy in her mouth. She reached for a joke, unsure how else to deal with the issue. “I figured every man’s dream is for a girl to call them master.”
Kyle huffed out a laugh that made her impossibly wetter. “Ah, sugar, I much prefer being called ‘sir’. By the time girls are saying that, one-syllable words are a benefit. They can’t remember much beyond that.”
His words were a whisper that went straight to her cunt, but the thing that really got her? The thing that made her again doubt whether this was such a good idea?
He winked at her, as if he knew exactly what those words did to her.
This might have been a horrible mistake…
* * * *
Why did I open my stupid mouth?
Alison cursed herself again as she paced her room.
She hadn’t even realized what she was saying until it had already come flying out of her mouth.
She eyed the window. A lock rested on it, making it impossible to climb out. Which was a stupid thought, because she could damn well walk out of that front door. As much as she disliked the alphas, she knew they wouldn’t keep her there against her will.
And yet admitting to them that she might bail seemed too far.
A knock on the door had her wishing she could turn the thing to ash with only a glare. When it didn’t even smolder, she sighed. “Come in.”
She expected Daniel. He tended to be the ‘let’s smooth everything over’ one. Instead, Trent walked in.
“What’s that?” She nodded toward the black items clutched in his hand.
Trent took one and lifted it on a finger.
A collar.
Heat simmered in her lower stomach, her skin growing hot. How could something both excite and frighten her?
He reached out, and Alison offered her wrists without thinking. Her hands were so small against his palms, and he set all the items on the small dresser before pulling just the cuffs out.
Alison waited for them to hurt. She imagined rough leather that would chafe, that would sit tight enough to scrape her raw.
Instead, something soft stroked her skin. Trent worked quickly, efficiently. After sizing them, he ran his finger between the cuff and her skin, the touch feeling far more intimate than it should have.
“Are they too tight?” Despite checking himself, he still asked.
Alison shook her head, the weight of the cuffs surprising. They weren’t that heavy, she’d guess. It was a mental thing, as though they seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, as if she could focus on nothing but the way they tugged at her.
They were padded and lined with a soft cotton, yet her entire world had shrunk to where they touched her.
“Breathe,” he told her.
Alison sucked in a breath at the command, cold air rushing into her lungs. Guess that’s why my chest hurts. Breathing is important.
He studied her quietly for a moment before moving on. “The collar now.”
How he could tell she was ready, that she’d regained her courage, she wasn’t sure. The press of the same fabric against her throat felt as shocking as if someone had choked her. It didn’t fasten tightly, didn’t impede her breathing at all, and yet the clicking of the metal buckle, the brush of his fingers—it all made it feel too real.
He performed the same check he had with the cuffs, slipping his finger between the collar and her neck, sliding it around to test how tight it was.
He touched the collar, his fingers sliding over the front. “You look nice in this.”
Her mouth had gone dry, as if she’d never drunk a drop in her entire life.
His lips curved into a half smile. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Thank you, sir.’”
The words tumbled from her lips, soft and unsure and yet she didn’t have to think about them at all. “Thank you, sir.”
The rush of wetness between her thighs surprised her more than it would have anyone else, she’d bet. She fidgeted, pressing her thighs together to try to keep him from noticing.
He breathed in, and a darkness in his gaze told her he knew.
“If you have trouble sleeping in the cuffs or the collar, just come let one of us know. If they pinch or feel uncomfortable, we’ll fix them.” He slid his large hand to the side of her neck, the touch solid and showing just how much bigger he was than her.
She expected him to use that grip to pull her against him, to take her lips in a kiss she was sure would melt her. Hell, she had no doubts that if he tried—even a little—he’d not only get a kiss but have her on her back in a heartbeat. Somehow, all those nerves, all the things she’d been nervous about, all transformed into pure lust.
Except he didn’t.
He dragged his thumb along her jawline before releasing her. “Goodnight.”
Alison didn’t get the chance to even respond before he left the room. Her gaze floated past the full-length mirror on the door, and something that dangled at the front of the collar caught her attention. She went closer, catching the silver—a heart-shaped padlock that hung from a loop—and twisted it to read the engraving.
Ali
It had been made for her, with her name. She clutched the heart between her fingers, the collar still warm from Trent’s grip.
The entire list of things she’d filled out ran through her head as she recalled Trent’s large hand against her neck, the way he’d checked the fit of each item, and she let out a broken moan at how badly she suddenly wanted to try out that list with him.
Which meant she was in trouble, and not just from the slavery ring.
* * * *
Trent groaned as he stroked his cock. He’d heard Alison moan when he’d shut her door. He’d breathed in her delicious scent, knew she’d been drenched when he’d put that collar on her.
It had been years since he’d collared a woman, and he’d forgotten how damn pleasing it was to do.
And he wasn’t made of stone, damn it, which left him in the shower, his hand around his dick, his other arm against the wall, the water streaming over him.
That omega is a menace. Something about her strange dichotomy got him. She was tough as nails, had gone head to head with him that first night, but then she’d turned naive and innocent a heartbeat later. It wasn’t fair, damn it. No one could resist that.
And he didn’t have to resist in his own head. He pictured holding that collar as he fucked her from behind. He pictured putting clips on her nipples, blowing cool air over the peaked tips.
“Fuck,” he growled out, moving his hand faster.
When he came, it was with something far too close to a roar for his comfort. He was left panting and tired and far too fucking confused about what had come over him.
He hadn’t ever wanted a female like this. Why was it the one female he couldn’t possibly have?
How the hell was he supposed to act like her Dom, train her, treat her like a slave while also keeping her at a distance? He tried to picture running his hands along her skin, teaching her what positions to stand in, how to kneel and not giving in to even the slightest kiss.
Impossible.
And yet he had to find the strength. He had to build up his defenses to her charms because he had a job to do. He couldn’t ignore what needed to happen for what he wanted.
He’d given up so much before to do what was right, and he’d give up what he wanted this time, too.
He had to.