Trent groaned when Kyle’s lips reached Alison’s spread pussy, when he dragged his tongue up her drenched sex.
He’d been walking past when he’d scented her, when he’d heard those sounds she made when she was so close to the edge, and he’d been unable to take a single step away.
And now he was damn glad he’d come in.
He captured her nipples between his fingers, closing down on one then the other before tugging softly at both. They’d drawn into hard points beneath his attention, as he rolled them between his fingertips.
“So what did she do to deserve this?”
Daniel huffed a soft sound, as though he didn’t need to be punishing her in order to enjoy her. Still, he answered. “Woke up to find her gone this morning. Second morning in a row, and we’d already had a conversation about it.”
Not the biggest offense, but he suspected Daniel had been looking for a reason to do this.
Though, of course, Alison had her safe words. She could always stop anything she wanted to.
Which meant she was as invested in this game as they were.
“That wasn’t being a good girl.”
Her eyebrows furrowed, as if those words stung.
That had him almost ready to take them back. A sharp look from Daniel kept him from it, though.
He cupped her breasts in his hands, teasing the nipples with his callused thumbs. “You know better than to ignore us, pet. I know you can do better.” He used the words to help relieve the sullen expression on her face, to bridge that gap between him, reassuring her, but also keeping the lesson front and center.
He understood, of course. Alison didn’t like to listen, not because she wanted to be a brat but because she didn’t want to be a burden. She didn’t want to wake them if she couldn’t sleep. She didn’t want to ask them to help her with anything. He’d seen it when her all-of-five-foot self had been balanced precariously on a flimsy stool trying to reach a bowl on a high shelf in the pantry, a shelf any of the alphas could have reached for her with ease.
However, instead of asking them, she’d risked herself. He’d tossed her over her shoulder and pinched her ass before fucking her—not that he expected she’d learned much from it.
This time, however? She wouldn’t forget this.
She parted those soft lips of hers—no doubt to say something about how it wasn’t a big deal—but Kyle delivered a hard lick to her right then, stealing away whatever she’d planned to utter.
He drove her hard, not giving her any chance to resist him. Daniel’s hands on her knees kept her spread open, and he shifted his hips up, sinking himself deep into her ass.
She twisted, but there was no way to gain leverage. She was one hundred percent at their mercy, and Trent had to admit, he loved it.
He cupped one of her breasts and brought his lips to it, teasing for only a moment before nipping at the stiff peak, dragging his teeth across it to add yet another element to all they were forcing on her.
Her cry was thin and desperate as she came, that frantic writhing of her body increasing.
And they were only at two. She had a very long time ahead of her if she refused to give in.
They all paused as she caught her breath, that moment her chance to think, to reconsider.
Kyle’s gaze ran up her body, his blue eyes intense and locked on her face.
As soon as she opened her eyes, when she’d seemed to come back to herself, he returned to her cunt.
Trent groaned at the shiver that ran through her, and the way she whimpered at Daniel’s first thrust made him wished he’d already stripped. He wanted his hand around his cock—something, anything.
He contented himself with her perky breasts, with teasing her nipples, with leaving love bites and hickeys across the flawless pale skin. She’d wake tomorrow with the blemishes, like little brands, and she’d think of him.
She did every time she saw the bite. As bad as he should still feel about it, he’d shed any real guilt. He loved his claiming bite on her shoulder. He’d never grow tired of glimpsing it from beneath the straps of her tops, from the way she’d stroke her fingers over it when she didn’t know he was watching her.
Yeah, he refused to feel guilty about one of the few things he’d done in his life that he wanted that much.
“All you’ve got to do is ask,” Daniel growled, his voice deep as he plunged his cock into her harder.
She threw her head back, resting it on Daniel’s shoulder, so Trent took the offer and nipped her exposed throat. Something about it felt like so much more, like a submission even deeper than the rest, as though she trusted him to keep her safe when his teeth were so close to her pulse.
The metal on the headboard groaned with her next orgasm, the yanking of her hands showing she was nearing her limit.
They gave her even less time to rest after that one, ramping up the pressure, forcing her to adjust, to accept everything they had to give.
The sounds she made came constantly now, broken only by gasps. Sometimes she moaned, sometimes she whimpered, but every uttered, breathless plea had him ready to come. Hell, at that point he didn’t care if he just rubbed himself against the mattress. Anything for a little friction, for some relief.
“Well, I hate to admit it,” Daniel said just before he nipped her ear lobe. “But I think I might be outmatched.”
Kyle snorted before he flicked her clit with his tongue. “I doubt that. She is fucking shaking right now.”
And she was. The trembling was so strong it was as though she were frozen, like her body was full of so much energy she couldn’t stay still. Each touch from them only made it worse.
Daniel huffed a soft laugh. “I figure one more thing will push her right over. I doubt the stubborn little omega will manage to resist anymore if we get her knotted. Fill her that much and she’ll break.”
Trent growled, the sound torn from his throat before he thought about it.
A hard bark of laughter came from Kyle. “Pretty sure that tells us who wants to help there. Go on, Trent. Something fitting about you, the softy, being the one to force that girl to take two cocks.”
Trent didn’t need to be offered twice. He all but ripped off his shirt, then stripped out of his pants, leaving it all on the ground before crawling between Alison’s spread legs.
Her hair stuck to her forehead, matted by sweat, her eyes shimmering and wetness tracking down her cheeks.
He leaned in, forgoing her lips to kiss over the tears, a tiny act of sweetness to remind her that even when she was being punished, even when she didn’t like everything they did, they only did it because they cared.
Whether she got the message or not, he had no idea.
He took his cock in his hand and ran it through her folds. She was beyond drenched, her messy cunt hot and swollen and more than any man could resist. When he rubbed the head of his cock against her clit—that got a reaction. She jerked wildly against Daniel’s hold and her cuffs.
“Easy,” Trent told her.
Daniel snorted before speaking into her ear, just loud enough for Trent to hear as well. “You ready, sweet? He’s going to take his cock and plunge it into your sweet little pussy. You think you’re full now? Imagine a thick knot, too. I’m pretty sure you’ll be begging us to stop soon.”
She opened her mouth, and Trent could see the request on her lips. The trembling increased as if the words just wouldn’t come, like she was more afraid of them than she was of the alphas, of her reaction.
And that killed him. Poor girl. As much as Trent didn’t love punishments, he had to admit that if they could make a breakthrough, if she actually learned she could ask them for help, it would all be more than worth it.
He fitted his cock against her and pressed into the tightness of her cunt.
Alison was feral by the time the first inch of Trent’s hard, thick cock stretched her. Each inch after was worse, her body so sensitive it shot bolts of pleasure straight through her, and she couldn’t do anything to prepare or resist.
Thankfully, Daniel kept still. It was the only blessing, that he didn’t further torment her—at least in that moment—because she had no doubt it would happen.
Trent’s cock hadn’t ever seemed this large, and since she doubted he’d grown since the last time she’d had sex with him, it had to be another example of just how far they’d pushed her.
She felt close to breaking, at her limit, and yet the simple words wouldn’t come. She couldn’t speak them, whisper the easy request.
Why? What the hell was wrong with her?
The cuffs kept her arms stretched up, forced her to endure the feelings the alphas pushed on her without even being able to grasp them, to feel she had any amount of control. Trent’s chest vibrated as he growled, the sound so low she wasn’t sure she heard it at all rather than just felt it. Still, he forced inch after inch into her until he was fully seated, until he was so deep that she didn’t think she had any space inside her at all.
And right then, when she pulled in a shaky breath, when she thought for just a moment that she could handle it, Daniel moved.
He shifted back and plunged in, moving her up just a bit to give him room to really thrust.
Everything inside her broke apart. She squeezed down around them both, her body fighting for some level of control as she came, as she was washed away by their want and their demands and yet felt safer than she ever had before.
How the fuck was that possible? Here she was, pushed past her limits, not even enjoying the sensations anymore, at the mercy of three alphas she was pretty sure didn’t have any, and yet she had no worries about her safety. She’d never felt more protected, more…cherished?
She wasn’t sure she understood that word at all, but the way Trent called her ‘pet’, the way he fucked her with hard, steady thrusts, the way Daniel slammed into her, his little bites to her shoulder and earlobe, even Kyle’s intense stare as he stroked his own cock, they all made her feel important.
Not just a body the three used to slake their lust on, not a stand-in for anyone, not just a pretend slave for a job, but someone they cared about.
Trent bit down on her shoulder—not hard enough to break the skin, but as always, right over the healed mark. His cock swelled, that knot as challenging as it ever was, especially with Daniel inside her.
Meanwhile, Daniel fucked her harder, faster, and when his teeth closed over her shoulder, when his cock jerked hard inside her and she felt the heat of his cum searing her, she was helpless against another rolling wave of pleasure that crashed over her.
“Stop,” she gasped out, the word ripped from her like a scab over an ill-healed wound. More poured from her. “Stop, please.”
Daniel released her shoulder and offered a far-too-gentle kiss to the sore spot before slipping from her. Even that was too much. “Good girl,” he all but purred into her ear.
Her hands came free, but she was too tired to see if it had been Kyle or Daniel who had released her. Does it matter?
The pulsing thickness of Trent’s knot pulled another gasp as she shoved at his chest.
He trapped her hands between them, kissing at her panting lips. “You’re okay, pet. It’s over. I know, but I can’t pull out, not yet. Just relax.”
Pet. That was what got through to her, what made her take a breath and try to relax, try not to tense against the massive feeling of his swollen knot.
Which seemed impossible right then, when her body was nothing but a collection of overworked nerves.
Lips pressed to hers, and she recognized the kiss without having to open her eyes. Kyle. He brushed her hair from her face as he offered the sweetest kisses, soft and full of things none of them dared to say.
And the words ended with the kisses. No one spoke. She got no lectures.
She closed her eyes and snuggled against the warmth and strength of the three, content to let them hold back the rest of the world, at least right then.
* * * *
Kyle lifted his eyebrow at Alison, unsure what to do with her.
They’d fucked her to exhaustion just that morning, yet somehow her panties had ended up twisted so tight someone might think she hadn’t been laid in weeks.
He exchanged a look with Daniel, who only shrugged.
Trent didn’t seem any more in the know about what the hell had crawled up their little omega’s ass in the past few hours.
His phrasing made him chuckle to himself as he recalled how she’d squirmed, how she’d cried out.
Focus.
The sweetness from that was gone, and he had no idea where it had disappeared to. Daniel had taken her into the shower and cleaned her off, since he’d started the whole punishment thing. Even when walking out, though, she’d been happy.
Fuck, she’d been downright glowing.
So what had happened between them and now? Dealing with Alison forever made him question himself. It seemed like a test she was always changing the rules to.
Alison brushed past him as she set the table, refusing to make eye contact, storming around. She didn’t break any rules—smart girl—but her little acts of defiance were loud all the same.
Sick of it, Kyle reached out and caught her wrist by the cuff.
She gave him a look that screamed the threats she wanted to make, even if she kept them in. “Yes?” she said through gritted teeth.
He tugged her to the living room and pushed her to her knees on the pillow they’d left there. He lowered himself into the seat in front of her. She took the position without thought, showing why they’d had to slip into these roles twenty-four-seven, so such things became automatic.
“What’s wrong, sugar?”
She glared at him, her lips turning white from how hard she pressed them together.
Kyle sighed and slipped his fingers into her hair. He tugged her forward until she pressed her cheek to his thigh, and ran his fingers through her hair, hoping she’d relax. “You can’t be mad about the punishment. You sure as hell weren’t mad right after, and you can’t claim you didn’t deserve it.”
She lowered her gaze, like she didn’t want to look at him. That wasn’t uncommon. She seemed to retreat inside herself when she was forced to really think about why she did something, as if she’d never put in effort to do so before.
“Talk to me, sugar. I’m not asking for a lot, here. You were happy as fuck afterward, then something changed. What happened?”
She huffed, an angry little sound like that of a dog forced to lie down when it didn’t want to. “Why aren’t you still mad?”
He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
“I screwed up. As soon as we finished…you all were over it.”
He couldn’t help his frown, not when he couldn’t seem to understand her point. “Of course. We weren’t all that mad to start with, but there was a consequence, and we needed you to learn a lesson. Once you asked us to stop, you’d learned it. Why would we still be mad?”
She shifted, as if the words she wanted to say—the ones she needed to say—were alive inside her and fighting not to come out. “People don’t get over things that fast.”
Ah. Kyle let out a soft sigh as the pieces came together. He didn’t answer right away, trying to soothe her with the stroking of his hand through her hair. Finally, he found the words. “We’re talking about your father, aren’t we?”
She tensed but didn’t answer. She didn’t really need to.
He nodded, continuing the gentle touches. “We’re all going to do things sometimes that aren’t great. If I do, if Daniel or Trent do, we’ll apologize. What would you do if we honestly apologized and atoned for what we’d done?”
“I’d forgive you.”
“Exactly. You made a mistake, sugar, and they happen. They’re part of life. We dealt with it, and the second it was over, we were over it. We wouldn’t keep punishing you for something we’d already handled.”
She let out a slow breath that warmed his thigh. “I remember one time I snuck out. I was only eight—it wasn’t like I was going anywhere bad, but I’d wanted to play with this other kid across the street. I ended up out after dinner, because I didn’t realize it had gotten late. It wasn’t like I ever got to play with anyone normally.”
The hitch in her throat broke his heart. “What happened?”
“If I’d gotten home when my mom was the only one there, nothing would have happened. She’d never have told my father, but I stayed out too late, and he was already there.”
He kept his temper in check. She didn’t need his anger, not for old ghosts. There was nothing he could do about them. “Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head, then nuzzled against his thigh, the action seeming unconscious, as though she needed to seek him out for comfort. “My father didn’t believe in hitting females. He thought that was beneath him, beneath any alpha. He never raised a hand, not to my mother, not to me. He never needed to. There was something so cold in his eyes, though, like a part of him had died, something that should have killed him too but somehow hadn’t. He told me how disappointed in me he was, how he didn’t ask much of me and I couldn’t even do that one thing. He locked me in my room for two days—no food, nothing. I drank water from the bathroom faucet, but no matter what I did, no one would open the door or even acknowledge me.” She trembled, and Kyle grasped her hands, pulling her up and into his lap. He stroked his hand down her back, trying to make up for the horrible memory.
Still, the tough omega kept telling it. “Two days later, my mother let me out, told me to get cleaned up and dressed and come down for breakfast. I was starving, but I was so happy to be done. I said good morning to my father at the table, and he ignored me. Sitting in that room alone for two days wasn’t enough for him. He still wouldn’t speak to me, wouldn’t acknowledge I even existed. I gave him the card I’d made, a stupid one out of scraps of paper. I’d even destroyed one of my stuffed animals to add pieces of fur, trying to make it special. I thought if I could apologize right, he’d forgive me. He’d see I didn’t mean to be bad.”
Even without knowing the end, Kyle could see the train barreling for her, knew in the way she spoke that the story didn’t end with some great make-up moment. “What happened, sugar?”
She curled against him. “He didn’t even open the card. He picked it up, walked over to the trash and dropped it in. I’ll never forget him talking to me, finally, after days of silence. ‘I ask little of you, Corrine, and you still consistently disappoint me. A worthless card doesn’t change it. I’m not sure why we even punish you, because it doesn’t seem to make a bit of difference.’ I remember staring at the trash can, thinking about all the work I’d put into the card. I asked him what I could do, and he shook his head. ‘Nothing. Some people, they’re born bad.’ He left then, going to work, and I sat in my room all day, repeating that over and over again. It didn’t matter what I ever did, he’d never forgive me, not for anything. Not for breaking the TV one time when I was playing in the house, not for being out when I wasn’t supposed to go, not for waking him up because I was throwing up when I got the stomach flu. They were all just points against me that I was never going to be able to make up for.”
Kyle purred, the soft sound strange since he never did it as a rule. He pulled her tighter against him and kissed the top of her head. “He was a dick, sugar, and we aren’t him. I can’t say you’ll never disappoint us, that you’ll never do something we wished you hadn’t. Fuck, we’ll do things that disappoint you, too. That’s life. But I can promise that we’ll make what we want clear, and we’ll work it out, and after we forgive you, we will be good.” He curled his fingers around her hip, knowing that the next thing wasn’t going to go over so easily. “And you aren’t bad. You know that, right?”
She went to push off his lap, just like he expected. Clearly, those words have struck.
He held her close. “I’m serious. Your father, he didn’t know shit. He thought good meant someone he could control, something weak and malleable. He wanted pets, not partners. The fact that you weren’t born a mindless yes-ma’am doesn’t make you bad or broken. It makes him an idiot for not seeing how amazing you are.”
“Real amazing,” she muttered against his chest. “I keep getting in trouble.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, you do, but guess what? I like when you get in trouble. Pretty sure Daniel does, too, and even though you might be sore, I could taste how much you liked it. Getting in trouble doesn’t make you bad, it makes you human. It’s just a fact of life when you’ve got people trying to create something together. So, yeah, you’re trouble. Hell, you broke my nose the first time we met, but you’re trouble that is completely worth it. I wouldn’t want some girl who didn’t have a backbone, who fell over at a strong word or hard look. You? You’re tough, and you’re strong, and you don’t take shit from anyone. Those things don’t make you defective or bad, they’re the exact things that make me—” He snapped his mouth shut before he made the disastrous mistake of actually finishing that sentence.
That time she did manage to twist away, to look into his eye with more fear than she’d had when Daniel had pressed his cock to her ass.
It seemed the end of that sentence was more frightening than a bit of anal…
Kyle didn’t try to pretend away what he’d almost said. He didn’t make excuses, didn’t try to lie. What was the point?
They both knew damned well what he’d nearly uttered.
“This isn’t real,” she said.
“You sure about that?”
She gulped, the battle clear on her face, between what she needed to be true and what actually was true.
Still, she showed that backbone when she nodded and pulled from his lap. “Yeah, I’m sure. It’s temporary. As soon as the case is over—”
“You’ll what? Walk away?”
“Yeah, I will.”
The certainty in her voice hit him. She might hate it, she might not want to, but she had no doubts that she’d still leave.
And right then, the hollow ache in Kyle’s chest that he hadn’t been able to identify, the one that wouldn’t go away—he finally figured it out.
It was the countdown until she walked out of his life forever.