Alison could feel nothing beyond the heat of the alphas.
She couldn’t even quite tell where one was versus another. It was all just alpha pheromones and heat and impossibly large bodies.
Which was annoying, since they weren’t doing anything that intimate.
At least, not physically.
Kyle had brought a board game she’d never heard of, and the plastic wrap on the pieces inside the box said he’d never played it. Tell Me More appeared to be a get-to-know-one-another game for dinner parties.
And she’d dreaded it the moment she’d seen it in Kyle’s hands.
It felt like yet another piece of her they wanted to tug free of her grasp, like another thing she hadn’t been expecting to give up during the case.
Daniel sat to her left, Trent to her right and Kyle across from her. They all were on the floor around a coffee table, the game board out and set up.
Trent had picked out the kitten piece to represent Alison without even asking her, and her glare wasn’t just because the way he’d called her pet rang in her ears.
It was also for the way it heated her.
Kyle handed her the dice, their fingers brushing at the exchange. Alison rolled, a six coming up. She moved forward on the board, tapping her piece along the squares until she stopped at six, a purple square.
Kyle picked up a card from the purple pile as he explained. “Each card has three questions worth one, two or three points. The more points, the more personal the question. The color you landed on gives bonuses based on what type of question it is. What do you want?”
Alison pressed her lips together. Who cared about losing a game? “One.”
Kyle chuckled as though he wasn’t shocked. “Favorite type of pizza.”
“Pepperoni.”
“Coward,” Trent muttered as Kyle put the card in the discard pile and added Alison’s one to her score.
The next was Daniel, who rolled a two, and picked a three pointer on a yellow card.
As the game went on, Alison picked up the rules. There were three card colors. Purple were ‘favorites’ questions, yellow were history and red were risqué. Thankfully, she missed all the reds. She could pass on a question, but then she got no points.
Though, she did pick up some details she hadn’t expected along the way.
Like Trent’s hobby of collecting shiny rocks when on walks, or that Daniel had a longer daily skincare routine than she did, or how Kyle had once stolen his parents’ car when he was fifteen in order to impress a girl.
They all took the top-level questions, whereas Alison picked the least risky option.
She had to play—skirting rules was something she excelled at—but she didn’t have to care about it.
Trent groaned when he landed on red but muttered a three as Kyle pulled the card.
Kyle let out a harsh bark of laughter. “Wildest place you’ve ever had sex.”
Trent shifted, as though the floor weren’t the most comfortable place he’d ever sat all of a sudden. He blew out a slow breath, then shrugged. “That cliff, out in Texas?”
Daniel snorted. “That wasn’t a cliff.”
“Seemed like a cliff,” Trent shot back.
“You think that was wilder than the storage room in that museum? Remember the docent knocking on the door, yelling at us in French?”
Trent let out a soft laugh. “I’ll take an angry docent over a twenty-foot drop any day.”
“Were you guys sleeping with each other?” Alison asked, as if everything made more sense and less. The strange connection between the three, the closeness, that all fit. Though, with how they’d looked at her…she felt as if she’d confused it.
Kyle was the one to answer, his voice gentle as if he were amused but trying not to show it. “No, sugar. We have a history of fucking women together.”
And if that didn’t make the temperature of the room shoot up a good twenty degrees…
Without being able to help it, Alison pictured it. She thought about how they overwhelmed her already, but realizing they had a history of doing this, of taking women together, of working together, made her body react as if it was begging.
She wished she could sit her body down and have a long heart-to-heart, remind it why that wasn’t going to happen. Not that it would listen.
Vaginas were hussies that did what they wanted.
“Your turn,” Trent said, his lip curled into a smirk that said she’d already missed his first statement.
Bastards.
She rolled the dice, getting a red. Fuck. “Pass,” she said quickly.
“You didn’t even hear the question. You aren’t trying,” Daniel said.
“So? You said I had to play. You didn’t say anything about me having to win.”
Trent snorted. “Never figured you for a brat. Fine. Let’s up the stakes.”
“You can’t, not after I’m already behind! That’s not fair.”
“Sure it is,” he said. “Rules say you give up your bed tonight, right? So, how about winner gets to pick what bed you sleep in? That means if you win, you get your own bed tonight, and if you lose, well, it isn’t any different than if we hadn’t played at all.”
Alison’s mouth fell open before she leaned forward to find the score card in front of Kyle. She had three points, Kyle had eight, Daniel seven, and Trent was leading with ten, since he’d gotten two red cards, which were worth more.
That was a large distance to make up, but she needed to win. The thought of ending up in one of their beds for the night had already bothered her, but now she’d found a hail-Mary that would save her—at least for a night.
“Three,” she said quickly.
“Well, well, isn’t she in the game now?” Daniel said, his voice all amusement.
Kyle lifted the red card to read it. “First kiss.”
Alison frowned as she thought back. The question could have been far worse—she figured she ought to be thankful. “I was thirteen,” she said, recalling the freckle-faced neighbor boy who had stolen her heart.
Which was funny, because it wasn’t as though she’d been naive before then. Her father had sheltered her, but that hadn’t stopped her from knowing things. It just meant she hadn’t been exposed to many people, so when she’d finally gotten out from beneath that cloak, she’d gone a bit crazy.
“For three points? I need more,” Kyle pushed.
“He was a year younger and had red hair. He hit my lip with his tooth, and I thought for a while after that I was a lesbian, because it really sucked.”
Kyle stared at her until she fidgeted. Finally, he responded. “Well, my first kiss was with also with a red-headed boy, and it for sure put me off men, so I get that.”
A heartbeat later, Trent broke the silence with a loud laugh. Daniel joined in, with Kyle only grinning at Alison.
And, despite her best attempt, she cracked a smile and released a soft chuckle at the absurdity of his statement.
That was possibly even more dangerous than anything else he’d done.
An hour later, Alison clutched the dice, ready to try to blow on it just to get a good roll. Funny that she’d gone from unwilling to answer her favorite food to answering everything happily.
Anything if it meant she got to sleep in her own bed.
She was points behind, mostly because the alphas had no shame. They would tell her any part of their past as if it didn’t matter. Then again, the three knew each other well enough that none of their stories seemed to be a surprise.
And they didn’t mind telling her about their sexual history, which she tried to ignore as best she could.
Which was not easy, especially when Daniel started talking about his favorite part on a woman—turned out he was an ass man—and Alison felt suddenly aware of her own body.
Worse, Daniel had danced his fingers along her back, the touch soft and coaxing. She’d worn a spaghetti strap tank top, so he stroked over the bare skin above it, then below it.
“You can’t increase your odds by procrastinating,” Kyle told her, enjoying her struggle far too much.
Trent was ahead, meaning either she rolled a red card, or she lost.
So it would be her own bed or Trent’s.
If I ever needed mental powers, it’s now. She shut her eyes and rolled once more, a silent prayer.
A dark chuckle made her heart sink before she even opened her eyes. It was far too amused for her to have won.
She cracked her eyes to find a two, and a quick look at the board put her on a yellow.
Which meant she’d lost.
Trent’s smile was shameless as he set his elbow on the table. “Looks like you’re spending the night in my bed, pet.”
Trent tried to ignore how good it felt to get his bed ready for someone else. How long had it been since he’d slept beside someone?
Six years? Hell, he couldn’t even be sure.
Of course, he hadn’t planned to have that person be an omega who was only pretending to want to be there.
The look on her face when she’d realized she’d lost the game, when she had to come to terms with sleeping in his bed—he didn’t much enjoy that.
Daniel probably did. The bastard loved to push boundaries, enjoyed that edge of unease.
Trent much preferred trust.
She doesn’t know you. How can she trust you?
He sighed as he set a bottle of water and a glass on the side of the bed she’d sleep on. He planned to take the one near the door—old habits die hard—so she’d have to deal with the other side.
A soft knock made him smile. That first night, when she’d out-maneuvered him, he’d expected her to be brash, unstoppable. Instead, she’d proven time and time again to have more uncertainty than he’d have ever guessed.
She had confidence, sure, and she’d proven herself a capable fighter. None of it changed that when it came to him, when it came to Daniel and Kyle, she was in over her head and knew it.
“Come on in,” Trent called, not wanting to crowd her at the door.
The hinges squeaked as she entered, and after a moment of hesitation, she closed the door behind her.
She wore a pair of tight shorts that showed off the muscular curves of her pale legs. A tight tank top covered her torso, and it either had one of those included bras or she’d gone without, because she had no bra straps. It made her look impossibly casual in a way he liked far too much.
Sometimes she seemed out of reach, like something to be seen but not touched. Ready for bed, though, she looked perfect.
“Got water for you,” he said, pointed. “Also put vitamins next to it.”
“I don’t take vitamins,” she argued.
“You do now.”
Lines appeared in her forehead, but she didn’t complain any more. Good girl. She learns fast.
Trent didn’t much abide arguments. It was one of the things he liked about being in charge. He’d listen, of course, to real feedback or concerns.
If Alison had said pills made her sick, he’d help her find a type that didn’t. If she’d said she had her blood tested and didn’t require some of them, they’d locate brands that only had those things she was deficient in.
However, he suspected Alison’s knee-jerk reaction was to argue. It had nothing to do with real problems with whatever was offered but done out of her desire for independence.
Though…as he watched her, he wondered how real that need was.
The way her pupils would dilate, the flush on her cheeks when he’d hand-fed her, those things all implied that she had a desire for someone to take those reins even if she didn’t know how to accept it.
What happened to make her this nervous?
“You don’t need to stare at me,” she snapped.
Trent blinked slowly, as though woken. “Sorry. I was thinking. Why does it bother you when I do, though?”
She wrapped her arms around herself, not venturing any further into the room. “I don’t like it. It feels like you’re trying to figure me out.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“Yes.”
He huffed out a soft laugh at her insolence and pouting before he gestured at the open door inside his room. “Bathroom is through there if you need it during the night. You were up early this morning—do you always wake up that early or was that special?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, her gaze on the bed. “I figured there wasn’t any reason to stay in bed if I can’t sleep.”
He nodded, recalling nights like that. Sometimes the best thing a person could do was get the hell out of bed when sleep wouldn’t come. The more he’d lain there, the more frustrated he’d gotten and it had been less likely sleep would actually happen. “You always sleep poorly?”
“I’m a light sleeper. Please tell me you don’t snore.”
“I don’t think I do, but I haven’t slept beside someone in a long damn time, so who knows. If I do, just kick me and I’ll roll over and stop.”
“What’s a long time? Gone a week without one of your crazy exploits you like to talk about from the red cards?”
He laughed as he caught the bottom hem of his shirt and pulled it off. He’d already showered, but he’d be damned if he was sleeping in anything more than he had to. “I never mentioned sleeping in any of those, did I?”
She didn’t quip back, which surprised the fuck out of him. At least, it did until he got his shirt over his head and saw the way her gaze was pinned to his chest.
Well, it seemed there was something she liked about him.
Not that Trent understood that in the least. He was partial to women, to their softness, to the gentle sloping curves of their bodies. He’d seen plenty of naked men in his life—hell, he knew Daniel and Kyle’s bodies almost as well as he did his own, since they’d taken women together often enough—and they never stirred a thing in him.
The soft scent that left Alison, though, said it stirred something inside her.
“Get into bed, pet, and I’ll turn off the lights.”
He gave her the privacy to collect herself as he went into the bathroom to escape her scent for a moment.
An entire night in bed with her? What a fucking beautiful disaster.
Still, sleep came slowly.
Wonderful heat surrounded Trent’s dick later, though how much later, he had no idea. Fuck, how he’d missed that feeling, the way the scent of a woman would cloud his judgment and make his cock impossibly harder.
He rocked his hips forward, enjoying the friction and the moans and the stuttering little gasps. It was all a dream—the way everything moved, that weightless quality of it, all said it wasn’t real. He didn’t give a damn, though.
Alison. He knew it on some deep level, recognized her scent already, her body. Sweet curves and sinful heat—that was what she was.
He could see her in that moment, her full, pouty lips letting out soft whimpers as he spread her thighs and slid into her hot wet cunt.
He growled low in his throat at the possessive need that swamped him, at the desire to fuck her until she begged, until she fully submitted to him. He’d never felt such a powerful need before, as though each thump of his heart happened only to get him closer to that goal.
And her? She gave. The girl who could take, the girl who was capable of resisting anything, clung to him. Her scent surrounded him, rich and sweet and full of fire. He dug his fingers into her, holding her tight, wanting to grasp her because she seemed so distant the rest of the time.
A bite of pain from nails in his back drew a deep groan. It was primal and made him feel needed.
Tension pulled through him, dragging him toward a staggering release. It had been so long since he’d felt this, since he’d needed to come the way he felt. He buried his nose in her throat, inhaling her. It sent him over that edge.
The next thing happened out of instinct. He closed his teeth over her shoulder just as his release rushed through him.
And just as it happened, when his back tightened, when that moment of bliss hit him, his eyes snapped open.
He caught sight of a startled and obviously just woken Alison, her cheeks flushed, her full lips in a surprised O.
And yet that didn’t stop the oncoming train of his orgasm—like anything could stop that once it had left the station—and Trent couldn’t help the low groan as he came.