Eight
EIGHT
Mia
I GAPED AT the alpha still propping up the hotel room desk as he rolled his shirtsleeves up with slow deliberation. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d expected out of this, but it was definitely something other than ‘ strip and kneel on the bed .’
I didn’t like the way my body seemed to be responding to his brusque, almost dismissive tone. The little needy throb in my gut didn’t line up with the image I had of myself... of the competent, take-charge person I thought I was supposed to be.
The swirling scents of spicy alpha musk and my own lighter floral perfume were making it hard to think. I rose from where I’d been perched on the edge of the bed, straightening to my full—if not very impressive—five-foot-two inches as I tried to summon my head-chef mojo.
“Strip?” I asked in disbelief. “What, just like that?”
Why had I come here ? Why did I feel the need to act like a bratty teenager with this alpha, when the smart thing to do would be to turn around and march straight out of this hotel room before anything irrevocable happened?
As if he’d seen straight through my skull and read my thoughts, Byron lifted an eyebrow. “Door’s over there,” he said, indicating the room’s exit with a small jerk of his chin. “And your bag’s right there. You’re the one who initiated this hookup, rom-com girl.” His gray eyes took on a calculating air. “ Stay or go .”
A low alpha bark underlined the final three words, and a gasp escaped my lips—completely outside my control. My mind went abruptly, blissfully blank for the space of three heartbeats.
Then it penetrated that he’d ordered me to make a decision about... something?
Oh.
Right.
I was supposed to decide if I was leaving.
If you leave, you’ll have to pick up all that heavy weight again and carry it , a small voice whispered. If you stay here, you can put it down for a little while .
I wasn’t aware that my shaking fingers had started unbuttoning my shirt until it gaped open, baring skin and the cups of my bra.
“Keep going,” Byron said. The bark was gone, but the threat of it was still there.
“Make me,” I whispered, not sure if it was a plea or a dare. Already, the pleasant blankness was lifting, and that wasn’t what the little omega voice that lived in my hindbrain wanted.
Byron made a low sound like a purr.
“Clearly, your husband is an idiot.” His voice lowered to a murmur. “There’s a lot of that going around these days, for some reason.” Then the bark came back with a snap. “Shirt and bra off .”
I struggled out of the open shirt as though it had suddenly become red hot. My blood buzzed beneath my skin as I craned awkwardly behind me to undo my bra clasp. The constriction of the band around my ribcage released, and I let the straps slide down my arms. Cool air caressed my nipples, which had hardened to painful points.
“ Keep going .” The words were half growl, half purr.
It felt like cliff-diving... like taking that first big jump into the unknown during my honeymoon in Costa Rica. The promise of cool relief from the heat waited far below, if only I could overcome the deep-seated phobia of leaping into danger.
I unhooked and unzipped, grasping work slacks and underwear together and pushing them down. The lips of my sex were slick and wet. My perfume rose around me in a cloud, darker and heavier than before.
Byron’s nostrils flared. “Delectable. Now, kneel on the bed. Face the headboard and grab it with both hands. Move .”
The air in the room that had felt chilly against my skin a few minutes ago had somehow become thick and steamy. I practically had to swim through it, my consciousness floating through the murk of instinct. Byron’s gaze felt like a physical touch. I imagined I could feel it traveling over my body.
The heavy wooden headboard was a grounding point of solidity as my knees wobbled on the shifting pillowtop mattress. I stared at the nondescript floral artwork hanging above the bed, afraid to look over my shoulder at the alpha prowling around the room. Was he getting undressed? The faint sound of fabric swishing against fabric reached my straining ears.
My whole body was trembling by the time a heavy weight dipped the mattress next to me. A whimper tried to escape my throat as a callused hand swept loose hair back from my face.
A silky strip of fabric appeared in my vision, and I jerked my head back, startled.
“Ah, ah ,” Byron tutted, waiting until I stilled before lifting it to cover my eyes.
My breathing quickened. The scent of fennel and anise imbued the cloth—a dark green necktie. Byron’s necktie. I hadn’t seen him wear one on either occasion I’d been in the same room with him, but this tie had hugged his throat at some point, close to his scent glands. The spicy aroma soaked into the cloth had the unmistakable richness of pheromones direct from the source.
The tremor in my muscles eased as I breathed it in. I let out a low moan as he snugged it around my head and tied it, blindfolding me.
“Good girl.” The pads of his fingers were rough as he stroked down the length of my spine possessively.
The position should have been humiliating... perhaps even frightening. My sex pulsed, a dribble of slick dripping down my inner thigh. My nipples ached, throbbing in time with my pounding heartbeat.
“Such a hot little omega,” Byron murmured. “No one’s taken care of you in a very long time, have they?” His work-roughened fingers trailed over my ass, kneading the firm globe. “Now... don’t move. Don’t make a sound .” The alpha bark was back, spiking through my brain, playing on the deeply buried instincts that demanded I submit.
The breath punched out of me, but soundlessly; my mouth open wide.
He could do anything to me like this. I’d given up control—the whole thing was out of my hands now. Only my memory of Luca’s words kept this situation from being completely insane.
If you want to get revenge on your husband by having your own hookup, Byron is an A-plus candidate for that, he’d said . He won’t care that you’re using him as much as he’s using you, and he’ll show you one hell of a good time, no strings attached.
Luca wouldn’t have hooked me up with some kind of crazy serial killer. This was exactly what it seemed like—an alpha who, for whatever reason, liked screwing random omegas for recreation without getting attached.
He was exactly what I needed, and I—
My thoughts fled like a flock of startled geese. The hand that had been stroking over my back and ass returned up the length of my spine. Byron circled a thumb over my virgin mating gland.
Nat had always been weirded out by this part of my omega biology. His appalled reaction when I’d shyly asked if he wanted to bite me on our wedding night had been my first clue that my marriage to a beta might not end up being as idyllic as I’d dreamed.
Byron’s firm touch might as well have had a direct connection to my clit. Every muscle in my body locked solid. Only his earlier barked command not to move kept me from levitating off the damned mattress.
His large, warm hand covered the juncture of my neck and shoulder, urging my upper body down until my back was parallel to the bed and my ass was in the air. I held onto the headboard for dear life, and nearly bit my own tongue in half when the fingers of his other hand brushed my folds, sliding through slippery moisture.
I swallowed the noise that tried to escape as two slick digits pressed inside me, while his thumb swiped some of my honey further back, teasing a place that Nat had never even gone near.
Dizziness made my head spin, my eyes tightly closed behind the silken barrier of the blindfold.
“Such a sweet little omega,” Byron crooned. “This is what you were made for, isn’t it? Not some damned fool who doesn’t appreciate what he’s got.”
My chest hitched on a silent, choked sob—every bit of my awareness focused on the fingers teasing me... the hand covering my mating gland.
My nipples and clit pulsed and throbbed with the need to be touched. But the slide and stretch of the fingers inside me was enough. It slowly urged my body higher, until everything felt warm and heavy and liquid.
When my climax rocked me, it came as a total surprise. The hand grasping my shoulder slid up to cover my mouth, holding in the low keening noise that had been building in my throat before it could escape. Slick gushed around Byron’s fingers as I came silently, shaking like a palsy victim.
Before I could clamp down on him, he pulled out of me and attacked my oversensitive clit. I almost collapsed, only my shaking grip on the headboard keeping me up. Byron tormented me with slow, teasing circles around my nub, his other hand still muffling my mouth as he drove me to a second, stronger orgasm.
Beads of sweat popped out on my chest, my lungs heaving as I sucked in whistling breaths through my nose. Only when the last jerking spasms had subsided did Byron release me. He reached forward, unclenching my hands from their white-knuckled grip a finger at a time. Then he eased me down to lie on my front.
“You’re doing so well, beautiful,” he said. “Housekeeping’s going to see the puddle on these sheets and know exactly what happened in here.”
The words sent a shudder through me, but before I could decide whether to be mortified or hopelessly turned on, strong hands lifted my hips until I was kneeling again.
Presenting .
A whuffle of hot breath was all the warning I had before an agile tongue rasped up the length of my slit. I made a tiny, wounded-bird noise; unable to stifle it.
Byron either didn’t notice or didn’t care that I’d broken the rules, too involved in lapping up the mess I’d made of myself. His tongue curled inside me, setting off sparks behind the blindfold.
“More,” I begged, beyond shame as my need to be filled up and knotted swamped my higher brain functions. “Please... please, alpha!”
A low hum of male satisfaction vibrated against my folds, thrumming up the length of my spine and making my scalp tingle. The lips and tongue disappeared, and my heightened senses tracked the sound of a zipper, followed by the sound of crinkling plastic.
A condom? God , I hadn’t even thought to bring one.
Was he still fully dressed? My brain whited out at the mental picture, and only came back online when something large and blunt pressed at my entrance and slid inside, inch by agonizing inch. I moaned, trying and failing to stifle the sound.
“That’s all right, beautiful. Let me hear you. Let’s see if you can get us thrown out of this hotel for public indecency.”
His hands urged me upright until my back was plastered against his front, my thighs spread wide around his as he thrust into me. As predicted, I yelped so loudly it probably woke whoever was unlucky enough to be in an adjoining room.
It was so good . It was everything I’d needed, and that was before Byron reached around me to cup and torment my breasts. One hand slid down my stomach to tease my clit, and I was gone, crying out in time with his deep, rolling thrusts.
I let out an honest-to-god shriek as my third climax hit, my body clamping around Byron’s cock like a vise. He let out a low groan, his dick pulsing as he came. A moment later, I felt the swell of his growing knot inside me, tying us together.
A heavy, warm feeling spread outward from the connection, turning my muscles to jelly and my brain to goo. There was absolutely nothing wrong in the entire world as he eased us carefully down to lie spooned on the bed, pillowing my head on a well-muscled, cotton-clad bicep.
Nothing hurt. Everything was fuzzy blankets and rainbows as my consciousness settled into the absolute peace and contentment of a knotting fugue, cradled in the arms of a stranger.