He offered her a smile—probably patronizing, but she was being purposely difficult. “Read it again. I’m not expecting you to be naked. However, again, when we have the visit, when we show up at the auction, you have to be convincing as a woman who has been living with us, being trained as a slave by us. How exactly will you do that if you’re so nervous about the tiniest bit of contact? How will we sell that if you don’t carry any of our scent?”
Alison’s gaze lifted at that, and damn if it didn’t spring up his own ideas.
Omegas could carry an alpha’s scent in a few ways. Being around one could cause it to cling to the omega the way smoke would, but it was a shallow scent that dissipated with ease. Contact—the sort Daniel had already mentioned—would make it hang on to the omega more readily, but it would also sit only skin-deep.
Therealscenting, however, the way to truly claim an omega, would be with an exchange of fluids. Kisses could do it and so could oral sex, but the deepest sort, the kind that caused an omega to carry the scent of her alphas no matter what, was sex.
And that made him think about how it would feel to bury his nose in her throat and breathe her in, to smell that way their scents integrated and become something new.
A flame in her eyes, the reddish hue on her cheeks, all said her mind had gone to the same place, and that she liked it.
She’s never been with an alpha. She’s never carried one’s scent before.
His groan was deep and he had no hope of holding it in.
She took her bottom lip between her teeth, pressing into that plumpness there, making Daniel want to do it, too. He wanted to nip at her, to draw out a whimper and leave a mark.
Alison inhaled sharply, then dropped her gaze back to the page.
“So how little clothing are we talking?” Was that a quiver in her voice?
“We’ll go slowly. How about we start with not having every inch of you covered? The point is not to hide.” He nodded down at the list. “Anything else strike you as unacceptable?”
She shook her head, even as her gaze stayed locked on a single point.
Daniel could guess where it was even without her admitting it. “Really? Because you look pretty worried about something.”
She let out a hard breath, blown out slowly before narrowing her eyes at him. “If you know what I’m looking at, why do you ask?”
“Because you need to get better at asking for things. You don’t like to do it,you know? Even when it’s gnawing at you, you don’t like to admit you need something.” He didn’t bother to ask her why—she wouldn’t answer, and it wasn’t the time to press his luck—so he just left that statement and waited for her.
Finally, she huffed and sat backward, the paper resting on her thighs. “You know what it is. The last one.”
Daniel curled his lip into a smile. He’d known that one would stick. “Punishment?”
She gave him one curt nod. Ah, but there those shadows were again in her green eyes, ones that hinted at a past that wasn’t so far away to her.
Daniel reached out and set a hand on her knee. He wished he understood what she had going on in her head, that he could figure out what it was that haunted her. “Breathe, sweet.”
She did as he said, the beautiful way she obeyed as though out of instinct something to be treasured. Sure, the moment she realized she’d done as he said, her face hardened, but he only shrugged.
That first instinct always tells me the most.
“We’re not going to hurt you. I don’t care what you do, what rule you break, you will always be safe with us, and you always have your safe word.”
“Then why do we have to do all this? Why do we have to have rules and punishments?”
Daniel kept his hand on her knee. “Because even if this is all a ploy, what happens if the person evaluating us comes and asks a question—one any actual slave and trainer would know—but we haven’t worked this out? We haven’t been living like this? They’ll see right through it.”
“But somehow you think having safe words and rewards and punishments makes sense? You are naive.”
Daniel chuckled, his thumb rubbing along her knee, through the leggings. “I can’t say I’ve ever been called that before.”
“Slaves don’t have those things. They’re told what to do, and they do it or they pay the price, and let me tell you, the price isn’t some pre-arranged and worked out thing they agree to.”
Again, proof that she’d seen slavery up close and personal before.
“You’re so sure you know everything, but you never stop to think maybe, just maybe, we have some information. Trust me—”
