“Somewhat. He set me up in the home of an omega he knew, and he visited me when he could, got me started on training. Eventually he never came back, when I was sixteen. It didn’t shock me because that’s the world.” She let out a hard laugh. “My father used to tell me that omegas were treasures, and just like any treasure, you do what is best for it whether it likes it or not.”
Kyle pressed his lips together, wanting to tell her it would be okay but knowing that wouldn’t be welcome. “I’m sorry,” he tried instead. “That’s no life for a kid.”
“Maybe not, but it let me see the truth. Trust me, those alphas weren’t breaking down while their mates comforted them. It was very much a one-sided thing. After that? When I got out and grew up, I can’t say I’ve seen much better. Do you have any idea how many alphas I’ve had deal with to get an omega help?” She shook her head, her curly hair shifting around her shadowed face. “Try to tell me all you want how things are different, but I’ve learned to go by experience, and my experience hasn’t been good. I figure, as someone who works specifically on omega crimes, you’d get that.”
Kyle fought back the wave of images that threatened to wash over him. He’d seen the worst, things that he had locked away. He wasn’t Daniel or Trent, who werehaunted by those memories. Instead, he managed to keep them at bay.
“I’ve seen some bad shit, no doubt. I’ve made it my life to try and stop it, to do what I can to fix it.”
“Don’t you reach a point where you realize it isn’t just some of the time? Once, twice, sure. I could chalk up all the violence and pain to being a rare occurrence. When it happens enough, though, doesn’t it ever become the norm?”
Hadn’t Kyle thought the same? He recalled, at the start, when he’d still gone to therapy after especially hard cases. The therapist had spoken of such things, and he’d admitted to worrying about that very thing, to feeling a crushing weight that perhaps alphas were simply bad at their core.
Eventually Kyle had gone the way of most veteran agents and decided therapy didn’t help. He’d buried down those feelings beneath his job and a large layer of ‘don’t fucking think about it’.
“You can’t see all that andnothave it affect you,” she pressed.
“It affects me,” he admitted, his gaze down. “It affects everyone. Trent? He lost his career and his friends when he walked away, then made it his mission to help battered women. Dan? He let himself keep his hopeless romantic fantasies of finding someone who would fit into our lives and fix it all. Me? Well, I just have a dark sense of humor from it.”
Alison stared at him for a long, silent moment, as though digging through the bullshit he’d said and deciding if she believed it.
When she spoke, however, her words were the last thing he’d expected her to say. “I want to put sex back on the table.”
“What now?”Real eloquent.
She sat up, as though trying to look as in control as possible. “I know I said no kissing and no sex. Well, the kissing thing is already out of the window, and I want to take off the sex limit.”
“And why’s that? What changed your mind?” Her phrasing said she’d kissed Trent the night before.
“Like you just said—this is all temporary. You guys don’t want to settle down with an omega, and I don’t want a mate, let alone an alpha, so why leave that limit up? Why not take the chance to actually experience this all?” Her voice quivered the barest amount, as if she was trying everything she had to keep it from shaking.
Maybe Kyle should have reassured her or done something to make her feel better, but he just wasn’t that sort of person. Plus, the only time he got the upper hand was when she was tied up or flustered.Might as well take advantage of it.“So you’re telling me that the next time we get to play, you wouldn’t mind taking a cock—or three?”
Ah, there was that beautiful flush on her freckled cheeks, and right on the tail of that? Her scent blossomed, telling himexactlywhat she thought of that the suggestion.
And hell, Kyle figured it sounded like a great plan to him.
* * * *
“So, no idea what crawled up her ass?” Daniel sat outside with Trent and Kyle, all having fled the house to avoid the raging omega inside. Funny how only a tiny female could send the three of them running for cover.
“Not a clue,” Kyle said.
Trent snorted softly. “She was happy after she left my room. I’m putting this one in your court.”
Daniel lifted an eyebrow to look over at Trent. “I figured it had been so long for you, you didn’t remember how to make women happy anymore.”
“Like riding a bike, buddy.”
The banter came so easily, Daniel stilled for a moment. Falling into old habits, into the old routines, all made it so easy to forget that this was temporary. But did it have to be?
“You know, after this—” Daniel started to say.
The humor in Trent’s face slid free. “Don’t go there. We both know the answer.”
“Come on. You can’t tell me you haven’t liked being under the same roof, that you don’t like doing something important.”
“What I’m doing is important, even if it isn’t working for the FBI. I don’t know when you’ll ever figure out that your life doesn’t need to revolve around them, that there is more out there than that.”
