My body reacts instantly. That small, absent gesture shouldn’t mean anything. Shouldn’t affect me.
But it does.
Her tongue. Her mouth. The heat rising off her skin.
My cock hardens, thick and insistent, blood rushing through me with brutal certainty. I don’t move, don’t let her see how close I am to losing control around her.
She stares down at her hands for a long moment, her shoulders tightening. “I really feel like absolute shit about what I did to all of you. The lies. The deception.” Her voice cracks slightly. “I will do anything to make it right. Tell you every secret. I’ll grovel if that’s what it takes. Whatever you need from me to earn back even a fraction of your trust.”
I turn, my full attention locked on her. “You’ve got my attention,” I say, my voice dropping, controlled but unmistakably intent. “You have secrets you haven’t told us yet?”
Her breath catches.
And in that moment, I know two things with absolute certainty: She’s terrified of losing us, and she’s already halfway back to being ours.
Then she laughs, and the sound settles somewhere low in my chest, unexpected and disarming in a way I don’t let show on my face. “Nothing particularly interesting or scandalous, believe me.”
I study her for a moment, taking in the way her shoulders have finally loosened, and how she isn’t braced as if she expects punishment for breathing wrong.
“Try me anyway.”
She hesitates, her teeth catching her lower lip in a small, unconscious gesture that pulls my focus straight to her mouth. I’ve watched that mouth argue with me, lie to me, flirt with me. Now it curves into something softer. Dangerous in an entirely different way.
“A friend in the city once convinced me to do a boudoir photo shoot. You know, one of those intimate photography sessions. But for mine, she turned me into a Valkyrie, all leather straps, gold accents, and nothing underneath but bare skin. Very ‘battle-forged fantasy meets forbidden temptation,’ apparently. She thought it would be empowering.”
Fuck me… A Valkyrie!The sauna suddenly feels smaller. Hotter. Because my mind betrays me immediately, building the image without permission.
She’s on the shore, bare except for those leather straps, doing nothing to hide the curve of her ass, the soft weight of her breasts barely contained behind them.
I don’t hesitate.
I’m on her in seconds, standing behind her, my hands closing around her hips. Her breath catches, sharp and surprised, but she doesn’t resist. My hand slides over her bare ass, then fallsbetween her thighs to find her soaking wet, feeling the way she trembles under my touch.
She exhales my name.
That sound alone almost undoes me.
My grip tightens on her hip, holding her exactly where I want her, my legs nudging hers wider, my fingers finding that perfect hole and fingering her until she screams. She arches instinctively, pressing back into me, offering herself without words.
“Did you wear this for me?” I whisper.
She shivers.
And I know, without question, she would let me take whatever I want.
My grip tightens against the bench beneath me as I come back to reality so fucking hard that I’m in pain.
The towel around my waist does nothing to conceal the immediate reaction. My body responds before logic can intervene, and heat coils low in my stomach, thick and insistent, and I force my breathing to remain steady even as the image refuses to loosen its hold.
“And where exactly does one find these photos?” I ask, keeping my voice even, though it comes out rougher than intended.
She smiles, clearly aware she has my full attention. “Nowhere accessible. They’re on a password-protected flash drive in a box somewhere in my closet.”
I lean slightly closer, holding her gaze without apology. “To properly believe this particular secret, I’m going to need concrete evidence. Visual proof.”
Her laughter comes easier now, lighter. “Nice try, Alpha. Not happening.”
“I’m completely serious.”
