Bait & Switch (Alphas Undone #1)(32)

Stalking into her room, I found it on the floor of her closet underneath a heap of dirty clothes. Wow, real f*cking nice, Dani.

“It smells like girly shit,” I complained loud enough for her to hear. I took the shirt back to my room, threw it in the hamper, and grabbed another from my closet.

“Geez, what crawled up your ass?”

“Nothing, all right? Everything’s fine.” It was a lie. Nothing was fine right now.

“I’m going to make beef stew for dinner.”

“Okay.” My tone softened. Her homemade stew was my favorite thing that Daniella made. She was trying to smooth over this growing weirdness between us. That was more than I could say for myself.

“Dinner will be in about an hour,” she added.

“Sounds good.”

I headed back to my room, deciding a hot shower might calm my frayed nerves. I stripped and turned on the water, feeling impatient and restless. I’d always been a fixer. It was how I ended up with Daniella—and Sutton, for that matter—but it sounded more chivalrous then it was.

I was no one’s hero. I’d always known that the second you let your guard down and did something stupid like fall in love, you got f*cked, your world ripped out from underneath you. Like what happened to Marcus. Daniella. My mom.

Shit, maybe lack of sex was clouding my brain. I wasn’t f*cking Dani, and I sure as shit wasn’t f*cking Lacey.

Lacey. The new woman who’d waltzed in and taken my life by storm. Or, if you listened to the way Grey told it, the woman who had me by the balls.

As I waited for the water to heat, it occurred to me that I knew next to nothing about Lacey. Her background, her family, why she moved out of state just to work part-time at an animal shelter. But I knew exactly what she tasted like. How she felt moving on top of me. The noises she made when she came.

Fuck.

Something was starting to pick at me about this whole situation, but I couldn’t pinpoint what, and my mind raced with unanswered questions.

? ? ?

After dinner, I was still no closer to an answer. As I sat at the kitchen table with my laptop and a whiskey, Sutton snoring lightly at my feet, I heard a low moan come from Daniella’s bedroom.

At least one of us is having fun.

Half working, half surfing the web, I ignored her groans, trying to give her some privacy. Until I realized that if she’d left her bedroom door open, it was probably on purpose.

Standing up from the table, I stretched and stepped around Sutton, headed down the hall that led to her room.

Daniella was naked, kneeling in the center of her bedroom floor. Her hands were linked behind her back. She was presenting herself to me, offering her submission as a gift.

I wondered how long she’d been waiting for me to find her. We’d finished dinner over an hour ago.

Shit.

I stepped forward, about to yank her up from her spot on the floor, tell her we couldn’t do this. Not when so much hung in the balance. Until I realized . . . I couldn’t. I didn’t have the heart.

Her eyes found mine, and I could read everything in them as plain as day. In those soft hazel depths, I saw it clearly. If I denied her right now, it would crush her. And not just the sting of rejection that would fade in a day or two. Refusing her offering might mean her sinking back into the depression I’d barely pulled her out of two years ago.

Fuck.

I couldn’t do that to her. For now, at least, she was still my responsibility.

“Eyes on the floor,” I ordered.

Her shoulders relaxed, her spine dipping as if my words had caressed her.

Bending down, I secured a blindfold over her eyes. I didn’t want to feel their penetrating gaze on me as I worked. Then I helped her stand and guided her to the bed.

Once I bent her over my knee, I could feel the heat of her skin through my jeans. I noticed her fist was clenched around something.

“Open your hand,” I ordered.

She did. A small stainless steel butt plug rested in her palm. She wasn’t leaving much guessing room about what she wanted, or needed, tonight.

“Look at you,” I growled. “Offering yourself to me. On display like this.”

I took the plug from her and slowly stroked the cold steel down her spine, over the cleft of her ass, raising a trail of goose bumps.

Daniella shuddered.

Her biggest kink was bondage—exposure, helplessness, objectification—and I knew how to hit it hard. The sight of her presenting herself to me didn’t stir my cock like it used to, but I could still give her what she needed.

I slowly pushed the plug into her ass, pausing whenever her breath caught, then easing forward again when she adjusted to the stretch. When I’d worked it in all the way to its flared base, I patted her hip in silent praise.

I brought my hand down against her bare ass—soft taps at first and then harder, until my palm cracked against her skin. The forceful blows jostled the plug in her ass, sending sparks through her every nerve.

Daniella cried out with each slap, a wild, shapeless noise of pure sensation, before whimpering out loud. Her voice grew fuzzier and her body relaxed as she sank further into subspace.

I was concentrating so hard that I didn’t hear the knock at the front door. I didn’t hear the soft footsteps down the hall, the creak of the bedroom door swinging open.

But I did hear the startled gasp.

I whipped my head around to see Lacey frozen in the bedroom doorway. Her hand was clamped over her mouth. Her wide eyes darted back and forth over the lurid scene—me, a naked Daniella draped across my lap, spanking the shit out of her red ass.