Page 29 of Excess

Blake’s gaze switched to me, and I felt it travel down my spine, setting every nerve in my body alight. How did he do that with just one look? He was a weapon.

“Do you have thigh-high stockings?” he asked, dropping his voice so low that I could barely make it out.

The mood changed instantly, shifting from awkward politeness to suffocating arousal with just a few words and an intense look.

“Yes,” I rasped as my slick-proof knickers fought for their life.

“Wear them on Monday, Inika.”

“Okay.”

My face hadn’t cooled down by the time I slid into the back of the car, and I was desperate to get home, shower, then crawl into the sanctuary of my nest. Both because I needed to decompress after going somewhere new for the first time, and also because I needed several orgasms.

“You okay, Miss?” Lúcás asked, clearing his throat.

“Fine, thank you. Home, please, Lúcás.”

“Of course. Graeme called—he wanted to let you know that your father had stopped by because you weren’t answering his messages.”

I smiled tightly, already pulling my phone out of my purse. “Thank you for letting me know.”

Papa: We ran into Stasia at Citrus. She mentioned something about the Marquess of Hastings’ son?

Papa: You didn’t mention this to us at dinner, Inie? Mama asks why?

Papa: He sounds like an excellent prospect as a mate, Inika! The Board would be very pleased with that outcome. Come for dinner again and we can discuss this. Perhaps you can invite him also?

I sighed, slumping down in my seat. I’d been trying to ignore both the Hugo suggestion and the Board’s edict, and now they’d converged and I’d be forced to face both head on.

Not for the first time, I considered walking away from it all. I’d been told so many times that my life was perfect, that I struggled to objectively look at it and assess whether or not I was actually happy in it anymore.

And if I wasn’t, what was I meant to do about it?

Chapter 9

BLAKE

Fortunately, I had plenty to do at Inika’s house now that the replacement laths were in and the plastering could begin. If I didn’t have that to keep my hands occupied during the day, I would have bust into her office like a fucking lunatic and bent her over the desk. The idea had been tempting me—or rather haunting me—all weekend.

Why had Inika come down to Streatham? There was no possible scenario where she needed to hand deliver my wallet to me. There was an entire fleet of staff here. She could have tasked any of them with driving out to Streatham if she’d felt so strongly about getting it back to me that day. Or I could have come to her—I would have happily done so after Freya’s dance class. I’d told her that, hadn’t I?

I’d been mulling it over all weekend, and decided that it was either Inika’s way of scoping out the alpha she was sleeping with, or she’d just wanted a little taste of life outside of her gilded mansion. First option was entirely reasonable, though she should have brought someone with her for safety purposes if that was the case. And the second one didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. At no point had Inika made me or Freya feel like zoo animals that she was studying. If the greasy spoon we’d gone to was any different from her usual eateries, she hadn’t let on.

In all honestly, she’d been incredible with Freya. The kid had talked about her non-stop ever since, which had made for an awkward conversation with Dad about why we’d been having tea and cake with my posh client on a Saturday morning in Streatham.

The whole thing had got my head so fucking scrambled, I didn’t know what to think. Sleeping with her again was either the best idea I’d ever had or the worst.

I cleaned up for the day before trudging to the guest bathroom to shower, scrubbing the plaster off me with a pumice stone. It didn’t make me feel clean enough to touch Inika, but she seemed to enjoy having my filthy hands all over her.

It was probably just the novelty of it all, but I wasn’t going to question my good fortune.

By the time I emerged, I could hear the sound of the television in the spare room filtering down the empty hallway. She was there. Lounging around, watching TV. The sound activated the alpha urge within me to hunt, to dominate, to take. The pretty princess omega was toying with me, and it was working a fucking treat.

Like last time, she’d left the door to the spare bedroom wide open, making my territorial instincts go into overdrive, although there was no one else up here. The very possibility that someone might see her like this made a growl rumble impatiently out of my chest.

Which only deepened at the sight of the thigh-high stockings. Black ones, which she’d paired with a black scrap of a dress that I seriously hoped wasn’t meant to be worn out in public.

With a dangerously angelic smile, Inika looked over at me, patting the empty spot on the mattress next to her. “Hi alpha. I’m watching a movie. Want to join me?”

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