Page 54 of Excess

No, she wasn’t trying to make me like her, but I liked her anyway. Just for who she was—her filthy kinks, her sharp wit, how kind she was with Freya—the whole package.

Fuck me, I was in trouble.

My hands tightened a little on her ass, squeezing her more possessively than I had any right to.

“Something you want, alpha?” Inika asked in a low, seductive voice that seemed to travel down my spine and work its way around to my knot.

Did she know that my cock ached every time she called me that?

But I didn’t tell her that. Instead, I tutted disinterestedly, because that was what Inika wanted from me, and I’d already strayed too far from the bounds of what this was. From all that it could be.

“Something I want? You’re the one climbing all over me with your ass hanging out, omega.”

She let out a little whimper of need, pressing herself against my front, scentmarking me in a way that had the tension I’d been holding since I’d seen those alphas finally releasing.

“Fuck me. Use me. Please, Blake.”

“Oh, I will definitely be using you, princess. But fucking you? Giving you pleasure?” I snorted. “You can wait. First, I need to shower.”

Inika slid down my front, grabbing my hands and tugging me down the hallway.

Away from the spare room.

“Inika…”

“Let me have this,” she murmured. “I want my nest to smell like you. Just for a little while.”

“We both know this is a bad idea.”

“I enjoy making bad decisions with you.”

I couldn’t argue with that logic.

Most nest doors looked out of place in the rest of the home. They were retrofitted once the technology had been invented to make a nest more secure during heats. Unsurprisingly, Inika’s was so state-of-the-art that the door looked entirely in keeping with the rest of the house.

She rested her hand on the handle for a long moment, and there was a faint buzz before it gently beeped, recognising the handprint and releasing the locks.

Inika’s room wasn’t at all what I expected it to be. Given that she always dressed in neutral, muted colours, I was surprised to find that her nest was an explosion of colour. The nest was a raised platform, just a few inches above the floor, and it was covered in deep, jewel-toned cushions and blankets in every material I could imagine.

There was sleek, built-in storage around the walls, but I had no doubt that there was a separate walk-in wardrobe within this suite of rooms for her clothes.

“Come wash up in here,” Inika said, pulling me into her en suite. The rich colour palette continued into this room too, with Victorian-green gloss tiles on the walls, a traditional black-and-white pattern on the floors, and trailing plants on every surface.

Was this Inika’s style? Nothing else in the house looked like this.

I shucked my dirty clothes while Inika fiddled with the knobs on the wall, turning on the rainfall showerhead. The moment the water was warm, I moved under the spray, scrubbing myself clean.

Inika stood outside the walk-in shower, peeling off her own clothes, a hungry look in her eyes as she watched me.

“Turn around,” I ordered. She twirled slowly, and I admired the dusty handprints I’d left on her golden-brown skin.

“Am I dirty?”

“Filthy,” I purred, grabbing her hand and tugging her into the stall but not all the way under the water, careful not to get her hair or make-up wet.

“Hands on the wall, ass out, omega.”

Inika’s hands hit the wall with an echoing slap that had me pausing for a moment, worried she’d injured herself.

---