“I’ve wondered that myself since the moment you showed up,” Dorian said in that same relentless way of his that made her want to cry and made her want to touch him and left her messy straight through. “And the only conclusion I reached was that you really, really want to stick it to your brother and thought you’d use me to do it.”
Her heart was stuck in her throat. Or pieces of it were. And she didn’t understand why it was involved in the first place. “Because nothing could possibly be worse than getting tangled up with me, obviously, whatever the reason.”
“You’re beautiful,” Dorian told her, and what was wrong with her that she felt like the sun had come out from behind a cloud. “You’re smart and quick and funny. And I watched the strength you have in you, Erika. Over and over again. I watched you fight yourself. I watched you struggle and suffer, and I’m not being patronizing when I tell you that it was truly humbling to see you give yourself wholly and completely. To me.”
Her throat was dry, then. And her heart was a lost cause.
“But,” she prompted him.
Because if she knew anything, it was that when it came to her, there was always a but. Always.
You could be so lovely, Chriszette had sighed at her father’s funeral, but you’re so emotional. No one likes that much drama, Erika.
I know we’ve been friends for years, her supposed best friend ever had told her in boarding school, but I don’t really like you, actually.
I like fucking you, a great many of her lovers had told her, in one way or another. But that’s all it is. You know that, right?
You’re my sister and I love you, Conrad had said, frowning, after she’d announced she wasn’t returning to Oxford after all, but I can’t support this wasted life you want to live.
There was always, always a but.
“But I don’t understand how you can be the woman I saw last night,” Dorian said quietly, “so courageous in your surrender when you want to be, when the rest of your life is such a disaster.”
The more he spoke, the further away she got without moving an inch, and that was a blessing. Her own, personal gift. After all, she was used to being dressed down. Shouted at. She was everybody’s convenient punching bag, and there were only two ways to take that. You either curled in on yourself, a sad sack in every regard. Or you practiced your enigmatic smile in the mirror, pretended everything was a madcap adventure, and that it all rolled right off you.
Erika had always opted for the latter, because nobody got to see her suffer.
But you already suffered, something in her contradicted. For him. And happily.
“What about my life is a disaster?” she made herself ask. And she even smiled. “I have more social media followers than most celebrities.”
Because she couldn’t help but poke at the wound. Because it wasn’t bad enough that she’d woken up feeling safe and at peace, and it was ruined. He’d made an offhand comment to her two years ago and it had changed everything. She’d done nothing but think about him, all this time, and it had all led here. Where she was inviting him to make further cutting commentary, and...then what?
Did she really want to let him haunt her all over again? And probably worse this time?
“I’ve seen both sides of you now,” he said quietly, his gaze so intense it made her hurt. “And the woman I met last night was extraordinary. I spent hours this morning trying to reconcile her with this show you put on. You’re doing it right now. Why is getting attention the only thing that matters to you?”
“Because it’s the only way I matter to anyone.”
She said it without thinking. And instantly wished that she could claw those words back, shove them inside her mouth. Chew them up, swallow them down.
Her chest was heaving, and for a split second, Erika honestly and truly wished that she would die right there. Just keel over onto his kitchen floor, and be done with this.
Because surely that was better than suffering through that intent look on his face that she was certain would tip over into pity at any moment.
But it didn’t.
“Bullshit,” he said. Succinctly.
She felt it like one of those blows he’d rained on her ass last night. Sharp, shocking. Then the sharpness changed, into a dull ache that was almost worse.
When she had been naked before him, her hands behind her back and completely in his control, she hadn’t felt this exposed.
“You’re afraid,” he told her, his gaze steady on hers, though his voice was soft.
“Oh, please,” she threw at him, and it didn’t seem to matter anymore that she felt so...ruined. Ripped open, with the stuffing removed and no hope of ever shoving it all back into place. What the hell, she thought. “You should talk.”
“Me?” Dorian laughed, and it stunned her that she felt so many things and he seemed...fine. Just having a conversation while her world was on fire. “Little girl, flailing around throwing out accusations isn’t going to change the facts. You live a useless life by choice. I do not.”
“Of course not. My mistake. I thought this was supposed to be an honest conversation, not a self-congratulatory stump speech about how virtuous you are, when I’m standing right here, have known you for far too long and certainly know better.”
“I talked to your brother earlier,” Dorian said. Calmly.
Casually, even.
“Wh-what?”
“Conrad is getting married, Erika,” Dorian told her in the same unbothered tone, though his gaze stayed on hers. “He got engaged last night and his soon-to-be in-laws are throwing them a party. In England at the end of the month.”
Erika made herself laugh, though it felt like cut glass in her mouth. “Who would actually marry Conrad?”
And she felt a trickle of something like foreboding as Dorian studied her. For much too long.
“Lady Jenny,” Dorian said. He waited, and Erika was sure he could see that name fall through her like a sickening stone. “But you know her, do you not?”
Jenny Markham had been on Erika’s stair at Oxford when they were first years. They’d become fast friends, had spent their summers together, texted regularly and always got together when they found themselves in the same place. Given that the last text Erika had gotten from Jenny had been a week ago, with no mention of Conrad whatsoever, Erika was skeptical—to say the least—about this news.
But Dorian, who had not looked at her pityingly yet, seemed to be doing so now.
“Of course I know Jenny,” Erika said stiffly.
“Here’s what I need to know,” Dorian said quietly. “Is there any possibility that you can attend their engagement party and be supportive of your brother? And your friend? Or will it be business as usual for you, instead?”
People had thought very, very little of her all her life. There was nothing new in it. Nothing shocking.
But Erika found that further evidence of Dorian thinking the same as everyone else just made her want to sit down on the floor and cry.
She would never know how she managed to stay standing instead.
And he had an idea of who she was in his head, clearly, so she smirked at him. Useless. Disastrous. Afraid. She stuck her hand on her hip as if she was trying to be provocative. Just another example of stupid, attention-seeking Erika Vanderburg. Just what he wanted to see.
“I have no idea,” she said, not politely. “Are you going to make me?” She waited for his brows to rise, and that thunder to roll in across his stern, hard face, then made a face she knew he wouldn’t care for at all. “Sir?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVERYTHING WAS GOING as planned.
She’d walked into his kitchen with her hair wet, making her blue eyes look even bigger, wearing nothing but one of his shirts. He didn’t think she’d been trying to provoke him. Quite the opposite, this morning. She looked sleepy and sweet,
and she gazed at him like he’d personally made the sun rise.
He hadn’t known how much he wanted to see her look at him like that. How it made everything in him settle. Then hum.
Now he wanted to see it all the time.
Conrad had not been amused. He’d been silent at first. That had been far better than the lethal clip to his voice when he’d spoken again.
My...sister, he’d repeated. My little sister and you. In your club.
Dorian had winced, but that was the thing about taking responsibility, wasn’t it? Sometimes it sucked. Sometimes it made people hate you.
But it was always the right thing to do.
I don’t know if this will make you feel better or worse, Dorian had said gruffly. But I have nothing but good intentions where she’s concerned.
I don’t feel anything, you prick, Conrad had snapped, except homicidal.
Dorian was glad the conversation was happening over the phone, or he imagined Conrad would have swung on him. And he would have taken it as his due, because he’d not only crossed a line, he’d done it in his own inimitable way. What older brother wanted to think about that?
You can try to kill me all you want, Dorian had told him. But that’s not going to change anything.
Conrad had made a frustrated noise. Then he’d gone silent.
Is she happy? he asked quietly.
I intend to make her happy, Dorian had promised his best friend. The only brother he had or wanted. I intend to dedicate myself to the task.
It had been a vow. And he’d meant it.
But that was the easy part, all things considered. Now he had to do the hard part, which was convincing this dragonfly of a woman—always alighting here, then buzzing off there, always moving, always changing—that he’d found everything he’d wanted in her. In one night. That yes, he knew his own mind and heart. That he’d spent his entire adult life committed to extreme self-awareness.
It was that or follow his father’s path. The lies, the self-deception.
Dorian had chosen to face himself in the mirror, no matter how unpleasant the sensation of cataloging his own flaws and working to change them.
He expected no less from the very few people he let into his life. Conrad had always been one of the few men alive who lived up to Dorian’s standards. He had no doubt that Erika would, too. He’d seen what she could be for him and with him last night.
And while he was busy celebrating that unexpected connection that had rocked him to his core, he also needed to make her see that she was worthy.
Of his interest and devotion, which he planned to lavish on her—in the way a man with his particular appetites did, that was—but also of all the other things she’d walked away from. The relationships she pretended didn’t matter. The empty life she pretended made her happy. All those things she’d made sure to ruin herself before anyone could take them away from her.
He aimed to give her the tools to take them back.
It didn’t take a psychiatrist to understand that a woman like Erika, who hid her truly sweet, soft, longing heart beneath so many layers of attitude and armor, had set out to destroy her relationship with her brother after their father died because that way, she lost him on her terms.
Dorian was ashamed he hadn’t recognized that years ago.
Then again, maybe he had. After all, he’d mentioned spanking to her in Greece. Had he sensed, even then, where they would end up?
“I can’t make you do anything,” he told her now, watching intently as her bravado faded. “You must choose, and accept the consequences of the choices you make. Are you prepared to do that?”
“Are we talking about my brother’s engagement party—or sex?”
“On some level, Erika, I think you and I are always talking about sex.”
Her eyes dilated and her lips parted, telling him she’d lost her breath. Dorian felt that intensity snap into place between them, stronger today. Because they both knew where it went. And that meant imagining where else and how hard it could go.
“I thought we were talking about a party,” she said, blinking like she wanted to clear her head. Good luck, little one, he thought. “And for some reason, you seem to think you can dictate my behavior.”
“You should know that I have every intention of dictating a hell of lot more than that.” He smiled at her faintly, over his granite counter and the food he’d prepared for her. He liked this. He liked her here, looking uncertain and mulish—and safe. “I’m a bossy man, Erika. Some people pay for the privilege of having me tell them what to do with their business affairs and their messy lives. All I require from you is that you let me. And thank me. Is that so much to ask?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? You seemed to enjoy it last night. Or were all those orgasms a decoy for your true feelings?”
She scowled at him. “Sex isn’t life. It’s just sex.”
But he could see the way she gripped the counter, her knuckles turning white, and he knew she didn’t believe that.
“Not the way we do it,” he said. “If I were you, I’d look at last night as a lesson.”
“Which part was a lesson?” she asked. “The spanking? Or when you fucked me, came hard enough to take the back of your head off and then cuddled with me all night long? Or maybe you mean you learned a lesson.”
Dorian was around the counter before he meant to move, and then it was too late. For her. He trapped her there, taking far too much pleasure in the little squeaking sound she made as she found herself with her back against the granite, his arms on either side of her like a cage.
He watched her face flush and her eyes go glassy. He studied the pulse that hammered in her throat. And the rich, sweet scent of her arousal spiced the air between them, making his cock even harder than before.
“I don’t like your tone.” He leaned closer, smiling when she jumped. He put his mouth on a set of goose bumps that rose along her neck. “Rethink it.”
“I don’t see why I can’t talk to you any way I like,” she retorted, sounding awfully tough for someone who was trembling slightly between his arms. And making no attempt to get away from him. “Or do you not see the difference between in a scene and out of a scene?”
“You called me sir, Erika. Do you?”
She flushed at that, and he saw some of that bravado leak away from her. “I was kidding.”
“Were you? Or were you trying to goad me into reacting negatively, the way you like to do in all areas of your life?”
Her mouth dropped open, and temper chased something like misery across her face.
“I wanted to explore extreme sex acts, not engage in a group therapy session,” she threw at him.
“Too bad, little girl. It’s one-stop shopping with me.”
She lifted her chin, and her struggle was all over her face. “You’re a terrible therapist. News flash—you’re not supposed to hate the client.”
Dorian stared her down, the dominant in him roaring in triumph when she flushed and lowered her eyes.
“I don’t hate you,” he told her, using his darkest, most dominant voice, because he knew she would hear him. Even if she didn’t want to. “Quite the contrary. I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, Erika. And now that I’ve found you, I have no intention of letting you go.”
“What do you...?”
She was trembling, her eyes were wide, and she seemed to lose her train of thought halfway through. He liked it.
“But nothing comes easy, does it?” He shook his head sadly. “You found me. And guess what that means? Now you have to contend with me and all my demands. And believe me, Erika, they never get any easier.”
“I don’t want to contend with you,” she managed to say. “I just want to fuck you.”
“You can’t have one without the other.”
“Then I�
�ll fuck someone else, Dorian. Many someone elses. Repeatedly and enthusiastically.”
He smiled. “And how has that been working out for you so far?”
She flushed a deep, betraying red at that, pleasing him so deeply that it took all he had to keep from hauling her up against him. Her eyes got wetter and he knew that if he reached down between her legs, her pussy would be soft and hot and greedy for him.
“Surrender, baby,” he told her quietly. “I’m not letting you go.”
And he didn’t tell her how fully he meant that. He didn’t have to—not when she reacted as if he’d electrocuted her. He could see the fear on her face, and how quickly she covered it up with temper. Dorian had never wanted to wrap a woman in his arms so badly before, for the simple pleasure of holding and soothing her.
Without even paddling her first.
Necessarily.
“If you have such a poor opinion of my character,” she gritted out at him, though her eyes were too big and much too dark, “and this driving need to psychoanalyze things you know nothing about, why would you want me to submit to you in the first place?”
His smile deepened. “Because I want you to be the best version of you. I want you to make choices out of strength, not fear.”
And it shocked him a little as he said it, because he realized this wasn’t new. He’d been uniquely disapproving of Erika Vanderburg for as long as he could remember. But until she’d appeared in his club, he’d never been able to fully imagine her as anything but Conrad’s little sister.
“Not that you’re a wild egomaniac or anything,” she threw at him.
He let his smile cool and his gaze darken, and saw her shiver in response. It was that instinctive response she couldn’t control, no matter how disrespectfully she chose to speak to him.
“You have two choices now,” he told her with quiet menace. “You can leave. I won’t stop you or chase you. I had the concierge find you some more appropriate clothing should you require it, and I’ll have a car take you wherever you wish to go. No harm, no foul.”
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