AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, come on. Surely your whole thing is a power trip.” His eyes flashed and she remembered herself.“Sir.”
“I’m interested in power, yes,” Dorian replied. “But it’s not a trip. There is no power without surrender of one sort or another. A fist is only as strong as the delicate fingers that make it up.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she said crossly. But she was thinking of a hard little stone cupped in a palm. Fingers wrapped around it, making that fist. “And I don’t think any man ties up a woman if he doesn’t want power over her.” She saw his expression. “Sir.I thought that’s what is hot about it.”
“I do not want power over a woman,” Dorian said, very distinctly. “I want her to surrender her power to me. It’s the difference between demanding that you kneel before me or waiting for you to choose to do it yourself. Do you understand?”
And she wanted to rage something back at him, but even as she opened her mouth to do it, there was that emotion welling up inside her again. Still. That bruise getting bigger, making it so much harder for her to breathe, making her eyes prickle.
She felt protected, yet she was terrified. Overwhelmed, yet so wildly turned-on it was like she didn’t know her own body. And it hadn’t escaped her notice that he hadn’t laid so much as a finger upon her.
And sobbing on this hallway floor, she knew, was no way to do what she came here to do.
“I didn’t know you were this...” she started to say without thinking.
An odd look moved over his face then, and she would have called it regret on someone else. But not Dorian.
“I am all this and a good deal more than you can comprehend,” he said.
He pushed off the wall and moved closer, and it was better and worse at the same time. Sharp, impossible, until she felt heavy with longing and whatever kind of fear this was that made her head spin and her pussy wet.
He reached down, and fit his palm to her cheek, and to her horror, she felt tears well up in her eyes.
“I know why you came here, Erika. I imagine you thought you would simply show up before me wearing as few pieces of clothing as possible, and I would fall like a stone. I imagine this is the effect you’re used to having on men.”
“I didn’t—”
“Quiet.”
And as if shushing her wasn’t enough, he slid his thumb over her lips, and kept it there. Shutting her up whether she liked it or not.
And like everything else, she couldn’t tell.
“My desires run a bit deeper than a hot body,” he said, low and dark. “My needs require very specific outlets. I can fuck like any selfish fraternity brother you might have encountered out there, and I’ll get off, but it won’t truly satisfy me. So this offering of yours, while sweet, is doomed to disappoint you. You can’t give me what I need, Erika.” He studied her. “And even if you could, I will not be used as a tool to slap at your brother.”
Erika wanted to bite him, but she couldn’t seem to muster up the will to do it. Much less slap his hand away. Or really anything at all but sit there, his hand hot and strong as it curved around her face, wondering what on earth was happening to her.
Or how he’d seen through her so easily.
“I never said I wanted to use you.”
“Time’s up, kitten,” he told her, and it wasn’t until she followed his gaze down to her hands on her lap that she saw she was digging her own nails into her fists.Ha ha, she thought, angrily.A kitten with claws.“You’re not here to play, which means you need to go.”
“But...”
She could see from the look on his face that there would not be a second chance. She would never get back in through the doors of this club, that was certain. And she doubted it would matter if she tried to find him anywhere else. His office. His home. Whether he had her turned away by others or turned her away himself, he was done. His expression reminded her a little too strongly of the one he’d used on her all her life. Dismissive. Patronizing. Not at all the heat she’d seen before.
This was her only chance. And she might have misjudged things here, but it was only a matter of degrees, surely. The reality was that she’d watched him bring a woman to climax, and had come herself already. That alone was worth experimenting with.
She could handle him. She was sure she could.
“What if I want to play?” she asked.
“Very well.”
He stepped back, taking his hand and his warmth with him, and she was afraid those tears really would spill over from behind her eyes. Would he do what he’d threatened to do? Or had that been a promise? Erika didn’t know which part of it shot off the most sparks inside her. A ponytail? Or that spanking that had been haunting her since he’d first mentioned it two years ago?
Dorian’s dark eyes blazed. “If you want to play, you must prove it.”
