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His restlessness of recent months—the past year—had been because he’d stopped believing that he could get it. It seemed impossible that he could ever combine the two parts of his life. The heir to the Alexander shipping fortune needed to marry an appropriate wife. Dorian had always known that. Even his own father had done his duty in that respect, though Dorian doubted his brittle, elegant mother—now married to a sedate London financier who she could depend on to bore her in exactly the same way for the rest of their stodgy lives—would thank him for it. And Dorian had certainly met his share of kinky, delightfully debauched debutantes over the years, God bless them.
But none of them had inspired him for more than a night. Or in his case, a part of the night. The ones who played as hard as he did weren’t interested in anything but playing. And the vast majority of them were better at playingatdebauchery than really giving themselves over to man who could lead them through the darkness of anything real.
He stood there, one hand on the steel post that he really was going to tie her to, one of these days. It was almost as if he could see it. As if it had already happened, when he knew it hadn’t.
Yet.
That word echoed in him like a premonition. Like a vow.
He pulled a light blanket up and over Erika’s body, little as he liked covering such mouthwatering nakedness. He would much prefer to lie back down, roll her over and lose himself in her again and again...
But he had some thinking to do. Some serious thinking to do.
And he doubted very much that he would get any of that done while he stood here,this closeto slipping back into that bed, holding her hands over her head so her breasts jutted toward his mouth and waking her up the way he wanted to do.
Dorian showered, and toweled himself off, choosing not to handle his cock—because he had plans. He grabbed a pair of jeans and a T-shirt on his way toward the stairs, and dressed before he jogged down them. When he reached the main floor, he found his mobile and checked his messages and email. There was the usual influx of work-related things he intended to ignore as much as possible. And there were also three messages on his personal voice mail.
All from Conrad.
And if he’d had any lingering doubts about the conviction he’d woken up with, it vanished then. Because Dorian knew he needed to have a frank conversation with his best friend today, but what he didn’t feel was any sense of guilt or shame.
Fuck that.
He padded into his modern, streamlined kitchen, and set about fixing himself his morning coffee. He answered the one or two emails that couldn’t wait, then tossed his phone onto the counter. Then he stood there, drinking his coffee and staring out his windows at his beloved Berlin. His grubby, beautiful, sprawling and unknowable city. He had lived here over a decade, had no plans to relocate and still found something new every time he walked down the street.
That was what BDSM had always been for him. Adventure and home in one. A refuge for a boy who had grown up on a steady diet of his father’s chaos, and a place where the man he’d made himself—uncompromising, brutally honest and as demanding as he was protective—was appreciated. Lauded, even.
And still, lately, he’d been thinking he was going to have to give it up. Because he needed to marry to carry on the family line in the time-honored fashion, he had no intention of treating any wife of his as shabbily as his father had treated his mother, and he didn’t believe that there was any possibility he would be lucky enough to find an heiress to please his grandfather who would also please him.
After all, it was notoriously difficult to please Master Dorian. His entire reputation was built on that essential truth.
And then here, last night, with the least likely person he could ever have imagined, he’d felt that particular stillness inside him.
Erika had pleased him. Deeply and completely.
And as she had told him already last night, his grandfather already loved her.
Dorian might have preferred a direct blow to the face rather than the sucker punch that realization felt like this morning, but he was nothing if not capable of rolling with what he found and making the best of it. It was what had made him his second fortune. It was also what made him popular at the club.
He didn’t have to glance at his mobile to see his best friend’s name again. Conrad’s name was emblazoned inside him, and the idea that a man he considered a brother would hate him for this disloyalty ate at him—but Dorian had never been one to hide from hard things. Hiding was akin to lying as far as he was concerned.
And the liar in his family was his father, not him.
He made himself a second cup of coffee and started thinking about solutions.
Conrad was an issue, but bigger by far than his best friend was the issue of Erika herself. Dorian knew she’d needed what had happened between them last night—desperately. Her submission to him had been real and raw and truly one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. He wanted nothing more than to protect her. Help her.
And get them both off while he was at it. Repeatedly.
It was what he was made for.
He wanted to do his level best to use this particularly kinky spark between them to make them better people together than they could ever be alone. It was the sweetest, most dangerous game. It was the crux of the power exchange. He dominated, she submitted, and somewhere in there, her strength humbled him even as his power melted her.
It was Dorian’s favorite kind of fire, and he had never felt it burn as hot and as wild as it had last night. Because while clubs like his existed all over the world to create safe spaces for like-minded individuals to play at burning, it was still just play.
And what Dorian had discovered last night, when that fire had led him places he’d never thought he’d go, was that he wanted real. He was done with playtime.
But was Erika?
