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And he had taught her all about choices, hadn’t he? He had taught her how to choose. But this didn’t feel like a choice. This felt like a death sentence.
“You want to humble me,” she said. “Humiliate me. I get that. It’s important to you.”
And to her surprise, Dorian laughed. “When I want to humiliate you, kitten, you will know. You will not be clothed in full view of the richest men in Europe, one of whom is your brother. You will very likely be on all fours, at my feet, and very, very naked. Understand that first.”
She was breathless as he dropped his hand from her chin and then maneuvered her in front of him, away from the crowded ballroom and deeper into the house. He rested a hand on the nape of her neck as if it belonged there, and Erika relaxed into it. The weight of his palm felt right. Good. And after all the turmoil of the past weeks, wave after wave of too much emotion, it took her a moment to recognize what it was that suffused her now.
Peace. Safety.
There was something about this man that felt like home.
He opened a door, and ushered her inside, and it took her a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the different lighting. It was a very small study, or sitting room, that Erika had never seen on her previous visits here. It was the kind of place the ladies of the house might have retired in latter days to keep up with their embroidery or correspondence. There were delicate, ebullient furnishings, heavy on scrollwork and filigree.
In the middle of so much unrestrained femininity, Dorian was like a brooding, lethal fist. All threat and masculinity, and that uncompromising power that blazed out of him like his very own sun.
That power that she took into her, gloried in and made her own.
Dorian closed the door behind him and then stood there, a narrow, assessing look on his beautiful face.
Inside, Erika felt fizzy. Bright.
He lifted one finger and twirled it in the air, indicating that she should turn for him. And she did, different sensations scudding through her, but all of them ending up in the same place. That delirious, delectable heat between her legs that pulsed out into everything else.
“The trouble with you, Erika, is that you are too beautiful already. And far too clever.”
His voice was almost more beautiful than he was, if such a thing was possible. It was his voice that had stayed with her in the time they’d been apart. She’d heard him on the phone and in her head, as if he had a direct connection to her body no matter where he was. As if he owned her, body and soul, mind and pussy, and everything in her exalted in that notion.
Not least because, if he owned her, surely she could own him in return. It was a power exchange after all. Not a power grab.
“When you walk around with your gorgeous body on display, people get silly,” Dorian said, his gaze steady on her. “Stupid. They say jealous, small-minded things, as your mother has already amply demonstrated tonight. And people are not always as good as they should be about holding two ideas in their head at once.”
“My mother holds a great number of ideas in her head, all of them nasty.”
“It is easier to believe that stunning blonde woman with a smile that can light up a room and blue eyes the color of summer must be dumb,” he said quietly. “Foolish, at the very least. An easily dismissible whore. I’m not surprised that the people in your life who feel threatened by all that you are would encourage you to dress and act as if you are far less than that.”
He pushed off the door at his back and came toward her at last. And then, finally, he was touching her again. He ran his hands over her the way he’d done so many times before, as if he was memorizing her shape. This time, he skimmed his palms down her arms and then held them out at her sides.
“Dressed like the powerful heiress you are, you give all of these vipers no choice but to see the real you. I’m sure they won’t like it.” He shrugged, that dark intensity in his gaze never wavering. “But as we keep discussing, it only matters ifIlike it. And I do. Very much.”
And she couldn’t have said why that mattered so much to her. Only that it did. And that further, his praise felt like a crackling fire on a cold night.
“Dorian,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to be disappointed in me, but you will be. Because I can’t—”
“Quiet, please.”
It was an order. And on some level, Erika wanted to demand that he make these boundaries between a scene and life clearer to her. But then, she didn’t want them clear. She wanted this, the poignancy and sharpness, the intensity and color, and the possibility that every moment with him was a scene.
And only sometimes would actual cuffs, whips and chains be involved.
But she had to shake that off, because she was thinking in terms of tomorrows and she doubted very much that he would want much to do with her by the end of the night.
Because she couldn’t give him what he wanted.
“I want you to do something for me,” Dorian said, sounding casual when his expression was anything but. “It’s not an order. I’m going to tell you what I desire, what I wish, and you may choose or not choose to do it. What are you wearing under that dress?”
It felt as if he’d rocked a boat she hadn’t known she was standing on, and she almost felt like she had whiplash as she fought to keep her balance. She expected him to bring up Conrad again and almost asked him why he hadn’t...
But his gaze was intent on hers, and over the course of her time in Berlin, she had learned that it was better not to test his patience. She bit back a shiver, remembering the creative things he could do when a naked woman didn’t respond quickly enough to an order he’d given her while they were preparing dinner together. One piece of peeled ginger inserted into the right place left indelible memories—and a healthy respect for the limits of his patience.
