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ERIKAAPOLOGIZEDTOher brother, with an openness and vulnerability that made Dorian fall in love with her all over again. And more deeply.
But then, she was good at that.
They’d made a commitment to each other in that frilly, prissy room in the Markham family manor house, but Dorian knew better than to take his skittish little kitten for granted.
It took him two months—and his favorite swing, which he could suspend from his bedroom ceiling—to get her to admit she was in love with him.
He already knew she was in love with him. But he liked hearing her tell him so.
It took him sixteen more months to get her fully moved into his penthouse. Or to be more precise, he moved her in almost immediately because he didn’t see the point of being without her, but it took her all that time to finally admit that was what was happening.
He expressed his feelings on her reticence in the language they both understood best.
And Erika set about making his life better in a thousand little ways that had nothing to do with sex. She taught him to feel sorrow for his father’s wasted life, instead of outraged about it. She charmed his grandfather and had the old man sparkling like a teenager whenever she was around. Her life had been unconventional in the extreme, but that made her the perfect sounding board for all of the business issues Dorian had never been able to talk through with anyone else. Not completely.
In turn, he taught her how to stand up to her mother—or at the very least, choose not to engage with her cruelty.
She had spent so long acting a part, but the more comfortable she became with him and the safety of the life they made together, the more she began to shine. And she took care of him. She worried about him. For once, Dorian didn’t have to be responsible for holding up the whole damned sky and everything in it.
With Erika, Dorian was safe, too. He could allow himself the vulnerabilities he’d always before seen as weaknesses. He could share all of himself instead of chopping himself up into necessary compartments.
He could let her soothe him, too. He could grow, more and more each day, without worrying that the slightest crack in his confidence would send her running.
Because she loved all of him. The dominant, the man and the partner he became, just for her.
Dorian had known he wanted her, permanently, after that first night. But even he couldn’t have foreseen how beautifully in sync the two of them would become over time, until he found that he could no longer remember what life had been before she’d wandered into his club and claimed him.
And now that he had Erika, Dorian lost his taste for club games. He practiced his favorite hobbies on her. He had no need to bring anyone else into it. And more to the point, he had absolutely no interest in sharing her with anyone. He liked all her exhibitions to be for him alone.
Six months into living together officially—meaning six months into getting her to believe that he wasn’t going to throw her out, she wasn’t going anywhere the next time the whim took her and he really did love her to distraction—she looked at him over the top of the book she was reading one evening. She was curled up beside him, naked as she usually was when they were at home. He sat next to her with her legs on his lap, wearing his typical jeans and T-shirt.
And Berlin was there outside their windows, always beckoning, always bright and unexpected. Much like his woman, Dorian thought.
“I want to do something,” Erika said. “But I don’t know how you’ll like it.”
“If I don’t like it, I’ll tell you so and I will proceed from there.” And he grinned at her when she scowled at him. “Is that is advisable way to look at me?” he asked idly. “I haven’t played with my whip in a while.”
Erika shivered beside him, but her eyes gleamed. She liked to pretend she hated the whip... But they both knew better.
“I want to finish university,” she said, surprising him. Because he never knew what she would say or do next, and that was one more reason why he loved her. “Oxford has offered me a place, if I want to do my third year. But it would mean...”
Dorian set aside the papers he was reading, already forgetting whatever tedious report he been making his way through. He reached over and settled his hand on the nape of her neck, calming them both. Connecting them. “And what will you do with this fine Oxbridge education should you finally receive it in full?”
And her smile was hopeful and almost scared, as if she couldn’t believe she was daring to do this. To even discuss doing it.
It made his heart hurt.
But then, she was good at that, too.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “Anything and everything. Isn’t that the point?” Then she bit back her smile, and looked down at her lap. “But Oxford is...in Oxford, not Berlin.”
“Let me guess. You want to have a discussion about what it is you think I want. And if I tell you that I forbid it, that gives you something to rebel against, which is far more comfortable than simply telling me what you want. Is that about right?”
She let out a sigh that was half a groan, tilting her head back to lean into his hand. “You know, sometimes, Dorian, I just want to have a conversation. I don’t want to scrape back every layer and expose my raw and beating heart to the air.”
He pulled her face to his and kissed her. “Tough luck, baby.”
“I want to do this,” she said, lifting her gaze and keeping it steady on his. “But the idea of missing you, even if it’s only during the week and I fly back here on weekends, or whatever, makes me feel...sick. What if I ruin this? I don’t think I could bear it.”
