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It was too bad, really.
He decided that, as he had just come back from a grueling business trip that had involved absolutely no opportunities to indulge his typically voracious sexual appetites, it was probably best that he not continue to stand here imagining her tipped over his spanking bench, restrained, and with that sweet ass of hers fully displayed for his pleasure.
Too fucking bad, indeed.
He turned away from her and headed for his kitchen, shrugging out of his jacket as he went. He hung it on one of the hooks in the hall, rolled up his shirtsleeves as he moved, and went to get himself a glass of water.
It wasn’t until he had the glass of water in his hand that he realized what he was doing. Drinkingwater,as if he was in a scene. As if he needed to be careful not to let alcohol cloud his judgment.
You wish,he told himself darkly.
He wasn’t particularly surprised to see the girl there when he looked up again, standing in the high arch where the granite and steel kitchen melted into the cavernous, loft-like first floor of his church. The one he had personally renovated to his tastes, but had planned to sell when he married appropriately. He’d assumed the appropriate wife would come with the appropriate address. Some whitewashed, stuccoed bore in Belgravia, perhaps? Or worse, a grand old stately affair plunked down in England’s greenest hills, where it would likely have stood for centuries, grim and staid against the march of progress?
But he should have known better. He was Conrad Vanderburg. He had been born bent and had only twisted further as time went on. He had tried his best to go vanilla, but that gambit had failed spectacularly when he’d found his carefully chosen fiancée with another man. Another man she’d gone ahead and married, in fact, leaving him to his own devices.
He had therefore resigned himself to being the high priest of his own dark desires, come what may, and had kept his dirty church. And Paris.
And every last kink and twist within him.
“You can go,” he told the girl as she stood there, exuding vanilla like a pastry in a shop.
Pity he knew better than to steal a bite. A pastry could never fill him up.
“Here’s the thing,” she said, as if he’d invited her to negotiate. Most vanilla girls would have run screaming from the house by now, so it was hard not to be impressed—though he couldn’t tell if she was brave or oblivious. “You’re by far my best account. I really wish that there was a way that we could rewind and pretend this never happened.”
“What’s your name?” Conrad took a sip of his water, amused at himself.
Because he was acting as if he was in a club. Leading the submissive where he wanted her to go, one seemingly innocuous question after the next...
His cock hardened even more, reminding him how long it had been since he’d visited his favorite club.
“I’m Rory Morton,” she said helpfully. Even cheerfully. “Owner and sole proprietor of CleanWorks, an artisan—”
“Yes, yes. An experience. I heard you.”
She frowned. “People treat cleaning like a chore when it’s an art.”
“In my case it is neither, as I hire it out to people who take direction better than you do.”
“There are works of art all over this house. Surely if you have the taste to appreciate them, you can also appreciate the artistry that goes into creating and keeping the space around them gleaming and bright.”
Distantly, Conrad found himself wishing this interaction was happening at his club after all, because he would have paid money to watch his friends’ reactions to the lofty, vaguely condescending way this girl felt she should speak to him. His best friend, Dorian Alexander, would have laughed the loudest and longest back when they visited such places together.
Something they no longer did, as Dorian had gone and gotten himself married.
To Conrad’s formerly selfish and irresponsible younger sister, of all people.
Though Conrad was forced to admit the two of them not only seemed astonishingly happy—but Dorian had been a good influence on Erika, too. She was currently back at university, finishing up the degree she’d swanned off from years back.
May wonders never cease,he thought now, and not for the first time.
And concentrated on the morsel before him, vanilla-scented pastry though she was.
“What kind of name is Rory?” he asked. “Are you a little boy?”
“It’s my name.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “And no. Obviously.”
“That’s it? In its totality? Rory isn’t short for something?”
