Dorian watched her intently. With that armored, intense patience that made her want nothing more than to do what he wanted. However he wanted it.
Something spooled out inside her, then, that had nothing to do with the way her mind raced. It felt long held. Secret and certain.
And the more it unwound itself within her, the less jittery she felt, even when she knew he wasn’t kidding around. Dorian had every intention of hurting her. Deliberately. Spanking her like a child, because he thought that would teach her something—
No, that thing inside her corrected her.Not like a child.
Because this was about sex and this was about submission, and ultimately it was about her choice to combine those things and let him pick the path they took. She could use her safe word at any time. She could be up and walking away from him right now.
The issue wasn’t that Dorian wanted to spank her. It was that deep down, Erikawantedto let him spank her.
Or she wouldn’t be here, at his feet, fighting herself while he waited. And watched.
And Erika couldn’t tell if she was shuddering because she couldn’t bear the thought, or because she was terrified of what she might actually learn from this. Who she might become when he was done with her.
But either way, she stood.
“Lovely,” he said, and it made her flush with that same strange pride. Then he patted his thighs, his dark gaze its own command. “Now lie down.”
CHAPTER FIVE
ERIKAMIGHTHAVEthought she was on the verge of being sick, if it weren’t for that blazing fire in her pussy that made a lie out of all the other sensations that sloshed around inside her. Her heart jolted, her stomach dropped, her skin felt stretched too tight... But still she burned.
And all Dorian did was sit there, almost lazily, watching her intently as she battled herself.
He did nothing to encourage her. He did nothing to hurry her along.
He only waited as if he was in absolutely no doubt that no matter her struggle, she would do exactly what he’d told her to do.
Because youwantto do it, something in her whispered.
She was that hard, small stone in his palm, and he would make a fist only if she admitted it. If she allowed it. If she laid herself across his lap and submitted the way she wanted to, with every last part of the melty, swoony thing currently burning up inside her.
“Were my instructions unclear?” Dorian asked, mildly enough.
But nothing about the intensity in his dark gaze was mild.
Erika let out a breath that turned into something like a sob, and then she lowered herself over him.
It was awkward. His thighs were much too hard, and she was too...awareof everything. The way her breasts pressed into the leather cushion and how weird it was to crawl over another person like this in the first place. Much less for the reason she was doing it.
“I want you to lace your hands behind your head,” Dorian said, and she instantly felt calmer and more on fire at the same time.
It was like the more she melted, the more of her there was to melt.
And it was a lot different to hear him talk now. In this position. She shifted, and his hand came down to the small of her back, holding her there. Firmly, yet light enough that if she’d wanted to, she could have rolled away from him. Thrown herself on the floor, run for the door—
But she only exhaled. Loudly.
And stayed where she was.
“Hands, please,” he said calmly. But there was no mistaking the power in his voice.
God, thatpower.
Erika had spent her whole life careening about from one so-called authority figure to the next, always laughing when they tried to control her, because they couldn’t. They always backed down, or lost track of her, or proved easy enough for her to control. They had the position of authority, but not the power to back it up.
Dorian had the power. And she’d given him the authority, hadn’t she?