She came instantly, violently, with a scream that was like music to him.
He didn’t wait for her to ride it out. Dorian pounded into her, hard and deep, claiming her and taking her over and over. He fucked her through the wallop of that first orgasm, then straight on into a second one.
Erika kept screaming, prettier every time.
And still he kept fucking her at the same, ferocious pace, until her sobs and screams changed. And turned into his name.
“Please, Dorian. Please, sir. Please—please—please—”
He couldn’t have said what she begged for. Only that he took it.
Again and again, he took and she gave, and that was the beauty they made between them. That was the discipline and the desire, the coming together of two halves to make something much hotter, much brighter than either one of them alone.
Dorian made her come once more, and then, with a roar, he took his own pleasure at last.
And as he fell, he had the distinct notion that this time, he was well and truly damned.
Dorian did not typically spend a lot of his time questioning himself, his motives or his actions, because he’d spent a lifetime committed to honesty and openness in all things and that generally meant there was very little to question.
He was renowned for ferreting out secrets in the club and in the boardroom by dint of...simply asking. Then demanding honesty in return.
It was amazing how rare that was. So rare, in fact, that he’d heard it discussed in his office as his superpower. He’d always rolled his eyes at that, because if he had a superpower, he was pretty sure it had more to do with the kind of sex he preferred than a simple round of honest conversation.
Some people liked to claim he had been born confident, and he couldn’t dispute that. Dorian had always had a deep, invariable sense of who he was, what he wanted and what he was prepared to do to get it. That had come to him honestly. His father had been the disappointment in the Alexander family, lazy and addicted and good for nothing at all—but his inability to live up to the standards set by Dorian’s grandfather had merely given Dorian a good example of what best to avoid.
He did not lie because that was all his father ever did. He did not cheat because he had seen the pain his father’s various forms of cheating had caused, whether in his relationships or in the business. He was bracingly honest with everyone he came into contact with—especially himself.
But that was before his best friend’s little sister had turned up in his favorite club, sank to her knees and made something deep inside him hum.
As if he’d been waiting all this time to truly come alive.
He shook that unsettling notion off. And he concentrated on the practicalities instead.
Erika lay on the floor in a heap. Her eyes were closed, her face was still flushed, and her lips were parted. She was in the position he’d left her, as if she’d simply...folded into herself. Fully surrendered, fully his.
The woman of your dreams, a voice inside him pronounced.
Dorian rubbed a hand over his face, amazed to find he was less steady than he ought to have been.
He tucked himself back into his trousers, amazed that he had come so hard. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had gotten to him like that. And he didn’t feel empty and restless the way he did more and more these days, especially after sex. He wasn’t already thinking about the work he had to do or what his next extreme BDSM feat would be should he find a willing submissive to test it with him. He wasn’t already thinking about who that might be.
He wasn’t thinking about anything except Erika and that was...new. Like the feeling of deep stillness inside him that he knew he’d never felt before—and yet recognized, somehow.
Dorian didn’t know where the hell to put all that yet, so he shoved it aside. He reached down and plucked her up from the floor, shifting her to hold her in his arms. Then he carried her up the stairs to the master suite that took up most of the second floor. Her head was a soft and welcome weight tucked there into the crook of his neck, making the stillness in him feel like something else. Like religion, maybe.
He moved down the hall past his study, personal gym and sauna, and he didn’t bother to turn on any lights. Berlin was bright outside the many windows, casting the room in a dim kind of glow. And when he looked, he could see the first signs of dawn in the sky.
It should have been no more than another well-spent night in this anything-goes city. But that wasn’t how it felt.
Not when she was still groggy as he set her on her feet, there against the side of his bed with its four steel posters that he would very much like to tie her to. So groggy she hadn’t arranged her features in the usual way. She looked sweet. Defenseless. Wide-open and guileless, and Dorian’s ribs seemed to shrink. It was hard to breathe for a moment.
He couldn’t say he liked that at all.
Erika murmured something incoherent as he stripped her few clothes from her body. He laid her out on the mattress and left her there, murmuring a quiet order for her to stay where she was.
And she was exactly where he’d left her when he came back. He’d gone downstairs to the kitchen to fix her a little snack and a glass of water, with an electrolyte powder mixed in for when she was recovered sufficiently to tend to the inevitable postscene drop. He’d also found his preferred salve in the play bag he brought to the club, though he hadn’t used it in a while.
But that was one more thing he didn’t want to think about, because it felt...fraught. Fragile, almost, in this strange blue light of almost-morning with a woman he shouldn’t have touched soft and undeniably his in his bed.