Conrad had done his best to fill his father’s shoes.
Erika had flounced off and started referring to him as her enemy.
And Dorian, who had witnessed his friend’s struggle and had taken a dim view of Erika’s behavior himself, had repaid his friend’s trust and friendship by defiling the little sister Conrad almost viewed as more of a daughter.
Plainly, Dorian was fucked.
In his arms, there against his chest, Erika stirred again. Dorian needed to distance himself. He needed to repair the walls he should have kept between his cock and what he owed his friend—and fast.
But her face, her beautiful face, was open and vulnerable when she tipped it up to his. Her blue eyes were sleepy. And suddenly he couldn’t abide the idea of any walls.
“Lie down with me,” she said, and though she phrased it like an order, he knew it was a question. And an uncertain one at that.
Obviously Dorian didn’t cuddle up with his subs and sleep with them that way. He’d always imagined that kind of thing was better left to long-term relationships—which he had always been deeply allergic to.
Allergic?asked that same voice inside him.Or uninspired?
But all that unfettered emotion on her pretty face was easily the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
And the fact he was digging his own hole was clear to him. But he didn’t do anything to stop it. He set her aside and rolled from the bed, and she curled into a ball against his pillows and watched him strip out of his clothes.
He waited for that restless itch to wash over him, and told himself he would handle it for however long she slept because it was the least he could do for this woman he shouldn’t have laid a finger on—much less spanked and fucked and made cry. But it didn’t kick in.
Not when he crawled into the bed and pulled her tight to his front, one arm slung over her soft warmth. Not when they lay there like that, wound together like roots too tangled to ever be pulled apart.
She sighed a little as she burrowed beneath the covers, and he knew that sound. Surrender and safety.Beautiful, he thought.
And just this once, just because it was Erika, he let himself go.
Dorian held her close, matched his breath to hers and then, for the very first time, fell asleep with a woman in his arms.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DORIANWOKEUPwith Erika wrapped around him, tangled up in every possible way with her legs between his and her mouth against his neck, and stopped lying to himself.
She slept heavily and deep. He knew her scent now, and the heat of her skin, as if she was tattooed on him. And the memories of what they’d done the night before were now interspersed with what it was like to sleep in a sweet knot with her, turning this way and then the other as if they’d choreographed it.
As if he, a man who never slept easily or at all with another, couldn’t sleep unless he was in contact with her.
As if you will never sleep well without her again.
He could feel that weight in his chest, thick and deep.
But this morning, steeped in the reality his body had already accepted—since he had slept with this woman tucked up next to him and wound around him as if they’d done it a hundred thousand times before—Dorian stopped pretending he didn’t know what that weight was.
He had always been honest to a fault. It was part of what attracted him to BDSM and why he flourished in a subculture that prized communication, candor and authenticity above all else. He saw no reason to stop now, no matter that this kind of sudden awareness wasn’t exactly what he’d planned for this weekend. No matter how inconvenient the truth that lay there, beautifully naked beside him.
He took his time easing away from her because he wanted her to stay right where she was, her cheeks flushed with the force of her dreams and that ass of hers still red from his hand. He was hard, but then, he suspected that might simply be the Erika effect. If he claimed her, if she was his, he could look forward to mornings like this. To waking her up in whatever method he could devise to best take advantage, and his imagination when it came to the care and erotic torture of women who liked to kneel before him was boundless. And endlessly wicked.
Something thudded through him, and he had the distinct impression that it was the last of his defenses disappearing.
In what felt to him like a plume of smoke. Or maybe a bonfire.
There was noifabout it, he acknowledged.
He had every intention of claiming this woman. If he hadn’t, he would never have fucked her.
Because deep down, he knew what he wanted. He always had.