She shoved her hair back from her face, looked around and wasn’t surprised to find herself alone in the massive bedroom.
Images from the night before chased each other through her head, one more vivid than the last. Different emotions buffeted her, but it was as if she’d stuck her head out the window in the middle of a storm. She could feel the wind, but it didn’t sweep her away. And when she took a deep breath, then let it out again, she found herself smiling.
Because she felt like a new person.
She crawled out of the bed, running a hand down one of the dauntingly thick and sturdy posters, pretty sure she knew exactly what Dorian did with them. To her surprise, even after everything that had happened the night before, the notion sent a thrill spinning through her, pulsing its way down into her greedy pussy.
When she would have sworn up and down, her body rejected the very idea of morning sex, as a matter of policy. Apparently not Dorian’s kind of sex.
She padded into the bathroom and took her time in the oversize shower, letting all the many showerheads send hot water pounding into her as she slicked a body gel over her skin that made her smell like him.
She smoothed her wet hair back from her face when she got out, and wondered if it was because she knew Dorian that she felt so comfortable helping herself to his hairbrush. His products. And even one of his shirts. She tried to imagine what it would be like to wake up like this in the house of the random dominant man she’d pretended she wanted to find last night, but she couldn’t. She doubted very much that she would have stayed overnight. And if she had, she certainly wouldn’t have slept like that, crashed out in the deepest sleep she could remember having since she was a child.
Because when have you ever felt safe?a voice inside her asked.
Erika didn’t want to answer that. Because she knew the answer, of course, and it made her sad. She pressed a hand against her belly as she wandered downstairs, cataloging the faint pull here and whisper of something there, reminding her that she’d had a long and eventful night.
Had she ever.
She wished she was a lot more sore, she realized as she crossed the great room where she’d cried and come and had learned things about herself she’d never known were there. She wished her ass was far more sore than it was. She wished she couldfeelhim, so long and thick and demanding as he’d pounded into her. The scrape of her breasts and her cheek against that rug as she’d come and come, his cock hammering into her to make sure she kept on going.
Erika wanted to wear him on her skin.
And she didn’t really want to ask herself if that was healthy, because it felt right.
She was too warm again when she padded into the kitchen, so bright with all the light of midday pouring in, and found Dorian there.
He was dressed in a T-shirt that made a symphony out of those arms of his that she appreciated a whole lot more this morning. And in new ways. Because of the pain he could inflict, the pleasure he could wring out of her, and the safety she’d found only and ever there.
But she kept that to herself as he fixed her with a dark, simmering look.
She could feel the tumble inside her. Something defiant that lit her up, and made her want to poke at him—though it was at odds with that shimmering thing that wound around and around, settled in her pussy and made her knees feel weak.
“How do you feel this morning?” Dorian asked, his voice polite. Cool.
Irritating, she thought and glared at him.
“I’mgreat,” she said. “Never better. You?”
“Erika. That wasn’t a random pleasantry. I want you to provide me with a detailed and honest inventory of your feelings. Can you handle that?”
And all that light tumbling around his sleek, pristine kitchen made her silly. Or bold. At the very least, it reminded her that it wasn’t last night. Not anymore.
“While I’m cataloging my feelings, maybe you can ask yourself why it is you have to be so incredibly patronizing.”
“I’m not patronizing you. You seem euphoric. I want to make sure you’re not peaking on your way into a serious drop.”
“I thought that’s why you brought me a snack last night.”
“What happened was intense,” he said gently, as if she might not have noticed. “Emotional responses to that kind of intensity and vulnerability often show up later.”
It was the way he said that, maybe. As if he knew things she didn’t—about herself. Erika found herself crossing her arms, even though she knew it made that shirt of his ride up her thighs.
Or maybe she wanted to linger for a moment in the way his dark gaze moved over the extra bit of skin she’d revealed. Because she felt a little bit like a junkie, desperate to see that flame blaze in his eyes again.
“If you have feelings about last night that you’d like to share with me, this is a safe space to do that,” he said in a remote sort of way, as if he was conducting a seminar on BDSM and was modeling appropriate behavior. And suddenly Erika was flooded with emotion, all right. Assuming fury counted. “No need to observe protocol. You can simply tell me how you feel, ask me questions or share any thoughts you might have that you think I should know.”
“Ifeelthat you’re being unnecessarily condescending to a woman you had sex with when most people pretend to exchange numbers, have three seconds of awkward conversation and then leave. Will there also be a questionnaire? An exit interview?”