That was slightly less of a lie, if a person counted storming about in England’s greenest hills and shouting at passing sheep.
She doubted very much the Dorian would count that at all.
“It sounds to me like you’ve taken a little emotional dip and have stayed there,” he said. “I told you that you might.”
“Not everything is a pageant of intensity,” she snapped, and she was aware as she said it that she clearly didn’t believe that herself. Because if she did, she wouldn’t be sitting in her carriage house bedroom on her mother’s lover’s estate, with all the curtains closed tight against the drizzle of another English afternoon. God, she was so sick of her own shit. “And here’s a fun fact. Not every emotion I have has something to do with you.”
“I’m delighted to hear it,” Dorian said smoothly, but still, there was that undercurrent that kicked at her and made her sit a little straighter. “I just landed in London. Your brother’s party is this weekend. Now that you’re so marvelously recovered from all the intimacy we shared, I hope you remember the promise you made me.”
“Go to hell.”
Dorian made a tsking sound that blazed through like the warning it was, making her body light up. Wet, needy, naughty—and desperate for the discipline only he could administer.
She wanted to hate herself for that but she couldn’t quite get there. Not with his voice in her ear.
“That does not bode well for you, kitten,” he said, with that soft, amused menace that made her...glow.
She cleared her throat. “What I do or don’t do concerning my brother is no business of yours.”
“If you say so.”
And she could swear, if she closed her eyes, she could see the look he was wearing on his face when he sounded like that. All that dark, dangerous patience in his gaze. That unyielding power stamped into that unsmiling mouth that made her feel weak in all the best ways. What was it about this man that made her silly straight through?
“Are you touching yourself?” he asked, his voice stern.
Erika froze, because sure enough, she’d reached down between her legs with one hand, and was pressing the heel of her palm against her throbbing clit. How the hell had he known that? “No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
Her hand fell away from her pussy as if he’d ordered her to stop touching herself. As if he’d reached over and physically removed her hand, more like.
“I’m not lying,” she said. And his silence felt as sharp a rebuke as a slap on the ass. She sighed. “Now.”
“Good,” he said, and she could hear laughter and satisfaction then. And all that glorious heat. “Don’t. As far as I’m concerned, that’s my pussy and you can’t touch it without my permission. I’ll know, kitten. And there will be consequences.”
“You can’t just say things like that to people, Dorian. Are you insane? I can do anything I want withmybody.”
“What’s that?” he asked, sounding mild and stern at once. The combination made goose bumps rise all over her skin. “Was that your safe word? Or was it another round of predictable complaints because you like to deal with your uncertainty by shooting off your mouth?”
She wanted to hang up on him. She didn’t. And she hated herself for that, too.
“I’ll see you this weekend,” he promised her. Though it sounded a lot more like a threat. “And I’ll expect you to remember every detail of the promise you made me, Erika. Because you can be certain I do.”
And he cut off the call before she could protest. Deliberately, she was sure.
But something about his voice galvanized her. She got out of the bed where she’d been conducting her experiments in insomnia and petulance. She threw open the curtains and glared out at the gray day. She went down into the kitchen of the carriage house and stared around, uninspired, at the dry cereal boxes that had provided her with the bulk of her nutrition since she’d arrived. Because her mother certainly didn’t want her grown daughter taking meals at the big house with her lover. Erika’s very existence was a testament to Chriszette’s age.
Erika had learned that lesson the hard way. And years ago. Now she accepted the fact that her mother liked to control her in between affairs, but never during them. A situation that had suited them both since Erika had left university.
Does it suit you?a dark voice that sounded suspiciously like Dorian’s asked inside her.Or do you put up with it because she treats you the way you think you deserve to be treated?
“Shut up, Dorian,” she muttered into the empty kitchen.
Her body was still flushed, and wound up, and she thought that maybe she should go ahead and handle her own needs. Because fuck him. Who cared what he ordered her to do? He wasn’t the boss of her.
But even when she sat down, then slipped her hand back between her legs, she couldn’t do it.
Because you want to be his, something that was all her whispered, telling her more truths she didn’t want to face.