He had always had the courage of his convictions—maybe to a fault—but that didn’t matter here. It couldn’t. She was brand-new to the scene, and there was no way to tell how she would feel on the other side of her first BDSM experience. Some new submissives retreated into shame and self-recrimination, afraid of their own desires and the pleasure they’d received from things they were afraid to name in the light. Others went in the other direction, so desperate for more of that same sweet drug of submission that they took any risk to get another hit.
Whatever route Rory took, the last thing Conrad needed to do was start acting like he had aspirations to be her master when all she needed was a dominant for the night. An introduction, not a claiming.
He couldn’t believe that word was in his head.
Conrad shook his head in the dark, wishing once again that his friends could see this. He could hear Dorian laughing from a thousand kilometers away in Berlin.
Eventually, Rory stirred. He saw her eyes flutter. She screwed up her face and stretched a little and then she lifted her head, looking around as if she hadn’t the faintest clue where she was.
“We are out in my garden,” he told her, before she became alarmed. “Drink some water. Eat something.”
Rory pushed herself into a more upright position, slowly. Very, very slowly, as if she wasn’t entirely certain her body still worked in the same way in had before. Conrad watched her closely, seeing the instant she started remembering what had happened tonight—because her cheeks began to look flushed again.
But she obeyed him, no doubt still stumbling her way back out of subspace and into her own head again. She picked up the glass of water and gulped at it, greedily. Then she ate a little, looking almost guilty.
And only when she’d demolished the plate he’d brought for her and drank the rest of the water, did she pull even farther away from him to wrap that throw even more tightly around her.
“Where are my clothes?” she asked, her voice rough and sleepy.
Conrad stayed where he was, lounging there with one knee up and one leg straight. He reached over and helped himself to that hair of hers, so glossy and so silky to the touch.
“Inside where you left them, I would imagine.”
She nodded, vigorously. “Well. I guess I’d better—”
“Rory.”
She stilled at the sound of her name in his mouth, and he liked that far too much. He reminded himself that this wasn’t about him. He had a duty here. And it wasn’t to satisfy himself as much as it was to make certain thatshewas satisfied, in every possible way, so that she would have a healthy introduction to the lifestyle. Safe, sane, and consensual, the way it was meant to be.
He was more than happy to lecture others on how they ought to treat newcomers to the scene, but he had never felt this invested before. In her, not the scene.
In her, full stop.
“There are two parts to a scene,” he told her, getting his lecture on again, because that felt like solid ground. “Both equally important. One part gets all the attention because it usually has equipment, and vanilla people are afraid of it. All those scary whips and chains. But this part is called aftercare, and it’s necessary.”
“Aftercare,” she echoed him, and he knew that particular note in her voice now. She sounded lost.
He tugged her into his arms again and held her there against his chest, making a soothing sort of sound.
“Aftercare,” he confirmed. “Sometimes it involves attending to bruises or marks, depending on how rough and exciting things got. And that’s important, but the most important component is an emotional resetting.”
“You don’t have to worry about me getting emotional,” she told him, very seriously. “I don’t do that.”
“Everyone does that.” Conrad found himself resting his chin on her head because it fit there so nicely, as if... But no. He wasn’t going to analyze it. “Remember what I told you. The point of this is intimacy. You can’t have intimacy without emotion, or sustained intensity without vulnerability. Aftercare allows you to process intimacy, emotion, and vulnerability, while we slowly regain our equilibrium.”
She smelled like him now, and he wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t enjoy that. He did. But he also felt her harsh intake of breath. “We?”
“Of course,we,” he said, and he didn’t sound the way he should. Aloof. Unmarked. “I took you apart—I need to make sure that I put you back together. That’s my job. And it’s also my job to protect you. To make sure that you’re in the right state of mind to go rejoin the world after what happened between us.”
“Oh,” she said, an odd note in her voice. “This is just a mandatory thing, then.”
“It should be mandatory, yes,” Conrad said darkly. “Of course, it varies, because people have different needs and philosophies. The main purpose of aftercare is to make sure that everyone is okay on every level.”
She shifted and looked up at him, her gaze vulnerable and direct. “Are you okay?”
It took him back, though maybe it shouldn’t have. But he couldn’t remember the last time anyone had asked him that. Normally, in club situations, the submissive might share some feelings—usually threaded through with thanks and some angling for a repeat—and then they would both go their separate ways.
But there was something about Rory, damn her. And the solemn way she regarded him, as if she knew more about the state of his heart than he did.