he waited. And watched.
And Erika couldn’t tell if she was shuddering because she couldn’t bear the thought, or because she was terrified of what she might actually learn from this. Who she might become when he was done with her.
But either way, she stood.
“Lovely,” he said, and it made her flush with that same strange pride. Then he patted his thighs, his dark gaze its own command. “Now lie down.”
ERIKA MIGHT HAVE thought she was on the verge of being sick, if it weren’t for that blazing fire in her pussy that made a lie out of all the other sensations that sloshed around inside her. Her heart jolted, her stomach dropped, her skin felt stretched too tight… But still she burned.
And all Dorian did was sit there, almost lazily, watching her intently as she battled herself.
He did nothing to encourage her. He did nothing to hurry her along.
He only waited as if he was in absolutely no doubt that no matter her struggle, she would do exactly what he’d told her to do.
Because you want to do it, something in her whispered.
She was that hard, small stone in his palm, and he would make a fist only if she admitted it. If she allowed it. If she laid herself across his lap and submitted the way she wanted to, with every last part of the melty, swoony thing currently burning up inside her.
“Were my instructions unclear?” Dorian asked, mildly enough.
But nothing about the intensity in his dark gaze was mild.
Erika let out a breath that turned into something like a sob, and then she lowered herself over him.
It was awkward. His thighs were much too hard, and she was too…aware of everything. The way her breasts pressed into the leather cushion and how weird it was to crawl over another person like this in the first place. Much less for the reason she was doing it.
“I want you to lace your hands behind your head,” Dorian said, and she instantly felt calmer and more on fire at the same time.
It was like the more she melted, the more of her there was to melt.
And it was a lot different to hear him talk now. In this position. She shifted, and his hand came down to the small of her back, holding her there. Firmly, yet light enough that if she’d wanted to, she could have rolled away from him. Thrown herself on the floor, run for the door—
But she only exhaled. Loudly.
And stayed where she was.
“Hands, please,” he said calmly. But there was no mistaking the power in his voice.
God, that power.
Erika had spent her whole life careening about from one so-called authority figure to the next, always laughing when they tried to control her, because they couldn’t. They always backed down, or lost track of her, or proved easy enough for her to control. They had the position of authority, but not the power to back it up.
Dorian had the power. And she’d given him the authority, hadn’t she?
And she knew without having to ask that there was no possibility that she was going to control this, or him, or anything at all unless and until she uttered that safe word.
But she really didn’t want to do that.
Her skin was so oversensitized she thought she might come from the faintest breeze, and it seemed to get worse with every breath. Or maybe she meant better. She threaded her fingers together behind her head, and that changed things all over again. It thrust her breasts into the leather cushion beneath her, abrading her nipples through the strappy top she wore and making them pull tighter.
But she was far more focused on Dorian. His rock-hard thighs beneath her, muscle like stone, that made her feel deliciously weak. And that hand in the small of her back, holding her in place so easily—though it felt like a heavy length of chain to her. She could feel his heat. His strength. That power that she’d already spent two years chasing. She felt surrounded by him, and it made her body shudder in reaction. Or longing. It was hard to tell.
It was all the same, and she melted, and everything was much too hot—
He smoothed his other hand over her ass, flipping up that tiny skirt. She tried to imagine what he saw. Her bright red lacy thong stuck between her ass cheeks, painting him a picture. She could see herself and it made her hips rock a little, as if that could help her aching clit.
It didn’t. Especially when he widened his legs, effectively preventing her from rocking herself against him for any kind of relief.
More than that it reminded her, wordlessly, that he was in control. Complete and utter control, and saw everything. Every little wriggle she tried to make. Every expression on her face. Every flush that stained her skin.
For someone who had spent a whole life being both too visible and yet forever ignored, it was…gratifying. Terrifying. Electrifying.
“I’m going to pull your thong down,” he told her matter-of-factly, as if he was narrating the weather to a disinterested party. “I want your ass entirely exposed. It looks as if it’s never been touched. Has it?”
“No one’s ever really spanked me, sir,” she said to the leather beneath her. “If that’s what you mean.”
“I’m not surprised to hear that,” he said with what she thought might be a measure of satisfaction. “You’ve needed a good spanking as long as I’ve known you.”
She shuddered at that, and his hand moved, rolling her thong down over her hips. She expected him to pull it all the way off her, but he only left it tangled there above her knees.
Confining her, she realized. Making her feel dirty, tied down and, for some reason, so turned-on she wanted to cry.
Then he didn’t say anything. He stroked her ass in silence, warming each cheek with his palms. Roughly. He explored her, running his hands where he pleased, even delving into the furrow between her cheeks to press against the opening there.
Something arced through her, white-hot and greedy, a dark little gas fire of fear and longing.
“Has anyone taken you in the ass before?” he asked with that damned calm.
“N-no.”
“What a shame. Why not? Is it a hard limit for you?”
She wanted to kick him, but she couldn’t seem to move. “No. I don’t know.”
“Pick one or the other.”
“It’s supposed to hurt,” she said, scowling at the cushion beneath her. “Why do something that hurts?”
Though it occurred to her that the question was pretty silly, given her current situation. To his credit, though she had the sense he smiled, Dorian didn’t laugh.
“Because pain is temporary and, if employed deliberately and well, enhances pleasure.” He pressed against her tight bud again, then moved on. He rubbed his palms restlessly over her upturned cheeks, laying in a pinch here, there, then holding her down when she jumped. “I promise you that if I hurt you, when I hurt you, I’ll also make you come. Eventually. You may thank me.”
“Th-thank you, sir,” she managed to say, while she melted and burned, raged and wanted to sob.
“And you didn’t answer my question. Is anal play a hard limit for you?”
Erika felt the strangest trickle of something like relief then, when that didn’t make any sense. Why would she feel relieved when she was still waiting for a spanking of all things? And he was going out of his way to make sure