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 she knew he never forgot a damned thing?
But in the next too-quick breath, she understood. That was why. He didn’t forget. He didn’t let things go. If he asked her a question, he expected her to answer.
He would not forget her or any detail about her, down to the dress she’d worn two years ago at a party in Greece.
He would not, for example, swan off to Cap Ferrat for the season as her mother had done one winter, forgetting that she’d left Erika alone on the estate south of Melbourne where they’d spent a span of years. She’d been seven. The staff had been lovely, but her mother hadn’t deigned to return until Erika lit a fire in one of the old, empty barns and the butler had finally given his notice, as he wasn’t a babysitter.
Erika had no idea why that weird, old memory was cropping up now. While she was close enough to naked and tossed over Dorian’s lap all these years later and in Berlin.
“Erika. Don’t make me ask you again.”
“No,” she whispered. “It’s not a limit. I would try it.”
“If I asked.”
“If you asked,” she agreed, her heart so loud inside her it hurt. “Sir.”
She felt humiliated and excited in turn, and the contrast lurched around inside her, making her squirm. And pant. And want to die—but not before he kept that promise that any hurt he dished out would come with a hefty dollop of pleasure, too.
Erika thought she might die if he didn’t keep his promise.
And then, to her horror and her delight, he reached beneath her and cupped her pussy in his hand. That was all he did. He simply…held her there.
She was the one who was quivering, sensitive and sweating with the force of a need that felt like madness.
“Look at this,” he said, sounding dark and approving all at once. “You can’t wait, can you? You’re desperate. Soaking wet. As if you’ve been waiting your whole life for someone to finally take you in hand. Is that what you want, Erika?”
She wanted to fight. She wanted to argue. And more than both of those things, she wanted to thrust herself backward and somehow make him move his palm hard against her, because she knew it would take only the slightest graze of her clit against him to make her explode.
But she didn’t dare misbehave like that. And he didn’t move his palm. As if he knew exactly what it was she wanted most.
“Yes, sir,” she made herself say, squeezing her eyes shut as storm after storm rampaged through her. She kept her cheek pressed hard against the leather, gripping her own fingers behind her neck—even though all that did was press her breasts harder against the sofa beneath her.
Everything she did made it worse. Or better.
“I want to hear you say it.”
“Yes, sir,” she said again, desperation making her voice
