Dorian was not the only person around who disliked Erika, well she knew. But he was the only one whose dislike she felt so keenly. And the only one whose dislike did not result in her immediate indifference.
But Dorian did not wax rhapsodic about the dubious charms of an Oxbridge degree as expected. “Your brother has far more patience with willful disobedience than I would,” he’d said instead.
“I’m not sure I would consider cutting off his only sister very patient,” Erika had replied, not sure why she felt flushed. With a surprising wallop of what couldn’t be shame, surely. And something else she hadn’t wanted to name. “But I suppose your mileage may vary.”
“I don’t negotiate disobedience,” Dorian had said in that same quiet, intense way. His gaze was fierce and disapproving and, worse, made her shiver. “I punish it.”
Erika hadn’t known what had come over her then. It was part of that flush that seemed to deepen by the moment. Red and everywhere and what was happening to her?
She’d tilted her head to one side. “How would you punish me?”
Dorian hadn’t smiled. If anything, he’d looked more forbidding. And harder, somehow, though he didn’t move or shift as far as she could see. Erika had felt herself go a little weak, even as she’d felt herself get wet and needy between her legs.
Right there in a fancy dress, in a room where her mother and brother also stood.
And that restless thing in her...settled. Into a kind of expectant stillness she’d never felt before in her life.
“I generally start with a spanking,” he’d said very distinctly. “And not the kind you’d think was fun, Erika. The kind that would encourage you to change your behavior.”
“Or what?” she managed to ask, though her voice was barely above a whisper.
His eyes had gleamed. And she could swear there was something like a curve to his hard mouth. “Or I would be even more disappointed with you than I already am.”
And it was at that moment that a great many things about her older brother’s best friend came together for Erika. With the force of a blow—or, perhaps, that spanking.
Dorian had sauntered away as if nothing had happened. As if Erika was breathing normally and wasn’t the least bit overheated and reeling. The genteel crowd had swallowed up that gorgeous body of his, dressed in black tie that somehow managed to suggest that he was from another time.
Her blood had thudded inside her, making her heart feel heavy and her head light. And the sense that he’d spanked her without putting a hand on her only seemed to grow, turning into an ache. An ache that spread, then went deep.
All the whispers that followed in Dorian’s wake made a different kind of sense suddenly. The very specific way certain women looked at him, as if they knew a secret about him. Erika had always thought it was simply because he was so powerful, with all that Alexander family money augmented by the tech company he’d gone and started himself after university. Apparently feeling that where there was one fortune, there might as well be two.
And when she began looking specifically for rumors about Dorian Alexander in darker, more shadowy places... Well. That was when she’d really found him. And it hadn’t taken a whole lot of digging to learn that Dorian was famous for a great many things in the wider, more civilized world, but when it came to sex he was a king of a whole different sort.
In fact, they called him Master.
Her schoolgirl crush flipped inside out and turned into something far more edgy.
Particularly because, the more she thought about Dorian and spanking—and Dorian spanking her, for that matter—all her vague fantasies and all her sexual explorations seemed to spark into something new. And much, much hotter.
She’d experimented with light bondage and a few tame scenes in clubs in New York. London. Lisbon. She’d spent a particularly hot and steamy winter down under in Melbourne, playing top and bottom games with some new friends. And anytime it got to be too much, playing dominance games with tops who were never quite what she wanted, she thought of Dorian.
Master Dorian, as he was known. Master Dorian, who had used to scene quite a bit in the clubs—especially in Berlin, at the Walfreiheit—but did so less and less these days. Master Dorian, who was a legend and a favorite fantasy of pretty much every submissive she met.
Master Dorian, who had nothing to prove, had never given a submissive his collar and was the only thing Erika could take from her brother that he would miss.
He’d had no use for her as a supposedly spoiled rotten socialite, sure. But would he feel differently about her as a submissive?
It was time to find out.
She felt her pulse pick up when she saw the displays as she made her way into the dungeon. A pretty girl strapped to a table while her Domme applied all manner of wicked-looking clamps to her, murmuring encouragement as she shuddered and squirmed. In the next room, a Dom was working his submissive into a series of intricate and beautiful shibari knots, as if she was an installation piece, there with her ass in the air and her face to the floor. One scene bled into the next. Threesomes. Fireplay. Suspension. One erotic fantasy brought to life after another.
But the biggest throng of onlookers had flocked to the biggest space, toward the back, and Erika headed in that direction. Even though she felt something shiver over her, like foreboding.
Because she knew what she would see. They’d all heard the whispers out there in line, that Master Dorian was picking up his whip tonight for the first time in ages. That he was putting on a show.
But God help her, she wasn’t prepared.
Dorian stood on a raised dais, facing a Saint Andrew’s Cross. A woman was strapped to it, straining against her bonds, moving her head back and forth in erotic distress. That alone made Erika’s belly quiver.
But Dorian took her breath away.
He looked darker and more dangerous than she remembered him, dressed in dark trousers, boots and a black T-shirt that managed to hug that remarkable chest of his like an obsessed lover. Every single one of the muscles she’d marveled at when he was clad in black tie was on display. And more, like his mouthwatering expanse of sheer abdominal fitness.
And it was hard not to appreciate his glorious corded arms as he wielded that lethal, deliciously terrifying whip.
Erika’s mouth went dry. She felt her eyes go glassy, but she couldn’t look away. She felt rooted to the spot as surely as if it was her up there on the cross, writhing, tears wetting her own cheeks while cuffs kept her exactly where he wanted her.
Meanwhile, Dorian made the whip dance.
He was murmuring in a low voice and the woman responded, and it took Erika some time to understand that he was telling her exactly where each strike would land. Then he waited as she writhed, moaned.
But each time she quivered. Then said distinctly, “Yes, Master Dorian. Please.”
Yes, Master Dorian. Please.
The words jolted through Erika like a live wire. Like the kiss of that terrible whip, landing precisely where he said it would.
He was controlled, precise. Beautiful and terrible, like an angel. He moved like a furious dancer, a dark and mighty cloud, and Erika thought the whole crowd was as breathless and undone as she was.
And for the first time since that party in Athens, Erika thought to ask herself what in the hell she was thinking.
All her little sex games were just that. Games. But Dorian was very plainly the real thing. She’d been charging up a gentle slope and calling it a mountain, and it was only now that she understood the enormity of her error. She wanted to poke at her brother, not...this. A whip and a crowd and that hungry, greedy thing she could feel turn over inside her and bare its fangs.
She didn’t want that. Erika felt exposed, even though she stood with everyone else, and knew no one was looking at her. Still, she felt vibrant with embarrassment and panic. Most of al
l she felt deeply, remarkably silly. Foolish.
The brat he’d called her, and more.
She needed to leave. Now. Before she made an even bigger fool of herself.
But she couldn’t seem to tear herself away. The scene on the dais went on. The whip licked over the submissive on the stage, bringing her closer and closer to that brutally perfect end that Erika could feel all over her. Her own nipples were hard. She was much too wet. She wanted to squirm but she didn’t dare move. Or she couldn’t move.
And then, finally, he asked and was answered with a sob. But a yes, Master Dorian, please, all the same. Dorian shot out his arm. The whip cracked.
Then landed with merciless precision on the submissive’s exposed clit.
The girl on the cross screamed, her body shaking wildly as she arched into a climax, her body like a bow against the cross. Out there in the dark of the audience, rooted to the floor and still bright red with the realization that she shouldn’t have come here at all, Erika felt her own body clench and tremble, as if she was on the same slippery edge.
That was when Dorian stopped. He looked out toward the crowd and the murmurs of appreciation. He looked as if he might smile.
But then he saw her.
She felt the impact of those fierce, intense eyes. She saw the flare of recognition.
And without a single hand upon her—without anything but that outraged gaze of his—Erika felt herself catapult straight over that edge.
Hard.
CHAPTER TWO
HIS BEST FRIEND’S little sister was coming right there on the floor of his club.
That it was impossible—that she shouldn’t be in the club, or dressed like that, or witness to his particular enthusiasms without his knowledge or approval—didn’t change the fact that it was happening. Right there before Dorian Alexander’s astonished eyes.
Her climax rolled over her, and he could see entirely too many things about little Erika Vanderburg, then, that he understood in a flash he would never be able to unsee.
Her plump, high breasts and her hard and proud nipples that poked out from behind the top she wore, begging for his mouth. Or better yet, his clamps. Her exposed abdomen, a sensuous display of softly toned female flesh that quivered with the force of her orgasm. And low on her hips, so low he could see her thong poke up above the waistband, she wore a skirt so tiny it hardly deserved the name, making him think that if she shivered that much more he might actually catch a glimpse of her pussy, too.
The mental image he’d carried around forever of little Erika, maybe age ten, with pigtails he wasn’t sure she’d ever actually worn, went up in smoke.
His gaze shot back up to find hers. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and flooded with arousal. And something else the dominant in him was delighted to see looked a whole lot like the kind of panic that made a good scene sing.
Dorian had been reasonably aroused throughout his whipping demonstration, because he loved what a whip could do to a trembling, beautifully bound woman who let it kiss her and carry her off into bliss. He didn’t understand anyone who claimed they didn’t.
But looking at Erika—and that ferocious orgasm that still held her in its grip—he was suddenly as ragingly turned-on as if instead of a demonstration he’d been deep in a scene he expected to end in his own release.
That’s Conrad’s little sister, something in him protested, but his body didn’t seem to care. His body saw only a lovely submissive, flushed and wide-eyed and panting—just the way he liked them—and all she’d been doing was watching him whip someone else.
Dorian couldn’t permit himself to focus on that, so he focused instead on what he was supposed to be doing on that dais in the first place. Which was demonstrating one of his hobbies for the assembled club members and tourists here on one of the club’s exhibition nights. Only a split second had passed, he was sure of it, despite the fact that to him it felt like a lifetime or two—but it was still a loss of focus.
It didn’t matter how long it was. His lapse of attention galled him. He was no novice, for God’s sake.
He moved over to the cross, murmuring to Angelica as he released her from her cuffs, soothing her as they both waited for her permanent dom to climb up to the dais and take charge of her aftercare. Dorian had to make himself focus the way he should have been already, because what was important here was caring for Angelica, not a bratty little sub—
Sister, he snapped at himself. Bratty little sister. Of his best friend. A man who was more family than friend, as a matter of fact, and who Dorian knew would be distinctly unamused at the idea that his wild-child baby sister knew a club like Walfreiheit existed. He didn’t want to think about Conrad’s reaction to the news that she was going around climaxing in public and, worse still, because of Dorian.
When Angelica was off the cross and in her dominant’s care, Dorian’s responsibilities to her were finished. He handled his equipment and packed it away, then straightened. He turned slowly, not entirely convinced that Erika hadn’t been a figment of his imagination. Though why he would conjure up such a maddening little brat he spent very little time thinking about unless she was right there in front of him, he had no idea. He searched the crowd, half expecting to find no trace of her. He would find a blonde sub who reminded him of Erika instead, and the good news was, he would know exactly what to do with her. He would tie her up, make her scream and cry and come, and exorcise this strange demon he hadn’t known lurked about inside him.
But Erika was right where he’d left her. The actual Erika Vanderburg, his best friend’s little sister, in the disturbingly succulent flesh. She stood stock-still on the hardwood floor, gaping at the stage.
At him.
When their eyes met again, Dorian could feel the temperature rise, then sizzle.
He told himself it was sheer outrage.
Her eyes widened. Dorian lifted an arrogant brow in reply. It was usually sufficient to make submissive knees bend. Hers appeared to tremble, which sent a kind of shock straight through him. And even up on the dais he could see the gulp of air she took in.
He wasn’t surprised when she turned around and dived through the crowd as if she actually believed she could run away from him. Here in this club that in some seasons had operated as his second home. He wasn’t surprised, but still, the fact she was trying to escape him made something in him, dark and hungry...wake up.
Then focus. On her.
Intently.
He jumped down to the floor, following her through the crowd. He was aware that the people parted before him to let him through, the way they always did. He was vaguely cognizant of the usual congratulations and sultry little come-ons from the hopeful unattached submissives who followed him around in packs on nights like this, but he was focused on his quarry. He stalked her through the crowd, feeling a kick of satisfaction as she looked around wildly—then turned deeper into the dungeons rather than out toward the bar.
He followed, nodding at his friends as he passed. He was in clear pursuit of Erika, and he didn’t have to say a word to explain himself. Master Dorian stalked no submissives when they all flocked to him, and here he was, going after this one.
She might as well have worn his name around her neck.
A not-unpleasant thought.
Which really should have horrified him.
It did, he assured himself. Of course it did. No matter why she’d come here.
Though the notion that she might have come tonight to play with others filled him with a hollow sort of heat that took him a moment or two to realize wasn’t simply temper.
It was deeper. Richer.
He recognized his own rare possessiveness—and should have turned around right then and there.
But he didn’t.
She was walking faster, very nearly running while doing her best not to look as if she was doing any such thing. Dorian followe
d, taking the opportunity to control his breath. To settle himself down. To make sure that he was in complete control of himself, as he always fought to be, no matter what Erika Vanderburg was doing here or that bright fire that burned in him and seemed to spell out her name.
Erika made another mistake, cutting toward what he imagined she thought was a hallway. And it was, but Dorian knew the far door was locked on a night like this, when nonmembers roamed the premises and didn’t have permission to wander all the different areas of the Walfreiheit Club as they pleased.
He slowed down, checking in with his control again and trying to separate the dominant in him from her older brother’s best friend—no matter his cock’s take on the matter. By the time he made it to the mouth of the narrow hall that usually functioned as a shortcut to the club’s offices, Erika was already turned back around, clearly having realized there was no escape.
Then she saw him.
She jolted as if he’d used his whip on her, which, predictably, made him imagine doing exactly that—though that was a privilege she would have to earn.
No, he reminded himself. Not her. Not Conrad’s little sister.
Dorian followed her into the hallway, casually blocking any possible exit. The hall was narrow and not exactly brightly lit—but not so dim he couldn’t see that her eyes were wide. And he wasn’t sure how he’d never noticed before that they were a particular shade of blue that reminded him of his grandfather’s island nestled out there in the Aegean Sea.
He couldn’t say he cared much for the comparison now.
He stopped when he was a foot or so away from her. He folded his arms over his chest, widened his stance and waited.
And Erika quivered. He could see the pulse in her neck, banging out exactly the sort of rhythm he liked best. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, betraying her anxiety. He had made a study of the female body in various degrees of erotic distress and he could read her easily. And still, she pulled out that careless, reckless smile of hers that she had to know always put Conrad’s teeth on edge.
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