The truth was, she doubted he would find any of this entertaining. But here she was all the same.
She rang the bell, not surprised to hear that it sounded like church bells. A cascading sound that filled the plaza and soared up toward the night sky.
This is a terrible idea, she told herself. Run while you can.
But she didn’t move.
A light flicked on above her, flooding her face and making her blink. But Rory stayed where she was, her arms folded, and—she hoped—no particular expression on her face, because she knew he could see her on his security video.
An eternity later, she heard the heavy iron of the dead bolt slide free, and then the door swung open.
She held her breath.
Conrad stood in the opening, light from inside and the light above bathing him and making him look like...a god. And tonight he wasn’t dressed like a page out of GQ. Tonight he was dressed in dark jeans and a dark black T-shirt that made her brain short out. Because she could see his biceps and every ridge in his abdomen, and she was suddenly afraid that she might actually explode.
Right where she stood.
His mouth was hard. A stern, flat line.
His navy blue eyes blazed.
“What an unexpected surprise,” Conrad said, and that voice... It was worse—better—than she remembered. It seemed to crash over her like a wave, even as it was already inside her, filling her up. It made her breasts ache and her pussy pulse and even her hair down her back felt provocative. When all she was doing was looking at him. Listening to him.
“I don’t how to do this,” she told him, feeling jittery. Practically like she was on drugs. “I’m sure it’s all wrong. I’ve never... I mean I don’t know...”
“So far, all you have done is ring a doorbell and stammer,” Conrad replied, quiet and sure but not, she was almost positive, furious. He didn’t even look annoyed. She was going to cling to that. “It would appear you know exactly how to do that. Is that why you came here?”
She remembered her hands on the brick wall and some dark thing inside her pulsed hot, so she did it again. She held out her hands like that, like a supplicant.
And scarier by far, she held his gaze.
“Please,” she heard herself say, in a voice that sounded like need. Not like her. “I... I want more.”
CHAPTER FIVE
FAR BE IT from Conrad to refuse such a pretty little act of surrender.
“You’d better come in, then,” he said, a sense of inevitability kicking through him in a way he would not have liked if he’d allowed himself to focus on it.
He focused on her, instead. She looked different tonight, his little cleaner, who he’d had every intention of forgetting as soon as he walked away from her that night. Before he walked away, even. He’d been sure that it would take very little doing on his part. He would go out, he would indulge all of his appetites in all of his favorite ways, and that would be that.
But it hadn’t worked out that way.
He’d discovered that the appetite he had was very specific, no matter how he wanted it to be otherwise. No one but a disrespectful American would do, a state of affairs that so appalled him that he’d upped his usual ninety-minute daily workouts to twice that to see if he could sweat it out.
Alas, he could not.
And of course, Conrad had her contact details. They had been part of the email his secretary had sent him when Rory’s cleaning service had been hired three months ago, but he hadn’t bothered to look at it until now. It had been lowering indeed to find himself digging out that email, clearly indicating he could not conquer this desire he didn’t want. And he’d spent entirely too much time over the past two weeks arguing with himself about whether or not he would do something with them. Something like call her, God help him, when he had always been known as a master so exacting, so precise, that only the most graceful, obedient, and service-oriented submissives ever dared imagine they might have a chance with him.
He hadn’t bothered with graceless, ignorant, mouthy beginners in a long, long time.
He hadn’t planned to change that. Ever. If anything, the debacle of his attempt to marry had made him an even sterner master, not less.
And yet it had taken him far more self-control than it should have to keep from calling the little cleaner.
Wasn’t it convenient that now he didn’t have to?
He studied her as she walked inside his house, looking jittery and hectic, even though she tried to hide it.
Her hair was down, and he liked that. It was inky black, glossy, and fell below her shoulders in lovely waves. She wore a hint of cosmetics on her face, and unlike some who made it look as if they’d used just a hint by using a great deal, he had the impression her use was actually sparing.
Conrad had no opinion on cosmetics one way or the other, but he filed that away anyway, because it told him things about her. That she was confident. That she liked how she looked enough to both enhance it and not hide it.
Rory was dressed in clothing far more becoming tonight. A figure-skimming tank top over a loose, flowing sort of skirt that showed him acres of her sweetly formed legs straight down to her bright red painted toenails inside a pair of sandals. Around her neck she wore a frothy sort of summer scarf. And down one arm, a collection of bracelets that chimed and sang when she moved.
She looked bright and almost too pretty to bear. He remembered discovering her clit ring, and stopped pretending everything about her didn’t fill him with an impossible heat.
Conrad beckoned her, with exaggerated chivalry, to precede him into the part of the grand space on the first floor that he liked best. For a variety of reasons. It was a living room, first and foremost. It was set with various chairs and couches, tables and art, all arrayed around the fireplace he enjoyed in winter. But this part of the house was off the plaza, and on nights like this, he opened up the French doors and let his garden in.
Conrad loved cities—any city. He craved that kind of pulsing energy, because there was nothing better than setting out on a long walk at any hour and feeling the heartbeat of the city as he moved through it. He loved Paris particularly, because it was his. No ghosts of his father here. No interference from his overbearing mother. Here he had built himself a company, a fortress, and a life, and all of it made sense only here in the center of the city.
But a man needed green to grow, his father had told him long ago. Conrad had taken that to heart.
Assuming he had a heart, that was.
A topic that was often up for debate. With his mother, the impossible Chriszette, and occasionally one of her unfortunate lovers. Who seemed always to feel the need to chime in on Vanderburg family matters—but rarely more than once. And with his sister, of course—though Erika had changed since she’d started up with Dorian. All for the better, Conrad had to admit, after years of assuming Erika was a lost cause. It was why he’d cut her off.
Something he’d remedied once Erika and Dorian had actually started living together. Little as he wished to think about the things that must be true about his sister if she’d ended up with his best friend.
Given that Conrad and Dorian had discovered they’d shared a great many of the same interests when they’d been teenagers, shunted off to the same boarding school and prone to the sort of confessions that could only be made at age fourteen.
He shoved that away, as he always did, because surely he could wish them the best without allowing himself to imagine his sister as the submissive she must be if she was the right woman for Dorian. Or if Dorian was the right man for her, which it was clear he was.
Conrad’s oft-disputed heart could only take so much.
But happily, unsolicited comments on his heart or lack thereof were not something he had to contend with when it came to lovely women begging him to perform his favorite acts all over their bodies. For his own pleas
ure and amusement.
Especially not when they turned up at his front door to commence said begging, a practice he would normally strongly discourage. And certainly not reward like this.
But her bloody contact details had been taunting him for two weeks, and his body did not understand why he kept going to the gym instead of the dungeon.
There was a faint breeze through the windows as he led Rory to the chair he wished her to take. The sound of the Champs-élysées from afar. The luxury flats and penthouses in the tall buildings surrounding his private plaza seemed like their own galaxy of sorts, lights beaming down through the canopy of trees in his garden.
He expected Rory to balk, or start ranting at him again. That she sat down quietly and obediently was one more indication the past two weeks had impacted on her.
Conrad was egotistical enough to enjoy that. Even if he was also experienced enough to understand that it might not be him she’d come back for as much as another taste of dominance.
If a person had a taste for it, it was difficult—after sampling it for the first time—to think about much of anything else.
He knew that all too well. He remembered.
Conrad took the chair opposite her, sitting down with his legs thrust out so that he claimed the greater part of the space between them. And so that he was giving the impression of caging her between them without actually resorting to chains or bars. Though the night was young.
And then he...did nothing. He propped his head on one hand, kept his gaze on her, and was silent.
Silent and watchful, while his quiet house stood hushed all around, like another observer.
Faint sounds of traffic floated in the French doors. Music from somewhere up high. The hint of laughter on the breeze, but gone the next moment.
He could have turned on music, but didn’t. He waited.
And watched, entertained, as Rory lost her nerve and began to fray, right there before him.
First she began to fidget. She arranged and rearranged the hem of her skirt as it flirted with the middle of her pretty thighs. She pressed her lips together, then straightened them. She fiddled with her bracelets. She moved her hair forward over one shoulder, then back. Then she did it all again.
And again.
And all the while, her breathing got faster and shallower. He watched her pupils dilate. Faint beads of nervous heat appeared at her temples. Conrad wondered how long it would take before the panic completely overwhelmed her.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” she asked, finally. The words sounded torn straight from her, and she looked like they must have hurt, coming out.
“I am not the one who appeared at your door, in what I can only assume is desperation,” Conrad said, coolly. As if he hadn’t stared at her bloody mobile number for far too long, though she didn’t need to know that. Not when her anxiety made her nipples this hard. “What is it you have to say?”
She blew out her breath in a telling huff and wriggled in her chair, likely unaware that she was broadcasting her need to him. “I...”
But that was all she could manage.
Conrad didn’t let himself smile. “Let’s start here. What is it you want?”
His voice was kind, but implacable all the same. He watched as she blinked, clearly considering how she might answer that.
“I hope you remember what I told you at our last meeting,” he continued, while he could practically see her thoughts scrolling across her forehead. “Don’t lie to me. If you don’t know something, say you don’t know. If you don’t want to answer a question, say that. If it turns out that you thought you wanted one thing only to discover that really, you wanted another, that’s fine, too. But everything that happens after this moment must be based on trust and honesty.”
Her gaze brightened. “You mean, like, safewords?”
“I see you’ve been doing your homework.”
“It seems straightforward enough. As a concept.”
He smiled, then, unable to help himself. “I certainly hope not. What would be the fun in that?”
She frowned at him. He took that as evidence that she was remembering herself. Recovering her equilibrium, getting her feet beneath her. Rediscovering that mouth of hers.
Good. He wanted her desperate for release—and desperate to please him—not actually desperate.
“You’re acting like I’m some big pathological liar, which I’m not,” she said, rudely. But that was her equilibrium coming back, so Conrad didn’t react to it. “But I don’t know how I’m supposed to be setting new records in honesty when you’re...doing stuff.”
Conrad sighed, let her hear it, and watched as her frown turned more worried than defiant. Excellent progress. “We’re not concerning ourselves with ‘doing stuff’ right now. That comes later. Maybe. Depending on how this conversation goes.”
She switched back to frowning at him. “Well, I didn’t come here for conversation. I came here for—”
“I understand exactly what you came here for.” He let his voice shift, then. All dominant, as an experiment, just to see what she would do.
But he already knew.
And she didn’t disappoint him. Rory’s eyes widened, and then she went quiet.
“This isn’t a blind date,” he said quietly, with all that authority still there in his voice. And the way he gazed at her, patient enough—but hard and stern. “You already know what’s behind the locked door in my house. I felt your pussy tighten around my fingers while you came.”
She was breathing heavily again. He doubted she realized he could hear it. “I remember.”
“I’m sure that you do, or you wouldn’t be here now. But this isn’t a seduction, Rory. This is an interview. One you might very well not pass.”
She looked flushed and cranky, then, which was truly one of his favorite expressions any woman could wear. Particularly this woman.
“Okay. I don’t really know what that means, but whatever you want.”
He reminded himself that for her, that was the equivalent of rising to her feet, putting her hands behind her head, and presenting herself for his sensual inspection.
“That’s an excellent start.” He settled back in his chair. “I asked you a question.” When she only stared at him, he relented, though he kept his expression stern. “What do you want?”
She didn’t toss an answer right back at him. Maybe she might actually have listened to what he’d told her, would wonders never cease.
But his cock stirred at the notion that this girl could truly be taught.
“More,” Rory said after sitting with it a while. “I guess I want more.”
“More of what?”
She shifted in her chair again, and Conrad knew that if he asked her to bare herself, her pussy would be swollen already. Wet. Needy.
Just the way he liked it.
“The whole thing,” she answered him, sounding almost solemn. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“What makes it different from any other situation you’ve had?” He lifted a brow. “I seem to recall you boasting at some length about your vast sexual prowess.”
She flushed at that. He approved. “I’ve had sex, sure. But I’ve never... I mean, you know...” Rory clearly fought to settle herself. “I’ve never come before. With someone, I mean.”
“What I’m trying to figure out,” Conrad said, all quiet intent, “is if you came back here because you liked the way I made you come or if you just like that I made you come at all.”
She looked down at her hands. “Both.”
Conrad nodded. “Do you to like to be controlled?”
Rory jerked in her chair, and he could almost see the denial on her lips. She stopped herself. “I wouldn’t have thought so. But when I think about...” Her gaze slid from her hands, over toward that brick wall where he’d taught h
er that first lesson. “If I think about it, that’s the part that makes me...”
“Good,” he said, and smiled when her eyes shot back to his. “If it didn’t excite you, there would be no point in you coming here. You already know I like control.”
“Have you experimented?” She cleared her throat. “With, you know. Doing it both ways? Just to see?”
“That sounds like you’ve been on the internet.” He made a tsking sound. “No, I’m not now, nor have I ever been, a switch.”
“But I thought it made sense that the way to learn how to do something was to feel it, first.”
“I know how to drive,” Conrad said dryly. “Without the faintest idea how it feels to be an engine. Don’t you?”
Rory’s gaze moved over him, and he would not ordinarily have allowed that, but she was different. This wasn’t a club. She’d never done this before.
And she was just different. Full stop.
“How did you know you were...?”
“A sexual dominant?” Conrad shrugged. “It was always clear. All sex can be good, but the kind that works best for a person has something else, doesn’t it? I’ve heard people say that it’s brighter. That it has more edge to it. Greater highs and lows, certainly. Whatever you call it, it was always clear which I preferred. I gravitated toward that more and more the older I got. And now?” He didn’t quite smile. He let his gaze do that for him. “I don’t really see the point in pretending to be something I’m not.”
“Have you ever? Pretended, I mean? Not necessarily to be on the other side, but to be...” She waved a hand at him. “Not you.”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
And maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised that this conversation was straying into ground he never, ever shared with the submissives he played with. Because none of this was standard. The submissive women he met in the clubs would never dare show up at his front door. Or do any of the other things Rory had already done.
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