Chapter 33
Elodie
The traffic slows us down, adding more time to my torment.
Nearly two hours pass before the familiar wrought iron gates of Dorian’s home finally come into view and we drive inside.
It takes another couple of minutes to reach the house and park by the steps where we always get out.
I’m the first one to leave. Usually I’d tell Keith goodbye and wish him a good day but I don’t want to talk.
Dorian is right behind me and I know he can’t wait to get inside so he can trash me out. As if I was the one who did anything wrong.
Bastard.
He’s driving me fucking crazy. I don’t know how I haven’t lost my mind yet.
And the silence… it’s not doing me any favors.
I want to rip into him, but if I start talking—or rather—shouting—I’ll never stop.
Shit. I’m so off my game I end up verging into the living room by accident.
He follows. Of course.
“So that’s it? You’re just going to keep walking. Avoid me?” Dorian growls.
“Leave me alone.” I toss the words over my shoulder.
He catches up to me and grabs my arm. “We’re going to talk about this.”
“There is nothing to talk about.” I try to wrench my hand free but he grips tighter.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” His brows rise so high they almost disappear into his hairline. “You don’t think a date with my asshole cousin is something we should talk about?”
My body stiffens, ready to snap. “Date?” The shrill tone in my voice makes him flinch. “You think I was on a date with Parker?”
“What the fuck else do you call a meeting between two people at a restaurant?”
“A goddamn meeting. That’s what I call it.”
“He wants to fuck you. That makes it a date.” His skin is reddening by the second.
I can’t argue about Parker’s intensions. I’m pretty sure Dorian is right. That said, I can’t be responsible for anyone else’s desires.
“That is nothing to do with me. It wasn’t a date. After all I’m not you?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I shoot him an incredulous stare. He can’t be serious. “Parker told me. He said you’re always with your women.”
He responds with an off-center laugh that makes him look and sound like a psycho. “Parker… Parker told you that? And you believed him?”
I keep my eyes on him. How can he ask me that? How? He’s acting like the last few weeks didn’t happen.
“Why wouldn’t I believe him?” I level him a hard stare and raise my hands. “Have you given me any reason not to?”
Something shifts in his eyes. The rage dulls, though his face remains stern.
“Even if he wasn’t telling the truth, haven’t you been arranging your little meetups with Susan?
” My tone jumps a notch, dragging up my earlier anger.
And now I’m getting to the real point. “We shouldn’t even be having this fucking stupid conversation anyway.
Aren’t we supposed to have separate lives? ”
“No! We are not having separate lives,” he growls, tightening his fist.
My pulse kicks hard against my ribs and my spine snaps straight. For a heartbeat we stare at each other and I’m so stunned I can’t breathe.
“What? I don’t…” I stutter in a rasp. “I don’t understand you—”
“No separate lives, Elodie.” His jaw clenches.
The words land harder, hitting me all at once. My lungs stall and a hollow pressure blooms in my chest. I blink at him, my mind still trying to catch up. “Is that… rule just for me?”
“No.”
My fingers go slack at my sides. “But you and Susan—”
“No.” His voice is softer now. “There is just you. Only you. You and me.”
The air leaves my lungs like he's knocked it out of me, and the tightness in my chest fractures.
My lips part but nothing comes out.
I search his face for that deflection I’m used to. For that cruel twist he always delivers right when I let myself believe him.
It doesn't come.
He looks like he means it. He looks like he means every word.
My throat tightens. I don’t know what to do with that. Don’t know what to do with him. Don’t know what to do with the part of me that wants to believe him so badly it hurts.
"I..."
He steps closer and cups my face. “Just kiss me.”
For the smallest fraction of a second, I hesitate.
For the smallest fraction of a second, I hesitate. Not because I don’t want to. Because I do. Desperately. But this feels like standing on the edge of something I might not come back from.
I blink. Then his lips are on mine, making the decision for me.
All the rage storming through me dissolves on contact, and I melt into him.
He slips an arm around me, pulling me flush against his chest. The rapid beat of his heart collides with mine, and for the first time, I feel him.
The real him. The raw version of him. The beautiful parts I used to imagine when I thought of him as Dorian Gray.
The parts no painting could ever capture.
My thoughts scatter when he deepens the kiss, walking me backward toward the sofa.
“I want you,” he whispers against my lips. “Right here. Right now.”
I answer with another kiss, giving in to the pull of my own desire.
He groans at the impact, but drags his mouth from mine long enough to guide me the rest of the way to the sofa. Once we’re there, he pushes me down and practically tears off my top. Then we’re kissing again.
Kissing and pulling at each other’s clothes. Peeling them away layer by layer until we’re both naked and desperate for more.
He guides me onto my hands and knees, then drives his massive cock deep inside me from behind.
A violent shock tears through me the instant I feel him. Then heat races over my skin when he starts thrusting into me.
He moves deep and rough and fast, building a relentless rhythm that claims every part of me.
The lewd sound of flesh slapping against flesh fills the room, along with the broken sounds of our pleasure. It mutes everything else in my mind until there is nothing but him.
Dorian fucks me like he owns every part of me. Like he wants me and hates how much he wants me. And God help me, I feel owned.
This isn’t just anger anymore. It isn’t even lust. It’s something that feels dangerously close to surrender.
I come, crying out as pleasure rips through me and his name tears from my throat.
“Your pussy loves my cock, little Lamb,” he taunts against my ear. “Don’t worry. There’s so much more where that came from.”
He makes good on the promise, giving me more of what I never realized I was so desperate for.
Another wild orgasm crashes through me, sweeping through my body like a storm and leaving me wrecked. Mindless moans spill out of me as I writhe against him, spent but still aching for more.
With one deep grunt, he drives into me even harder, even faster, and then we’re both coming.
Pleasure rockets through me, so intense I feel it in my bones before it floods through every nerve ending.
I will never recover from this.
Dorian stills inside me, and I feel the warmth of his release filling me.
He breathes into my hair, then grips my waist and slides his hand across to the flat of my stomach.
“We’re not done yet,” he mutters into my ear.
I turn my head, and the scruff of his beard scrapes my cheek. “We aren’t?”
He shakes his head and gives me a boyish smile that feels at odds with everything that just happened. “No, Mrs. Vale. I want you in my bed.”
In one swift move, he pulls out of me and scoops me into his arms.
We fall into another kiss as he carries me to his room, and somewhere beneath the wreckage of my pulse and breath and tangled thoughts, I know this changes everything.
* * *
I stir slowly, surfacing from the haze of a dream where I’m still wrapped in my husband’s arms.
Warmth fills me first as I roll onto my side.
My cheek brushes a soft pillow, and then the scent of sandalwood and musk drifts into my lungs.
Him.
It’s everywhere. In the sheets. In the air. It clings to me like it’s soaked into my skin.
I breathe in deeper, like I can’t get enough.
My body aches in a way that makes my breath catch, my fingers curling into the sheets as flashes of last night flicker through my mind.
Heat creeps up my neck, setting my nerves alight.
I squeeze my eyes shut and stay still.
Because if I don’t move—if I don’t open them—I can pretend I’m still there. Still wrapped in him. Still hearing him tell me there’s only me. Him and me.
If I wake fully, it will fade.
And I’ll be back in reality. Back in this twisted arrangement we’ve built.
And he’ll be gone.
Dorian is always gone.
He never stays after sex. I don’t even know what he looks like first thing in the morning. Or in sunlight.
The earliest I’ve ever seen him was that morning after the Marcus incident—and even then, we were in the kitchen. No light. No softness.
So I stay like this for a moment longer.
In this quiet space, I allow myself to admit the one thing I never want to.
I’m in love with him.
I am utterly and stupidly in love with my husband. And that means I broke the only rule I set for myself when I signed his contract.
And that means I broke the only rule I set when I signed his contract.
Love is why I felt like I was losing my mind.
Love is why I want him to be mine.
Love is why I care.
And why I’ll get hurt.
A soft shuffling sound pulls at my awareness.
At first, I think I imagined it. Until it sounds again.
It’s then I realize I’m not alone.
I open my eyes, bracing myself. Everything in me goes still when my eyes meet his, in the bright sunlight.
For a second, I don’t understand what I’m seeing.
Golden sunlight spills through the window, casting him in a glow that feels almost angelic, except the grin he gives me is anything but.
He’s leaning against the window, all sculpted muscle and ink, a pair of joggers hanging low on his hips.
Lord, he’s beautiful. Beautiful in that dangerous way you know you should avoid, but can’t.
He’s watching me, and my heart skips several beats when I realize he didn’t leave.
I pull the sheet up over my chest as I sit up, my eyes locked on him.
“You’re still here,” I murmur, my voice rough from sleep.