Page 34 of Vienna Bliss

“No. My bed. In my home.”

“And as what? Who would I be in that bed?”

Now he smiled and it was a real, joy-filled smile, with just a hint of wicked at the corners. “You’d be the woman under the cloak. That’s all I want. Just you. The real Alena.”

Chapter 8

He hated this. Everything about it.

Alexander was unaccustomed to decision making processes where he didn’t have final authority. His leadership style relied heavily on respecting the expertise of those who worked for him, and, therefore, relying on them to present only the best possible options to him.

The flip side of that was if he was ever presented with only a single option, no matter how thorough the explanations as to why that was the best or only good option, his people knew that didn’t guarantee he would approve it.

When other people thought there was only a single possible outcome, and therefore nothing to do but acquiesce, Alexander knew better. He knew that there was always a choice.

Now if he could just get Alena and Rolf to understand that, then when he once again told them that the plan was asinine, they would fall in line and either consider a different solution, or come up with one that he found more palatable.

They’d been back in Vienna for two days, and Alena and Rolf were still insisting that this asinine plan of orchestrating Absolon “discovering your sexual proclivities”—as Rolf had put it—was still the active plan.

There were almost too many reasons for him to name as to why he thought this was a bad idea. They ranged from the inconsequential—he had made a personal rule long ago that he would never host any BDSM or Orchid Club event, which was why, though this month’s had been in his home city, he hadn’t been the host. He certainly hadn’t ever planned to host even a small gathering in his house—for far more pressing reasons.

This plan put Alena in too much danger. She’d have to meet with Absolon as part of the charade planning process. He raised that objection over and over, and no matter how many times Alena tossed that regal, slightly amused smile his way, a look that said without words that she could handle anything Absolon could throw at her, he worried.

Worried because the plan had progressed to not just a BDSM gathering…but a slave auction.

That had been Rolf’s idea, proposed because otherwise Alena would need to remain with Alexander, acting as his sub, for months, years, however long it took the investigation to reach a point where Interpol was ready to act.

Alexander had almost said that he saw no problem with that. Alena living with him for months…that was a very nice thought.

And the fact that he’d considered it, if only for a half a second, was the reason that, as much as he hated it, using the gala as a way to “end” his relationship with Alena might be the lesser of the evils.

Forcing her to live here with him, just to uphold this story that everything that had happened in the past week was about a relationship gone bad rather than a morally dubious Interpol investigation gone wrong, wasn’t fair to Alena. She had a right to live her life, and even the constant reminders that this was all to stop terrorists were insufficient justification for trapping her, expecting her to give up even more than she already had. It also wasn’t fair to him, but that was a lesser concern.

On the other hand, he was loath to have her pretend, even if it was only for a handful of hours over the course of days, to be his BDSM slave once more. What he’d done to her in Moldova was…

This time, even pausing to think through what he wanted to say wasn’t enough. His feelings were too complex to be quantified by language.

Sitting beside her on the floor of the dining room, listening to the horrific childhood story had allowed him to let go of his certainty that she wasn’t able to think clearly because of how he’d treated her. That had been helped by her almost skewering his cock with her high heel.

But as he let go of that guilt and worry, the need to possess her, the desire to dominate her, came roaring back. Last night he’d carried her to his bed, iced her knee, and then slept beside her. It had been sweet and quiet, the way it had been in Moldova.

And he’d had to get up at five am and take a cold shower to stop himself from waking her up by pinning her arms by her head and sliding his cock into her.

He wasn’t some dumb beast unable to control himself, but he also knew that he wanted her so much that she made him feel things he never had before, that he might not be able to treat it like a…a game.

Thinking of that term brought his thoughts back around to what she’d told him about how she saw the world. As a game. A game she won or lost, but a game, nonetheless. After learning more about her childhood it was an understandable defense mechanism. He wished he could reach through time, into the past, and protect her, care for her, as a child. She was lovely and remarkable, and deserved so much better than she’d received.

He knew there were people in the lifestyle for whom care taking was as important in the power exchange as any physical play or sexual contact. That had never been an urge he felt. Until Alena.

He’d let her give him information about what she knew would work for her aggravated knee and then he’d done the icing and wrapping himself, rather than calling his private doctor to come and do it. Because he’d wanted to take care of her with his own hands.

There had been far more new experiences since Alena came into his life than he’d had in several years prior. The most alarming of which was that he was irrefutably in lo—

“Still pouting about not getting your way?” Alena whispered in his ear.

Alexander reached back and grabbed her, guiding her around from the back of the armchair where she’d crept up behind him and then pulled her onto his lap.

She was warm and a little damp, her hair up in a messy bun atop her head, the V of skin displayed by the neckline of thin robe pinker then normal, mostly likely due to the hot bath she’d gone to take nearly an hour ago.