Dancing With Danger (BWWM 2015) (BWWM Billionaire Romance) (14 page)

No one moved, but Carlos had narrowed his eyes at the man, and Dorian wondered for the hundredth time if Carlos knew more than he had ever let on about what had happened.

“That’s rich, Kingston,” the man said when he could breathe again. “I can’t believe no one told you. Dear old daddy wasn’t as forthcoming as you woulda liked?”

“I believe I asked you the question,” Dorian replied, and there was definitely anger in his voice then. “What my father may or may not have told me is irrelevant.”

“He didn’t tell you,” the man said. “I can tell. Well, it’s not much of a story, anyway from what I hear. Probably was ashamed of himself. See, it happened like this. Our boss is something of a hot head. Always has been. He’s mellowed a bit since he’s getting up in age, but back then he was a firecracker. Look at him the wrong way and risk getting shot in the nuts, see? Your dear old daddy wasn’t always as virtuous as you’d like to think he was. Liked to blow off steam sometimes. And sometimes he ended up in pubs and dives where people in his tax bracket didn’t have no business being if you catch my meaning.”

Dorian caught his meaning.

“Anyway, one night he was there at the same time as the boss. Ended up in a card game. Now, the thing about the boss is yeah, he’s a hothead. Other thing is he hates to lose. He hates being cheated even more than he hates losing.”

The implication was clear. “You don’t mean to say…”

The man nodded, looking gleeful. “I do mean to say. Your daddy cheated the boss in a game of cards, thinking he wouldn’t get caught or whatever. The boss would’ve slit his throat right then and there, but your daddy’s guards burst in and killed a couple of ours and got him out. All of this? Just revenge. Although the money certainly don’t hurt.”

It was sort of like the room was getting smaller around him, narrowing to a point and leaving him floundering for air. Something like that, something so seemingly insignificant, was the reason that his whole life had been full of fear.

Part of him wanted to laugh. He’d always assumed it was something grand that had caused his father to earn the enmity of an entire syndicate, but no.

It was a quibble over a card game.

Suddenly, Dorian didn’t want to be in the room anymore, and he turned on his heel, heading for the stairs and slamming the door behind him.

***

Chapter 10: A Very Bad Idea

Andrea tried not to spend the entire day worrying, she really did. But there was something about knowing that one of the men who’d been trying to kill or kidnap Dorian was there at the manor that made focusing on making coffee hard.

Of course, as soon as she’d come through the door, Camille had been on her, asking her all sorts of questions about her date with Dorian. Andrea had half answered or deflected everything from “Where did he take you?” to “How good of a kisser is he?” None of it was any of Camille’s business, but Andrea had known her long enough to know that she wasn’t going to be able to get anything done if she didn’t give her something.

By the end of her shift, she was chomping at the bit to get out of there, and she had to work on not breaking any speed limits on the way back to the manor.

Ben had said that it would all be taken care of by the time she got back, but she wasn’t so sure she believed that. It seemed like a big deal to catch a member of a crime syndicate climbing over a gate.

The grounds were definitely quiet when she arrived, though, and she drove up to the garage with no trouble, letting herself into the house and stopping in the kitchen to see if Anita was around.

She was prepping for dinner and filled her in on the events of the morning, including the fact that no one had seen Dorian since he’d gone storming out of the cellar. Ben had apparently checked to make sure that he hadn’t actually left the grounds and then ordered everyone to leave Dorian alone.

Andrea chewed on her lip for a bit and then spurred into action. She put the kettle on and brewed a cup of tea, checking with Anita to make sure that she was making it the way Dorian liked it, and then with the cup and a package of cookies in her hands, she went to find Dorian.

It seemed logical to start with his rooms, so she went there first, knocking on the door to the suite with her free hand. When there was no response, she hesitated and then knocked again. “Dorian? Are you in there? It’s Andrea.”

She pressed her ear to the door and heard shuffling inside. There was just enough time to move back before Dorian was opening the door and looking at her.

He looked like he was not having a good day, and she gave him a sad little smile. “Hey.”

“Hello,” he replied, looking at the cup in her hand. “Is that for me?”

“Could be. Are you going to let me in?”

Dorian regarded her for a moment and then nodded, stepping back so she could enter.

Where his rooms had been immaculate and elegant when she’d entered them the day before, now they were a mess. There was broken glass in the sitting room, and his bed was unmade, photo albums scattered all over the floor. She took it all in and then glanced back at him, handing over the tea and putting the cookies down on the coffee table in the sitting room.

When Dorian looked away from her, seemingly ashamed of what he’d done, she shook her head and started to straighten up the mess.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “I made the mess like a petulant child, and I can clean up after myself.”

Andrea shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I’ve done this a lot. And it seems like you’ve had a really rough day.”

Dorian sighed and slumped down into the nearest chair, blowing on the still hot tea before taking a sip. “You could say that. Ben told you what happened?”

“Anita did, actually. I don’t think Ben’s back yet.”

“Ah.” It was a soft sound, and when Andrea looked up, she didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so small before.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’m not sure there’s anything to talk about. My father cheated in a card game against a crime boss and probably would have died right then and there if it hadn’t been for his guards. And now, as a result, I have to deal with the people he pissed off until either I die or all of them do.”

“Or until the police can catch them,” Andrea pointed out. “I’m sure having one of them in custody can only help.”

Dorian snorted. “Sure. Help. I just. I always knew that it was going to turn out to be something not worth it. Not worth all the times I had to hide because people were after us or all the times I thought my father wasn’t going to come home. But to find out the truth and that it was something so
stupid.
” He broke off and shook his head. “I’m not sure what to do with that.”

“Who says you have to do anything with it?” Andrea asked him, carefully moving the broken glass into the nearest trash bin.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not,” she insisted. “No one’s expecting you to just get over it. You can take as much time as you need to process the information, Dorian. And you don’t have to do it alone.”

He seemed to consider that and then put down his cup before getting to his feet and holding a hand out to her. “Are you going to help me?”

Andrea gave him a smile. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re not talking about us having a heart to heart about your feelings?”

“Because you’re a very bright young woman.”

And she was because as soon as she took his hand and let him lead her to his bedroom, she knew what was going to happen. She also knew what she wanted to do for him, and wasted no time in sinking to her knees in front of him on the plush carpet of his room.

Dorian groaned at the sight and she smirked, pleased at the reaction. “I believe I said something about seeing what you taste like,” Andrea said, fingers working at his fly.

“You did,” Dorian replied, and he sounded a bit breathless. “Is this your way of cheering me up?”

“Sure,” she said with a smirk. “Let’s call it that.”

And then she wasn’t talking anymore. Not when there was the much more interesting task of getting Dorian’s pants and underwear down enough that she could free his cock. The look she gave him when she found it half hard already was very clearly smug, and Andrea stroked him with her hand for a bit, delighting in the sounds he made for her and the way his hips bucked in small jerks as she worked him slowly.

Before he’d reached full hardness, she closed her mouth over the head of him, savoring the clean, slightly salty taste of his skin and sucking him down.

“Andrea,” Dorian groaned, swearing under his breath as she kept going down his shaft.

It had been too long since the last time she’d done this for her to take him all the way into her throat, but she planned to work up to that, taking her time to swirl her tongue around the head and hum softly, letting the vibrations pass from her mouth to his flesh.

When he tangled his fingers into her hair, she knew she was doing a good job, and she kept working, bobbing her head and looking up at him, enjoying the way his cheeks were flushed and his mouth was partly open.

There was such satisfaction in making someone who was usually as composed and put together as Dorian fall apart like this, and she felt a burn of pride rising inside of her and warring with the arousal that was making itself at home.

His fingers tightened, and she hummed in pleasure.

Andrea kept it up, working him with her tongue and hollowing out her cheeks to make the suction better. She didn’t want him to come in her mouth because that would be the end of the fun for a bit, so she pulled off, licking him all the way up and then smirking again.

“You have that expression on your face far too often,” Dorian said, shaking his head at her. “Don’t you believe in finishing what you start or is that not an American virtue.”

She was half tempted to bite him for that, but she just laughed. “No, no I do. I just thought you might like to finish somewhere else, if you get what I mean.”

Dorian laughed, and it was probably the first time he’d laughed all day. He helped her to her feet and kissed her hard, teeth nipping at her bottom lip and tugging on it before his tongue slipped into her mouth and laid claim. It was his instinct to be gentle with her, or at least to not force her to respond to his pace, but Andrea wasn’t going to back down. If he needed to be rough to work off some of his frustrations, then he was definitely welcome to be.

She tried to convey that with her reactions to what he did, and when he wound fingers into her hair and pulled her back, yanking her head back at an angle so he could get at her neck, she gasped and felt something low in her tighten.

“Do you like that?” Dorian asked her, and his voice was husky with his own arousal. She could feel the hardness of him pressed against her thigh, and she managed to nod even with her head being pulled back the way it was.

“Keep going,” she panted, clutching at his shirt.

He grinned and returned to her neck, alternating between wet, open mouthed kisses and sharp bites that trailed from her jaw to her shoulder.

He seemed content to stay there for a bit, but soon enough they were moving to the bed. Dorian grabbed her before she could climb onto it, though, pushing her down so that she was bent over the side, feet on the floor and face pressed to the soft bedspread.

She was still in her work clothes, the pressed pants making her butt look good, and she moaned when Dorian caressed it through her pants and underwear and then jerked when the sudden pain of him slapping her butt made itself known.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, smacking her again before getting rid of her bottoms in short order.

Andrea had to kick off her shoes and help him get them off, but then she was bare from the waist down, everything she had on display to him.

The thought of that made her heart pound, and she couldn’t help but spread her legs a bit, wanting him to touch her.

Dorian didn’t make her wait long, either. He stroked the warm wetness between her legs, taking his time before his fingers found her clit. “Tell me what you want,” he breathed, and Andrea shivered.

“I thought this was supposed to be about what you want,” she said, and he laughed again.

“I want you,” Dorian said simply. “I want to stop thinking about how messed up everything is for just a bit and lose myself in you.”

It was such an elegant way to put the need to use sex to forget, and Andrea was charmed all over again, even though she was bent over his bed and half naked. She turned her head just enough that she could smile at him and nodded. “I’m at your disposal,” she said.

Dorian grinned at her, slipping two fingers right inside of her with no fanfare. “Yes. Yes, you are.”

Later, the pair of them lay in a sticky, sweaty heap, breathing hard and trying to catch their breaths. Andrea was pleasantly sore, and she couldn’t keep the smile off of her face. Dorian seemed to be in a much better mood, and he stroked fingers through her hair as they lay together.

“We should clean up,” he said. “Anita’s probably finished with dinner by now, and she always makes delicious things when I’m upset.”

“And you know this because of how often you’re upset?” Andrea teased him with a grin.