Page 14 of Vienna Bliss

“You’re willing to call it theft in this case?”

“Sadly there’s really no other word for it, is there?”

“No.” Alexander couldn’t help it, he smiled. She was unrepentant.

“You’re getting everything right; by all means, keep going,” she said.

“You used my travel schedule to figure out that the Orchid Club existed. You weren’t lying about having been a submissive in the past, and were able to leverage that into a membership.”

Alena nodded.

“You came to the event with a plan to attract my attention, and succeeded.”

“Not right away,” she said softly. “The first month I just watched you, the second you never even looked my direction. You prefer blondes.”

Alexander nodded; there was no point in denying that.

“I considered dying my hair, but opted for the cloak.”

“The woman in the red cloak. Intriguing.” He looked out over the water.

Alena sat up and scooted closer to him, laying her hand on his raised knee. “I meant every word I said. About us. I had no intention of being physically intimate with you beyond the intimacy of a good BDSM scene. The way you make me feel, it… it changed things for me.”

Things changed for him too, that night in Vienna after she'd gone to her own room and he did admit to himself that he was falling in love. The joy and terror of that had been too quickly replaced by the cold anger when he saw what she was doing.

“I’m sorry, Alexander. I’m sorry because I had no right to hurt you, and that’s what I ended up doing.”

“And I hurt you.” He didn’t look at her, even when she put her hand on his cheek and tried to urge him to face her.

“I knew that changing my checklist was a terrible idea, and I did it because I wanted you. Because you made me feel things that I…”

“Things like pain.” The words were sharp when he meant them to be.

“Things like peace that I had forgotten how to feel. You’re an amazing Dom, a wonderful man.” Alena stumbled to a stop.

“Yesterday you told me you loved me.” They were the words he’d been hesitant to say.

Alena laid her cheek on his knee. “And I meant them. I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Alexander closed his eyes but it wasn’t joy he felt, it was pain.

“No, you don’t.”

“Excuse me?” She raised her head, eyes narrowing. “You don’t get to tell me how I feel.”

“I do, because I abused you. I kept you isolated and in pain. What I did to you…”

“It was just a game.”

“Yesterday you said it wasn’t just a game.”

“I meant emotionally it wasn’t a game. The BDSM stuff that happened was just play.”

Finally he looked back at her. “If you believed that, why didn’t you use your safe word?”

Alena pushed to her feet and dusted at her skirt, ignoring him.

“Because you didn’t, you could, couldn’t.” Damn it, it was always when his words mattered the most that he couldn’t get them out of his mouth. “You didn’t think I’d honor it.”