“We couldn’t even make it twenty-four hours,” I said, stuffing a spoonful of vanilla ice cream into my mouth as I sat on the bed beside him, wearing one of the many baby-doll lingerie pieces I’d brought for this week.

“In our defense, we knew we wouldn’t,” he replied, taking an apple out of the spread of crackers, cold cuts, fruit, and ice cream now in between us on the new set of sheets. He rested against the grey headboard of the bed and took a bite, wearing only his black boxer briefs.

“Even if we knew, we still should have put up more of a fight, instead of just giving in and having—”

“Wild, amazing, Kama-Sutra inspired sex?” He asked with a grin on his face, and it was contagious.

“Mr. Rhys-Gallagher, show some decorum please, you are in the presence of a lady,” I said, lifting my head, and snuck in another bite of ice cream.

He bowed forward a little just to say, in a British accent, “Forgive me, m’lady, does thou prefer the term Immoral Relations?”

I just stared at him, the smile on my face wide because I really couldn’t believe this was him. “You know, you’re completely different to the guy I see in the papers and the news.”

“You’ve seen me in the news?” he asked, before taking another bite of his apple.

“Better question would be who in New York hasn’t heard of Dorian Rhys-Gallagher, CEO of Rhys-Gallagher National, the Demon Butcher of Wall Street,” I said in a deep voice and leaned in as if I were telling the story of Freddy Krueger. He just watched, amused, his eyebrow raised. “You’re kinda a big deal. You were even on Time—”

“So, you’ve kept tabs on me?” He asked, reaching over and taking my spoon, feeding himself ice cream before giving the spoon back.

I rolled my eyes at his question. “Aren’t you hearing me? You’re kind of hard not to keep tabs on.”

“So, how does this Demon Butcher look to the rest of the world?” He asked, wiping the ice cream from the corner of his mouth, but he kinda made it worse so…because we were just breaking all the rules, I leaned over and licked it. He was stunned for about a second, and then leaned back with a smirk. “Thanks.”

“I’m not sure how you looked to the rest of the world, but to me you looked…dead inside,” I said. He paused mid-bite, for only a second, to give me a look I didn’t understand. He snickered before eating again.

“What?” I crossed my legs and turned to face him. “What’s with the face?”

“I just…” He paused again.

“What?”

“I’ve always wondered where the Demon in Demon Butcher came from. It never made sense, now it does,” he snickered and slid down, making himself comfortable on the pillows.

“That’s seriously what you were considered?” He couldn’t be serious, and yet he really was curious.

“Well, it’s not like I could ask now, could I?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, that’s funny, I can see you now, wearing your fancy suits in your big corner office, glaring at everyone, and they’re probably praying to make it out intact, and you’re just in your own world, wondering about your nickname.”

“Glad you find it amusing, you’ll soon see how it feels to deal with people who bullshit you every single day, just so they can get something from you,” he said, putting the core of the apple back on the tray.

“I’ll soon see?”

“You’re rich, Lulu,” he said, and it took me much longer than it should have to remember what he was talking about.

“Holy shit, I’m rich,” I whispered, and he laughed at me.

“Welcome to the club,” he said, lifting the water bottle to me. “I hope you enjoy caviar because that’s what you’ll be offered the moment you enter any social gathering in this bloody city.”

“I actually don’t mind caviar,” I said.

He cringed and shook his head. “Whoever labeled eggs from the ovaries of a female fish an international delicacy should be thrown in the ocean.”

“Tell us how you really feel, Mr. Rhys-Gallagher!” This was hilarious. He was hilarious and just so relaxed. I never wanted to stop talking about this stuff… This stuff was easy. “So, just to recap, you aren’t the scary, money-hungry, demon butcher, you’re actually a sweet, caring, funny guy who hates caviar?”

We shared a gaze, and he was calmer. Actually, not as animated would be the better word choice. “I’m both, Lulu. I’m a lot of things to a lot of different people. Just like you are, and just like everyone else is. Everyone is complicated.”

There was a soft silence between us, and I didn’t like it.

Putting the ice cream down on the tray before moving it over to the night stand, I turned to him, and he seemed to know what I was going to ask, which was funny because I didn’t even know how to ask what it was I wanted to say.

“What happens now?” he asked me. “Now that we’ve slept together again, despite all of the reasons we shouldn’t, and knowing that we barely know each other, what happens now? How do we go forward from here?”

“Please don’t tell me it’s up to me,” I said, having a feeling that I knew where he was going. The smallest smirk appeared on this lip. “Dorian, you can’t just lay this all at my feet. This involves—”

“No matter what you say, or do, whether we sleep together or not, no matter your past, I’ll always be here for you,” he said, laying back onto the bed. I was able to look down at him, but he closed his eyes as he spoke. “We’re family, we were family the day Alaric was born, so don’t ever worry about me walking away from him. I won’t. As for you and me? I’d prefer to keep sleeping with you.”

“Would you now?” I asked, tracing my finger over his nose, down to his lips.

“I would.” He kissed my finger. “But I also don’t want you to think you don’t have a choice. Which is why I was going to tell you it is up to you to decide. After all, the stronger party always negotiates the terms.”

“I’m not the stronger party between us.”

“You haven’t noticed?” His eyes opened as I laid down and cuddled up beside him. He turned onto his side, his hands gently caressing my thigh. “What exactly can I give you that you don’t already have? Money? You have that—”

“Because of you—”

“Because of Donovan. Not me. I was just the messenger,” he corrected.

I tried to think of something else he could give me, and one word came to mind. But I didn’t have the guts to say it. Instead, I asked, “Well Mr. Rhys-Gallagher, oh great businessman, what should I, the stronger party, demand?”

“Whatever you were going to ask just now and changed your mind from?” he replied.

“How did you know I was thinking of something?”

“What great businessman can’t read a face? Especially one as beautiful as yours.” He snickered, doing the same thing I’d done and traced his finger down my nose to my lips. “We already know each other’s secrets. We’ve already lost the fight against our lust, felt guilty about it, and did it all over again. So, let’s abandon what we think we should and simply do what we want to do. Who can stop us but us?”

I was starting to see how, at just thirty-three, he was considered to be a Titan in the business world. He said this was my choice, but I felt like he was dropping breadcrumbs in front of a starving woman, leading them directly to where he wanted.

“What do you want, Lulu? Better yet, what can I give to balance against what you give me? Don’t even think about it, or feel guilty about it, just say it.”

“Love,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. It all poured out of me like a dam had broken, and once I started speaking, I couldn’t stop. “Fall in love with me. Be obsessed with me. Respect me and care about me. Miss me like crazy when I’m not around. But always be around. Never leave me feeling cheap or dirty. Try not to make me cry. Have no one else but me. Be patient with me when I mess up. Take my loneliness away. Let me take yours away. Show me the best and worst of yourself. Let me know it’s safe to fall in love with you.”

My heart ached, and it beat so fast in my chest, my ears started to ring. I couldn’t even look him in the eye, and I could feel my cheeks getting warmer. I couldn’t believe I’d said all of that.

“Only,” he spoke, lifting my chin up so I had to look. “If you see me as me. Not my brother, or anyone else. Can you see me as just Dorian?”

“I can, and I will.”

He smiled, it was a real genuine smile, and it wasn’t good for my already weak heart. “Then you have a deal, Ms. Thorne. Let’s fall in love.”

DORIAN

She slept in my arms, and I could feel myself drifting off, too. The only thing keeping me up was a nonsensical amount of joy and that small twinge of guilt in the back of my mind. I was going to do it. I was going to take my brother’s girl, his son, everything he threw away, because I wanted this joy to stay. I deserved that at the very least. So why the guilt? I thought it was just because I lusted after her so badly. But it wasn’t as simple as that.

Since Donovan had passed, I’d wished over and over again I’d found him earlier, that I could have gotten to him before he got so sick. I wished he was still alive numerous times. But now that I had her in my arms, I couldn’t wish for the same thing, at least not as genuinely as I did before. If he was alive, I could never be with her like this. If I’d gotten to him earlier and helped him, he’d be here, and most likely with her. My guilt came from the horrible fact that I was no longer upset that he was gone. I loved my brother, and I missed him, but apparently not enough to wish he was still here.

She muttered, curling further against me.

I didn’t want to give this up because I knew she and Alaric were my last and only chance of escaping the numbing loneliness. I wondered why she’d jumped me when I told her I was addicted to her. However, after her demands, I realized it was because she had numbing loneliness inside her too. Alaric had been her saving grace, but she wanted more, she wanted to be loved for who she was, and I couldn’t blame her.

Whoever said they didn’t want to believe the way she described it was a liar.