we can do what we want when we want, and I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission. I can even do this...” Nora leaned in and kissed Kingsley on the lips. How could she not? He was so close and looked so handsome in his black trousers, black boots, gray shirt and black vest. Not a lord or a duke, but a king to the bone. He didn’t hesitate to return the kiss, but he kept the passion enchained. This was a slow kiss, deep and sensual. A kiss that could and should last for hours. “I can kiss you and no one has to know. I can kiss you because I want to kiss you, not because he’s sharing me with you. I’m sharing me with you.”
“You always were. You never spread your legs for me just to make him happy. Even that first night when you were only twenty, we both know you did it for you.”
Nora kissed him again, which was the best way she knew of admitting he was right.
“I’ll do it for you now. Let’s go to the playroom,” Nora whispered against his lips. “I need to practice my flogging on someone.”
Kingsley laughed, a low sensuous laugh. “Not yet.”
“I know you want it,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder.
“I want it.”
“You don’t think I’m ready yet?”
“You don’t think you’re ready yet. If you did, it would have happened already.”
Nora groaned—loudly.
“You’re driving me crazy, King.” She collapsed into her chair in frustration.
“Believe me, the feeling is mutual.” Kingsley knelt in front of her and placed his hands on her bare thighs.
“She beat the shit out of a man just to intimidate me,” Nora said as Kingsley slid his hands up her legs and under her skirt. “I just... I hate her. I’m not used to hating anybody. Except him. But...”
“What?” Kingsley asked as he slid her panties down her thighs.
“I have to win, King. I can’t lose to that woman.”
“You won’t. I’ll make sure of it, Mistress.” He pushed her legs open and draped them over each arm of the chair. With his fingertips he parted the folds of her vulva. He leaned close and licked her. Nora sighed with pleasure and dug her hand into Kingsley’s hair, holding his head right where she needed it. She wanted to hurt him and she wanted to fuck him but she hadn’t passed his stupid test yet, so she would take his tongue on her clitoris as a compromise until she figured out how to beat him at his own game.
Kingsley was a master of the French kiss and that’s what he gave her now, but not on her mouth. His tongue darted in and out of her vagina, his lips sucked her lips, licked her lips, massaged her lips until everything between her legs throbbed with need. She couldn’t kiss him back but she let him know with her gasps and moans he pleased her. He pushed a finger into her and rubbed along her pubic bone where a bundle of nerves came to life at his expert touch. Hooking his finger under and in, he pushed against that soft indentation inside her, creating a sensation so acute, so pleasurable, that fluid burst from her inner lips and some deep interior muscle clamped onto the aching emptiness in her. Nora inhaled and didn’t exhale. Her body went stiff. Kingsley’s hot tongue circled her clitoris and she came with a cry, with her hips hovering an inch off her seat, with one hand buried in his hair and the other hand clenching so hard to the chair arms her fingernails left half-moons in the leather upholstery.
Kingsley sat back, still on his knees, and pulled his gray silk handkerchief from his pocket. He used it first to wipe the wetness off his lips and then to wipe the wetness off hers. Because he was Kingsley, when finished he put it back in his breast pocket.
“Feel better?” he asked, standing up.
“I still want to kill her,” Nora said, slowly closing her legs.
“If you still feel like killing anyone after what I just did to you, it’s serious.”
“Yes, it’s fucking serious. She’s so good. I’ve never seen whip work like that. Søren doesn’t even use two whips at once. And you won’t let me touch one whip, much less two. How am I going to beat a domme like that? I don’t even have a whip—”
“Yes, you do.”
“What?”
Kingsley grinned a devilish grin. He cocked his head to the side. Twice.
“Are you having a seizure?” Nora asked.
“On top of the filing cabinet.”
“I was supposed to understand ‘there’s something on top of the filing cabinet’ from two head nods?”
“Just go.”
Nora raised her eyebrow and on slightly shaking legs walked over to Kingsley’s antique wooden filing cabinets. On the very top of the one closest to his desk sat a wooden box she hadn’t noticed until now. She lifted the lid and there it was.
“It’s red,” she said, lifting the red leather whip out of the box.
“Milady wears all white. Mistress Irina wears all black. You will wear all red.”
“Bloodred,” Nora said, gazing in wonder at the whip. The leather was soft, slick and supple and the handle was carved ebony wood.
“They say Mary, Queen of Scots, wore red to her own execution. The perfect color to wear if you’re going to get bloody.”
“Red is a Catholic color,” she said, turning to face Kingsley. “She wore red because she was a Catholic and was being martyred for her faith.”
Kingsley came to her and wrapped the whip around her neck.
“I won’t let anyone take your head,” he said.
“Thank you.” She took the whip in her hands and pulled it taut. “I love it. Wish I knew how to use it.”
“You will. You have your first whip lesson today.” He lifted his arm and glanced at an imaginary watch. “Your whip teacher is here right now. Allons-y.”
“I have a whip teacher?”
“You do. If you feel strong enough. Do you?”
She felt weak from the orgasm, languid and happy.
“I feel relaxed. I mean, I want to cut that bitch, but I feel relaxed about it.”
“Good enough. Just keep your focus on defeating her, and you’ll be fine.”
Kingsley took the whip from her hands and coiled it neatly. He took her by the arm and led her from the office.
“I’ve always wanted to use a whip,” Nora said. “I think I saw too many Indiana Jones movies as a kid. Do you think he was kinky?”
“French Vanilla,” Kingsley said.
“What’s that?”
“Vanilla with a strong libido and a taste for anal.”
“I can see that.”
“Zorro, however, was kinky,” Kingsley said. “And he was much better with a whip than Dr. Jones.”
“Zorro was kinky? That explains the mask. You think he was a switch?” Nora asked as they reached the playroom door. Kingsley opened the door and ushered her inside. “Can I have Zorro for my whip teacher?”
“No,” Kingsley said. “But you can have him.”
Nora gasped. For there standing in the playroom wearing his off-duty uniform of black jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt was...
“Søren.”
13
Reunion
SØREN UNCROSSED HIS arms and raised one hand. With his finger he carved the letter Z in the air.
Behind her the door closed. Kingsley had left her alone in the room with Søren.
“Søren,” she said again, not quite believing her eyes. She took a shuddering breath. He was here. Søren. Standing there right by an entire wall of whips and floggers looking beautiful and handsome and poised all at once while she stood there gulping air like a fish on land.
“How are you, Eleanor?” His voice was calm and controlled, and she hated him for that. How could he be so calm at a time like this? And how could he ask that question of all questions?
How was she? How was she? This was what he said to her after not seeing her for a year? How was she supposed to answer that question? What was she supposed to say to him, to this man who’d been her entire life since she was fifteen years old? This man who had saved her and doomed her all at the same time? Nothing to say
. Nothing she could say. So she did the only thing she could do at a moment like this when words were meaningless.
She started out walking but halfway across the room the walk turned into a run. She threw herself into his arms and kissed him.
He was shocked at first. That was obvious from the look on his face.
“I was under the impression you hated me,” he said.
“I’ll hate you again later.”
His mouth found hers and the kiss was everything she’d forgotten she needed. He dominated her with the kiss, overwhelmed her, overpowered her. She was on her back on the bed before she knew it had happened. If she’d had any pride or any dignity or any self-control whatsoever she would have stopped it with a word. But she didn’t want her pride and she didn’t want her dignity and God knew she didn’t want self-control. She just wanted him.
“I have to hurt you,” Søren said as he dug his hands in her hair and tilted her head back. He bit and kissed and licked her neck and throat. He was all over her, his body, his hands, his knees pushing between her thighs, staking a claim on her.
“Hurt me, then. Do it fast before I change my mind.” A pointless warning. There was no changing her mind. She thought about stopping this moment the way one thinks of stopping a runaway train by stepping in front of it and holding out your hands. A fine heroic fantasy but nothing ever to be attempted in the real world.
Søren rose up on his knees between her legs and ripped her blouse open and off her body. It was rare he tore her clothes. He had more self-control than that. But not today. Neither one of them did.
With rough hands and with no regard to her comfort, Søren stripped her naked. Her clothes ended up on the floor with her shoes. As Søren pulled his own shirt off, Nora reached up to touch his chest and stomach. This body, how she had missed it. This long, lean, indomitable body that she had craved like the drowning craved air.
As her hands touched the sensitive sides of his rib cage, he grabbed her wrists and pushed them into the bed over her head. He did it hard enough to hurt her and she released a cry of true pain. Søren closed his eyes, inhaled, breathing in her pain. Her suffering. His oxygen. She bit his chest over his heart, giving pain for pain.
While he held her pinned to the mattress, he sucked her nipples. They were hard already but his hot wet mouth made them ache and throb. His knees edged her legs open wider. Blood rushed through her, pounding in her veins, in her lungs, in her hips. She begged to be allowed to touch him again, but he kept her imprisoned against the bed, unable to lift her hands held in his iron grasp. She would have bruises on her forearms.
God, she had missed this.
Søren moved down her body, kissing her sides, her stomach. Heat radiated from his mouth all through her. There would be no escape. He held her down with his hands but she stayed there because of her heart.
Without warning Søren turned her, pushing her onto her stomach. She felt the bed move. He stood at the foot, holding her ankle in his hand, tying it to the bedpost with a length of rope. He tied the other ankle to the opposite bedpost. She tried to push her legs together but couldn’t. They were trapped, held open three feet wide.
She heard him undressing. He moved quickly, as impatient as she. She heard other sounds—he took a flogger off the wall and something else, too. A cane? A crop? Didn’t matter. It was all the same to her.
The bed moved again. He knelt between her thighs. The first blow of the flogger fell right in the center of her back. The second blow struck the same spot. The third hit her harder than the first two combined. But between the fourth and the fifth brutal strike, Søren entered her. She was wet from Kingsley’s expert ministrations, but it still burned going in. Her whimper of pain didn’t stop him nor did she want it to. Søren pushed in again, all the way in, and she arched her back to receive him fully. When he was as deep as he could be in this position, he flogged her again.
It was a special torture to be flogged while being fucked. Pleasure warred with pain. One would gain ground over the other before the other took control of the field. Nora dug her fingers deep into the black sheets and rocked her hips into the bed. She felt a flood of wetness bathing him and coating her thighs. He moved easily in her now and she groaned. His every movement sent her reeling. Her vision swam. Her muscles clenched and released, clutching at him inside her. He was still flogging her, but the pleasure had won the battle against the pain. All she felt was him embedded inside her. All she wanted was for him to fuck her as if he owned her.
Nora heard another sound, the sound of a flogger landing on the floor. She felt his hands flat on her battered back and he slid them upward to her hair. He dug both hands into the waves, lifting her hair and baring the back of her neck to him. Then he bit down hard into her neck, clutching her with his teeth. No conscience, no consideration. Only brute animal fucking.
The pounding seemed to go on endlessly. Pinned down underneath him with her legs tied open, Nora could do nothing but take his merciless thrusts. She could have stopped him with a safe word, of course, but that was the last thing she wanted. Once he came and she came it would be over and then she would hate him again. Once she let herself hate him again, that would be it. They would be done. Their bodies would part and they would part and that would be it.
The end.
But it wasn’t over yet. Søren slipped one hand under her body and found her clitoris. When he touched it she buried her face in the bed to mute her moans. It wasn’t fair he knew how to manipulate her pleasure this well. It wasn’t fair he knew her mind. It wasn’t fair that he knew she wanted this against her will and took her anyway. It wasn’t fair that she was glad he did. It wasn’t fair that God had given him a heart to love her and a second heart to love God. And it wasn’t fair he’d had to choose between the two. It wasn’t fair that she knew Søren would regret leaving the church for her. It wasn’t fair that the only way she could love him was by leaving him.
But whoever said life was fair?
She opened her eyes as Søren’s teeth released her neck. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled.
“Jeg elsker dig, min lille en.”
I love you, my Little One.
Being called that name hurt worse than anything—worse than the flogging, worse than the fucking, worse than the teeth buried in her soft skin. He said it again as his fingertips worked her clitoris in that way he knew would bring her to the edge. Why did she have to love a priest? Of all the men in the world she could have loved it had to be him. He said it a third and fourth time, letting the words match the rhythm of his thrusts. She couldn’t escape the words or the name or his touch, so precise as if he could feel everything she felt. Could he also feel her anger at him? Could he feel her sorrow that he’d left her no choice but to leave? Could he feel her orgasm building and rising to the breaking point? When it broke, it broke hard, waves of pleasure radiating from her core through her entire body.
Søren must have had the same thought she had, that once this mad interlude ended it might never happen again, because he held off coming longer than he ever had before. The pounding went on ceaselessly, so long she came again as hard as the first time. Harder as she dug her teeth into his arm to muffle her own cries.
He tucked her hips up and rose over her. One hand rested on the side of her head to hold himself up while the other dug hard into her hair, holding her down and against the bed, immobile. His mouth caressed her naked shoulders, her back and her neck.
“Where’s your collar?” he asked, between thrusts.
“It’s gone. I threw it out.”
“Liar.”
He punished her lie with a vicious thrust she knew she deserved. Then he kissed her with a vicious kiss and she knew she deserved that, too.
He was lost inside her. Into her ear he whispered beautiful words. She had no idea what they were because he spoke Danish, his first language. Was he confessing his love for her? His hatred of her? His need for her? His loneliness? It could be all of that or none of it
. Maybe he was asking her to come back to him. If so it was good he spoke in another language so she wouldn’t have to answer. She knew how to say never in English.
When neither of them could take any more, when the sex had become too much for either of them, he let go at last and came inside her, filling her with his semen and pulling out to leave her empty.
“Eleanor?”
She heard her name from far away. In the distance she sensed him unbuckling her ankles from the footboard.
“Eleanor?”