[English] The Virgin

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Dear Mom,

By the time you get this letter I’ll be gone. I can’t stay here at the abbey anymore. I don’t belong here and we all know it. But thank you for taking me in and giving me shelter. I promise I’m not going back to him. He’s not the reason I’m leaving. You won’t like hearing this, but there’s a literary agent who is interested in my book. I used to dream about being a writer when I was a teenager. I hope you never found any of my journals that I was scribbling in constantly. They would have given you a heart attack. I’m only telling you this so you know writing was my first good dream I ever had for my life. The nicest thing he ever said to me was that I was a better writer than he was.

You might not believe me when I say this, but I love you, Mom. I’m sorry the choices I’ve made in the past have scared you and disappointed you. I would be lying if I said I had any regrets, but you should know, I don’t feel good about hurting you. In my world, the pain is supposed to be consensual.

Please don’t be angry with me, and don’t be afraid. I’ll be fine. You always told me growing up that God had a plan for me, a plan to give me a future and hope. If it makes you feel any better at all, for the first time in my life, I think I believe that.

Love,

Elle

She didn’t add a postscript at the end. What more was there to say?

At 10:00 p.m., after everyone had gone to bed, Elle put on her jacket and her shoes and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She walked out to the oratory and found Kyrie waiting there for her. She had on her habit, her full habit. She hadn’t even changed clothes for bed. Elle had never touched her intimately while Kyrie had her habit on. She’d never touched Søren when he wore his vestments, either. They were sacred garments, and Elle felt awkward seeing Kyrie in them.

“I have clothes for you to change into,” Elle said.

“Good. I’ll put them on as soon as we get outside the gate.”

Kyrie smiled big and bright, but something about her smile looked fake and fragile. Elle didn’t blame her too much. They didn’t have much of a plan or much money. They were scared, both of them. Elle’s hand trembled and her breaths came faster than usual. Her voice sounded higher than usual, even to herself. Her mouth was dry and her muscles were tight.

She couldn’t wait to get the **** out of here.

“Well, I have everything,” Elle said. “What about you?”

Kyrie had a suitcase. Elle reached for it but Kyrie held it to her chest. “I can get it,” Kyrie said.

“Sure. Great. Ready?”

“You first,” Kyrie said.

She reached out and took Elle’s hand. Elle squeezed Kyrie’s fingers and took a harsh, scared breath.

“Okay. I’ll lead the way.”

“Elle?”

“What?”

“Kiss me,” Kyrie said. “Please?”

Elle laughed. “Absolutely.”

She felt strange kissing Kyrie while she was wearing her habit and veil. But how could she say no *****ch a humble request? She put her bag down and placed her hands on Kyrie’s face. The kiss was exactly what Elle needed. It reminded her that Kyrie had put herself into Elle’s hands. She had to take care of them now. She had to take care of both of them. Kyrie was young and she needed Elle to be strong for her. Strong and in charge. Elle could do that.

When Elle pulled back, Kyrie had tears on her face.

“Don’t be scared,” Elle whispered. “I’ve got this. You believe me, right?”

“I believe in you. You’re going to do amazing things out there in the world.”

“We both are.”

“I wanted to tell you...” Kyrie began. “I figured out how your book ends. I know what Daphne did when the light turned green.”

“You did?” Elle asked. “What do you think Daphne did?”

“I think she went out on her own and had an amazing life. And I think John Apollo had a good life too, even without her.”

Elle grinned. “I think you’re right. More than one kind of happy ending.”

She kissed Kyrie quickly on the lips again and picked up her bag. Elle took a deep calming breath and walked to the back door of the oratory. Kyrie unlocked it and opened it for her.

Elle looked over her shoulder and smiled at Kyrie. Elle stepped out of the chapel and into the real world again.

The night was cool but not cold, and the moon was high and full and bright. She could see everything—the cluster of white oak trees and the silver maples that stretched along the edge of the worn dirt path, the abbey glowing gray in the moonlight, and the road in the distance lit by a single streetlight.

She took a deep breath and inhaled. Of course the air smelled the same out here as it did behind the fence, behind the gates, but she didn’t care. She breathed it in again. It was almost summer. That’s what she smelled—the coming of a new season. Everything smelled alive. And the world was alive. She heard owls and crickets, a car on the gravel far away, the wind sweeping over the farmland behind her.

She turned around and held out her hand for Kyrie.

“Green light,” Kyrie said. Then she shut the door to the oratory.

“Kyrie?” Elle knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked again, harder and louder, called Kyrie’s name again. Still no answer.

Panicked, heart racing and sweating, Elle pounded even harder on the door. She ran to the side of the oratory and peered through the wrought-iron fence.

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There she was, a dove in her white feathers gliding across the dewy nighttime grass on her way back to the abbey.

“Kyrie!” Elle called out her name once more. In her voice Elle could hear desperation, anguish, sorrow, the sound of her own heart breaking. Kyrie paused in her steps but didn’t look back at her. Elle reached through the fence and waited, holding her breath, hoping against hope. “Come back,” she said, willing Kyrie to change her mind, to come back.

Kyrie started walking again and Elle’s legs gave out on her. She crumpled to her knees and rested her head against the iron bars. For the first time since coming here...for the first time in months...for the first time since she left home, Elle cried.

She wept deep, hard, copious tears that left her back shaking and her body trembling. All this time, Kyrie never planned on leaving with her. It had all been a ruse to get Elle to go back into the world where she belonged. That’s why Kyrie had begged for the kiss—her last kiss.

Elle grabbed her duffel bag and wrapped her arms around it. She was that desperate for something to hold. She cried for three reasons.

She cried because she was scared.

She cried because she was alone.

And she cried because...

“Søren,” she whispered into the cold dark night.

She missed him; she missed him so ****ing much. She’d missed him from the second she walked away from him until this moment when she still missed him. She missed him and she loved him and she’d give anything right now for him to pull up on his Ducati and take her in his arms and drive her back to the city and put her in his bed and beat her and **** her and forgive her for leaving him.

But she was alone. Søren wasn’t here. And even if he forgave her for leaving him, she couldn’t forgive him yet for what he’d said and what he’d done. If she went back to him it would be just as it was before. She would be his property and his possession. He would leave the priesthood and make her marry him. And that would be that. Her freedom would be gone, vanished. He would never let her top Kingsley again, or anyone for that matter. He’d made that abundantly clear.

Alone and with only five hundred dollars to her name, she had to make a decision. She couldn’t sit on her ass and cry all night. Although it was certainly tempting.

Once upon a time she’d been happy. Truly happy. Somehow she’d lost that somewhere along the way. Whenever she’d lost anything—her car keys, her driver’s license—Søren would take her by the shoulders and tell her to retrace her steps. Walk backward from now to the moment she last had it.

When was she last happy—truly happy—out in the world?

Elle walked backward in her mind, back past the fight she’d had with Søren, past the day at the doctor’s office, past the morning she’d woken up nauseous and had thrown up so hard both she and Kingsley had known immediately what had happened...

With her sleeve, Elle wiped her face and looked up at the moon and the stars. For so long she’d lived among city lights she’d forgotten that the moon wasn’t all there was in the night sky. And although a riot of stars danced across the heavens, it was the moon that drew her gaze. Kingsley had a conservatory on the roof of his Manhattan town house filled with tropical plants and rare flowers in a glass box the size of a large bedroom. She loved the scent of hothouse flowers in bloom and spent lots of time up there reading and watching the city go by her. She’d often wait for Søren there, staring out the glass walls onto Riverside Drive. She’d watch for Søren and smile when she heard his Ducati’s engine and saw him roll up in front of the house.

The last time she and Kingsley had had ***, it had been on the fainting couch in his conservatory. Earlier that night he’d beaten her brutally in his bedroom and ****ed her raw. But a few hours later, they’d taken wine up to the conservatory and she’d ordered him to strip naked. With so many plants around them no one could see into the conservatory unless they looked in from the roof, which meant that maybe God was watching. She liked that idea. That night she’d doused King with scalding candle wax until he was so hard and turned on he begged her to **** him. She straddled his hips, took him inside her. While he was in her and she on top of him, she’d looked up at the moon high overhead and had a moment of purest happiness. Søren would be home soon, she remembered thinking. And until then she had Kingsley to keep her company. Søren never left her alone when he was gone. He was always with her in one way or another.

Elle wanted that again, that happiness she’d lost along the way. And the last place she’d had it was in Manhattan with Kingsley in his town house.

Maybe it was still there.

Slowly she got to her feet and shouldered her bag. She brushed the dirt off the ass of her pants and headed toward the road. It took two hours to reach the city of Guilford. She didn’t bother getting a hotel room. She found the one bus station in the city and sat in the lobby waiting for the first worker to arrive. While she waited for someone to show up, Elle pulled out her book and stared at it. The pages were crinkled and bent, thick with ink. The Virgin. She wasn’t sure about the title anymore. Daphne was only a virgin for about the first fifty pages. And being a virgin was a negative state. Nothing to brag about. Those years Elle had been a virgin, the lack of *** she was having was the least interesting thing about her. Who was Daphne really? Daphne was a runner. That’s who she was. She ran track and cross-country, she ran when John chased her, and at the end she ran again, she ran away. The Runner didn’t sound very romantic. Maybe something else...maybe...

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Elle crossed out the words The Virgin on the front page and wrote a new title.

The Runaway.

There. That was better.

At 6:00 a.m., a boy who didn’t even look old enough to drive, much less work at a bus station, arrived for his shift. She was in no mood to talk so of course he asked her how she was, where she was from, why she was here so early.

When he asked her where she was headed she answered with one word.

“Home.”

35

New York City

FREEDOM IS OVERRATED.

It was all Juliette said and all she had to say. Kingsley had her in his arms in an instant, kissing her as if the world would end if he didn’t. And of course, he had to save the world.

“Are you sure you want to be mine?” he asked between breathless kisses.

“Yes,” she said. “Absolutely.”

“There are things you need to know.”

“**** me first. Then tell me.”

Kingsley laughed in purest joy. He swept Juliette up in his arms and started up the stairs.

“Put me down,” she ordered. “I can walk.”

“I’ve always wanted to carry a woman up the stairs and ravish her.”

“I won’t stand in the way of your dreams then,” she said, putting her arms around his neck as he mounted the stairs. He carried her straight to his bedroom, kicked the door shut behind him and pushed her onto her back on his bed. It took only seconds to strip her naked and to cover her body in kisses. He kissed her from the graceful turn of her ankle, up her muscular calves, over the soft flesh at the inside of her knees, the long line of smooth skin on her thighs, until he buried his tongue inside her and made her moan for him. His blood was pumping, pounding in his veins. He could feel every muscle in his lower back and stomach tightening with need for her. He licked her clitoris until she shuddered, coming hard with a hoarse cry. He’d missed that sound, the sound of her climax, the taste of her in his mouth, the sight of her on his sheets. For two months he’d convinced himself he’d never see her again, never have her again. He cupped her breasts and pinched her nipples—hard.

“That hurt,” she said, laughing and recoiling at the same time.

“I had to make sure you were real.”

“You’re supposed to pinch yourself,” she told him.

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“You don’t have to pinch me. This is real,” she said. “I lived without you as long as I could stand. I couldn’t wait another day to see you.”

He kissed her breasts gently now, sucking her nipples until they hardened in his mouth.

“Come inside me,” she said. “Please.”

He straddled her thighs and pushed her wrists down deep into the bed, holding her there.

“What are you asking me?” he asked.

“No condoms,” she said. Kingsley froze. He wanted to be inside her bare so much it hurt. And he could. He was clean. And he knew she was, too. But still...

“You know what happened the last time I fluid-bonded with someone...”

“I won’t get pregnant. And if I did...I would keep it.”

Kingsley felt something open up inside him, like a safe that had been cracked and everything that had been hidden, everything valuable was there for the taking. It terrified him to be this vulnerable.

“You can have my cum when you earn it,” he said.

“Tell me how to earn it and I will.”

“Stay,” he said in his most commanding tone. She stayed.

He went to his closet, found a black briefcase and brought it to the bed.

“What is that?” Juliette asked.

“Something I’ve wanted to use for a very long time.” Kingsley flipped the combination—2663—and opened the case. From it he pulled a long thin metal chain with a cuff on the end. He bent and locked one end of the chain to the bedpost at the foot of his bed. He took the cuff at the other end of the chain and held it in his hand for Juliette to see it.

“Pick a number between one and ten,” he said.

“What am I choosing?”

“I’m not telling you until you’ve chosen.”

Juliette answered quickly. “Seven.”

“Perfect,” he said. He grabbed her leg, put her foot on the center of his chest and locked the cuff around her ankle. “Seven days.”

“What?”

“You picked seven days to stay in my bedroom chained naked to my bed.”

“What?” Juliette demanded.

“Don’t worry,” he said in a paternalistic tone. “This chain is long enough so you can reach anywhere in my bedroom and my bathroom. You stay here seven days, locked in. I’ll bring you food and water and anything else you need. You don’t put on clothes. I’ll touch you when I want to touch you, beat you when I want to beat you and **** you when I want to **** you. And in seven days, if you’re still here and haven’t asked me to unlock you, then you get what you want from me. Are these terms acceptable to you?”

“You chained me to your bed.”

“Are you complaining?”

“Not at all.”

“You said freedom was overrated. Let’s see how you like being my property and my prisoner.”

“I love it already. But I’d love it more if you were inside me,” she said, sitting up on her elbows. She spread her legs for him by way of invitation, an invitation he eagerly accepted. He rolled on a condom and entered her hard and swift and she arched beneath him, taking him deeper. The thin metal chain hissed softly as he ****ed Juliette as hard as he could. Chaining her to his bed wasn’t enough. He had to hold her arms down by her wrists, push her legs open with his knees and impale her against the bed with his **** so deep inside her he might not ever get it back out again. If he died inside her, so be it. He’d die happy.

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“I love you,” he said, kissing her face.

“I love you, too. I didn’t want to.”

“Get used to it.”

“Loving you?”

“Yes. And doing things you don’t want to do.” He gave her a devilish grin and she laughed, a joyful laugh.

“There’s nothing you could make me do that I wouldn’t want to do,” she whispered, pressing her breasts against his chest.

“I accept that challenge.”

Juliette loved rough and brutal ***, so he gave it to her as hard as he could. And then after he held her and kissed her and when the desire for her had grown to a fever pitch again, he took off all his clothes, pulled the covers down and made love to her until she couldn’t take anymore.

He wrapped her in his arms and rolled her on top of him. She rested her head on his chest and they lay there together in his bed for a long time doing nothing but being.

Being still. Being loved. Being together.

“Tell me what I need to know,” Juliette said at last as she lifted her elegant head and looked him in the eyes.

“I can’t be faithful to you,” Kingsley said. “And it’s not for the reason you think.”

“Not because your libido is stronger than your common sense?”

“That might be part of it,” he admitted. “Also, I love having *** with men as much as women.”

“I would never keep you from that part of yourself. I might ask to watch sometimes.”

Kingsley smiled but only for a moment. Then the smile was gone.

“Do you know what the word Switch means?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“You like being hurt in bed, being dominated.” Kingsley tapped the bruise on her bottom lip that his too-eager teeth had given her.

“Very much. I need it,” she said.

“And I love hurting you and dominating you. But there are times when I want to be dominated myself, when I need to be hurt. I don’t want that to be part of us. I want to keep that part of me separate from you. From us.”

She nodded. “I can accept that.”

“Please don’t tell anyone. It’s not something I want advertised.”

“Your secrets are my secrets,” she said. “I’ll protect them with my life. There’s something you should know about me, too.”

“Tell me,” he said.

“I do want children and I’ll have yours for you. But my mother’s doctor said her con***ion can run in families. Can you wait a few years until I’m certain it won’t pass to me?”

“I can wait,” Kingsley said, almost relieved. After all he’d been through with Elle, and failing her like he had, he wasn’t ready to even think about being a father yet. “We should wait.”

“My mother’s symptoms started when she was a teenager, and I haven’t had any. The doctor says I shouldn’t be afraid to have children. He gave me his blessing. But still, you should know the possibility is there.”

“I’m not scared,” Kingsley said. “My parents were perfect. My childhood was perfect. And my sister still committed suicide. There are no guarantees in life. But you’re worth taking the risk for.”

“If we have a child, it might look like me.”

“You mean a girl?”

“You know what I mean.” Juliette laid her arm across his chest displaying the contrast in their skin color. He kissed her arm.

“I hope our children look like you. They would be beautiful then. I don’t want ugly children. I’m very shallow.”

She laughed to cover her tears, but Kingsley saw them anyway.

“Something else,” she said. “I don’t think I want to get married. I’ve been trapped in something too much like a bad marriage.”

“You never have to worry that I’ll force you to marry me,” Kingsley said, laughing. “Not my style.”

“And I want to work,” Juliette said. “A real job where I’m paid. I need to have my own money.”

“You can work for me. Calliope starts Columbia this fall. I’ll need a new assistant.”

“Work for you?”

“I pay very well. And it will be your money. If that doesn’t convince you...maybe the fringe benefits will.”

“I like the sound of that,” she said with a seductive smile. “I handled all of Gérard’s files in his home office. I did half his work for him. If something happened to him, I could have taken over as ambassador without missing a step.”

“You should have let me assassinate him.”

“No,” she said, tapping him on the end of the nose. “No murders. It’s a—what did you call it? Hard limit?”

“I suppose I have to respect it then.”

She kissed him on the lips, on the neck, on the chest, on the old scar that had faded along with the pain it had once given him. “One more thing, mon roi.”

“Name it,” he said.

“I want a collar,” she said.

“Why?” he asked, surprised by her request.

“You told me you’d never collared a woman. Or man. I’ll let you have your freedom to be with whomever you want to be with. But I want something in return, something you haven’t given anyone else. I need that for us.”

Kingsley bent his head and kissed her. Then he slid out from under her and grabbed his pants off the floor and pulled them on. Somewhere in this bedroom...

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He went back into his closet and found the bag he’d taken with him to Haiti. He hadn’t unpacked it. And it was still there.

From a locked box on the highest shelf he pulled out a knife he’d carried on many of his missions when he was still ostensibly in La Legion.

When he returned to the bed, Juliette sat up. Even naked she looked elegant and regal, powerful, graceful. She was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman right here. And he would never let her go.

He set the bag on the bed and opened it. From it he took the black belt that had been his own souvenir from his nights with Søren back in their school days. Søren had beaten Kingsley with the belt and Kingsley had beaten Juliette with it. It had wounded them both so it would do for a collar. He wrapped it around her neck and with the tip of the knife put a hole where the buckle would fit. After measuring her neck, he sawed through the leather with the blade cutting off the excess. He wrapped it around her neck again and this time, he buckled it.

“There,” he said, admiring her graceful neck now adorned by the black leather collar. “Perfect.”

He slipped his finger between the leather of the collar and her skin. Tugging it, he brought her forward, closer...closer... She took the hint, slid out of bed onto her knees and took him into her mouth.

It was going to be a good week.

At midnight, after he and Juliette had surrendered to sleep at last, Kingsley awoke from his ***-and kink-induced stupor and had the shockingly pleasant sensation of being happy to be awake. Juliette was sound asleep next to him in his bed, the chain around her ankle dangling out from under the sheets and onto the floor. She was his. Tied to him, chained to him, collared to him...all his. And she’d promised to have his children someday when she was ready.

He touched Juliette’s face and she stirred in her sleep and smiled. There...if he could keep his eyes on her and what they could have together, maybe in time the emptiness he felt in Elle’s absence would scab over and heal and she would be one more scar in a long line of scars he bore on his body and in his heart.

But Kingsley didn’t want her to be a scar. A scar was a memory of pain. He wanted the pain.

To sleeping Juliette he whispered a promise. “My Jewel, I can’t give you my whole heart. But the part of it I can give you is the part that isn’t scarred and isn’t broken. I’ll give you the best of me and protect you from the worst for the rest of my life.”

He moved to kiss her. He wanted to wake her with kisses and **** her again. He’d warned her he’d take her whenever he felt like it, and he was determined to keep that promise.

Before his lips could touch hers, he heard something.

His doorbell.

Kingsley rolled onto his back and groaned.

Who the **** was at his door in the middle of the night?

And when had he turned into the sort of man who asked himself who the **** was at his door in the middle of the night?

Calliope was right. It was too quiet around the town house. He should change that.

Kingsley dragged himself reluctantly away from Juliette’s body. He pulled on his pants and his shirt and left his bedroom. On his way to the stairs, he glanced left at a closed bedroom door. Behind the door sat an empty room that had once been Elle’s. It had been Søren’s idea for her to move in, not that Søren had told her that. He wanted her protected, watched, wanted her somewhere safe. A fool’s quest, and Søren should have known that better than anyone. Safety was an illusion. One moment you were having some of the best *** of your life on the roof of a luxurious Riverside Drive town house. The next moment you’re throwing your guts up in a toilet and facing the scariest decision of your life. He would do better with Juliette. He’d take better care of her. No one knew how much she meant to him, and so no one would be tempted to take him from her.

On his way down the stairs he saw Calliope in her bathrobe walking to the door.

“I got it,” she said, calling up to him. “You can go back to bed.”

“Best idea I’ve heard all night,” he said, glad to see Calliope was safe at home from her date already. He turned around and started up the stairs again.

Then he heard a laugh, and such a laugh it was. A laugh that turned the lights back on.

“Good to see you again, too, kid,” Elle said. Kingsley slowly turned around and saw Elle wrapped in Calliope’s arms being hugged half to death.

His stomach dropped and he had to grab the stair railing for support. Behind him he heard Calliope talking in rapid, breathless tones. Her voice had gone up an entire octave. She’d wake the dogs if she didn’t calm down.

He stood on the first-floor landing and looked down on the sight of Elle in his house. Right there. Before his eyes. She looked up at him and gave him a smile.

“Hi,” she said to him.

“My office,” he said. “Now.”

Her smile disappeared and the mask of obedience she wore when submitting came down over her face. She started up the stairs following behind him, not speaking.

Once in his office he turned on a small Tiffany lamp. He pointed at the chair in front of his desk.

“Sit,” he ordered. He wasn’t sure why he was being so imperious and dictatorial except that he couldn’t bear the thought of her running away again.

Elle sat in the chair. He sat on the edge of the desk in front of her. He wanted to tower over her, and he did.

“Why are you back?” he asked.

“I need a job.”

“You’re here asking for a job?”

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“King, I—”

“You don’t get to leave and then show up almost a year later and call me King. Call me ‘sir’ or don’t call me anything.”

He saw her clench her jaw tight.

“Yes, sir,” she said, and he heard her struggle to say the words.

“You have no idea how angry at you I am,” Kingsley said, realizing his anger at the moment he admitted it. She’d disappeared and hadn’t written, hadn’t called, hadn’t told him she was alive. “After everything we went through—”

“We?” She looked up at him and met his eyes, a clear violation of every protocol a submissive was supposed to follow. “What did we go through? Sir.”

There it was. She’d asked the question. They could talk about it, the pregnancy, the decision she’d made, and the mistake he’d made letting her go through with it alone.

Or he could let it go, drop it. It was in the past and they should leave it there.

“How are you?” he asked instead.

“Surviving. You?”

“The same.”

He waited for her to ask about Søren. She didn’t. Either she already knew or she didn’t want to know. He’d put his money on the latter. He wished he didn’t know.

“Where did you go?”

“My mother’s.”

“You were at her convent the whole time?” he asked.

“I was. I left.”

“Did you—”

“I don’t want to talk about the convent.”

He raised his hands in surrender.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I told you. I need a job. I’m doing something with my life. I think. Maybe.” She laughed to herself. “But I’m broke and I’m homeless and I need help.”

“It must have hurt to admit that.”

“Look at me. You think I have any pride left at this point?” she asked him. He looked at her as ordered. She looked thin and tired and very pale. But the beauty was still there, and her eyes burned with a new light he’d never seen before. She had walked through Hell these past months and had survived the flames but carried the fire out with her.

“I think you have nothing left but pride.”

She looked him in the eyes, a cold and penetrating stare that bore into him. If he had words written on his soul, her eyes could read them.

“I wrote a book,” she finally said. “Someone is interested in it. But I need a job. Got any openings at Cuffs?” she asked. Cufflinks, Kingsley’s private bondage parlor he’d opened three years ago.

“I sold Cuffs for ten million dollars while you were gone. Very valuable real estate.”

“Fine. What about Le Cirque?”

“Sold. Twenty million.”

“Your empire is shrinking.”

“Au contraire. Merely reinventing itself.”

“Can I help?”

“Perhaps you can. But first...tell me exactly what you need.”

“Money.”

“I could give you money.”

“I don’t want you to give it to me. I want to earn it. It’s not really mine unless I earn it.”

“And she says she has no pride.” Kingsley laughed but Elle didn’t. She glared, a cold and cruel sort of glare as merciless as any Søren had ever used on him.

“I’ll go,” Elle said, moving to stand. Kingsley put his foot on her thigh.

“Stay,” he ordered. He knew if he let her walk out of his home tonight, he would never see her again.

“Staying, sir,” she said. Every time she said “sir” it felt as if she was mocking him. She was mocking him and he liked it.

“Tell me this...what do you want to do?”

“Anything that’ll pay the bills,” she said.

“Anything, chérie? Anything at all?”

She winced at the chérie. Clearly she was in no mood to be charmed.

“Just a job, King. I’ll ****tail waitress at the club, I’ll scrub floors—I don’t care.”

He bent and took her chin in his hands. For a second she looked afraid. But then the fear was gone again.

“Non. Not a waitress, not a maid.”

“Then what?”

“You want money. You’re already worth a fortune,” he said. With her face, her body, her reputation and with the right training she was sitting on a gold mine and didn’t even know it. Men would give their right arm to kiss this woman’s feet. And even better, they’d give over their entire wallets. Everyone in their world knew of her as Søren’s submissive. Which meant everyone in their world knew of her. The curiosity factor alone would have them lining up around the block.

“What do you mean?”

“Kink is a kind of currency. You’d be surprised what it can buy you.”

“You want me *****b for money? Fine. Like you say, if you’re willing to get beat up for free, you might as well get paid for it.”

He shook his head, tsk-tsked with his finger right in her face.

“No subbing. Not if we both want to live,” he said, and Elle smiled knowingly. Søren would kill them both with his bare hands before he let his Little One submit to other men for money. He might kill them both with his bare hands anyway, so if they were going to die, might as well go out with a whip and a bang.

Kingsley had a vision then, a vision of this woman in front of him standing tall in a pair of knee-high black leather boots laced all the way to her thighs, a riding crop in her hand and a sadistic gleam in her eyes. He’d never known a sadist more vicious than Søren, but had never seen a Dominant more beautiful than Elle.

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Elle was vicious too in her own laughing way. Søren took pain seriously. Elle didn’t. He’d hurt you because he had to. She’d hurt you because she wanted to. And when she wanted to hurt you, you wanted to be hurt.

“Elle...chérie...Maîtresse,” he said, tilting up her chin to meet her eyes. “No more serving for you.”

“Then what the **** am I doing?”

Kingsley bent low as if he was about to kiss her. Instead, he put his mouth at her ear and whispered.

“I have a much better idea.”

36

2015

Scotland

“AND THE REST is history,” Kingsley said.

Nora reached out, and she and Kingsley clinked their glasses in a toast.

“One more toast,” Nora said. Kingsley held out his glass again.

“To what?” Kingsley asked.

“You punching the **** out of him.” She laughed and looked at Søren over her shoulder. He glared at her.

“That hurt,” Søren said. “I couldn’t take a full breath for two weeks.”

“You get no sympathy from me, blondie,” Nora said. “I couldn’t masturbate for two weeks after you sprained my wrist that one time in your dungeon.”

“You sprained your own wrist.”

“Because you were tickling me.”

“If you had taken it like a good girl and hadn’t thrashed so much...”

“How have I put up with him for twenty-two years?” she asked Kingsley.

“A divine mystery,” Kingsley said. Still laughing, he looked at Søren. “Now you know. That was the year I met Juliette, almost killed a man over her, came home and got everything back I’d lost and then some.”

“Good year for you,” Søren said.

“Hard year.” Kingsley met Nora’s eyes.

“Very hard year,” she agreed.

“Did you ever speak to Kyrie again?” Søren asked.

“No.” Nora drank the last drops of her wine and gazed into the bottom of the now-empty glass. “I was angry with her for a long time for letting me go without her. Then angry at myself for being stupid enough for expecting her to leave with me. I’d let the Church have you. Maybe I thought God owed me one.”

“Did she remain in the order?”

“As far as I know, she did. When she finished her novitiate she was going back to the Monican abbey in Northern California. She might still be there. She might have left. I asked my agent about her once, but they’re not in touch anymore.”

“Do you ever think about her?” Kingsley asked.

“Sometimes. Not often. It was what it was while it lasted. Then it was gone. As soon as I was back with you at the town house...it all felt like another dream. Honestly I don’t think Kyrie was even kinky. She just wanted to be with someone before she took her final vows and when I decided to leave, she knew she had to lie to get me to go without her. Tonight was the first time in years I’ve thought about her. The castle reminds me of the abbey. Although—” she smiled at her surroundings “—the beds are much bigger.”

“Thank God for that,” Kingsley said. “I can’t **** in a twin bed. I’m not a kid anymore.” Kingsley glanced at Søren, who only shook his head in playful disgust.

“Do you two need some alone time?” Nora asked. “I could go check on the cake. And taste-test it. All of it.”

“Stay,” Søren said. “If he’s too tired for Juliette, he’s too tired for me.”

“Not true,” Kingsley said. “I don’t have to get it up to bottom.”

Nora groaned, collapsed on her side and covered her head with a pillow.

“I didn’t need to hear that,” she said from underneath her pillow.

Søren pulled it off her face and looked down at her.

“Grow up,” he said.

“Do I have to?”

She sat back up again and started to say something along the lines of “Please don’t make my life any weirder than it is” when a knock came on the door.

“I know he’s in there.” Juliette’s voice came through the door. “You can’t hide forever, you French coward.”

“Come in!” Nora called out before Kingsley could stop her. Juliette came in with Céleste in her arms.

“I wasn’t hiding,” Kingsley said. “We were reminiscing. It’s what you do before a wedding. And what is she doing up?” he asked, taking Céleste from Juliette’s arms. “What are you doing still awake, young lady?” he asked in French.

“Your daughter needs her good-night kiss,” Juliette said. “And so do I.”

“I wasn’t tired,” Céleste said, wrapping her arms around his neck. She was a beautiful little girl who did take after her mother, especially in her personality. She certainly had her father wrapped around her tiny fingers, as her mother did. “And I can’t sleep until you kiss me.”

Kingsley kissed her on the end of her nose. “Better?” he asked.

“One more.”

He kissed her again. “Now you sleep.”

“Not yet,” Nora said. “She has to kiss me good-night, too.”

“Kiss your aunt and uncle,” Kingsley said, patting her on the bottom of her little pink nightgown. Nora held out her hand and helped Céleste navigate her way across the rumpled sheets and piles of pillows on the bed.