“Je ne sais pas,” Nora whispered, touching the tears on Kingsley’s face. “I don’t know why I ran that day. But I regret it. We could have worked it out, you and I. It would have taken time. It would have hurt for a long time. But we could have loved each other again. I shouldn’t have died. And I’m sorry, Kingsley. Mon frère. Petit frère. I’m so sorry.”
“I am, too,” he whispered in French. Moi, aussi.
Nora kissed him on the cheek, both cheeks, and then she kissed his lips softly. As she kissed him, she reached behind his head and untied the blindfold. His eyes flew open and when he saw it was her, he kissed her back.
“Who am I?” Nora asked, making sure he saw her for who she really was. She dropped the French accent. The game was over.
“Nora. Mistress Nora.”
“And who are you?”
“Kingsley Edge.”
“And where are we?”
“Your dungeon in the club.”
“Good. Just checking,” she said, stroking his cheek with the back of her hand. “You did so good, King. So good.”
“You...” He exhaled heavily, as if he’d been holding his breath all this time. “You sick, sadistic bitch.”
“Who’s your queen?” she asked, batting her eyelashes.
“You are.”
“Now do I get my tip?”
“Majesty,” Kingsley said between breaths, “you get more than the tip. You can have every inch.”
18
Creating a Monster
NORA WRAPPED THE tie around Kingsley’s neck and drew him to the throne. She pushed him down into it and with three lengths of rope, tied his hands over his head to the back of the chair and his ankles to the legs. His chest rose and fell with his heavy breaths. She could see the muscles in his stomach, tight and fluttering. Even bound to the chair he looked powerful, strong, dangerous, desirable.
“A throne fit for a king,” Nora said, running her fingers over the ridges of muscle in his stomach. Her fingers traveled from his stomach over his hip. She took his cock in her hand and stroked his full length from base to tip and back down again with a firm grip, just the way he liked it. “I hope you don’t mind my little game I played on you.”
“Mind what? What we were talking about again?”
“Now I know how women become the power behind the throne. We just give the king a reach-around.”
“A whore, a whore, my kingdom for a whore,” Kingsley said, and Nora laughed. He grinned broadly, his dark eyes shining with happiness and pleasure.
“Catharsis looks good on you, King,” Nora said, dropping to her knees in front of him. “And since you’re a king on a throne, I suppose I should kneel. I’d kiss your signet ring, but since you aren’t wearing one, I’ll have to find something else to kiss.”
“I have a suggestion...”
Nora needed no suggestions and no encouragement. She licked Kingsley in his favorite spot to be licked—right under the head. With a firm hand she held and massaged the base while her tongue worked up and down him and all around. He panted and pulled against his bonds.
“No coming,” she said, looking up at him. “That’s an order.”
“What if I do?”
“I’ll get out the cock ring and force you to get hard again, and if I do that, one of us is going to have fun with your cock, and it’s not going to be you.”
“I was wrong about you. I thought you would be almost as bad as the priest to play with.”
“And?”
“You’re worse.”
Such a compliment could only be rewarded with a round of passionate, thorough and vigorous cock-sucking. She stroked him as she sucked him, running her hands over his thighs and his scarred chest. It must have been the worst sort of torture to experience so much pleasure—pleasure that left him breathless and groaning—knowing he couldn’t come lest he face a very unpleasant consequence. Kingsley hated cock rings almost as much as he hated collars. But they weren’t a hard limit, which meant she could use one on him if he misbehaved.
She almost hoped he misbehaved.
But not yet. No coming yet. She wanted to enjoy this night for herself, for her own private reasons. Something bad had happened between her and Kingsley and she feared the rift between them would always be too vast for either of them to traverse to the other side. But here they were, baring their true selves to each other again, his masochistic side, her dominant side.
Nora saw Kingsley’s fingers clench into fists. A thousand nights with him had trained her to recognize that meant he was close to coming. She stopped sucking him and sat back on her knees.
Slowly he opened his eyes.
“I hate you,” Kingsley said.
“That hurts, King. That stings.”
“Do you know what hurts? Having an erection and being two seconds from coming and your domme stops sucking you off.”
“That is a very sad story. Tell me more.”
“I’ve created a monster.”
“You didn’t create a monster,” she said, leaning forward and putting both hands on either side of his head. She kissed his earlobe and bit it hard enough to make him flinch. “You just let her off her leash.”
She kissed him on the mouth before he could answer. From inside the top of her right boot she pulled out a condom. Kingsley’s head fell back, and he muttered a heartfelt “Dieu merci.” Thank God.
Nora left the throne and grabbed her lube and a small vibrator that fit over her finger.
“Oh...tingly,” Kingsley said as she rubbed him with the lubricant. She massaged him for a long time, long enough he started panting again. “How much longer are you going to torture me?” Kingsley asked, half smiling, half grimacing. He was brutally hard and still pulling on his wrist restraints. She wondered idly what he would do to her if he managed to escape his bonds. Probably a sex act still illegal in thirty-nine states. Too bad she’d tied him up so well.
“For the rest of your life, most likely,” Nora said. “In one way or another.”
“Good.”
“Now sit there like a good boy while I use your cock to get off.”
“Use me,” Kingsley breathed. “Use all of me.”
The throne was large enough for the both of them and then some. She straddled his lap, took his erection in her hand, and inch by inch, lowered herself onto him, sighing with pleasure as he filled her. He felt so good inside her, so big and hard and deep, it almost seemed like a crime to take money for this.
Not that that would stop her. She had a laptop to buy, after all.
Nora turned on the finger vibrator and pressed it to her swollen clitoris. Kingsley inhaled sharply.
“What did you feel?” she asked, as breathless now as he.
“You clenched,” he said. “I could feel it all around me. Felt like being squeezed by a hand.”
“You mean this?” She clamped her vaginal muscles down on him again and he gasped.
“That...is obscene,” he said between breaths. “Do it again.”
“What do we say when we want our Mistress to use her pussy to massage our cock?”
“S’il vous plaît, Maîtresse? You are the most beautiful mistress in the world and my body belongs to you for the next...” He glanced over her shoulder to the pendulum clock on the wall. “Twenty-three minutes.”
“Better make the most of you, then.”
She rocked her hips forward, the vibrator buzzing against her clitoris. Beneath her, Kingsley lifted his hips, moving with her and against her in slow undulations. Every thirty seconds or so she would concentrate solely on her inner muscles and clench them tight. Every time she did it, Kingsley rewarded her with a sharp intake of air. She cupped the back of his neck and kissed him again. Locked together like this, she couldn’t move much, but she didn’t have to or want to. Right now she wanted to stop time, rush nothing, enjoy every inch and every second and every shuddering ragged breath.
“It’s good to be in you again...” he murmured against her lips. “Yo
u stayed away too long.”
“I’m back now.”
“You won’t leave again?”
“Of course not. Who would beat the hell out of you if I did?”
“Life,” he said. And it was such an adorably cynical French thing to say that Nora laughed and kissed him.
The kiss turned passionate, then torrid. Her blood burned in her veins and she gripped Kingsley’s shoulder to ride out the orgasm that tore through her, sending currents of electricity in waves and spikes and delicious tremors.
As she caught her breath, she managed to ask him, “Did you come, too?”
“Non.”
“You didn’t?” As hard as Nora came, she assumed everyone else in the world had orgasmed, as well.
“You haven’t given me permission to come.”
“Oops. I knew I was forgetting something.” She reached above his head and untied his hands from the top of the throne. She lifted herself off him and knelt between his knees. “I’m letting you go but only to change positions.”
“I will fuck you in any position you name as long as you let me come,” he said.
“Don’t tempt me. I have new suspension toys to try out,” she said, glancing up at the ceiling where the suspension rig awaited its first victim. “How do you want to fuck me?” she asked, as she unstrapped both his ankles. Kingsley reached down and held out his hand. She took it and he pulled her to him.
“I can have you? Any way I want?” he asked.
“I think you’ve earned it.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her breasts to his chest. His skin was so hot it burned to the touch. Or was that her? Weeks ago he’d warned her that she’d never have the physical strength of a man, and he proved it by lifting her easily off her feet. She twined her legs around his back instinctively and he turned them both, pushing her back into the throne and draping her legs over each chair arm. She flinched when he penetrated again. He was so deep she felt him against her cervix. When he thrust again, however, he hit every spot she wanted him to hit. He was kneeling on the seat of the throne, pinning her to the back, pushing into her with long but fast thrusts. Nora clung to his shoulders, and he held her in place by her hips. She felt so wet and so open that she would have let him pound her like this all night if he wanted. They were both switches, her and Kingsley, and in this heated moment she thanked God for making her this way. She could be like Kingsley and have it all. Kingsley had a submissive he owned, Juliette, and could play with whomever he wanted as long as he gave his nights to her. In secret he had Nora who would be his Mistress, his Queen of Pain. And she could have that, as well. Clients to dominate, Kingsley to brutalize and use for her own private pleasure. And maybe if and when she needed it, she could ask Kingsley to hurt her and to use her just like this—pushing her back to the wall and fucking her raw. Oh, yes, it would be good to be the queen.
“Please, Maîtresse,” Kingsley said, his voice sounding pained.
“Come,” she said. “Whenever you’re ready, come for me. I want it.”
He increased the speed and pressure of his thrusts and Nora kissed his neck. At the instant she knew he was about to come, she sunk her teeth deep into his shoulder, hard enough to break the skin. Kingsley let out a beautiful wounded cry and shuddered in her arms. Entangled in each other’s arms and legs, they eased into the seat of the throne, the king and queen, spent but united.
“Vampire,” he teased, touching the bite mark on his shoulder.
“Not a vampire,” she said. “A tiger, remember?”
Kingsley touched her face and pressed his lips to the top of her breasts.
“Certainly not a kitten anymore...”
When they had both come to their senses again, Nora ordered Kingsley to dress. In front of her, of course, while she watched the show.
“I’m going to enjoy being a dominatrix,” she said, taking the two thousand dollars out of her corset and fanning herself with it. “Torturing men, orgasms, money—my three favorite things.”
“No fucking your other clients,” he reminded her. “I’m a king, not a pimp. Don’t get me arrested for pandering.”
“Speaking of sex for money... Thorny came to see me today.”
“Did he?”
“He says Milady is planning on fucking with me.”
“I could have told you that.”
“What do you think she’ll do to me?”
“I don’t know, but if she’s anything like you, she’ll find your rawest wound and pour salt on it.”
“Søren’s my rawest wound.”
“Then I think you’re safe,” Kingsley said. “He gave away his entire family fortune to me and his sisters. If she thinks she can buy his obedience for a few thousand dollars, she doesn’t know who she’s dealing with.”
“Speaking of a few thousand dollars... I believe you said something about a tip if I broke you? Didn’t you? I think it’s fair to say I broke you.”
“Because I wanted to be broken.”
Nora waved her hand, beckoning him to pay up.
Kingsley sighed, pulled out his wallet and passed her ten more hundred-dollar bills.
“My best friend is named Benjamin,” she said. “I do so love that man.”
“Enjoy that tip. I probably won’t ever tip you again. The French don’t tip.” He pulled on his trousers and left them open while he tucked in his shirt. Watching Kingsley get dressed was almost as erotic as watching him get undressed.
“You know I earned it.”
“You earned it by being a sick, twisted mind-fucker. I’d kill anyone else who tried that trick on me, including le prêtre.”
“It’s all your fault for telling me I sound like your sister when I use a French accent. You should have known I’d use that against you in a session someday.”
“Maybe I wanted you to.”
“Did you?”
“Fuck, no. But I’m glad you did,” he said, taking his jacket off the hook. “I wouldn’t talk to anyone but you about it, but I think of her more than I want to. Especially when he and I are fighting. It brings back bad memories, and she’s in many of my bad memories.”
“I’m proud of you,” she said, watching as he pulled on his jacket and flipped the collar and lapels into place. He looked so much younger than his forty years now, vibrant, bright-eyed and thoroughly fucked.
“For what? For surviving your little mind game?”
“For not letting Søren leave the priesthood for you when he offered.”
“It wasn’t me he was offering to leave the church for. It was some old idea of me he must have had. Kingsley, his sixteen-year-old slave who would have died for him. I love him,” Kingsley said, pulling on his jacket. “You know it. I know it. He knows it. I was born to fall in love with him, and I lived in love with him and I will die still in love with him. But fuck him if he thinks that means I’m willing to be someone I’m not for him.”
“Same here,” Nora said, raising an imaginary wineglass in a toast. “He told me I wasn’t allowed to see you anymore. We all have our breaking points. That was mine.”
“Good girl,” Kingsley said. “Maybe someday that blond prick will learn we don’t exist for his pleasure.”
“If he does learn...then what?”
“Then we’ll need a bigger throne. One that’ll hold a king, queen and a god. Or at least a man who thinks he is.”
Nora laughed. “Glad I got the throne. It’s nice and sturdy. Good for bondage. Good for fucking.”
“Oh, speaking of the throne, Mistress Nora...”
“Yes?” Nora asked as Kingsley finished pulling on his boots.
“It cost ten thousand dollars.”
“Quality isn’t cheap. And Ikea does not sell thrones. I’ve looked.”
“It put you over budget. By...” He paused as if counting in his head. “Three thousand dollars.”
He snatched the money out of her hand.
“Kingsley!”
“Don’t forget, mon canard,” he s
aid, “you aren’t the only sadist in this room.”
With a wink, he was his old self again, arrogant and lewd.
“Oh, you bastard.”
“I am,” he said without shame. “But this may cheer you up. You’re ready.”
“You sure about that?” she asked.
“Considering the Midsummer Night’s Fling is in two nights? You better be.”
“I will be. I hope.”
“I’ll show myself out.” He strolled from the dungeon as casually as he’d entered it. He called back to her, “Sweep up this fucking glass you broke before someone gets hurt.”
“Yes, boss.” She sighed.
Nora looked down at her now empty hand.
Well, so much for her new laptop.
19
The Glass Locket
THE EVENING OF the Midsummer Night’s Fling, Nora went to her dungeon at The 8th Circle to wait for Kingsley. Once he arrived, they would go upstairs to the elevator and make their descent into the pit where the party already raged. When Nora entered her suite, she lit a lamp on the bedside table and found a box on her bed.
A rectangular box, it was wrapped in plain brown paper and string. Warily, fearing a trick or trap from Milady, Nora pulled the little white card from the little white envelope and read the words written on it.
“Finish your Ruth and Boaz story.”
It wasn’t signed.
Ruth and Boaz story? Oh, yes, her Ruth and Boaz story. She’d been a senior in high school when a priest, subbing in for their AP English teacher, had given them busy work while he wrote his homily for that Sunday. “Compose a short story with characters from the Bible” was the entirety of Father Jones’s assignment.
Nora, still Eleanor back then, chose to write about Ruth and Boaz from the Book of Ruth because two days earlier she and Søren had been talking about it. Eleanor had asked if there were any books of the Bible that were as sexy as the Book of Esther, and Søren replied that some interesting erotic things happened between Ruth and Boaz on the threshing floor. When Eleanor read the book, she’d walked away disappointed and gone to Søren’s office to complain.
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