The King

  They need me. I have heard their cries in the night.”

  “Go answer the cries,” Kingsley said.

  Sam bowed to them both and stalked off.

  “What was she going to say?” Søren asked.

  “Nothing,” Kingsley said. “Nothing at all.”

  Søren watched Sam as she disappeared into the crowd.

  “What do you know about her?” he asked.

  “Everything I need to,” Kingsley said.

  “That’s an excellent nonanswer.”

  “Why do you ask? She’s my secretary, not yours.”

  “I could spend the next two hours telling you everything I know about my secretary, Diane. I know where she was born, where she grew up, where she went to school, who she’s dating, who her parents are… Can you say the same about Sam?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “She knows I’m in Connecticut. She knows about your sister. Did you tell her my real name?”

  Kingsley stalled by taking a sip of his Syrah.

  “Kingsley?”

  “She needed to know,” Kingsley said. “If anything happened to me, someone needs to be able to find you.”

  “I understand that. And I don’t object to you telling her anything you need to tell her if you have good reason for trusting her so implicitly. If you do have good reason, I have no issue with it. I’m curious why you trust her so implicitly when you know so little about her.”

  “I told you, I know what I need to know about her.”

  “Someone knows quite a bit about the both of us,” Søren reminded him.

  “I trust Sam. You can trust her, too.”

  “Are you in love with her? Is that why you trust her?”

  “I’m not in love with her,” Kingsley said truthfully. What he felt for Sam was different than love. Or maybe it was love but a different sort than what he felt for Søren.

  Søren raised his glass of wine to his lips.

  “Good.”

  “Hello, Father,” Blaise said, appearing out of nowhere. Kingsley had never been so glad to see the girl in his life. She rose up on the tips of her toes to kiss Søren on the cheek. “How’s my favorite kinky Jesuit priest?”

  “He’s still kinky,” Kingsley said. “And still a Jesuit. Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”

  “So I have to ask, what is a Jesuit?” Blaise said.

  “We’re an order of priests founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola,” Søren said. “We began as a missionary order.”

  “He says missionary. I say military,” Kingsley said with a wide grin. “They did so much political maneuvering in the 1700s, the order was disbanded by the pope.”

  “I still haven’t forgiven Pope Clement the Fourteenth over that one.”

  “So Jesuits are bad priests?” Blaise asked, seeming pleased by this revelation.

  “They are,” Kingsley said. “Naughty priests, then and now.”

  “At least we aren’t the Legion of Christ.”

  “Stop me if you’ve heard this one,” Kingsley began. “A man walks up to a Franciscan and a Jesuit and asks, ‘How many novenas must you pray to get a Mercedes-Benz?’”

  “I’m stopping you,” Søren said.

  “So the Franciscan,” Kingsley continued, “asks the man, ‘What’s a Mercedes-Benz?’ And the Jesuit asks the man…”

  Kingsley waited. Blaise looked up at Søren expectantly.

  “‘What’s a novena?’” Søren finished, his tone dripping with disdain. “For the record, every Jesuit I know can tell you what a novena is.”

  “What is a novena?” Blaise asked.

  “Take her upstairs and tell her,” Kingsley said to Søren. “Give her a good hard Catholic schooling.”

  “I did spend ten years in seminary,” he said. “It would be a crime to waste all that training.”

  “With your permission, monsieur…” Blaise looked at Kingsley with pleading eyes.

  “Have a fun scourging, chouchou,” Kingsley said. Blaise kissed him on the cheek. She then took Søren’s hand and led him through the crowd and up the stairs. Kingsley looked into his half-finished glass of wine and fought the urge to take it down in one swallow. Where did Søren get off questioning him about Sam? Sam was none of Søren’s business. And who cared if he didn’t know much about her? He knew what he needed to know. Sam cared about him. She was on his side. Whatever her secrets, that wasn’t one of them.

  Irritated with both Søren and whoever the fuck it was sending the tapes, Kingsley left the party behind and headed upstairs to his bedroom, taking the steps two at a time. He’d throw the tape into his wall safe, change clothes and find Dixon. He would beat the man into a bloody coma if he had to, but before this night was over, Kingsley would have answers. As he strode down the hall to his bedroom he heard cries of pleasure and pain emanating from within the rooms he passed. Sometimes pleasure and pain came from the same room. He ignored them. He was a man on a mission.

  Kingsley threw open the door to his bedroom. A woman stood by the foot of his bed. She was dark-skinned, thin and regal. Her boots, corset, skirt and opera gloves—all leather. Her shoulders were bare, and ample cleavage spilled out over the top of the corset. She wore a lace choker around her neck, and her thick braided hair was coiffed in an elegant knot, and behind her right ear she wore a pale pink rose.

  In her hand she held something long, black and thin. He recognized it immediately.

  A riding crop.

  Kingsley waited in silence, waited for the domme to speak.

  “I received your lovely messages,” the woman began in a posh English accent. “And the f lowers.”

  Kingsley’s eyes widened.

  He’d sent only one woman f lowers lately. Twelve dozen red, white and pink roses in the hopes she would take his interest in seeing her seriously. Apparently it had worked.

  “Mistress Felicia,” he said at last.

  “I do have a fondness for f lowers from men who aren’t afraid to beg.”

  Mistress Felicia Tryst had been all over the newspapers when he first came to the city. She’d been named as the offending party in a divorce between a business magnate and his socialite wife. The story had been a bloodbath, a feeding frenzy. Salacious reporters couldn’t get enough of the white American billionaire who was sexually enslaved to a black British dominatrix. Mistress Felicia had risen above the fray and refused to testify on the grounds she never spoke about her clients. She’d languished in prison and kept her vow of silence until the parties settled out of court. He’d once seen her photograph in the Post, but it did not do this dark beauty justice.

  “To what do I owe the honor?” Kingsley asked.

  “You wanted to speak to me about working in your new club, yes?” she asked.

  “Yes. Is that why you’re here?” he asked. They could have had this conversation in his office. Why was Mistress Felicia in his bedroom?

  “I’ll admit to an ulterior motive.”

  “Ulterior motives. Care to enlighten me?”

  “I saw you downstairs. And as soon as I saw you, I knew I wanted to beat you and fuck you. How is that for an ulterior motive?”

  Kingsley’s groin tightened at the sight of the beautiful woman and her riding crop. And everyone who knew anything about kink knew this woman was the most notorious sadist in the city. She could likely give Søren a run for his money.

  “Well?” Mistress Felicia asked.

  The tape could wait.

  His cock couldn’t.

  22

  “HOW DO YOU KNOW I WOULD LET YOU BEAT ME?” Kingsley asked. “You might not let me. You might be nothing but a dominant after all, and the thought of submitting to a woman may hold no appeal.” She strolled toward him, the riding crop swishing behind her like a tiger’s tail. “Then again, it might.”

  “Did anyone see you come in here, Maîtresse?”

  “No one was in the hallway before I came in.” Kingsley sighed with relief. “Good,” he said. “Please, don’t

 
be offended—”

  “I have many clients who would prefer not to have their

  proclivities announced to the world. You don’t have to explain. I am nothing if not discreet.”

  “Your discretion is the stuff of legend, Maîtresse.” She raised her eyebrow at him. “I was warned about your

  accent. They were right.”

  Kingsley desperately wanted this woman, but he’d rather

  die than have the whole city know about the other side of his

  sexual proclivities—the submissive masochistic side. Mistress Felicia walked to him, walked slowly, taking her

  sweet time, making every step toward him a lesson in patience. “I compliment his accent and he stops speaking. Typical

  switch. Can’t stop playing mind games for a second, can you?” “Tell me what to say, and I’ll say it,” Kingsley said. “Tell me you want me to beat you and fuck you, Kingsley.” Yes. God, yes. Yes, he wanted her to do everything to

  him. But…

  “I would like that,” he said. “But, you see, I—” She laid her palm on his chest.

  “Your heart is racing,” she said. “Are you scared?” “I have a problem,” he said.

  “I can see you’re burdened by something. Tell me your

  burdens. Tell me how I can ease them,” she said, touching

  his face, his forehead, his lips. She smelled like roses, like an

  English garden.

  “I was shot,” he said, focusing on the delicious scent of her

  instead of the memories. “Last year. I was with a dominant

  recently. I had a f lashback.”

  “What triggered it?” she asked, apparently not the least

  bothered by his revelation.

  “Someone touched my throat with a whip.”

  “Your throat,” she repeated, looking at him but also into

  him.

  “I was choked once.”

  “I see,” she said, her voice quiet and serene. “I won’t touch

  your throat. And I’m not afraid of your f lashbacks. If you

  have one, you have one. If you don’t, then…well, more time

  to play then, isn’t it?”

  Mistress Felicia ran a gloved hand through his hair. She

  grabbed a fistful of it at the nape of his neck, forcing his head

  back.

  Kingsley didn’t speak.

  “I will hurt you the way you like being hurt tonight,” Mistress Felicia said. “And in no other way. Tell me what

  you like.”

  “I will, Maîtresse.”

  “Do you like this?” she asked, tugging harder on his hair.

  “Do you like being treated like property?”

  “Oui, Maîtresse,” he said.

  “Do you like pain?”

  “More than anything.”

  “How much pain?”

  “All the pain,” he said.

  “You’re a masochist?”

  “You could call me that.”

  “What don’t you want?”

  “I don’t want a collar,” he said. “I hate them.”

  Mistress Felicia laughed and pulled harder on his hair. His

  eyes watered from the pain. She was good, very good. “I won’t put a collar on you. Nothing on your throat. Nothing but my kisses.” She brought her lips to his neck and bit

  the skin over his jugular vein. The bite turned into a kiss and

  back into another bite. “Your neck is too delicious to cover it

  up with anything but my mouth. And besides, there are other

  ways to enslave men that don’t require collars.”

  She tossed her riding crop onto the bed and took him by

  the wrist, bringing his hand between her legs. She wore nothing beneath her leather skirt. He cupped her there, the base

  of his hand against her clitoris.

  “One finger,” she whispered. “One.”

  He slipped one finger between her folds and inside her. So

  warm, so wet. He closed his eyes.

  “You like it inside me?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he breathed.

  “If you survive the pain I’m going to inf lict on you, I’ll let you inside me again. I might let you put your cock in me. If

  you take everything I give you.”

  “I promise, Maîtresse, I can take it.”

  “What’s your safe word?” she asked as Kingsley continued

  to stroke inside her body with one finger.

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Choose one.”

  “I don’t need one.”

  “You have f lashbacks from recent trauma. You need one.” “If I have a f lashback, consider that my safe word.” Mistress Felicia laughed, and Kingsley felt her muscles gripping his finger. Two weeks… He was dying to be inside her.

  The wait would almost kill him. But for all that, he wanted

  the pain she had to offer even more than the sex. It had been

  so long since he’d let himself have the type of pain Søren had

  given him when they were teenagers. He hadn’t planned on

  submitting to anyone tonight. But now that Mistress Felicia

  was here, he realized submission was what he most wanted. Kingsley nearly groaned aloud in disappointment when she

  took his wrist again and moved his hand from her. But then

  she opened his pants.

  “Don’t get hard,” she ordered.

  “It would help if you left the room, Maîtresse.”

  “You’re a big boy. You have self-control. Use it.” Kingsley focused his mind on things unlikely to arouse

  him—politics, airplane crashes, a bad case of the shingles,

  vanilla sex.

  “Good boy,” she said, slipping two fingers between her