The King

  breasts and from her corset producing a leather strap. “Fuck.” He sighed.

  “Eventually,” she said, and wrapped the strap around his

  testicles and the base of his penis. Cock ring. Pleasure and

  torture all in one.

  “You have a beautiful cock,” she said, massaging it with

  both hands. The leather of her gloves abraded, and he quickly

  grew hard from the bite of the seams against his most sensitive skin. She grasped his cock by the base and slid her hands

  up and down the shaft. Fluid appeared on the tip and dripped

  onto her gloves.

  “Eager, aren’t you?”

  “I haven’t had sex in two weeks,” he confessed. “Eager is

  an understatement.”

  “It’s such an impressive erection, I’d hate for you to lose it

  before I had time to enjoy it.”

  “You’ll enjoy it,” he promised, as she traced the edges of

  the leather strap. Blood pooled and pumped into the shaft,

  and he closed his eyes tight.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “A little,” he said.

  “Good.” She grinned at him. “It’s a start anyway. Now

  stand there, don’t move. I’m going to take your clothes off.

  I’ve heard rumors that Kingsley Edge had one of the better

  male bodies in the city. Time I find out for myself.” She pulled his jacket off his shoulders and pushed it down

  his arms. When she had it off, she walked to the armchair and

  laid it carefully over the back. He knew better than to think

  she was showing respect for him by showing respect for his

  clothes. No, he had a cock ring on and a painful erection. She

  would undress him as slowly as possible, dragging the process

  out until he was in agony.

  “When was the first time you submitted to erotic pain?”

  she asked as she unbuttoned his vest.

  “Eleven years ago.”

  “You’re so young,” she said. “How old were you when you

  started doing kink?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Domme?”

  “Sadist,” he said. “Male.”

  “Sixteen’s awfully young to be submitting to a sadist.” “He was seventeen, Maîtresse.”

  Mistress Felicia laughed. “I wish I had gone to your high

  school instead of mine.”

  “You couldn’t have. It was an all-boys Catholic school.” “Catholic,” she said as she removed his shirt. She didn’t

  f linch at the sight of the scars on his chest. She’d likely seen

  worse in her work. “I should send the pope a check. I get half

  my clients from his church.”

  Lifting his feet to let her tug his boots off sent pain shooting into his stomach. He hated cock rings. He could keep his

  erection without one. But the pain did what pain always did

  to him—cleared his mind, pulled him out of the past, obliterated the future. There was nothing but now, right now, and

  the pain that held him in place, unable to think, unable to

  dream, unable to want anything but more pain.

  Mistress Felicia tugged his pants down, folded them neatly

  and laid them across a chair with his other clothes. He appreciated that she treated his clothes with respect, unlike Søren

  who’d taken perverse pleasure in dropping them on the f loor

  and traipsing over them.

  Kingsley focused on her face as she moved. A lovely woman

  in her late thirties, she had an imperious air to her, a proud

  set to her face and no mercy in her eyes. In that regard she

  reminded him very much of Søren.

  “When did you start dominating people, Maîtresse?” he

  asked, curious what else she and Søren had in common. “I’m going to punish you for speaking out of turn.” “As you should.”

  “But to answer your question,” she said, standing in front of

  him, “I was eight when I started bossing around all the boys in my neighborhood, fifteen when I tied my first boyfriend up and nineteen when I took on my first client. He was my

  college chemistry professor.”

  “You had good chemistry, then?”

  “I was going to be gentle with you,” Mistress Felicia said.

  “Because of that joke, I’m afraid now I’ll have to destroy you.” Kingsley’s heart galloped in his chest. The cock ring had

  made him hard. The threat of pain made him harder. “Good.”

  Mistress Felicia bent down and from a long leather bag produced two sets of leather cuffs.

  “You haven’t had sex in two weeks?” she asked. “The two longest weeks of my life.”

  “I’m going to leave two weeks’ worth of bruises on every

  inch of your body. It’ll take them that long to heal, which will

  give you two choices. You can either not have sex for another

  two weeks until they’re gone, or you can come to me every

  day and serve at my pleasure until they’re gone. And then, if

  you beg nicely, I’ll give you more.”

  Two weeks as the property of Mistress Felicia? It was June,

  wasn’t it? Had Christmas come early?

  “I’ll take the second option,” he said.

  Mistress Felicia took a step forward and grabbed him

  roughly by the right forearm, pressing his hand to her chest.

  She strapped the cuff on his wrist and buckled it.

  She released his right arm, and buckled his left. From her

  bag she produced a long metal clip. She ordered him to raise

  both arms. As soon as they were up, she cuffed his wrists over

  the top bar of the bed canopy. Once cuffed into place, he could

  do nothing but wait, not moving, and want her.

  Mistress Felicia stood so close to him now that he could

  count her eyelashes. She had the tiniest beauty mark under her right eye. He longed to kiss it. He longed to kiss her, to

  taste her full lips, her skin, her body inside and out. “You want to kiss me, don’t you?” she asked.

  “So much, Maîtresse.”

  “Your mouth has to earn it.” She raised her riding crop

  and slipped it between his teeth. He bit it and held it in place.

  “I’m going to bruise the front of your body first. You keep the

  crop in your mouth the entire time, and you’ll get your kiss.” He nodded his understanding and clamped his teeth even

  tighter on the crop. As sadistic as this task was, he appreciated

  the consideration. With the crop in his mouth, he wouldn’t

  be tempted to cry out. And the last thing he wanted was for

  anyone in the house to know what he was doing right now.

  He needed this city to fear him. If they saw him like this—

  tied up, naked, vulnerable—he would never be seen the same

  way again.

  From her bag she produced a cane—two feet long and

  made of rattan.

  She raised her arms and brought them high. With a quick

  and vicious f lick, she struck Kingsley’s forearm two inches

  under the cuff. She hadn’t been kidding. She intended to

  bruise his entire body from his wrists to his ankles. Down his right arm she worked, striking him in even intervals, one inch and then lower an inch, and then lower an

  inch. The pain surprised him every time. Sharp, stinging and

  deep… He knew he’d have red welts for a day from the cane

  and bruises for at least a week if not longer.

  From his right arm she moved to his left, hitting him again

  with controlled but brutal strikes. Søren had never hit him

  or
struck him on this part of his body before, on the smooth

  skin from his elbow to armpit. But he’d cut him there one

  night, short shallow slices with a razor blade on the inside of

  his upper arms and inner thighs. They’d fucked afterward, face to face, chest to chest…it was one of the few times Søren hadn’t tied him up before sex. Kingsley remembered wrapping his arms around Søren’s shoulders, his legs around his back. Blood had covered them both. When it was over Søren even had a streak of it on his face. He’d looked primal as a wild animal with the slash of crimson across his cheek and the firelight glowing behind him—a wolf in a cave unafraid of fire. In that heated, sacred hour, with his eyes nothing but pupils, his hair slick with sweat, Søren had appeared to him like a beast, a demon, or a god. Kingsley hadn’t cared which as long as he could worship at the altar of the blood-stained

  being who’d made a sacrifice of him.

  “You do love pain, don’t you?” Mistress Felicia asked, her

  voice low and sensual. As he had the crop in his mouth he

  couldn’t answer in words. His ragged breathing and erection

  surely told her all she needed to know. “I can tell. You lose

  yourself in the pain.”

  He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as she ran her

  fingers over the welts on his arms, renewing the pain. “Lose yourself, then,” Mistress Felicia said. “Go wherever

  the pain wants to take you—into your mind, into your past,

  into your darkest dreams. Go as far away as you need to. I’ll

  come for you, and I’ll find you and bring you back.” If he could have spoken he would have thanked her. They

  were the words he most needed to hear, especially now as she

  worked his chest over, striking even the scar tissue left by the

  bullet wounds. She had no fear of the damage done to him by

  the violence of other men, and for that he would have kissed

  her feet could he have reached them.

  He closed his eyes and let himself fall away into the crucible of pain. It burned. He burned. Everything burned.

  And through the fire he walked, barefoot and heedless of the

  f lames. The path of the fire led him into his past, back to the first night Søren had him. When he came through the f lames, he was sixteen again and running through the woods outside his school. He heard twigs breaking under his feet, the crunch of leaves, the soft thud of his soles on bare ground. And Søren was behind him, gaining on him. Why did he run? For eleven years he’d asked him that question. Yes, he’d run in fear. When he’d seen the look in Søren’s eyes, he knew what was coming.

  But what Søren intended was everything Kingsley wanted. Why did he run?

  He ran for the pleasure of being pursued. That Søren wanted

  him so much that he would run after him even through the

  minefield of sharp hills, quick descents, grasping tree branches,

  tearing thorns. But was that why he ran? The true reason? The fire caught up the half truths and burned them to ashes. And then Kingsley remembered something he’d forgotten

  ever since that night. He’d wrenched himself from Søren’s

  grip and taken off again. But he’d paused once, turned around

  and smiled at Søren. Come and get me, that smile had said. Søren had come and gotten him.

  “Where are you?” Mistress Felicia whispered in his ear.

  She took the crop from his mouth. “Tell me where you are

  in your mind.”

  “A forest,” Kingsley said. “I’m sixteen. And I’m running,

  and I don’t know why.”

  “You know why.”

  “He’s chasing me.”

  “Who?”

  “The boy I love.”

  “The sadist.”

  “Yes.”

  “If you love him, why are you running?”

  “I want him to catch me.”

  “Has he caught you before?”

  “No…the night in the forest was our first time.” “You wanted it?”

  “More than anything,” he said, speaking the truth from his

  heart. “So, why did I run?”

  “Because you weren’t running from him. You were running to you. The real you.”

  The words sank in to his soul.

  “I was,” he breathed.

  “Good boy…” Mistress Felicia said, taking his erection in

  her hands again and stroking him. “Now, run to me.” Slowly he opened his eyes. It took a few seconds for the

  haze of the past to clear completely. He smiled.

  When he looked down he saw that the entire front of his

  body had turned red. He had welts on his chest, welts on his

  sides, welts on his hips and stomach. A hundred welts decorated his legs in a pattern like tiger stripes. Mistress Felicia had

  been merciless with him. His skin throbbed from the injuries

  she’d inf licted on him. No wonder she could command billionaires to kiss her feet. Pain like this was worth any price. She took the crop from his teeth and laid both her hands

  on either side of his face. She tilted his head so that his eyes

  met her eyes. For a long time she did nothing but hold the

  eye contact, forcing him to see her. In her eyes he saw power

  and strength, intelligence and compassion. Compassion? For

  what? For his suffering? Yes. He saw that. But which suffering? The pain she’d inf licted on him? Or all his other pain that

  she sensed he carried within? It didn’t matter why he moved

  her that way, only that he did. For when she kissed him, he

  felt real tenderness, affection. She kissed masterfully, her lips

  teasing his, her tongue caressing his tongue. She didn’t force