finally.
“Why can’t I ever fall in love with a normal woman?” he sighed to himself. “Just once...”
He looked up at the sky hoping for an answer.
“Too much to ask? One normal woman?” He held up one finger. “Or man. I’m not picky. You know me. Someone without a horrible childhood and no kinks that will get me killed.”
He leaned over the edge of the cliff and yelled down at Juliette.
“Cliff diving is one of my hard limits!”
She must not have heard him because all she did was wave.
He closed his eyes, took a breath. He thought he heard something somewhere, something like laughter. But surely it was only the waves on the water below.
God didn’t answer so he took the silence for a no. So when the water hit the rocks Kingsley jumped feet first. It seemed he hovered in midair a moment. The way down passed in a second and lasted an eternity. In the final second before he hit the water, he thought of all that he’d done and all that he wanted in his life. Everything he’d wanted to do he’d done but for two final things on his to-do list. He wanted to save Juliette, and he wanted to have children. And if he survived this foolish leap to his imminent death he would do both.
He hit the water with so much force he went blind and deaf. He couldn’t see the way to the surface, couldn’t hear the sound of the surf. Up and down became meaningless. Life waited in one direction. Death in the other. But which?
He felt a hand on his hair, a tug on his arm. He went where he was pulled and surfaced with a gasp of breath. The rocks were fifty yards away. Juliette was right there. Smiling. Laughing. Alive. Both of them. Alive and beautiful.
“It’s this way,” she called out over the rolling waves. She kicked off and he followed her. She might have been guiding him to Hell—he didn’t care. Where she went he would follow. If she was there, it was Paradise no matter the destination.
After a few minutes of fighting the choppy surf, they entered calmer darker waters. Kingsley spied Juliette’s destination—a large basalt rock formation a hundred yards out. She swam toward it with graceful powerful strokes of her arms and kicks of her long legs. Kingsley went underwater and kicked his way to her. They reached the rocks at the same time and carefully climbed up the tallest of the boulders.
“What is this place?” Kingsley asked as he sat to her right and raised a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun.
“Playground,” she said.
“Playground?”
“Watch.”
Silently she peered out over the dancing waves. Kingsley followed her gaze. It was beautiful here with the sound of the surf filling the air and the call of the seabirds and the sun skipping over the waves.
“There,” she said, pointing. “Do you see?”
Kingsley looked and laughed. Two dolphins breached the surface of the water and shot steam into the air. Ten yards away, three more dolphins came up for air. They glided along the surface with incredible power—their sleek bodies pure muscle and energy.
“You never see that in Manhattan, do you?” Juliette asked.
“No,” Kingsley breathed. “If there are dolphins in the Hudson River, I’ve never seen them.”
For a long time they didn’t speak, only watched the dolphins play. Was it play, though? They surfaced to breathe, swam fast to hunt, frolicked to learn how to fight. It was life to them—life and death. Not a game at all. And Kingsley wondered if something was out there, something greater than himself, greater than Juliette, perched in the distance and watching him and watching her, sitting together on this rock, making love in his bed, watching the pain he gave her, the worship she gave him, and smiling at what looked like play, what looked like a game. But it wasn’t a game to him and Juliette. It was their lives.
“You could stay,” Juliette said at last. “Here in Haiti.”
“I could stay,” he repeated. “And why would I do that?”
“For them.” She pointed at the pod of dolphins that had moved in closer to the rocks. One of the larger ones swam right in front of them, his dorsal fin pockmarked with old battle scars. Kingsley could sympathize.
“For the dolphins? A good reason. Anything else?”
“Maybe for the food?”
“There is a very good Haitian restaurant in Manhattan.”
Juliette laughed. “Then maybe stay for me?”
“You belong to someone else,” he said. “And it sounds like he wouldn’t be interested in sharing.”
“He wouldn’t have to know. I could come to you at night after he’s asleep. I could try.”
She wasn’t looking at him now, only at the water and the waves and the ever-shifting sunlight.
“How long could you do that before he found out?” Kingsley asked turning to look at her. Water ran down her face. Ocean water from her hair? Tears? Both? “And what would happen when he caught us?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but it wouldn’t be good.”
“Let me help you,” Kingsley said. “Please.”
“You can’t buy me,” she said, blinking hard. “I’ve already been bought. I’m not for sale.”
Her words hurt more than any weapon used against him ever had. They hurt not because they were false, but because they were true. He did want to buy her. He wanted to own her. And she wanted nothing but her freedom, the one thing he couldn’t give her.
“There has to be a way. Let me help you.”
“Just kiss me,” she said. “That’s how you can help me.”
Kingsley kissed her. She tasted like the ocean and the ocean tasted like tears. He cupped the back of her neck and held her steady, held her against his mouth as he kissed her harder and deeper.
“I’ve never...” she began and stopped.
“Never what?” Kingsley asked.
“I’ve never brought him here. I’ve never brought anyone here. This is my secret place.”
“Then why did you bring me here?”
“Because you are my other secret place now.” She rested her hand on his bare chest over his heart.
Kingsley took her by the wrist and lifted her arm to his lips. He kissed her hand, turned it and kissed inside her palm.
“I can’t let you go,” he said. “Not even when he comes back.”
“You can,” she said, kissing his lips, his cheek, his jaw to his ear. “You can and you will. And you’ll go home to your world, and I’ll stay in mine. And we’ll be fine, you and I. I’ll be fine. Eventually. Someday.”
“I won’t. Don’t pretend you will, either,” Kingsley said. Juliette didn’t argue. He knew she felt as he did, that what they were to each other they could only be to each other.
He kissed her again, more passionately now. There was no way to make love to her out here without tearing her back to shreds on the rough rocks. And they had nothing with them, not a single condom. But he had to touch her. They were far from the shore, no other people in sight. He untied her suit top and pulled it off her. Her naked breasts were magnificent in the sunlight with water sliding down her skin. He dipped his head and licked a water droplet from her breast before taking a nipple in his mouth and sucking deep. He cupped her other breast in his hand, massaged it. She arched her back as he kissed and licked her nipples.
When her breaths grew ragged and harsh, he untied the bow on her right hip and slipped his hand between her legs. She opened her thighs for him, leaned back on her hands and tilted her hips for him in an invitation.
Kingsley pressed his fingertip lightly against her clitoris. He brushed it gently again and again and Juliette panted between her parted lips. Her eyes were closed and her long thick lashes lay on her cheeks. He kneaded the swollen knot harder now, making circles with his finger. It pulsed against him as her hips moved in time with his touch. He entered her with one finger and found her wet inside, wet and hot. He pushed a second finger inside her. He didn’t rush the moment, didn’t force her climax. All he needed was to touch her as deeply a
nd intimately as possible.
Inside her he pressed his fingertips into the soft indentation under her pubic bone. Juliette’s inner muscles clenched him and she gasped again. Her fingers curled tight on the rocks. As wet as she was, it was easy to push a third finger into her. He pushed against the walls of her vagina, slipping his fingers into the inner folds, opening her up, exploring, learning every inch of her. He found a pulse point inside her and pressed his fingertip into it. Against his hand he felt the wild pounding beat of her heart.
He turned his hand again and penetrated her with his thumb and index finger. Juliette gripped his thigh and squeezed to the point of pain.
“There,” she said, the words coming out in sharp rasps. “Like that.”
He fucked her with his fingers now and her thighs fell open. His hands were covered with her wetness. He’d never felt such raw sexual chemistry with a woman before, such incredible aching hunger. He would die before his desire for her ran out. For days she’d played his sexual property, submitting to his every order, his every need. And it was a cruel trick the gods were playing on him, for whenever he entered her, penetrated her, it was Juliette who dug her way deeper inside of him.
She was close to coming now. He could feel her muscles tightening on his hand, gripping him hard, pulsing and contracting. She cried out in her release, but Kingsley didn’t stop. He pushed on, still touching her past the point of pleasure until she winced and flinched in pain.
“It hurts,” she said but didn’t tell him to stop. He didn’t stop. He rubbed her still-throbbing clitoris until she cried out again with a second orgasm. He didn’t let her catch her breath, didn’t let her rest. He knew her body by now, knew what it was capable of. Inside her she bore an inexhaustible supply of ecstasy and he knew how to find it and release it. He gave her pleasure until it turned to pain, gave her pain until it turned once more to pleasure.
“You’re punishing me,” she said, her voice weak and tired. Still he worked his hand inside her, and still she stayed open for him, letting him use her as he willed.
“I am,” he said. “Every time he touches you for the rest of your life you’ll think of me. I will burn myself into your mind like a fucking brand and it will never heal.”
She cried out with her fourth orgasm. Her body shook and her vagina spasmed with the tremors of her climax. He let her rest at last and reluctantly he pulled his hand from her. While she watched, he licked her wetness off his fingers. She opened his trousers and took his length in her hand. He hadn’t ordered her to do anything but he didn’t stop her from taking him in her mouth, sucking him hard. The rocks underneath him hurt his hands and his back. The pain spiked his pleasure. Not since Søren had he felt this particular brutal combination of desire, of agony, of ecstasy and fear. When they were lovers, Kingsley had feared Søren and what could happen between them. Kingsley’s life had been in Søren’s hands because Kingsley had put it there. With Juliette, Kingsley feared something far more terrifying—he feared what might not happen. He might lose Juliette, he might lose this game. But now he only lost himself in the impossible bliss of this moment with the sun warm on his body and the waves cold against his feet and Juliette’s mouth wet and hot around him. And when he came, he came with blinding force oblivious now to the rocks scoring his back. He felt only the movement of Juliette’s tongue as it coaxed his cock deeper and her throat as she swallowed every drop of him.
When it was done and over and they had nothing else to give or take from each other, Juliette rested her head on Kingsley’s chest and he wrapped an arm around her naked back.
He had to have her. He had to. He couldn’t imagine a world where she belonged to any man but him. So he would have her. Whatever it took. He would have her. No matter what he had to do. He would have her. Even if it killed him.
He would have her.
Even if he had to kill for her.
26
Upstate New York
ELLE COULDN’T STOP smiling. At first she tried to stop when she realized someone might notice her behaving oddly. After all, she probably hadn’t smiled five times in the past six months. But when alone she gave up the battle against her own happiness. Why not smile? She’d had one of the most amazing nights of her life without Søren, without Kingsley, without a man anywhere near her. All day long and all night, all the next night long and all the day after, she thought of Kyrie. Kyrie’s face with its elfin beauty and her small body that fit so nicely against Elle’s, and her scent like ocean water and the beach and the warmth of the California sun...
Flashes of memory from their night together intruded into all of Elle’s thoughts. The sheets she washed and folded reminded her of the sheets she’d taken Kyrie’s virginity on. And the sunlight breaking through the spring cloud cover reminded her of Kyrie’s smile. And for two nights Elle had lain alone in her bed praying Kyrie would come to her again. But the girl was too good at following orders already. Elle had told her to wait a few days, and wait Kyrie did. So Elle waited, too. Impatiently, wistfully and in a near-constant state of arousal. Images from their night together hit Elle’s brain like an electric current. Her knees went weak—literally—and she’d have to stop every few minutes and brace herself on the counter, catch her breath, refocus her thoughts. She hadn’t walked around in this sort of lust-filled daze since she was a teenager waiting for Søren to have her. She needed Kyrie, needed her now, in her bed. And Elle needed to top her, dominate her, use her. For years, Elle had ignored her dominance fantasies but now she gave free rein to them, all of them. There was no one to stop her now from doing whatever she wanted to do to Kyrie. No priest, no king. And not even God would get in the way of Elle doing to Kyrie everything she dreamed of doing.
And these were her dreams.
Next time she and Kyrie were in bed together, she would tie that girl spread-eagle to the cot and give her so many orgasms they’d need a calculator to total them all up.
Gagging might be a good idea. That many orgasms could get loud, after all.
Oh...maybe a blindfold? Kyrie would be able to focus on what she felt if Elle took her sense of sight away.
Would Kyrie like pain? She could start with a spanking and together they could work their way up to harder stuff.
Wait. Had Elle ever spanked anyone in her life? Swatting Kingsley on the ass when he wore a pair of particularly tight and well-tailored trousers didn’t count.
This was a convent. Candles everywhere. Maybe Kyrie would like candle-wax play. Who didn’t like candle-wax play?
So many ideas, fantasies, dreams...all Elle needed was another night with Kyrie. And another. And another. Then a whole week with Kyrie. A whole year. They needed their own bedroom, their own house, where they could do everything they wanted.
House?
“Oh my God, one night with a girl and I’m already packing the U-Haul,” she said out loud.
No to the house idea. They’d start with a hotel room and see where things went from there.
Elle gave up her work and stared out the window of the laundry room. The trees swayed in a spring breeze. The sun dappled the leaves that shone with morning dew. The sky was a brilliant blue. This was her world and it was good. And she, she was happy. Elle was happy for the first time in a long time. She was happy without Søren. It was possible. It could happen. It had happened. She could leave him and move on with her life. Hope was Heaven, and she had Heaven in her heart.
Once upon a time she thought the world would end if she ever had to live without him.
And here she was, without him. And here was the world, spinning on its axis as usual.
She had survived the end of the world and found at the end a new beginning. And if she’d survived the end of the world, surely she could survive anything now.
“Eleanor Louise Schreiber, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Elle started and dropped the sheet she’d been halfheartedly folding and spun around.
Her mother stood in the doorway of t
he laundry room glaring at her with fire in her eyes.
“Mom? You scared the shit out of me.”
Her mother shut the door behind her. That wasn’t good. Mother Prioress discouraged private conversations at the convent. Whatever her mother had to say, Elle knew she wouldn’t like it.
“I will ask you again,” her mother said as she stood in front of Elle. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Laundry?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m doing laundry. Like I do every day.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“No, I swear—”
“Answer me this then. Do you want to get kicked out of here? Do you?”
“Of course not.” Elle stammered as she answered, scared and confused.
“This is an abbey. We have rules here. Vows. And while you’re