The future tantalized him. The past dogged him. When he wasn’t imagining life in New Orleans with Juliette and their baby, he was back in the past again, sixteen years old, following Søren one warm September night out to a clearing in the Maine woods, waiting to hear those three words again—
“There’s my King,” came a voice from behind him.
Wrong three words.
Mistress Nora put her hands on his hips from behind and rose up to kiss his cheek. He leaned into the kiss. She sidled up next to him at the railing. She was wearing a red leather bustier and red boots. A short flogger with scarlet tails hung from a cord around her wrist. “Watching the show?”
“Not much of one tonight. It’s Monday,” he said with a shrug.
She swept her thick black hair off her shoulders and pulled it up into a loose bun, then fanned herself. Must have just finished up with a client. Her hair was damp with sweat, and her heavy black eye make-up was becomingly smudged. Her dark eyes glowed bright by the light of the tall tallow candles that illuminated the VIP lounge. For a moment, he could imagine she was a Valkyrie, fierce, deadly, and wild.
“How was your session?” he asked. He wanted desperately to tell her what he and Juliette were planning, but Søren had asked him to wait for a few months so she could get her bearings. They’d been through a lot, especially her.
“It was all right. I think I broke his finger. Oops.”
Oops? Not merely sadistic, but callous, too. Kingsley’s blood stirred just standing next to her, and he wondered if he needed a beating tonight more than he needed his dignity. No, he told himself, not tonight. Tonight he would go home as soon as he could, get out of his clothes—obscenely snug black trousers, black shirt with the collar open, and black coat with tails—and into bed with Juliette.
“Is that bad?” he asked.
“Nah. He tips an extra grand if I break something.”
“You don’t sound excited.”
She glanced at him out the corner of her eye. “Can I tell you a secret without you firing me?”
“You don’t work for me anymore, remember?”
Painfully, this was true. Nora chose her own clients now. She kept all her money. She paid rent on her dungeon, but she didn’t answer to him anymore. This arrangement had hurt his wallet but improved their relationship.
“Okay, fine,” she said. “Can I tell you a secret without you kicking me out of my dungeon?”
“Of course.”
“I broke his finger because I was bored, and I was trying to do something to get my head back in the game.”
“I take it this didn’t work.”
“Worked for him.” She rolled her eyes. “He came so hard I have to get the ceilings mopped tomorrow. Still, the whole time I was thinking about how I wanted to be anywhere in the world but in that room.”
“You never think that when I’m in your dungeon, do you?”
She put her arm around his waist, patted his ass, and kissed his cheek. His tight trousers were getting even tighter. This woman was so vicious that breaking a man’s finger bored her.
“Never,” she said with a wicked gleam in her vicious eyes. “When I’m with you—dungeon or no dungeon—all I can think about is how much fun I have beating the shit out of you.”
“Merci.”
He kissed her lips lightly, and they turned their gazes back to the pit. A few more people had trickled in. Play was picking up. Someone was getting their boots blacked. Someone else was getting pilloried and sodomized in tandem.
“I was torturing a billionaire, and I was bored,” she said.
“And I’m watching a former child star get sodomized by a drag queen named Scarlet O’Whora, and I’m bored, too. What’s wrong with us?”
“It’s that room,” she said, sober again, somber. He knew she wasn’t talking about her dungeon this time. She wrapped her arms around herself as if suddenly cold. “Something happened in that room to us, and we’re all different now. You feel it, don’t you?”
“I feel it.”
“Looking back, it feels like I spent my entire adult life playing with people.”
“You did. That was your job.”
“True.” She sighed. “For years it was like the three of us were playing one big game with each other. Me and him versus you. You and him versus me. Me and you versus him. I don’t know. It’s like…after everything that happened, the game’s over.”
“Because we both won?” Kingsley asked.
She met his eyes. “Because maybe it was never a game to start with.” She closed her eyes. “So many people got hurt. We hurt so many people. Real pain is a lot scarier than what they pay me for.”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”
“It’s hard to be here sometimes,” she said. “I keep trying to go back to the way things were, but I don’t know… I’m starting to think I’m not supposed to go back. I’m supposed to go forward.”
Had she told Søren that? Is that why he didn’t want Kingsley to tell her they were moving, because she was feeling just as restless? If Kingsley and Juliette left, if they broke the bond that held them all together, what would stop Nora from leaving, too? Her black eyes glowed with an inner fire. No wonder Søren feared getting burned again.
Intrigued but unwilling to show his hand, Kingsley said simply, “Where do you think you are supposed to go?”
“I want to travel. Get out of here and not look back for a while. In fact, I was thinking…” She glanced at him out the corner of her eye. “You told me a long time ago about this place you went to in France after you got shot the first time. Somewhere in wine country or something. Your parents took you there when you were a kid?”
Kingsley furrowed his brow. “I told you about that? I don’t remember.”
She smiled. “You were drunk at the time. I think I was, too. You said you went somewhere to recuperate? Maybe that’s what I need. A little time in wine country.”
What she needed was a male submissive. A real one. Not her old houseboy Wesley or whatever his stupid name was, but a real submissive who would worship her for her power, not try to take it away from her. Someone to serve her, guard her, someone she could train and spoil and be spoiled by. Not that he would tell her that and risk being bludgeoned to death by Søren. Bludgeoning was one of his few hard limits.
He waved his hand to dismiss the idea. “You’ll be bored,” he said. “Just a little village called Mozet and a bit of beach. My father had friends there, I think. It’s been so long since I’ve been.”
“Didn’t you have a girlfriend there?”
“No, I had a wife there. Only she was someone else’s wife.”
Nora laughed her low throaty laugh, and he had to remind himself—again—that he was going to go home as soon as possible. Any minute now.
“Mozet,” she said as if committing the name to memory. “I’ll look it up. Maybe it’s just what the doctor ordered.”
“Juliette had a good time in New Orleans, you know. You could take a few weeks there. We didn’t want to come back.”
“So I heard. Søren asked me if I’d seen you since you got back from your trip. You aren’t hiding from him, are you?”