“Would it punish you?”
“I can’t think of anything I want less right now than for you to leave.”
Kingsley met his eyes, his steel-gray eyes and saw the truth shining in them, turning them silver. Søren was afraid that Kingsley might walk out—that this was too little, too late.
Kingsley went to the door, and paused at the threshold—he was a sadist himself, after all—before shutting the bedroom door.
The clicking of the brass bolt into place was one of the more erotic sounds he’d ever heard.
“I knew you weren’t going to leave,” Søren said, grinning slightly. “Come here.”
Søren pointed to the old oval country rug at the foot of the bed. Kingsley committed the rug’s colors and placement to memory, as he did with the entire room—the four-poster bed, the tops of the posts so tall they nearly brushed the ceiling. The quilt, downy white. The leather armchair and small side table, where a brass reading lamp sat.
Kingsley took his place on the rug. No one, unless they had submitted to someone they loved and respected, could ever understand the beautiful freedom of taking orders given by someone you trusted with your heart and your body. Nora had the best explanation for it. He remembered a lazy night at The 8th Circle, sitting around a table with Griffin and a few others, when one of the club’s dominatrixes demanded Nora explain why she still sometimes submitted to Søren, why she’d take the servant’s role to a man when she was born to be a master.
And Nora had said, “Imagine you know a guy—an investment banker, maybe—and you know that even if you handed over every penny of your fortune and watched him walk away with it…that when he came back a day later, or a week later, it would be with double your money, triple even. Imagine giving up all you have to someone, knowing you’re going to get it back and then some. If you knew that guy, you’d love him, wouldn’t you? Even if you didn’t love him, you’d love him. You’d kiss his fucking hands, wouldn’t you? You’d kiss his fucking feet.”
The dominatrix who’d challenged Nora conceded defeat and kissed Nora’s boot in penance. She was right. No denying. And if Kingsley hadn’t been ordered to stand there on the rug by the bed, he might have dropped to his knees and kissed Søren’s fucking hands, his fucking feet.
Søren lifted his hand and cupped the back of Kingsley’s neck. “What do you want from me tonight? I’m in a giving mood.”
Kingsley knew there was no right or wrong answer to that question. It wasn’t a sincere query, just a way to make Kingsley squirm a little, embarrass him by making him talk about his fantasies. It took a lot to embarrass Kingsley, but Søren’s steady gaze on him—his waiting, watching, judging regard—always turned him back into a nervous teenager, terrified of saying the wrong thing.
“The usual, I guess. Sex and kink, and it’s all very hot and intense, et cetera, et cetera.”
“Et cetera, et cetera?”
“I’ll leave the ‘et cetera’ to you.”
“Sex and kink, et cetera.” Søren’s tone was stern but amused. Professorial, like a teacher trying to find a kernel of sense somewhere in a very stupid pupil’s reply. “Could you possibly be more specific?”
He could, actually. Kingsley remembered who he was then—not a skinny, scared teenager anymore but a grown man, a man other men were rightly afraid of.
And he knew exactly what he wanted.
Søren’s bed was beautiful, two hundred or more years old. Oak with hand-carved spindles. No surprise that after two hundred years, the wood was scuffed and scratched. It wasn’t time that had left its mark on the bed, but rather Søren and Nora. Kingsley had watched with his own eyes, lying on those pillows, as Søren had flogged her while she was cuffed to the bedpost. Flogged her then fucked her. All those scratches, those gouges, those grooves, they were all souvenirs of her nights here.
“You have gouges and scratches all over your bed,” he said. “Did you ever notice that?”
“I’ve noticed,” Søren said, touching a deep dent in the footboard. “If I ever leave, I’ll have to have the bed refinished.”
“All these are hers,” Kingsley said. “You tie her up here and flog her and whip her and beat her. None of them are mine. I’ve never left so much as a scratch.”
“Would you like to leave a scratch or two on my bed?”
“I’d like you to fuck me so hard the bedposts break off, but I’ll settle for one or two of these of my own.” He stroked the marks left by handcuffs, by snap hooks, by desperate fingernails.
Kingsley wanted to leave his mark there, too. Something permanent. Something left behind that declared to the world, Kingsley Was Here.
“Let’s leave some marks then.” Søren brushed his lips lightly over Kingsley’s and whispered two words that left Kingsley breathless.
“Deep ones.”
Chapter Five
Søren ordered him to undress. Kingsley obeyed, but slowly. He wanted everything to be slow tonight. No rush. No hurry. Make the evening last as long as possible.
He took off his suit jacket, tossed it over the back of the chair. Then the button-down, deftly freeing one button at a time. Meanwhile, Søren had unlocked the big steamer trunk. Hidden under the neatly folded sheets and quilts were all of Søren’s toys. Floggers. Whips. Handcuffs. Misery sticks. Leather cuffs. Snap hooks. Spreader bars. Ankle cuffs.
Kingsley grew more and more aroused as the seconds passed and the silence grew heavy with possibility. Shoes off. Socks off. Trousers off. Then there was nothing left to take off.
Søren emerged from the chest with a ring. A large metal ring. Definitely not a cock ring, unless the cock in question belonged to a bull elephant.
“What’s that?” Kingsley asked.
“You wanted to leave marks on my bed,” Søren said, placing the metal hoop over the top of the wooden spindle, where it stayed like a ring tossed onto a peg during a carnival game. “Your own marks. She can’t reach that high. I think you can.”
Søren picked up two leather wrist cuffs. Kingsley was six feet tall, but even so, he would have to stretch if he were cuffed to that ring. The higher his hands were tied, the less secure footing he would have, and the more vulnerable he would be—no doubt precisely why Søren had thought of it.
Søren casually tossed the cuffs onto the bed, then unbuttoned his shirt. He threw it at Kingsley, who knew what to do. He neatly folded the shirt and laid it over the back of the chair, and just like that, he was sixteen again. This was how it had been. This is how it would be. Only this time, he hoped, without the terrible ending.
From the toy box, Søren removed a flogger with oiled leather tails. Kingsley closed his eyes, breathed a silent “Merde.” Oiled leather was bad. Oiled leather meant sharp, stinging sensations. Oiled leather was not for beginners, because oiled leather could cause serious pain.
“You don’t use that on Nora, do you?” Kingsley asked.
“Never. Though she’s been threatened with it. Keeps her in line, more or less.”