The Mistress (34 page)

“I want you to touch me...all of me.”

“It will cost you.”

“I’ll pay any price.”

“Stand in your place.”

She turned her back to him, crossed her arms and rested her forehead against her wrists. He didn’t pick up the flogger this time. He’d gone back into the bag for something else. She didn’t see it, but she heard it. When he whipped the air it made a whistling sound.

“You recall how much the flogger hurt?”

“Yes. A lot.”

“Good,” he said. “This is a cane. It will hurt worse.”

“Ten more minutes?”

“Oh, I won’t cane you for ten minutes. You’d end up in the hospital. I’ll cane you for one minute.”

“Thank God...”

“I’ll whip you for the other nine.”

The cane landed in the center of the backs of her thighs. The impact felt like a line of fire erupted on her skin. The next blow moved up higher. The third higher still. But the fourth moved lower so she quit guessing where the next would land. Her bottom, her upper thighs, her lower thighs...they burned with a pain she’d never experienced before. And as quickly as it started, it was over. But only the caning. Something bit at her back with tiny, tearing teeth. She heard a snap, something cutting the air, something stinging her skin. As before she lost herself after a few moments. The pain became a fact of life, as much a part of her as breathing. She didn’t seek to stop it. She didn’t even endure it. She received it, accepted it, even enjoyed it for the fact that the man who gave it to her needed to give it to her. The gods of old had demanded blood sacrifices from their people—a dove slain on an altar, a rook or a sheep. For some gods, even a person. The blood atoned for the sins of the people, bent the ears of god toward the supplicant. But Grace felt nothing like a dove laid out upon an altar. Giving herself to Søren for a night? This was no sacrifice.

When the pain stopped, Grace did nothing but stand and wait. When the pain stopped, Søren was at her back, turning her toward him again. His mouth found hers and she returned the kiss as ardently as he gave it. As they kissed he pushed her onto the bed and held himself over her. She lay underneath him as his hands traversed the full plane of her body, over her breasts and down her stomach, down her legs and across her hips. He had such graceful hands, such knowing fingers, and when she opened her thighs and he slipped his fingers into her, she accepted them like a gift. She gloried in every touch, every sensation, even the discomfort of her battered back on the sheets.

“Tell me what you want,” he ordered, and she knew the answer before he’d even asked.

“You,” she said. “All of you. Whatever the price.”

Søren brought his hand to her chest again.

“Grace...”

She met his eyes, gray and burning. She’d never seen gray fire before. She memorized the color because she knew she would never see it again for the rest of her life. But she saw it tonight and that would be enough.

“Please.”

He pressed his hand into her throat. The world turned white as the morning.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispered once more in her ear.

She told him.

Then she earned it.

43

THE KNIGHT

W
esley moved carefully inside Laila. As much as he wanted to let go, he remembered her soft whimpers of pain, remembered she’d never done this before, remembered that, this time, he was the experienced one who had to take the lead.

“You okay?” He kissed her neck and shoulder.

“More than okay.” She moved her leg higher up his back. “Are you okay?”

He laughed as he nuzzled the side of her neck. She smelled so good, like a warm kitchen, vanilla and strawberries.

“Beyond okay.” He pushed in again, a little harder this time, a little deeper. Laila rewarded him with a moan of pleasure, low and hungry. “How’s that for okay?”

Closing his eyes tight, Wesley focused on his breathing and tried to ignore that wet heat wrapped tightly around him. Looking at Laila was also too much of a temptation. Her lips red with kisses, her pink-tipped nipples, her smooth skin he wanted to lick and nibble... And God, those long legs of hers. He could die with them wrapped around his back like that.

Wesley took slow, calming breaths. He knew where he wanted to go, but he refused to go there without her. Reaching out, he grabbed the bottom bar of the headboard and pushed himself up, putting room between him and Laila. Now only their hips met.

“Wes?” Laila’s confused tone brought him back to himself.

“I’m here. Changing position a little.” He pulled her down the bed a little as he rose up even more. Sliding a hand between their bodies, he found her clitoris and kneaded it. Laila gasped and clung to the sheets with desperate fingers.

He slowed his thrusts and concentrated instead on Laila’s pleasure. He could come any second now but he refused to do it until she did. He might never see her again after tonight, although his gut told him this was only the beginning of something, not the end. But whatever happened, nothing could change the fact that this was her first time and he’d make it good for her if it killed him.

And considering she was Søren’s niece, it might just kill him.

“Is that good?” He touched her the way she’d showed him she liked. And as swollen as her clitoris was, she clearly liked something he was doing to her.

“More than good,” she said, grinning and gasping for air.

Her breathing quickened even more and her hips moved in tight pulses against his hand. He took her by the wrist and brought her arm around his shoulder.

“Hold my neck,” he said, wanting her hands on him when she came, needing her touch as much as she needed his.

She dug her hands in the back of his hair and held tight to him. Her grip was nearly painful. He didn’t mind it at all.

He moved his fingers harder against her and her breaths stopped in the back of her throat. He felt her tightening around him, so tight even he winced from it. With a final near-silent whimper, Laila came, her inner muscles spasming around him. As much as he wanted to relish the victory of bringing her to climax, his body demanded its own release. He pushed back in, stretched out on top of her and rode her with long, full thrusts that left Laila writhing underneath him.

With a few short, sharp and final pushes into her he came, emptying himself out with more force than he’d ever felt in his life. The orgasm hit him behind his eyes and in the pit of his stomach. Even as he came, he knew he’d never come this hard in his entire life.

He collapsed on top of Laila and once more she wrapped herself around him—this time with both arms and both legs.

They breathed together and said nothing. He felt no guilt, no shame, no awkwardness. Carefully he pulled out of her and noted that Laila barely winced.

Rolling onto his side, he brought her with him, her back to his chest, his arms around her.

“Thank you,” she whispered, dropping her head to kiss the arm that encircled her.

“My pleasure. Literally.”

“And mine.”

“I was wrong,” Wes admitted. “That was a seriously good idea.”

Laila laughed and the sound filled the air like music.

“It will be a terrible idea if my uncle catches us,” she said, settling in against him. He kissed her shoulder, the back of her neck, kissed every part of her he could reach. “I hadn’t planned this far ahead.”

“It’s fine. He’ll only kill me. He’ll let you live.”

“And that’s fine with you?”

“Oh, yeah. Sex with you?” Wesley rolled her onto her back and covered her with his body again. “Worth dying for.”

44

THE KING

K
ingsley stood shirtless in front of the cheval mirror in Daniel’s bedroom and examined the damage. After Nora had stabbed Marie-Laure in the thigh, his sister had pulled out the dagger and used it on him as he tried to take her down. He’d lied and said he’d shot Marie-Laure when she’d sliced his side open. He hadn’t needed to shoot her. Mistress Nora had paid attention during all those self-defense lessons he’d given her years ago. She went right for the femoral artery and had struck it clean. Marie-Laure had bled to death. He would never tell Nora that. She’d earned her clean hands. He would keep his bloody.

Luckily for him, Marie-Laure didn’t have the good aim Nora did. The blade left a flesh wound on his side, a deep one, but nothing fatal. Only painful and now...

“Fuck...” He sighed as he pulled off the gauze. The wound had opened again. No more denying the obvious. He needed real medical attention, not his own feeble field efforts.

“Oh, good,” came a voice from the doorway. “Someone in this house is in worse shape than I am.”

“I don’t know about that,
Maîtresse,
” he said as Nora came up to him and examined the damage on his side. “You look like
merde
yourself.”

“I know you said I look like shit but it still sounded sexy. Why does everything sound better in French?” She carefully ran her finger along the outside of the injury. “You want some help?”

“S’il vous plaît.”

“On the bed, slut,” she said. “If I hurt you enough, I’m going to expect payment.”

“We’ll put it on my tab.”

Kingsley laid on the bed on his uninjured side. Nora returned in a few minutes with rubbing alcohol, a towel and a needle and thread.

“Good thing Anya’s a sewing freak. She’s got every kind of thread in existence in this house.”

“You’re going to stitch me up?”

“I am. Either you let me do it now, or I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“No hospitals,” he said, recalling his last hospital stay that would have been his last stay anywhere had it not been for a priest showing up and scaring the
merde
out of the doctors.

“Thought so. Now hold still.”

Kingsley winced as Nora cleaned the wound. The alcohol burned deep and he breathed through the pain.

“Want some real alcohol? The drinking kind?” Nora threaded the needle with black thread and soaked the thread in the alcohol. “This is gonna hurt like a motherfucker.”

“You remember who you’re talking to?”

Nora laughed as she bent over his wound.

“Good point. Speaking of points...” She pushed the needle into his skin and Kingsley closed his eyes, fighting the urge to wince or flinch. “Jesus, King, you got beat to hell. Some of these bruises look old.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. Nora rolled her eyes.

“That horny priest. I leave to go fuck somebody else for one week, and he jumps you the second my back is turned.”

“Not true. I seduced him,
and
he did make me wait a few days.”

“He’s such a sadist.”

“He almost killed me, if that makes you feel any better.”

“It does.” She pulled the thread through his skin and brought the needle back down. “But we both know that’s how you like it.”

“I wasn’t complaining, I promise.”

She worked in concentrated silence for a few minutes as Kingsley clung to the rung of the headboard to steady himself.

“Where did you learn how to do sutures?”

“Mistress Irina.”

“Ahh...yes, my Russian. She was quite the good sadist, too.”

“That client of mine with the medical fetish...what was his name? Rhymed with Fucker.”

“Tucker.”

“Him. He liked having his lips sutured. Paid me five hundred per stitch.”

“I don’t recall you making nearly that much off him.”

“It was off the books.” She winked at him.

He started to laugh but stopped himself. No laughing during stitches. He learned that the hard way once.

“I knew you were skimming.”

“You were, too.”

“It wasn’t skimming,” he protested. “It was creative arithmetic.”

“Times like this,” she said, tying the end of the thread, “I miss working for you.”

“We were a good team, you and I,
Maîtresse.
”

“We were. Especially when we teamed up on Blondie.”

“He’s his own army. We needed a unified force to defeat him.”

“He still always won.”

“Only because we let him,” Kingsley said, and Nora grinned broadly. She wore nothing right now but black panties and a black tank top so all her bruises were on open display. But even with the bruises, the cracked and healing lip, she was still a thing of beauty any man would lay down his life for. Even a priest. Even a king. “At least, that’s what we told ourselves.”

“You think we could do that again?” Nora asked, pausing to dab an alcohol-soaked cotton ball over the bleeding stitches.

“Do what? Gang up on him?”

“Be a team again.” She looked at him without smiling. “Friends, maybe? Or maybe at least you could stop hating me?”

“I never hated you.”

Nora flicked his open wound with her fingers. Kingsley gasped in pain.

“Liar.”

“Fine. I did hate you. A little.”

“Why? We were good once, King. You and me. When I worked for you, we were almost even friends.”

He exhaled heavily.

“When you left him the first time, I knew why. I understood, and as much as it hurt me to see him so broken, I didn’t even blame you. Quite honestly, I was shocked you lasted as long as you did in his collar.”

“I took great pleasure in imagining creative ways of murdering him.”

“This does not surprise me. Any true slave or submissive wouldn’t have minded his tests. But I knew what you were and I knew how hard it must have been for you to deny that half of yourself that wanted to be the master.”

“The Mistress,” she corrected him.

“Oui, la Maîtresse.”

She worked in silence through a difficult patch of especially torn skin. Without a word, Nora handed him a pillow and Kingsley bit down on it.

“You need to start taking better care of yourself,” she said, eyeing his battered body after a few more stitches.

“I’m fine.”

“Fine? Let’s not even talk about the six-inch gash I’m sewing up right now. You’re covered in welts and bruises and it even looks like that big blond fucker tiger-striped you.”

“He did,” Kingsley said with some pride.

“Have you possibly maybe once considered using, I don’t know, a safe word or something?”

“Don’t insult me.”

“Or maybe the green light, yellow light, red light system?” Nora dug her needle into him again and Kingsley bit down into the pillow.

“You might as well turn me vanilla.”

“Kingsley, you stubborn ass, you have a child on the way.”

He stopped biting the pillow long enough to bury his face in it for a moment and mumble something.

Nora pulled the pillow back.

“What was that?”

“I said, ‘Do not remind me.’”

She nodded her head knowingly.

“Terrifying as fuck, isn’t it?”

“You have no idea.”

Nora glared at him.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. “You did have an idea.”

“Yeah, I do. I’m so happy for you I could cry. I probably will when I remember how.”

“I’m trying not to think about it.”

Nora sighed heavily as she continued to stitch him up.

“Don’t sigh at me,” Kingsley ordered. “I’d much prefer you hit me than sigh at me.”

“I’m sighing because Juliette’s pregnant, and you’re obsessing over Søren again. Any possibility those two things are related?”

“Don’t analyze me. I’m still sore from the last time I was analyzed.”

“Kingsley Théophile Boissonneault, talk to me or I’m going to suture your eyelids shut.”

“Very well. It is terrifying. I feel everything starting to change. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to love someone more than I love him, more than I love Juliette. My heart’s divided enough as it is. I’m not sure it will survive another cut.”

“I know it’s scary. But you’re not going to lose Søren because you have Juliette and Junior now. What you two have, it’s something even I can’t touch.”

“Funny...I’ve always thought the same about what you and he have. I’ve envied it.”

“Envied it? I have to obey him. That’s how it works. How many orders has he given you this week?”

“Dozens.”

“How many have you disobeyed?”

“All but one.”

“You want to take my place? You want to sit at his feet and water sticks and do everything he tells you?”

“He’d be dead in a week.”

“Thought so.”

“He saved me.” Kingsley closed his eyes and he remembered waking in the hospital and knowing his superiors would let him die and take their dirty little secrets with him. Søren had come and made sure he walked out on his feet instead of being carried out in a bag. That was only the first time Søren had saved his life. God knows who or what would have killed him if Søren hadn’t come back into his life at the right time. “I can’t let him go.”

“You don’t have to let him go. His heart is strong enough to put up with you and me. And that’s saying something.”

“C’est vrai,”
Kingsley agreed as she resumed her stitching. “But I envied you. I envied how much he loved you and how freely. That’s why I was so angry with you for throwing that away for your pet. The only reason I was so angry.”

“His name is Wesley, thank you very much. And he was never my pet.”

“Keep telling yourself that. You might believe it someday.” She flicked him again before picking up the tape and finishing her bandaging. “Your Wesley...he wasn’t one of us. I knew he would never be. When you fell in love with him, it was like you were leaving us all, throwing away everything
le prêtre
gave you and everything I worked so hard for. Denying yourself, what you are, it was like denying us.”

“I never threw it away. I never denied you or him. I cherished it always even when Søren and I were apart, when you and I were apart. Especially then. I loved Søren when I was with Wes the same as Søren loved you when he and I were together.”

“But you chose
le prêtre,
didn’t you? In the end you loved him more. The same way he loves you more than me.”

Nora sighed again, heavier this time. Kingsley almost laughed at her disgust. He did love to torment her.

“Love versus love. King, you’re comparing infinities. There is no ‘more.’ That’s not how love works. If it’s love, it’s infinite. You can’t count it. I can’t line up my love for Søren and my love for Wes side by side and see which one is longer. I’ll never reach the end of either. Søren will no more reach the end of his love for you than he’ll reach the end of it for me. He let you go because he loves you, because he knew you needed your freedom. He keeps me close for the same reason. Because he loves me and that’s what I need. Him.”

Nora tied off her thread and taped a gauze pad over the stitches.

“See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“I think I almost enjoyed it,” he admitted, rolling onto his back.

Nora laid a hand on his inner thigh and slid it up to his crotch.

“I don’t think ‘almost’ is the right word. Fucking masochists.”

“If I didn’t think you’d tear my stitches, I’d insist upon it.”

She raised her eyebrow and started opening his pants.

“I won’t tear a thing,” she promised as she pulled her top and panties off. He’d never seen a blacker, uglier bruise than the one on her side. And yet she still seemed uncrushed to him, unbroken. “I can be gentle, believe it or not.”

“Where did you learn how to be gentle?”

“Where else?” she asked, the shadow of sadness briefly crossing her face. “Wesley.”

The sadness disappeared as the Nora he knew and loved and hated and loved again reappeared in her wild green eyes.

“Now stay still while I blow you. Doctor’s orders.”

“Mon Dieu...”
He gripped the bar of the headboard as she worked her siren’s spell on him with her lips and tongue, with her hand that knew his hungers as well as he did. She pulled up and straddled him before sinking down onto him an inch at a time.

He started to raise his arms to touch her, but she grabbed his wrists and pinned them to either side of his head.

“Behave yourself,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. Slowly she began to move on him. “We’re both wrecks. If we’re going to survive this fucking, we have to be careful.”

“If you insist...”

He relaxed underneath her, surrendered to her will, her body.

“You would have died,” Kingsley said as she bent over and kissed him on the mouth, the neck, the chest. “You know that? Stabbing her instead of him—they would have killed you both. You committed suicide yesterday.”

Nora looked up and grinned.

“More like martyrdom. I’m working on my bid for sainthood.”

He glanced down at their joined bodies, indicating their current erotic position.

“Work harder.”

She worked her hips harder against him and when they both came, it was with as much pain as pleasure. It didn’t matter. To those of their kind, it was one and the same.

After one round of sex they both collapsed into bed, too sore and too tired to do anything but sleep. Long day. He’d called Griffin to tell him the good news about Nora. Then called Juliette and told her to come home to him. Then he’d hung up the phone and buried his sister, buried her for a second time. He’d brought in a trusted crew to deal with the cleanup, but he’d insisted on taking care of Marie-Laure himself. He owed her that much. As he covered the grave with the last of the dirt, he felt almost nothing, not even sadness. It wasn’t his sister he buried, but a stranger. His real sister had saved them all by being willing to die with her priest. Stabbing Marie-Laure instead of Søren had caused the chaos and confusion that had given him the two seconds he needed. If he ever doubted Nora’s love for Søren before, he would never do it again.

With such thoughts in his head he fell asleep. When he woke, night still surrounded them but he sensed he and Nora were no longer alone.