The Prince (40 page)

“I have to hate him.”

“Why? Hate does not become you, my Wesley.”

“Nora…he put you in the hospital. I was there, remember? I drove you to the hospital after he—”

“He didn’t,” she said in a hollow voice and hated herself the second the words came out. She’d promised herself she’d never tell Wesley about that night.

“Didn’t what?”

“He didn’t put me in the hospital that night I went back to him. That’s not what happened.”

Wesley’s eyes widened. Nora turned off the shower, stepped out and grabbed a towel. Naked but for a towel, Nora sunk down on the floor. Still dripping wet, Wesley sat opposite from her, his back to the bathtub.

“The night I went back to Søren, it was rough. We played rough. He started with a hard slap. A good one. My favorite kind.”

“I should have broken his face for that.”

“Wesley—Søren slaps because I like slapping. I do it to clients all the time. It’s part of my kink. He knows that. He slapped me.”

“I don’t want to hear this.”

“I can’t let you hate him. I thought I could but only because I thought it would make you hate me, too. I have to tell you the truth. You have to know what you’re asking me to do every time you ask me to stay.” Nora stared deep into his dark brown eyes.

“Nora…”

She heard the plea in Wesley’s voice, a plea she couldn’t heed.

“One slap and then he flogged me. A good thorough back flogging. I’d had one like that a thousand times before. Loved it. Then we were both so turned on and desperate for each other, he took me upstairs and we—”

“I know. You fucked, right?”

She shook her head.

“No. He made love to me. As gently as you have. He couldn’t stop telling me how much he loved me.”

“I saw you the next day, Nora. I know what he did to you.”

Nora narrowed her eyes at him and let him see that side of her she so often had to hide. “You don’t know anything about what he did to me. After we made love, I begged for more. He laughed and called me insatiable. He tied me to the bedpost and flogged me again, a bit harder this time. Then a little caning action. Just enough to leave some bruises. And I waited. Waited for my chance.”

“Chance for what?”

Nora’s mind went back to that night, the night she’d gone back to Søren after five years apart. She knew she had to do something, something ugly, something that scared even her. She had to do it so Wesley would want to leave her.

“Søren untied my hands and stepped away to get something—cuffs, another flogger, I don’t even know. As soon as he turned his back on me, I fell.”

“You fell? Like fainted?”

“No. I fell on purpose. Hard against the hardwood. I landed on the side of my face and on my ribs. It was like cutting down a tree. Timber…” she said, and with her hands feigned the falling of a heavy tree to the ground. “I hit the floor full body with my whole weight behind it. That’s how I bruised my ribs. That’s how I busted my lip...we didn’t do it. I did it to myself.”

She knew Wesley believed her when all he could ask was, “Why?”

“Why?” she repeated. “For you. I thought if you thought Søren had really beat the shit out of me in a really ugly way, then you’d think I was…I don’t know…a hopeless cause. I thought it would scare you enough you’d want to leave. If I made you think he was a monster and you knew I loved him, then you would think…”

“I would think you were a monster.”

The deep sorrow in Wesley’s voice shamed her. She’d tricked Wesley into thinking Søren was an abusive brute. She’d terrified Søren by falling during that night. She didn’t deserve either of them—Søren or Wesley.

“I scared the shit out of Søren, too, you know.”

“Nora…please don’t make me not hate him. I need to hate him.”

“I hit the floor so hard he thought I’d passed out or something. I knew I’d scared him bad. It was the one time he’d ever called me ‘Nora.’”

“I have to hate him. Please…”

Nora ignored the “please.” She couldn’t stop now. He needed to know it all.

“He said, ‘Nora!’ and he knelt on the floor and ran his hands over me. And he looked at me, looked in my eyes. And he knew. He knew why I’d fallen on purpose. And he didn’t say a word. He knew I was going to lie to you about how I got so banged up, and he was going to let me lie. He knows not to ask questions he doesn’t want the answer to.”

Wesley bowed his head; he dug his hands into his wet hair.

“He picked me up off the floor and carried me to bed. He held me close and he…he told me to pick a number between one and one hundred.”

“Nora, I don’t want to hear any more.”

Nora felt something wet running down her face. Water from the shower? Or something else?

“It’s a game we play. Pick a number, but you don’t know what you’re picking. Are you picking one lash or one hundred lashes? Are you picking one kiss or one hundred kisses? I picked one hundred.”

Wesley went silent. Nora kept talking.

“He started to count…” Nora paused as she remembered the pain in her side, the blood on her tongue. Søren had gotten a cold wet washcloth and he gently dabbed her mouth. “He started to count the one hundred different things he loved about me.”

“Nora…don’t.”

Never had she heard such hurt in someone’s voice.

“Number one—he loves the way I laugh…all the time. And number seven—he loves the way I never answer my office phone like a normal person. And number fifty-eight—he loves the way my hair looks when I wear it pinned up.”

“You’re a sadist. You know that, right?” Wesley tried and failed to laugh. Nora did laugh, but it was a hard laugh and it hurt coming out.

“Are you just figuring that out, kid? I laughed at sixty-six. He loves the way my voice catches when I say his name while he’s inside me.”

“What was reason one hundred?” Wesley asked as water rolled down his cheek and dripped onto his clasped hands.

“One hundred. He loves that when he’s especially lonely for me, all he has to do is read one of my books. And he can hear my voice in the words I’ve written, hear it so clearly it’s as if I’m in the same room with him. I think if you asked me…I could tell you all one hundred reasons.”

“Please let me hate him,” Wesley begged, finally meeting her eyes again.

“Why do you have to hate him? He doesn’t hate you. I’m here now and he doesn’t hate you.”

“Because you’ll go back to him. And I’ll be alone again. And if I don’t have my hate, what will I have?”

She smiled at him and hated herself for that smile.

“You’ll have your parents. A huge farm. Millions of dollars.”

“So that’s your answer?” Wesley’s eyes hardened and Nora knew she’d hurt him far worse than she’d hurt Bastinado.

“I don’t know what else to say…I belong to him. He owns—”

“He doesn’t own you, Nora.” Wesley stood up and started to strip out of his wet clothes. You and your stupid kinky bullshit rules. No one owns anybody. People aren’t property anymore. Søren doesn’t own you. “You don’t belong to him. You can leave him and stay with me if that’s what you want.”

“It’s not kinky bullshit rules.” Nora took a towel of her own and followed Wesley back to the bedroom. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about collars and leashes and leads. When you love somebody, they own you whether you’re kinky or not. Surely you can understand that.”

“I understand love because I love you.” He turned around in the center of his bedroom. “And you love me, right?”

“God, yes, I love you. You know that.”

“Stay with me. Please.”

“Wes…”

“Please,” he said again. Please was all he had.

Nora only leaned against him and sighed. She made the only pledge to him that she could.

“I’ll try.”

* * *

At dawn the next morning, Nora awoke and gently extricated herself from the tangle of sheets and legs and arms that imprisoned her. Looking down on Wesley’s sleeping face, she quietly dressed and prayed he’d still be asleep when she returned. Last night, after he’d pulled out of her for the last time, rolled onto his side and gathered her into his arms, she’d made a decision.

She left the house and got into her car. Without consulting anything but her keen memory for directions, she drove the forty-five minutes to Talel’s horse farm. Once there, she opened the trunk of her car and found the riding crop she’d brought with her from her house in Connecticut. She loved this crop. Short and red and vicious, it had earned her the nickname Little Red Riding Crop early in her career as a Dominatrix. Stories had been written about this crop. It had become the stuff of legend. But it was very real, very painful, and she was about to use it on someone, without any remorse.

She knocked on the door and waited. A bleary-eyed servant answered the door and let her inside. But when he tried to bar her from going upstairs, Nora had to remind herself of Kingsley’s rule number two.

You are the Dominant.

Act like it.

She acted like it. The five-foot-ten, two-hundred-pound butler ended up on the floor with his arm behind his back.

“I’m just here to talk to Talel, who is an old, dear friend of mine. That Aston Martin out there? He bought it for me. I know he’s still in bed. That’s where you should be. Go now or everyone in this state will find out that a five-foot-three woman put you flat on your face. Say ‘yes, Mistress’ if you understand.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Good boy. Scoot.” Nora let him up and raced for the stairs. She had no idea where Talel’s bedroom was, but it didn’t take long to find it, or Talel, wide-awake and waiting for her by the window.

“I heard you coming, Mistress. I’d know that engine anywhere.”

“You should. It was your engine before it was mine. Need it back?”

Talel turned around and smiled sheepishly at her, not meeting her eyes.

“I wouldn’t say no.”

“I would have given it back had I known you needed the money enough to kill a horse over it. How much do you owe?”

“Mistress…I didn’t—”

Nora stormed up to Talel and slapped him viciously across the cheek. He flinched and stared at her in shock that turned quickly to desire.

“How much do you owe?” she asked again.

“I don’t—”

Nora twirled the riding crop in her fingers. That had been her signature trick—the twirl. Playing with the crop like a baton before catching it by the handle and bringing it down hard.

Talel watched the spinning crop with fearful eyes. Nora let it slide through her fingers until she grabbed the grip and hit the back of Talel’s knees. He crumpled to the floor.

“Don’t lie to me. I defended you to Wesley. I saw the stables—the empty stables. How much do you owe?”

Talel didn’t answer, but that didn’t surprise her. He loved being broken, loved having his pride stripped of him. He’d give her the answers she wanted, but she’d have to work for them. She could do that.

“Take your clothes off,” she ordered. In seconds and without any sort of fight, Talel stripped naked. She wasn’t at all surprised to see him hard. The more vicious she’d been with him, the more he’d wanted her. “On your back.”

Nora straddled Talel’s stomach and sat on his erection. He winced in discomfort. Jeans plus force against naked skin couldn’t have felt good. She didn’t it want it to feel good. Holding the riding crop at both ends, Nora pressed it against his neck.

“Your cock just twitched under me, Talel. You always liked being choked. I haven’t forgotten that.”

He swallowed hard and didn’t speak.

“I also haven’t forgotten how much you love submitting to a woman who’ll beat the shit out of you before fucking you for her own pleasure. You liked that, didn’t you? Being used? Answer me.”

“Yes, Mistress. I loved it.”

“I know. You didn’t have to tell me.” Nora sighed. “I’m really very unhappy here, Talel. I liked you. Genuinely liked you. It impressed me that you’re royalty in your own country, but you stay in the States so you can be treated like a normal person. Kingsley told me I shouldn’t fuck you, that I should see you as a paycheck and not a person. But I adored you. Stupid me.”

Nora stood up and put her foot on the center of Talel’s chest.

“Kiss it.” She let her dirty, horse-shit-covered shoe hover by his face. Talel lifted his head and obediently kissed the toe. “Good boy,” she said, before bringing her foot down to rest on his throat. All she had to do was drop her full weight onto her foot and Talel’s next breath would his last breath. “Now…how much do you owe?”

“Thirty million dollars.” The words were barely audible.

“That should be nothing for you.”

Talel shook his head. Nora lifted her foot a millimeter.

“My father found out…about me.”

Nora swallowed the pang of pity that threatened her resolve.

“He disinherited you?”

“I don’t know. I’m cut off for now, at least. The farm, the banks, the creditors…thirty million is an amount no one will forgive.”

“And Spanks for Nothing was insured for forty. Convenient. A miracle and spare change. You’re saved.” She glared at him with a mix of fury and pity.

“Not entirely. The investigators…they could discover it wasn’t an accident. We were careful but…”

Talel’s voice trailed off and the implications of that “but” hung in the air between them. Nora pulled the red clip out of her pocket and showed it to him.

“Not that careful.”

He said nothing, only stared at the evidence that could keep him from his miracle.

“Your creditors…are we talking banks? Or deep pockets?”

“Both.”

“Shit.” Nora’s jaw clenched. Deep pockets…that meant the mob. “Horse Mafia, huh?”

“Anywhere there is money there is the Mafia…as you know, Mistress.”

She nodded. Talel hadn’t merely been her lover, he’d been her friend. And she’d told him the truth about her background—her father with his Mafia ties, growing up in a chop shop, the car thefts that had gotten her sentenced to community service supervised by her priest. She better than anyone knew the reach and the power and the money of the mob. And if Talel got on their bad side and stayed there…it would be only a matter of time before the Underground had one less male submissive.