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  Thorny looked up at her and grinned. “Don’t worry. I won’t forget you. I owe you.”

  “I think we can dispense with the pretense that you’re his silent submissive,” Milady said to Nora. “After all...we all know who she is, don’t we?” Milady addressed the crowd again. Before Milady could do it, Nora pulled off her mask and the wig and ran her hands through her real hair, releasing the waves.

  “She speaks when she has something to say,” Kingsley said.

  “I’m sure she has something to say to me, doesn’t she?” Milady asked.

  “I do,” Nora said.

  “Yes?” Milady batted her eyelashes. “I’m all ears.”

  “If you hurt my priest, I’ll drag you by your hair through the club and publicly beat you. This is between us, you, me and Kingsley. He’s not a part of this.”

  “I heard you left him,” Milady said. “That makes him fair game.”

  “He’s not a game.”

  “So possessive? Really? How...illuminating. If you’re threatening me over him you must think there is some sort of chance I could get him up on my cross.”

  “He would die before he submitted to you,” Nora said. “Or me. Or anyone but God.”

  “I just want to hurt him a little tiny bit.” Milady wrinkled her nose and smiled an elfin smile. “That arrogant blond Apollo. What a prize that would be. I’d wear a lock of his blond hair around my neck in a locket.”

  “You don’t get to touch a hair on his head,” Nora said, raising one finger and pointing it at Milady’s face. “You don’t get to hurt him.”

  “And why not?” Milady asked, putting on her best and sweetest pout.

  Nora raised her chin and stared Milady down.

  “That’s my job.”

  12

  The Whip Master

  “I’LL KILL HER,” Nora said.

  “You can’t kill her.” Kingsley leaned back in his desk chair and threw his booted feet up on his desk. “You can maim her, I suppose. I wouldn’t stop you from maiming her.”

  “You know you want to maim her, too. Don’t you?” Ever since that farce of a party last night, that was all Nora had been able to think about—maiming Milady. She’d string her up by her own whips and walk around Manhattan wearing Milady’s hair in a locket around her own neck. She’d need a big damn locket because she planned on scalping the woman.

  “Don’t encourage him, Nora, s’il vous plaît.” Those words came from Juliette, who was poring diligently over Kingsley’s files. He’d given his beautiful Haitian submissive her own small secretary’s desk for his private office. Juliette looked up from her work and shook her head. “He’s not allowed to kill or maim anyone unless it’s unavoidable.”

  “The lady has spoken,” Kingsley said to Nora. He put the tips of two fingers to his lips, kissed them and blew the kiss at Juliette, who casually caught it in midair and patted her neck with it. Juliette liked neck kisses, too. Nora appreciated this fact about her.

  “She threatened Søren,” Nora said.

  “She didn’t threaten him. She threatened you.” Kingsley looked at her expectantly. Expecting her to deny it?

  “Søren would never submit to that woman. Or any woman. Or any man.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Kingsley said. “Which is why it amuses me so much that you are taking her boasts so seriously.”

  “What I want to know is how she knew,” Nora said, leaning forward in the chair. “How did she know Nora Sutherlin was Eleanor Schreiber?”

  “Calliope,” Kingsley said.

  “No way. Not her. She loves you. She wouldn’t rat us out for all the money in the world,” Nora said.

  “She didn’t. I told her to leak the information.”

  “You what?”

  Kingsley laughed. “I told her to spread a little gossip for me. She told two ‘friends’ of hers who can’t keep their mouths shut and the news spread like wildfire.”

  “You dragged me to that party knowing she would fuck with me?”

  “I knew you’d fuck back,” he said. “As always, I am in control of the flow of information in and out of this house. If a secret gets out, it’s because I want it out. Now that you’ve had your little showdown with Milady, all the Underground will know that you, the former Eleanor Schreiber, are now Mistress Nora Sutherlin. The Midsummer Night’s Fling will be packed. Standing room only. Everyone in the state will be there to see you two face off again.” He swept his hand at the windows behind him to indicate the city at large, before interlacing his fingers behind his head and smiling his arrogant smile.

  “Oh, God, the whole fucking kink world will be there.” Nora collapsed back in the chair, her hands to her forehead. She felt a sudden blinding, stabbing pain behind her eyes. “And it’s your fault.”

  “It’s your fault,” Kingsley said. “You’re the one who made a scene at the party last night.”

  “She was beating Thorny bloody. He safed out. He wanted her to stop. She ignored him on purpose.”

  “Of course she did. She wanted to publicly humiliate you for letting your charge get harmed. Well, you found an unusual solution, didn’t you?”

  “What happened?” Juliette asked.

  “La Maîtresse over here,” Kingsley said, pointing at Nora, “stepped in front of a man being whipped with not one but two stock whips. She caught the whip on her arm like a fucking rodeo clown, and she’s very lucky she didn’t lose an eye.”

  “That’s very dangerous,” Juliette said. “I wish I could have been there to see it.”

  Nora looked at Kingsley and pointed at Juliette. “I love this woman.”

  “So do I,” Kingsley said. “But she’s going to get another beating if she doesn’t stop encouraging you.”

  “You’re my responsibility, mon amour,” Juliette said to Kingsley, sounding sensible as always. “She isn’t.”

  Nora sunk back into the chair, stretched her legs out and let her arms flop to the sides in despair. It wasn’t a terribly ladylike position for a woman wearing an A-line skirt, a silk fitted blouse and high heels. She’d had a fitting early that morning with a tailor and had attempted to dress as one would expect an off-duty dominatrix to dress. Now that the whole fucking Underground knew that she, Eleanor, was also her, Mistress Nora, she had to start dressing the part. At least the heels were spiked stilettos so she could kill someone with them if she needed to. Or just wanted to.

  “Elle?” Kingsley said. Nora raised her head and frowned at him. “Nora.”

  “Better.”

  “Nora, listen. You can do this. You can beat her.”

  “I want to beat her. I want to beat her black-and-blue. No. Actually I don’t want to beat her.” Nora sat up straight and stared down Kingsley. “This is what I want to do. I want to find out who she loves. I want to find a man she owns and adores. Then I want to beat him. I want to fuck him. Then I want to send him back to her with my name carved on his back and my phone number tattooed on his cock. That’s what I want.”

  Kingsley met her eyes across his desk.

  “I told you she was a sadist,” he said to Juliette.

  Juliette smiled. “If I doubted you before, I don’t anymore.”

  He looked at Juliette and nodded slightly. Juliette gathered files and rose from her desk. She bent and kissed Kingsley on both cheeks.

  “I will let you two talk in private.” She gave Nora a curtsy before gracefully walking out of the office and closing the door behind her.

  Once they were alone Kingsley stood up and walked around the desk. He held out his hand and Nora took it. With one tug he pulled her up to stand in front of him.

  “Calm down,” he said.

  “I can’t.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to my cock,” Kingsley said.

  “Should have known.”

  “Listen to me.” Kingsley took her face in his hands. “You know there is no one on earth who appreciates your passion for inflicting cruel and unusual punishments on your ene
mies more than I do. That is my language and you are speaking it fluently. But we have to be calm and rational if we’re going to win against Milady. Going out and fucking and beating everyone she knows won’t solve anything.”

  “Yeah, but it would be fun.”

  “You are drunk on freedom.”

  “I have to admit, I’m kind of liking not answering to a man. Last night...that guy? Thorny? He’s cute.”

  “Très cute.”

  “Two years ago if I saw him at the club, I’d have to beg Søren’s permission to even talk to him. Now if he wants and I want, we can do what we want when we want, and I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission. I can even do this...” Nora leaned in and kissed Kingsley on the lips. How could she not? He was so close and looked so handsome in his black trousers, black boots, gray shirt and black vest. Not a lord or a duke, but a king to the bone. He didn’t hesitate to return the kiss, but he kept the passion enchained. This was a slow kiss, deep and sensual. A kiss that could and should last for hours. “I can kiss you and no one has to know. I can kiss you because I want to kiss you, not because he’s sharing me with you. I’m sharing me with you.”

  “You always were. You never spread your legs for me just to make him happy. Even that first night when you were only twenty, we both know you did it for you.”

  Nora kissed him again, which was the best way she knew of admitting he was right.

  “I’ll do it for you now. Let’s go to the playroom,” Nora whispered against his lips. “I need to practice my flogging on someone.”

  Kingsley laughed, a low sensuous laugh. “Not yet.”

  “I know you want it,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder.

  “I want it.”

  “You don’t think I’m ready yet?”

  “You don’t think you’re ready yet. If you did, it would have happened already.”

  Nora groaned—loudly.

  “You’re driving me crazy, King.” She collapsed into her chair in frustration.

  “Believe me, the feeling is mutual.” Kingsley knelt in front of her and placed his hands on her bare thighs.

  “She beat the shit out of a man just to intimidate me,” Nora said as Kingsley slid his hands up her legs and under her skirt. “I just... I hate her. I’m not used to hating anybody. Except him. But...”

  “What?” Kingsley asked as he slid her panties down her thighs.

  “I have to win, King. I can’t lose to that woman.”

  “You won’t. I’ll make sure of it, Mistress.” He pushed her legs open and draped them over each arm of the chair. With his fingertips he parted the folds of her vulva. He leaned close and licked her. Nora sighed with pleasure and dug her hand into Kingsley’s hair, holding his head right where she needed it. She wanted to hurt him and she wanted to fuck him but she hadn’t passed his stupid test yet, so she would take his tongue on her clitoris as a compromise until she figured out how to beat him at his own game.

  Kingsley was a master of the French kiss and that’s what he gave her now, but not on her mouth. His tongue darted in and out of her vagina, his lips sucked her lips, licked her lips, massaged her lips until everything between her legs throbbed with need. She couldn’t kiss him back but she let him know with her gasps and moans he pleased her. He pushed a finger into her and rubbed along her pubic bone where a bundle of nerves came to life at his expert touch. Hooking his finger under and in, he pushed against that soft indentation inside her, creating a sensation so acute, so pleasurable, that fluid burst from her inner lips and some deep interior muscle clamped onto the aching emptiness in her. Nora inhaled and didn’t exhale. Her body went stiff. Kingsley’s hot tongue circled her clitoris and she came with a cry, with her hips hovering an inch off her seat, with one hand buried in his hair and the other hand clenching so hard to the chair arms her fingernails left half-moons in the leather upholstery.

  Kingsley sat back, still on his knees, and pulled his gray silk handkerchief from his pocket. He used it first to wipe the wetness off his lips and then to wipe the wetness off hers. Because he was Kingsley, when finished he put it back in his breast pocket.

  “Feel better?” he asked, standing up.

  “I still want to kill her,” Nora said, slowly closing her legs.

  “If you still feel like killing anyone after what I just did to you, it’s serious.”

  “Yes, it’s fucking serious. She’s so good. I’ve never seen whip work like that. Søren doesn’t even use two whips at once. And you won’t let me touch one whip, much less two. How am I going to beat a domme like that? I don’t even have a whip—”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “What?”

  Kingsley grinned a devilish grin. He cocked his head to the side. Twice.

  “Are you having a seizure?” Nora asked.

  “On top of the filing cabinet.”

  “I was supposed to understand ‘there’s something on top of the filing cabinet’ from two head nods?”

  “Just go.”

  Nora raised her eyebrow and on slightly shaking legs walked over to Kingsley’s antique wooden filing cabinets. On the very top of the one closest to his desk sat a wooden box she hadn’t noticed until now. She lifted the lid and there it was.

  “It’s red,” she said, lifting the red leather whip out of the box.

  “Milady wears all white. Mistress Irina wears all black. You will wear all red.”

  “Bloodred,” Nora said, gazing in wonder at the whip. The leather was soft, slick and supple and the handle was carved ebony wood.

  “They say Mary, Queen of Scots, wore red to her own execution. The perfect color to wear if you’re going to get bloody.”

  “Red is a Catholic color,” she said, turning to face Kingsley. “She wore red because she was a Catholic and was being martyred for her faith.”

  Kingsley came to her and wrapped the whip around her neck.

  “I won’t let anyone take your head,” he said.

  “Thank you.” She took the whip in her hands and pulled it taut. “I love it. Wish I knew how to use it.”

  “You will. You have your first whip lesson today.” He lifted his arm and glanced at an imaginary watch. “Your whip teacher is here right now. Allons-y.”

  “I have a whip teacher?”

  “You do. If you feel strong enough. Do you?”

  She felt weak from the orgasm, languid and happy.

  “I feel relaxed. I mean, I want to cut that bitch, but I feel relaxed about it.”

  “Good enough. Just keep your focus on defeating her, and you’ll be fine.”

  Kingsley took the whip from her hands and coiled it neatly. He took her by the arm and led her from the office.

  “I’ve always wanted to use a whip,” Nora said. “I think I saw too many Indiana Jones movies as a kid. Do you think he was kinky?”

  “French Vanilla,” Kingsley said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Vanilla with a strong libido and a taste for anal.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Zorro, however, was kinky,” Kingsley said. “And he was much better with a whip than Dr. Jones.”

  “Zorro was kinky? That explains the mask. You think he was a switch?” Nora asked as they reached the playroom door. Kingsley opened the door and ushered her inside. “Can I have Zorro for my whip teacher?”

  “No,” Kingsley said. “But you can have him.”

  Nora gasped. For there standing in the playroom wearing his off-duty uniform of black jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt was...

  “Søren.”

  13

  Reunion

  SØREN UNCROSSED HIS arms and raised one hand. With his finger he carved the letter Z in the air.

  Behind her the door closed. Kingsley had left her alone in the room with Søren.

  “Søren,” she said again, not quite believing her eyes. She took a shuddering breath. He was here. Søren. Standing there right by an entire wall of whips and floggers looking beautiful and hand
some and poised all at once while she stood there gulping air like a fish on land.

  “How are you, Eleanor?” His voice was calm and controlled, and she hated him for that. How could he be so calm at a time like this? And how could he ask that question of all questions?

  How was she? How was she? This was what he said to her after not seeing her for a year? How was she supposed to answer that question? What was she supposed to say to him, to this man who’d been her entire life since she was fifteen years old? This man who had saved her and doomed her all at the same time? Nothing to say. Nothing she could say. So she did the only thing she could do at a moment like this when words were meaningless.

  She started out walking but halfway across the room the walk turned into a run. She threw herself into his arms and kissed him.

  He was shocked at first. That was obvious from the look on his face.

  “I was under the impression you hated me,” he said.

  “I’ll hate you again later.”

  His mouth found hers and the kiss was everything she’d forgotten she needed. He dominated her with the kiss, overwhelmed her, overpowered her. She was on her back on the bed before she knew it had happened. If she’d had any pride or any dignity or any self-control whatsoever she would have stopped it with a word. But she didn’t want her pride and she didn’t want her dignity and God knew she didn’t want self-control. She just wanted him.

  “I have to hurt you,” Søren said as he dug his hands in her hair and tilted her head back. He bit and kissed and licked her neck and throat. He was all over her, his body, his hands, his knees pushing between her thighs, staking a claim on her.

  “Hurt me, then. Do it fast before I change my mind.” A pointless warning. There was no changing her mind. She thought about stopping this moment the way one thinks of stopping a runaway train by stepping in front of it and holding out your hands. A fine heroic fantasy but nothing ever to be attempted in the real world.

  Søren rose up on his knees between her legs and ripped her blouse open and off her body. It was rare he tore her clothes. He had more self-control than that. But not today. Neither one of them did.