The King: The Original Sinners Book 6 (30 page)

“Thank you,” Justin said, half-asleep.

“For what?” Kingsley asked.

“Remembering my name.”

Kingsley felt a knot in his throat.

“I would never forget it.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Justin said. “With my life, I mean.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. Never go home again.”

“You want to work for me?” Kingsley asked.

“House boy?”

Kingsley laughed.

“Not quite,” he said.

“Is there any money in being kinky?”

Kingsley smiled at him.

“You would be surprised.”

33

KINGSLEY LEFT JUSTIN
alone in his bed. He pulled on his trousers, his shirt, and walked on bare feet to his office. In the bottom drawer of his desk, the only drawer he routinely locked, he pulled out Sam’s clipboard. For five weeks he’d cherished a fantasy that Sam would show up on his doorstep demanding the return of her beloved clipboard. He’d rarely seen her without it in the months she’d worked for him.
Worked
. Past tense. He still couldn’t get used to the past tense where Sam was concerned. In his fantasy she would show up and tell him she was wrong, that she shouldn’t have taken the Fullers’ money, but she needed it for something and she’d been too ashamed to tell him why. She’d beg him to forgive her and he would. He would forgive her and take her back. And everything would be okay again.

A stupid childish fantasy. It would never happen.

He picked up a pen and flipped to the checklist Sam had created for their club. In the little square beside the words “Male Submissive” Kingsley made a check mark. Justin needed a job that would let him afford NYC. Kingsley needed a male submissive for the club.

A match made in hell.

Today was September fifteenth. The club would open in seventy-six days, and he still had no location for it. He’d put a tail on Reverend Fuller and sent both male and female prostitutes to tempt him into a scandal. So far...nothing. He was missing something. Fuller had an ugly secret and he knew it. He’d seen it in Fuller’s eyes—the secret shame, the fear, the terror of discovery. It was there, but Kingsley didn’t know how to find it. And he had to find it—not because he wanted the building so much anymore. But he wanted to destroy Fuller because Fuller had destroyed his love for Sam. And that was an unforgiveable sin.

He flipped through the notes she’d left on her clipboard. He loved her handwriting—loopy and playful even when writing out to-do lists for a BDSM club. But his Sam was always a creature of beautiful contradiction. She dressed like a man and yet was easily the most feminine woman he’d ever known, from her light and airy laugh to her pink-lipped smiles, her lithe, manicured fingers. And yet she had a teenage boy’s libido and the ability to charm any woman—straight or gay—right into bed with her. And although she’d never indicated that she wanted them to be lovers, nothing had made her happier than hopping into bed with him, pulling his arm around her tight and being his “bed bug” as she called herself. She’d bite him on the arm or on the neck and then fall fast asleep.

No matter how much Blaise cajoled him to hire a new secretary, he couldn’t bring himself to replace Sam. Not yet. Not while the wounds were still fresh and he could still conjure the scent of her in his mind, the sound of her voice and the memory of her sitting at his feet, pulling his boots on as if he was her king and she his valet.

Even looking at her notes hurt. And such banal notes they were. Mostly banal.
Square footage...call the dungeon outfitter...schedule K’s massage...tell K you’re pregnant with Søren’s baby...stop reading my notes, King.

He laughed so hard he almost cried. He could see her smiling at herself as she wrote those words, knowing he would get nosy someday and read her clipboard. At the bottom of the page she’d drawn a heart with a K in the center and a crown around the K. She’d put an arrow next to the heart and the words
Possible tattoo idea for left ass cheek
.

“God damn you, Sam,” he said out loud. He threw the clipboard down on his desk and picked up his phone. But before he dialed her number, he hung the phone up again. She’d betrayed him and walked away with his heart in her teeth. She’d picked the Fullers’ money over him, even though he’d opened his heart up to her time and time again.

He picked up the phone again, and this time he dialed.

“Kingsley, it’s three in the morning,” Søren said. He sounded more annoyed than sleepy.

“What are you wearing?”

“An angry scowl,” Søren said.

“It’s a good look for you.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?” Søren asked.

“I almost called Sam to tell her how much I hate her. So I called you instead.”

“Fine. Tell me how much you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Then you should hang up on me,” Søren said.

“You’d like that too much. What are you doing still awake?”

“I’m reading.”

“In bed?”

“In bed.”

Kingsley couldn’t stop himself from picturing Søren in bed. White sheet pulled up to his hip, naked chest, hand behind his head as he read. Divinity in repose.

“What are you reading?” Kingsley asked, trying to distract himself from the mental images.

“It’s an erotic retelling of the Book of Esther.”

Kingsley groaned. “You have to start having sex again. Please. I don’t even care if it’s with me or her. Anyone.”

“I’m fine,” Søren said, but Kingsley could tell he wasn’t fine. His “I’m fine” sounded bruised.

“Do you miss it?” Kingsley asked. Not the question he meant. He meant “Do you miss me?”

“I’m twenty-nine, male and breathing,” Søren said. “What do you think?”

“No one would judge you if you broke your vows. No one who matters.”

“It would matter to me,” Søren said. “I have reasons for doing what I do and not doing what I don’t do. Reasons that have nothing to do with the church or being a priest. And reasons that also have nothing to do with you or Eleanor.”

“I can call Blaise now. She’ll be there in an hour. Would you like that?”

Søren didn’t answer at first, didn’t say a word.

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Kingsley asked and knew Søren was.

“I should have known better than to make friends with the devil.”

Kingsley grinned. “Blaise is amazing in bed. You won’t regret it. She can do this thing when she’s going down on you where she takes your—”

“Kingsley.”

“And goes so deep she can lick your—”

“Kingsley.”

“It’s amazing. Gift from God.”

“Red.”

“Red?” Kingsley repeated.

“I was attempting to safe out of this conversation.”

Kingsley laughed softly.

“You’ll need a better safe word than that with me,
mon ami
.”

“I’ll find a stronger word. A few stronger words have already leaped to mind.”

“If you don’t want Blaise, I could come over,” Kingsley said.

“I think you have more than enough lovers already,” Søren said.

“We’re not talking about what I need. We’re talking about what you need.”

“I need sleep and someone is keeping me from it.”

Kingsley was undeterred.

“You know, it wouldn’t have to mean anything. You can do whatever you want to me. Pain. Sex. More pain.”

Søren fell silent again. What was he thinking? Feeling? Was he tempted?

Of course he was tempted.

“Tell me something...how long has it been?” Kingsley asked into the silence.

Søren sighed. “What day is it?”

“Friday.”

“Then it’s been...oh...eleven years. You?”

“Eleven minutes.” More like an hour and eleven minutes, but why quibble? “You haven’t been with anyone since me? Not even once?”

“No one since you,” Søren said.

“And your Virgin Queen?”

“I made her a promise,” Søren said, the irritation gone from his voice now. But Kingsley still heard the bruise. “I promised her I would give her everything. I intend to keep that promise.”

“You made me a promise, too,” Kingsley reminded him. “You said you’d share her with me.”

“Another promise I intend to keep. I won’t be enough for her, God knows. But I get her first.”

“Why?” Kingsley demanded, smiling despite himself. “Because you saw her first?”

“Because I haven’t had sex in
eleven years
.”

“Fuck somebody, then,” Kingsley said, half laughing, half yelling. “It offends me to know you’re in your bed right now all alone reading erotic retellings of Ruth.”

“Esther.”

“You know I have to have
more
sex to make up for all the sex you aren’t having. Someone has to restore the balance in the universe.”

“The universe thanks you for your sacrifice. Now, may I hang up?” Søren asked.

“Not yet. I’m considering killing the Fullers—both of them.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“It’s crossed my mind. A quick painful death. Payback for making Sam betray me.”

“No one made Sam betray you. If she did betray you, she did it of her own free will and for her own reasons. You started a war with the Fullers. They fought back. Now you know why I’m a pacifist.”

Kingsley closed his eyes tight and wished he could close his ears to Søren’s words, as well. All this time he’d been blind. He’d adored Sam so much he hadn’t for one second considered the possibility she would turn on him. Now he’d seen her for who she really was and he wished he could, like Oedipus, blind himself.

“You can’t win if you don’t fight,” Kingsley finally said.

“Tell me something, Kingsley. How did this fight start?”

“I wanted to buy The Renaissance Hotel from the Fullers.”

“Why?”

“Because that building is mine. I knew it the moment I saw it.”

“So you’re fighting for it?”

“Of course. That’s what you do when you want something.”

“Do you remember the story in the Bible known as the Judgment of Solomon?” Søren asked.

“Why can’t we have phone sex like normal perverts?” Kingsley asked.

“The story is found in 1 Kings, chapter three.”

“So that’s a no to phone sex?”

“God has asked Solomon what great gift he would most desire. Solomon answers ‘wisdom,’ and God grants him great wisdom. Shortly thereafter he’s asked to settle a dispute between two prostitutes who live in the same house. Both women had given birth to sons within three days of each other. One child had died. The other lived. One mother claimed the living son was hers. The other mother said her son had been stolen and replaced with the dead child.”

“I’d forgotten what a gruesome book the Old Testament is.”

“It gets better,” Søren continued. “The women demanded King Solomon make a judgment to determine to whom the living child belonged. Solomon declared ‘Bring me a sword’ and a sword was brought to him. He said he would cut the baby in half and give one part to one mother, another part to the other mother. Immediately one woman cried out ‘Please, my Lord, give her the living boy, do not kill him.’ And thus King Solomon knew the woman who was willing in an instant to give up the boy so that he might live was the true mother.”

Kingsley sighed. “And your point is...?”

“The true test of love is not always ‘Will you fight for it?’ The real test of true love is often ‘Are you willing to give it up?’”

Kingsley swallowed hard. “I can’t give it up. I’m not strong like you are. I can’t give up the things I want. I’ve lost too much in my life. I don’t want to lose any more.”

“The sacrifice is worth it,” Søren said. “Try it sometime. You’ll see.”

“Spoken like a man who hasn’t had sex in eleven years.”

“I’m hanging up on you,” Søren said.

“This is fun,” Kingsley said. “You and me on the phone at night talking about girls. We should do this more often.”

“Kingsley?”

“Oui?”

Click.

Kingsley laughed as he hung up the phone. He laughed until he couldn’t laugh anymore. He laughed until he didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

He stood up and took a steady breath. Right now a gorgeous blond boy who couldn’t get enough of him waited for him in his bed.

He would go fuck in the present. The past could go fuck itself.

34

KINGSLEY DIDN’T HAVE
his club yet, and he didn’t have his kingdom. But he did have Irina and the promise he’d made her. For months he and Mistress Felicia had been training her in the arts of sadism and dominance. The training had transformed her from a cold, silent scared presence in his home afraid to step a toe out of line, into a proud fierce goddess of pain.

And lucky Blaise got to be Mistress Irina’s very first victim. Not counting her soon-to-be ex-husband.

“Are you going to be a good girl for me?” he asked Blaise. They sat on the wooden throne in his playroom, she in his lap. “I need you to do everything I tell you to do.”

“I will be the best girl for you, monsieur,” Blaise said, putting her private-school French to good use. He lifted her chin and forced her to meet his eyes. She played the part of the scared little girl so well that it fooled even him sometimes. Or, more importantly, fooled his cock. She gave him her most innocent pouty face. Oh, yes, she would be the very best girl for him tonight.

“Wait here,” he said to Blaise. She curtsied, and he left her standing in his playroom by the St. Andrew’s cross. She’d worn her best tonight and looked like Rita Hayworth escaped from the silver screen and brought to modern Manhattan. She’d been pouting lately that Kingsley wasn’t paying enough attention to her. Well, she would get all the attention she wanted tonight.

Out in the hall he found Irina waiting for him, pacing the hallway in her black-and-purple leather boots.

“My little girl is growing up,” he said as he took Irina by the hands. She rolled her eyes.

“Can we get started?” she asked. Her Russian accent made everything she said sound vaguely menacing. Dominatrix was the rare profession where this trait gave her an advantage.

“In a hurry?”

“I’ve been waiting for this scene for months. Let me have her.” A sadistic gleam shone in her dark eyes.

“Don’t be too eager. Remember, your clients will be paying for your time. You are the one wanted, desired. You must be aloof. They should feel honored you are giving them your time and attention. They are beneath you. They want to be beneath you. Yes?”

“Yes.” She exhaled heavily.

“Good.” He kissed her quickly on both cheeks. “Now you may have her.”

He followed her into the playroom. Blaise still waited by the flogger rack.

“This is a couples’ session,” Kingsley began, addressing his comment to Irina. “You’ll have a few of these. What’s the first rule about couples’ sessions?”

“The woman books the session,” Irina said. “Not the man.”

“And why is that?”

“So we can cover our asses.”

Kingsley laughed at Irina’s answer.

“Technically that’s true,” he admitted as Blaise covered her mouth to stifle her own laugh. “I’d rather couch it in more chivalrous terms than litigious. Male dominants can be dangerously aggressive. We never want a woman involved in something she doesn’t want to be involved in. So, what will you do in a case like this, Mistress?”

“Step into the hallway, please,” Irina said to him. Kingsley kissed Blaise’s hand, bowed to Irina and walked out. He could guess what they talked about while he was gone. Irina, like the good dominatrix she was, would ask Blaise if she was here of her own free will and fully consenting to this session. Once Blaise assured the Mistress that she was, Irina would ask her a few questions about what she enjoyed in a scene, what sort of pain she liked. Thudding? Stinging? Impact play that left welts and bruises? Bondage? Knowing Blaise, she’d answer “All of the above.”

The door opened and Irina waved him back inside.

“She said you aren’t holding her hostage and forcing her to do kinky things against her will,” Irina said.

“Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow,” Kingsley said, and Blaise winked at him. She’d played his willing victim many a night. She did put up a beautiful fight when they did rape-play. They’d had to establish two sets of safe words because her acting was so good that he hadn’t been able to tell her feigned terror from real terror one night. It might have been the best sex they’d ever had.

“I’m thinking we should give your girl some souvenirs of this night,” Irina said. “What do you think?” She walked a circle around Blaise, looking her up and down. He couldn’t say who looked more alluring tonight—Blaise in her elegant 1940s pencil skirt and blouse or Mistress Irina in her leather corset and boots. They were a sight to behold, both of them. He wished Sam were still with him. He would have loved to tell her about tonight. But she was gone and would stay gone. Five weeks later and he still regretted what had happened. Regretted? No. He’d done the right thing.
Mourned.
That was the word he needed.
Grieved.
“Kingsley?”

“Oh,
oui
, souvenirs,” he said, forcing his mind back to the present. He needed to stay focused for Irina’s sake as much as Blaise’s. “Blaise loves the flogger and the whip.”

“She told me that,” Irina said, gathering Blaise’s hair into her hand and lifting it. She tugged lightly and Blaise’s breath caught in her throat. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Good girl. Kingsley, you should undress your girl for me. Let me see what I have to work with.”

Kingsley went to work taking Blaise’s clothes off. He unbuttoned her blouse, unzipped her skirt, stripped her to her stockings, garters and high heels.

“In a session with a client,” Kingsley said, “you’ll do what before you start the play?”

“Make the client or clients undress,” Irina said.

“And why do we do this?”

“It’s a security measure. We’re making sure our clients aren’t carrying hidden weapons.”

“Very good,” Kingsley said. “You can frisk me if you like.”

“I would, but you’d enjoy that too much,” Irina teased.

When Blaise was naked but for her stockings, he took her wrists in his right hand and raised them, presenting her to Irina like a slave for inspection. He was taller than Blaise by half a foot, and she had to stretch to hold the position.

“Beautiful.” Irina placed a hand on Blaise’s chest. The Mistress caressed her breasts gently, carefully—but only at first. She pinched Blaise’s right nipple then—pinched hard—and Blaise gasped. “Turn her.”

Kingsley turned Blaise to face him so that Mistress Irina could see her back. At his command, Blaise hadn’t done kink with anyone in the past week. He wanted her body to be a clean canvas for Irina’s first session.

“Very nice,” Irina said. “Beautiful skin. It will look better when I’m done with it. Put the cuffs on her.”

Irina held out a set of leather cuffs. Kingsley lowered Blaise’s arms and cuffed her wrists and ankles.

“What is the rule with couples?” Kingsley asked Irina as he handed Blaise over to her.

“The couple may touch each other as much as they want,” Irina said. “They can have sex during the session.”

“And you?”

“Dominatrixes don’t have sex with their clients,” Irina said, smiling. “Prostitution is illegal. S and M isn’t.”

“Bon,”
Kingsley said. “But feel free to give Blaise an orgasm if you like. If she earns it.”

“I’ll earn it, monsieur,” Blaise said, and Kingsley slapped her hard on the bottom for speaking out of turn.

Irina put Blaise on the X-shaped cross, face to the wood.

“What’s your safe word, Blaise?” Kingsley said.

“Casablanca.”

Safe word established, Irina took a deerskin flogger off the wall. Good size. Good weight. Good heft. It would hurt like fuck, just the way Blaise liked.

“Start slow.” He whispered the reminder.

He watched Irina take a steadying breath. She moved her feet into position, gripped the flogger by the tips of the tails and raised it over her head. Kingsley gave her a nod. And then Irina smiled, a wide, deep, dark sexy smile. She could play aloof all she wanted, but he could tell she was enjoying this scene as much or more than Blaise would. A true sadist—he did know how to spot one. Irina let the flogger go, and it struck Blaise in the center of her back. She raised it, let it go again—another center strike. For the next few minutes she dusted Blaise with the flogger, hitting her again and again—not too hard, not too light. Blaise’s skin turned from creamy white to blazing red. She traded the deerskin for eel skin—a smaller, more vicious flogger. Blaise gasped and flinched as dozens of tiny welts raised on her back. The little flogger struck far more sharply, and soon it looked as if a dozen hands had clawed at Blaise’s back with cruel fingernails.

As Irina rotated through four different types of floggers, he watched her work. She was sure-handed and dexterous. It was all too easy to aim wrong and hit a bound submissive in the back of the head. But Irina never missed her mark, and soon Blaise sagged in her bonds, panting from the pain and the arousal the pain inspired in her. Kingsley called a halt to it. He could see Blaise was nearing her limit.

“Did you enjoy your beating?” he whispered in her ear as he ran a hand over her burning skin.

“I did,” she said, smiling. Her face was flushed with triumph. Blaise always looked her most beautiful after a beating.

“Do you think you earned an orgasm?” he asked her.

“Only if you think I did, monsieur.”

“That’s the right answer,” he said, and Blaise beamed. When she was in the mood to submit, nothing made her happier than serving at the feet of a dominant man. Out in the real world, she single-handedly ran a controversial nonprofit group, lobbied the state and federal government and made weekly appearances at important society events to raise awareness of her causes—sexual freedom and other women’s rights issues. But the powerful, competent, dominant Blaise disappeared the second she stepped into a playroom. It was all “yes, sir” and “no, sir” and “whatever pleases you, sir.” And now, what would please him would be to please her while Irina watched and helped.

“I think,” he said, “that you need more pain. A little more. What do you think?”

“I think you know best, monsieur.”

“But I also think you need some pleasure with your pain. What do you think, Mistress?” he asked.

“I’m happy to supply the pain,” Irina said, “if you’d like to supply the pleasure.”

“An excellent idea.” He unbound Blaise from the cross and led her by the wrists to the bed. He laid her on her back, and she winced as her skin touched the silk. “I’m thinking the rope? What do you think, Mistress?”

“Good choice,” she said. “I’m thinking this.”

She handed Kingsley a vibrator. He already knew what he’d do with it.

“She has been very good tonight,” Kingsley said. “Haven’t you?”

“If you say I’ve been good, then it must be true,” Blaise said.

“You’re so good at this,
chouchou
,” he said to her with a wink.

He crooked his finger, indicating that Blaise should stand up again. She obeyed and let him lead her to the center of the room. He positioned her under a large sturdy metal hook that hung from the ceiling. Irina brought over a step stool and a length of black silk rope. She looped the rope through the D-rings on the cuffs and hoisted Blaise’s arms over her head, tying her wrists to the hook.

Now Blaise stood tied in place, her arms above her head and no way to escape unless he or Irina untied her. And they would untie her. Eventually.

Irina stood in front of Blaise and, with deft hands, brought another length of rope around her back. For the next ten minutes, Irina looped and knotted, looped and knotted, until she’d made a corset of the rope, binding Blaise’s chest, torso and breasts tightly.

Kingsley wrapped his arm around Blaise’s hips and lightly pinched her clitoris between his thumb and forefinger.

“Do you have a preference?” he whispered in her ear. “Ass? Pussy? Both?”

Blaise laughed. “All of the above.”

“Why did I know you were going to say that?”

“Because you know me so well,
monsieur. Inside and out.”

Kingsley lubricated both her holes thoroughly, and Blaise moaned from the pleasure of his fingers on her and inside her. He rolled on a condom and entered her from behind. As she was standing it took a few minutes to work past the tight ring of muscle that wanted to keep him out. But he pushed in while Blaise pushed back, and soon he was deep inside her. Irina handed him the vibrator, which he slid slowly into her vagina.

“Oh, God...” Blaise gasped—the last two coherent words she spoke for a while. Irina played with Blaise’s bound breasts while Kingsley fucked her standing up. Irina squeezed and pinched, slapped and teased—inflicting pain both sharp and subtle.

He focused his attention on Blaise’s body—the tightness of her around his cock, the smell of her long hair—jasmine—the scent of her skin—Chanel No. 5, Marilyn Monroe’s perfume—the softness of her hips that he grasped, the sounds of her voice as she gasped and groaned and came, not once but twice in a row. He increased the speed of his thrusts and came, too, the orgasm almost painful in its intensity.

With a final kiss on Blaise’s neck, he uncoupled their bodies. A few drops of her own wetness landed on the floor between her feet when he pulled the vibrator from her. He went into the bathroom and cleaned off while Irina untied Blaise. Like a good and sadistic dominatrix, Irina made Blaise clean up her own mess off the floor. He returned to find Blaise stretched out on the bed, flushed and happy, as Irina knotted up her rope.

“A good day’s work,” Kingsley said to Irina. “What do you think?” He pinched Blaise’s toes.

“She’s hired,” Blaise said with a wide grin. Her eyes sparkled and her skin glowed. Was there anything more beautiful in the world than a sated woman? “That was glorious.”

“Did I pass?” Irina asked Kingsley. “Am I ready for the real thing?”

“Your aim is excellent, attitude is perfect and you certainly played the part beautifully. You forgot one very important thing.”

“What thing?” Irina scowled at him. “What did I do wrong?”

Kingsley reached into his pocket and pulled out ten one-hundred dollar bills. He held them out to Irina who reached for them. He pulled his hand back at the last second.

“Clients pay in advance.” He put the money back in his pocket and walked out, certain Irina would never forget that detail ever again.