The King: The Original Sinners Book 6 (8 page)

“When I started at St. Ignatius, everyone was terrified of you. Everyone.
Tout le monde.
Even the priests were afraid of you, and they liked you. You didn’t even speak to other students. You were this impenetrable blond fortress, and everyone hated you—for good reason. What happened?”

“I grew up,” Søren said. “I’m not in high school anymore. That does wonders for a person.”

“I don’t like it,” Kingsley said.

“You don’t like me?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Kingsley admitted. “When we were in school, we were all like scared puppies, and you, you were a wolf. I don’t like seeing you...”

“What?”

“Domesticated. They even put a collar on you.”

“I put on my own collar.”

“You used to scare me.”

“Have you considered the possibility that the reason I don’t scare you now is that you aren’t a puppy anymore?”

Søren waited.

Kingsley looked at Søren and barked. Søren only looked at him. Maybe he should try a bite next time.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Søren said, “the wolf is still there, but he’s on a stronger leash.”

“You let the wolf off the leash with me.”

“Which is why I needed a stronger leash.”

“I don’t know if I want to pay this Magdalena person for making you boring.”

“What she did was make me take myself less seriously, which is, as you know, the first of three miracles she’ll need to qualify for sainthood.”

“I envy her,” Kingsley said. “She had you in her life. I never thought I’d see you again.”

“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if it wasn’t for her,” Søren said. “I wouldn’t have been able to face you without her help.”

“Then I suppose I owe her, too. Even if you do yell at me.”

“I don’t yell.”

“What’s her address?” Kingsley asked.

“Why?”

“I’ll send her a check. If she’s the reason you’re here right now, then I owe her and you both.”

Søren sighed, picked up a pen and a scrap of paper off Kingsley’s desk and wrote the address. He held it out, and Kingsley reached for it. Søren pulled it back out of his grasp.

“I know what you’re doing,” Søren said.

“What am I doing?”

Søren glanced to the right and looked pointedly at Kingsley’s filing cabinets.

“Blaise has a big mouth,” Kingsley said. “One of her better qualities. Usually.”

“Here,” Søren said and gave Kingsley the address. “You should visit her. She could help you like she helped me.”

“I’m fine,” Kingsley said. “You act like I’m falling apart.”

“You were shot last year and almost died.”

Kingsley shrugged. “Worked out well for me, didn’t it? Someone came to my death bed and left me an ‘I’m sorry’ gift.”

“It wasn’t a gift. And it wasn’t an apology. It was a payment.”

“Payment? For what?”

Søren reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a tiny clear plastic tube. He sat it on Kingsley’s desk.

“What is this?” Kingsley asked as he picked up the small tube. A few flecks of metal danced in the afternoon sunlight.

“If you were a cat, that would be one of your lives.”

“This is my bullet?” Kingsley asked in shock.

“What’s left of it.”

“Why do you have it?”

“I wanted it,” Søren said. “I took it. I paid you for it. So now you don’t owe me anything.”

“They gave it to you in the hospital?”

“I asked for it.”

Kingsley spun the tube, pretending to study the shrapnel. In truth, he couldn’t care less what it looked like. All that mattered was that Søren had kept it. Why? Was it a talisman? A memento? A reminder of the last time they’d seen each other? Kingsley thought about reaching into his pocket. In it was a small silver cross on a broken silver chain—the one memento he’d keep from his first night with Søren. The cross and the memories.

“You kept this? All this time you’ve had my bullet with you?” Kingsley asked.

“I have. If you want it back, you’ll have to pay for it.”

“I will never understand you,” Kingsley said.

“Then stop trying.” He held out his hand, and Kingsley dropped the tube with the bullet fragments into his palm. He liked the idea of Søren having this piece of himself in his possession. Was there an object in the world more intimate to a victim than the weapon that had nearly killed him? These bullet fragments had been inside Kingsley’s body and had almost destroyed him. Instead of ending his life, that shot had changed his life. No wonder Søren felt such a kinship to those deadly remnants. They had much in common.

Søren pocketed the tube that held Kingsley’s bullet fragment.

“Are you ready?” Søren asked.

“Yes. For what?”

At that Søren smiled—a devilish sexy smile that made Kingsley completely forget for a moment that it was a Catholic priest who sat in his office and not the Søren of old who had used him as a human target on a regular basis.

He lifted his hand, crooked a finger at Kingsley.

“Now?” Kingsley asked.

“You had plans?” Søren asked. “My free time is limited, as you know.”

“Hosting an exorcism tonight?” Kingsley asked.

“Worse. Couples’ counseling.”

“Same thing,” Kingsley said. “It’s all your fault. No one told you to get a real job.”

Kingsley stood up and came around the desk.

“I like my job,” Søren said as he followed Kingsley from the office. “You should think about getting one, too. You’ll be surprised how enjoyable it is to be useful to society.”

“You know what else is enjoyable?”

“What?”

“Not having a job.”

Kingsley led Søren to his personal playroom.

“This is my real office,” Kingsley said, opening the door. He had a St. Andrew’s Cross, a rack, an X-bar, several spreader bars, all the bondage cuffs and equipment one man could ever need.

“Like it?”

“It’ll do,” Søren said, although Kingsley could see Søren eying everything with interest.

Every one of the bedrooms in the house had kink equipment in it. Vanilla sorts were not welcome in his home. And on the rare occasion they did infiltrate the town house, they were not vanilla after they left.

“How often do you play?” Kingsley asked.

“Whenever I can,” Søren said. “When it’s safe. If I go longer than a month, I get... What’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Lethal?”

“Unpleasant. You?”

“As often as I can. Once a day at least.”

“Once a day? Who’s the lucky recipient of that honor?”

“Trust me, you don’t have time for the list of people I play with. I’ve probably fucked every submissive in Manhattan. I may have to move to Brooklyn.”

“Only submissives?”

“Only submissives.”

“That’s unusual for you, isn’t it?” Søren crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Kingsley.

“Why? Because I bottomed for you, I have to do it for the rest of the world?”

“Not the rest of the world. One person at least. I remember.”

“What do you remember?”

“How much you needed it, wanted it.”

“I needed you, not it.”

“You loved submitting to pain. Why the change?”

“I don’t bottom anymore.
Fin
,” Kingsley said. “The end.”

Søren studied Kingsley’s face as if looking at an alien specimen.

“Are you going to teach me the whip trick or not?” Kingsley demanded.

“I will, but this conversation isn’t over yet, whether you
fin
-ed it or not.”

“Show me the trick.”

“There’s no trick to it,” Søren said as he scanned the rows of single-tails on the wall. He took one down, pulled it taut, coiled it again and hung it back on the wall. A second single-tail whip proved more to his liking. “It takes a great deal of practice. And I’m not the teacher Magdalena is. She could have you flipping quarters in midair with a single-tail in two weeks.”

“Then why isn’t she teaching me?”

“She’s in Rome. Have you used a whip before?”

“On the back—large target.”

“Then you’ll need to practice on a smaller target. Not a person.” Søren had one of Kingsley’s business cards in his hand. He stabbed it over a hook on the wall.

“You want me to hit that?” Kingsley asked. “A business card?”

Søren put his hand on the center of Kingsley’s chest and pushed him back...back...back until he was against the wall.

“No,” Søren said. “I’m going to hit it. You’re going to watch. From a safe distance.”

Søren stepped away, coiled the whip, put his right foot before his left foot and then released the whip with a quick snap. With the tip of the whip, Søren cut the business card neatly in half.

Kingsley applauded as he walked up to the card. The cut sliced the card right down the middle between the word
Edge
and
Enterprises
.

“Such a good trick,” he said, impressed.

“Whips are multipurpose,” Søren said. “Good for pain. Good for bondage.”

“Bondage?” Kingsley asked, reaching for the card.

Søren lightly flung the whip at him. It wrapped around Kingsley’s wrist. He laughed even as it tightened, and Søren tugged on it, pulling him closer.

“Nice,” Kingsley said, his breath quickening. “What else?”

“Wrists,” Søren said, taking Kingsley’s other wrist and wrapping the supple leather whip around his hands. “Ankles even. The neck, too, but you have to be careful. Do you want to see Magdalena’s favorite trick?”

“Show me.”

Søren had left an eight-inch length of whip between Kingsley’s right wrist and left wrist. He spun Kingsley around quickly and pulled his back to Søren’s chest, bringing the whip hard against Kingsley’s throat.

The world fell out from under Kingsley.

He blinked, and the walls turned to black, the temperature dropped and when he breathed in he smelled sulfur.

He dropped to his knees and yanked at the chain around his neck. If he could get his fingers between the chain and his throat he had a chance. The air went out of the room. He could hear nothing, see nothing. But he could feel, and what he felt was a wet-hole cavern in his chest, bone shattering and a lung collapsing.

No air. None. No matter how he gasped, how he gulped, how he fought, he could get no air.

Someone spoke...Slovakian? Ukrainian? He couldn’t tell. The voice was too far away...and it didn’t matter.

He was dying.

He was dying.

A bullet in his chest. A chain around his neck.

He was dead.

“Kingsley.”

He heard his name but didn’t respond. Dead men don’t scream.

“Kingsley, you’re in Manhattan. You’re home.”

He wasn’t home. He was bleeding to death on a shit-stained basement floor in Ljubljana.

“You’re alive.”

No, he wasn’t.

“Open your eyes. Can you hear me?”

He heard something in his ears. A popping. It startled him. He jumped. His eyes flew open. The world was a haze. But he did see something, a gray light.

“You have to breathe.”

He heard something other than the voice. A deep loud gasping wheeze. Over and over again.

Kingsley felt something on his back, a hand hitting him hard. It should have scared him, but instead the pain and the rhythm brought him back to himself.

“Kingsley, talk to me,” the voice ordered. It was Søren. His voice. His hand.

“I’m fine,” Kingsley said.

“Stop lying to me. You aren’t fine.”

Kingsley looked down. He sat on the floor of his playroom, his back to the wall. His shirt was sticky with sweat and his throat raw from wheezing.

“I’m fine,” he said again.

“Was that a panic attack?” Søren asked, crouching in front of him. “Or a flashback?”

“It was nothing.” Kingsley’s body was tense. His hands shook. “I think I spaced out for a second.”

“Two minutes,” Søren said. “Not one second.”

Kingsley tried to stand, but Søren put his hand on Kingsley’s shoulder and held him in place.

“Stay down. Look at me.”

“I don’t want to look at you,” Kingsley said.

“I don’t care. Look at me.” Søren took Kingsley by the chin, forcing the eye contact. “Tell me where you were.”

“Slovenia.”

“Why?”

“I was shot there.”

“Is that all that happened?”

“I think so.”

He glanced away. It hurt to be looked at like this, with such concern and pity. That wasn’t how he wanted Søren to look at him. He wanted Søren to look at him with lust and desire and want and hunger.

He tried to stand up again, but Søren still wouldn’t let him.

“I touched your throat with the whip, and you started wheezing like you were actually choking,” Søren said. “You fell to your knees and wouldn’t speak.”

“I’m fine,” Kingsley said for the third and final time.

Søren sighed and pushed a damp lock of hair off Kingsley’s forehead.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Søren said, his tone almost, but not quite, apologetic.

“You didn’t scare me. I’m not scared.” His racing heart, his churning stomach made a liar of him.

“Well, this answers my question.”

“What question?” Kingsley asked, dropping his head. He didn’t want to look in Søren’s eyes. He saw fear in them, not of Kingsley but for Kingsley. And something told him Søren wouldn’t be touching him again for a very long time.

If ever.

“Now I know why you don’t let anyone hurt you anymore.”

Kingsley looked up at Søren from the floor.

“Get out of my house,” Kingsley said.

“Kingsley?”

“You said I don’t owe you anything. Get the fuck out of my house.”

Søren got the fuck out.

10

SEVEN DAYS AND
seven nights passed, and Søren didn’t come back to Kingsley’s house. He didn’t call, didn’t write, didn’t visit and didn’t once tell Kingsley he needed to get help. He was gone, gone, gone, and that was fine, fine, fine with Kingsley.

Except it wasn’t. Because Søren had promised never to leave him again. And he had.

Promises, promises.

Kingsley took another swig from the bottle of bourbon, coughed a little, and laid back on the chaise longue. He crossed his feet at the ankles and watched the light from the swimming pool dance across the ceiling. He had no idea why he still had the pool down here. No one ever swam in it. He kept the doors locked to prevent any of his inebriated houseguests from turning up facedown in it by accident. A bad sign when the only person who got anything out of the swimming pool was the pool boy. And even he wasn’t attractive enough for Kingsley to bother seducing.

But tonight he wanted to lie by the water while he drank. It was peaceful here. The pool wasn’t large or deep—ten by twenty feet across and four feet to the bottom. The floor was Mediterranean tile, and red, yellow and gold murals of northern Italy covered the walls. The paintings reminded him of a little village in the south of France he and his family had gone to every August when he was a child. A village right on the Mediterranean. Beautiful place, restful. Water, hills, vineyards. A vintner’s wife had seduced him there when he was twenty-two and hiding out while he recovered from his first gunshot wound. He had nothing but fond memories of the place. Being near water soothed his soul. If he had a soul. Did he have one? Didn’t matter if he did or not. He and God weren’t on speaking terms right now. And that was fine. Kingsley didn’t mind. What did he and God have to talk about anyway? The only thing he wanted to ask God was why He’d called Søren to the priesthood. Could God have played a sicker joke on him?

“Knock, knock?”

Kingsley sighed. Blaise’s gentle voice came from the door. He waved his arm tiredly at her, beckoning her in.

“He’s not here,” Kingsley said.

“I wasn’t looking for him, I promise,” Blaise said.

“Are you swimming?”

“And mess up my hair?” She tossed her honey-blond hair over her shoulder. “No, I’m checking on you.”

Blaise crawled up on the chaise longue next to him. Kingsley looked her up and down as she settled in next to him.

“You’ve outdone yourself with this ensemble,” he said. “You look like... What’s her name? That pretty blonde actress. The dead one with the hair. River? Ocean? Pool?”

“Veronica Lake. And that’s what I was going for. See?” She held up her leg to display her seamed stockings that disappeared under her pencil skirt. She had her hair coiffed in a forties peekaboo style.

“Why do you dress like this?” he asked. Every day she wore some new vintage outfit that put one in mind of old Hollywood.

“The world is sadly lacking in glamour. I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. And not all of us are as naturally gorgeous and eye-catching as you are, King,” she said, tapping the end of his nose. “Some of us have to work for it.”

“You like the attention. You’re the girl in the room who dresses like she forgot what decade she’s in.”

“I’m trying to forget what decade I’m in. The nineties need to shape up fast. You know what people are wearing now? On purpose? Flannel. I saw it on MTV.”

“I shudder.”

“Me, too. Awful. There is nothing glamorous about flannel.”

“You don’t dress like this to be glamorous. You dress to be remembered.”

“So? What’s wrong with being memorable? Even if someone forgets my name, they still remember the girl in the seamed stockings.”

“Nothing’s wrong with being memorable. Except when someone’s trying to forget you.”

Blaise sighed and laid her head on his chest.

“I knew you were in a funk,” she said. “You always get like this when you drink.”

“I drink all the time.”

“You’re in a funk all the time. I thought it would get better when your friend turned up. Where is Søren anyway?”

“I pissed him off. He left.”

“Well, un-piss him off. I like him.”

“The last thing we need is a priest hanging around this house.”

Blaise’s mouth fell open.

“He’s really a priest? That wasn’t a joke?”

“I wish.”

Blaise laughed so hard the chaise longue shook.

“I can’t believe I did kink with a priest. I can’t wait to tell—”

Faster than either of them expected, Kingsley rolled up, grabbed Blaise and put her flat on her back underneath him. He grasped both her wrists and slammed them down by her head.

“King—”

“Shut up. I mean it.” He tightened his grip on her to the point of pain and stayed there. “Not a word to anyone that you did anything with a priest. Do you understand me?”

Blaise looked up at him in fear—real fear.

“Fuck, fine. I won’t tell anyone.”

“You’ve never seen me this serious before, have you?”

Blaise shook her head. “No.”

“There’s a reason for that. You will tell no one.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “I swear.”

Kingsley held her down another few seconds, long enough to make her nervous and long enough to get him aroused.

“Good girl.” He bent his head and kissed her before letting her go.

He rolled on to his back again, crossed his legs at his ankles again, watched the light dance again.

Blaise sat up and looked down at him.

“You scared the shit out of me.” She put her hand over her heart.

“Good.”

“For someone who says he doesn’t like Søren, you’re awfully protective of him.”

“Love him or hate, he’s one of us. We take care of our own.”

“I can’t get him in trouble, you know. I only know his first name.”

“Actually, you don’t.” Kingsley laughed to himself. Søren had introduced himself as “Søren” to Blaise, not Marcus Stearns. There was no “Søren” on anyone’s records anywhere. If she tried to find a Catholic priest in the United States named Søren, she’d be searching forever. So that’s why Søren told her his real name? That fucking brilliant blond monster. Now it all made sense.

“He told me his name, remember?” She rolled her eyes. “Jesus, how much have you had to drink?”

“Enough to put me in the mood, but not enough to ruin it. Now I’m going to get very drunk so you should go unless you want to make yourself useful.”

“Maybe I want to make myself useful,” she said, lifting up his shirt. She pressed her lips into his stomach, and the soft curling tips of her hair tickled his skin. Yes. This. Right now he needed this. Distraction. Desire. Anything to keep from remembering. “I like it when you scare me like that.”

“And that,” he said, caressing her cheek, “is why you are my
chouchou
.”

She kissed lower, deeper, and with one hand she unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. He wasn’t hard yet, but if she kept doing what she was doing, he would be any second now. She took him in her hand and massaged him lightly. When he stiffened, she bent her head and licked the tip. For a few minutes it was all she did, kissing, licking, teasing, focusing all her attention on that one part of him. Blood rushed through him, and he grew hard in her hand. He sighed softly as she stroked him before bringing her mouth down on to him.

Perfect... Her mouth was so wet and warm. She rubbed him with her talented tongue and sucked hard. The pressure built in him, and he lifted his hips into her mouth, small undulations that set every nerve inside him alight. He wove his fingers into her hair, seeking connection with the woman who did this erotic kindness to him.

She paused and used her hand on him, rubbing the shaft from base to tip, squeezing and stoking him to greater pleasure.

“I love your cock,” she whispered before lapping at the wet tip. “I love how big it is. I love how it tastes.”

“You’re too kind. Keep it up,
chouchou
, and I’ll give you the honor of swallowing.”

Blaise grinned seductively at him. “You keep it up, and I’ll keep it up.” She gave him a dirty wink before resuming her task. She sucked even harder now, deeper, and he grew painfully hard. She swirled her tongue around him, up and down, over and over. With her gentle fingertips she eased his foreskin back and lapped at the tip so skillfully his back arched in the shock of pleasure.

A deep muscle tightened in his lower stomach. He felt blood pooling, pressure building. His heart raced, and his fingers dug into the fabric of the chaise lounge. For a few more seconds he held off, trying to prolong the release, wanting to put off as long as possible the return to bitter reality. Blaise sucked him, stroked him, coaxed him, pulled him to the depths of her throat. He hovered at the edge of orgasm, breathing through his nose as Blaise continued to work on him, taking ownership of him with her mouth. She took him deep and massaged his testicles with her tongue. She pulled back to the tip again, and Kingsley came hard into her mouth, spasm after spasm of pleasure washing over him as he spurted his semen into her welcoming throat.

Like the good girl she was, Blaise swallowed every drop of him before releasing him from her mouth. She kissed her way up to his lips, and he tasted himself on her tongue.

“Are you in a good mood now?” she asked, wiping her mouth with one of the towels stacked next to them.

“Better,” Kingsley said. “For now.”

Blaise groaned in frustration.

“You are the king of top drop.”

“You’re making up words again.”

“Top drop. It’s that funk dominants fall into after the scene’s over. You brood.”

“Brooding is my version of afterglow.”

“Call the priest. You’re in a better mood when he’s around. He doesn’t brood like you do.”

“He invented brooding. He holds the patent on brooding. He gets royalties whenever anyone broods. You just haven’t seen him do it yet.”

“Call him,” Blaise said, poking him in the chest.

“I don’t want to. I don’t like him anymore.”

Blaise exhaled and shook her head in abject disgust.

“You lying French asshole. You called him your ‘oldest and dearest friend’ right in front of me. I was there.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“Then what is he?” Blaise asked, annoyed. He did love to ruffle her glamorous feathers.

“My dead sister’s widowed husband.”

Blaise’s eyes widened hugely.

“I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“I don’t anymore. Told you, she’s dead. He was married to her for a few weeks before she flung herself off a cliff, and her body broke into two pieces. Sheered her face off, too.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Blaise clapped a hand over her mouth as if she were about to be sick.

Kingsley picked up his bottle of bourbon.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “It was a long time ago.”

“Kingsley...I had no idea.”

“And now you know why I drink.”

He took a sip, then a second one.

“I hoped it was because you loved the taste of bourbon.” She tried to smile at him, tried and failed.

“Love it? I hate this shit.”

Blaise leaned over and kissed him again—not on the mouth but on his forehead like a mother kissing her child.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered before slipping off the chaise and leaving him alone by the pool. A gentle and sensitive soul, she’d probably run off to cry somewhere. Good thing she left. Last thing he wanted to see was a woman in tears. He’d seen more than enough of that in his life.

Alone again with his bourbon he drank. He drank until he felt safe enough to sleep. The alcohol never turned off the nightmares, but it did mute them. Tonight, however, he hadn’t drunk quite enough to achieve the desired effect. This time he was back in the hospital, his mind alive and active, his body motionless, inert, dying. If he could get a word out, then maybe someone would realize he was aware inside the tomb his body had become.

All he wanted to do was scream.

In his nightmare, his mind screamed, and his mouth remained mute.

He woke up covered in water.

Water?