The Prince (15 page)

Kingsley took a step toward him and waited. Søren did nothing, said nothing to stop him.

So Kingsley didn’t stop.

Another step. And then another. And after one more step he stood in front of Søren, merely a hairsbreadth apart.

“I thought you were the most beautiful creature on God’s earth,” Kingsley confessed. “I would have been an atheist but for you proving to me that both heaven and hell were real, even if they existed only when I was with you.”

“I can’t say when the moment came that I wanted you,” Søren said. “Perhaps before we even met. Why else would I have chosen the Ravel? I always thought God brought Eleanor and me together.”

“Then who is to blame for us? The devil?”

“I hope not.” Søren sighed. “I have no intention of meeting him. Even to thank him.”

Søren turned his face to Kingsley.

“You are still the most beautiful creature on God’s earth,” Kingsley said, meaning every word.

“I hated how you stared at me.” Søren raised his hand and laid it on Kingsley’s shoulder. He moved his hand up Kingsley’s neck and pressed his thumb into the hollow of his throat.

“And why is that?”

“Because,” Søren said, bending his regal head the four inches that separated them, “it made it impossible for me to stare back.”

Their lips touched for the first time in thirty years. Even the night Søren took him fourteen years ago, they hadn’t kissed. Søren had reserved his kisses for Eleanor alone. What happened that night had been mere violence, not even lust or love. But Kingsley sensed no violence in this kiss. Søren’s mouth was cold and clean. Their tongues gently mingled. But the gentleness lasted only seconds, and Kingsley knew it was merely the product of their own astonishment the kiss was even happening.

Fingers on the back of his neck.

He remembered those fingers.

A hand digging into his hip with bruising force.

Kingsley remembered that hand.

Pain with every touch. Pain with every kiss. Pain with every beat of his heart.

Kingsley loved this pain.

Søren pushed him until Kingsley felt bark against his back, digging through his shirt and into his flesh. They devoured each other with kisses, bit lips, nipped tongues. Kingsley tasted blood and knew it was his own.

Or was it?

“Stop, Kingsley.” Søren spoke the order against Kingsley’s mouth. He didn’t stop.

“You never told me your safe word,” Kingsley whispered back. “I don’t stop for anything but a safe word.”

He laughed then and Søren’s hand came out of seemingly nowhere and slapped the laugh off his lips. Then they kissed again, harder, deeper. Kingsley felt the kiss in his stomach, in his hips. The pants he wore were made by the finest tailor in the world and cost a small fortune. He wanted to drop to the ground in them, take Søren in his mouth, and afterward take the trousers to his tailor and demand he repair the tears in the knees.

“I’m stronger than her,” Kingsley whispered into Søren’s ear. Søren responded with so vicious a bite on Kingsley’s neck that he cried out. “I can take so much more pain than she. She’s gone. It doesn’t matter if she’s coming back or not. For now, she’s gone. Let me warm your bed in her place.”

“Who?” Søren pushed Kingsley even harder against the tree and thrust his thigh between Kingsley’s legs.

“Eleanor.”

Kingsley was free. No hands held him. No mouth kissed him. He stood against the tree, alone, untouched. Bewildered, he stared at Søren, who stood five feet away from him, panting. Søren raised his hand and wiped a drop of blood off the side of his mouth.

“Mais…”
Kingsley protested.

Søren lowered his hand.

“You said my safe word.”

SOUTH

He couldn’t stay mad at the woman if his life depended on it. How could anyone stay mad at Nora? She had this thing about her, this force, this wildness... Of course she hadn’t slept with him last night. That’s exactly what Wesley had wanted, exactly when he wanted it and exactly who he’d wanted it with. So it hadn’t happened. Nothing ever happened except on Nora’s terms. That’s why she made him want to scream sometimes. That’s why she made him love her all the time.

Wesley led Nora through the quiet stables. Dozens of horses greeted them with low, breathy whinnies. He had to physically restrain her on several occasions from reaching out to pet the horses.

“Thoroughbreds, Nor. These are Thoroughbreds, not kittens. They’re geared up and ready to run. And they’ll bite you if you get them in the right mood. And now, they are in the right mood.”

“But they’re so cute with their little socks on,” she said, pulling Wesley toward another stall, where a horse named Don’t Need the Money pranced about peevishly. “Plus, I bite back.”

“You know horse racing is called the sport of kings, right?” Wesley teased. Nora had a rather irreverent take on horse racing. He blamed all those clients of hers that were into pony play. She couldn’t look at a saddle or a bridle without telling him about her ex-client who watched
My Friend Flicka
for the same reasons other guys watched porn.

“So what’s going on here?” Nora waved her hands around at the stables.

“Prerace prep. Horses get rubbed down and dressed. Then it’s off to the starting gate.”

“The stands don’t look that full. Do people really make money off horse racing?”

“Nora, this one race that’s happening here in Charleston Park? People all over the world are betting on it.”

“Damn.”

“I know. The purses aren’t really where the money is. You want to win races so your horse proves he can win. That way, other horse owners will pay you a fortune to breed their horses with yours.”

“So they can go on to win races and not win very much money, but then sell horsey spooge to the next generation.”

“Right. Disgusting, but right.”

“So do the horses like running?”

“What?”

Nora turned around and leaned back against the stable wall. A horse named Good Golly Miss Molly stuck her head out of the stall window and stuck her tongue out at Wesley.

“Do they like it? Enjoy it?”

“I don’t speak horse. But I think a lot of them do. They’ve been trained to enjoy it, trained to want to run.”

“But it’s dangerous.”

“Being a wild horse is dangerous, too. Being an animal is dangerous. Being a human is dangerous.”

“Putting bridles on them, making them do dangerous things for the pleasure of others…isn’t that wrong?”

Just then Wesley noticed the wicked little twinkle in Nora’s eyes. They were green today. He’d asked her once why her eyes changed colors so often. One moment they shone bright emerald-green. In a blink they could turn black as night. “I have mood eyes,” she’d answered. “Green when I’m happy. Black when I’m horny.”

He sort of wished they were black right now.

“You’re not talking about horse racing, are you?”

Nora shook her head. “I am. But I’m not.”

“Horse racing isn’t like kink. Yeah, they both can be dangerous. And yeah, there’s some, I don’t know, non-consent involved...”

“And riding crops.”

“Yeah, and riding crops. But there’s a big difference between horse racing and kink.”

“And what’s that?” The twinkle remained in her eyes.

“It’s sad when a Thoroughbred gets hurt in a race. But when Søren hurts you, I die inside.”

Nora said nothing. The twinkle in her eyes faded. She pushed herself off the stable wall and came to him. Throwing her arms around his neck, she brought her mouth to his and kissed him long and deep. So shocked was he by the sudden kiss, it took Wesley a second before he could even kiss her back. But when he did, he met her passion with hunger, met her lips with his tongue, met her lust with love.

Wesley slid his hands down her back, and Nora pulled away.

“What?” he asked, searching her face for any clue as to why she’d stopped.

“Tonight,” she said, panting.

“What’s tonight?”

Nora laid her hands on his chest. She came up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “What you wanted. We hang out, we watch movies, we eat dinner together, we talk. But instead of separate bedrooms…we go to bed together.”

She turned around and walked away. But not before she looked back at him once and winked.

Wesley couldn’t stop smiling. Her eyes had turned black as night.

He started to follow her, but heard his father calling his name.

“What?” Wesley asked, sounding more peevish than he intended. His father glared at him. “Sorry. I mean, what is it?”

“Do you want to see this horse or not?”

Wesley decided answering truthfully would not win him any points in this situation.

“Yes. Totally. Let’s go.” Wesley and his father walked past the paddock to another set of stables.

“Where’s that woman of yours?”

“Dad, she’s my girlfriend, not ‘my woman.’ And you know her name is Nora.”

“Don’t care what her name is. Just want to know where she is.”

Wesley tried and failed to suppress the eye-rolling urge. Thank God he’d remembered to put his sunglasses back on. Nothing pissed his father off more than disrespect.

“She’s hanging out by the stables. She’ll behave herself.”

“I highly doubt that.”

Wesley highly doubted it, too. But with all the jockeys and trainers about, no way could Nora cause any riots. Only mild mayhem at most. Worst-case scenario was she’d offend a few jockeys with pony-play jokes. It would be a miracle if he could get her through the day without her testing out the riding crops on somebody.

They entered the stall where the mare his father wanted to look at stood pawing at the ground. High-strung and well-muscled, she would make a terrible companion horse, but probably could outrun any gelding on the field. The veterinarian and his father talked about her stats and vitals while Wesley pretended to read her pedigree. Good genes that went all the way back to Ruffian. If his dad knew what he was doing, he’d put the mare and Farewell to Charms together. They’d have one hell of a runner with that genetic cocktail, probably a Derby winner. Maybe even the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. The money would pour into The Rails with a Triple Crown. The most famous horse farm in the industry would become a legend throughout the world.

And Wesley couldn’t care less.

“Son?”

“Huh?” Wesley looked at his father. “Oh, yeah. Could work.”

His father nodded, reading Wesley’s agreement in the blank expression on his face. A mare like this would cost money—lots of it. Wesley had learned his poker face early on. His father had enough money to buy and sell the entire state of Kentucky ten time times before breakfast, but he had all that money because he never spent a cent more than necessary.

The mare settled down long enough for Wesley to give her a pat on her flank. The horse’s taut muscle twitched under his hands. Feisty thing. She and Nora would get along well. Nora…a year and a half hadn’t changed her at all. He still couldn’t quite believe it had happened, poof, she was back in his life again. All that time apart disappeared in one instant, in one embrace, in one sentence she’d groaned in his ear when she’d wrapped her arms around him.

God, you need a haircut.

Wesley still couldn’t think about it without smiling. And yet he’d been so terrified at first. He still couldn’t quite believe Søren was allowing Nora to be with him. But as much as Wesley hated Søren, he couldn’t deny that the priest would do anything to protect the woman he considered his property, even giving her up.

Søren…who was he? For two years Nora had talked about the man, mourned his absence from her life and her bed, tried to hate him, tried to stay away from, tried to convince Wesley he wasn’t the monster he thought... But until this summer, Wesley had never met him. And as soon as he had, Wesley regretted it. Seeing that six-foot-four blond priest who looked like…looked like exactly the opposite of what he’d wanted him to look like.

Nora once tried to describe Søren to Wesley. “Think Sting plus Jeremy Irons, but taller, sexier, and scarier than both of them combined.”

“You’re not exaggerating a little, are you?”

“Wesley, I wouldn’t exaggerate or commit hyperbole for a billion dollars in a million years.”

“Nora.”

And that wild light in Nora’s eye had flickered and the smile faded from her face.

“He has the most beautiful mouth of any man I’ve ever seen…” she’d said then, talking more to herself than Wesley. “Tender…and cruel.”

“Tender and cruel? You sound like one of your own books now,” Wesley had teased, hoping to bring her smile back. It scared him when she got like this, when she looked past him instead of at him, and he knew she’d gone back to Søren. At least in her mind.

“Wait until you meet him,” she’d said, inhaling and forcing her smile back. “Then tell me how right I am.”

She’d been right.

Nora’s bedroom had been the last place Wesley expected to meet the man. When Wesley and Nora lived together, the temptation to sneak off one Sunday morning and attend Mass at Sacred Heart had nearly overwhelmed him at times. But something told him that would be a dangerous mistake. He knew Nora still loved her priest, and the last thing Wesley wanted to do was give the man the satisfaction of knowing he was intimidated by him.

Especially since Søren wasn’t remotely intimidated by Wesley.

But Wesley refused to be intimidated another minute more by Søren or Nora’s feelings for him.

After all…just ahead of him, standing by the paddock and flirting with Jon Huntley, one of the trainers at Calumet, was the one and only Nora Sutherlin…his Nora here in Kentucky with him, with Wesley.

And he had Søren to thank for that.

Wesley still recalled his shock when he’d pushed past Søren, ready to flee Nora’s house and the presence of the man who’d made a habit of turning her flawless pale skin black-and-blue.

But Søren had spoken the words that Wesley knew would change his life even before the priest had elaborated.

Wesley…I need to ask a favor of you.

Slowly, Wesley had turned around and faced the priest once again.