The Prince (19 page)

“He is in a rare good mood today. Submissive even. I am certain your presence is to thank for that. But tell me about your presence here. I can’t believe my eyes.”

“I believe your eyes.” Talel had the darkest, most soulful eyes she’d ever seen. Eyes that could keep secrets.

“My presence here... I’m with my boyfriend?” The sentence came out as a question, not a statement.

“Boyfriend?” Talel seemed as skeptical as she, and far more shocked by the word
boyfriend
than by her presence there at the race. “And your priest?”

“He knows I’m here. I’m not sure why he let me come, but I think he thought…I don’t know. I never know what that man’s thinking.”

“But you will go back to him?”

And that question Nora had chosen not to answer.

She’d seen Wesley then, standing by the paddock looking around—for her, most likely. In the bright afternoon, the sunlight caught in his too-long hair and he’d seemed for a moment to be surrounded by a halo. The sudden sight of him silenced her words and awakened her longing. It might be the wrong decision to take Wesley’s virginity and then go back to Søren again, but Wesley was old enough to face the risks.

And she had to have him.

“Wesley…” Nora opened her eyes and came back to the present moment. He had just turned into the driveway of his home. “What happened today? With Spanks, I mean?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t break anything. Horses are real fragile. Maybe a heart attack from running so hard? Maybe electrocution?”

“Are you kidding?”

He shrugged. “Nope. You can kill a horse with an electrical current so mild even a person wouldn’t be affected by it. Bunch of horses got killed not that long ago when a wire hit some water and they were standing too close. Just an accident.”

“You think it was an accident?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“That horse was so healthy, Wes. I petted him and kissed him. And when he ran…it was like someone turned wind into rage and turned rage into a horse... I’ve never seen anything like it. It was beautiful.”

“You’re starting to sound like a racing fan. This isn’t good. I don’t need you losing every penny playing the ponies.”

“You never let me have any fun.”

Wesley stopped smiling. “I could say the same to you.”

Nora’s stomach tightened at the hurt in Wesley’s voice.

“I’m trying here, Wes. With you. Figuring you out. I want us to be together, really together. This thing with Spanks for Nothing kind of freaked me out.”

“It sucks and it’s sad, but it happens. It’s a cool sport, but a dangerous one. You should understand that.”

“I do. I really do. But people don’t turn up dead all that often doing kink. The E.R. for the occasional sprained wrist or whatever? Yes. But not the morgue.”

“I told you, horses are fragile and accidents happen.”

“But I don’t think it was an accident.”

Wesley pulled up to the guesthouse and turned his car off. He looked at her and Nora steeled herself. Certain sides of her, certain parts of her past, she tried to keep from Wesley, for his own good. A sweet kid like that didn’t need to know she herself had put people in the hospital, that his wasn’t the only heart she’d broken, that she’d had an abortion, that she’d done the sort of things he’d never forgive anyone but her for…but she knew he needed to know this.

“Nora…what do you know that I don’t know?”

She pulled a small red object from her bra. In the stall with Talel, she’d seen it, recognized it immediately and hidden it quickly where no one else would look. Now she showed it to Wesley.

“What is that?” he asked.

“It’s a crocodile clip.”

“Where did you find it?”

“In the stall in the hay by Spanks for Nothing’s body. Wesley, you know what these are used for, right?”

“Yeah, my dentist uses them to keep the bibs on.”

She gave a cold little laugh.

“Not this kind of crocodile clip. This is for carrying electrical currents.”

Wesley’s eyes widened in shock before narrowing with understanding. “Are you sure—”

“Yes, I am absolutely sure.”

“How do you know what that is?”

“I’ve used them before.”

His eyes narrowed further.

“For what?”

Nora swallowed before forcing the words out.

“For electrocuting people.”

NORTH

The Past

Kingsley returned to Saint Ignatius in September, healed and whole and desperate to see Søren. Søren…he couldn’t believe that he of all the students at the school had somehow earned the right to call Søren by his name. His friends, Christian and the others, greeted him eagerly but warily when he stepped back onto the campus, suitcase in hand, hair pulled back in a ponytail, bruises on his neck from Jackie’s farewell love bites last night. But his smile and his stories of his summer exploits seemingly reassured them. No one asked him about what had happened to him two days before school let out. Had they asked, he would have simply repeated his mantra to them. He would never speak of that night to anyone but Søren.

But where was Søren?

Kingsley moved back into the dormitory and took the bed next to the one Søren had occupied last school year. Glancing there, Kingsley was troubled to see none of Søren’s things—his Bible written in some Scandinavian language; his shoes, two sizes larger than Kingsley’s and always polished to a perfect shine—on the floor next to his trunk. Even the large wooden trunk with the brass lock was gone.

“Your friend Stearns graduated,” Christian said, noticing Kingsley’s stares at Søren’s bed.

“What?” Kingsley gazed aghast at him.

“Yeah. Graduated. He’s moved out of the dorms and into the priests’ quarters now. Thank God, right? That guy is fucking terrifying. I was always scared I’d trip in the night on the way to take a piss, and he’d kill me. The Fathers get to walk on eggshells now.”

“So he is still here? He didn’t leave the school.” Kingsley nearly collapsed with relief.

“Teaching now. Foreign languages. None of the Fathers are fluent in much of anything but Latin, Greek and Hebrew. They’ve got Stearns teaching French, Spanish and German. Don’t know why. You should be the one teaching French.”

“Perhaps I could be his teaching assistant.” Kingsley smiled at the thought, but Christian only stared at him, wide-eyed. “It was a joke, Christian.”

“Better be. Jesus, can you imagine his poor students? Well, they’ll learn the language at least. They’ll be too scared not to.”

“I don’t think he’s as terrifying as you think he is.”

Christian slapped him playfully on the arm as he headed out of the dorm. “You’re a braver man than I am, then. Or just fucking crazy.”

Alone once more, Kingsley picked up his things and moved them to Søren’s old bed. He didn’t know if they’d ever be able to sleep together now—at least not in the same room. But Kingsley could sleep in Søren’s bed. It might be enough.

That night in the dining hall, Kingsley barely ate. The need, the eagerness to see Søren superseded all other hungers. But Søren didn’t show—not for dinner, not for Vespers, not for lights out.

That night Kingsley lay in bed and studied the ceiling as, one by one, the twelve other boys in the room dropped off to sleep. Their heavy, rhythmic breaths and soft snores filled the room. Kingsley turned over in bed and gazed at the light from the hallway creeping in from under the door. The light flickered as something blocked it. Something…someone.

Kingsley threw back the covers and raced as silently as he could to the door. Holding his breath, he turned the knob and opened it, praying if he moved slowly enough, it wouldn’t make its usual loud squeak. His prayer was answered. Kingsley slipped into the hall, shut the door behind him and found himself immediately against the wall, his face pressed to the cool stone.

The warmth of a body burned against his back. He’d gone to bed wearing nothing but a pair of black boxer shorts that Susan had given him. So against his skin he felt buttons from an oxford shirt, the silk of a tie, the cold metal of a belt buckle. Inhaling deep, Kingsley smelled winter.

“I missed you,” he whispered in French.

Søren said nothing, merely leaned in harder against him. The second he’d seen the strip of light under the door darken, Kingsley had grown aroused. He wanted to feel Søren’s arousal, too, wanted it against his back, against him and inside him.

Kingsley braced himself against the wall with his hands. Søren grasped his wrists with an easy grip.

“You came back,” Søren said against Kingsley’s hair.

“You told me to.” In those four words, Kingsley felt a kind of deep truth he’d never experienced before about himself.
You told me to.
Kingsley would do anything, absolutely anything, for Søren.

“I hurt you. Badly.” Søren said the words simply, without a trace of guilt or shame.

“Oui.”

“You liked it.” It wasn’t a question.

“Oui. Mais…”
Kingsley didn’t know quite how to broach the subject. He stopped speaking and let his one word of objection hang in the air.

“I’ll find a way to be more careful,” Søren pledged. He rested his hand on the flat of Kingsley’s stomach, and Kingsley inhaled sharply. The presence of Søren’s hand on his skin sent pleasure spiking through him.

“I have something with me that should help,” Kingsley said.

“Good.” Søren kissed the back of his bare shoulder.

“Now?”

He felt Søren shaking his head.

“Not tonight. Not here. But soon.”

Kingsley nodded. He would have been disappointed, but he’d hardly expected this to happen the moment he returned to school.

“Go back to bed,” Søren ordered. “Go to sleep.”

“Oui, monsieur,”
Kingsley said, grinning against the wall.

Søren’s low laugh raised goose bumps that ran down the center of Kingsley’s spine. Søren pushed away from him slowly and he immediately missed the heat on his cool skin.

Turning around, he faced Søren. God…he’d grown even more beautiful over the summer. His hair looked to be about an inch longer, his eyes even grayer. Søren had abandoned the school uniform for a real suit that made him look like the man he’d become.

“I’m yours,” Kingsley whispered. He laid both palms on Søren’s chest. “You know that.”

Søren looked down at his hands.

“I know. I…” he began, and paused for a breath. “I didn’t mean to hurt you as much as I did.”

Kingsley smiled. “I liked that you hurt me.”

“Good. I have to hurt you.”

“Have to?” Kingsley met Søren’s eyes. The look in them…Kingsley didn’t understand it. What was it he saw there? Regret? No. Not shame. Not fear.

“I’m different.” Søren turned his head and stared down the dimly lit hallway. Shadows lurked in the corners. But was Søren looking at the shadows or something in them?

“No. Not different. Better,” Kingsley assured him. Søren smiled slightly and tore his gaze from the darkness at the edge of the corridor.

“I am. I can’t…”

Kingsley gasped as Søren suddenly slipped his hand down Kingsley’s boxers and wrapped his fingers around him.

“This,” Søren whispered, putting his mouth to Kingsley’s ear. “Unless I hurt you, unless I cause you pain, I can’t…”

And Kingsley understood. Søren couldn’t get aroused unless he inflicted pain. Everything made sense now. Søren’s remoteness, the wall of self-protection he built around himself, his aloofness that kept the other boys far away from him—all done on purpose to protect anyone who would get close to him. For to get close to Søren meant walking through fire, stepping on glass, crawling through hell.

Kingsley flexed his hips, pushing himself into Søren’s hand. He nearly came from that one movement alone.
“Je comprende.”

Søren slowly released Kingsley and pulled his hand back, his eyes widened slightly as if in surprise. “You understand me,” he said. “But I don’t understand you. You aren’t afraid of this?”

Kingsley shrugged. “I told you, I’m French. Ever read the Marquis de Sade?” He grinned ear to ear and Søren’s smile widened.

“Sometimes I think I am him. I’ve read Machiavelli, too.
The Prince.
It is better to be feared than loved.”

Kingsley heard the sorrow in Søren’s voice, the longing for something he thought he couldn’t have.

“And…” Søren continued, “it’s safer to be feared than loved. At least where I’m concerned.” He smiled almost shyly and Kingsley suddenly understood it all—why Søren was so cold, so remote, why he could and did instill such fear in the hearts of everyone who came near him. He did it on purpose. He did it to keep them safe.

Reaching up, Kingsley laid his hands on Søren’s chest and felt his heart beating slowly, steadily.

“I don’t want to be safe,” Kingsley whispered.

“You don’t know what you’re saying, Kingsley.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying. You think you are broken.
Non,
you are perfect.” He said the words in French. So much easier to speak the truth in his native tongue.

“Would you choose to be like me, if you had the choice?”

“I do choose it. You regret what you are only because you think you must keep others away from you. It will not keep me away.”

“Always…” Søren glanced away again, glanced upward and sighed. “I’ve always wanted to believe God made me this way for a reason.”

“Je suis la raison.”

I am the reason.

Søren exhaled slowly. He ran a hand up Kingsley’s arm to his shoulder. Cupping the side of his neck, he brought his mouth down to Kingsley’s. Kingsley opened himself to the kiss and let Søren’s tongue touch his. Such a gentle kiss, so intimate yet careful.

“Ma raison d’être,”
Søren whispered, and Kingsley shivered with need.

“You’re holding back. I can feel it.” Kingsley said the words into Søren’s lips.

“I have to hold back. Now at least. Or I’ll break you apart again.”

“I want that. I want you.”

Søren dropped another quick kiss on Kingsley’s lips. “Soon. I’ll find a way for us to be together. But I will hurt you again. I’m certain of it. You’ll have to help me keep from going too far.”