“That wasn’t a whimper,” Kingsley said.
“It was.”
“Was not.”
Søren bit his earlobe again, much harder this time.
Kingsley panted, “I admit...that one might have been a whimper.”
Søren rose up and sat on Kingsley’s lower stomach. This was something very erotic and delightful when Juliette did it. When a six-foot-four, two hundred pound sadist did it, it was mild agony.
“Why aren’t you naked?” Kingsley asked.
Søren pulled his shirt off and threw it on the floor.
“Better,” Kingsley said. He ached to touch Søren’s broad, taut chest and shoulders, but he was still pinned to the bed.
It seemed Søren read Kingsley’s desire in his eyes. Søren pulled Kingsley’s left arm to his chest and pressed the hand flat over his heart.
“Don’t move,” Søren ordered. “I’m going to do something to you that you’ll hate.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. A long strip of leather, one of the tails from the flogger that Søren had cut off with his knife.
“Søren.”
Søren met Kingsley’s eyes. “I know you hate collars,” Søren said. “This is not a collar.”
Kingsley swallowed. His heart pounded. No other lover had ever gotten to him the way Søren could. There was a reason theirs could never be an everyday love affair. Kingsley wouldn’t survive it. Kink was one thing. Having his soul flayed open was another.
He’d hoped Søren would break him tonight. Instead, Søren seemed intent on breaking him open.
Though he found it humiliating, Kingsley nodded his consent. Humiliating it was, yes, but arousing, deeply. For him and for Søren.
“Hawks can’t be tamed,” Søren said very softly like he was telling a secret. “Did you know that? They can be trained, but never tamed.”
Søren wrapped the leather strip around Kingsley’s wrist and slipped the dovetailed end through a slit cut in the center and tied it off. Søren met his eyes again and Kingsley slowly offered him his right wrist. And after, Søren slid off Kingsley’s stomach and tied leather strips around his ankles as well, knotting them securely. Of course, this wasn’t enough for Søren. He had to put a snap hook through one of the ankle jesses and run a leash from it to the bedpost.
“Now you can’t fly from me,” Søren said.
“I did once, didn’t I?”
Søren met his eyes. “That was my fault.”
“I won’t fly away again.”
“No. I wouldn’t let you.” Søren’s eyes were dark and hooded by his thick dark lashes. He ran his hands up Kingsley’s chest and down his arms, pausing to tug on the jesses on his wrists. “You hate them, don’t you?”
“With every fiber of my being.”
“Good.”
Inflicting pain aroused Søren, but so did inflicting humiliation. Kingsley could see he was aroused. His pupils were round as dimes and his breathing unsteady, labored. His hands grasped and gripped and left bruises with every touch.
“Fuck me,” Kingsley said.
“I haven’t even beaten you yet.”
“Fuck me first. Beat me after.”
“If you beg for it, I’d consider the request,” Søren said. “But the beating will be twice as severe if I have to wait…”
“Beg for it? I’d pay for it. I’d give you every cent I had for it. I’d let you wipe your shoes on my heart for it. I’d give you wine glasses full of my blood for it. I’d even sell my soul for it if I still had it to sell.”
“What did you do with your soul?” Søren asked.
“Don’t you remember? I gave it to you one night in the forest.”
“You broke my cross. I took your soul in repayment.”
“Keep it,” Kingsley said. “It’s worth nothing to me unless you own it.”
Søren bent down and kissed him as Kingsley continued begging. He begged in English. He begged in French. He begged in Spanish and Russian. He begged in whimpers and sighs and he begged with his heart and with his hands as he opened Søren’s pants and stroked him. Søren was hard and ready, though he’d never admit he wanted it as much as Kingsley did. He didn’t have to admit it. Kingsley knew.
No sadist Kingsley had ever been with struck harder and faster than Søren. Even hawks could learn from him. Halfway between one “please” and another, Søren seized Kingsley by the arms and threw him onto his stomach. Few people on earth would likely find the sensation of a knee pressing into one’s lower back erotic, but Kingsley was one of those happy few. Happier still when Søren dug his fingers into Kingsley’s hair, holding him fast down on the bed. Why Søren held him so hard was beyond Kingsley. It wasn’t as if there was anywhere else in the world he would have rather been at that moment.
Søren moved down Kingsley’s body and nudged his thighs apart with his knees. Kingsley moaned as he always did when Søren took possession of him. As usual, Søren laughed his mocking laugh.
“Whore,” Søren said, and Kingsley smiled.
“You made me this way,” Kingsley said.
“Hardly. You were born a whore. All I did was find your price.”
Kingsley laughed, but the laugh died in a heartbeat when Søren pressed two very wet fingers inside him. The violation was so delicious that Kingsley turned his face into the pillow to stifle his own sigh of bliss. He’d debased himself enough already tonight.
“Do you like it?” Søren asked.
“Yes.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“It’s all the same to you, isn’t it?” Søren asked, his tone taunting. He slid off the bed and finished undressing. “Why is that, I wonder?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” Kingsley said, watching him.
“Or you’re a whore for me?”
“This isn’t fair. She gets the cute pet name ‘Little One’ but I’m ‘Whore’?”
“You want me to start calling you ‘Little One’?”
Kingsley thought about that. “No, bad idea,” he said. “Terrible idea. Forgot I said anything. ‘Whore’ is perfect.”
Søren slid back on top of him. Slowly but not too slowly, Søren entered him fully. And then, because Kingsley had apparently been a very good boy this year, Søren kissed his back from shoulder to shoulder and neck to the bottom rib. “I love when you do that, too…”
“Stop talking,” Søren said, “or I will cut your tongue out, put a metal hook through it, and hang it on the Christmas tree as our one and only ornament.”
Kingsley stopped talking.
He couldn’t have spoken if he’d wanted to. Søren thrust into him and Kingsley was rendered speechless. The only sounds he could make were inarticulate cries of pain and pleasure, the combination of the two far more potent than they ever could be apart. Søren filled and filled him utterly, completely, to the breaking point.
Yet Kingsley didn’t break.
Søren bit down hard on the back of Kingsley’s neck like lions did when mating. But it wasn’t enough to hold him with his teeth, and Søren had Kingsley by the wrists again. He was spread out and staked, split open and pinned down. Søren gave with long deep rough thrusts and Kingsley took and he took and he took, happy to be used by this man he loved, happier still to be loved by this man who used him.
What he would remember most fondly from this little trip away from the world, Kingsley didn’t know, but if he had to guess he would say it would be the vision of Søren’s hand clamped over his wrist and the black leather jess against the white sheets. Kingsley’s cock throbbed, desperate to be touched, but he was content to wait. He needed Søren to come in him more than Kingsley needed to come for him. Søren was close. Kingsley could tell from the sound of Søren’s ragged breathing. The grip on Kingsley’s wrists grew even tighter and he whimpered in pain, forgetting momentarily that grown men do not whimper.
Søren’s thrusts grew even harder, somehow even deeper and Kingsley could do nothing but dig his fin
gers into the bed to brace himself. The teeth at the nape of his neck broke the skin and Kingsley flinched and cried out as Søren poured into him, filling him and sealing them together. Kingsley grunted unhappily when Søren pulled out, but quickly found himself being turned over onto his back again, with Søren kissing his way down Kingsley’s sweating chest and stomach. Søren took him in his mouth and the sudden shock of wet heat on his cock was too much to bear. Kingsley orgasmed as powerfully as he had that night in the woods when Søren had deigned to pleasure him. He came so hard his back arched, lifting his shoulders off the bed. He almost took flight. It felt like he could have. He could have but he didn’t, he wouldn’t. Something kept him grounded and that something wasn’t the leash on his ankle but the love that bound him to Søren tighter than any collar, cord, or fetter.
When it was all over, Søren brought him a tin cup full of water so cold it set Kingsley’s teeth on edge. Søren dragged him to a sitting position and held the cup while Kingsley drank. When he finished, Kingsley collapsed back onto the bloody pillow. The blood was his of course. A few drops spilling from the bite mark on his back. Søren lay on his back and Kingsley rested his head on Søren’s stomach, which was always his favorite place to sleep. Especially if Søren’s hand was wrapped up in his hair just as it was right then.
They were silent for a long time, doing nothing but breathing together. Kingsley closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of winter on Søren’s stomach. It smelled not just of the cold of winter and the bitterness of winter and the purity of winter, but the wildness of winter, too. It was an untamed season as dangerous as it was beautiful.
“I was right,” Kingsley said.
“About what?”
“When I said I would still love you when I was fifty.” Kingsley lifted his head and met Søren’s eyes. “Thank you for bringing me here, for telling me the truth.”
“Thank you for forgiving me.”
Kingsley nodded and laid his head down again.
“Is it after midnight?” Kingsley asked.
“It is.”
“Happy birthday.”
“It is indeed.”
“What would you like for your birthday?” Kingsley asked.
“One big French whore,” Søren said. “Preferably male. Ideally a masochist of the extreme variety.”
“In a pear tree?”
“Optional.”
“Good news,” Kingsley said. “I happen to have a masochistic French whore on me. And he’s all yours.”
Søren sighed contentedly. “What to do with him…”
“Keep him,” Kingsley said. “Keep him and never lose him.”
“I don’t have to. He’s quite good at losing himself.”
“Yes,” Kingsley said, wincing. “Sorry about that.”
“I swear on all that is holy, if you ever get lost in the woods again...”
“You’ll kill me?”
Søren dug his hands deep into Kingsley’s hair, holding it so tight he whimpered.
“No,” Søren said. “I’ll find you.”
Bonus Short Story: Blood & Snow
One
An Unexpected Visitor
Author’s Note: This story takes place at the same time as December Wine.
Rome, Italy
Magdalena was in the middle of a beating when someone knocked timorously on the door.
“Magda?” Delphina whispered, then knocked again.
What part of Never interrupt me when I’m with a client, or you will be murdered in your bed with a pickaxe did people not understand?
Resolved to ignore the interruption, she lifted the whip again, wincing at a flash of pain in her right shoulder. Getting older was hell.
“Magda, I’m sorry. We have a guest.”
A guest. Well then. Perhaps Delphina had a good reason for interrupting her. They often had very important guests here at what was once the Abbazia di san Girolamo nel deserto, the Abbey of Saint Jerome of the Wilderness, a Benedictine monastery. Princes. Kings. Business magnates. Vice presidents of the United States. Vice being the operative word.
“Who is he?” Magdalena turned and called through the door. Behind her, hanging on a hook and bleeding from his back, was a member of a European royal dynasty.
“Ah…I don’t know.”
Magdalena rolled her eyes. She repeated the madam’s lament. “Why are good whores so hard to find?”
She opened the door and there stood Delphina dressed in pigtails and a pinafore—only a pinafore—along with Mary Jane shoes and bobby socks.
“Talk,” she said.
“There’s a man at the door. He didn’t say his name. You should go see him.”
“Why?”
“He’s worth looking at. Everyone should see him.”
“Is he important?”
“I wanted to bow to him.”
“You’re a submissive prostitute,” Magdalena said. “You want to bow to every man. It’s your job.”
“For him I would bow for free.”
“Did you bow to him for free?”
“Maybe I curtsied. A little.”
Magdalena sighed. She hired her girls for their sadism and/or masochism, not for their brains.
“Where is he?”
“In your salon. He said he would wait.”
Magdalena touched her forehead, eyes closed, and breathed through her nose. “Then why are you bothering me?”
“I wouldn’t let this man wait.”
Usually Magdalena wouldn’t have bothered with a guest arriving during a session, but she felt the tiredness in her bones tonight. A few minutes rest would do her good.
“Do I have blood on me?” She was wearing her favorite dress, a long-sleeved ankle-length wrap dress in winter white. Flattering to her silver hair, which was in a braided crown.
“Not much,” Delphina said.
“I’ll see to our guest. You, stay with the boy.” Magdalena inclined her head to the aforementioned royal who had begun to softly moan. “Keep him from dying. Otherwise, don’t touch him.” She turned and called to the man, “I’ll be back soon, puppy. Or perhaps not. I may leave you there all night. Comfortable?”
He moaned in agony.
“He’s fine,” Magdalena said, and waved her hand, dismissing the moan and the blood. She glanced over her shoulder again. The moaning had gotten a little louder. “If he does die, you know what to do.”
She hadn’t lowered her voice when she said that. Psychological torture was part of the package service offered here at St. Magdalena’s, as she’d rechristened the monastery.
Magdalena left them and strode down the hall, descending the wide and curving stone staircase to the main floor. The salon was her best reception room, where the most important guests were entertained. And, apparently, also strange men who showed up uninvited two days after Christmas at nearly midnight.
She entered the salon, a grand room of stone floors, fur rugs, brightly-colored medieval tapestries depicting the court of King Arthur hanging on the walls. She expected her visitor to be warming himself by the grand mosaic tile fireplace, which they always kept lit in winter. But no one stood there, though it was a bitterly cold and snow blown winter’s night. Instead, she found her visitor standing at the tall dark window, his back to her. But even with his back to her, she recognized him. No mistaking the height, the regal bearing, the broad shoulders, and the hair…that blond hair with nary a single strand out of place.
Magdalena laughed. “Hello, Bambi. I should have known it was you.”
Two
An Unexpected Announcement
He turned around and Magdalena smiled at her old friend. Had Delphina said there was a handsome and intimidating priest at her door, she would have known it was Marcus immediately. But he wasn’t dressed in his clerical garb tonight. He wore a sleek dark gray suit. Either he’d left the priesthood or he was traveling incognito. Both possibilities intrigued her but not nearly as much as the question of why he’d come to her out of the bl
ue so soon after Christmas.
“Hello, Magda,” he said, not quite smiling but certainly not frowning, either. In the years between visits, she always forgot just how handsome a man he was. Until he showed up on her doorstep again—and here he was, winter personified. Exquisite face, but always wearing a cold expression. Pale skin, hair like the morning sun coldly glistening on snow, and eyes like the January sky, a granite gray to chill you to the bone.
“Come with me,” she said. “I need you.”
He walked toward her and she waved him into the hallway. Bless him, she did have him well-trained.
“I have one of Queen Sofía’s grandsons or great-nephews or something like that hanging from a hook in my dungeon,” she said. “Or was it Princess Grace? Doesn’t matter. My bursitis is acting up. I need your arms.”
“You could consider retiring,” he said.
“You could consider shoving your lovely head up your lovely arse.”
She’d learned her English in England, where she’d spent time as a teenager as the property of a wealthy Tory who’d picked her up from a pimp. It had given her great pleasure, years later when she was a rich and free woman, to give her pimp’s name to one of her dear friends in the Cosa Nostra. Since she was fluent, she spoke English whenever possible. It made it much harder for her girls to eavesdrop on her conversations.
“Not to state the obvious, but you aren’t getting any younger,” he said, removing his suit jacket in one smooth motion and tossing it onto a red brocade armchair they passed. She’d been in her forties when they’d met—thirty years ago, now. Terrible math. Like her, Marcus was a sadist, which was why he’d oh so casually alluded to her advanced age.
“And you aren’t getting any better-mannered. Good. I hate when people change for the better.” She quickly changed the subject. “So, how do you like my new establishment?”
“A converted Benedictine monastery. Really, Magda?” He sounded equal parts amused and disgusted as he unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. She appreciated a sadist who whipped first, asked questions later.
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