Nora’s heart broke for him. He lowered his head to her lap again and she swiped at a tear on her cheek. Nora didn’t tell Kingsley what she’d done or said to Søren. She didn’t tell him about her plane ticket and her vows. He was already grieving Søren’s loss. Kingsley didn’t need one more thing to mourn.
“Why does it always have to hurt so much?” Kingsley asked.
“What?”
“Life.”
Nora smiled. “God’s a sadist. That’s why.”
“You think so?”
“Oh, I know so,” Nora said. “I’m a writer. I do what God does in miniature every time I write a book. I create worlds and people out of nothing—ex nihilo—and I torture the fuck out of them for four hundred pages.”
“Because you’re a sadist?”
“Partly that. Plus...if I didn’t torture them it would be a real fucking short book. And trust me on this, King, there is no money in short stories.”
Kingsley laughed and buried his head into her lap again, seeking her comfort and safety and the shelter of someone stronger.
“You’ve solved the oldest theological conundrum of all time,” Kingsley said. “Why does God allow suffering? Because there’s no money in short stories.”
“I’ll tell you one more little secret about being a god. Even though I torture them for four hundred pages, it hurts me to do it.”
“They aren’t real. Why does it hurt?”
“I created them. They’re mine. I love them. God loves us, too, even when He hurts us. Especially when He hurts us, I imagine.”
“Søren created me,” Kingsley said. “I owe my life to him, my world, my kingdom. Even Juliette. I never would have met her if he and I hadn’t fought. I can’t live without him any more than you can live without God.”
“If I thought going back to him would fix everything for you and me and him, I would do it.”
“Forgive me,” Kingsley said. “I’m being selfish.”
“You’re scared. So am I.”
“What do we do?” Kingsley looked up at her again awaiting her answer.
“What we always do.”
“What’s that?”
Nora bent over and kissed him. Against his lips she whispered one word.
“Fuck.”
“Now, that is the best idea I’ve heard all day.”
34
The Endgame
NORA GATHERED TOYS from the playroom and took them to Kingsley’s bedroom where he waited for her. She locked the door behind her. The house was empty. No one was home but the two of them, which meant she could destroy Kingsley if she wanted to.
And she wanted to.
“Since I fired you, does this mean I don’t have to pay you?” Kingsley asked as she started to undress him. She pushed his jacket off his shoulders and unbuttoned his vest.
“I don’t want your money tonight. Just you. Just us.”
“You can have your job back. Tomorrow,” he said. “Tonight—”
She covered his lips with one finger. No more talking necessary. She knew what he meant to say, that tonight they wanted nothing between them. They needed this, needed the comfort of each other. Nora and Kingsley were a secret society of two. The two acolytes of Søren. His acolytes, his lovers, his twin children whether they liked it or not. They had to grieve together because only they knew what they could be losing. So tonight wasn’t a job, it wasn’t an appointment and Kingsley wasn’t a client.
Without another word, Nora stripped Kingsley naked. She drew him to the end of the bed and bound his hands high on the bedpost. A long slant of evening sunlight snuck into the room between and under the heavy damask curtains. She’d rarely seen Kingsley like this, naked in sunlight. She’d taken an art class in college and recalled being taught that all visual images were a combination of light, color, line, texture, mass and motion. The dappling light cast shadows on his body. His thick eyelashes looked dipped in gold. The color of his skin was olive and his hair was as dark as his eyes and his eyes were as dark as the wick of a candle after the fire had gone out. His body was composed of the straight line of his back, the curve of powerful shoulders, the V of his hips and the ridge of muscles in his legs and arms. His smooth warm skin was interrupted with whorls of old scars that would never fully heal. The mass of him was dense with muscle, hard with desire. And the motion of him was stillness, but active stillness, waiting stillness, strength in repose, power enchained. A work of art.
Nora kissed him in the center of his back between his shoulder blades. A kiss like a blessing.
“Je vous honore,” she whispered. She might be his domme, but he was still her King.
From her case of toys she’d brought in from the playroom, she pulled out one whip. Then she pulled out a second one.
She brought them over to Kingsley.
“Two?” he asked.
“Don’t worry. I’ve gotten much better at tandem whipping in two years.”
“But two?”
“Trust me,” she said. She lifted the handle of each whip to his lips and Kingsley kissed the knots. “How much pain do you want?”
“Hurt me until I forget how much I hurt,” he whispered.
Nora kissed his lips and whispered a “With pleasure” in return.
She stood back from him and made a few practice cracks with the whips. The whips were in her thrall and danced at her every command. For the past two years she’d practiced her whip work, wanting to be better than Søren, as good as Milady. But not to show off or impress anyone. She learned how to use two whips in tandem so she could do this—hurt Kingsley until he forgot how much he hurt.
Nora hurt him.
She focused her attentions on the sides of his body, striking him over and over again from the back and outside of his thighs to the sides of his hips. She struck his back along the sides as well, leaving the spine alone while she ravaged him along his rib cage all the way to his shoulders and down to his hips again. She dropped the second whip and used the one in her right hand to pinpoint her strikes. By the time she finished Kingsley had tiger stripes on both sides of his body, wrapping around his rib cage to his chest. Shallow wounds but bleeding. Nora could have taken him down then but she didn’t. He needed to feel pain and she needed to give it. With a heavy flogger she flogged the welts from the whip, stacking pain upon pain, layering welts on top of whip wounds. Kingsley had been quiet at first but now his gasps and cries of pain flowed freely. She gave him more pain than she gave to anyone else because he wanted it and because he could take it. What was the old saying—that which does not kill us only makes us stronger? If that was true, then Kingsley might be the strongest man alive.
Finally Nora dropped the bloodstained flogger. She unbound Kingsley and he dropped to his knees, unable to stand.
“I want you,” she said, stroking his hair.
“You have me.”
She bade him to stand, bade him to pull the covers and sheets back. Because it would hurt the most, she ordered him to lie on his back in the center of the bed. She cuffed his wrists to the headboard and undressed. Now naked, she sat on his stomach, lowered her mouth to his mouth and kissed him. He was hard and she felt his thick erection against her wet labia. Unable to resist, she pushed down and against his cock and his head fell back with the pleasure of it.
“Please...” he said.
“Are you sure?”
Nora couldn’t deny him this simple request. She wanted it as much as he did. She pushed down and against him again and he lifted his hips up and into her. Slowly he worked his bare cock inside her. It would be fine. She had her IUD now. They were clean and there was nothing to be afraid of. Having nothing between them as he entered her felt like a step down a path they’d been afraid to take together. A path that might eventually lead them to where they could forgive each other and love each other and let the past go entirely.
Nora pressed her hands into Kingsley’s lacerated sides as she rode him. His pain stoked his pleasure and he inhaled sharpl
y, his head falling back against the black sheets again. She kissed the hollow of his throat, bit at his ears, bit at his chest and clavicle. Her body throbbed around his cock, clenching at it, squeezing it, holding it, caressing it with her inner muscles that wanted to take all of him into her as deep as she could, so deep it hurt. He pushed his heels into the bed and thrust into her from below hard enough to lift her off the bed. She clung to the headboard to steady herself as their bodies rocked together wildly, urgently. Wetness dripped out of her and coated his hips. Her teeth scored his shoulders. The pounding intensified into something animal, something blinding, something raw and fierce with need as naked and hungry as they were. Nora held off from coming as long as she could. She wanted to wait for him and he for her. When they came at last they came together, the orgasm obliterating sight and breath and even the world as it rocked through them, a shuddering that went on forever until it ended and Nora collapsed onto Kingsley’s chest.
With him still inside her, she reached over his arms and unlocked the cuffs from the headboard. He rolled her onto her back and pulled out. Exhaustion hit her then and she remembered she’d barely slept the night before and the night before that. Fear had kept her awake but she wasn’t afraid now, not in this bed with this man who could and would kill to protect her if it ever came to that. She opened her legs for him and he slid two fingers into her, caressing his own semen in her body. When she fell asleep moments later, he was still inside her.
When Nora woke it was full night. A sound had woken her, something like a knock or a bell. The bed was empty. She was alone. She slipped from the bed and found Juliette’s silk robe on the back of the bathroom door and put it on, cinching the cord around her waist. When she left Kingsley’s bedroom she heard something. Whispering voices that carried down the empty halls.
She walked down the main staircase and stopped on the landing. Søren stood in the foyer, a streetlight from outside turning his blond hair white. He had Kingsley in his arms.
Nora said nothing. Since she’d gone to work for Kingsley, a rift had formed between him and Søren. This was the first time she’d seen them this close in three years. Oh, they joked, they teased, they drank together on occasion. But it wasn’t like this. It wasn’t honest like this. Kingsley clutched Søren’s lapels in his fists and his head rested on Søren’s shoulder. Søren had his arms around Kingsley, stroking his back with one hand while the other twined tight in Kingsley’s hair, holding him close. Blood had seeped through Kingsley’s white shirt and she knew Søren could feel the deep welts on Kingsley’s body through the fabric. Søren was whispering something in Kingsley’s ear, something that shook Kingsley to his soul. The way Kingsley’s back moved she could tell he was either weeping or trying not to. She’d seen Kingsley and Søren in bed together and it still hadn’t been half as intimate as seeing them like this, seeing Kingsley like a scared child seeking love and safety in his father’s arms.
Nora turned to go, to give them their privacy, but Søren said her name.
She turned back around and looked down at them.
Kingsley released Søren first and stood up straight. He and Søren locked eyes before Kingsley nodded at something Søren didn’t have to say. When Søren brushed his lips across Kingsley’s forehead, Kingsley closed his eyes, wincing as if the kiss burned. With his composure regained, Kingsley headed up the stairs, stopping to kiss her on the cheek as he passed. When she and Søren were alone, she continued downstairs and stopped on the final step meeting Søren eye to eye.
“Four months?” Søren asked, his hands on her waist.
“What’s four months?”
“Can you spare me for four months? Kingsley says he can as long as I’m home by New Year’s.”
“You’ll go to Syria, but only for four months?”
“Yes.” Søren clasped his hands in front of him. Although he didn’t have his collar on, he looked like a priest. Light from a street lamp streamed through the windows and surrounded him like a ghostly halo. All she had to do was take a step forward and she would be inside his circle of light.
“If Kingsley can spare you four months, so can I,” she said, sticking to the shadows where she felt safest. She didn’t want him to see the look of relief on her face, the tears in her eyes.
“You’ll tear up your ticket?”
“It’s refundable,” she said, her voice hoarse and sticking in her throat.
“You were really going to follow me to Syria if I moved there permanently?”
“Søren,” she said, shaking her head. “I already hired a house sitter.”
“I’m touched. Truly.” His words could have been sarcastic, and she wouldn’t have blamed him, but they weren’t. He was touched. Truly.
“I can’t come back to you, but I won’t live without you, either. One is purgatory. The other would be hell.”
Søren stepped closer, brought his mouth to hers. Nora pulled back.
“What about your vows?” she asked.
“They can start tomorrow.”
Nora laughed and took him in her arms, kissing him and being kissed with abandon. His hands slipped into the robe, found her breasts and held them as his tongue tasted her mouth and she tasted his. He slid his hand between her legs.
“Kingsley?” he asked. She knew he could feel the wetness inside her.
“He needed it. So did I,” she said as his fingers slipped in deeper. “Do you need it?”
“No,” he said, and she did her best to hide her disappointment. His hands left her body and she tightened the robe about her again.
“So you’re really going to try this whole chastity/celibacy thing?” she asked.
“I was celibate for fourteen years before you. I could make it another fourteen years.”
“You’ll miss me.”
“I already do.”
“What if I said I’d come to you?”
“I’d take you back to me.”
“Vows be damned?”
“Not damned,” he said. “Merely dented.”
“You should come up and stay the night with us. For old time’s sake.”
“Didn’t we just have the chastity discussion ten seconds ago?”
“Remind me—was that before or after your fingers were inside me?”
“Touché.” He kissed her again but quickly before taking a step back. “I should go. Eight o’clock Mass tomorrow morning.”
“You leave Wednesday?”
“Wednesday. We should say our goodbyes now,” he said. “I don’t know if we’ll have another chance before I go.”
“I could take you to the airport. Or King will. Or we both will.”
“Diane’s taking me. If either of you do...”
“What?”
“I might not get on the plane.”
Nora smiled. Søren could be cold and cruel at times but other times it seemed he was born to say the words she most needed to hear.
“Goodbye then,” she said. “Be safe. I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”
“If I know you—and I do—you’ll find something to occupy yourself,” he said. He kissed her cheek and turned to leave. She wanted to be strong enough to let him go without another word. But she wasn’t so she ran to him, ran into the light, and let him take her in his arms. The tears flowed freely, and he rocked her against him.
“My love.” He sighed as he held her. “My Little One...”
She inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of snow on his skin and hair, the eternal winter that he carried inside him. He smelled like Christmas Eve, the one night of the year even grown-ups could believe in magic.
“You weren’t really going to leave forever, were you? Leave us forever?” she asked. “You know I love you. You know I’ll always love you. Even if I can’t...if we can’t make this work, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you. You’re...”
“What?”
“You’re my everything,” she said. “I know you could leave me. I’ve given you every reason to. But King
sley?”
“I would have stayed away as long as I needed to,” he whispered against her hair.
“For what?”
“Winning, of course,” he said. “The endgame.”
He pulled up and brushed her hair from her face, brushed the tears from her cheeks.
“I should have known this was part of some strategy of yours. What is your endgame, Blondie? Tell me so I know how to beat you.”
“My endgame is the same endgame as in every game of chess.”
“Which is?”
Søren glanced at the stairs that led up to Kingsley’s inner sanctum.
“Protect your king.”
Of course. So that’s why it had to be this way, why Søren had to leave or why he had to at least try to leave. Leaving was the only move that could force Kingsley into forgiving Søren, force them into a long-overdue reconciliation. Kingsley needed Søren and Søren needed Kingsley, but they were so damn stubborn the rift between them might never have healed if Søren hadn’t taken this assignment. This game wasn’t chess. It was poker, and Søren held all the aces. Tonight, for the first time in three years, she’d seen Kingsley in Søren’s arms, clinging to him with need and love and everything he had and felt for Søren. Søren hadn’t been bluffing by packing his bags to leave. But he had gotten her and Kingsley to finally show him the cards in their hands—all hearts.
She pulled Søren tighter to herself, rested her chin on his shoulder. She felt the strength of him against her, his impressive height, his broad shoulders. And yet he felt fragile to her, too.
Into his ear she prayed her first true prayer since she’d left him.
“‘Because you have made the Lord your refuge / the Most High your dwelling place / no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent. / For he will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways / On their hands they will bear you up...’”
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