The Mistress (19 page)

“There are those of our kind who play at sadism like a game. That might sound crass and sordid to you.”

“My brother plays rugby. I’m familiar with the concept of inflicting pain as a game.”

“They’re the lucky ones. The ones who can play at it. The whistle blows, the game ends, they walk away. But for me...it’s not a game. I can’t walk away from it.”

“Nora explained it to me a little. She said it’s like being gay or straight. It’s what you are instead of what you do.”

“I’m glad she helped you understand. Not everyone does. It scares people. As it should. I would worry about someone who was blasé about the concept of hurting another person for pleasure.”

“It must be terrifying, doing what you do.”

“It can be. The greater the pain I inflict on someone, the greater my pleasure. It’s a tightrope walk, a balancing act. There’s always the fear of going too far, of falling off. And in such a situation, you don’t fall off alone. You take the other person down with you.”

“But that’s what the safe words are for, right? To stop the fall?”

Søren nodded. “They help, the little safeguards we have. Eleanor and I have been together for so long she knows how far she can take me without me losing myself.”

“Have you ever—” Grace tried to find the right words “—lost yourself?”

“Yes. Once with Eleanor shortly after we became lovers. She taunted me in play. I retaliated in earnest. In her shock she forgot that she had her safe word to stop me. I didn’t stop.”

Grace shivered as his voice dropped to not much more than a whisper.
I didn’t stop...
She didn’t want to know what he didn’t stop doing. That was a secret she would let him keep.

“Any other times?” Grace brought the glass to her lips.

“Several. All with Kingsley.”

Grace nearly choked on the wine. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

“With Kingsley? Really?”

“You seem surprised.” She wasn’t surprised. She was shocked and Søren seemed entirely amused by her shock.

“I thought you two were teenagers when you were together.”

“We were. Although there have been a few occasions since then. Rare ones. They have to be rare.”

“Why?”

Søren stopped speaking for a moment. He held out his hand. Grace laughed, handed him the wineglass and watched him drink. He returned the glass to her, slightly less full than it was before.

“Kingsley Edge...not his real name. Would you like to know his real name?”

“Very much.”

“Kingsley Théophile Boissonneault.”

Grace blinked.

“Can you spell that for me?”

“B-o-i-s-s-o-n-n-e-a-u-l-t.” Søren spoke each letter with the French pronunciation. “As you can imagine, he was rather keen to divest himself of such a name when he settled in America.”

“That is quite a mouthful.”

“Not unlike the man himself.”

Grace nearly dropped the glass, but she saw the glint of wicked amusement in Søren’s eyes.

“You’re doing it again.” She pointed at him. “You’re trying to play with my mind.”

“I am and entirely without remorse.”

“You’re the one who’s half-drunk. I’m the one who should be in control of this conversation.”

“You’ve already forgotten what we were talking about.”

“That is not true. You were...” She paused and retraced their conversational steps. The “mouthful” remark had blown her far off course. She would get back on it. “Kingsley. You were telling me why your
encounters,
” she said, trying for the most tactful word possible, “with Kingsley are rare.”

“Good girl.”

“Thank you,” she said, basking in the praise. “And...?”

“Kingsley didn’t choose the last name Edge at random. It wasn’t an affectation. It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t even a nickname. The choice of the last name ‘Edge’ is a warning.”

“Warning of what?”

“Kingsley is a connoisseur of a certain style of BDSM known as edge-play. Eleanor keeps a running list of what she calls ‘The lies kinky people tell vanilla people.’ On that list are things like ‘All scenes are prenegotiated.’ And ‘No, of course the floggers and singletails never break the skin.’ And ‘Yes, we all use safe words and the submissive is the one truly in control.’”

“None of that is true?”

“It is true...for some of us. For others, we play by different rules. With his clients and in his clubs, Kingsley is a great enforcer of the rules of safe play. Kingsley, the man in private, he prefers more dangerous games. No safe words, no safeguards. He is particularly fond of breath-play and rape-play.”

Another chill passed through Grace, a chill that had nothing to do with the night air.

“Rape-play...that seems self-explanatory. Breath-play?”

“Choking,” Søren said simply. “Erotic asphyxiation. I’ll admit I’ve enjoyed the same activities but under much more tightly controlled circumstances. Blood-play for instance. It’s by far my favorite form of sadism. And yet, Eleanor and I engage in it no more than once a year. She bathes before the cutting and we clean her wounds and mine thoroughly after. No safe words necessary during because if she says stop, I stop. With Kingsley...you can beat him bloody, brutalize him, violate him in every way, and he won’t try to stop you. He has no limits. I gave him a safe word to use when we were teenagers. He never once uttered it, and I broke him into a thousand pieces simply for the pleasure of putting him back together just to break him apart again.”

Grace inhaled deeply and let the words sink in. She knew she should be horrified, disgusted...but nothing about this man or his confession created any reaction in her other than fascination and compassion. Even desire, if she dared admit that to herself.

“You see,” Søren continued, “everyone instinctively understands that the submissive partner in the scene should feel safe and be safe. But it’s often forgotten that the Dominant should also feel safe and secure. When I’m intimate with Eleanor, it’s difficult to remain self-aware, but I can. If I start to forget myself she reminds me who I am.”

“How so?”

“She’s rarely used her safe word with me. Almost never. But if she needs me to stop for a moment she’ll tell me. If something is starting to go too far, she’ll pull me, pull us both, back from the edge. But not Kingsley. It’s far too easy to forget myself with Kingsley, far too easy to go to the edge with him and fall over. And since I love him and would rather not be the architect of his destruction and therefore mine...”

“You don’t touch him because you love him.”

“The self-control required to hold back and not cause harm is often exhausting, especially when losing control is so intoxicating—far more so than even five glasses of wine. That’s why Eleanor and I have had an open relationship from the beginning. Sometimes a few days or a week is necessary to recover from a night with me.”

“So if she wants sex without welts and bruises, she goes to someone else.”

“And if I want to paint a fresh canvas with welts and bruises, I go to someone else.”

“You have other lovers?” Grace asked, utterly shocked. She knew Nora did, but from what she’d said, Søren was faithful to her alone.

“Eleanor and Kingsley are the only two lovers I’ve had since becoming a priest. But there are several other women who submit to me when Eleanor’s out of town or needs a few days to heal.”

“Only women?”

“Yes. I’m more careful with women than I would be with a man. And quite frankly, Kingsley is the only man who I’ve ever been attracted to.”

“So she sleeps with others and you beat others?”

“An arrangement that works beautifully for us. Or did.”

“She loves you. Whatever she had to work out with Wesley, it doesn’t change that fact. Any more than me sleeping with Ian or Zachary sleeping with Nora didn’t change the fact that he and I were married, that we loved each other and that we belong together.”

“That’s why you don’t hate Eleanor?”

“Exactly. Because I hated Zachary like I was supposed to.” She took another drink of the wine. If she was going to talk about her separation from Zachary, she’d need all the liquid courage she could get. “That’s why the wife always hates the other woman. It’s good for her to hate the other woman. The other woman—” Grace stretched her arm far out in front of her “—is other. She’s not even a person. We can heap all our hatred, all our disdain, on her even though deep down we know she’s not the one to blame. She’s the scapegoat.”

“Did you know the scapegoat is an Old Testament concept?”

“I had no idea.”

“From Leviticus. The sins of the Israelites were symbolically placed onto the head of a goat and then the goat was driven into the wilderness never to be seen again. It was a form of atonement.”

“That’s what it is exactly. You put all the sins of the husband and wife, of the marriage, onto the head of the other woman. You pray she will go away forever and take all that misery with her and leave your husband behind.”

“You wanted to reconcile with Zachary?”

“Yes. So much. Which is why, at first, I was angry with everyone but him. There were dozens of other women. The job was another woman I blamed. Zachary’s boss, John-Paul Bonner. I blamed him. He knew we were having problems and he took advantage of that. America...she was the trollop that had seduced my husband away from me.”

“The whole country?”

Grace grinned. “Yes. I blamed the entire country. Typical bitter wife behavior. And then he mentioned Nora Sutherlin on the phone, one of his writers, he said. But he said it with heat. I looked her up, saw a picture of that beautiful woman. Then I hated her. But that didn’t work for me, the scapegoat game. The sins were still there in the marriage. They couldn’t be driven out so easily simply by blaming J. P. Bonner or Nora or the entire bloody country. I knew that if I wanted Zachary back, and I did, I couldn’t blame anyone but us. Our problems were my fault. Our problems were his fault. Our problems were our fault, not hers.”

“It takes a wise person to realize this. I’ve counseled many married couples who never see the truth of that. They blame everyone but the real culprit.”

“I didn’t want to see the truth of it. But I had to. Made a fatal mistake when I came rushing to New York.”

“You met Eleanor.”

Grace raised the glass in a salute.

“I met Eleanor. And instead of the ‘other woman,’ she was Nora to me. Beautiful, intelligent, compassionate, understanding Nora. She’s impossible to hate. My God, I showed up at her house like a madwoman hunting down my husband, and she gave me tea and told me Zachary was still in love with me. You asked me why I don’t hate her. All I wanted was my husband back. I got him back. That’s all any wife wants.”

Søren stood up and looked away from her, looked into the darkening woods around them. And as if someone else had said them, Grace heard her own words.

She’s the scapegoat... We know she’s not the one to blame... All I wanted was my husband back...that’s all any wife wants.

“Marie-Laure,” Grace said as a terrible realization dawned on her. “She doesn’t want Nora at all, does she?”

At first Søren said nothing to her question.

“No,” he finally answered.

“She would have kept Laila if Nora hadn’t volunteered to stay. She didn’t care if it was your lover or your niece she had as long as it was someone you loved.”

Søren’s mouth tightened into a hard line.

“What did the note say?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. What did it say? Tell me, please.”

“It said something to the effect of ‘Dear Husband, Have you missed me? I’ve certainly missed you. I have someone here you love. If you want this loved one of yours to keep breathing, I would highly suggest you and I mend this rift between us. It’s a big decision. Take your time. But don’t take too long. You have until noon on Friday. Love always, Your devoted wife. P.S. Tell my brother, Love thy sister.’”

Grace couldn’t speak for a moment. She had to let his words sink in.

“She wants you,” Grace said at last.

“She does.”

“How were you supposed to find her? I know Laila told us but what if she didn’t recognize the room?”

“‘Love thy sister...’ Last week someone broke into my sister Elizabeth’s house and wrote those words on my childhood bedroom wall in ashes.”

“You knew from the note where Nora was, not from Laila and her locket. Marie-Laure wanted you to know.”

“She wants me to come to her. If anyone but me goes, she’ll kill Eleanor.”

“You can’t go. This woman has killed before. Wesley told me she murdered a teenage girl. She’ll kill you, too.”

“Or worse.”

“What’s worse than being killed?”

Søren held out his hand and Grace gave him the glass of wine. He raised it to his lips and drank it down in one swallow.

Grace waited. Søren never answered the question.

23

THE QUEEN

I
n all her twenty years on God’s green earth, Eleanor had never been so nervous. Not even waiting for the judge to hand down a sentence on her for five counts of grand theft auto had been as terrifying as the prospect of sex with someone other than Søren. She’d met Søren, and her teenage plan to lose her virginity as soon as humanly possible hit a six-foot-four, blond wall of celibacy. No amount of flirting, begging or attempted seduction could entice Søren into divesting her of her virginity at age fifteen or sixteen, seventeen...eighteen. She had high hopes for nineteen but even then he held back. Years later she finally realized what he’d been doing by making her wait so long. He’d given her a reason to leave him. A very good reason. He loved her enough to let her go even before he’d had her. And she’d loved him enough to wait for him.

Waited for him she had, and now she wasn’t a virgin anymore. Her first night with Søren felt as natural as breathing, so natural that she couldn’t imagine that she’d ever feel comfortable being with anyone else. His hands belonged on her, his mouth on her mouth. He was the only man she wanted inside her...but Søren was adamant, unyielding.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” she’d finally said after arguing with him about it for an hour that night.

“Of course you will.”

“But I won’t like it.”

At that Søren had laughed and such a laugh that goose bumps had risen on her arms.

“This is Kingsley we’re talking about, Eleanor. You’ll like it whether you want to or not.”

With those ominous words ringing in her ears, Eleanor entered Kingsley’s town house behind Søren. Always she walked behind him when in submission. She walked behind him, she would speak only when spoken to, she wore her hair up as requested, wore white whenever they were together as a couple in Kingsley’s world. For all the restrictions on her, she loved those moments most—the evenings at Kingsley’s or the club, the few safe places she could be seen with Søren and know that everyone knew she was his property.

They found Kingsley in the front parlor sitting in an armchair wearing a black suit vaguely reminiscent of the Regency era and his black riding boots. He had a book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen Kingsley simply sitting and reading before. Kingsley was the King of the Underground. He never simply sat and did nothing. If he wasn’t on the phone he was in a meeting. If he wasn’t in a meeting he was in a beating. Strange that she’d seen the man top and fuck a woman before but seeing him with a book on his knee and silver-rimmed eyeglasses on seemed more intimate, more revealing. Kingsley Edge, the man of secrets and mysteries, wore reading glasses.

He looked up from his book—
Les Trois Mousquetaires
—and met her eyes from across the room. His dark, shoulder-length hair had a bit of a wave to it, and every time she saw it unbound, she fought the urge to run her fingers through it.

“So glad you could make it,” Kingsley said, casual and debonair as ever. “Wine?”

He spoke only to Søren, who poured himself a glass and sat on the chaise longue. He tapped his thigh and Eleanor knelt on the floor and waited at his feet. Resting her chin on his knee, she listened in silence as the two men exchanged pleasantries. They spoke in French to each other most of the time, even in front of her. They’d always done that from the very first day she’d been in their presence. They rattled on and on in French while she sat there not understanding a word they said. Funny how hard it was to distinguish “Dominant” behavior from “asshole” behavior most of the time.

“Is your Little One in a mood to play tonight?” Kingsley switched back into English. Eleanor didn’t even look at him. If she looked at him, she might smile and that would ruin everything.

“No, she’s in a mood to play martyr tonight.”

“No martyrs allowed in my bed. Only satyrs.”

“Try telling her that.”

“May I speak to her alone for a moment?”

“Of course. I’ll see you upstairs.” Søren tapped the end of her nose lightly. Always he reserved his most affectionate advances when she was least in the mood to enjoy them. Again...Dominant and asshole... She was starting to think those two words should be in the thesaurus together.

Søren left the room and Eleanor remained on the floor awaiting orders.

“You may sit,” Kingsley said as he took off his glasses and set them on the side table.

“I am sitting,
monsieur
.”

“On the chair.”

Eleanor moved from the floor to the chair and crossed her legs at the ankles. The heels of her shoes reverberated off the marble floor.

“You’re nervous.”

“What gave it away?” Eleanor forced her feet to rest firmly on the floor. The shaking continued but only inside her.

“You don’t have to be nervous,
ma chérie
.”

“You’re going to fuck me tonight.”

“More than once.”

“And that shouldn’t make me nervous?”

“You’ve been fucked before.”

“Only by him.”

“If letting him fuck you doesn’t make you nervous, nothing should.”

“So—” she paused to laugh “—you might have a point there.”

Kingsley set his book aside, stood up and joined her on the sofa. He took her hand in his and rubbed her fingers.

“Your fingers are like ice.”

“I’m terrified.”

“No need for terror. All stops with a word. You know that.”

“I know but still...I don’t know.”

He gave her a smile and it felt like a gift. She saw a person in the smile, a person with a heart even if he tried to hide it.

“He was destined for the Jesuits, you know. Even in school, I saw it. I didn’t want to see it but I did. You like his motorcycle? The Jesuits, they hold all in common. He had to beg permission to keep his motorcycle otherwise he’d have to give it to the order to be sold. Everything he owns, he doesn’t. It’s the order’s or the church’s. You,
chérie,
you
are the only thing he owns. You understand?”

“Then why does he want to give me away?”

“Because you he can take back.”

He raised his hand to her face to wipe off a tear she hadn’t noticed falling.

“Elle, I know you understand what he is. We both know being with him exacts a certain toll on a person.”

“He has to play hard to get hard, I know that. I’m okay with that. More than okay.”

“But will you always be? Sometimes you might want the pleasantries of sex without the associated pain that comes from spending a night with him.”

“I have no interest in having vanilla sex with anybody,” she said, meaning every word. One night with Søren had ruined the idea of vanilla sex for her forever. How could she ever enjoy something so banal after discovering the primal, fearsome power of kink?

“I am certainly not talking about vanilla sex.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips. “But rest assured, there are other games to be played, ones equally savage and sensual but without the aftermath. He can’t show you that world, but I can...if you’ll allow it.”

Eleanor had looked at him then, looked at him for a long time. And she looked at him because she realized in that moment, even though she’d known him for years and considered him a friend, she didn’t know who he was.

“What are you?” she asked, not sure she knew what she meant. “To him, I mean. I know you’re friends, and I know you’ve known each other a long time and I know about
her
...but there’s more, isn’t there?”

Kingsley gave a soft chuckle, one that made the hair on her arms stand up.

“You’re smart,” he said, and although it was a compliment, it didn’t sound like one.

“I’m more than smart. I’m not stupid.”

“You’re standing at the edge of a rabbit hole. Are you sure you want to fall down it?”

“I’ll trade you my hole for your hole.”

Kingsley laughed then, a laugh of pure surprise.

“You...” He pointed his finger at her. “You are more than you seem.”

“I could say the same about you.”

She held out her hand and he pulled her off the sofa and straight into his arms. In seconds he had her back to the wall, his thigh pushing between her legs, and his mouth at her mouth.

With a dark-eyed smile he looked at her a moment before meeting her lips with his. The kiss started off slowly...gently...even carefully, as if Kingsley knew she teetered on the verge of spooking like a startled horse. She enjoyed the kiss, the skill of the lips, the taste of his wine-tinged tongue on hers. But still...this wasn’t Søren kissing her, but Kingsley. She’d kissed others and felt terrible about it. How was this okay? Kissing another man? How was this not cheating? As if reading her worries, Kingsley pulled back long enough to whisper, “He wants this for both of us....”

“Why?”

Kingsley gave her a seductive grin, one that nearly set her to shivering again.

“What father doesn’t want his children to play nice together? Come...let’s go play nice.”

She took his proffered arm like a lady being led to a waltz, and they said nothing on their way to Kingsley’s bedroom.

Play nice, Kingsley said. Play... Nothing to be afraid of... It’s only a game, she told herself over and over again.

Kingsley opened the door to his bedroom and she saw the dark red room illuminated by dozens of pale yellow taper candles. At the end of the bed stood Søren holding something wrapped around his hand. Tonight he’d dressed incognito—black pants, black shirt open at the neck. When he opened his fingers a dozen leather tongues of the flogger lapped at his leg.

Only a game.

Game on.

Kingsley left her side and walked to Søren.

“She’s in a better mood now,” Kingsley said, divesting himself of his jacket. Underneath the jacket he wore a white shirt and a black vest, intricately embroidered with silver thread. “She’ll be in an even better mood once we’re done with her.”

“Kingsley, remind me...didn’t we have a dream like this once,” Søren said as he raised his hand and crooked a finger at her. As slowly as she could without getting scolded, she came to stand in front of him. Her white collar sat on the end of the bed. Søren picked it up and buckled it around her neck without even looking in her eyes. He acknowledged only Kingsley’s presence as Kingsley only acknowledged his.

“Black hair and green eyes...pale like you, dark hair like me...”

“And wilder than the both of us together,” Søren finished. “How nice when dreams come true.”

“
Oui, mon ami
. Although she doesn’t seem particularly wild at the moment.”

“Wait and see. She might surprise you.”

Eleanor came this close to screaming at them both. Had no one ever told them it was rude to talk about someone in third person as if she wasn’t standing right in front of them? But she remembered her training and kept her mouth shut...at least for the moment.

“Let’s begin, then,
oui?
Who first?”

“You can decide,” he said to Kingsley, so nonchalant as if they were simply picking a wine for dinner.

“Ahh...better idea.” Kingsley reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a coin. “We’ll let the coin decide tonight. Heads or tails.”

“We win both ways.” Søren ran a hand from her lips to her hips where he lingered long enough to give her an insinuating slap on the bottom. Heads or tails indeed. Staring at these two beautiful condescending, infuriating men who talked about her like she wasn’t even in the room made her want to...something. Scream? Cry? Slap them both? What was it she wanted to do to them?

Kingsley gave Søren a wink before he flipped the coin. The coin came down and Eleanor snatched it out of the air before it landed on Kingsley’s palm. The act had been unpremeditated, unplanned, and she saw from the looks on their faces, she’d managed to surprise them both.

“Heads,” she said without even looking at the coin. She tossed it over her shoulder and dropped to her knees in front of Kingsley. He opened his pants and Eleanor took him deep into her mouth.

Now she knew exactly what she wanted to do to those two beautiful condescending, infuriating men....

She wanted to fuck their brains out. Both of them.

“Mon Dieu,”
she heard Kingsley saying from above her.

“I told you so,” was Søren’s only reply.

Eleanor had only ever done this to Søren but he’d called her a natural. More than a natural, he’d even once joked she was something of a siren—the things she could do with her mouth would blow any man off course. The soft gasps escaping Kingsley’s lips and his hand clinging to the bedpost for support seemed to reinforce that assessment of her skills and her enthusiasm for the task.

It wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. She had always been attracted to Kingsley, fascinated by him, feared and desired him. And he tasted amazing in her mouth. It was strange, though, going down on someone other than Søren. When she did this to him, he always held her so hard she’d have a bruise on her back at the nape of her neck the next morning. She thought of those bruises as her souvenirs, a little black-and-blue reminder of the previous evening’s pleasures. But Kingsley had threaded his fingers through her hair and cupped her head, giving only the gentlest of encouragements. Strange, definitely. Not what she was used to. But definitely not bad. Not bad at all.

After a few minutes, Kingsley snapped his fingers in her ear and Eleanor pulled away and rested back on her hands.

“Now do you understand?” Søren asked over Kingsley’s shoulder as they both looked down at her waiting on the floor.

“If I didn’t before, I do now.” Kingsley gave her his hand and helped her to her feet. But the chivalry ended there. Kingsley pushed her over the end of the bed and yanked her skirt to her hips. Per Søren’s instructions, she’d worn no underwear. With her face buried in the red silk sheets, she couldn’t tell whose fingers entered her from behind. “She’s wet.”

“Of course she is,” Søren said.

“Of course I am,” Eleanor said from the bed.
“Monsieur.”

“She’s rather...what is the word I’m looking for? Enthusiastic? Ardent?”