Cunning. Sex. Pure nerve. Only this potent threesome can raise him to his rightful place as ruler of Manhattan’s kink kingdom.

Bouncing from bed to bed on the Upper East Side—handsomely paid in both bills and blackmail fodder—Kingsley Edge is brilliant, beautiful and utterly debauched. No carnal act or chemical compound can relieve his self-destructive apathy—only Søren, the one person he loves without limit or regret. A man he can never have, but in whose hands Kingsley is reborn to attain even greater heights of sin. He plans to open the ultimate BDSM club: a dungeon playground for New York’s A-list that’ll change the scene forever.

The club becomes Kingsley’s obsession—and he’s enlisted some tough-as-nails help. His new assistant Sam is smart, secretive and totally immune to seduction (by men, at least). She and Kingsley make a wicked team. Still, their combined—and considerable—expertise in domination can’t subdue the man who would kill their dream. The enigmatic Reverend Fuller won’t rest until King’s dream is destroyed. It’s one man’s sacred mission against another’s….

“Reisz’s Original Sinners series just keeps getting better!”

—RT Book Reviews

Praise for Tiffany Reisz

‘The Siren is one of those books which has the amazing ability to create the scene in full colour in your mind’s eye—this is no small skill on the author’s part.’ http://carasutra.co.uk/

‘A beautiful, lyrical story … The Siren is about love lost and found, the choices that make us who we are … I can only hope Ms Reisz pens a sequel!’ —Bestselling author Jo Davis

‘The Original Sinners series certainly lives up to its name: it’s mind-bendingly original and crammed with more sin than you can shake a hot poker at. I haven’t read a book this dangerous and subversive since Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club.’ —Andrew Shaffer, author of Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love

‘Tiffany Reisz is a smart, artful and masterful new voice in erotic fiction. An erotica star on the rise!’

—Award-winning author Lacey Alexander

‘Daring, sophisticated and literary … exactly what good erotica should be.’

—Kitty Thomas, author of Tender Mercies

‘Dazzling, devastating and sinfully erotic, Reisz writes unforgettable characters you’ll either want to know or want to be. The Siren is an alluring book-within-a-book, a story that will leave you breathless and bruised, aching for another chapter with Nora Sutherlin and her men.’ —Miranda Baker, author of Bottoms Up and Soloplay

‘The best erotica either leaves slut-marks on your back or a bruise on your heart. The Siren does both and I wish I’d written it.’ —Scarlett Parrish, author of By the Book

‘You will most definitely feel strongly for these characters … This was an amazing story and I’m so happy that it’s not over. I can’t wait to jump back into Nora’s world.’

http://ladysbookstuff.blogspot.co.uk

TIFFANY REISZ’s books inhabit a sexy, shadowy world where erotica, romance and gothic literature meet and do immoral and possibly illegal things to each other. The first book in her international bestselling series The Original Sinners was named the RT 2012 Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Erotic Romance. She is a very bad Catholic. Visit her website, www.tiffanyreisz.com, for news, gossip and wholly inappropriate bedtime stories.

Also by Tiffany Reisz:

The Original Sinners: The Red Years

THE SIREN

THE ANGEL

THE PRINCE

THE MISTRESS

The Original Sinners: The White Years

THE SAINT

eBook Novellas

THE MISTRESS FILES

SEVEN-DAY LOAN

IMMERSED IN PLEASURE

SUBMIT TO DESIRE

LITTLE RED RIDING CROP

eBook Cosmo Red Hot Reads

MISBEHAVING

The

King

Tiffany Reisz

www.spice-books.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Dedicated to all the girls with short hair and all the boys with long hair.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

Acknowledgments

Endpages

Extract

Copyright

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.

—Lawrence of Arabia

1

Somewhere in London 2013

KINGSLEY EDGE WAS playing God tonight. He hoped the real God, if He did exist, wouldn’t mind.

He’d told his driver to let him out a few blocks before his destination. Warm air, a late-April rain and a little English magic had sent a soft white fog twisting and flicking its tail down winding streets, and Kingsley wanted to enjoy it. He wore a long coat and carried a leather weekender bag over his shoulder. It was late, and although the city was still awake, it kept its voice down. The only sounds around him came from the soles of his shoes echoing against the wet and shining pavement and the distant murmur of city traffic.

When he arrived at the door he knocked without hesitation.

After a pause, it opened.

They stared at each other a full five seconds before one of them spoke. Kingsley took it upon himself to break the silence.

“I’m the last person you were expecting to see again, oui?” Kingsley asked.

He expected the shock and he expected the silence, but he didn’t expect what happened next.

He didn’t expect Grace Easton to step onto the porch in her soft gray robe and bare feet and wrap him in her arms.

“If I’d known this is how the Welsh say ‘hello,’ I would have visited sooner,” Kingsley said. Grace pulled back from the embrace and smiled at him, her bright turquoise eyes gleaming.

“You’re always welcome here.” Grace’s words were tender, her accent light and musical. She took his arm and ushered him into the house. “Always.”

Always...a lovely word. He never used to believe in words like always, like forever, like everything. Now at forty-eight he’d lived long enough he could see both ends of his life. Always. There might be something to it after all.

“Zachary’s asleep,” Grace said in a whisper as she took his coat, hung it up, and guided him into a cozy living room. “He gets up at five every morning, so he goes to bed at a reasonable hour. I prefer the unreasonable hours myself.”

“You’re the night owl?”

“It works for us,” she said with a smile. “I can get work done after Zachary and Fionn fall asleep. Would you like tea? I can put the kettle on. Or something stronger?”

“I brought my own something stronger,” he said.

He unzipped his weekender bag and offered her a bottle of wine. She examined the label.

“Rosanella Syrah,” she said. “Never had it before.”

“It’s from my son’s winery. Best Syrah I’ve ever tasted.”

“Not that you’re biased or anything,” she said with a wink. She went to fetch wineglasses and a corkscrew from the kitchen, and Kingsley looked around. Zachary and Grace Easton lived in a small two-story brick house that made up one of many in a row of neat but narrow accommodations. It was an older neighborhood, a bit shabby but safe and clean from what he could see. Inside the house was the picture of quiet domesticity. Intelligent educated people lived here. And one very special baby.

“Am I interrupting anything?” Kingsley asked when Grace returned with the wineglasses. He took the corkscrew from her and opened the bottle. Grace had a low fire glowing in the fireplace and a table lamp on. Gentle light. Kingsley felt instantly at ease here.

“Nothing that can’t wait,” she said, and Kingsley saw stacks of papers on the pale green sofa. He took a seat in the armchair opposite her and crossed one leg over his knee. She curled up into a ball, her knees to her chest, her bare feet sticking out from the bottom of the robe. Her long red hair was knotted at the nape of her neck in a loose and elegant bun. In the soft light of the room she radiated a delicate beauty. A vision, freckles and all. How had he not noticed before how lovely she was? Of course, the one and only occasion they’d been in each other’s company, he’d been preoccupied, to say the least.

“You’re grading papers?” Kingsley asked.

“No, I’m still on maternity leave,” she said. Next to her on the table sat a baby monitor. “These are proofs of my book. Nothing exciting. Only poetry.” She held up a printed title page that read Rooftop Novenas.

“You’re writing again?” Kingsley asked. He remembered from her file she’d had a few poems published in her early twenties.

“I am,” she said, smiling shyly. “I don’t know what it is...As soon as I was pregnant with Fionn I had so much creative energy. Couldn’t stop writing. Zachary’d thought I’d lost my mind. He’s an editor, though, not a writer. He thinks all writers are a bit mad.”

“I might have to agree with him,” Kingsley said. “You have my congratulations on the book.”

She shuffled her pages, capped her pen. “Thank you, Kingsley. But I don’t believe you crossed an ocean simply to talk about my poetry.”

“Even if it was inspired by a mutual friend of ours?” Kingsley said.

“Even so,” she admitted without shame. Good. Kingsley might have despised her if she’d had any regrets, any shame for what had happened. Instead, she’d come with an open heart to their world, an open mind, and had returned home carrying a blessing inside her. “It’s back to school in a few months, and I’m trying not to think about having to leave Fionn.”

“He taught at our high school after he graduated. Did you know that?”

She held her glass steady on the coffee table between them as Kingsley poured the wine.

“He told me he used to teach. Said he liked it. I didn’t expect that from him.”

Kingsley picked up a framed photograph that sat on the coffee table between them—a black-and-white picture of a newborn infant boy sleeping on a white pillow.

“That’s one thing you can say for him,” Kingsley said, turning the photograph toward Grace. “He’s full of surprises.”

She blushed beautifully and laughed quietly, and Kingsley couldn’t help but join in her laugh.

“Is he why you’re here? Are you checking on Fionn for him?”

“No,” Kingsley said. “Although he’ll never forgive me if I don’t look in on him while I’m here.” Kingsley ached to see the boy, but he had learned the hard way to never disturb a sleeping baby.

“I’m only asking why you’re here out of curiosity. You never need a reason to visit us. I assume everyone is well?” Grace asked. “Juliette? Your daughter? Nora?”

“Juliette and Céleste are perfect as usual,” he said. “But Nora, she lost her mother recently. A month ago, I believe.”

“I had no idea. Zachary never said a word about it.”

“She didn’t tell anyone until afterward. She disappeared on us for two weeks.”

“Nora.” Grace sighed and shook her head. “Well, if she behaved like a normal person, she wouldn’t be Nora, would she?”

“No. No, she wouldn’t be.” Kingsley laughed to himself. “But she and her mother...they had a difficult relationship.”

“Because of him?”

“Her mother hated him. I don’t use the word hate lightly,” Kingsley said. “I think it was a peace offering to her mother for Nora to go alone. And she couldn’t tell him. Nora ran away to her mother’s once before, and he hunted her down like the hound of hell.”

“I didn’t know that. But I can imagine he’s...persistent where she’s concerned?”

“That is one way to put it.” Kingsley took a sip of his wine. “She and her mother, they had unfinished business.”

“That’s the worst-case scenario then, isn’t it? If you’re close to your parents, you have no regrets when they pass away. If you have no relationship, you have no grief. If you want to be close, but you can’t be...”

“She took it very hard,” Kingsley said, knowing Nora well enough to say that in good faith.

“I’ll call her tomorrow,” Grace said. “Maybe she should come stay with us a few days. She loves being around Fionn. And she and Zachary fight so much, she’ll forget all her sorrows, I promise.”

Kingsley wanted to laugh. Only Grace Easton would call the woman who had slept—more than once—with her husband, offer her condolences on the loss of her mother and then invite her to stay in her home with Grace, her husband and their infant son who was fathered by Nora’s lover.

Did Grace have any idea what an extraordinarily odd woman she was?

Then again, what room did Kingsley have to talk?

“Apart from that, we’re all well. He’s well,” Kingsley said, saving Grace the embarrassment of asking about him.

“Good,” Grace said with a smile. “I never know... He’s the easiest man in the world to talk to...and the most difficult man to read. Rather amazes me that Nora’s been with him over twenty years and is as sane as she is. Zachary was my professor when we fell in love, and I thought I’d go insane trying to keep that secret from my friends, my family, the school. To be with a priest for twenty years...”

“No one is more amazed than I that they’ve lasted. The sanity part is up for debate, but you can’t question the love. Not anymore. And he hasn’t made it easy for her, and she... Well, I don’t have to tell you anything about Nora, do I?”

Grace grinned broadly.

“No,” she said. “No, you don’t.” She took a drink of the Syrah, and her eyes widened in delight.

“Your son is quite the vintner. This is marvelous.”

“I told you so,” Kingsley said, taking a sip of his own wine. The Syrah was good, an excellent vintage, strong and potent. As much as Kingsley loved the taste, he found it hard to drink sometimes. The knot of pride in his throat made it difficult to swallow.

“Zachary was very impressed with Nico when they met. He’s what? Twenty-five and he owns and runs his own vineyard?”

“I think about how I was at twenty-five, what I was doing with my life, and I can’t believe he came from me.”

“I can believe it,” Grace said, giving him a luminescent smile.

“I won’t keep you up all night showing you pictures of my children,” Kingsley said. He had pictures of both Nico and Céleste with him, and he was seconds away from pulling them out. “I’m only here for a few hours before I catch my next flight. But I did come for a reason.”

“Should I be concerned?” Grace asked.

“Non, pas du tout,” Kingsley said with a wave of his hand. “Forgive me. French wine brings out my French.”

“I speak some,” she said. “You haven’t lost me yet.”

“Bon,” he said and paused for another drink. “I have something to tell you. A story. And I can’t tell you why I’m telling you the story until after the story.”

“I see...” she said, although Kingsley knew she didn’t. “May I ask what the story concerns?”

Kingsley reached into the inner breast pocket of his jacket. From it he pulled a crisp white envelope thick with documents sealed with wax. The wax was imprinted with what appeared to be a number eight inside a circle. Kingsley placed it on the table between his glass of wine and Grace’s.

“The story is about that,” Kingsley said, nodding toward the envelope. “And I can tell you the long version which is the true version or I can tell you a shorter, sweeter version. I’m happy to tell you either. But you decide.”

“The long version, of course,” she said. “Tell me everything I should know even if you don’t think I want to hear it.”

“Everything...dangerous word.” Kingsley sat back in the chair, and Grace leaned forward. She looked at him with a child’s eagerness. “But if you insist. The more you know about us, the better it will be if...”

He didn’t finish the sentence, didn’t have to, because he saw the understanding in Grace’s eyes. She knew the end of the sentence he hadn’t spoken, and her nod saved him the pain of saying the words that no one yet had dared to utter aloud.

If Fionn takes after his father...

“The story starts twenty years ago,” Kingsley said, conjuring the memories he had tried to bury. But he’d buried them alive and alive they remained. “And it takes place in Manhattan. And although you don’t know yet why I’m telling you this, Grace, I promise you, you won’t regret hearing me out.”

“I don’t regret anything,” she said.

Kingsley straightened the photograph of her infant son. No, none of them regretted anything. Not even Kingsley.

“It was raining,” Kingsley began. “And it was March. I had everything then—money, power and all the women and men in my bed anyone could possibly want. And to say I was in a bad mood would be the understatement of the century. I was twenty-eight years old and didn’t expect to see thirty. In fact, I hoped I wouldn’t see thirty.”

“What happened?”

Kingsley took a breath, took a drink and took a moment to pull his words to together. A pity Nora wasn’t here. Storytelling was her gift, not his. But only he could tell this story and thus he began.

“Søren happened.”

2

Somewhere in Manhattan, 1993 March

“WHAT’S YOUR POISON?” the bartender asked, and Kingsley answered, “Blonds.”

The bartender, Duke, half laughed, half scoffed as he pointed to the stage.

“Two bleach-blonde bottles of poison right there.”

Kingsley eyed the two girls—Holly and Ivy—who now hung naked from their knees, which they’d wrapped around twin poles. Men sat belly up to the stage watching in silence, making eye contact with no one but the dancers. Dollar bills fluttered between their waving fingers.

“Not what I’m in the mood for tonight.” Kingsley looked away from the stage.

“What?” Duke asked. “How can you not be in the mood for that? Are they too hot? Too sexy?”

Kingsley reached behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of bourbon.

“Too female.”

“Don’t look at me,” Duke said, raising both his hands.

“I promise, I’m not.” And he wasn’t. Someone else had caught his eye. But where had he gone?

“It’s too quiet tonight,” Kingsley said to Duke. Usually on a Friday night at the Möbius, the place would be standing room only. Half the usual crowd was in attendance tonight. “What’s going on?”

“You came in the back way?” Duke asked as he uncorked Kingsley’s bourbon for him.

“Of course.”

“Some church is outside holding up signs.”

“Signs?”

“Yeah, you know. Protest signs. Sex Trade Fuels AIDS. Fornicators will burn. She’s somebody’s daughter.”

“Are you serious?”

“Go look for yourself.”

Kingsley took his bottle of bourbon to the front door of the club and took a long drink but not long enough for the sight that greeted him. Duke hadn’t been exaggerating. A dozen people walked up and down the sidewalk carrying various white signs held aloft proclaiming the evils of strip clubs.

“Told you so,” Duke said from behind Kingsley. “Can we call the cops on them or something? Shoot them?”

“We don’t have to get rid of them,” Kingsley said. “God will.”

“He will?” Duke asked. “You sure about that?”

The sky broke open and rain began to fall. The protestors lasted about five seconds under the bite of the late-winter rain before running for cover.

“See?” Kingsley said to Duke. He looked up at the sky, “Dieu, merci.”

“God must be a tits and ass man.”

“If He wasn’t,” Kingsley said, “He wouldn’t have invented them.”

He shut the door and glanced around the club again.

A psychiatrist—if Kingsley would let one near him—would have had a field day with his prodigious talent for finding the blond in every room he entered. If someone blindfolded him right now, he could, with picture-perfect recall, point out every last blond man in a fifty-yard radius. Five of them sat at various stations of the Möbius strip club—two at the bar (one real blond, the other a punk who’d bleached his hair), one working as a bouncer, one disappearing into the bathroom with a suspicious bulge in his trousers and a young one at table thirteen back in the corner. Kingsley had noticed the young blond when he’d first entered the Möbius half an hour ago. He’d been watching him, studying him, getting a read on him. Kingsley approached him.

The blond at table thirteen sat alone. He didn’t look at any of the girls, but only at his hands, his drink, his table.

Kingsley sat down across from him and placed the bourbon on the table between them. The amber liquid licked at the sides of the bottle. The blond glanced first at the bourbon, as if wondering where it came from and how it got there, before his eyes settled on to Kingsley’s.

“I’m going to ask you a question, and it’s important you answer it correctly.” Kingsley did his best to temper his French accent without disposing of it entirely. The accent got him attention when he wanted it but in such a noisy room, he needed to speak as clearly as possible. “Luckily for you, I will tell you the correct answer before I ask the question. And that answer is twenty-one.”

“Twenty-one?” The blond spoke in some sort of accent of his own—American, obviously, but this young man was far from home. “What’s the question?”

“How old are you?”

The blond’s eyes widened. In the dim light, Kingsley couldn’t make out the boy’s eye color. Steel-gray, he hoped, although tonight he wouldn’t be picky.

“Twenty-one,” he repeated. “I’m definitely twenty-one.”

“Blackjack,” Kingsley said, smiling. The blond boy might be twenty-one. In two years he might be twenty-one.

“Do you work here?” the blond asked.

“I wouldn’t call it work.”

“I can go. I should go.” The blond started to stand, but Kingsley tapped the table.

“Sit,” he ordered. The blond sat. A promising sign that he could and would take orders. “Tell me something—no right or wrong answer this time.”

“Sure. What?”

“Why are you here?”

He shrugged, as if the question were obvious.

“You know. Tits. Asses. Naked girls.”

“You weren’t looking at the girls. Not even the one who took your drink order. Which I found interesting, as she was mostly naked.”

Kingsley took another sip of his bourbon straight from the bottle. It burned his throat all the way to his stomach. The woody aftertaste stained the inside of his mouth.

“Sir, I don’t know what your problem is with me being here, but I can—”

“Do your parents know?”

“Know what? That I’m here?”

“That you’re gay.”

The blond tried to stand up again, but Kingsley kicked his leg under the table, and the boy landed hard back in his chair.

“You can go when I say you can go,” Kingsley said. “Now, any other man in here would argue with me if I said he was gay. But you try to leave. I can only assume you won’t argue with me because it’s true.”

The blond sat in silence and didn’t meet Kingsley’s eyes. A beautiful boy, Kingsley would have noticed him even if he weren’t blond. A strong jaw, strong nose, angular face, high enough cheekbones to give him an air of sophistication and yet, he had wary eyes, watching eyes, eyes that never rested for long, as if he were forever looking over his shoulder. His hair was the pale variety of blond, the Nordic variety. Kingsley’s favorite. He wore clothes designed to blend in with a crowd—faded jeans, white shirt, black jacket. But he’d failed in his attempt. Kingsley had noticed him at once.

“No, they don’t know,” the boy said. “I’m in town with my dad on a business trip. He’s out with clients tonight. I’m... I walked around Greenwich Village last night. I met this guy outside a club. He told me some rumors about this place.”

“Believe them,” Kingsley said.

“You don’t know what rumors I heard.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Kingsley took another sip of the bourbon. “All of them are true.”

“So the guy who owns this place—”

“What about him?”

“They say he’s in with the mafia?”

“It’s a strip club.” Kingsley rolled his eyes. “Every club in town cleans money for the mob whether they want to or not. It’s all cash here. It’s part of the deal. What else have you heard?”

“That the owner of the club—”

“Yes?”

“He used to kill people for a living.”

“Also true. But if it makes you feel any better, I did it for the government. Never recreationally.”

The boy’s eyes widened hugely.

“You own this place?”

“Haven’t you ever gotten bored and bought a strip club?”

“No...”

“In my defense,” Kingsley said, “it was on sale.”

The boy narrowed his eyes at Kingsley. “You really own this place?”

“I do. Why don’t you believe me?”

“You have to be rich to own a club. No offense, but you don’t look rich.”

Kingsley glanced down at his clothes. He, too, had dressed to blend in tonight—black pants, black shoes, gray shirt and black leather jacket. Nothing out of the ordinary. No one dressed up to go hunting.

“Rich people don’t look rich. When you have enough money, you don’t have to impress anyone.”

“And you seem kind of young.”

“I’m twenty-eight. I should seem ancient to you. Twenty-eight was ancient to me when I was nineteen.”

“I’m twenty-one, remember,” the blond said. “And you aren’t ancient.”

“What am I?” Kingsley raised his chin and gazed down at the boy.

“You’re the most... I mean, you’re...”

“Spit it out. Use your words.”

“Gorgeous.”

Kingsley raised an eyebrow. He didn’t mind the flattery or the adulation, but he’d wanted the boy the second he’d walked into the club. Time to move things along.

“What else have you heard?”

The boy glanced around. He dropped his voice.

“I heard that there’s another room—”

“It’s more than one room.”

The boy sat back. He ran a nervous hand through his hair. Kingsley envied his fingers.

“So it’s true? You all do kink here? And...other stuff?”

“You know why this club is called the Möbius?” Kingsley asked.

“No. Weird name.”

“A Möbius strip is an optical illusion. It looks like it has two sides, but it has only one.”

Kingsley picked the napkin off the table. Embossed on the white paper was a small ribbon, oval-shaped. His patrons likely thought it was an elegant rendition of a vagina. The image conveniently worked on two levels.

“I don’t understand,” the blond said.

“Do you want to understand?”

“It’s why I’m here.”

“Then follow me. I’ll be your tour guide through hell.”

Kingsley grabbed the bottle off the table, and the boy followed him to a quiet corner of the club. To the right of the bar was a door bearing an employees only sign. Kingsley pushed through. The blond hesitated, but Kingsley grasped him by the wrist and pulled him.

“I told you I own this place. Do you think you’re going to get into trouble?” Kingsley asked.

“Yeah,” the blond said.

“If you’re with me, you’re already in trouble.”

They walked down a short hall to another door. Kingsley paused to pull out his keys.

“I should go,” the blond said. “I—”

Without even looking at him, Kingsley shoved the boy back against the wall and held him there with one hand.

He found the key but didn’t put it in the lock. Instead, he dangled it in front of the boy’s face. In the brighter light of the hallway Kingsley could see the blond had light brown eyes. Not the steel-gray color he’d hoped for, but still he would do.

“This key opens a door to a hidden part of this club,” Kingsley said. “The part of the club you came to see. Doors are symbols, you know. Thresholds to cross, choices to be made. It’s not often that a real door stands between you and a different life. Don’t waste this chance. You go back that way, and you stay in your old world. You open that door, and you enter a new one.”

The boy eyed the silver key dangling from Kingsley’s middle finger.

“If you were me...” the blond said.

“I was you,” Kingsley said.

“What did you choose?”

Kingsley didn’t answer at first. There had been no door for him, no key.

“I ran through the door. And I never looked back.”

Sweat beaded on the boy’s smooth young forehead. Kingsley held him still and hard against the wall and under his hand he could feel the boy’s heart battering against his chest.

The boy reached up and grabbed the key. With fumbling fingers, he shoved it in the lock, turned the knob and pushed through the door. This time, Kingsley followed him.

Behind the door, the world changed color. Out front, the lights were black. Here they were blue. Out in the club, a pantomime of sex played out on and around the stage. Girls gave lap dances, feigned interest and faked smiles. Here, behind the door, men groped in the dark, coupled frantically, secretly. Nothing was feigned. No one pretended to fuck back here. They fucked.

“Jesus,” the boy whispered as they passed a man bent over a chair, another man behind him, inside him, fucking him without shame or restraint.

“If you’re looking for Jesus, you won’t find him down here,” Kingsley said, stepping in front of the blond to guide him through the hall.

“Is this a bathhouse?” the boy asked.

“You see anyone taking a bath?”

The boy laughed. “No.”

“It’s not a brothel, either. No one’s paying for sex here. I’m not a pimp.”

“What is it then?”

“Sanctuary,” Kingsley said. “Most of these men are married. Children. Jobs. They come to the club because no one cares if a man goes to a strip club full of naked women. They walk in the front door first. But it’s the back door they’re here for.”

Kingsley laughed, but the boy didn’t. The other blond would have gotten his joke.

“Are you married?” the boy asked.

“Do I look married to you?”

“Do you have kids?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Then why—”

Kingsley grabbed the boy and shoved him against the wall again.

“You talk too much,” Kingsley said.

The blond swallowed visibly. He licked his lips, and Kingsley’s groin tightened.

“Then shut me up,” the blond whispered.

The boy wanted to be kissed, and Kingsley wanted to kiss him. The boy’s lips trembled, his whole body trembled. But kissing him would make it all personal. Tonight he wanted anonymity.

“Why are you scared?” Kingsley asked.

“I don’t... We just met.”

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Nothing but this.”

Without warning the boy, Kingsley turned him and pushed him, chest first, against the wall. Kingsley pressed his chest into the boy’s back, slid his hand down his stomach and opened his pants.

“We’re in the hall,” the blond whispered, and there it was—the fear in his voice. Fear, intoxicating, erotic fear.

“I own the hall. I’ll do whatever I want in it.”

Kingsley wrapped his fingers around the boy’s erection and stroked him.

“You like that?” Kingsley asked, stroking again. “You’re hard, so you must like it.”

“Yeah,” he breathed. His voice sounded pained. “I like it.”

“What do you like? Say it?”

“Your hand on me, on my cock.”

“What do you want? Tell me what you want.”

“I want it all,” the boy said. “I leave tomorrow. This is my only chance.”

“Only chance? You’re a beautiful child, young, new...” Kingsley kissed the back of the boy’s neck. The kiss turned to a bite. “You’ll have other chances.”

The blond shook his head. “You don’t know what it’s like where I live.”

“Where do you live?”

“Texas.”

Kingsley laughed softly but felt the first stirrings of sympathy. He crushed it under his heel like a bug.

“You want it all?” Kingsley asked.

“Yes.” The blond laid his hand on top of Kingsley’s, as if he needed contact with the man who touched him so intimately. “Give me something to take home with me. I can live on the memories.”

“I’ll give you more than memories.”

Kingsley bit hard into the boy’s neck. He cried out in pain even as his hard cock twitched in Kingsley’s hand.

He didn’t give the boy a chance to straighten his clothes before Kingsley grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him down the hallway. When he’d bought the Möbius, he’d also bought the suite of unused offices behind it. Easy enough to convert them into bedrooms. Dozens of trysts happened each day in this hallway. Kingsley charged nothing but rent and the cost of the key. And a generous tip for the poor woman who washed the sheets every day.

The uninitiated might have trouble finding their way around the back halls. The only illumination came from the lamps in the rooms that spilled pale blue light from under the doors and onto the dull gray carpet. Soft and pained sounds escaped the rooms they passed. The men within had trained themselves to keep their desires quiet, and even when giving rein to them, nothing more than a few desperate grunts and the squeak of bedsprings could be heard in the hallway.

“Where are we going?”

“Hell. Or my room. Same thing.”

Kingsley led him down a second hall toward his private room.

“What are you going to do to me?” the boy asked as they neared the final door.

“Beat you and fuck you,” Kingsley said. “Do you have a problem with that? If so, I’d speak up now.”

The boy’s steps faltered. Kingsley grabbed him once more and pushed him back against the wall.

“Problem?” Kingsley asked. He kissed the boy’s neck, pulled down his collar and bit his chest.

“Will I like it?” The blond slid his hands under Kingsley’s shirt, seeking skin-to-skin contact.

“It’s not fun for me if you don’t like it, too,” Kingsley said, grabbing the boy’s wandering hands and pinning them behind his back. “I want you to look at your bruises in the mirror tomorrow and come all over yourself from the sight of them. I want you to see each welt and remember the moment I gave it to you. I want you to try to have normal sex with someone and lay there like a corpse because he’s not hurting you and you need pain to feel alive. I want to ruin you tonight so that every other night feels like a waste of your life. Is that what you want, too?”

The blond boy pushed his hips against Kingsley’s and rasped two words.

“Ruin me.”

3

KINGSLEY OPENED THE door to his room, took the boy by the collar of his jacket and pushed him inside.

The boy stood in the center of the bedroom. Bedroom, yes. Nothing but a room with a bed. Kingsley hadn’t even bothered with a chair. Why waste the floor space? The bed itself was black—black sheets, metal frame. Light from the barred and grated window cast squares of weak yellow squares across the sheets and the floor.

“Can I ask you a weird question?” the blond said as he turned to Kingsley.

“Ask.”

“I can’t figure your accent out. Where are you from?”

Kingsley smiled.

“Not Texas.”

He grabbed the boy by the throat and forced him to the floor. He slapped him once, hard. Hard enough that the blond gasped, not hard enough to leave a mark.

“Fight back if you want,” Kingsley said as he stripped the boy of his jacket and threw it aside. “You’ll lose. But you can try.”

The boy was already struggling against him as Kingsley pulled his shirt up, exposing the bare flesh of his back.

Kingsley grasped the bamboo cane he kept under the bed.

“I’m going to cane you.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Fuck, yes, it will.”

The boy shuddered, but he didn’t say no, so Kingsley took that as a yes.

Once, twice, five times he struck the boy’s back, harder each time. The blond didn’t cry out but only released soft grunts of pain. A passing car beamed a momentary spotlight into the room, and Kingsley could see the furious red welts already raised on the boy’s otherwise pale and spotless flesh.

“Beg for mercy if you want me to stop,” Kingsley said, digging his hand into the boy’s blond hair at the base of his skull and forcing his face against the bare wood floor.

“Don’t stop.” The blond boy’s voice was flush with desire and desperation.

Kingsley stripped him completely naked before striking him again with the cane—across the front of his thighs, across the back, all over him from his shoulders to his knees and back up again. Meanwhile the boy made no protest, begged no mercy and never once asked him to stop. The boy lay in the fetal position on the floor. Kingsley stood up, put a shod foot on his shoulder and pushed him on to his ravaged back. He flinched and arched as his brutalized skin met the floor.

“Touch yourself,” Kingsley ordered. “I want to watch.”

The blond took his erection in his hand and stroked upward.

“Keep going.” Kingsley watched as the blond rubbed himself with his right hand. He knew it was agony, every movement he made would scrape the raw wounds on his back. And yet for all the agony, the blond was hard. Fluid dripped from the tip on to his lower stomach. Kingsley longed to lick it off. “It hurts, doesn’t it? Your whole body?”

“It hurts,” he breathed.

“Good.” Kingsley walked to the bed and pulled a tube of lubricant out from under the pillow. Better to do this on the hard, unforgiving floor than the bed. He slept in a bed, was at his most vulnerable in a bed. He didn’t want to be vulnerable tonight.

Kingsley knelt between the boy’s legs, nudging his thighs wider. He pushed his fingers into the welts on the boy’s legs. When the boy’s groans reached a crescendo, Kingsley brought his mouth down on to his cock and sucked him deep. Pleasure and pain, pleasure and pain. He would couple them together tonight for this boy, and never again would he feel one without the other, desire one without the other. The boy would either hate him or thank him for this later—Kingsley didn’t care which. But he knew one thing for certain; this beautiful blond teenager would never forget him.

As he sucked him, Kingsley wet his fingertips with the lubricant and pushed them into the blond’s anus. The blond grunted but said nothing more. Kingsley poked and probed inside him, until the boy’s grunts of discomfort turned to gasps of pleasure. Kingsley opened him up while licking and massaging every inch of him.

“I’m coming,” the boy said between heavy breaths.

“Come, then.” Kingsley put his mouth down deep over him and tasted the salt on his tongue. He wanted to swallow but didn’t want to give the boy any ideas that this encounter meant more that it did. He spat it on the floor, pushed the boy on to his stomach, stroked himself to his full hardness and, without mercy, entered the boy.

The boy cried out, his hands scratching against the hardwood floor.

“Take it,” Kingsley said. “Take it all. Don’t fight it.”

“I won’t.” The boy shook his head. “I want it.”

Kingsley pushed in again. The boy was tight as a fist around him, and it took all of his hard-won self-control to keep from spilling into him right now. He’d only been with women lately. He’d almost forgotten how good it felt to fuck a young man, especially one so rare and lovely as this long-limbed youth with the perfect pale blond hair and the heart both afraid and fearless.

Closing his eyes, Kingsley rose up and bore down. The boy gasped beneath him.

“Please,” he said.

“Please what?” Kingsley asked.

“Please, let me touch you.”

Kingsley unbuttoned his shirt while still deep inside the boy. He pulled out, let the boy roll on to his back. He grabbed the boy’s hands, pressing them to his chest.

“You have scars,” he said, running his hands over Kingsley’s bare torso.

“I am nothing but scars.”

The blond pushed his palms against Kingsley’s stomach and traced the muscles there.

“Your body’s amazing,” the boy said as he pushed Kingsley’s shirt off his shoulders and down his arms. “I can’t stop...”

His hands roamed all over Kingsley’s exposed skin—his shoulders, his biceps, his scarred chest and taut stomach. But when the blond tried to touch his hair, Kingsley seized both wrists and slammed them into the floor.

Kingsley thrust deep and kept thrusting. Enough niceties. He should never have let the boy touch him like that. But it had been so long since he’d fucked someone without tying them up first, he’d forgotten what it felt like to be touched during sex.

Pressure built inside Kingsley’s stomach and hips. He pushed repeatedly into the boy who raised his knees to his chest to take even more of him. Fucking turned into mindless rutting as Kingsley slammed into him with quick hard thrusts. No matter how much he gave, the boy only begged for more. When Kingsley couldn’t hold off a second longer, he pulled out, shoved the boy on to his stomach and came all over his red-welted back.

Finally the room was still, and Kingsley was still and the blond boy on the floor was still. Kingsley wiped the semen off the blond’s abraded skin.

Underneath him the boy shivered and shuddered. The salt into the wounds must have hurt more than anything else had.

“You did well,” Kingsley said, and heard another voice saying those same words to him once.

Kingsley stood up, cleaned himself off and straightened his clothes. As if every movement caused him agony, the boy slowly sat up. He looked down at his body, at his welts, before looking up at Kingsley again. His lips were parted, his eyes wide. He crossed his arms over his stomach and pulled his legs to his chest.

“There’s a shower through that door.” Kingsley picked up the boy’s shirt and gave it to him. “You can get cleaned up. You can stay here tonight if you want. Those welts will turn into bruises. Keep your clothes on until they’re gone.”

“Are you leaving?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t you stay? For a little while? We don’t... We can talk.”

“I don’t want to talk,” Kingsley said.

The boy scrambled to his feet and pulled his jeans on. He sat on the bed and spent longer than necessary buttoning his shirt. Kingsley finished pulling himself together. He’d shower back at the town house. Nothing worth bothering with right now. All he wanted to do was drink himself into a stupor and sleep until he woke up dead. As usual.

“You’re young,” Kingsley said. “You’ll heal fast.” He wasn’t speaking about the welts.

He gave the boy one more smile before turning his back and heading to the door.

“My name’s Justin,” the blond called out after him.

Kingsley turned around and looked at him. A square of light from the window lay across the boy’s face like a white mask.

“I’ve only been with a guy once. It wasn’t like this. I didn’t even come. If my parents knew I was gay, they’d kick me out. I just... I wanted you to know those three things.”

“Anything else?” Kingsley asked, keeping his face composed, his voice devoid of emotion.

“You’re beautiful,” Justin said. “I feel stupid for saying that to another guy, but I can’t find another word. And what you did to me was everything I’ve always wanted. So...thank you.”

“You’re thanking me?”

“They teach us manners in Texas.”

Kingsley could taste the boy on his lips. Walk away. He knew he should walk away.

He pulled out his wallet and, from it, took a slim silver card with black ink.

“My name is Kingsley Edge. Not entirely, but it’s what I answer to. I’m French. That’s the accent you hear. And if your family kicks you out—and you’re right, they might—come back to this city and find me. I can help you. I’m not saying I will help you. But I can if I’m in the mood.”

Justin took the card and held it in his fist.

“Why did you pick me tonight? Only gay guy in the club?”

“There were three if I counted correctly.”

“Then why me?”

“You’re blond,” Kingsley answered truthfully. Justin gave a little laugh.

“You must really love blonds, then.”

“No.” Kingsley smiled tiredly. “I hate them.”

Without another word or a kiss goodbye, Kingsley left the room, left the hall, left the club and walked into the rainy streets of Manhattan. He should have called for his driver to come for him and take him home. But after so much sadism, a little masochism would do him good. The rain had turned the night near freezing, and Kingsley dug his hands deep into his jacket pockets burrowing for warmth. He walked fast, lengthening his strides as the late-winter rain soaked him to the skin. After two miles he arrived home to his town house. He paused outside and looked up. After six months living here, he still couldn’t believe he owned a Manhattan palace. Three stories—four if one counted the pool in the basement—black-and-white facade, wrought-iron balconies, a glass conservatory on the roof and luxurious bedroom after bedroom after bedroom...

Any one of his bedrooms would do him right now. He wanted to be warm and naked and drunk this very second. He ran up the stairs, opened the door and shut it behind him. He didn’t lock it. He never locked the door. Someone was always in the house, always coming or going. And people only locked their doors to keep the barbarians at the gate. He was the barbarian. Why would he keep himself out?

As soon as he entered the house, he pulled off his jacket and tossed it on the floor. Someone would take care of it. Someone always did. He heard music coming from within the house. Blaise, he guessed. She’d taken to staying here most nights, even the nights he didn’t fuck her. She seemed the sort to like piano music—or at least to pretend she liked it.

He trudged up the steps but paused before he reached the first landing. The music...it didn’t sound as if it came from a stereo or a radio. No, it sounded close, and live. Alive.

“Fuck.” Kingsley stormed back down the stairs. He had one rule in his house and one rule only. No one touches the grand piano in the music room. No one. It was to be looked at and never touched, never played, never even acknowledged. Whoever dared touch his piano would be thrown into the street and forbidden from ever crossing the threshold of his house again. The person who defied Kingsley’s one law would curse the day he’d ever learned to play the fucking piano.

Kingsley threw open the door to the music room.

He stopped.

He stared.

He did not breathe.

It couldn’t be...

But it was.

The room was dark, but Kingsley could see who played his grand piano. And even if he couldn’t see, he would still know it was him. Only one man he’d ever known could play so skillfully without sheet music, without even seeing the keys. A sliver of streetlight penetrated the room and cast a circle of light around the pianist’s hair.

His blond hair.

Søren.

Frozen in place, Kingsley could do nothing but stand and listen and watch and wait and wonder. Why? How?

The music—Beethoven, Kingsley believed it was—set the room afire, and the sound moved like smoke over the floor, up the walls and across the ceiling. Kingsley breathed it in like incense.

The piece ended. The final note rose like a burning ember before falling to the floor and fading into ash.

Shock had stolen Kingsley’s courage, but now it returned to him. He couldn’t get to the man fast enough. He rushed forward as the pianist closed the fallboard and stood. Over ten years had passed since Kingsley had seen him, had looked on him with his own eyes. Kingsley had almost given up hope he would ever see him again. They’d caused each other too much pain, and someone had paid the highest price for their secrets. But that was all in the past. It would be better now between them. No hiding. No lies. Kingsley would give him his heart and his body and his soul, and this time he’d ask for nothing in return.

But as the pianist rose, Kingsley noticed something different about him. He looked the same, only older now. How long since they’d last stood face-to-face, eye-to-eye? He would be twenty-nine years old, wouldn’t he? God, they were grown men now. When had that happened? If it was possible, he was even more handsome than Kingsley remembered, and taller, too. How was it possible he was taller? His clothes, however, were far more severe. He wore all black.

All black but for one spot of white.

A square of white.

A square of white at his throat.

The pianist smiled at him, a smile of amusement with only the barest hint of apology. And not the least bit of shame.

Fuck.

Kingsley stared, incredulous. He took a small step back.

No...not that. Anything but that. Whatever hope had been in Kingsley’s heart a second earlier shattered and died like the last stray note of a symphony.

The old love, the old desire coursed through his veins and into his heart, and there was no stopping it.

He met the blond pianist’s eyes—the priest’s eyes—and released the breath he’d forgotten he’d been holding.

“Mon Dieu...”

My God.

4

FOR A SILENT eternity they only looked at each other.

Finally Kingsley raised his hand.

“Wait here,” he said and turned around. He turned back around again. “S’il vous plait.”

Søren said nothing. Even if Søren wanted to speak, Kingsley left before he could say a word.

Kingsley strode from the music room and shut the door behind him.

As soon as he stood alone in the hallway, Kingsley pushed a hand into his stomach. A wave of dizziness passed over him. He fought it off, ran upstairs to his bedroom and changed from his rain-soaked clothes into dry ones. He grabbed soap, a towel. He scrubbed at his face, rinsed the taste of Justin out of his mouth, toweled the rain from his hair and slicked his hands through it. In less than five minutes he looked like himself again—shoulder-length dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin inherited from his father. Did he look like he did ten years ago? Was he more handsome? Less? Did it matter to Søren anymore what he looked like?

“Søren...” He breathed the name like a prayer. How long had it been since he’d said that name out loud? What was he doing here? Last year Kingsley had been dying in a hospital in France, dying of infection from a gunshot wound. He remembered nothing of those days after his surgery but for the few minutes Søren had visited. He’d been too ill, barely conscious. He’d only heard Søren’s voice speaking to a doctor, demanding they treat him, heal him, save him. Kingsley thought it only a dream at the time, but when he awoke to find he’d been left a gift—access to a Swiss bank account with more than thirty million dollars in it—he knew it had been real.

That should have been it. That should have been the last time they’d seen each other. Kingsley knew that bank account had been blood money—Søren’s way of saying he was sorry for what had happened between them. The second Kingsley spent the first cent he’d accepted that apology. They were even now. No unfinished business.

So why was Søren here?

Kingsley took a steadying breath, but it did nothing to quell his light-headedness. He was almost giddy with shock. He laughed for no reason. As much as wanted to, he couldn’t leave Søren alone in the music room all night waiting for him. He had to go back, talk to him, look him in the eyes again and find out what he wanted. And he would. He could do this. Some of the most dangerous men in the world pissed themselves at the mere mention of Kingsley’s name. People feared him. They should fear him. He feared no one.

He took one more breath and readied himself to leave the bathroom and go to Søren. But then he stepped back, kicked the seat of the toilet open and vomited so hard his eyes watered.

Once he was certain he’d fully emptied his stomach of all its contents, he sat on the cold tile floor and breathed through his nose. He laughed.

Here he was, eleven years later, and Søren could still do this to him without saying a word. God damn him.

Slowly he stood and washed his mouth out again. He could run. He had money. He could leave. Go out the back door, fly away and run forever.

But no, Kingsley had to face him. He could face him. His pride demanded it of him. And if Søren had found him here, he could find him anywhere.

Outside the music room Kingsley willed his hands to stop shaking, willed his heart to slow its frenetic racing.

He threw open the door with a flourish and stepped inside.

At first he didn’t see Søren. He’d expected to find him waiting on the divan or on one of the chairs. Or perhaps even standing by the window or sitting at the piano. He hadn’t expected to find Søren bent underneath the top board of the piano. He’d turned on a lamp now, and warm light filled the room.

“What are you doing?” Kingsley asked as he came to the piano and peeked under the open lid. He spoke with a steady voice.

“Your bass notes are flat.” Søren hit a key and turned a pin inside the piano. “You shouldn’t have the piano near the window. The temperature fluctuates too much.”

“I’ll have it moved.”

“When was the last time you had it tuned?” Søren asked.

“Never.”

“I can tell.” Søren hit another key, turned another pin. Kingsley watched Søren’s hands as he worked. Large, strong and flawless hands. His clothes had changed, he’d grown taller, more handsome, and now he was a priest. But his hands hadn’t changed. They were the same hands Kingsley remembered.

Søren stood up straight and lowered the lid of the grand piano back down.

“The action is stiff. Has it not been played very often?”

“You were the first. No one’s allowed to play it.”

“No one? Then I apologize for playing it.”

“Don’t apologize. When I say no one is allowed to play it, I meant...no one but you.”

Søren glanced up and met Kingsley’s eyes. It took all of Kingsley’s resolve, fortitude and the alcohol left in his bloodstream not to break eye contact. Søren always had this way of looking at him that made Kingsley want to confess everything to him. Even back when they were teenage boys in school together, he’d had that power. But Kingsley kept silent, kept his secrets. They weren’t boys anymore.

“I’ll call someone,” Kingsley finally said. “I’ll have it tuned.”

“Call a music store. They’ll be able to recommend a good tuner.”

Kingsley and Søren studied each other over the top of the piano.

“Do you want to keep talking about the piano, or should we have a real conversation?” Søren asked.

Kingsley gave him a halfhearted smile and sat down on the piano bench. The adrenaline had subsided, but the disorientation remained. If he awoke to find himself in bed and all this was a dream, he wouldn’t be surprised.

“So...parish priest? Dominican? Franciscan?” he asked, the old words coming back to him like a language he used to be fluent in but hadn’t spoken in years.

“Jesuit,” Søren said, taking a seat on the white-and-black-striped sofa across from the piano bench.

Kingsley rubbed his forehead and laughed.

“A Jesuit. I was afraid of that. I knew they wanted you in their ranks.”

“I wasn’t recruited. It was my choice.”

“So it’s real? The collar? The vows? All of it?”

He clasped his hands in front of him between his knees.

“It is the most real thing I’ve ever done.”

Kingsley raised his hands in surrender and confusion.

“When? Why?” He gave up on his English and fell back into his French. Quand? Pourquoi?

“I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but I’ve wanted to be a priest since I was fourteen,” Søren answered in his perfect French. It felt good to speak his first language again, to hear it again, even if every word Søren said stabbed his heart like a sword. “I converted at fourteen, so I could become a Jesuit. It was all I ever wanted.”

“You never told me.”

“Of course not. When I met you...”

“What?”

Søren didn’t answer at first. Weighing his words? Or simply torturing Kingsley with silence? Kingsley remembered those long pauses before Søren would speak, as if he had to examine every word like a diamond under a jeweler’s lope before allowing it to be displayed. Kingsley could live and die and be born again waiting for Søren to answer one little question.

“When I met you,” Søren said again, “it was the first time I questioned my calling.”

Kingsley let those words hang in the air between them before tucking them inside his heart and locking them away.

“Did you think I would try to talk you out of it?” Kingsley asked once he could speak again.

“Would you have tried to talk me out of it?”

“Yes,” Kingsley said entirely without shame. “I’ll try to talk you out of it now.”

“You’re a little late. I’m ordained. You know religious orders are sacraments. They can’t be revoked. Once a priest...”

“Always a priest,” Kingsley finished the famous dictum. He wasn’t Catholic, but he’d gone to a Catholic school long enough to learn all he needed to know about the Jesuits. “But a Jesuit? Really? There are other sorts of priests. You had to join an order that takes a vow of poverty?”

“Poverty? That’s your problem with the Jesuits? Not the celibacy?”

“We’ll get to that. Let’s start with the poverty.”

Søren leaned back on the sofa and rested his chin on his hand.

“It’s good to see you again,” Søren said. “You look better than the last time I saw you.”

“The last time you saw me I was dying in a Paris hospital.”

“Glad you got over that.”

“You’re not the only one, mon ami. I should thank you—”

Søren raised his hand to stop him.

“Don’t. Please, don’t thank me.” Søren glanced away into the corner of the room. “After all that happened, after all I put you through, terrifying a doctor on your behalf was the least I could do.”

He gave Kingsley a tight smile.

“You did more than terrify a doctor. I shouldn’t tell you this, but my...employer at the time had decided to burn me.”

“Burn?”

“Remove me from existence. Letting me die in the hospital was a nice, clean way to get rid of me and everything I know. The doctors, they’d been encouraged to let me die peacefully. I would have, if you hadn’t shown up and given the counter order.”

“I’m good at giving orders.” Søren gave him the slightest of smiles.

“How did you find me? At the hospital, I mean.”

“You listed me as your next of kin when you joined the Foreign Legion.”

“That’s right,” Kingsley said. “I had no one else.”

“You had our school as my contact information. A nurse called St. Ignatius, and St. Ignatius called me.”

“How did you find me today?”

“You don’t exactly fly under the radar, Kingsley.”

Kingsley shrugged, tried and failed to laugh.

“It’s not fair, you know. I couldn’t open my eyes that day in the hospital. You saw me last year. I haven’t seen you in...too long.”

“I was in Rome, in India. I’m not sure I want to know where you’ve been.”

“You don’t.”

“What are you doing with yourself these days?”

Kingsley shrugged, sighed, raised his hands. “I own a strip club. Don’t judge me. It’s very lucrative.”

“I judge not,” Søren said. “Anything else? Job? Girlfriend? Wife? Boyfriend?”

“No job. I’m retired. No wife. But Blaise is around here somewhere. She’s the girlfriend. Sort of. And you?”

“No girlfriend,” Søren said. “And no wife, either.”

“You bastard,” he said, shaking his head. “A fucking Jesuit priest.”

“Actually, a nonfucking Jesuit priest. They haven’t rescinded the vows of celibacy yet.”

“How inconsiderate of them.”

Kingsley tried to smile at Søren, but he couldn’t. Not yet.

“Celibacy.” Kingsley pronounced the word like a curse. It was a curse. “I thought you were a sadist. When did you become a masochist?”

“Is that a rhetorical question or are you looking for the exact date of my ordination? I’m a priest. Once you’re firmly convinced that God exists, it’s not that great a leap to ask him for a job.”

Kingsley stood up and walked to the window. Outside, Manhattan had awoken and stirred to life. He had CEOs and Nobel Prize winners and heiresses as his neighbors here on Riverside Drive. They were the men and women who owned the city. And yet the only person in the entire borough who meant anything to him sat on his sofa in the music room and didn’t have a cent to his name. Søren once had a cent to his name. A few billion cents to his name. And he’d given every last one of them to Kingsley.

“Why are you here?” Kingsley finally asked the question of the night.

“You might regret asking that.”

“I do already. I’m guessing this is more than a friendly reunion? And I’m guessing you aren’t here to pick things up where we left off?”

“Would you really want to?”

“Yes.” Kingsley answered without hesitation. It didn’t seem to be the answer Søren expected.

“Kingsley...” Søren stood and joined him by the window. Dawn had come to Manhattan. If dawn knew what she was doing, she’d take the next bus back out of town.

“Don’t say my name like that, like I’m a child who said something foolish. I’m allowed to want you. Still. Always.”

“I thought you would hate me.”

“I did. I do hate you. But I don’t... How can I truly hate the one person who knows me?” Kingsley studied Søren out of the corner of his eye and ached to touch Søren’s face, his lips. Not even the collar could stem the tide of Kingsley’s desire. Not even all the pain and the years between them.

“Do you remember that night we were in the hermitage and—”

“I remember all our nights,” Kingsley whispered.

Søren closed his eyes as if Kingsley’s words hurt him. Kingsley hoped they had.

“It was a night we talked about others. We were wondering if there were others like us out there somewhere.”

“I remember,” Kingsley said. And as soon as Søren conjured the memory, Kingsley was a teenager again. He stretched out on the cot on his back, naked, the sheets pulled to his stomach. Søren lay next to him. Kingsley could feel the heat of Søren’s skin against his. No matter how many times they touched, it always surprised him how warm Søren was. He expected his skin to be cold, as cold as his heart. Kingsley’s thighs burned. Søren had whipped him with a leather belt, then they’d made love on the cot. He knew it was teenage romantic foolishness to consider the sort of sex they had “making love,” but he needed to believe that’s what it had been—to both of them. He needed to think it had been more than mere fucking.

“Do you remember what you said to me?” Søren asked. “You said you would find all of our kind and lay them at my feet.”

“And you said you didn’t need hundreds. But...” Kingsley raised both hands as if he could conjure the memory between his palms and look into it like a crystal ball. “One girl.”

“‘A girl would be nice,’ I said.”

Kingsley laughed. “We were trapped in an all-boys’ school. ‘A girl would be nice’ might have been a radical underestimation of how much we wanted to fuck a girl for a change.”

“I didn’t want you to think you weren’t enough for me. You know I’m—”

“I know,” Kingsley said.

Kingsley knew Søren wasn’t like him. For Kingsley, sex was sex, and he had it when he wanted with whomever he wanted. Male or female or anything in between was simply a question of strategy. Søren had told him once he considered himself straight, that Kingsley was the sole exception to the rule. “That girl we dreamed of—I wanted black hair and green eyes. But you wanted green hair and black eyes? I assume you mean the irises would be black, not that you planned on punching her in the face.”

“I’m not that much of a sadist.” Søren smiled, and the world turned to morning from the force of that smile. Had Kingsley ever seen him smile like that? “And this girl of ours, she would be wilder than both of us together.”

“We dreamed beautiful dreams, didn’t we? But a girl like that? Impossible dream.”

Kingsley had once dreamed he and Søren would spend their lives together. They’d travel the world, see it all, wake up together, sleep together and fuck on every continent.

“Nothing is impossible,” Søren said.

“What do you mean?”

Søren turned his eyes from the sun and gazed directly at Kingsley.

“Kingsley,” Søren began and paused. Whatever words would come next, Kingsley felt certain his world would never be the same again once they were spoken.

“What is it?”

“I found her.”

5

KINGSLEY COULDN’T SPEAK at first. What was there to say to that? What do you say to an otherwise reasonable person who suddenly looks at you and says he saw a unicorn on the side of the road or met Saint Peter while out for a walk?

“You found her. You’re certain?”

“I have never been more certain of anything in my life. And that includes my call to the priesthood. It’s her. Black hair and green eyes. Green hair and black eyes.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Her eyes change color in the light. Green to black and back again. When I first saw her, she had streaked green dye through her black hair. She’s violent and foul-mouthed, and she told me I was an idiot. Not only did she say that to me, it was the first thing she said to me.”

“Wild, is she?”

“I’d go so far as to use the word feral.”

“Feral. A wild cat, then. With claws?”

“Sharp ones. Sharp mind, too. Very intelligent. Cunning. Quick and clever. Almost fearless.”

“My type of girl. Where did you meet her?”

“I was sent to pastor at a small parish in a town called Wakefield in Connecticut. She’s in my congregation. I recognized her the second I saw her. You would have, too.”

“What’s she like?”

“Dangerous. She doesn’t even know how dangerous.”

“How dangerous?”

“She...” Søren stopped and laughed. “She made me make her a promise.”

“Made you? No one makes you do anything.”

“She did. I needed her to agree to something, and instead of being cowed like every other person I’ve ever attempted to terrorize before, she refused to accept my terms. Unless...”

“Unless what?”

“I promised to break my vows with her.”

“Is that so? Which vows? Poverty? Obedience? Will she make you buy expensive things and tell the pope to go fuck himself?”

“She wants us to be lovers.”

“Are you?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?” Kingsley repeated. “So you plan to?”

“She made me promise I would.”

“So, why haven’t you?” Kingsley asked. He tried to keep his voice light, airy, amused. But he’d never had a more serious conversation in his life. If this girl was real, if she was the one he and Søren had dreamed of, and Søren had found her, that meant something. What it meant, he didn’t know. But something. Something that terrified him and aroused him all at once.

“Because,” Søren said, “I’m a priest. And she’s a virgin.”

“A dangerous virgin? I didn’t think such a being could exist.”

“You’ll believe it when you meet her. But that’s not all you should know about her.”

“What else?”

“She’s fifteen.”

Kingsley inhaled sharply.

“Fifteen. Are you insane? Do you know what they do with priests who—”

“Which is why I haven’t done it. As much as I’d like to.”

“Beautiful, is she?”

“Kingsley, you have no idea...”

Kingsley heard pure aching need in Søren’s voice. He hadn’t heard desire like that since the last night they’d spent together.

I own you...you are mine...your body is mine, your heart is mine, your soul is mine... Søren had whispered that in Kingsley’s ear as they’d fucked on the cold hard floor by the small hermitage fireplace. You want me? Kingsley had asked, taking every inch of Søren into him. So much, Søren had said. You have no idea how much.

“I should meet our little princess,” Kingsley said.

“Not a princess, a queen.”

“Take me to her, then.” Kingsley didn’t actually want to meet her. He felt sick again at the thought of it. This was a dare. You saw a unicorn? Prove it, then. You say you’re Christ back from the dead? Show me the wounds.

“I can’t,” Søren said.

“Why not?”

“She’s in police custody.”

Kingsley laughed.

“Now I know why you’re here. Your Virgin Queen has gotten herself into trouble. You expect me to help her?”

“I’m asking you to. Begging you to if I must.”

“Even when you’re begging, it sounds like an order.”

“Would you rather I ordered you to help her?” Søren asked, stepping away from the window. “I can still play the game.”

“It was never a game to me.”

Søren turned and faced him, his eyes cold and steely.

“No. It was never a game to me, either.”

Kingsley sat down on the black-and-white sofa. He crossed his ankle over his knee and leaned his head back against the fabric. He rubbed his temples with his fingertips. God, what a night.

“Do I want to know what she’s in police custody for?”

“She stole five cars. Her father apparently owns something called a chop shop.”

“They steal cars, chop them up and sell the parts. Good money in it.”

“He made her steal for him. The police caught her in the act. Her father ran for it.”

“I hope they catch him and give him the chair.”

“Death is too good for him. But he’s not my concern now. She is. She’s facing serious time in juvenile detention or worse. I can’t let that happen. I found her a week ago. I can’t lose her already.”

Kingsley looked up at him through narrowed eyes.

“You...” Kingsley said. “You’re in love with her.”

Søren didn’t deny it. Kingsley respected him for that.

Honesty was its own special brand of sadism.

“I am.”

“Well, then,” Kingsley said, laying his head back again. “Maybe all hope is not lost.”

He expected Søren to laugh at that, but when he looked up he saw the steel in Søren’s eyes.

“We have to help her,” Søren said. “Please.”

“Please? You’ve learned manners in the past eleven years.”

“Will you help her? Will you help me?”

Help the girl. How? Easy. He had a few judges who owed him favors. He regularly fucked the wife of an important district attorney. He could make some phone calls. He couldn’t get the charges dropped. His contacts needed to cover their asses. But he could get her community service, probation with some luck. Nothing serious.

“What’s her name?”

“Eleanor Louise Schreiber.”

“Schreiber? German name.”

“It is.”

The corner of Kingsley’s mouth quirked in to a half smile.

“That explains the Beethoven. I suppose you don’t play Ravel anymore.”

Søren had played Ravel for him the day they met and many days after. Ravel, the greatest of all French composers. And now his heart turned to Beethoven—the greatest of all the Germans.

“I would play Ravel for you,” Søren said, his voice stiff and formal. “If that’s what it took.”

Kingsley’s eyes flew open.

“I’m not going to make you fuck me just so I’ll help your Virgin Queen. That’s her game, not mine.”

“Is there a price for your assistance?”

“You gave me a fortune. I’m richer than God, and you think you owe me something?”

“Don’t I?”

“A favor,” Kingsley said. “One favor.”

“Anything. Name it.”

Kingsley stood up, walked across the room and stood only inches from Søren.

“All I ask of you,” Kingsley began, “all I beg of you...don’t leave me again. Please. Eleven years. I thought I’d never see you again.”

Søren grasped Kingsley by the back of the neck and pulled him into an embrace—not an embrace of lovers but, instead, of lost brothers, soldiers from enemy armies reunited at the end of a long, devastating war that no one had won.

“I thought I would die without ever seeing you again,” Kingsley said, and his eyes burned with tears. “Every day I thought that.”

“Thought or hoped?”

“Feared,” Kingsley said, clutching Søren’s forearms. “My greatest fear.”

Kingsley closed his eyes, and if he kept his eyes closed he wouldn’t have to see that white collar around Søren’s neck. If he kept his eyes closed he could pretend it was eleven years ago and they were alone in the hermitage together. Søren would beat him and take him to bed, and after he’d finished, Kingsley would throw his arm over Søren’s stomach, rest his head on Søren’s chest and fall asleep. When he woke up Søren would still be there. Søren would always be there.

“I promise you this,” Søren whispered, “I will never turn my back on you. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. As long as it’s in my power, I will be your friend, and I will be here for you whenever you need me.”

“You paid for this house. It’s your home even more than mine. Make it your home.”

“I will if that’s what you want.”

“More than anything.” He opened his eyes and looked up at Søren. “No one loves me. And I don’t love anyone here. No one trusts me and I don’t trust anyone. I need you.”

“You trust me? After what I did to you?”

“I trust you. Because of what you did to me.”

Søren took a deep breath. Kingsley felt his chest rise and fall.

Kingsley sensed Søren’s reluctance to pull away, but pull away he did.

“I’ll help your girl,” Kingsley said. “I know people. I’ll make sure she doesn’t go away.”

“Don’t hate her. You’ll want to hate her, and we both know why. But try to keep your heart open.”

“How long have you been back in the United States?” Kingsley asked.

Søren seemed taken aback by the question.

“A few months,” he said.

“You’ve been to the city before?”

“Yes.”

“But you never came to see me.”

Søren didn’t say anything. Kingsley hated him for that silence.

“You weren’t planning on seeing me ever again, were you?” Kingsley asked.

“I thought about seeing you again,” Søren said. “I wasn’t sure if I should. For the obvious reasons.”

“Your little girl got herself in trouble, and that’s what it took to bring you back to me? How can I hate her?”

Søren nodded. It looked as if he had something else to say. Whatever it was, he decided against saying it.

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Søren said. “I’ve been up all night, and it looks like you have, too. We’ll talk more after we’ve both had some sleep.”

“Good.” Kingsley was so relieved to hear he’d see Søren tomorrow, he was almost ashamed of himself. He could have cried from relief. “I have a car. It can take you home.”

“It’s fine. I have a way back.”

“Please, don’t tell me you’re taking public transportation. I can handle the vow of celibacy better than that.”

Søren laughed—a joyful new morning laugh. Joyful? He hadn’t expected joy. Søren was happy in his new life? That was good. Kingsley wanted him happy. At least one of them was happy. Better than nothing.

“I promise, no public transportation.”

Kingsley followed Søren out on to the sidewalk. From the two-foot gap between his town house and the house next to him, Søren wheeled out a black motorcycle—a Ducati.

Kingsley whistled.

“If this is standard-issue transportation for Jesuits, no wonder you joined.”

“It’s a bribe, actually,” Søren said, pulling on a leather jacket and zipping it up. He slipped his white collar out of his shirt and pocketed it. Just like that, Søren ceased looking like a priest and became himself again in Kingsley’s eyes.

“Priests take bribes?”

“We have a long history of it. Ever heard of indulgences?”

“My entire life is an indulgence.”

“I’m starting to see that,” Søren said, looking the town house up and down. “But this bribe was my father’s doing. He assumed—wrongly—that I’d drop out of seminary so I could keep it. Jesuits hold all property in common. If I accepted the bike and stayed in seminary, I’d have to give it up to the order. They often sell large expensive gifts and use the money for more important things—like food and books.”

“What happened?”

“I told my superior at the province. He told me to take the bike, become a priest and let my father go to hell. That’s the sort of spiritual counsel I can live with.”

“Your father must hate you.”

“Almost as much as I hate him.”

Søren started the engine. Before he could drive off, Kingsley stepped in front of the bike.

“Don’t forget the favor. Don’t leave me again,” Kingsley said.

“Again? You seem to be forgetting something,” Søren said.

“What?”

Søren looked him deep in the eyes. And in those gray depths Kingsley caught a glimpse of something. Fury—old, cold, but still burning.

“Eleven years ago, I didn’t leave you,” Søren said. “You left me first.”

And with that, Søren put on his helmet, revved up his bike and rode off into the street.

Funny. Kingsley had forgotten that.

He had left Søren first.

6

THE THINGS KINGSLEY did for love.

Kingsley took a breath, walked up the steps into the Eastside Rifle and Pistol Range. He was on time, but Robert Dixon was already there. Dixon caught Kingsley’s eye, nodded at him, then raised his pistol and shot six bullets into the target. Kingsley stood safely behind him and watched. Dixon could shoot. Kingsley had to give him that. Six bullets, six hits. He’d peppered an erratic circle around the target’s heart.

Dixon, aged forty and looking every day of it, took off his earmuffs.

“Your turn,” Dixon said to Kingsley. “Impress me, and I’ll hear you out.”

With another sigh, Kingsley put on his earmuffs and safety glasses, aimed his 9mm and shot six rounds into a fresh target. Two in the head between the eyes, two in the heart and two in the groin just to make Dixon think twice.

Kingsley pulled off the earmuffs, turned around and faced Dixon.

“Where’d you learn to shoot like that?” Dixon asked.

“French Foreign Legion.”

“I thought all the French military knew how to do was surrender.”

“You’d be curtsying to the Queen of England if it wasn’t for the French.”

“What do you want? A thank-you note?”

“Just a favor. We’ll call it even between France and America then.”

Dixon looked him up and down. “Let’s go talk. Keep your hands off your gun.”

“Your idea to meet at a shooting range,” Kingsley reminded him.

“I shoot better than anyone I know.”

“Not anymore.”

“I’m pretending I don’t know you,” Dixon said. Kingsley didn’t blame him for that.

They left the shooting lanes and found a quiet corner near the lockers. Dixon pulled on his jacket, stuffed his hands in his pockets and waited.

“I need your help,” Kingsley said.

“You’re fucking my wife, and you come to ask for a favor. I almost admire that.”

“I wouldn’t have to fuck your wife if you weren’t too busy fucking your wife’s sister.”

Dixon’s eyes widened. Kingsley smiled.

“Go on,” Dixon said. “What do you need my help with?”

“A girl was arrested in Manhattan last night. She’s being charged today with five counts of grand theft auto.”

“A girl?”

“She’s fifteen.”

“We better throw in a charge for driving without a license then.”

“You’re funny,” Kingsley said, and mentally put two bullets in Dixon’s head. “I need the charges dropped.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“How much to make it happen?”

“I can’t get the charges dropped. That’s a big fucking red flag, and I’m not prepared to wave it.”

“Can you get them reduced? I want to keep her out of doing any time.”

“Who is this girl?”

“Friend of a friend,” Kingsley said.

“You have friends who are friends with fifteen-year-old girls?”

“I have interesting friends.”

“I didn’t know you had any friends, Edge,” Dixon said with a wide grin. Kingsley put two more bullets in him—center of his chest this time. “Or do fuck buddies count as friends these days?”

“Are you going to help her or not?” Kingsley asked.

“I’ll consider it. What’s her name?”

“Eleanor Schreiber. She lives in Wakefield, Connecticut.”

“Schreiber? Yeah, they’re looking for the father right now. They want her to roll on him and anyone else she can.”

“She’ll roll on him.”

“Who’s the friend?”

“Why does it matter?”

“I put my job on the line helping a fifteen-year-old girl get out of going to juvie for multiple counts of car theft, I want to know the story.”

“Fine. Short story. An old friend of mine is a Catholic priest now. Her priest. He asked me to help her. I owe him a big favor. This is the favor.”

“You’re friends with a priest?”

“Trust me, no one is more shocked by that than I am.”

“Is he fucking her? The priest?”

“What?” Kingsley asked. Did Dixon already know something about Søren?

“It’s all over the papers,” Dixon said. “Every damn day there’s a new story about a Catholic priest fucking some kid. Boston’s exploding. Phillie, Detroit, Chicago... I get caught helping a priest with the underage girl he’s fucking and—”

“He’s not fucking her.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m fucking her,” Kingsley said, coming up with the quickest cover he could think of.

“You’re fucking her?”

“I went to visit his church. I saw her. I fucked her. I thought she was eighteen.”

“You thought she was eighteen,” Dixon repeated.

“Oops.” Kingsley shrugged.

“Now this is making more sense to me. I can’t see you doing a favor for a friend out of the goodness of your heart. I can see you fucking a fifteen-year-old girl.”

“Guilty as charged.” Kingsley raised his hands in mock surrender. “She’s looking at hard time. Can we get her community service?”

“You want her out of juvie so you can keep fucking her?”

“Not easy to fuck through iron bars. Possible, but not one of my kinks.”

Dixon went quiet. Kingsley waited. He couldn’t stand being around this man another thirty seconds. Dixon did favors all the time for the mafia and still went to church with his wife and kids every fucking Sunday.

“It’s not my case, but I can make something happen,” Dixon finally said. “There’s a judge who’s soft on teenage girls. Gives them community service in most of his cases, even violent ones. If I grease the wheels of justice, we can make it one of those cases.”

“How much grease?”

“Fifty thousand.”

“Done,” Kingsley said, not even bothering to negotiate. He didn’t negotiate where Søren was concerned.

“That was easy,” Dixon said. “You must really like this little girl.”

“Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point,” Kingsley said.

“What was that?”

“I said, yes, I really like this girl. Call it destiny.”

“Let’s hope my wife doesn’t find out about you and your little destiny. She likes you.”

“Let’s hope your wife doesn’t find out about a lot things,” Kingsley said with a smile. “I’ll send someone to your house later. Or maybe I’ll just drop it off next time I’m there.”

“You son of a bitch.”

“My mother was a saint,” Kingsley said. “I’m the only bitch in the family.”

He patted Dixon on the shoulder and walked past him. As soon as he was out of the front door, he stopped, leaned back against a brick wall and closed his eyes. He breathed for ten whole seconds as the tension left his body. These pissing contests never got easier. Dixon was stupid and powerful, and it was a terrifying combination in an enemy. Why did he even have enemies anymore? Wasn’t he supposed to be retired? Isn’t that why he’d left France, left the job, taken the money and run?

Then again, he was only twenty-eight. Who retired at twenty-eight? And if he wasn’t making trouble for someone, then what was the point of getting out of bed in the morning?

Kingsley rubbed his forehead, felt the weariness in his bones. He needed a better reason for getting out of bed in the morning.

Kingsley walked four blocks and found a pay phone.

“It’s me,” Kingsley said when Søren answered. He spoke in French. No need for names.

“What’s the verdict?” Søren asked.

“She’ll get community service. Good enough?”

He heard a pause on the other end, and Kingsley lived and died in that pause. Just like old times.

“Thank you,” Søren said. “That is more than I’d dared to hope for.”

“Let me ask you something. If I hadn’t been able to help your little girl, what would you have done? What was Plan B?”

“I think she and my mother would get along quite well.”

Kingsley shook his head and laughed to himself. “I’m glad I could save you from the necessity of kidnapping a minor and transporting her across international borders.”

“Kidnapping is such a strong word. I prefer the term rescuing.”

“You really love her.”

“You will, too.”

“What’s so special about this girl you’re willing to commit felonies on her behalf?”

“Truth?”

“Truth,” Kingsley said.

“She reminds me of you.”

“That’s why you love her?” Kingsley asked, hoping the answer was “yes” but knowing it wasn’t.

“That’s why I’m trying to help her.”

Kingsley heard the pointed note in Søren’s words.

“I don’t need help,” Kingsley said.

“Are you certain of that?”

“Yes,” Kingsley said, and hung up the phone.

As he walked away, he had a fleeting thought.

What was the penance for lying to a priest?

7

April

“HIT ME,” KINGSLEY said as he tapped the table.

“I’m not going to hit you,” Søren said.

“You have to do what I say. And I say hit me.”

Søren glared at him. Kingsley glared back.

“You have an ace and an eight,” Søren said.

“Which means I have nine or nineteen. I’m calling it nine. Hit me.”

“You want another card because you want to say ‘hit me’ to me as many times as possible tonight.”

“I’m not disagreeing with that.” Kingsley tapped the table again. “Hit me.”

Søren gave Kingsley another card—a second ace. Now he had twenty or ten, depending on how he wanted to play it. He and Søren weren’t playing blackjack for money, so he didn’t care much if he won or not. In fact, he didn’t care at all. But he couldn’t deny the fact he was enjoying himself. Kingsley needed time to stop and stop completely. He hadn’t felt this... He couldn’t even find the right word. He hadn’t felt this something in years. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to lose it, and he’d found it the instant Søren had stepped through his front door.

“Kingsley?”

“I’m thinking.”

“You have twenty. You should stand.”

“I’m not going to take the strategy advice of my enemy.”

“I’m the dealer, not the enemy.”

“When did you start playing blackjack anyway?” Kingsley demanded as he perused his cards again. One more ace and he’d have blackjack. “Do they teach this in seminary?”

“Cards were an extracurricular activity. An entire household full of men who aren’t allowed to have sex? We find other hobbies.”

“So, blackjack?”

“Among other things.”

Kingsley gave him a searching look.

“Care to tell me what these other hobbies of yours are?” Kingsley asked.

“They’re on a need-to-know basis. You don’t need to know,” Søren said, fanning the cards in front of him.

“I need to know everything,” Kingsley said. “If I’m going to keep you from getting excommunicated or going to prison for seducing and/or kidnapping a teenage girl—”

“Seduce her? I haven’t even seen her for a full month.”

Kingsley cocked an eyebrow at Søren.

“She quit church?”

Søren cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter.

“She’s grounded.”

Kingsley dropped his head on to the table.

“Why didn’t I defect to Russia when I had the chance?” Kingsley sighed.

“Are you going to make a decision about your cards, or are we going to be here all night?”

“We’re going to be here all night.” Kingsley sat up again. Søren shook his head in disgust. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not the one with a girlfriend young enough to be grounded.”

Exhaling with exasperation, Søren swept up his cards and Kingsley’s. With his agile pianist’s fingers, he shuffled the cards one-handed. Kingsley watched the display of casual grace and dexterity with envy and longing. Once, those skillful hands had owned every inch of his body. He’d never wanted to be a deck of cards so much in his life.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?” Søren dealt the cards.

“King?” came a woman’s voice behind Kingsley. Without looking back, he raised his hand and beckoned her into the dining room. A beautiful young woman in a forties-style skirt and blouse stood next to his chair and waited.

He wrapped an arm around her hips and dragged her down to his lap.

“You’re interrupting,” he said to her. “Can’t you see how busy I am?”

“Oh, forgive me. I didn’t mean to interrupt your—” she glanced down at the table and back into Kingsley’s eyes “—card game?”

Kingsley pointed at Søren.

“Blaise, I would like you to meet my oldest and dearest friend...” He paused and looked at Søren when he realized he didn’t know if he was allowed to tell anyone Søren’s name. Out in the world Søren had gone by the name his father had given him—Marcus Stearns. Even now he was Father Marcus Stearns, SJ, according to church records. Søren was the name his mother had given him, and few called him that.

“Who the hell are you again?” Kingsley asked.

Søren stretched out his hand and took Blaise’s.

“Søren. Kingsley and I went to school together.”

“I’m Blaise,” she said, and gave Søren her brightest smile and the most unapologetic bedroom eyes Kingsley had ever seen. So unfair. Why did Søren always turn every head in the room? Kingsley looked at Søren who today wore normal clothes. Normal? Black slacks, a fitted black long-sleeve T-shirt. They’d be normal clothes on anyone but Søren. In them, Søren looked like something out of a fever dream. He couldn’t blame Blaise for looking at Søren the way she did.

But he did wonder why Søren looked at her the same way.

“Blaise, might I inquire what you’re doing interrupting this incredibly important card game of mine?”

“Against my better judgment, I answered the phone and took a message for you. But don’t get any ideas that I’m your new secretary, although you need to get a new secretary—”

“I will, chouchou. I promise.”

“You said that last week.”

“I got a new secretary last week.”

“Where is she?”

“She quit.”

“Did you fuck her?”

“I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”

Blaise turned her attention back to Søren.

“Can you please tell your oldest and dearest friend to stop seducing his secretaries so they’ll stop quitting on him when they catch him fucking someone else?”

“Kingsley,” Søren said, shuffling the cards again. “Stop seducing your secretaries so they’ll stop quitting on you.”

“Thank you.” Blaise gave Søren a smile.

“My pleasure,” Søren said. Kingsley mentally slapped them both.

“Don’t pretend you don’t like playing secretary,” Kingsley said.

“That’s different.” Blaise shook her head. “If I’m pretending to be your secretary so you’ll fuck me on your desk—that’s one thing. But I don’t actually want to be your secretary.”

“Just give me the message,” Kingsley said, running his hand up her thigh and caressing the bare skin above her flesh-tone stockings.

Blaise reached into her nearly translucent pale pink blouse and produced a folded note from inside her lace-trimmed bra.

Kingsley unfolded the note, still warm from her body, and read.

Tonight at nine. —Phoebe

Kingsley tensed when he read the words and briefly considered lying his way out of the situation. But no...Phoebe was not the sort of woman one said no to.

“I have to go,” Kingsley said to Blaise and Søren. “I won’t be gone long—an hour or so. You’ll keep my guest company, won’t you?” he asked Blaise.

“Happily.” Her thousand-watt smile brightened a few more watts. With her on his lap, he could feel the heat emanating from between her legs.

“Good. You two have so much in common, so much to talk about. Blaise, tell Søren what you do.”

“I run a nonprofit,” she said, leaning forward on the table and resting her chin on her hand. The move allowed everyone in the room to get a much clearer view of her soft, ample cleavage.

“A nonprofit?” Søren continued shuffling the cards while never once looking away from Blaise.

“Tell him what it does.” Kingsley pinched her on the thigh, and she shuddered in pleasure. “Our Blaise is très altruistic.”

“It’s called Slut Pride. We educate people about women’s sexual freedom, especially in regards to women’s participation in BDSM activities. Some people like to tell us that it’s not feminist to enjoy being flogged. I say it’s not feminist to tell a woman what she can and can’t do. But enough about me. What do you do?”

“I’m a Catholic priest.”

Blaise said nothing. She gawked at Søren with her full red-lipped mouth agape. And then she laughed, a warm throaty sound that filled the room.

“You’re terrible,” she said. “You had me there for a second.”

Søren winked at Kingsley. Kingsley had never guessed Søren had this flirtatious side to him. Back in their school days Søren had been feared and envied by all the other boys, and Søren had almost never spoken to anyone but the other priests. Kingsley realized that, other than his sister, he’d never seen Søren around a beautiful woman before. Interesting. The man was human after all. Even if he was a priest.

“I must be off. You two chat, become friends. Blaise, peut-être you should take my friend upstairs and show him what BDSM looks like in action. I’m sure he’ll find it fascinating.”

“I’m sure I will,” Søren said. “We’ll be fine, Kingsley. Have a lovely evening.”

Kingsley patted Blaise’s shapely bottom, and she stood up and let him out. On his way from the dining room he heard Blaise asking Søren, “So what do you really do?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Søren answered.

Kingsley chuckled on his way upstairs. He needed to grab a few things. That was it. Think about what he needed to take with him, not what he had to do. Just a job. He’d done hundreds of jobs in his life. He’d get a file, a mission, a plane ticket, a target. This was child’s play in comparison.

Digging his keys out of the pocket of his jeans, he opened a locked box in his closet and took out his Walther P88. He removed the clip and pulled the slide, checking that no bullets remained in the chamber. He snapped the clip in, shoved it into his holster on his jeans and pulled on his leather jacket.

Kingsley left the house and neither hailed a cab nor took a car. On foot he made it to the apartment in twenty minutes. He rang the doorbell, and a housekeeper let him in without a word. No words necessary. The look of disgust and disdain said everything. Fuck her. Kingsley wasn’t here to make the housekeeper happy.

He raced up the stairs right as Phoebe Dixon stepped into the hallway in her long silk bathrobe. She had a towel to her wet hair and walked toward her bedroom at the end of the long hall. She didn’t look back or speak. She hadn’t seen him.

Good.

Kingsley took a quick and silent breath and pulled his gun out. Careful of the creaking floor, he stalked her down the hall. When she reached for the door handle to her bedroom, he put the gun to the center of her back.

“Don’t scream,” he ordered as he slapped a hand over her mouth. “Not if you want to live.”

8

PHOEBE’S ENTIRE BODY stiffened like a corpse. She whimpered but didn’t scream.

“Open the door. Now.”

She opened it, and he pushed her inside, pushed her so hard she landed on the floor, her bathrobe coming open to reveal her naked body underneath.

He grabbed her by the arm and shoved her into the floor again.

“Don’t...” she begged, her voice breaking with tears. “I have children.”

“Are you offering them?” he asked, ripping the robe from her body and wrenching her to her feet.

“Please, don’t kill me. My husband’s an attorney. He has money—”

“Keep begging. It won’t work,” he said as he bent her over the bed and kicked at her ankles until she parted her shaking thighs. He pressed the barrel of the gun into her throat. “But I like how you do it.”

Tossing the gun aside, he opened his pants and slammed inside her. Her body clenched around him tighter with each thrust. Despite her pleas and her protests, she grew wetter the more he rammed into her, the harder he worked her. But he couldn’t come, not yet. Although he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. Sex with Phoebe was business, not pleasure, and he hated the work.

As she moaned underneath him, crying against the intrusion, Kingsley closed his eyes and disappeared to another place, another time. The elegant and well-appointed bedroom he stood in disappeared and dissolved. The hunter-green walls and the modern art prints faded away and rough wood took their place. The king-size bed adorned with silk sheets and pillows was gone, and now a small cot sat on the floor near a fireplace. And Kingsley lay on his side facing the fire.

“You have a bruise on your neck under your ear,” Søren said, touching the sensitive spot with his fingertip. “It’ll go above your collar.”

“If someone says anything, I’ll tell them a tree hit me.”

Søren laughed softly and kissed the bruise.

“I don’t think they’ll believe a tree hit you. Maybe they’d believe you hit a tree.”

“Why would I hit a tree? A tree never did anything to me.”

“Perhaps it likes being hit.” Søren kissed Kingsley’s neck again, his shoulder, his throat.

Kingsley remembered this night. It had a been a Sunday. Everyone at their school went to bed early on Sunday nights. They’d woken early for Sunday Mass and had to wake early again for Monday morning classes. Once everyone had gone to bed, he and Søren had sneaked out to the hermitage to spend a few perfect hours alone together.

“Aren’t you worried someone will find out what we’re doing out here?” Kingsley asked as he covered Søren’s roving hand with his own.

“They’d never believe it even if we told them.”

“What? They’d believe I’d sleep with a teacher, but they wouldn’t believe you’d sleep with a student?” Kingsley tried to sound outraged. He wasn’t sure if he pulled it off or not.

“Precisely.”

“Because I’m a slut, and you’re perfect?”

“Because you have friends, and no one likes me,” Søren said.

Kingsley sat up and looked down at Søren.

“I like you,” Kingsley said.

“No, you don’t,” Søren said with a half smile. “You want me. There’s a difference.”

“You don’t like me, either,” Kingsley chided. He ignored the unwelcome pang of sympathy Søren’s placid “No one likes me” declaration gave him.

“It isn’t that I don’t like you,” Søren said with a playful sigh. “It’s only I like me so much more than I like you that, in comparison, it looks like I dislike you.”

“I might suffocate you tonight with a pillow,” Kingsley said.

“You’ll have to teach my French classes, then. Lesson plans in my desk.”

“Forget it. You get to live.”

“I thought as much.”

Kingsley collapsed on to Søren’s chest with a sigh. Søren lifted Kingsley’s hair and pressed a kiss under his ear.

“Well, I’m worried they’ll find out about us,” Kingsley said, turning on to his side away from Søren. Søren wasn’t deterred. He ran his hand down the center of Kingsley’s back and pressed a kiss to the top of his spine. Kingsley relished these moments, after the fire of Søren’s sadism had burned itself out. The gentle touches and kisses hurt almost more than the blows from the belt and the cane did. They hurt his heart, and yet he treasured the ache. It was his favorite pain.

“Why are you worried? We’re always careful. No one ever sees us together. I don’t care if they find out about me. I have places I can go. But I don’t want you...”

“Don’t want me what?” Kingsley asked.

“I don’t want to embarrass you,” Søren said, and Kingsley laughed out loud at the abject absurdity of that statement.

“You don’t want to embarrass me? An hour ago, you stripped me naked, told me to get on my knees and confess to you the most shameful sexual fantasies I’ve ever had in my life, and you say you don’t want to embarrass me?”

“That’s different. Who we are in private has nothing to do with who we have to be out there. Do you want people to know what you are?”

“Your lover?”

“Not that.”

Kingsley thought about the question. Alone with Søren he became a slave, a slut, a groveling nobody who submitted to sexual torture and said thank you for the privilege. Having sex with another boy didn’t embarrass him. It was everything else that did.

“Non, it’s true. I don’t want people to know I like being hurt. They wouldn’t understand it, and they wouldn’t understand you. They’d think you were a monster.”

“I am a monster,” Søren said as he bit the center of Kingsley’s back.

“Yes, but no one knows that but me. It’s our secret. But...” He sighed heavily and pressed his back against Søren’s chest. “I’m afraid they’ll find out soon enough anyway.”

“And why is that?” Søren demanded.

“Well, you see...” He braced himself for Søren’s wrath. “I’m pregnant.”

Kingsley bit his bottom lip to keep from laughing as Søren sighed so heavily with disgust the cot vibrated. Then Kingsley felt something in his back, something that felt like a foot.

That foot pushed, and Kingsley landed hard on the floor right on his ass.

“Oh, no,” he said as he hit the hardwood beneath him with bruising force. “I lost the baby.”

When he looked up over the edge of the mattress, he found Søren’s face buried in the pillow. He’d never seen Søren brought to tears by laughter.

“Don’t cry,” Kingsley said, rubbing Søren’s heaving shoulder. “We’ll try again.”

Kingsley couldn’t hold off coming anymore. Surely enough time would have passed by now. He came inside Phoebe with such force he grunted in near discomfort.

He pulled out of her and grabbed her robe from the floor to wipe himself off.

“Hey, that robe cost a thousand dollars,” she said as she stretched out on the bed, naked and happy. One hand teased her own nipples while another slipped between her legs. His semen dripped out of her, leaving a wet stain under her hips. If she didn’t care about the silk sheets, he knew she didn’t actually care about the robe.

“Now it’s a thousand-dollar cum-rag.” He tossed it back on the floor as he zipped himself up.

“You’re terrible.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, and she lazily sat up. “I hope that was to your liking.”

“I like that you laughed.”

He grabbed the gun and shoved it in the waistband of his pants again.

“What?”

“I said...” She left the bed and came to him, putting her arms around his neck. “I liked that you laughed while you were fucking me. It made it feel dirtier, like you really were some psycho maniac raping me.” She grinned up at him. He should have found her attractive, this thin, graceful beauty who looked twenty-five but had probably said hello and goodbye to thirty-five a long time ago. Once upon a time he found her attractive, but today she repulsed him. He wanted to take her arms off him, but it wouldn’t do to upset her. He needed her. More accurately, he needed her husband. Robert Dixon was working his way up. He’d be mayor someday if he continued on his current career trajectory. Kingsley would love to have a mayor in his pocket.

So he smiled at her, played nice and let her kiss him.

“I laughed because I was remembering something.”

“What were you remembering?”

“I don’t remember,” he lied.

She went to a chest of drawers, opened the top drawer and pulled out a leather makeup case. She opened it and laid out two lines of cocaine. She’d probably been on it while he’d fucked her. Would explain why she couldn’t shut up now.

“I heard you and Robert went shooting together,” Phoebe said.

“I had to discuss something with him.”

“Me?” she asked with a saccharine smile.

“Work,” Kingsley said. “Just work. Your name didn’t come up.”

“Good,” she said. “Just checking.” She handed him the rolled up bill. “Have some. We’ll go for round two.”

Kingsley tried to look enthusiastic about the prospect of fucking her again. She laid out two more lines for him. He hated coke, hated how much one hit made him want another hit half an hour later. But maybe if he couldn’t get it up again for round two, he’d have the drugs to blame.

Phoebe got on her knees in front of him and took his cock in her mouth. He breathed deep and tried to think of the most erotic images he could conjure, anything to get him back in the mood. For some reason all that came to mind were memories of Søren and those stolen nights together when they were teenagers. Luckily that worked, and he felt himself starting to grow hard again.

“Mom?” A small boy’s voice called out in the hallway. Phoebe pulled back and exhaled with frustration.

“Give me a minute, Cody. Mommy just got out of the shower.”

“I got sick at Tyler’s. They brought me home.”

“Wait there, baby. Mommy’s coming.”

Phoebe rolled her eyes.

“He’s supposed to be with friends tonight. Sorry,” she whispered to Kingsley as she stood to her feet. She started to pick her robe up off the floor but then noticed the semen stain. She grabbed a terry-cloth bathrobe from inside her closet and pulled it tight around her.

“I’ll go. It’s fine,” Kingsley said, relieved to have such an easy out.

“I’ll call soon. I promise.”

“Take your time,” he said, wishing she’d never call him again.

“You’re amazing.” She gave him a long deep kiss that Kingsley returned with no enthusiasm whatsoever. “The sexiest man on earth. See you soon? Please?”

“Bien sûr.”

“I love the French. Rape me in French next time.” She kissed him again and pointed at the nightstand. “It’s in there. I’ll call.”

She left him alone in the room. Kingsley waited until the voices disappeared from the hallway. He opened the drawer she’d pointed to, and he found the envelope. He slipped out the door, down the stairs and grabbed a cab. All he wanted to do was take a quick shower, wash Phoebe off him and get back to his blackjack game with Søren.

He raced up the stairs to his front door, his heart pounding as the coke hit his bloodstream.

When he strode through the foyer, he noticed two well-turned ankles shod in a pair of beige pumps resting on the arm of his sofa in his sitting room.

“Blaise?” He peered over the back of the sofa and found a rather euphoric-looking Blaise laying supine and looking sublime. She had a bowl of strawberries balanced on her chest.

“Bonne soir, monsieur.” She gave a tired happy laugh and popped a strawberry in her mouth. Her usually perfectly coiffed hair was now mussed, and it appeared she’d gotten undressed and redressed at some point. “I love your house. It’s the best house in New York. Have I ever told you that?”

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“Are you stoned?”

She shook her head and giggled. “Nope. This is all afterglow.”

“Afterglow?”

“You know what’s amazing, King? He didn’t even lay a hand on me. But that was easily—” she made a huge sweeping gesture with her arm “—easily the best pain I’ve ever experienced.”

“Pain?”

“A little B, a little D and a lot of S&M. I was the M.”

“You were the M, were you?”

“It was amazing. Your friend is a god of pain.”

“Who? Who’s a god?”

“Your blond friend. Søren.”

Kingsley glared down at her.

“You had sex with Søren while I was gone?”

“No, Silly. I said he hardly touched me. He didn’t have to. His soul touched me. His pain touched me.”

“You’re out of your mind. How did this happen?”

“I don’t know.” She raised both hands in the air to stretch. “After you left he asked me how I spelled my name. I said like Blaise Pascal, and then he told me about how Blaise Pascal, he was a mathematician who—”

“He hated the Jesuits. Wrote all sorts of slanderous, and therefore true, things about them.”

“That. Anyway, we were talking, and then I did what you said I should do and I took him up to the playroom—the one with the Francis Bacon painting over the bed—and suddenly I’m getting flogged and whipped, and then I had an orgasm from the pain alone. Then I was down here with my skirt on backward. I raided your fridge. You know kink makes me hungry.”

She lifted her bowl of strawberries and offered him one. Kingsley ignored them.

“Do you think you and your friend would tag-team me someday?”

“No. Eat your strawberries. I need to talk to the god.”

“Tell him I want to kiss his feet. Again.”

“I’ll pass that along.”

She waved her hand, shooing him from the room.

“Søren?” Kingsley shouted as he ran up the stairs.

“I’m in my room,” Søren called back. Kingsley had given him his own guest room to stay in whenever he wished. So far he hadn’t slept any nights in it.

“All rooms are my room.” Kingsley threw open the door to the guest room. Søren stood on the opposite side of the bed, an open silver suitcase in front of him.

“Very well, then. I’m in your room.”

“Can I ask you one question?”

“Ask.”

“What did you do to Blaise?”

Søren looked up at him.

“I’m not going to answer that.”

“Did you fuck her?”

“That’s two questions, and no, I didn’t. Are you upset we played? She said she’s allowed to be with anyone she wants.”

“I don’t care who she plays with. I want to know why she’s lying on my couch in a stupor claiming you gave her the best pain of her life?”

“The best? I’m sure that’s an exaggeration, but I’m pleased she enjoyed herself.” Søren smiled as he dug through the suitcase of kink toys Kingsley kept under every bed in the house. “I certainly enjoyed her.”

“So all that about not breaking your vows was, quoi?”

“There was no sex, and I didn’t marry her. Nor did I take money from her or refuse to obey a direct order from the pope.”

“What about—” Kingsley made a specific hand gesture.

“Well,” Søren said. “I did do that, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But we Jesuits aren’t nearly so hard-line or heavy-handed as the Curia when it comes to masturbation. My God, there are at least three puns in that last sentence. Entirely unintentional.”

“Stop joking. This is serious.”

“It’s not serious. Calm down, Kingsley.”

“I’m perfectly calm.”

“You’re speaking in tongues, Kingsley. I heard French and English, and some Spanish mixed in, and you’re speaking them all at the same time.”

“You’re a priest. A Jesuit priest. And I left the house for one hour and come back, and I’ve got a girl with afterglow on my couch eating strawberries claiming my ex-lover who is now a Catholic priest gave her the best pain of her life. I can’t ever leave my house again.”

“You know from personal experience it’s in the world’s best interest I beat someone on a regular basis. I spoke to my confessor, and he gave me leave to deal with this side of myself as long as I don’t break any vows. So there.”

“So there? No, not there. We’re not there yet. You—” Kingsley pointed at Søren. “You’re in a good mood all the time. And you talk. And you’re...nice. Well, nicer.” The word nice hurt coming out. “You’ve changed.”

“Kingsley—”

“It’s the girl, isn’t it? The Virgin Queen. I should have known.”

Søren eyed him with suspicion. “Kingsley, are you—”

“Give me a second.” Kingsley paced the room. His mind reeled. What had happened under his own roof? He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out tobacco and rolling papers.

“What are you doing?”

“I need a cigarette to calm my nerves. They’re frazzled.”

“You’re not a dowager duchess. You shouldn’t have frazzled nerves at twenty-eight,” Søren said. “And you shouldn’t be smoking, either.”

“My house, my rules. It’s a smoking house. Everyone has to smoke in my house. I won’t quit smoking, and if you stay here you have to start.” Kingsley quickly rolled a cigarette and licked the rolling paper to seal it.

“Then I’ll go back to the rectory.”

Kingsley flicked his lighter, lit his cigarette, took a long drag and glared at Søren.

“How do you give someone the best pain of their life without touching them?”

Kingsley raised the cigarette to his lips again.

He heard a snapping sound, and the cigarette no longer had a flame.

For a long time he looked at his cigarette before slowly turning his head toward Søren who held a bullwhip in his hand. Casually Søren coiled it.

Cigarette lit.

Bullwhip snap.

Cigarette not lit anymore.

He held the stub in his hand split in two.

“Any other questions?” Søren asked with an arrogant lift of his eyebrow.

Kingsley pointed at the whip, pointed at his hand, pointed at Søren...

“Can you teach me to do that?”

“I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”

Søren threw the whip down on the bed and came around to Kingsley. He raised his hands to Kingsley’s face and lifted his eyelids.

“What are your questions?” Kingsley asked, trying to blink.

“Why do you smell like a brothel? Why do you have a gun in your pants? And most importantly, what drugs are you on right now?”

9

WHEN IN DOUBT, Kingsley fucked.

And ever since Søren had caught him taking drugs, he’d been drowning in self-doubt. Now he was drowning in Blaise’s body, a vastly superior body to drown in. She’d made the mistake of looking much too attractive today when she stopped by his office to say good morning. But she hadn’t complained when he’d slipped his hand under her skirt, and she certainly wasn’t complaining now that he had her straddling him in his large leather desk chair.

“You’re in a good mood today,” Blaise said as she unbuttoned his collar. She dipped her head and kissed his lips, his neck.

“I have you on top of me. Of course I’m in a good mood.” He skimmed his fingers down her throat and into the V of her blouse.

“If you were inside me, you’d be in an even better mood.”

“Are you sure about that?” Kingsley asked. He slid his hands under her skirt and massaged her soft thighs.

“Only one way to find out, isn’t there?” Blaise bit his earlobe and whispered. “S’il vous plait, monsieur.”

“Since you ask so nicely...”

Blaise laughed as Kingsley stood up without warning and sat her down hard on the edge of his desk. He hiked her skirt up to her hips, and Blaise tensed.

“Something wrong, chouchou?” he asked.

“I love this skirt. Just don’t tear it. Please?”

“If I did, I would replace it for you.”

“It belonged to Bette Davis.”

“You and your outfits...”

Kingsley dragged her off the desk and turned her back to him. Carefully, so as not to tear the vintage fabric, he pulled the tiny zipper down and slid the skirt down her legs. She stepped out of it, and he laid it over the back of his chair.

“Are you wearing anything else that belongs to a dead actress?”

“Everything else on me or in me is fair game.”

“Good.” Kingsley tore her panties off but left her still wearing her stockings and garters. Then he spanked her hard on her bare bottom, hard enough she yelped. He did love that sound. He swatted her again even harder this time, then snapped her garter against the back of her thigh. Her skin pinked beautifully. But he preferred red, so he spanked her again.

“You’re evil,” Blaise said as she hung her head and panted in pain. “How do you make a spanking hurt that much?”

“Practice,” Kingsley said, and swatted her again. “You know you love it.”

“I hate it.”

“Are you sure about that?” Kingsley pressed her legs apart and pushed a finger inside her. “This doesn’t feel like hate to me.”

She was wet inside, very wet, and hot.

“My pussy loves you. Every other part of me hates you right now.”

“Every other part?” He brought his arm around her waist and found her swollen clitoris. He kneaded it gently.

“Okay...maybe not every other part,” Blaise said breathlessly, her lips parting. She braced herself against his desk while he touched her, one hand inside, one outside. He pushed a third finger into her vagina and opened her up for him. Blaise let out a groan of pleasure that was likely heard by everyone in the entire house. Good. He hadn’t bothered to lock his office door. Blaise’s inability to stay quiet during sex worked better than any tie on a doorknob.

“Where’s my camera when I need it?” Kingsley asked as he pushed deeper into her body until her inner muscles flinched around him. “You make quite a picture right now.”

“How’s this for a pose?” Blaise parted her legs even more, giving him a better look at all her assets.

“Très jolie,” he said with appreciation. “But this would make a better picture.”

“What would?”

Kingsley picked her up and sat her on top of his desk. He stripped her of her blouse and bra and pushed her thighs open. She had nothing on now but her stockings, her garters and a pair of high heels. Kingsley admired her body so open and ready for him.

“Parfait.”

Kingsley unzipped his pants and stroked himself to his full hardness. He let the wet tip of his cock rub against Blaise’s clitoris. She moaned and lifted her hips.

“You’re going to make me beg for it, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Don’t I always?”

“Always,” she said. “Please, fuck me.”

“Not good enough.”

Blaise sighed heavily. “Please, monsieur, fuck me. You’re the most beautiful man in New York City and maybe the entire tri-state area.”

“That’s a new one.”

“I love your hair, how soft it is, and your dark eyes. And you have the sexiest hands on any man ever.”

“Hands?”

“I like hands,” Blaise said. “It’s a girl thing.”

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Um...I love your accent, and your cock is magnificent, and if you don’t put it in me soon I will cry and it’ll ruin my makeup and it’ll be all your fault, so please fuck me now, right now, this second, or I swear to God I will forget I’m the submissive in this relationship.”

Kingsley penetrated her with one hard stroke. Blaise’s head fell back, and she lifted her hips off the desk taking him all the way into her. With a jerk of his hips he pulled out and slammed into her again. He grasped her breasts in his hands and squeezed them, lightly pinching her nipples as she writhed beneath him. She was burning up on the inside and wet enough he could hear it as he moved in her. He watched himself fucking her. With the pad of his thumb he rubbed her where their bodies joined. Blaise stiffened with pleasure and grasped the edge of his desk to steady herself. Her skin flushed red, and her nipples hardened. Inside her and all around him she pulsed with her building climax.

He was nothing now but a body. Nothing now but sex. He didn’t think, didn’t remember, didn’t need, didn’t doubt himself because he didn’t exist—not when he was fucking. He’d fuck constantly if he could. Anything to keep the memoire at bay. Anything to keep the world at bay.

With a quick yank of his hands, Kingsley dragged Blaise closer to the edge of the desk. He pushed her thighs back, wider and closer to her chest. When she was as open for him as she could be and he as deep inside her as possible, he ordered her to come for him. She grabbed his wrists and squeezed them to the point of pain the way he liked, and she came hard, her shoulders rising off the desk, her hips moving wildly against him, her voice nothing but a series of sharp desperate breaths. When she was done, Kingsley wrapped his arms around her, pulled up and pressed her chest against his. She kissed him and he kissed back, a desperate hungry kiss between lovers who knew exactly what the other one wanted. He fucked her as he kissed her, fucked her without mercy, and she took every thrust like his good girl should. He had to come, but he didn’t want to, not yet. He wanted to stay inside her hot wet hole all day and all night and until he’d died fucking her, and then he’d never have to think or remember or feel anything but the welcoming inside of a woman’s body again.

So much pressure...he could barely breathe... His thighs were shaking from the endless thrusting, his cock so sensitive it ached... In his ear Blaise whispered erotic encouragements. Come inside me, my King...I want it dripping down my thighs all day...as hard as you want...as hard as you can...

As hard as he could was hard enough that his eyes watered from the force of his own orgasm. He came with a rush, with a fierce deep spasm, and a rush of hot fluid inside her. In the back of his mind somewhere he heard Blaise crying out in what sounded like pain.

Far too quickly he came down from the high of his climax. He rested his head on Blaise’s shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him and laughed.

“You’re laughing at me?” Kingsley asked, slowly disentangling himself from her arms.

“I am. Look.” She raised her shoulder to show the bite mark on it. “You vampire.”

“I don’t remember doing that. My sincerest apologies.” He kissed the wound. He’d broken the skin but only a little.

“Don’t apologize. I love it when you give me presents.”

He pulled out of her and collapsed into his office chair.

“Your turn to handle cleanup.” He waved his hand at her, shooing her off his desk. She hopped off and pulled a box of tissues out of his desk.

“It’s always my turn to handle cleanup.”

“You’re so good at it.”

“Well, I can’t argue with that.” She knelt in front of him and used her tongue to gently lick him. It hurt. It always hurt to be touched after an orgasm. Pleasure and pain all in one act. He wasn’t satisfied until he’d had both.

When Blaise finished, she cleaned herself off with the tissues in his desk, got dressed and kissed him goodbye.

“That was fun. Want to go for round two tonight?” she asked.

“Please.”

“You’ll be sober?”

“No promises.”

Blaise rolled her eyes, kissed him again and left him alone in his office. Kingsley finished straightening his clothes and pulling himself back together. And then it happened the way it always happened. Thoughts. Memories. Things he wanted to forget but couldn’t all came rushing back into his mind. Life would be so much better if he could keep the blood in his cock and out of his brain all the time.

Kingsley unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk—the large one made to hold files—and took inventory of its contents. Eleven bottles of bourbon, two grams of cocaine, one ounce of marijuana, two bottles of pure codeine, ninety pills— one-hundred milligrams each—and one bottle of ketamine, because sometimes only a tranquilizer made for horses and the magical Wonderland it sent him falling into would do.

He reached for a bottle of the codeine, but his office door opened. Kingsley slammed the drawer shut and sat back in his chair.

“Do you never knock?” Kingsley asked.

“The moaning and groaning had stopped, and the walls have stopped rattling,” Søren said. “I assumed the coast was clear.”

“Clear for what? What are you doing here?”

“Fulfilling my end of the deal, like I said I would.”

“Are you here to yell at me again?” Kingsley asked as Søren walked in.

“I didn’t yell,” Søren said, taking a seat opposite Kingsley’s desk. “At no point did I raise my voice at you.”

“It felt like yelling.”

“Even the lightest touch can hurt an open wound. You can’t blame me for being worried about you.”

“Stop worrying. You aren’t my father.”

“I should hope not,” Søren said, furrowing his brow. “If so, my infant self has some explaining to do.”

“You aren’t my priest, either,” Kingsley said, although Søren didn’t look like a priest today. He wore his usual off-duty uniform of a long-sleeved black T-shirt and black pants.

“Why, Kingsley, aren’t we looking very defensive today.”

“Leave me alone.”

“I can’t do that. You asked me to teach you the whip trick. Here I am.”

“I asked you to teach me a whip trick?”

“I can’t say I’m surprised you don’t remember.”

“I remember.” Kingsley narrowed his eyes at him. Now that Søren had reminded him about it, he remembered.

“I can go if you’ve changed your mind,” Søren said, standing up.

“No. Sit. Don’t go.”

Søren looked at him and sat back down.

“I don’t do coke very often,” Kingsley said. “I was having a bad night. That’s all.”

“How many bad nights do you have?”

“One or two. Not many,” Kingsley said.

“I know I gave you the money with no strings attached. But I never suspected you’d use it for drugs.”

“You want the money back?”

“No. I want you to take better care of yourself. That’s all.”

“Take better care of myself? An interesting statement coming from the man who used to beat me black-and-blue on a regular basis. I see you’ve found some new whipping boys.”

“Whipping girls.”

“Only girls these days?” Kingsley asked.

“Only women. I’m less likely to go too far.”

“I loved it when you went too far.”

“And now,” Søren said with a smile, “you know why I don’t play with you.”

Kingsley lowered his head and rested his chin on his crossed arms.

“Kingsley?”

“What happened to you? You’re different,” Kingsley said.

“You want to know the truth?”

“I asked.”

“Her name is Magdalena.”

“Secret girlfriend?”

“She’s the madam of a Roman brothel. She and her employees cater to a very specific clientele.”

“Masochists?”

“Mostly.”

“That’s where you’ve been going to...” Kingsley waved his hand.

“It is.”

“Normal men join a gym to work off their extra energy,” Kingsley said. “So I’ve heard.”

“I’m not normal men. And don’t pretend you are, either.”

Kingsley rolled his eyes, waved his hand again. “So she’s your friend and...?”

“My first two years of seminary were difficult. I’m not sure I would have made it without Magdalena. I owe her, but she refused to accept any form of remuneration from me.”

“I’ve known a lot of prostitutes. Never heard of one refusing money from a john. Of course, it’s you, and I’d pay you money for another—”

“Kingsley, she and I never slept together. We were friends. I learned from her.”

“You learned how to knock a cigarette out of someone’s mouth with a whip?”

“One of the first skills she taught me, yes,” Søren said.

Now Kingsley knew what Søren’s “other hobbies” were. He’d learned the art and science of sadism over the past decade. Sounded far more useful to Kingsley than a degree in theology.

“I traveled a great deal while in school,” Søren continued, “but when I was in Rome, not a week passed that I didn’t find myself at her home.”

“She let you hurt her?”

“She did,” Søren said. “Although she herself is a sadist. And a very good one.”

“How good?”

Søren looked away and smiled at something before looking back at Kingsley.

“She was very mean to me,” Søren said.

Kingsley pointed at him. “Good. Someone needs to be. Is the reason for all this...” He waved his hand again.

“This what?”

“Good behavior?”

“I just told you I went to a brothel every week in seminary to learn sadism from a madam. You have an interesting definition of good behavior.”

“When I started at St. Ignatius, everyone was terrified of you. Everyone. Tout le monde. Even the priests were afraid of you, and they liked you. You didn’t even speak to other students. You were this impenetrable blond fortress, and everyone hated you—for good reason. What happened?”

“I grew up,” Søren said. “I’m not in high school anymore. That does wonders for a person.”

“I don’t like it,” Kingsley said.

“You don’t like me?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Kingsley admitted. “When we were in school, we were all like scared puppies, and you, you were a wolf. I don’t like seeing you...”

“What?”

“Domesticated. They even put a collar on you.”

“I put on my own collar.”

“You used to scare me.”

“Have you considered the possibility that the reason I don’t scare you now is that you aren’t a puppy anymore?”

Søren waited.

Kingsley looked at Søren and barked. Søren only looked at him. Maybe he should try a bite next time.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Søren said, “the wolf is still there, but he’s on a stronger leash.”

“You let the wolf off the leash with me.”

“Which is why I needed a stronger leash.”

“I don’t know if I want to pay this Magdalena person for making you boring.”

“What she did was make me take myself less seriously, which is, as you know, the first of three miracles she’ll need to qualify for sainthood.”

“I envy her,” Kingsley said. “She had you in her life. I never thought I’d see you again.”

“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if it wasn’t for her,” Søren said. “I wouldn’t have been able to face you without her help.”

“Then I suppose I owe her, too. Even if you do yell at me.”

“I don’t yell.”

“What’s her address?” Kingsley asked.

“Why?”

“I’ll send her a check. If she’s the reason you’re here right now, then I owe her and you both.”

Søren sighed, picked up a pen and a scrap of paper off Kingsley’s desk and wrote the address. He held it out, and Kingsley reached for it. Søren pulled it back out of his grasp.

“I know what you’re doing,” Søren said.

“What am I doing?”

Søren glanced to the right and looked pointedly at Kingsley’s filing cabinets.

“Blaise has a big mouth,” Kingsley said. “One of her better qualities. Usually.”

“Here,” Søren said and gave Kingsley the address. “You should visit her. She could help you like she helped me.”

“I’m fine,” Kingsley said. “You act like I’m falling apart.”

“You were shot last year and almost died.”

Kingsley shrugged. “Worked out well for me, didn’t it? Someone came to my death bed and left me an ‘I’m sorry’ gift.”

“It wasn’t a gift. And it wasn’t an apology. It was a payment.”

“Payment? For what?”

Søren reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a tiny clear plastic tube. He sat it on Kingsley’s desk.

“What is this?” Kingsley asked as he picked up the small tube. A few flecks of metal danced in the afternoon sunlight.

“If you were a cat, that would be one of your lives.”

“This is my bullet?” Kingsley asked in shock.

“What’s left of it.”

“Why do you have it?”

“I wanted it,” Søren said. “I took it. I paid you for it. So now you don’t owe me anything.”

“They gave it to you in the hospital?”

“I asked for it.”

Kingsley spun the tube, pretending to study the shrapnel. In truth, he couldn’t care less what it looked like. All that mattered was that Søren had kept it. Why? Was it a talisman? A memento? A reminder of the last time they’d seen each other? Kingsley thought about reaching into his pocket. In it was a small silver cross on a broken silver chain—the one memento he’d keep from his first night with Søren. The cross and the memories.

“You kept this? All this time you’ve had my bullet with you?” Kingsley asked.

“I have. If you want it back, you’ll have to pay for it.”

“I will never understand you,” Kingsley said.

“Then stop trying.” He held out his hand, and Kingsley dropped the tube with the bullet fragments into his palm. He liked the idea of Søren having this piece of himself in his possession. Was there an object in the world more intimate to a victim than the weapon that had nearly killed him? These bullet fragments had been inside Kingsley’s body and had almost destroyed him. Instead of ending his life, that shot had changed his life. No wonder Søren felt such a kinship to those deadly remnants. They had much in common.

Søren pocketed the tube that held Kingsley’s bullet fragment.

“Are you ready?” Søren asked.

“Yes. For what?”

At that Søren smiled—a devilish sexy smile that made Kingsley completely forget for a moment that it was a Catholic priest who sat in his office and not the Søren of old who had used him as a human target on a regular basis.

He lifted his hand, crooked a finger at Kingsley.

“Now?” Kingsley asked.

“You had plans?” Søren asked. “My free time is limited, as you know.”

“Hosting an exorcism tonight?” Kingsley asked.

“Worse. Couples’ counseling.”

“Same thing,” Kingsley said. “It’s all your fault. No one told you to get a real job.”

Kingsley stood up and came around the desk.

“I like my job,” Søren said as he followed Kingsley from the office. “You should think about getting one, too. You’ll be surprised how enjoyable it is to be useful to society.”

“You know what else is enjoyable?”

“What?”

“Not having a job.”

Kingsley led Søren to his personal playroom.

“This is my real office,” Kingsley said, opening the door. He had a St. Andrew’s Cross, a rack, an X-bar, several spreader bars, all the bondage cuffs and equipment one man could ever need.

“Like it?”

“It’ll do,” Søren said, although Kingsley could see Søren eying everything with interest.

Every one of the bedrooms in the house had kink equipment in it. Vanilla sorts were not welcome in his home. And on the rare occasion they did infiltrate the town house, they were not vanilla after they left.

“How often do you play?” Kingsley asked.

“Whenever I can,” Søren said. “When it’s safe. If I go longer than a month, I get... What’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Lethal?”

“Unpleasant. You?”

“As often as I can. Once a day at least.”

“Once a day? Who’s the lucky recipient of that honor?”

“Trust me, you don’t have time for the list of people I play with. I’ve probably fucked every submissive in Manhattan. I may have to move to Brooklyn.”

“Only submissives?”

“Only submissives.”

“That’s unusual for you, isn’t it?” Søren crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Kingsley.

“Why? Because I bottomed for you, I have to do it for the rest of the world?”

“Not the rest of the world. One person at least. I remember.”

“What do you remember?”

“How much you needed it, wanted it.”

“I needed you, not it.”

“You loved submitting to pain. Why the change?”

“I don’t bottom anymore. Fin,” Kingsley said. “The end.”

Søren studied Kingsley’s face as if looking at an alien specimen.

“Are you going to teach me the whip trick or not?” Kingsley demanded.

“I will, but this conversation isn’t over yet, whether you fin-ed it or not.”

“Show me the trick.”

“There’s no trick to it,” Søren said as he scanned the rows of single-tails on the wall. He took one down, pulled it taut, coiled it again and hung it back on the wall. A second single-tail whip proved more to his liking. “It takes a great deal of practice. And I’m not the teacher Magdalena is. She could have you flipping quarters in midair with a single-tail in two weeks.”

“Then why isn’t she teaching me?”

“She’s in Rome. Have you used a whip before?”

“On the back—large target.”

“Then you’ll need to practice on a smaller target. Not a person.” Søren had one of Kingsley’s business cards in his hand. He stabbed it over a hook on the wall.

“You want me to hit that?” Kingsley asked. “A business card?”

Søren put his hand on the center of Kingsley’s chest and pushed him back...back...back until he was against the wall.

“No,” Søren said. “I’m going to hit it. You’re going to watch. From a safe distance.”

Søren stepped away, coiled the whip, put his right foot before his left foot and then released the whip with a quick snap. With the tip of the whip, Søren cut the business card neatly in half.

Kingsley applauded as he walked up to the card. The cut sliced the card right down the middle between the word Edge and Enterprises.

“Such a good trick,” he said, impressed.

“Whips are multipurpose,” Søren said. “Good for pain. Good for bondage.”

“Bondage?” Kingsley asked, reaching for the card.

Søren lightly flung the whip at him. It wrapped around Kingsley’s wrist. He laughed even as it tightened, and Søren tugged on it, pulling him closer.

“Nice,” Kingsley said, his breath quickening. “What else?”

“Wrists,” Søren said, taking Kingsley’s other wrist and wrapping the supple leather whip around his hands. “Ankles even. The neck, too, but you have to be careful. Do you want to see Magdalena’s favorite trick?”

“Show me.”

Søren had left an eight-inch length of whip between Kingsley’s right wrist and left wrist. He spun Kingsley around quickly and pulled his back to Søren’s chest, bringing the whip hard against Kingsley’s throat.

The world fell out from under Kingsley.

He blinked, and the walls turned to black, the temperature dropped and when he breathed in he smelled sulfur.

He dropped to his knees and yanked at the chain around his neck. If he could get his fingers between the chain and his throat he had a chance. The air went out of the room. He could hear nothing, see nothing. But he could feel, and what he felt was a wet-hole cavern in his chest, bone shattering and a lung collapsing.

No air. None. No matter how he gasped, how he gulped, how he fought, he could get no air.

Someone spoke...Slovakian? Ukrainian? He couldn’t tell. The voice was too far away...and it didn’t matter.

He was dying.

He was dying.

A bullet in his chest. A chain around his neck.

He was dead.

“Kingsley.”

He heard his name but didn’t respond. Dead men don’t scream.

“Kingsley, you’re in Manhattan. You’re home.”

He wasn’t home. He was bleeding to death on a shit-stained basement floor in Ljubljana.

“You’re alive.”

No, he wasn’t.

“Open your eyes. Can you hear me?”

He heard something in his ears. A popping. It startled him. He jumped. His eyes flew open. The world was a haze. But he did see something, a gray light.

“You have to breathe.”

He heard something other than the voice. A deep loud gasping wheeze. Over and over again.

Kingsley felt something on his back, a hand hitting him hard. It should have scared him, but instead the pain and the rhythm brought him back to himself.

“Kingsley, talk to me,” the voice ordered. It was Søren. His voice. His hand.

“I’m fine,” Kingsley said.

“Stop lying to me. You aren’t fine.”

Kingsley looked down. He sat on the floor of his playroom, his back to the wall. His shirt was sticky with sweat and his throat raw from wheezing.

“I’m fine,” he said again.

“Was that a panic attack?” Søren asked, crouching in front of him. “Or a flashback?”

“It was nothing.” Kingsley’s body was tense. His hands shook. “I think I spaced out for a second.”

“Two minutes,” Søren said. “Not one second.”

Kingsley tried to stand, but Søren put his hand on Kingsley’s shoulder and held him in place.

“Stay down. Look at me.”

“I don’t want to look at you,” Kingsley said.

“I don’t care. Look at me.” Søren took Kingsley by the chin, forcing the eye contact. “Tell me where you were.”

“Slovenia.”

“Why?”

“I was shot there.”

“Is that all that happened?”

“I think so.”

He glanced away. It hurt to be looked at like this, with such concern and pity. That wasn’t how he wanted Søren to look at him. He wanted Søren to look at him with lust and desire and want and hunger.

He tried to stand up again, but Søren still wouldn’t let him.

“I touched your throat with the whip, and you started wheezing like you were actually choking,” Søren said. “You fell to your knees and wouldn’t speak.”

“I’m fine,” Kingsley said for the third and final time.

Søren sighed and pushed a damp lock of hair off Kingsley’s forehead.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Søren said, his tone almost, but not quite, apologetic.

“You didn’t scare me. I’m not scared.” His racing heart, his churning stomach made a liar of him.

“Well, this answers my question.”

“What question?” Kingsley asked, dropping his head. He didn’t want to look in Søren’s eyes. He saw fear in them, not of Kingsley but for Kingsley. And something told him Søren wouldn’t be touching him again for a very long time.

If ever.

“Now I know why you don’t let anyone hurt you anymore.”

Kingsley looked up at Søren from the floor.

“Get out of my house,” Kingsley said.

“Kingsley?”

“You said I don’t owe you anything. Get the fuck out of my house.”

Søren got the fuck out.

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