“You’re my responsibility, mon amour,” Juliette said to Kingsley, sounding sensible as always. “She isn’t.”

Nora sunk back into the chair, stretched her legs out and let her arms flop to the sides in despair. It wasn’t a terribly ladylike position for a woman wearing an A-line skirt, a silk fitted blouse and high heels. She’d had a fitting early that morning with a tailor and had attempted to dress as one would expect an off-duty dominatrix to dress. Now that the whole fucking Underground knew that she, Eleanor, was also her, Mistress Nora, she had to start dressing the part. At least the heels were spiked stilettos so she could kill someone with them if she needed to. Or just wanted to.

“Elle?” Kingsley said. Nora raised her head and frowned at him. “Nora.”

“Better.”

“Nora, listen. You can do this. You can beat her.”

“I want to beat her. I want to beat her black-and-blue. No. Actually I don’t want to beat her.” Nora sat up straight and stared down Kingsley. “This is what I want to do. I want to find out who she loves. I want to find a man she owns and adores. Then I want to beat him. I want to fuck him. Then I want to send him back to her with my name carved on his back and my phone number tattooed on his cock. That’s what I want.”

Kingsley met her eyes across his desk.

“I told you she was a sadist,” he said to Juliette.

Juliette smiled. “If I doubted you before, I don’t anymore.”

He looked at Juliette and nodded slightly. Juliette gathered files and rose from her desk. She bent and kissed Kingsley on both cheeks.

“I will let you two talk in private.” She gave Nora a curtsy before gracefully walking out of the office and closing the door behind her.

Once they were alone Kingsley stood up and walked around the desk. He held out his hand and Nora took it. With one tug he pulled her up to stand in front of him.

“Calm down,” he said.

“I can’t.”

“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to my cock,” Kingsley said.

“Should have known.”

“Listen to me.” Kingsley took her face in his hands. “You know there is no one on earth who appreciates your passion for inflicting cruel and unusual punishments on your enemies more than I do. That is my language and you are speaking it fluently. But we have to be calm and rational if we’re going to win against Milady. Going out and fucking and beating everyone she knows won’t solve anything.”

“Yeah, but it would be fun.”

“You are drunk on freedom.”

“I have to admit, I’m kind of liking not answering to a man. Last night...that guy? Thorny? He’s cute.”

“Très cute.”

“Two years ago if I saw him at the club, I’d have to beg Søren’s permission to even talk to him. Now if he wants and I want, we can do what we want when we want, and I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission. I can even do this...” Nora leaned in and kissed Kingsley on the lips. How could she not? He was so close and looked so handsome in his black trousers, black boots, gray shirt and black vest. Not a lord or a duke, but a king to the bone. He didn’t hesitate to return the kiss, but he kept the passion enchained. This was a slow kiss, deep and sensual. A kiss that could and should last for hours. “I can kiss you and no one has to know. I can kiss you because I want to kiss you, not because he’s sharing me with you. I’m sharing me with you.”

“You always were. You never spread your legs for me just to make him happy. Even that first night when you were only twenty, we both know you did it for you.”

Nora kissed him again, which was the best way she knew of admitting he was right.

“I’ll do it for you now. Let’s go to the playroom,” Nora whispered against his lips. “I need to practice my flogging on someone.”

Kingsley laughed, a low sensuous laugh. “Not yet.”

“I know you want it,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder.

“I want it.”

“You don’t think I’m ready yet?”

“You don’t think you’re ready yet. If you did, it would have happened already.”

Nora groaned—loudly.

“You’re driving me crazy, King.” She collapsed into her chair in frustration.

“Believe me, the feeling is mutual.” Kingsley knelt in front of her and placed his hands on her bare thighs.

“She beat the shit out of a man just to intimidate me,” Nora said as Kingsley slid his hands up her legs and under her skirt. “I just... I hate her. I’m not used to hating anybody. Except him. But...”

“What?” Kingsley asked as he slid her panties down her thighs.

“I have to win, King. I can’t lose to that woman.”

“You won’t. I’ll make sure of it, Mistress.” He pushed her legs open and draped them over each arm of the chair. With his fingertips he parted the folds of her vulva. He leaned close and licked her. Nora sighed with pleasure and dug her hand into Kingsley’s hair, holding his head right where she needed it. She wanted to hurt him and she wanted to fuck him but she hadn’t passed his stupid test yet, so she would take his tongue on her clitoris as a compromise until she figured out how to beat him at his own game.

Kingsley was a master of the French kiss and that’s what he gave her now, but not on her mouth. His tongue darted in and out of her vagina, his lips sucked her lips, licked her lips, massaged her lips until everything between her legs throbbed with need. She couldn’t kiss him back but she let him know with her gasps and moans he pleased her. He pushed a finger into her and rubbed along her pubic bone where a bundle of nerves came to life at his expert touch. Hooking his finger under and in, he pushed against that soft indentation inside her, creating a sensation so acute, so pleasurable, that fluid burst from her inner lips and some deep interior muscle clamped onto the aching emptiness in her. Nora inhaled and didn’t exhale. Her body went stiff. Kingsley’s hot tongue circled her clitoris and she came with a cry, with her hips hovering an inch off her seat, with one hand buried in his hair and the other hand clenching so hard to the chair arms her fingernails left half-moons in the leather upholstery.

Kingsley sat back, still on his knees, and pulled his gray silk handkerchief from his pocket. He used it first to wipe the wetness off his lips and then to wipe the wetness off hers. Because he was Kingsley, when finished he put it back in his breast pocket.

“Feel better?” he asked, standing up.

“I still want to kill her,” Nora said, slowly closing her legs.

“If you still feel like killing anyone after what I just did to you, it’s serious.”

“Yes, it’s fucking serious. She’s so good. I’ve never seen whip work like that. Søren doesn’t even use two whips at once. And you won’t let me touch one whip, much less two. How am I going to beat a domme like that? I don’t even have a whip—”

“Yes, you do.”

“What?”

Kingsley grinned a devilish grin. He cocked his head to the side. Twice.

“Are you having a seizure?” Nora asked.

“On top of the filing cabinet.”

“I was supposed to understand ‘there’s something on top of the filing cabinet’ from two head nods?”

“Just go.”

Nora raised her eyebrow and on slightly shaking legs walked over to Kingsley’s antique wooden filing cabinets. On the very top of the one closest to his desk sat a wooden box she hadn’t noticed until now. She lifted the lid and there it was.

“It’s red,” she said, lifting the red leather whip out of the box.

“Milady wears all white. Mistress Irina wears all black. You will wear all red.”

“Bloodred,” Nora said, gazing in wonder at the whip. The leather was soft, slick and supple and the handle was carved ebony wood.

“They say Mary, Queen of Scots, wore red to her own execution. The perfect color to wear if you’re going to get bloody.”

“Red is a Catholic color,” she said, turning to face Kingsley. “She wore red because she was a Catholic and was being martyred for her faith.”