Nora’s heart broke for him. He lowered his head to her lap again and she swiped at a tear on her cheek. Nora didn’t tell Kingsley what she’d done or said to Søren. She didn’t tell him about her plane ticket and her vows. He was already grieving Søren’s loss. Kingsley didn’t need one more thing to mourn.

“Why does it always have to hurt so much?” Kingsley asked.

“What?”

“Life.”

Nora smiled. “God’s a sadist. That’s why.”

“You think so?”

“Oh, I know so,” Nora said. “I’m a writer. I do what God does in miniature every time I write a book. I create worlds and people out of nothing—ex nihilo—and I torture the fuck out of them for four hundred pages.”

“Because you’re a sadist?”

“Partly that. Plus...if I didn’t torture them it would be a real fucking short book. And trust me on this, King, there is no money in short stories.”

Kingsley laughed and buried his head into her lap again, seeking her comfort and safety and the shelter of someone stronger.

“You’ve solved the oldest theological conundrum of all time,” Kingsley said. “Why does God allow suffering? Because there’s no money in short stories.”

“I’ll tell you one more little secret about being a god. Even though I torture them for four hundred pages, it hurts me to do it.”

“They aren’t real. Why does it hurt?”

“I created them. They’re mine. I love them. God loves us, too, even when He hurts us. Especially when He hurts us, I imagine.”

“Søren created me,” Kingsley said. “I owe my life to him, my world, my kingdom. Even Juliette. I never would have met her if he and I hadn’t fought. I can’t live without him any more than you can live without God.”

“If I thought going back to him would fix everything for you and me and him, I would do it.”

“Forgive me,” Kingsley said. “I’m being selfish.”

“You’re scared. So am I.”

“What do we do?” Kingsley looked up at her again awaiting her answer.

“What we always do.”

“What’s that?”

Nora bent over and kissed him. Against his lips she whispered one word.

“Fuck.”

“Now, that is the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

34

The Endgame

NORA GATHERED TOYS from the playroom and took them to Kingsley’s bedroom where he waited for her. She locked the door behind her. The house was empty. No one was home but the two of them, which meant she could destroy Kingsley if she wanted to.

And she wanted to.

“Since I fired you, does this mean I don’t have to pay you?” Kingsley asked as she started to undress him. She pushed his jacket off his shoulders and unbuttoned his vest.

“I don’t want your money tonight. Just you. Just us.”

“You can have your job back. Tomorrow,” he said. “Tonight—”

She covered his lips with one finger. No more talking necessary. She knew what he meant to say, that tonight they wanted nothing between them. They needed this, needed the comfort of each other. Nora and Kingsley were a secret society of two. The two acolytes of Søren. His acolytes, his lovers, his twin children whether they liked it or not. They had to grieve together because only they knew what they could be losing. So tonight wasn’t a job, it wasn’t an appointment and Kingsley wasn’t a client.

Without another word, Nora stripped Kingsley naked. She drew him to the end of the bed and bound his hands high on the bedpost. A long slant of evening sunlight snuck into the room between and under the heavy damask curtains. She’d rarely seen Kingsley like this, naked in sunlight. She’d taken an art class in college and recalled being taught that all visual images were a combination of light, color, line, texture, mass and motion. The dappling light cast shadows on his body. His thick eyelashes looked dipped in gold. The color of his skin was olive and his hair was as dark as his eyes and his eyes were as dark as the wick of a candle after the fire had gone out. His body was composed of the straight line of his back, the curve of powerful shoulders, the V of his hips and the ridge of muscles in his legs and arms. His smooth warm skin was interrupted with whorls of old scars that would never fully heal. The mass of him was dense with muscle, hard with desire. And the motion of him was stillness, but active stillness, waiting stillness, strength in repose, power enchained. A work of art.

Nora kissed him in the center of his back between his shoulder blades. A kiss like a blessing.

“Je vous honore,” she whispered. She might be his domme, but he was still her King.

From her case of toys she’d brought in from the playroom, she pulled out one whip. Then she pulled out a second one.

She brought them over to Kingsley.

“Two?” he asked.

“Don’t worry. I’ve gotten much better at tandem whipping in two years.”

“But two?”

“Trust me,” she said. She lifted the handle of each whip to his lips and Kingsley kissed the knots. “How much pain do you want?”

“Hurt me until I forget how much I hurt,” he whispered.

Nora kissed his lips and whispered a “With pleasure” in return.

She stood back from him and made a few practice cracks with the whips. The whips were in her thrall and danced at her every command. For the past two years she’d practiced her whip work, wanting to be better than Søren, as good as Milady. But not to show off or impress anyone. She learned how to use two whips in tandem so she could do this—hurt Kingsley until he forgot how much he hurt.

Nora hurt him.

She focused her attentions on the sides of his body, striking him over and over again from the back and outside of his thighs to the sides of his hips. She struck his back along the sides as well, leaving the spine alone while she ravaged him along his rib cage all the way to his shoulders and down to his hips again. She dropped the second whip and used the one in her right hand to pinpoint her strikes. By the time she finished Kingsley had tiger stripes on both sides of his body, wrapping around his rib cage to his chest. Shallow wounds but bleeding. Nora could have taken him down then but she didn’t. He needed to feel pain and she needed to give it. With a heavy flogger she flogged the welts from the whip, stacking pain upon pain, layering welts on top of whip wounds. Kingsley had been quiet at first but now his gasps and cries of pain flowed freely. She gave him more pain than she gave to anyone else because he wanted it and because he could take it. What was the old saying—that which does not kill us only makes us stronger? If that was true, then Kingsley might be the strongest man alive.

Finally Nora dropped the bloodstained flogger. She unbound Kingsley and he dropped to his knees, unable to stand.

“I want you,” she said, stroking his hair.

“You have me.”

She bade him to stand, bade him to pull the covers and sheets back. Because it would hurt the most, she ordered him to lie on his back in the center of the bed. She cuffed his wrists to the headboard and undressed. Now naked, she sat on his stomach, lowered her mouth to his mouth and kissed him. He was hard and she felt his thick erection against her wet labia. Unable to resist, she pushed down and against his cock and his head fell back with the pleasure of it.

“Please...” he said.

“Are you sure?”

Nora couldn’t deny him this simple request. She wanted it as much as he did. She pushed down and against him again and he lifted his hips up and into her. Slowly he worked his bare cock inside her. It would be fine. She had her IUD now. They were clean and there was nothing to be afraid of. Having nothing between them as he entered her felt like a step down a path they’d been afraid to take together. A path that might eventually lead them to where they could forgive each other and love each other and let the past go entirely.

Nora pressed her hands into Kingsley’s lacerated sides as she rode him. His pain stoked his pleasure and he inhaled sharply, his head falling back against the black sheets again. She kissed the hollow of his throat, bit at his ears, bit at his chest and clavicle. Her body throbbed around his cock, clenching at it, squeezing it, holding it, caressing it with her inner muscles that wanted to take all of him into her as deep as she could, so deep it hurt. He pushed his heels into the bed and thrust into her from below hard enough to lift her off the bed. She clung to the headboard to steady herself as their bodies rocked together wildly, urgently. Wetness dripped out of her and coated his hips. Her teeth scored his shoulders. The pounding intensified into something animal, something blinding, something raw and fierce with need as naked and hungry as they were. Nora held off from coming as long as she could. She wanted to wait for him and he for her. When they came at last they came together, the orgasm obliterating sight and breath and even the world as it rocked through them, a shuddering that went on forever until it ended and Nora collapsed onto Kingsley’s chest.