Текст книги "The Queen"

Автор книги: Tiffany Reisz

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8

Seven

THEY TOOK A cab to his new place in Chelsea where Griffin had moved three months ago. Inside the apartment he tossed the keys into a silver bowl and locked the door behind them. He offered a tour of the new digs but she declined. All she wanted to see was the bedroom and the bedroom did not disappoint. His bed was a king-size, low to the ground and minimalist. Black frame—padded black leather headboard, metal slatted footboard. The headboard was for cushioning the head during rough sex. The footboard was for bondage. She gave Griffin credit—the kid could decorate like a motherfucker. The coverlet and sheets were black, red and white. Apart from the bed he had nothing much else in his room except for a black leather Chesterfield sofa, the sort of sofa one fucked on if one were the sort to fuck on sofas, which Griffin was.

Elle stood facing the bed. Behind her, Griffin locked the door and came up to her. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the side of her neck.

“I’m all yours,” he whispered.

“I have to tell you something.”

“Anything.”

“I haven’t had sex with a man in over a year.”

Griffin grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around to face him. He looked at her as if she’d sprouted a second head.

“How are you even alive? Over a year without sex? How’s that even possible?”

“I was in a convent, Griffin. No men in convents.”

“Then order delivery. There are people who will bring the sex to your house.”

Elle laughed. “It’s okay. I said I hadn’t had sex with a man in over a year. I have had sex.”

His wide eyes widened even wider. If they got any wider, they’d fall out of his head.

“You fucked a girl.”

“Shh...don’t tell.”

Griffin fell sideways, collapsing on the bed.

“Griff?”

He rose up on his elbows. “Was she hot?”

“She was a twenty-one-year-old virgin with small breasts and long legs. And yes, she was hot.”

“She was a virgin until you?”

“Yes. I fisted her our first night together.”

Griffin gasped and looked down at his crotch.

“Oh, my God,” he said.

“What’s wrong?”

“My cock twitched. I didn’t know it could do that.”

“Can you be serious for two seconds?”

“I am serious. It wiggled like one of those plastic flower toys that dance when you play music.”

“I haven’t had anyone or anything inside me for a long time. I might be a little...tight.”

“I can handle tight. I buy lube in bulk. Can we fuck now please?”

“Not yet. You aren’t ready.”

Griffin looked down at his crotch.

“He just told me he’s ready,” Griffin said. “Telepathically.”

Elle sighed. Heavily. She did want him, and his cock, but he’d agreed to bottom for her, and she wasn’t about to rush this or waste her chance. But what to do to him...?

“You’re bi—” she said.

“I am? Oh, yeah. I am. Sorry. I’m focused on your pussy right now. Almost forgot.”

“You have a leather chest harness somewhere, don’t you?”

“Maybe...somewhere...” He didn’t sound excited about the prospect of wearing one.

“Will you wear it for me?”

“Must I?” he asked.

“I’ve masturbated to the thought of fucking you while you’re naked but for a chest harness.”

“It’s in the closet, back wall, hanging on a hook next to the spreader bars.”

She retrieved the harness and laid it on the bed next to Griffin.

“What’s with the beard?” she asked as she ran her hand over the soft scruff on his cheeks and chin.

“I was roughing it. Went backpacking to Clingman’s Dome with friends. Got back a couple days ago.”

“How was the Dome?” She tugged his gray T-shirt off and threw it onto the floor.

“I didn’t get to the top. I came home early.”

“Why? Bored?” She slipped the harness on him and buckled it in place.

“I checked my messages. King said you were back.”

Elle was silent a moment. She swallowed before speaking again.

“You came back from your trip early, because you heard I came back?”

“Told you,” he said, shrugging. “I missed you.”

“I didn’t think anyone would miss me. I mean, anyone but him.”

“Søren.”

“Yeah, him.”

“I know this might surprise you, but I’d gotten used to the idea of thinking we were friends. Almost best friends,” he said. “I wanted us to be that and you acted like that’s what you wanted, too. Then you disappeared and you didn’t tell me where you went or why you left. So obviously we weren’t best friends if you couldn’t tell me where you were going, which is fine. That’s cool. But knowing you didn’t feel the same about me didn’t make me feel any differently about you. When King said you were back in the city, I came back the same day. And when he said he wanted me to keep an eye on you since you were, you know, going through a rough adjustment period, I said I would. Because maybe if I keep an eye on you, next time you run off I’ll know where you went.”

Simple words and not very eloquent, yet they somehow slipped through the cracks in the hard shell she’d built around herself since leaving the convent. No, since leaving Søren.

“Do you want to be my best friend?”

“With benefits?” he asked.

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

“I’m in,” he said grinning broadly. “Buddy.”

“Good, old pal.” She pushed him onto his back and straddled his hips. He looked utterly delectable in his black jeans, his leather harness. She ran her hands up and down his taut stomach, tracing the edges of the harness, caressing his chest and arms. She kissed his scruffy, handsome face and wondered at the change in him. He’d always been a charmer, a rogue, a wicked playboy trust-fund baby cracking dirty jokes and acting as the life of the party, every party. No one who knew him as Master Griffin would believe he was on his back for her. No one would believe he had this tenderness to him. Where had he been hiding it? Did it show itself with her because they were friends? Or was it something else? Or maybe it wasn’t Griffin who’d changed at all. Maybe it was her. Maybe she’d changed. Maybe it was always there and now she finally noticed it.

Elle lowered her mouth to his ear and whispered, “Pick a number between one and ten.”

“What?”

She pulled back and looked down at him.

“You heard me.”

“What am I picking?”

“I’m not going to tell you until you’ve picked your number,” she said.

“But how do I know what number to pick until I know what I’m picking?”

“Exactly.”

Griffin narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re evil.”

“Still waiting on that number, Griff.”

“Fine. I don’t know. Seven?”

“Seven. Good.”

“What’s good? Why is seven good?” Griffin sounded slightly panicked.

“Because seven is the number of orgasms you’re going to give me today. And when I’ve had seven you can fuck me. And you can’t fuck me until I’ve had seven.”

“Seven orgasms? You want me to get you off seven times? One-for-each-day-of-the-week seven?”

“Is that a problem?” She cocked her head at him.

“Yes, that’s a problem. A big problem,” Griffin said.

“Is it? And why so?” she asked.

Griffin grinned up at her, a grin she felt right in her belly.

“Because I should have picked ten.”

Elle laughed and kissed him again.

“Ten might kill me,” she said.

“But what a way to go.”

Standing up, Elle crooked her finger at Griffin, who slipped his hands into her underwear and started to slide them down her legs.

“Fold them,” she said.

“What?”

“Fold my underwear. Don’t throw them.”

“You threw my T-shirt.”

“Who’s in charge here? Hmm?”

“You are.”

“Good. Now fold them.”

Griffin gave her the classic “you’ve gotta be kidding me but if it’ll get me laid...” look and obediently folded her black silk panties. Clearly he hadn’t folded much women’s underwear in his life as they resembled a pocket handkerchief when he’d finished with them. Someday they would go out in formalwear, and she’d make Griffin put her panties in his breast pocket.

“Any rules?” he asked.

“You can use your mouth, fingers and toys, but no cock.” She crawled back onto the bed and lay back on the pillows.

“How many fingers?”

“Are you asking if you can fist me?”

“They don’t call me Griffin Fist because I know how to box.”

“If you can get your whole hand in there, then you’re welcome to. But I’ll be surprised.”

“Have a little faith in me. I’m the David Copperfield of fisting.”

“The Dickens character or the magician?”

“There’s fisting in Dickens? I should have majored in English instead of art.” Griffin winked at her as he grabbed a pillow from the head of his bed and pushed it under her hips. He kissed her again on the mouth and she sensed real affection in Griffin’s kiss. He cared for her. It made it easier for her to relax and open her legs for him without any nervousness or self-consciousness.

With the tips of his fingers, Griffin found her clitoris and lightly rubbed it as he kissed her neck. Passionate kisses on a naked neck. No, she didn’t miss her collar at all.

Griffin slid down her body and settled between her thighs. Carefully he parted her wet folds, touching her at first with his fingers. When he lowered his head and licked her clitoris she inhaled sharply. Such sudden pleasure, it was a gift.

“The clit.” Elle sighed. “The only organ on the human body designed solely for pleasure. Proof God is a woman.”

Griffin laughed and his warm breath brushed over her most sensitive parts. He worked his tongue over her again and again, lightly at first and then harder as she began to pant. What was better? What she felt or what she saw? Looking down and seeing Griffin’s naked shoulders, the leather harness strapped on his back moving with every breath, the hard muscle, the tan, the prominent ridge of biceps as he held himself in place. Bare feet. Ripped black jeans. A willingness to submit to her.

“You were the right man to break my dry spell,” Elle said.

“Welcome to a long, hard wet spell,” Griffin said, a divine bit of poetry.

He pushed his tongue deep inside her before returning his attentions to her clitoris. He slipped a finger into her and pressed into the soft depression right under her pubic bone. Elle let out a very un-domme-like gasp of pleasure. She was so close...so close... She hadn’t been touched so intimately in so long she knew she would come any second now. Any second... Everything throbbed inside her, everything ached, and her hips rose off the bed and pulsed against Griffin’s mouth. Between her thighs his head dipped and his tongue licked and his lips sucked and she came with a cry, clinging to the pillow Griffin had put underneath her.

He rose up as she panted to calm her racing heart.

Griffin wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand.

“One down,” he said. “Six to go.”

“I’m not going to survive it,” she said, panting hard. “I should have made you pick a number between one and five.”

“Too late. Don’t give someone as competitive as I am a challenge if you don’t want me to do it.”

With that pronouncement, Griffin’s head disappeared again. Not between her legs but under the bed.

“Griff?”

“Be right back,” he said and she heard him rummaging under the bed for something. She put both her legs on his back to anchor him and because she really wanted to put her boots on his back.

“You make a very sexy ottoman, Mr. Fiske,” she said.

“I’m not Turkish.”

“I meant the furniture, you ridiculous slut.”

When Griffin resurfaced from his under-the-bed diving expedition, he had a metal briefcase with him.

“What’s that?” she asked, eyeing it as he clicked the locks.

He opened the lid and turned it to face her.

“Vibrator collection,” he said. “Brand-new. Time to christen them. Your pussy is their maiden voyage.”

“You’re a man with a vibrator collection?”

“I was a Boy Scout a million years ago. Gotta be prepared.” He gave her a three-fingered salute.

Griffin set the open briefcase next to her on another pillow. He sat back on his knees and unzipped his pants.

“No cock yet,” she said wagging her finger in that way Kingsley wagged his. Great, now she was doing it. Must be a dom thing.

“I know, but I want to get closer to you. Is that okay?”

She smiled at him. “Very okay. But first—touch yourself.”

His jeans were unzipped and open, hanging low on his narrow hips. She wished she had a camera to take a picture of this scene—Griffin running his hand up and down and all over his erection, the look on his face as he stared directly in her eyes while he did it, shameless, sensual, sexual, all in one.

She crooked her finger at him and he crawled over her kissing her on the mouth again.

“Can I take your clothes off?” he asked. “Please?”

“Of course.”

She sat up to help him pull her shirt off. This time she didn’t have to tell him to fold it neatly and put it away like a good boy. Fast learner. She liked that.

He unzipped her denim skirt and folded it. He slid her bra off her arms and hung it from the knob on the nightstand drawer. When he went for her boots she issued an order.

“Leave those on.”

“With pleasure,” Griffin said, dipping his head to kiss the laces.

“For a dom, you’re a very good sub.”

Griffin grinned at her. “If I have to fold your underwear and kiss your boots to get inside you, then I’m more than happy to do that. But—for the record—King diagnosed me as a born service top.”

“You think I’m bottoming from the top?”

“Maybe I’m just topping from below.” He kissed her right on the tip of her nose. Typical top. She’d show him who was boss. At least in this scene.

Elle laughed as Griffin yanked off his jeans and, naked, slid into bed next to her. He gathered her in his arms and put her on top of him, his chest to her back. With the padded headboard behind him, Griffin was half sitting up, which made her feel as if she were lying on a human chaise longue. A human chaise longue with a massive erection halfway up her ass. She ground her hips from side to side and in a slow undulating circle.

“Vicious wench,” he said. “If you keep doing that I’m going to come on your back.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“I’m not?”

“You aren’t allowed to come until I’m done coming.”

“You didn’t say that earlier.”

“New rule,” she said. “I make the rules. You follow the rules.”

“In that case, we better get to six fast before I break that rule all over the both of us.”

From inside the briefcase he pulled out a medium-size vibrator, about six inches long and of average thickness. She was already wet from her previous orgasm so it slid into her easily. Griffin put it on its lowest setting and she turned her face to meet his. As he fucked her with the vibrator they kissed again, a long, slow, deep kiss. His one free hand cupped her right breast and squeezed it. He grasped her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, kneading it lightly. Her whole body felt his presence. Her thighs were draped over his thighs, her back rested against his stomach and chest, his arms wrapped around her and his mouth was on her mouth. When she came a second time it was against his lips. The mingling of their breaths as she climaxed was as erotic as the orgasm itself.

Griffin turned the vibrator up to a higher setting and fucked her with it again. The fingers of his free hand massaged her clitoris gently and it wasn’t long before she came a third time with a deep shudder.

After number four he took the vibrator out of her and explored her with his bare hands.

“God, you’re so wet,” he said in her ear and she could hear the strain in his voice, the need. “I can’t stop touching you.”

He pulled her folds wide, spreading her out and pushing two, then three, then four of his fingers into her. With his four fingers inside her, he moved his hand in a spiraling motion, circling in and out, in and out, the spiral widening with every turn and his fingers finding soft spots and muscles inside her she’d forgotten she had.

She could hardly stand it, how good it felt, how open she was, and how much she wanted him. She could barely breathe for it, for the pleasure and the pressure and the slow building toward release. Underneath her Griffin’s hips pushed against her. They were adrift together, moving and rocking and floating above the bed.

“Please come for me. Come on my hand so I can feel every muscle inside you,” he said as he pushed the heel of his palm against her clitoris.

“Deeper,” she said.

“Faster,” she said.

“Harder,” she said.

Griffin did all three and he did them all at once. When she came for her fifth time it was with a cry that sounded to her own ears like pain but her body told her differently. The muscles inside her contracted all around Griffin’s fingers, hard enough he swore in her ear.

“Fuck,” he said, slowly pulling his hand from inside her.

“Good idea.”

“What?”

“Let’s fuck.”

“But that was only number five.”

“What did I say about the rules?” she asked.

“You make the rules.”

“Right. Now I’m changing the rules. I need to fuck you. I’ll die if I don’t.”

“No one ever died from not fucking,” he reminded her.

“Whoever said that was an idiot. Get on your back, head by the footboard. I want to tie you up and use your cock for my own selfish needs. Do you have any objection to that?”

“I—”

“Don’t care. Just do it.”

He just did it.

Her legs wobbled as she stood up and dug through Griffin’s closet for bondage toys. Not in the mood to be fancy, she grabbed a pair of basic rope cuffs, wrapped them around the top bar of the footboard and slipped them onto Griffin’s wrists.

“Condoms?” she asked.

“In the drawer. And between the mattresses. Also in a box under the sofa. There’s some in the bathroom, too. And the kitchen.”

“Is there anywhere in the house you don’t have condoms?”

“The cookie jar. There are actual cookies in there. No. Wait. There are condoms in there, too. I ate all the cookies.”

Elle laughed so hard she had to rest her head on his chest for a minute.

“You’re ridiculous and sexy and ridiculously sexy,” she said, meeting his eyes.

“I know.”

“I’m going to fuck you now.”

“Thank you.”

She reached into the bedside table for a condom.

“Wait,” Griffin said, lifting his head. “Not those. The ones under the mattress.”

Elle raised her eyebrow and slid her hand between the mattress and the bed frame. She pulled out a sheaf of condoms.

“Your favorites?” she asked.

“Lambskin,” he said. “Love them. I got tested last month, and you haven’t been with a guy in a year and, you know, they’re roomier. You can’t use them for anal so I save them for only the most special pussies.”

“My pussy and I are honored.”

Elle straddled Griffin’s hips, took his cock in her hand and guided it to the entrance of her body. She sunk down slowly onto it, relishing every inch. Already she was bathed in sweat but as Griffin entered her fully the temperature in the room rose ten degrees. Or maybe that was her body temperature rising. Didn’t matter. They were both slick with sweat and burning up for each other. When she leaned closer to him, he lifted his head and captured a nipple in his mouth, sucking it deeply, and she felt the pull of pleasure all the way into her stomach. Elle gripped the bar of the footboard over Griffin’s head and used it to steady herself as she rode him. She pushed against him and his back arched. She did it again. His eyes closed and his lips parted.

“You’re enjoying this,” she said, rocking into him again.

He nodded, biting his own lip, a gesture she found innocently erotic.

“I was afraid,” he said.

“Of what?” She touched his face.

“Of never seeing you again.”

“You don’t have to be afraid. I’m not going anywhere. Not with you inside me.”

“Thank you, Mistress.”

Elle stopped moving.

“What?” Griffin looked at her, his eyes open again.

“You called me Mistress.”

“I did. Did you like that?”

“Say it again.”

“Yes, Mistress... Mistress... Mistress... My beautiful Mistress Nor.”

And the more he said it, the more she wanted him to say it. And when he came it was with the word on his lips.

She laughed and Griffin whispered, “What? What is it?”

“Mistress Nor. I like the sound of that.”

9

Mistress Nora

ELLE ATTEMPTED TO creep back into Kingsley’s town house under cover of night. A few years ago she might have succeeded in her sneaking but that was before Kingsley acquired his “children.”

Four black Rottweilers—the children in question—bounded down the stairs, galloping toward her in a hail of paws and ears and tails and tongues. She ended up flat on her back beneath them with four wet noses in her face. Kingsley’s dogs—Brutus, Dominic, Sadie and Max—were reportedly vicious attack dogs. Anyone who knew them, however, quickly discovered that although they, like their owner, were capable of killing if necessary, in general they were lovers, not fighters.

“Brutus, stop it,” she said as Brutus, the alpha of the bunch, stuck his nose between her thighs. “Jabberwocky.”

“They don’t respond well to safe words,” Kingsley said from the top of the stairs.

“Jesus Christ,” she said, petting and pushing the dogs away at the same time. “Why couldn’t you be a cat person?”

“There’s enough pussy in this house as it is.” Kingsley started down the steps toward her. He was dressed but disheveled, looking like a well-fucked rogue. Apparently she and Kingsley had both had a nice evening. Finally he whistled, calling the dogs off her. They whimpered but obeyed their master although it was obvious they were not done with the lickings and the pettings.

“Where’s Calliope?” Elle pulled herself off the floor and brushed herself off. “I thought they slept with her.”

“They do. But she’s on a date.”

Elle walked past him heading up to her room.

“Guess we’re all getting lucky tonight,” she said.

Kingsley grabbed her arm as she tried to pass him, stopping her on the stairs. “Griffin?”

“Yup.”

“He wasn’t supposed to tell you he was watching you,” Kingsley said.

“He didn’t tell me. I caught him in the act. He’d make a terrible CIA agent.”

Kingsley sighed heavily. “I’ll kill him.”

“Don’t kill him. I need him alive if I’m going to keep tying him up and fucking his brains out.”

Kingsley narrowed his eyes at her. “But Griffin’s a dominant.”

“So?”

“You topped him?”

“I did.”

“You topped a top.”

“I’ve topped you,” she said.

“I’m a masochist. Griffin isn’t.”

“Griffin’s barely twenty-three and couldn’t scare someone if he wore a suit made out of knives. He’s a puppy, King. It’s pretty easy to top a puppy when you’ve already topped a...” She looked down at Brutus sitting at Kingsley’s heels. “A Rottweiler.”

Kingsley cocked his eyebrow at that. Probably the first time in his life a woman had ever likened the inestimable Kingsley Edge to a dog.

“You enjoyed it with Griffin?”

“As much as he did. So...a lot.”

“My office. Now.”

“Now? I’m so tired,” she said. “I came like eight times today. I need to put an ice pack on my pussy.”

“Ice later. Talk now. Go.”

Elle went. The fantasy of owning her own house was growing stronger every day. Wouldn’t it be lovely to return home from a day of debauchery to an empty house? Or if not an empty house, a house devoid of her boss. She wouldn’t have to answer questions about where she went and what she did and with whom she did it. Someday...once she got her money. Not money, she corrected. A lot of fucking money.

Since Kingsley would be the source of her getting “a lot of fucking money” she dutifully trudged up to his office and sat gingerly in the chair opposite his desk. Next time she took a year off cock, she’d pick a guy with a much smaller penis to help with her reentry into the world of PIV intercourse.

“I have good news,” Kingsley said. He sat on the edge of his desk in front of her.

“I like good news.”

“Milady will be at the party we’re attending tomorrow night.”

“Good,” Elle said. “Can’t wait for the beat and greet.”

“You think you’re ready to go out again? Be around our people?”

“He won’t be there, will he?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“But eventually you will have to see him again. You need to prepare yourself for that. If you saw him right now, could you handle it?”

Elle paused before answering. Finally she spoke.

“While we were having sex, Griffin called me something. He called me Mistress. Mistress Nor.”

“You liked that?” Kingsley asked.

“I loved it.” She heard the heat in her own voice, the emotion betrayed, and she quickly worked to cover it. “I don’t want to go back to being Eleanor. I want to be Mistress Nor.”

“Nor?”

“Griffin hates the name ‘Eleanor.’ He just started calling me Nor one day and that’s what he calls me. Then he called me Mistress Nor, and when he called me Mistress Nor, it was like I heard my real name for the first time.”

“There is a queen named Noor. Queen of Jordan. Beautiful woman. Brilliant and accomplished. I send her roses on her birthday. It’s a good name for a queen but perhaps not a dominatrix. Nor. Rhymes with whore. Can’t have that, can we?”

“No, I guess not.”

Kingsley leaned over and took her chin in his hand. He looked at her, looked into her eyes, at her face, looked like a man aiming for a target. Where was the bull’s-eye?

“Nora.”

The name sounded elegant with his accent. Strong, sophisticated. Not her name and yet there was her name buried inside it. Those three letters—Eleanor, Nor, Nora...it was her and yet it wasn’t.

“I like it,” she said.

“Mistress Nora. Yes...parfait.”

“It is.”

“Mistress Nora,” he said again. “Nora, la Maîtresse. Son Maîtresse.”

“Votre Maîtresse,” she said, completing the conjugation. The Mistress. His Mistress. Your Mistress.

“Oui,” he said. “Ma Maîtresse.”

My Mistress.

“Mistress Nora,” she said, rolling the name around her mouth and loving the way it tasted—sweet and spiked like Christmas punch.

“What’s my name?” Nora asked.

“Mistress Nora.”

“Who am I?

“Mistress Nora.”

“Who will be Queen of the Underground?”

Kingsley smiled. “Mistress Nora.”

“Fuck yes, I will,” Nora said, beaming.

Nora.

That was her name.

Not Elle like her friends called her.

Not Ellie like her mother called her.

Not Eleanor, which Søren called her in public.

Not even Little One, which he called her in private.

And not Nor because that wasn’t quite right.

Nora.

Mistress Nora.

“Mistress Fucking Nora,” she said aloud.

“Well, Mistress Fucking Nora,” Kingsley said, “if you’re going to be queen, you’ll need a throne room. I’ll start working on your dungeon tomorrow.”

“Finally.”

“Go, get some rest. We’ll start fresh tomorrow.”

“Do I get to play with the whip?”

“You can’t even flog a towel off the wall. Now go to bed. There’s a naughty Haitian submissive in my bed who will be wondering where my cock has gone to. Sleep well.”

“I plan to.” She stood up. When she’d sat down she’d still been Elle. When she stood up she was Nora. Mistress Nora.

She headed to Kingsley’s office door.

“You really topped Griffin?” he asked.

“I did. Like a boss,” she said, laughing. “But don’t be too impressed. Like I said, he’s a puppy.”

“You were gone for a year. So was I. Tessa told me that while we were gone, Griffin became one of the most sought-after doms in the club. He’s brutal when he wants to be. When we were gone, he wanted to be. Tessa had bruises for two weeks after a session with him—inside and out. He’s made grown men bleed, and he’s not even a sadist. He says he does it for ‘shits and giggles.’ If Griffin seems like a puppy to you, it’s because you’re a tiger.”

Nora narrowed her eyes at him and raised her hand in a claw. “Rawr.”

Kingsley laughed. “Go to bed.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Goodnight, Mistress.”

“Mistress... I could get used to that.”

Truth was, she was already used to it.

She walked out of his office intending to go straight to her bedroom. She’d take a long bath, sleep for twelve hours, eat all the food for breakfast...

But she didn’t make it to her bedroom. She stopped at Kingsley’s playroom first. Inside she turned on the light and walked around gazing at the array of BDSM toys hanging on the wall. He had ten floggers of various sizes and materials hanging on evenly spaced hooks—red floggers, blue floggers, black, brown, elk-hide, cowhide, deer-hide, vinyl and vicious rubber floggers. He had canes, too, over a dozen of them. Tiny little white ones that burned like a bee sting on sensitive skin. Large rattan canes that could put a full-grown man in the hospital if wielded with too much force.

When she came to the crops, she smiled. Oh, yes, these were her favorite. Something about a riding crop. The feel of it, the balance, the elegance. Riding crops were designed for humans to use on horses, for striking thick skin and driving a ton of pure muscle. Perhaps that’s why she loved the crop so much. Kingsley had told her a dominatrix would never be physically stronger than the men she topped. It wasn’t about physical strength. It was about control, about taking command over a beast bigger and stronger but with a will that could be bent, a drive that could be directed, power that could be restrained, channeled, dominated.

Nora reached out and took a particular riding crop off a brass hook. It was red, bloodred, and about two feet long. A shorter crop had less give to it. It hurt more than one with more swish in its swing. She knew this instinctively, not from her few weeks as a dominant, but her years as a submissive. She’d long been on the receiving end of a riding crop. How good and right it felt to wield it by the handle.

She spun it in her hand like a baton. She hadn’t twirled a baton since she was a little girl pretending to be a majorette, but it all came back to her. Pure muscle memory. It danced lightly over her fingers as she turned it. Testing out the old skills she walked the perimeter of the room, twirling it in her hand as she walked. A few times she almost lost it, but she caught it and soon the rhythm was hers again.

Her own dungeon. She would have a room like this soon enough. All the toys she could ever want. A dream come true. A dark and decadent dream. A secret dream like playing Daddy’s girl with Søren. She’d had the dream of being a domme all her life. She remembered sexual fantasies from long before she’d met Søren. When she was fourteen, she’d snuck into an R-rated movie and saw her first sex scene with a woman on top. That fantasy had given her some of her earliest orgasms.

Wasn’t it strange that Søren had never picked up on those domination fantasies of hers? He could read her so well that he could sense from her fascination with the couple at the club that she had a Daddy’s-girl fantasy. Why hadn’t he known she’d had this side to her? He was a smart man, a brilliant man, an insightful man. There’s no reason he shouldn’t have known. Kingsley had known.