The King (The Original Sinners: White Years, #2)(107)

Kingsley dipped his head and kissed him on the side of the neck. Justin stirred.

“Thank you,” Justin said, half-asleep.

“For what?” Kingsley asked.

“Remembering my name.”

Kingsley felt a knot in his throat.

“I would never forget it.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Justin said. “With my life, I mean.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. Never go home again.” “You want to work for me?” Kingsley asked. “House boy?”

Kingsley laughed.

“Not quite,” he said.

“Is there any money in being kinky?” Kingsley smiled at him.

“You would be surprised.”





33


KINGSLEY LEFT JUSTIN ALONE IN HIS BED. HE PULLED on his trousers, his shirt, and walked on bare feet to his office. In the bottom drawer of his desk, the only drawer he routinely locked, he pulled out Sam’s clipboard. For five weeks he’d cherished a fantasy that Sam would show up on his doorstep demanding the return of her beloved clipboard. He’d rarely seen her without it in the months she’d worked for him. Worked. Past tense. He still couldn’t get used to the past tense where Sam was concerned. In his fantasy she would show up and tell him she was wrong, that she shouldn’t have taken the Fullers’ money, but she needed it for something and she’d been too ashamed to tell him why. She’d beg him to forgive her and he would. He would forgive her and take her back. And everything would be okay again.

A stupid childish fantasy. It would never happen. He picked up a pen and f lipped to the checklist Sam had created for their club. In the little square beside the words “Male Submissive” Kingsley made a check mark. Justin needed a job that would let him afford NYC. Kingsley needed a male submissive for the club.

A match made in hell.

Today was September fifteenth. The club would open in seventy-six days, and he still had no location for it. He’d put a tail on Reverend Fuller and sent both male and female prostitutes to tempt him into a scandal. So far…nothing. He was missing something. Fuller had an ugly secret and he knew it. He’d seen it in Fuller’s eyes—the secret shame, the fear, the terror of discovery. It was there, but Kingsley didn’t know how to find it. And he had to find it—not because he wanted the building so much anymore. But he wanted to destroy Fuller because Fuller had destroyed his love for Sam. And that was an unforgiveable sin.

He f lipped through the notes she’d left on her clipboard. He loved her handwriting—loopy and playful even when writing out to-do lists for a BDSM club. But his Sam was always a creature of beautiful contradiction. She dressed like a man and yet was easily the most feminine woman he’d ever known, from her light and airy laugh to her pink-lipped smiles, her lithe, manicured fingers. And yet she had a teenage boy’s libido and the ability to charm any woman—straight or gay— right into bed with her. And although she’d never indicated that she wanted them to be lovers, nothing had made her happier than hopping into bed with him, pulling his arm around her tight and being his “bed bug” as she called herself. She’d bite him on the arm or on the neck and then fall fast asleep.

No matter how much Blaise cajoled him to hire a new secretary, he couldn’t bring himself to replace Sam. Not yet. Not while the wounds were still fresh and he could still conjure the scent of her in his mind, the sound of her voice and the memory of her sitting at his feet, pulling his boots on as if he was her king and she his valet.

Even looking at her notes hurt. And such banal notes they were. Mostly banal. Square footage…call the dungeon outfitter… schedule K’s massage…tell K you’re pregnant with S?ren’s baby… stop reading my notes, King.

He laughed so hard he almost cried. He could see her smiling at herself as she wrote those words, knowing he would get nosy someday and read her clipboard. At the bottom of the page she’d drawn a heart with a K in the center and a crown around the K. She’d put an arrow next to the heart and the words Possible tattoo idea for left ass cheek.

“God damn you, Sam,” he said out loud. He threw the clipboard down on his desk and picked up his phone. But before he dialed her number, he hung the phone up again. She’d betrayed him and walked away with his heart in her teeth. She’d picked the Fullers’ money over him, even though he’d opened his heart up to her time and time again.

He picked up the phone again, and this time he dialed. “Kingsley, it’s three in the morning,” S?ren said. He sounded more annoyed than sleepy.

“What are you wearing?”

“An angry scowl,” S?ren said.

“It’s a good look for you.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?” S?ren asked.

“I almost called Sam to tell her how much I hate her. So I called you instead.”

“Fine. Tell me how much you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Then you should hang up on me,” S?ren said.

“You’d like that too much. What are you doing still awake?”

“I’m reading.”

“In bed?”

“In bed.”

Kingsley couldn’t stop himself from picturing S?ren in bed. White sheet pulled up to his hip, naked chest, hand behind his head as he read. Divinity in repose.