The King (The Original Sinners: White Years, #2)(73)

and laid them across a chair with his other clothes. He appreciated that she treated his clothes with respect, unlike S?ren

who’d taken perverse pleasure in dropping them on the f loor

and traipsing over them.

Kingsley focused on her face as she moved. A lovely woman

in her late thirties, she had an imperious air to her, a proud

set to her face and no mercy in her eyes. In that regard she

reminded him very much of S?ren.

“When did you start dominating people, Ma?tresse?” he

asked, curious what else she and S?ren had in common. “I’m going to punish you for speaking out of turn.” “As you should.”

“But to answer your question,” she said, standing in front of

him, “I was eight when I started bossing around all the boys in my neighborhood, fifteen when I tied my first boyfriend up and nineteen when I took on my first client. He was my

college chemistry professor.”

“You had good chemistry, then?”

“I was going to be gentle with you,” Mistress Felicia said.

“Because of that joke, I’m afraid now I’ll have to destroy you.” Kingsley’s heart galloped in his chest. The cock ring had

made him hard. The threat of pain made him harder. “Good.”

Mistress Felicia bent down and from a long leather bag produced two sets of leather cuffs.

“You haven’t had sex in two weeks?” she asked. “The two longest weeks of my life.”

“I’m going to leave two weeks’ worth of bruises on every

inch of your body. It’ll take them that long to heal, which will

give you two choices. You can either not have sex for another

two weeks until they’re gone, or you can come to me every

day and serve at my pleasure until they’re gone. And then, if

you beg nicely, I’ll give you more.”

Two weeks as the property of Mistress Felicia? It was June,

wasn’t it? Had Christmas come early?

“I’ll take the second option,” he said.

Mistress Felicia took a step forward and grabbed him

roughly by the right forearm, pressing his hand to her chest.

She strapped the cuff on his wrist and buckled it.

She released his right arm, and buckled his left. From her

bag she produced a long metal clip. She ordered him to raise

both arms. As soon as they were up, she cuffed his wrists over

the top bar of the bed canopy. Once cuffed into place, he could

do nothing but wait, not moving, and want her.

Mistress Felicia stood so close to him now that he could

count her eyelashes. She had the tiniest beauty mark under her right eye. He longed to kiss it. He longed to kiss her, to

taste her full lips, her skin, her body inside and out. “You want to kiss me, don’t you?” she asked.

“So much, Ma?tresse.”

“Your mouth has to earn it.” She raised her riding crop

and slipped it between his teeth. He bit it and held it in place.

“I’m going to bruise the front of your body first. You keep the

crop in your mouth the entire time, and you’ll get your kiss.” He nodded his understanding and clamped his teeth even

tighter on the crop. As sadistic as this task was, he appreciated

the consideration. With the crop in his mouth, he wouldn’t

be tempted to cry out. And the last thing he wanted was for

anyone in the house to know what he was doing right now.

He needed this city to fear him. If they saw him like this—

tied up, naked, vulnerable—he would never be seen the same

way again.

From her bag she produced a cane—two feet long and

made of rattan.

She raised her arms and brought them high. With a quick

and vicious f lick, she struck Kingsley’s forearm two inches

under the cuff. She hadn’t been kidding. She intended to

bruise his entire body from his wrists to his ankles. Down his right arm she worked, striking him in even intervals, one inch and then lower an inch, and then lower an

inch. The pain surprised him every time. Sharp, stinging and

deep… He knew he’d have red welts for a day from the cane

and bruises for at least a week if not longer.

From his right arm she moved to his left, hitting him again

with controlled but brutal strikes. S?ren had never hit him

or struck him on this part of his body before, on the smooth

skin from his elbow to armpit. But he’d cut him there one

night, short shallow slices with a razor blade on the inside of

his upper arms and inner thighs. They’d f*cked afterward, face to face, chest to chest…it was one of the few times S?ren hadn’t tied him up before sex. Kingsley remembered wrapping his arms around S?ren’s shoulders, his legs around his back. Blood had covered them both. When it was over S?ren even had a streak of it on his face. He’d looked primal as a wild animal with the slash of crimson across his cheek and the firelight glowing behind him—a wolf in a cave unafraid of fire. In that heated, sacred hour, with his eyes nothing but pupils, his hair slick with sweat, S?ren had appeared to him like a beast, a demon, or a god. Kingsley hadn’t cared which as long as he could worship at the altar of the blood-stained