Eleanor moved to the seat across from Kingsley and smoothed her skirt down over her knees. A little distance between her and him would be a good idea.

"I hope we can be friends. He said you and me, we were his nonnegotiables. Oh, and G.o.d. Can"t forget Him."

"We will be, j"espere. I want you to trust me. There are things you need to hear that you would not hear if he said them to you."

"What do you mean?"

"You have fallen in love with the king of all the mind-f.u.c.kers."

"Mind-f.u.c.king? Is that when you stick it in her ear?"

"Not quite. It"s when I stick it in her brain. The mind-f.u.c.k is one of many games the dominant plays. I might tie up a girl, blindfold her and then run my fingers so lightly across her stomach ..." He raised his hand and tickled the air. Something inside Eleanor clenched at the erotic image. She couldn"t help but imagine Kingsley doing such a thing to her. "And then casually mention the word snake or spider. Watch her tense. Hear her laugh nervously. She knows it"s my fingers on her. Not a snake. Not a spider. But now the doubt is there ... one sliver of a doubt in her brain."

"That is so evil." Eleanor grinned broadly. "But you don"t ever actually put snakes and spiders on people, do you?"

"Non. Of course not. Unless ..."

"Unless what?"

"Unless she asks for it."

Eleanor"s eyes widened. Kingsley only smiled.

"You see, the mind-f.u.c.k is simply this-I take your mind, I play with it, I make you think things you didn"t think you would think and then suddenly ... you"re thinking them."

"You can"t pull that stuff on me."

"Non? Le pretre is pulling a mind-f.u.c.k on you."

"How?"

"By making you wait for him. You don"t want to wait for him, do you? You want to be his lover right now. Today even."

"No. Not today. I wanted to be his lover yesterday. There"s no reason to wait."

"I know the reason for it."

"You do?"

"Oh, oui. He"s manipulating you. Here you are. So young. So beautiful. So ripe for the plucking. And yet you sit there ... unplucked. This is how he proves he owns you like a dog on a leash. Heel. Sit. Roll over. Play dead. You"re not his lover. You"re his puppy and you follow him anywhere. He feeds you crumbs and you lap them out of his hand."

Eleanor sat up straighter.

"He"s not manipulating me by making us wait, okay? I"m seventeen and he"s almost thirty-one. He"s a priest and I"m in high school. I"m not even on birth control yet, and if I was and my mom found it, I"d be dead. If he gets caught fooling around with a high school student, he"ll be dead. On top of all that, he"s a s.a.d.i.s.t. He cares about me so much he wants me to know what I"m getting into before I get into it. So fine. We"ll wait. I"ll learn what I need to learn. We"ll start having s.e.x when he"s ready and he knows I"m ready. That"s not manipulation. That"s good sense. And you could learn a little something from him about good sense."

"Moi?" Kingsley sounded positively scandalized at her insinuation.

"You. You picked me up from school in a Rolls-Royce? Do you know how much attention that"s going to get me? You and S0ren are related-sort of. You have to be careful. We have to be careful. We can"t get him into trouble."

"I"ll be more careful," he pledged.

"Good."

"I enjoyed your impa.s.sioned defense of your own lingering virginity."

"I don"t want you thinking S0ren is manipulating me when he"s not."

"He"s not."

"No, he isn"t."

"But I am." Kingsley put his feet in the seat next to her and smirked.

"You ... you got me to argue why S0ren and I should wait when I said five minutes ago I didn"t want to and there was no reason to."

"It was almost too easy."

"You mind-f.u.c.ked me."

"Does your brain hurt? I tried to be gentle since it was your first time."

Eleanor picked up her combat boot and tossed it at Kingsley"s head. He caught it and rolled down the window.

"Don"t you dare. I love those d.a.m.n boots."

"You promise you will not throw them at me again?"

"I promise. I swear."

"You promise you will be a good girl for me all evening?"

"The best girl."

"Will you let me f.u.c.k you right now if I give you the boot back?"

Eleanor opened her mouth and then closed it again. Was Kingsley serious? Serious or not ...

"Not for all the combat boots in the world."

Kingsley held her boot at the window and waited.

"Toss it," she said. "It"s f.u.c.king freezing in here."

Kingsley rolled up the window and handed her the boot back.

"You"re giving it back?" She stuffed her feet into her boots before Kingsley changed his mind. In the future she would have to be smarter, stay on her toes.

"You pa.s.sed the test."

"What test?"

"I like to test new people who come to our world. I get them into my Rolls and try to seduce them. The winners say no. The losers say yes. But since I still f.u.c.k them everyone wins."

"Why is it losing to say yes?"

"Because if you say yes to being f.u.c.ked by a stranger without any discussion of limits, wants, protection and safety, you are very likely not yet ready for our world. A submissive too eager to please a dominant can get into trouble quickly in my world."

"So I pa.s.sed?"

"One test."

"There are others?"

"Many others. Wait until he puts a dog collar on you. I can"t wait to see how you respond to that test."

Eleanor glared at him. "I"m not going to wear a dog collar."

"He already has one picked out for you."

"S0ren?"

"Who else?"

"A dog collar? Are you s.h.i.tting me?"

"Would I do that? Collars play an important role in our world. It"s a sign of ownership. So you should take it as a compliment. And then after you"ve taken it as a compliment, you can wag your little tail for him."

"He said you were the devil."

"He only says that because he knows how h.o.r.n.y I am."

He raised his hand to his head and held up two fingers as horns. Eleanor burst out laughing.

"I like you, Kingsley. I don"t want to, but I do."

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the center of her palm. No finger sniffing this time.

"The feeling, ma pet.i.te, is entirely mutual."

They arrived as Kingsley"s town house, and he escorted her inside.

"Who"s this, King?" A stunning Hispanic-looking woman in a tight white dress came down the stairs. She gave Kingsley a quick kiss on the cheek. "Nice uniform," she said to Eleanor. It sounded like a genuine compliment, not sarcasm.

"We"re doing an age-play scene tonight. Teacher-student. I"d let you watch but it"s her first role-play." Kingsley ran his hand over Eleanor"s bottom.

"Next time, maybe?" the woman said, giving her a wink and Kingsley another kiss. "I"ll play her sister, and you can punish us both for acting up in cla.s.s, Mr. King."

The woman strolled away, her hips swaying seductively with every step.

"Age-play?" she asked. "That"s a thing?"

"Here everything is a thing," he said. Kingsley gave her another a.s.s pat.

She thought about finding a knife and slicing that roaming, a.s.s-grabbing hand of his off, but the word sister reminded her of a question she wanted to ask.

"Can I ask you a weird question?"

"I might not answer it, but you may ask me anything."

"Was it Elizabeth?" she asked as he took her arm and led her up the stairs.

"Elizabeth? What about her?"

"S0ren said when he was married to your sister he cheated on her with someone. Your sister caught him and whoever kissing and ran off and that"s when ..." Eleanor felt weird about bringing this up but she had to know. "S0ren didn"t tell me who he cheated with, only that he loved her."

"He said he loved her?"

"Something like that. I keep thinking about why he wouldn"t tell me who she was. And then he told me about him and Elizabeth when they were kids ... and your sister, she came to visit you all at school. It was an all-boys school, but they let her visit. Why?"

"Because she was a relative."

"Right," Eleanor said and waited. Kingsley said nothing more. "I"m asking, was it Elizabeth who S0ren cheated on your sister with? They had a f.u.c.ked-up childhood. They were lonely. Incest or not, I don"t care. It"s the only answer I can come up with. I mean, what else could have shocked your sister so much she ... you know."

"Killed herself?"

"That. I mean, seeing her husband kissing his own sister? That could shock anyone to death."

"It could, oui."

"I want to know who he loved enough to cheat on his wife with. I need to know, and I know you know."

"I know," he said.

"But you won"t tell me?"

"Not yet," he said with a smile. "Perhaps in time. But I will tell you this, you"re on the right track. Now come with me."

Kingsley escorted her to a room at the end of the hall on the second floor.

"Tonight is my friend Blaise"s birthday and we"re having a little party for her. I thought you should come and see how our sort plays together."

He opened the door and led her inside a kind of sitting room.

"Oh, f.u.c.k."

Everywhere Eleanor looked, she saw fire. Tall taper candles, all alight, covered every horizontal surface-tabletops, window ledges-and a few dozen sat on the floor in ornate silver holders. So dazzled by the scene before her, Eleanor hardly noticed the four other people in the room until Kingsley introduced her to them.

First was Blaise, the birthday girl, who wore nothing but a white b.u.t.ton-down shirt. Next was Baptiste, dark skinned and handsome, who had some kind of s.e.xy accent-not quite French, but close. Then another man-Sven or something. She"d stopped listening because Blaise now stood naked in the center of the room.