French way he had of tsk-tsking her. She almost bit that finger off. Instead she behaved herself because she was too scared not to. “For a lot of fucking money, Elle.”
“How much fucking money?” she asked.
“When I’m done training you, you’ll be making one to five thousand dollars an hour.”
If Elle had water in her mouth at that moment she would have spit it all over the front of Kingsley’s barely buttoned white shirt.
“A thousand dollars an hour?”
“Minimum,” Kingsley said.
“Dominatrixes don’t usually make that kind of money.”
Mistress Irina, Kingsley’s Russian sadist, worked the top end of the scale. And she made five hundred dollars an hour—a thousand an hour when the client demanded very special and intimate attention that would likely lead to hospitalization. The extra fee was for all the paperwork involved.
“But you will. You will be offering a service others will not.”
“Sex?”
“Sex would hardly warrant five thousand an hour. Almost anyone can lie on their back, close their eyes and think of France.”
“It’s England.”
“Why would anyone think of England during sex?”
“Forget it. Tell me what I’m doing.”
“You know what you’re doing,” Kingsley said. “Exactly what you want to be doing except you’ll be doing it for money.”
“A lot of fucking money,” she said, looking up at Kingsley. He sat on the edge of his desk with one foot on the arm of the chair, gazing down at her waiting for her answer.
“This is not a good idea, King,” she said, keeping her voice even, not saying yes or no to his offer.
“It is not a good idea, no. It is the best idea. Chérie...you could buy anything you want,” Kingsley whispered. She knew that tone. He was seducing her. “In a year you’ll be rich. You remember Mistress Felicia? You should have seen her house in Bedford. I’ve known minor royalty who didn’t live as well as she did. Rich men gave her diamonds the way poor men give girls daisies—by the dozens.”
A house. That would be nice. A home of her own. Not a room in someone else’s life. Her own home that was in her name that no one could take away from her.
“I still don’t know why you think men will pay me so much money,” she said.
“Mistress Irina works from her dungeon, sometimes from the town house. They come to her, her clients do. But you...you will go where the money is. Clients who wouldn’t dare set foot into a club or a dungeon? You will go to them.”
“Is that safe?”
“Is life safe?”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
Kingsley smiled. “Is there anything worth doing that is safe?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve read a lot of books worth reading. Never gotten hurt doing that before.”
“You’ve never gotten rich doing it, either.”
“King, I can’t... No. This is absurd. My entire adult life—and most of my teenage life—I’ve been a submissive.”
“You know what is more absurd? You sitting there and pretending you haven’t wanted this for your entire adult life. And most of your teenage life, too. I knew you then. I remember...”
“What? What do you remember?”
“The first time I saw you, you nearly gave a boy a concussion, because he committed the unforgivable sin of annoying you when you weren’t in the mood to be annoyed. He was talking back to a priest and stood up. I saw you stretch out your leg and hook your boot under his chair and slide it aside right at the moment he tried to sit back down. He landed on the floor so hard I heard a crack and thought it was either a rib or his skull. And you...”
“I put my feet on his chest.”
“No, you put your boots on his chest and told him to shut the fuck up. That instant, I knew you were either going to grow up to be a dominatrix...or a sociopath. I was hard as a rock watching you and you were barely sixteen years old. I could come right now thinking of it.”
“You don’t really think I’m a sociopath, do you?”
“You have a conscience. But you know what they call a sociopath with a conscience?”
It sounded like the setup to a joke so Elle took the bait.
“No, what do they call a sociopath with a conscience?”
“They call her ‘Mistress.’”
Elle stood up from her chair and walked to the window behind Kingsley’s desk. She pushed back the curtains and gazed onto the dark streets. Even during the dead of night, New York still felt awake and alive. Last night she’d been in a convent in rural upstate New York where the world went to bed at seven and woke up at four and slept like a corpse in the hours between. And not a man in sight. Now she was alone in a room with a man she’d beaten last year, a man she’d burned and bruised and brutalized. And God, it had been fun, hadn’t it? More than fun, it had been her. For years, ever since she was a teenager, her sexual fantasies had involved dominating men, tying them up, tying them down and fucking them half to death. When she’d finally gotten her chance to try it with Kingsley, she’d been scared. She’d even cried at first from fear and confusion. But the moment she let go and let it happen, she felt like...
“I’ve seen her, Elle,” Kingsley said as he came to stand behind her. She was acutely aware of his body so close to hers. She hadn’t had sex with a man for over a year, since she ran away and hid out at the convent. Any other man might not have made her feel so much in such close quarters, but it was this man who’d put a riding crop in her hand, given her permission to destroy him. Oh, and she had destroyed him, and in the process, she’d destroyed herself. Her old self. She still hadn’t found her new self yet.
“Who have you seen?”
“You. The real you. I’ve seen her.”
“What does she look like?”
Kingsley sighed and smiled. “She’s beautiful. Dangerous. All eyes are on her when she walks into a room. Men fear her but not because she’s the enemy. They fear her because she alone can show them who they really are. They fear this knowledge but will pay any price for it.”
“Is she happy?” Elle asked.
“She’s powerful. She can make her own happiness when she wants it.”
Elle turned and looked up at him.
“Is she with someone?”
“She isn’t lonely,” Kingsley said. “Not this woman. This is a woman
