The Saint(97)
“Jesus. What does he do?”
“Flogging, whipping, caning, cutting, candle-wax burns, bastinado …” He ticked the terms off on his fingers. “I’m forgetting something. What is it?”
He tapped his forehead.
“Oh, humiliation.” Kingsley snapped his fingers. “I always forget that one. I don’t do humiliation play so I forget it.”
“What do you do?”
“Everything else. My specialty is rape.”
Eleanor gaped at him.
“Rape?”
“Rape play. It’s a game. There are women who love to be overpowered and treated like sexual property. It’s their fantasy to be raped by a man they desire. I make the fantasy come true. It’s all in good fun. Want to try?”
“How does it work?”
“Something like this.” He grabbed her calf and yanked her so hard she ended up flat on her back. Before she realized what was happening, Kingsley hovered over her, his hands on her wrists, his body weight holding her immobile beneath him.
“Get off me,” she said, grunting at the shock of his weight on her. “You’re wrinkling my skirt.”
“It’s pleated.”
“Oh. Good point. Then stay there.” Obviously he was trying to scare her. She grew up with a dad in the mob. She didn’t scare that easy.
“You take all the fun out of it.” He still held her down, his hands on her forearms. It hurt, but she refused to let him see her in pain.
“Why? Because I’m not scared of you, either?”
“I have you pinned underneath me, and you aren’t even nervous?”
“Sorry.” She smiled up at him and batted her eyelashes. In all honesty, fear was last on the list of feelings she was experiencing at the moment. Ahead of fear were the following: first, enjoyment; second, desire; followed by curiosity third with embarrassment coming in a close fourth. The embarrassment ranked fourth only because she felt feelings one through three.
“Have you ever had sex in the back of a Rolls-Royce?” he asked her as he pushed his hips meaningfully into hers. What she felt pressing against her caused fear to jump ahead a few places on her emotions-currently-experiencing list. Fear and desire both shot right up her list.
“I’ve never had sex, you know, ever.”
“Poor girl. Would you like me to take care of that little problem for you?”
“I’m Catholic, so I’m waiting.”
“Until marriage?”
“No. I’m waiting for my priest to fuck me.”
“Are you tired of waiting?”
“Yes. There’s no reason to wait. He’s being overprotective.”
“He cares about you.”
“Wish he cared less and fucked more.”
Kingsley laughed as he sat up and let her go.
“He said you and I would be friends. I didn’t believe him at first. I think he might be right.”
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 God. Can’t forget Him.”
“We will be, j’espère. 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-fuckers.”
“Mind-fucking? Is that when you stick it in her ear?”
“Not quite. It’s when I stick it in her brain. The mind-fuck 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-fuck 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 prêtre is pulling a mind-fuck on you.”