“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 sadist. 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 sex 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 Søren 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 impassioned defense of your own lingering virginity.”
“I don’t want you thinking Søren 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 Søren 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-fucked 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 damn 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 fuck 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 fucking 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 passed 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 fuck them everyone wins.”
“Why is it losing to say yes?”
“Because if you say yes to being fucked 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 passed?”
“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.”
“Søren?”
“Who else?”
“A dog collar? Are you shitting 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 horny I am.”