The Prince
“I would think you were a monster.”
The deep sorrow in Wesley’s voice shamed her. She’d tricked Wesley into thinking Søren was an abusive brute. She’d terrified Søren by falling during that night. She didn’t deserve either of them—Søren or Wesley.
“I scared the shit out of Søren, too, you know.”
“Nora…please don’t make me not hate him. I need to hate him.”
“I hit the floor so hard he thought I’d passed out or something. I knew I’d scared him bad. It was the one time he’d ever called me ‘Nora.’”
“I have to hate him. Please…”
Nora ignored the “please.” She couldn’t stop now. He needed to know it all.
“He said, ‘Nora!’ and he knelt on the floor and ran his hands over me. And he looked at me, looked in my eyes. And he knew. He knew why I’d fallen on purpose. And he didn’t say a word. He knew I was going to lie to you about how I got so banged up, and he was going to let me lie. He knows not to ask questions he doesn’t want the answer to.”
Wesley bowed his head; he dug his hands into his wet hair.
“He picked me up off the floor and carried me to bed. He held me close and he…he told me to pick a number between one and one hundred.”
“Nora, I don’t want to hear any more.”
Nora felt something wet running down her face. Water from the shower? Or something else?
“It’s a game we play. Pick a number, but you don’t know what you’re picking. Are you picking one lash or one hundred lashes? Are you picking one kiss or one hundred kisses? I picked one hundred.”
Wesley went silent. Nora kept talking.
“He started to count…” Nora paused as she remembered the pain in her side, the blood on her tongue. Søren had gotten a cold wet washcloth and he gently dabbed her mouth. “He started to count the one hundred different things he loved about me.”
“Nora…don’t.”
Never had she heard such hurt in someone’s voice.
“Number one—he loves the way I laugh…all the time. And number seven—he loves the way I never answer my office phone like a normal person. And number fifty-eight—he loves the way my hair looks when I wear it pinned up.”
“You’re a sadist. You know that, right?” Wesley tried and failed to laugh. Nora did laugh, but it was a hard laugh and it hurt coming out.
“Are you just figuring that out, kid? I laughed at sixty-six. He loves the way my voice catches when I say his name while he’s inside me.”“What was reason one hundred?” Wesley asked as water rolled down his cheek and dripped onto his clasped hands.
“One hundred. He loves that when he’s especially lonely for me, all he has to do is read one of my books. And he can hear my voice in the words I’ve written, hear it so clearly it’s as if I’m in the same room with him. I think if you asked me…I could tell you all one hundred reasons.”
“Please let me hate him,” Wesley begged, finally meeting her eyes again.
“Why do you have to hate him? He doesn’t hate you. I’m here now and he doesn’t hate you.”
“Because you’ll go back to him. And I’ll be alone again. And if I don’t have my hate, what will I have?”
She smiled at him and hated herself for that smile.
“You’ll have your parents. A huge farm. Millions of dollars.”
“So that’s your answer?” Wesley’s eyes hardened and Nora knew she’d hurt him far worse than she’d hurt Bastinado.
“I don’t know what else to say…I belong to him. He owns—”
“He doesn’t own you, Nora.” Wesley stood up and started to strip out of his wet clothes. You and your stupid kinky bullshit rules. No one owns anybody. People aren’t property anymore. Søren doesn’t own you. “You don’t belong to him. You can leave him and stay with me if that’s what you want.”
“It’s not kinky bullshit rules.” Nora took a towel of her own and followed Wesley back to the bedroom. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about collars and leashes and leads. When you love somebody, they own you whether you’re kinky or not. Surely you can understand that.”
“I understand love because I love you.” He turned around in the center of his bedroom. “And you love me, right?”
“God, yes, I love you. You know that.”
“Stay with me. Please.”
“Wes…”
“Please,” he said again. Please was all he had.
Nora only leaned against him and sighed. She made the only pledge to him that she could.
“I’ll try.”
* * *
At dawn the next morning, Nora awoke and gently extricated herself from the tangle of sheets and legs and arms that imprisoned her. Looking down on Wesley’s sleeping face, she quietly dressed and prayed he’d still be asleep when she returned. Last night, after he’d pulled out of her for the last time, rolled onto his side and gathered her into his arms, she’d made a decision.
She left the house and got into her car. Without consulting anything but her keen memory for directions, she drove the forty-five minutes to Talel’s horse farm. Once there, she opened the trunk of her car and found the riding crop she’d brought with her from her house in Connecticut. She loved this crop. Short and red and vicious, it had earned her the nickname Little Red Riding Crop early in her career as a Dominatrix. Stories had been written about this crop. It had become the stuff of legend. But it was very real, very painful, and she was about to use it on someone, without any remorse.