The Prince

The last time he’d gazed upon it, it had been painted red with his sister’s blood. A thousand winds and a thousand rains had washed her blood away and left it gray and green once more. Kingsley laid his hand on the cool stone.

“Marie-Laure…” How good it felt simply to say her name, to acknowledge, even if only to himself, that she’d lived. She should still be alive. He’d long ago forgiven God for the death of his parents. And his grandparents…their deaths barely a splinter compared to the bullet wound in his heart that had been his parents’ death.

But Marie-Laure, her death had destroyed him. It had gone off inside him like a bomb. Everything had shattered, and only the shell remained. He ate and drank death after that. Until Søren had come back and brought him to life once again.

“Ma soeur,” he whispered.

“You should know, Kingsley, she’s not really gone.”

SOUTH

For the tenth time in one car trip, Nora shushed Wesley.

“What? Why are you shushing me?”

“I’m thinking about serious stuff. You know how hard that is for me.”

Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back in the passenger seat and visualized the race…the horses surging, flanks flying and Spanks for Nothing taking the lead and refusing to give it up.

And then just an hour later…that thousand pounds of muscle in motion had lain still and dead on the floor of his stall, with no visible injuries. She’d seen the horse, gone to him, looked at him with her own eyes, before kneeling on the ground next to Talel and wrapping an arm around his shoulders. They didn’t speak. She had nothing to say that would help him. She could only be there for him with a touch. Had Wesley not been there, she would have been there for Talel in other ways.

Talel…she still couldn’t believe this ghost from her past had shown up in Wesley’s world. Nora replayed the chain of events in her mind. Wesley had walked off with his father and left her alone near the stables. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a familiar outline. Her eyes had widened, her heart had raced. Talel? Here?

Forgetting all her promises to Wesley of maintaining decorum and good behavior, she’d shouted, “Talel!” and raced toward him. He’d whipped around at the sound of her voice. Son of Middle Eastern royalty or not, the man still obviously worshipped at her feet. They’d embraced with laughter and kisses. In his arms, Nora had felt a calm return to her, a calm she hadn’t felt since leaving the safety of New York.

“How is my car treating you?” he’d asked, and Nora laughed in his face.

“My car. You gave me the Aston Martin. She’s mine.”

“And I am yours,” he said, kissing her hand.

“None of that. That car has gotten me into as much trouble as you did.”

“That was my plan, Mistress. I’d hoped you would get into so much trouble only I could get you out of it.” He’d whispered the words in her ear, and she’d playfully purred at him. Talel…she’d broken a lot of rules with this man. Three years ago Kingsley had learned that the dashing sheik who’d come to New York ostensibly on diplomatic matters had been making quiet inquires into where and how he could enjoy some playtime with one of the city’s legendary Dominatrixes. Kingsley had seen nothing but dollar signs on Talel. But Nora had seen more. Life in a strict Muslim country had left him hungry to explore the decadences of the Western world. More than that, however, he simply needed affection, acceptance. In his world, his desires were taboo. His father would have exiled him had word gotten out that Talel had a sexual submissive streak in him as wide as the desert that bordered his country. Kingsley had one hard and fast rule about the Dominants and submissives in his employ—no sex with the clients. With pride, Kingsley could say he was no pimp. If Nora slept with Talel, then Talel could not be a paying client.

She’d slept with him. And Kingsley had been furious. Not that Nora had cared. She’d just run off to Jordan with Talel for a week, and holed up in the grandest hotel in the country. Day after day, night after night, she’d become Talel’s oasis…giving him what he’d thirsted for in his desert home, but never could find. For one beautiful week with him, she’d gloried in her Dominant side as she beat Talel, bound him, brought him to his knees again and again. He had kissed her boots, obeyed every order, lived and died between her thighs. He’d begged her for everything, for every touch, for every kiss…and only if he begged well enough did she acquiesce. At the end of the week he’d begged her for one more favor.

Stay with me…stay forever.

And for the second time in her life she’d looked into the eyes of a man she adored, a man who could give her a life of luxury, a man who wanted her more than the air in his lungs…and she’d said, “No.” And she’d said it to Talel for the same reason she’d said no to another beautiful heartbroken man all those years earlier. Daniel…Talel…even Griffin…she could have had them but walked away, and all for the same reason.

Søren.

But he’d forgiven her, Talel had. And he’d loved her despite knowing she loved another. And the week after she returned to America, she’d found an inferno-red Aston Martin with a license plate that read MSTRSS sitting in her driveway.

To see him again, here at a racetrack a thousand miles from New York and a billion miles away from his home country…Nora couldn’t believe her eyes, her luck. Once in Talel’s arms she felt at home again. These rich Southerners with their million dollar accents and their twenty-five-million-dollar ponies, they weren’t her people. Talel with his hunger for female Dominance, his willingness to submit to anything she wanted to do to him, his whispered “Yes, Mistress” in her ear—he felt like home to her.