The Prince

One of the priests in chapel that week had given a homily about Jacob grappling with an angel until he’d wrested a blessing from the angel—an angel who turned out to be God Himself. Jacob received His blessing that night, and along with it a limp that never healed. The message was that no one walked away from God entirely whole. Kingsley would limp away from Søren that morning and every morning after a night with him. He would limp away and know he did so not because he’d been cursed, but because he’d been blessed.

So if Søren wanted him to beg, then Kingsley would beg. And beg he did.

“Please…” He sighed. “Monsieur. I will do anything you ask of me. Anything at all. Only let me come…please...” and on and on. Kingsley debased himself as Søren continued his sensual assault. Assault—it felt like an assault. The more gently Søren touched him, the more gingerly, the more Kingsley ached for more. Even violence would hurt less than this kind of tenderness. Only Søren could make pleasure so brutally painful. His light caresses set every last nerve in Kingsley’s body on edge. After an hour of Søren’s hands on him, of his mouth, every touch felt like sandpaper rubbing an open wound.

“More,” Søren ordered as he pressed a kiss into the hollow of Kingsley’s throat and worked his way slowly over his chest and stomach yet again.

“Give me relief and you will own me for eternity,” Kingsley pledged. “My body, my heart, my soul…take it all if you’ll only let me…”

“I already own you.” Søren’s tongue flicked lightly over the sensitive skin of Kingsley’s side—the one part of him slightly ticklish. Tears slid from his eyes and into his hair. He willed himself to come but couldn’t. He had to be touched. “All of you, for what it’s worth, which isn’t much. I own your body...” Søren slid both hands up Kingsley’s bound arms. “I own your heart…” He pressed his mouth to Kingsley’s chest. “As you’re French and not a Catholic, I’m not even sure you have a soul...”

“I do have one. I keep it in my cock. Feel free to suck it out,” Kingsley said, now desperate enough to taunt Søren.

Søren rewarded his insolence with a quick, hard slap to the face.

“That is not the way to get what you want.”

“Then tell me what is…please.” Kingsley’s voice broke and his throat tightened. “There’s nothing I won’t submit to if you let me come. Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Søren straddled him at the thighs. Kingsley had been stripped naked the moment he’d stepped into the hermitage, but Søren still wore his trousers, shirt, vest and tie. The need to feel Søren’s skin on his was nearly as great as his need to come. “Will you submit to being sodomized again?”

“God, yes.” Kingsley swallowed the knot in his throat. After the first beating tonight, Søren had bent him over a chair and sodomized him. Søren had ordered him not to come, and had touched nothing but his shoulders while inside him.

“Will you submit to being cut open?”

Kingsley paused and then nodded.

“Oui. Anything.” Søren had cut him only once before, and the sight of the razor blade had both terrified and aroused him beyond comprehension. He’d never seen Søren’s eyes turn so black with desire as they had at the sight of Kingsley’s red blood on his olive skin. To see that look again, Kingsley would let Søren cut his tongue out, if that’s what he wanted.

Søren slid his hands from Kingsley’s wrists to his shoulders…across his chest and down his stomach, then up again, pausing at last when they wrapped firmly around Kingsley’s throat.

“Would you let me kill you?” Søren stared down at Kingsley with his steel-gray eyes so empty of compassion.

Kingsley swallowed again and felt his Adam’s apple press against Søren’s hands.

He whispered, “Yes.”

“Good.” Søren’s fingers tightened around his throat, and for one beautiful, terrible moment, Kingsley saw the white light of the World to Come and God standing before him. But the hands around his neck disappeared and he felt incredible heat on him. Søren pushed a finger inside him, and when he touched that spot that sent him into paroxysms of pleasure, Kingsley flinched. And with one guttural cry, came inside Søren’s mouth.

The orgasm lasted forever, so long Kingsley not only felt it would never end, but feared it would never end. On and on, waves of release washed over and through him. Later he realized it had lasted only seconds, but the sheer relief of finally, after an hour of torture, finally…at last…being allowed to come had stripped him of his senses, of any comprehension of time. Søren had that power. Not only did Kingsley bend to Søren’s will, time itself did.

A day or a year or a few minutes later, Kingsley started to come out of the haze. Opening his eyes, he found Søren untying his ankles from the bars of the cot.

“Merci…” Kingsley breathed, a smile leisurely spreading across his face.

“De rien.” Søren wrapped up the rope ties neatly. Kingsley loved watching Søren with rope—he had such a natural grace about him. Everything he did to Kingsley seemed so controlled, so ritualistic. Even the beatings had a strange beauty to them. “You did well.”

“I try to please you.” Kingsley spoke the words before he even thought them. He said them in a tone of pessimism, feeling, as always, that nothing he did would ever be worthy of Søren.