EXCERPT FROM ‘A WINTER SYMPHONY’
Søren ordered him to undress. Kingsley obeyed, but slowly. He wanted everything to be slow tonight. No rush. No hurry. Make the evening last as long as possible.
He took off his suit jacket, tossed it over the back of the chair. Then the button-down, deftly freeing one button at a time. Meanwhile, Søren had unlocked the big steamer trunk. Hidden under the neatly folded sheets and quilts were all of Søren’s toys. Floggers. Whips. Handcuffs. Misery sticks. Leather cuffs. Snap hooks. Spreader bars. Ankle cuffs.
Kingsley grew more and more aroused as the seconds passed and the silence grew heavy with possibility. Shoes off. Socks off. Trousers off. Then there was nothing left to take off.
Søren emerged from the chest with a ring. A large metal ring. Definitely not a cock ring, unless the cock in question belonged to a bull elephant.
“What’s that?” Kingsley asked.
“You wanted to leave marks on my bed,” Søren said, placing the metal hoop over the top of the wooden spindle, where it stayed like a ring tossed onto a peg during a carnival game. “Your own marks. She can’t reach that high. I think you can.”
Søren picked up two leather wrist cuffs. Kingsley was six feet tall, but even so, he would have to stretch if he were cuffed to that ring. The higher his hands were tied, the less secure footing he would have, and the more vulnerable he would be—no doubt precisely why Søren had thought of it.
Søren casually tossed the cuffs onto the bed, then unbuttoned his shirt. He threw it at Kingsley, who knew what to do. He neatly folded the shirt and laid it over the back of the chair, and just like that, he was sixteen again. This was how it had been. This is how it would be. Only this time, he hoped, without the terrible ending.
From the toy box, Søren removed a flogger with oiled leather tails. Kingsley closed his eyes, breathed a silent “Merde.” Oiled leather was bad. Oiled leather meant sharp, stinging sensations. Oiled leather was not for beginners, because oiled leather could cause serious pain.
“You don’t use that on Nora, do you?” Kingsley asked.
“Never. Though she’s been threatened with it. Keeps her in line, more or less.”
He gave Kingsley a wicked, almost demonic grin. Then Søren moved closer, pressed his bare chest to Kingsley’s. The skin to skin contact was delicious, electric. Kingsley’s cock stiffened. It ached for touching and sucking, but the night had only just begun. Relief was hours away.
The flogger hung on Søren’s wrist by the strap, and when he cupped Kingsley’s neck lightly—and then not so lightly—Kingsley felt the tails gently brushing his naked back.
“I would never use this on Eleanor,” Søren said, meeting Kingsley’s eyes. “I’ve been saving it for you.”
“What did I do to deserve the honor?”
“You showed up.”
Søren’s mouth found his again, kissed him deeply but too briefly. He raised Kingsley’s wrist to his lips and bit him hard, over the pulse point, hard enough to break the skin. Just a nip of teeth, but it sent a jolt of sharp pain through his entire body. The blood welled up, not much more than a pinprick, but Søren’s pupils dilated at the sight of it until there was more black in his eyes than gray.
Slowly, Søren lowered Kingsley’s hand and placed it flat against the center of his chest. Kingsley could feel Søren’s steady, strong heartbeat against his palm. Then Søren picked up one leather cuff and wrapped it around Kingsley’s wrist, buckling it with his quick, agile fingers…fingers that had done this so many times, on so many nights, that surely he could have done it in his sleep. The leather cuff abraded the small bite wound on Kingsley’s wrist. With every flinch, every twist, he would feel it again.
Which was, of course, precisely why Søren did it.
When both wrists were cuffed, Søren took out a snap hook and ordered Kingsley to face the bedpost and raise his arms. He could just barely reach the ring, standing on his toes. Søren, four inches taller, had no difficulty strapping him in and stretching him further in the process. Kingsley clenched his teeth as the muscles of his arms and back went taut and lengthened as if pulled on a rack.
In a proper flogging, the top warms the submissive up with a light start. The pain goes slowly and gently from a one to a two, a two to a four. Gradually, carefully, and with respect.
But this was Kingsley, a whore for pain.
And this was Søren, a man who made pain sluts cry for their mothers.
The first strike was brutal. Brutal and beautiful, just like the man who delivered it. Kingsley was caught so off guard by the pain that he cried out. When no second strike immediately followed, he knew he was in trouble.
“We’re in the rectory of a Catholic church, Kingsley,” Søren reminded him in his most insufferable tone. “Let’s keep it down, shall we? Or do I need to gag you?”
Kingsley gave that question serious thought. Oiled leather flogger? No way to move into or away from the pain?
“Better gag me,” he said.
Søren silently retrieved a gag from his toy box and tied it around Kingsley’s head.
“Shall I continue?” Søren asked in his ear. “Oh, you’re gagged. You can’t answer. I’ll take your silence for consent.”
Kingsley’s silence was his consent. His presence was his consent. When it came to Søren, Kingsley’s existence was his consent.
“I promise I’ll stop if you pass out from blood loss,” Søren added.
This was a joke. At least Kingsley hoped it was. With Søren, one could never be sure…
The second strike was as hard and as harsh as the first. A line of fire burned across Kingsley’s back. Then the third strike, and the fire went wild.
Kingsley braced himself as well as he could against the bedpost, shoulder to oak, and let the fire rain down on him. On his shoulders, on his sides, on his ass, thighs; even the tender skin on the back of his knees wasn’t spared. The sensation went beyond stinging and burning to a place of absolute obliterating conflagration. If someone had doused him in gasoline and thrown a match on him, he might not notice. His body was a sacrificial bonfire and Søren the god for whom he burned. Everything turned to ash in the fire: His fears for the future. His dark memories of the past. His ego. His needs. His wants. His hopes. He was nothing but a body.
Then it was over, the cool air kissing his raw skin. He hung limp from the bedpost, covered in sweat and shivering, panting against the gag.
Søren pushed his bare chest against Kingsley’s back. Kingsley almost passed out from the sudden wave of pain as Søren’s sweat stung his wounded flesh.
But it was worth it. God, was it worth it when Søren wrapped his arms around his stomach, put his lips to his ear, and said, “Thank you.”
Søren kissed him on the back of the neck where the strap of the gag had rubbed his skin red. He kissed Kingsley’s shoulders, still burning, and the back of his head. Søren’s lips dug hard into Kingsley’s skin like he was close to coming, and it was true—he could feel his lover’s powerful erection against his back.
This was one of those rare and perfect moments when Kingsley felt Søren’s need, so much greater than his own. No matter how much Kingsley wanted it—and he did want it, beyond love or money—Søren needed it, like food, water. Like air. And if you needed air and didn’t have it, wouldn’t you put your lips to the ear of the man who’d given it to you to whisper your thanks?
Søren finally unbuckled the gag and pulled it gently out of Kingsley’s mouth before dropping it onto the rug. Then he reached up and unhooked the snap hooks. Kingsley’s arms fell down to his sides like deadweight. His knees nearly buckled. But he didn’t have to worry that he’d fall. Søren had him. Kingsley leaned back against him, resting there. Søren’s arms were around him, his chin on Kingsley’s shoulder.
“Happy now?” Søren asked softly, laughter in his voice. “Now that you left your mark on the bed?”
Kingsley opened his tired eyes and saw the steel ring had cut gouges into the top of the bedpost, gouges so deep they’d exposed the pale wood underneath the dark stain and varnish.
Blissfully, he smiled.
“Very, very happy.”