LITMIR.BIZ

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said, relieved to have such an easy out.

      “I’ll call soon. I promise.”

      “Take your time,” he said, wishing she’d never call him again.

      “You’re amazing.” She gave him a long deep kiss that Kingsley returned with no enthusiasm whatsoever. “The sexiest man on earth. See you soon? Please?”

       “Bien sûr.”

      “I love the French. Rape me in French next time.” She kissed him again and pointed at the nightstand. “It’s in there. I’ll call.”

      She left him alone in the room. Kingsley waited until the voices disappeared from the hallway. He opened the drawer she’d pointed to, and he found the envelope. He slipped out the door, down the stairs and grabbed a cab. All he wanted to do was take a quick shower, wash Phoebe off him and get back to his blackjack game with Søren.

      He raced up the stairs to his front door, his heart pounding as the coke hit his bloodstream.

      When he strode through the foyer, he noticed two well-turned ankles shod in a pair of beige pumps resting on the arm of his sofa in his sitting room.

      “Blaise?” He peered over the back of the sofa and found a rather euphoric-looking Blaise laying supine and looking sublime. She had a bowl of strawberries balanced on her chest.

      “Bonne soir, monsieur.” She gave a tired happy laugh and popped a strawberry in her mouth. Her usually perfectly coiffed hair was now mussed, and it appeared she’d gotten undressed and redressed at some point. “I love your house. It’s the best house in New York. Have I ever told you that?”

      He narrowed his eyes at her.

      “Are you stoned?”

      She shook her head and giggled. “Nope. This is all afterglow.”

      “Afterglow?”

      “You know what’s amazing, King? He didn’t even lay a hand on me. But that was easily—” she made a huge sweeping gesture with her arm “—easily the best pain I’ve ever experienced.”

      “Pain?”

      “A little B, a little D and a lot of S&M. I was the M.”

      “You were the M, were you?”

      “It was amazing. Your friend is a god of pain.”

      “Who? Who’s a god?”

      “Your blond friend. Søren.”

      Kingsley glared down at her.

      “You had sex with Søren while I was gone?”

      “No, Silly. I said he hardly touched me. He didn’t have to. His soul touched me. His pain touched me.”

      “You’re out of your mind. How did this happen?”

      “I don’t know.” She raised both hands in the air to stretch. “After you left he asked me how I spelled my name. I said like Blaise Pascal, and then he told me about how Blaise Pascal, he was a mathematician who—”

      “He hated the Jesuits. Wrote all sorts of slanderous, and therefore true, things about them.”

      “That. Anyway, we were talking, and then I did what you said I should do and I took him up to the playroom—the one with the Francis Bacon painting over the bed—and suddenly I’m getting flogged and whipped, and then I had an orgasm from the pain alone. Then I was down here with my skirt on backward. I raided your fridge. You know kink makes me hungry.”

      She lifted her bowl of strawberries and offered him one. Kingsley ignored them.

      “Do you think you and your friend would tag-team me someday?”

      “No. Eat your strawberries. I need to talk to the god.”

      “Tell him I want to kiss his feet. Again.”

      “I’ll pass that along.”

      She waved her hand, shooing him from the room.

      “Søren?” Kingsley shouted as he ran up the stairs.

      “I’m in my room,” Søren called back. Kingsley had given him his own guest room to stay in whenever he wished. So far he hadn’t slept any nights in it.

      “All rooms are my room.” Kingsley threw open the door to the guest room. Søren stood on the opposite side of the bed, an open silver suitcase in front of him.

      “Very well, then. I’m in your room.”

      “Can I ask you one question?”

      “Ask.”

      “What did you do to Blaise?”

      Søren looked up at him.

      “I’m not going to answer that.”

      “Did you fuck her?”

      “That’s two questions, and no, I didn’t. Are you upset we played? She said she’s allowed to be with anyone she wants.”

      “I don’t care who she plays with. I want to know why she’s lying on my couch in a stupor claiming you gave her the best pain of her life?”

      “The best? I’m sure that’s an exaggeration, but I’m pleased she enjoyed herself.” Søren smiled as he dug through the suitcase of kink toys Kingsley kept under every bed in the house. “I certainly enjoyed her.”

      “So all that about not breaking your vows was, quoi?”

      “There was no sex, and I didn’t marry her. Nor did I take money from her or refuse to obey a direct order from the pope.”

      “What about—” Kingsley made a specific hand gesture.

      “Well,” Søren said. “I did do that, of course.”

      “Of course.”

      “But we Jesuits aren’t nearly so hard-line or heavy-handed as the Curia when it comes to masturbation. My God, there are at least three puns in that last sentence. Entirely unintentional.”

      “Stop joking. This is serious.”

      “It’s not serious. Calm down, Kingsley.”

      “I’m perfectly calm.”

      “You’re speaking in tongues, Kingsley. I heard French and English, and some Spanish mixed in, and you’re speaking them all at the same time.”

      “You’re a priest. A Jesuit priest. And I left the house for one hour and come back, and I’ve got a girl with afterglow on my couch eating strawberries claiming my ex-lover who is now a Catholic priest gave her the best pain of her life. I can’t ever leave my house again.”

      “You know from personal experience it’s in the world’s best interest I beat someone on a regular basis. I spoke to my confessor, and he gave me leave to deal with this side of myself as long as I don’t break any vows. So there.”

      “So there? No, not there. We’re not there yet. You—” Kingsley pointed at Søren. “You’re in a good mood all the time. And you talk. And you’re...nice. Well, nicer.” The word nice hurt coming out. “You’ve changed.”

      “Kingsley—”

      “It’s the girl, isn’t it? The Virgin Queen. I should have known.”

      Søren eyed him with suspicion. “Kingsley, are you—”

      “Give me a second.” Kingsley paced the room. His mind reeled. What had happened under his own roof? He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out tobacco and rolling papers.

      “What are you doing?”

      “I need a cigarette to calm my nerves. They’re frazzled.”

      “You’re

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