The Mistress (The Original Sinners 4)

“Good girl.”

“Thank you,” she said, basking in the praise. “And...?”

“Kingsley didn’t choose the last name Edge at random. It wasn’t an affectation. It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t even a nickname. The choice of the last name ‘Edge’ is a warning.”

“Warning of what?”

“Kingsley is a connoisseur of a certain style of BDSM known as edge-play. Eleanor keeps a running list of what she calls ‘The lies kinky people tell vanilla people.’ On that list are things like ‘All scenes are prenegotiated.’ And ‘No, of course the floggers and singletails never break the skin.’ And ‘Yes, we all use safe words and the submissive is the one truly in control.’”

“None of that is true?”

“It is true...for some of us. For others, we play by different rules. With his clients and in his clubs, Kingsley is a great enforcer of the rules of safe play. Kingsley, the man in private, he prefers more dangerous games. No safe words, no safeguards. He is particularly fond of breath-play and rape-play.”

Another chill passed through Grace, a chill that had nothing to do with the night air.

“Rape-play...that seems self-explanatory. Breath-play?”

“Choking,” Søren said simply. “Erotic asphyxiation. I’ll admit I’ve enjoyed the same activities but under much more tightly controlled circumstances. Blood-play for instance. It’s by far my favorite form of sadism. And yet, Eleanor and I engage in it no more than once a year. She bathes before the cutting and we clean her wounds and mine thoroughly after. No safe words necessary during because if she says stop, I stop. With Kingsley...you can beat him bloody, brutalize him, violate him in every way, and he won’t try to stop you. He has no limits. I gave him a safe word to use when we were teenagers. He never once uttered it, and I broke him into a thousand pieces simply for the pleasure of putting him back together just to break him apart again.”

Grace inhaled deeply and let the words sink in. She knew she should be horrified, disgusted...but nothing about this man or his confession created any reaction in her other than fascination and compassion. Even desire, if she dared admit that to herself.

“You see,” Søren continued, “everyone instinctively understands that the submissive partner in the scene should feel safe and be safe. But it’s often forgotten that the Dominant should also feel safe and secure. When I’m intimate with Eleanor, it’s difficult to remain self-aware, but I can. If I start to forget myself she reminds me who I am.”

“How so?”

“She’s rarely used her safe word with me. Almost never. But if she needs me to stop for a moment she’ll tell me. If something is starting to go too far, she’ll pull me, pull us both, back from the edge. But not Kingsley. It’s far too easy to forget myself with Kingsley, far too easy to go to the edge with him and fall over. And since I love him and would rather not be the architect of his destruction and therefore mine...”

“You don’t touch him because you love him.”

“The self-control required to hold back and not cause harm is often exhausting, especially when losing control is so intoxicating—far more so than even five glasses of wine. That’s why Eleanor and I have had an open relationship from the beginning. Sometimes a few days or a week is necessary to recover from a night with me.”

“So if she wants sex without welts and bruises, she goes to someone else.”

“And if I want to paint a fresh canvas with welts and bruises, I go to someone else.”

“You have other lovers?” Grace asked, utterly shocked. She knew Nora did, but from what she’d said, Søren was faithful to her alone.

“Eleanor and Kingsley are the only two lovers I’ve had since becoming a priest. But there are several other women who submit to me when Eleanor’s out of town or needs a few days to heal.”

“Only women?”

“Yes. I’m more careful with women than I would be with a man. And quite frankly, Kingsley is the only man who I’ve ever been attracted to.”

“So she sleeps with others and you beat others?”

“An arrangement that works beautifully for us. Or did.”

“She loves you. Whatever she had to work out with Wesley, it doesn’t change that fact. Any more than me sleeping with Ian or Zachary sleeping with Nora didn’t change the fact that he and I were married, that we loved each other and that we belong together.”

“That’s why you don’t hate Eleanor?”

“Exactly. Because I hated Zachary like I was supposed to.” She took another drink of the wine. If she was going to talk about her separation from Zachary, she’d need all the liquid courage she could get. “That’s why the wife always hates the other woman. It’s good for her to hate the other woman. The other woman—” Grace stretched her arm far out in front of her “—is other. She’s not even a person. We can heap all our hatred, all our disdain, on her even though deep down we know she’s not the one to blame. She’s the scapegoat.”

“Did you know the scapegoat is an Old Testament concept?”

“I had no idea.”

“From Leviticus. The sins of the Israelites were symbolically placed onto the head of a goat and then the goat was driven into the wilderness never to be seen again. It was a form of atonement.”