“The Mistress,” she corrected him.
“Oui, la Maîtresse.”
She worked in silence through a difficult patch of especially torn skin. Without a word, Nora handed him a pillow and Kingsley bit down on it.
“You need to start taking better care of yourself,” she said, eyeing his battered body after a few more stitches.
“I’m fine.”
“Fine? Let’s not even talk about the six-inch gash I’m sewing up right now. You’re covered in welts and bruises and it even looks like that big blond f**ker tiger-striped you.”
“He did,” Kingsley said with some pride.
“Have you possibly maybe once considered using, I don’t know, a safe word or something?”
“Don’t insult me.”
“Or maybe the green light, yellow light, red light system?” Nora dug her needle into him again and Kingsley bit down into the pillow.
“You might as well turn me vanilla.”
“Kingsley, you stubborn ass, you have a child on the way.”
He stopped biting the pillow long enough to bury his face in it for a moment and mumble something.
Nora pulled the pillow back.
“What was that?”
“I said, ‘Do not remind me.’”
She nodded her head knowingly.
“Terrifying as f**k, isn’t it?”
“You have no idea.”
Nora glared at him.
“Forgive me,” he whispered. “You did have an idea.”
“Yeah, I do. I’m so happy for you I could cry. I probably will when I remember how.”
“I’m trying not to think about it.”
Nora sighed heavily as she continued to stitch him up.
“Don’t sigh at me,” Kingsley ordered. “I’d much prefer you hit me than sigh at me.”
“I’m sighing because Juliette’s pregnant, and you’re obsessing over Søren again. Any possibility those two things are related?”
“Don’t analyze me. I’m still sore from the last time I was analyzed.”
“Kingsley Théophile Boissonneault, talk to me or I’m going to suture your eyelids shut.”
“Very well. It is terrifying. I feel everything starting to change. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to love someone more than I love him, more than I love Juliette. My heart’s divided enough as it is. I’m not sure it will survive another cut.”
“I know it’s scary. But you’re not going to lose Søren because you have Juliette and Junior now. What you two have, it’s something even I can’t touch.”
“Funny...I’ve always thought the same about what you and he have. I’ve envied it.”
“Envied it? I have to obey him. That’s how it works. How many orders has he given you this week?”
“Dozens.”
“How many have you disobeyed?”
“All but one.”
“You want to take my place? You want to sit at his feet and water sticks and do everything he tells you?”
“He’d be dead in a week.”
“Thought so.”
“He saved me.” Kingsley closed his eyes and he remembered waking in the hospital and knowing his superiors would let him die and take their dirty little secrets with him. Søren had come and made sure he walked out on his feet instead of being carried out in a bag. That was only the first time Søren had saved his life. God knows who or what would have killed him if Søren hadn’t come back into his life at the right time. “I can’t let him go.”
“You don’t have to let him go. His heart is strong enough to put up with you and me. And that’s saying something.”
“C’est vrai,” Kingsley agreed as she resumed her stitching. “But I envied you. I envied how much he loved you and how freely. That’s why I was so angry with you for throwing that away for your pet. The only reason I was so angry.”
“His name is Wesley, thank you very much. And he was never my pet.”
“Keep telling yourself that. You might believe it someday.” She flicked him again before picking up the tape and finishing her bandaging. “Your Wesley...he wasn’t one of us. I knew he would never be. When you fell in love with him, it was like you were leaving us all, throwing away everything le prêtre gave you and everything I worked so hard for. Denying yourself, what you are, it was like denying us.”
“I never threw it away. I never denied you or him. I cherished it always even when Søren and I were apart, when you and I were apart. Especially then. I loved Søren when I was with Wes the same as Søren loved you when he and I were together.”
“But you chose le prêtre, didn’t you? In the end you loved him more. The same way he loves you more than me.”
Nora sighed again, heavier this time. Kingsley almost laughed at her disgust. He did love to torment her.
“Love versus love. King, you’re comparing infinities. There is no ‘more.’ That’s not how love works. If it’s love, it’s infinite. You can’t count it. I can’t line up my love for Søren and my love for Wes side by side and see which one is longer. I’ll never reach the end of either. Søren will no more reach the end of his love for you than he’ll reach the end of it for me. He let you go because he loves you, because he knew you needed your freedom. He keeps me close for the same reason. Because he loves me and that’s what I need. Him.”