“What? He was in my dungeon?” Nora demanded.

      “That’s also the good news.”

      “Please tell me someone caught him in the act.”

      “Let’s just say you owe our friend Griffin Fiske a debt of gratitude. I can guess in what form he’ll take repayment.”

      “Griffin?”

      “I underestimated Griffin. He’d make an excellent bodyguard. I should apologize to the man.”

      “How bad is it?”

      “Let’s just say you’re going to need to a new rug, Maîtresse. Yours is...bloody. And the culprit is in the hospital.”

      Nora listened for a few minutes as Kingsley told her the story. They hung up and Nora returned to the living room and found Lance picking his shirt up off the floor.

      “You’re not going to need that,” she said, nodding at the shirt in his hands.

      “Why not?”

      “They caught him. And by ‘they’ I mean my friend Griffin caught him breaking into my dungeon. Griffin beat the shit out of the guy.”

      “Thank God you weren’t there,” Lance said sounding genuinely relieved.

      “I know. I wouldn’t have been nearly as merciful as Griffin. I would have killed him and then gotten arrested. Again. If he laid a finger on my red-and-black riding crop, I swear to God I’ll rip his heart out.”

      “Special crop?”

      “Christmas present,” she said. “From my priest.”

      “You are a weird Catholic.”

      “There is no other kind,” she said.

      “This is the guy who beat up Mistress Natasha? They’re sure?”

      “Natasha came to a couple hours ago. She knew the guy—client of hers with money trouble. King was right. Just a robbery. He got five thousand dollars off Natasha. Decided to see if the other dominatrixes in the city also kept cash on them. Has a nasty drug problem apparently. Owed a lot of money to dealers.”

      “I want to beat the shit out of him, too. Why does this Griffin guy get to have all the fun?”

      “Speaking of having all the fun...you know what this means, right?”

      “Tell me,” Lance said, a smiling forming on his lips.

      “You’re not my bodyguard anymore.”

      Lance let his shirt drop from his fingers. This time he didn’t bother to fold the damn thing.

      “Good boy.”

      Lance followed her up the stairs. The second he stepped into her bedroom, Nora shoved him hard against the wall and kissed him with everything in her.

      “This is what’s going to happen,” she said, between soft bites of his lips. “I’m going to cuff you to my bed. Then I’m going to decorate the front of your body with a set of welts and bruises to match the set on your back. And then I’m going to climb on your cock and ride it until it breaks off. You have any objections to that plan?”

      “Only the part about my cock breaking off, Mistress.” He started to reach for her but Nora caught his hands and pressed them into the wall.

      “That was erotic hyperbole.”

      “Then no, I have no objections.”

      “Good. Not that I would have changed my plans if you did. You’re mine today.”

      “All yours. Every part of me.”

      Nora’s heart clenched at the solemn tone of his pledge. If only she could believe that; if only she could keep him. Then again...maybe he meant it. Maybe she could keep him. Maybe she would keep him.

      “Get rid of the clothes. Pull the covers back. Lay in the center of the bed. Say hello to my ceiling. Now.” She snapped her fingers and Lance immediately unzipped his pants. He’d just come a few minutes ago but she could see that he was already getting aroused again.

      As Lance moved to follow her orders—naked, covers back, center of bed, hello ceiling—Nora threw open her closet and dug for supplies. Playing on the front of the body required a bit more finesse than the back did. With the thicker skin on the back of the body one had to work very hard to do real damage back there. But the front of the body had all those pesky internal organs to deal with.

      Nora found her smallest, thinnest cane—a white plastic little beauty no bigger than a conductor’s baton. She also found her smallest flogger with the thin sharp tails. She didn’t know if Lance liked CBT or not. Guess she’d find out.

      “Comfortable there?” she asked, emerging from her closet with all the necessary supplies.

      “I want to die in this bed.” Lance stretched out, luxuriating on her black sheets. Goddamn, the man should be legally required to be naked constantly.

      “I’m not into necrophilia,” Nora said.

      “I want to live in this bed.”

      “Better,” she said as she opened the side table drawer. She pushed aside her vibrator collection and dug until she found the wrist and ankle cuffs she kept in a box. “Keep enjoying the bed. I’m not planning on letting you out of it for a few hours.”

      “Can’t think of any better way to spend a Sunday.”

      “Helluva a lot better than church anyway. Now give me your wrist.”

      She cuffed both wrists and both ankles before hooking them to spreader bars. With twine she tied his wrists and ankles to each corner of her bed.

      “How do you feel?” she asked once she had him tied down and immobilized.

      “Exposed. Vulnerable.”

      “Good. You okay with spread-eagle?”

      “I am. Haven’t been in it in a while. You might want to uncuff the ankles before the cock-riding, though. Might need some traction.”