9

      Mistress Nora

      ELLE ATTEMPTED TO creep back into Kingsley’s town house under cover of night. A few years ago she might have succeeded in her sneaking but that was before Kingsley acquired his “children.”

      Four black Rottweilers—the children in question—bounded down the stairs, galloping toward her in a hail of paws and ears and tails and tongues. She ended up flat on her back beneath them with four wet noses in her face. Kingsley’s dogs—Brutus, Dominic, Sadie and Max—were reportedly vicious attack dogs. Anyone who knew them, however, quickly discovered that although they, like their owner, were capable of killing if necessary, in general they were lovers, not fighters.

      “Brutus, stop it,” she said as Brutus, the alpha of the bunch, stuck his nose between her thighs. “Jabberwocky.”

      “They don’t respond well to safe words,” Kingsley said from the top of the stairs.

      “Jesus Christ,” she said, petting and pushing the dogs away at the same time. “Why couldn’t you be a cat person?”

      “There’s enough pussy in this house as it is.” Kingsley started down the steps toward her. He was dressed but disheveled, looking like a well-fucked rogue. Apparently she and Kingsley had both had a nice evening. Finally he whistled, calling the dogs off her. They whimpered but obeyed their master although it was obvious they were not done with the lickings and the pettings.

      “Where’s Calliope?” Elle pulled herself off the floor and brushed herself off. “I thought they slept with her.”

      “They do. But she’s on a date.”

      Elle walked past him heading up to her room.

      “Guess we’re all getting lucky tonight,” she said.

      Kingsley grabbed her arm as she tried to pass him, stopping her on the stairs. “Griffin?”

      “Yup.”

      “He wasn’t supposed to tell you he was watching you,” Kingsley said.

      “He didn’t tell me. I caught him in the act. He’d make a terrible CIA agent.”

      Kingsley sighed heavily. “I’ll kill him.”

      “Don’t kill him. I need him alive if I’m going to keep tying him up and fucking his brains out.”

      Kingsley narrowed his eyes at her. “But Griffin’s a dominant.”

      “So?”

      “You topped him?”

      “I did.”

      “You topped a top.”

      “I’ve topped you,” she said.

      “I’m a masochist. Griffin isn’t.”

      “Griffin’s barely twenty-three and couldn’t scare someone if he wore a suit made out of knives. He’s a puppy, King. It’s pretty easy to top a puppy when you’ve already topped a...” She looked down at Brutus sitting at Kingsley’s heels. “A Rottweiler.”

      Kingsley cocked his eyebrow at that. Probably the first time in his life a woman had ever likened the inestimable Kingsley Edge to a dog.

      “You enjoyed it with Griffin?”

      “As much as he did. So...a lot.”

      “My office. Now.”

      “Now? I’m so tired,” she said. “I came like eight times today. I need to put an ice pack on my pussy.”

      “Ice later. Talk now. Go.”

      Elle went. The fantasy of owning her own house was growing stronger every day. Wouldn’t it be lovely to return home from a day of debauchery to an empty house? Or if not an empty house, a house devoid of her boss. She wouldn’t have to answer questions about where she went and what she did and with whom she did it. Someday...once she got her money. Not money, she corrected. A lot of fucking money.

      Since Kingsley would be the source of her getting “a lot of fucking money” she dutifully trudged up to his office and sat gingerly in the chair opposite his desk. Next time she took a year off cock, she’d pick a guy with a much smaller penis to help with her reentry into the world of PIV intercourse.

      “I have good news,” Kingsley said. He sat on the edge of his desk in front of her.

      “I like good news.”

      “Milady will be at the party we’re attending tomorrow night.”

      “Good,” Elle said. “Can’t wait for the beat and greet.”

      “You think you’re ready to go out again? Be around our people?”

      “He won’t be there, will he?”

      “No.”

      “Good.”

      “But eventually you will have to see him again. You need to prepare yourself for that. If you saw him right now, could you handle it?”

      Elle paused before answering. Finally she spoke.

      “While we were having sex, Griffin called me something. He called me Mistress. Mistress Nor.”

      “You liked that?” Kingsley asked.

      “I loved it.” She heard the heat in her own voice, the emotion betrayed, and she quickly worked to cover it. “I don’t want to go back to being Eleanor. I want to be Mistress Nor.”

      “Nor?”

      “Griffin hates the name ‘Eleanor.’ He just started calling me Nor one day and that’s what he calls me. Then he called me Mistress Nor, and when he called me Mistress Nor, it was like I heard my real name for the first time.”

      “There is a queen named Noor. Queen of Jordan. Beautiful woman. Brilliant and accomplished. I send her roses on her birthday. It’s a good name for a queen but perhaps not a dominatrix. Nor. Rhymes with whore. Can’t have that, can we?”

      “No, I guess not.”

      Kingsley leaned over and took her chin in his hand. He looked at her, looked into her eyes, at her face, looked like a man aiming for a target. Where was the bull’s-eye?

      “Nora.”

      The name sounded elegant with his accent. Strong, sophisticated. Not her name and yet there was her name buried inside it. Those three letters—Eleanor, Nor, Nora...it was her and yet it wasn’t.

      “I