The Queen. Tiffany Reisz

her first real laugh since she’d set foot in this house.

      “Hurt men? With pleasure,” she said. “Theirs and mine.”

      “And mine,” Kingsley said and he knelt on the floor at her feet, sitting between her knees. He cupped her face with his hands and brought her mouth to his. A kiss... The very last thing she expected him to do was kiss her. And not a simple, benign, friendly kiss between ex-lovers greeting each other after a year living separate lives. No, this was a kiss that meant something. His lips pushed hers apart, his tongue slipped between her teeth, his thumbs brushed her cheeks. She returned the kiss, pushing close to him so that her legs wrapped around his back and her hands found their way to his hair. She dug her fingers into the soft dark waves and pulled, tilting his chin up, taking control of the kiss.

      “I’m glad you came back,” Kingsley said between kisses, his voice low and intimate, his French accent thick and his erection pressing against her thigh.

      “Why is that?” she asked, aching for more than a kiss.

      “Because,” he said, kissing her neck under her ear and breathing the words so that she felt them brush across her skin like fingertips, “I’m your first client.”

       5

      Flogging Lessons

      “HARDER,” KINGSLEY SAID. Elle did it harder, hard as she could. “You call that harder?”

      She threw the flogger down and turned to Kingsley.

      “How do you know how hard I’m hitting when I’m not hitting anyone?” She pointed at the towel on the wall. “That is a bath towel, not a person. No matter how hard I hit it, it’s not going to scream.”

      “It’s still hanging on the wall. And if it’s still hanging on the wall—” Kingsley picked up the flogger, threw it once with a practiced snap, and the towel fell to the floor landing in a soft pile at their feet “—you aren’t hitting it hard enough.”

      Elle exhaled heavily and scooped the towel off the floor to pin it back in place. They were in Kingsley’s playroom. It boasted a red St. Andrew’s Cross, a leather kneeling bench, two dozen floggers, canes and enough rope to truss up an entire herd of cattle. From the ceiling hung an elegant glass chandelier, which gave the playroom that touch of class everyone expected from the King of the Underground. For the past two weeks Kingsley had brought her here for four hours a day, training her in the various arts of pain. Caning was a breeze. Clamps were a blast. Flogging, however, had proven to be more difficult than it looked.

      Once the towel was back in place, Elle held out her hand. Kingsley gave her the black-tailed elk-hide flogger, slapping the handle into her palm.

      “I could knock it off with a whip,” she said.

      “No whips. No single-tails. You could kill someone with one of those. You get to touch the whip when you’re ready and not a moment sooner.”

      “I like whips.”

      “Don’t we all, but you’ll use floggers more often than whips. No whipping until you’ve mastered flogging. Then I’ll find you a whip master. Now do it again,” he said, his voice calm and steady. “Make it hurt.”

      “I’ll make it hurt.” Elle narrowed her eyes at the towel. “I can make it hurt. Who knows more about pain than the submissive of a sadist?”

      “You are not a submissive. You never were.”

      “Then what the hell was I doing the past decade of my life, King?”

      “Wasting everyone’s time?”

      She glared at him. “Look, I want to do this right. I loved topping you. I loved hurting you. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love submitting, too.”

      “You have to let that part of your life go. You aren’t her anymore.”

      “I’m still Elle Schreiber. No matter which end of the whip I’m on, I’m still Elle Schreiber.”

      Kingsley narrowed his eyes at her.

      “That’s it.”

      “That’s what?”

      “You need a new name,” he said.

      “What?”

      “A new name. A scene name. Everyone already knows you as Eleanor Schreiber. Everyone already knows you as his submissive, his property. But you aren’t his anymore. You need a new name.”

      “Like what?”

      “I don’t know. I’ll figure something out.”

      “You’re going to give me a new name? Do I get any say in this?”

      “You can pick out the font on your business cards after I decide on your new name. Now flog.”

      Elle took a few steadying breaths and focused her attention. She could do this. How many times had she been flogged in her life? First time when she was twenty, eight years ago. She’d spent at least one night a week in the company of the most infamous sadist in their vast kink community during all those years. Sometimes two. Two times fifty-two times seven equaled a lot of fucking floggings. And that didn’t include all the ones Kingsley had given her.

      With one more heavy breath she placed her feet in position and raised the flogger over her head. With her right hand she held the handle, with her left hand the tips of the tails.

      She pulled the tails taut and then let it go with a flick. It was a good hit, a strike right down the middle. And yet, the towel stayed pinned in place.

      “Fuck.”

      Kingsley gave a low chuckle, and she nearly flogged his French face.

      “You’re finding out that being a dominant is more work than you ever imagined, aren’t you?” he asked.

      “I need more practice. These floggers are heavier than they look.”

      “And you’re a woman and you’re five foot three, and you don’t possess one-tenth of the upper body strength I do.”

      “I swim laps.”

      “Not enough.”

      “Fine. I’ll join a gym.”

      “Yes, you will. But you’ll never be as strong as I am, or as strong as he is or as strong as the average healthy man on the street is. This job isn’t about muscle strength. The physical part of dominating someone is the smallest part of it. Your clients will be men, and they will be bigger and stronger than you are. You’ll never outweigh them, and you’ll never be able to beat them at arm wrestling.”

      “So...shoot them?” she asked.

      Kingsley smiled.

      “They want to submit to you. They want you to hurt them. They won’t want to hurt you, because that’s not their nature. They want to be dominated by a woman because they don’t feel alive or sexual or aroused until they’re beaten, used and treated like objects. But if you want that respect, if you want their lips on your boots and their souls at your feet, you have to earn their respect. And you earn it by showing them you aren’t afraid to hurt them. Milady hurts them. You’ll hurt them more. Now do it again.”

      She did it again. And again. And again. She did it until her back burned and her muscles screamed and she thought she’d die if she had to lift her arms over her head again. But she did it again, and she didn’t die. She wanted to die, but unfortunately she didn’t get her wish.

      After half an hour Elle dropped her arms to her sides. Sweat poured from her forehead and down her back. Her heart pounded and she gulped down an entire bottle of water in a few swallows.

      She pulled the towel down—she still hadn’t managed to knock it off the wall—and raised it