“Oui, Maîtresse.”

When Kingsley returned with the wine, Felicia’s two Russian blue cats had taken over his spot in her bed. He handed Felicia a glass before picking up one of the cats. It squeaked in protest.

“Hush, Severin,” Kingsley said, scratching Severin under his chin. “You stole my pillow.”

“That’s Venus, not Severin,” Felicia said.

“My apologies, Maîtresse Venus. All cats look alike to me.” He winked at Felicia, and sat Venus-in-Fur down next to her twin. He got into bed, and the cats rearranged themselves into a yin-yang of thick gray fur.

“Don’t tease my babies,” Felicia said. “I missed them so much when I was gone to the bad place. Even though it’s their fault I had to go away.”

“The cats sent you to pris—”

“Shh...” Felicia said and covered Venus’s twitching ears with her hands. “They don’t know where I went. Someone else had to feed them for two months, and that’s all they need to know.”

Kingsley laughed. “How did your cats send you to...away?”

“Usually the wife finds out about the affair from the lipstick on the collar or by finding a strand of long hair on her husband’s coat. Stephen gave me the kittens as a gift. He and his wife couldn’t have cats because she was allergic. After leaving me one night he went home...and his lovely wife sneezed. ‘The sneeze heard round the world,’ the newspapers called it. Or, if not the world, the entire city.”

Kingsley stroked Severin as the cat purred and preened.

“His wife found out about you, and you spent two months in prison, because Stephen Platt, a billionaire CEO, doesn’t know how to use a lint roller?”

“Stephen is living proof that social Darwinism is a failed theory. You’d think a billionaire would be a little smarter.”

“Men like him are arrogant,” Kingsley said. “People assume the rich are smarter and better. They’re just richer.”

“They’re certainly not any better. Most of my clients are millionaires and then some.”

“They’d have to be to afford you.”

“Aren’t you glad I’m not charging you a cent?” Felicia leaned over the two cats and kissed him.

“Since you don’t have sex with your clients, I’d say it was the best money I’ve never spent.”

They kissed long and deep. He wanted her again already, but he would wait and recover so he could give her everything he had, not just everything he had left.

When the kiss ended, Kingsley lay on his back again. Severin stepped on to his chest in that imperious way cats had of making everyone their footstools and curled up on Kingsley’s stomach.

“So, what’s happened while I was gone?” Felicia asked. “Do you have my club ready for me yet?”

“Not yet,” Kingsley said, sighing. Severin rose and fell with Kingsley’s breath. “I can’t find what Fuller’s hiding.”

“Trust your instincts. Stephen’s wife knew that cat hair on his coat meant something more than Stephen stopped to pet a cat one day. She saw cat hair and looked for pussy.”

“I’d look for pussy but Sam won’t let me. I was thinking of seducing Fuller’s wife, but Sam made me promise not to. She says Lucy Fuller isn’t worthy of me.”

“Your little secretary likes you too much. Hard to be objective with affection getting in the way. If Sam hadn’t made you promise, would you go after the wife?”

“Absolutely. She’s as bad or worse than Reverend Fuller anyway.”

“Does he love his wife?”

“I don’t know if he loves her, but he’s protective of her. He swore he’d stay away from the women in my life if I stayed away from the women in his.”

“How chivalrous.”

“Yes,” Kingsley said. “Uncharacteristically chivalrous. I saw him scream at a teenage girl through a bullhorn today.”

“Maybe he isn’t protective of his wife. Maybe he’s protecting himself. Maybe he knows his wife would cheat with you. Maybe she’s done it before.”

“Peut-être,” Kingsley said. “I did promise Sam I’d stay away from her.”

“You promised me my club,” Felicia said. “I’m your domme. You follow my orders.”

“What are your orders, Maîtresse?” Kingsley asked, eager to follow any order that would get him back inside her body.

“Easy order,” Felicia said as she lifted Severin up and off of Kingsley’s chest. Then she put her foot against his hip, pushed hard, and shoved him out of bed on to the floor.

Why were his dominants always doing this to him?

“Go after the wife,” Felicia ordered. “I need a club to play in.”

With pleasure Kingsley answered, “Yes, ma’am.”

31

KINGSLEY TOOK A shower at Felicia’s, dressed and drove to Stamford and the WTL headquarters. He’d timed his arrival to coincide with one of the twice-weekly tapings of Reverend Fuller’s television show—The Truth and Power Hour.

The audience had already been admitted into the cavernous sanctuary that doubled as Fuller’s television studio, so Kingsley stood in the large foyer area and watched the taping on a monitor that played in the lobby.

The music was abominable. Saccharine watered-down gospel music sung by an all-white choir. When it stopped—not soon enough—Reverend Fuller stepped to the pulpit and smiled straight into the camera.