“I would never kill you,” Søren said, sliding his hands over Kingsley’s inner thighs, massaging them, running his fingers to the very edge of Kingsley’s painfully straining erection before pulling away again. Only another man would ever understand the absolute agony of this kind of teasing. Only a sadist like Søren would ever inflict it. “It would be a waste of my valuable time, killing you.”

“You would have to find someone else to torture like this if you killed me,” Kingsley said, laughing even though his eyes held unshed tears of frustration.

“Exactly…a waste…” Søren kissed his rib cage. “Of…” Søren kissed his hip. “My time…” Søren kissed his stomach, only an inch away from where Kingsley so desperately wanted him to.

“I’ll die anyway if you don’t let me come.”

“Your penchant for exaggeration is embarrassing. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“I am. Or would be if I had any shame…which I do not.”

“No shame? One would think someone with no sense of shame would beg more than you have been...”

Kingsley heard the hint in Søren’s voice and nearly laughed out loud with joy. Søren did that sometimes…guided him toward the desired response. At these times Kingsley most felt like a servant, a child, like property. Søren wanted Kingsley to perform for him—to beg when begging was desired, to cry when crying was desired, and always, always to submit to him, for submission was what Søren most desired.

Submission...Kingsley had never understood it until he’d spent his first full night with Søren. That first night in the forest had simply broken his body. The second night had broken his will. But when they spent their first night together in the hermitage, and hadn’t given up until dawn, Kingsley learned that submission didn’t mean surrendering to an enemy, but to an ally. Although Søren never confessed love for Kingsley or even affection, he felt it in every “we” uttered during that long night.

“We should stay here tonight,” Søren had said.

“We should sleep…at least for a while,” Søren had whispered.

“We shouldn’t go back together. Someone might see,” he’d decided in the morning.

During their first night together in the hermitage, Søren had beaten Kingsley before tying him facedown on the cot and penetrating him again and again. And with every thrust, Kingsley had whispered “Je t’aime” into the sheets. A thousand times that night he must have said it. A thousand times he’d meant it. He’d awoken the next morning with his head on Søren’s stomach and those perfect pianist’s fingers twined in his long hair. The pain had rendered him nearly immobile, but he couldn’t stop smiling.

One of the priests in chapel that week had given a homily about Jacob grappling with an angel until he’d wrested a blessing from the angel—an angel who turned out to be God Himself. Jacob received His blessing that night, and along with it a limp that never healed. The message was that no one walked away from God entirely whole. Kingsley would limp away from Søren that morning and every morning after a night with him. He would limp away and know he did so not because he’d been cursed, but because he’d been blessed.

So if Søren wanted him to beg, then Kingsley would beg. And beg he did.

“Please…” He sighed. “Monsieur. I will do anything you ask of me. Anything at all. Only let me come…please...” and on and on. Kingsley debased himself as Søren continued his sensual assault. Assault—it felt like an assault. The more gently Søren touched him, the more gingerly, the more Kingsley ached for more. Even violence would hurt less than this kind of tenderness. Only Søren could make pleasure so brutally painful. His light caresses set every last nerve in Kingsley’s body on edge. After an hour of Søren’s hands on him, of his mouth, every touch felt like sandpaper rubbing an open wound.

“More,” Søren ordered as he pressed a kiss into the hollow of Kingsley’s throat and worked his way slowly over his chest and stomach yet again.

“Give me relief and you will own me for eternity,” Kingsley pledged. “My body, my heart, my soul…take it all if you’ll only let me…”

“I already own you.” Søren’s tongue flicked lightly over the sensitive skin of Kingsley’s side—the one part of him slightly ticklish. Tears slid from his eyes and into his hair. He willed himself to come but couldn’t. He had to be touched. “All of you, for what it’s worth, which isn’t much. I own your body...” Søren slid both hands up Kingsley’s bound arms. “I own your heart…” He pressed his mouth to Kingsley’s chest. “As you’re French and not a Catholic, I’m not even sure you have a soul...”

“I do have one. I keep it in my cock. Feel free to suck it out,” Kingsley said, now desperate enough to taunt Søren.

Søren rewarded his insolence with a quick, hard slap to the face.

“That is not the way to get what you want.”

“Then tell me what is…please.” Kingsley’s voice broke and his throat tightened. “There’s nothing I won’t submit to if you let me come. Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Søren straddled him at the thighs. Kingsley had been stripped naked the moment he’d stepped into the hermitage, but Søren still wore his trousers, shirt, vest and tie. The need to feel Søren’s skin on his was nearly as great as his need to come. “Will you submit to being sodomized again?”

“God, yes.” Kingsley swallowed the knot in his throat. After the first beating tonight, Søren had bent him over a chair and sodomized him. Søren had ordered him not to come, and had touched nothing but his shoulders while inside him.

“Will you submit to being cut open?”

Kingsley paused and then nodded.

“Oui. Anything.” Søren had cut him only once before, and the sight of the razor blade had both terrified and aroused him beyond comprehension. He’d never seen Søren’s eyes turn so black with desire as they had at the sight of Kingsley’s red blood on his olive skin. To see that look again, Kingsley would let Søren cut his tongue out, if that’s what he wanted.

Søren slid his hands from Kingsley’s wrists to his shoulders…across his chest and down his stomach, then up again, pausing at last when they wrapped firmly around Kingsley’s throat.

“Would you let me kill you?” Søren stared down at Kingsley with his steel-gray eyes so empty of compassion.

Kingsley swallowed again and felt his Adam’s apple press against Søren’s hands.

He whispered, “Yes.”

“Good.” Søren’s fingers tightened around his throat, and for one beautiful, terrible moment, Kingsley saw the white light of the World to Come and God standing before him. But the hands around his neck disappeared and he felt incredible heat on him. Søren pushed a finger inside him, and when he touched that spot that sent him into paroxysms of pleasure, Kingsley flinched. And with one guttural cry, came inside Søren’s mouth.

The orgasm lasted forever, so long Kingsley not only felt it would never end, but feared it would never end. On and on, waves of release washed over and through him. Later he realized it had lasted only seconds, but the sheer relief of finally, after an hour of torture, finally…at last…being allowed to come had stripped him of his senses, of any comprehension of time. Søren had that power. Not only did Kingsley bend to Søren’s will, time itself did.

A day or a year or a few minutes later, Kingsley started to come out of the haze. Opening his eyes, he found Søren untying his ankles from the bars of the cot.

“Merci…” Kingsley breathed, a smile leisurely spreading across his face.

“De rien.” Søren wrapped up the rope ties neatly. Kingsley loved watching Søren with rope—he had such a natural grace about him. Everything he did to Kingsley seemed so controlled, so ritualistic. Even the beatings had a strange beauty to them. “You did well.”

“I try to please you.” Kingsley spoke the words before he even thought them. He said them in a tone of pessimism, feeling, as always, that nothing he did would ever be worthy of Søren.

Søren freed his wrists and Kingsley extended his arms as blood rushed through his cool fingers. He flinched when he felt Søren’s hand on his face again—this time not a slap, but a light touch.

“You do,” he said, tapping Kingsley under the chin before leaving the bed.

Kingsley rolled up into a sitting position and pulled a blanket over him. During the hour of torture, he’d been nearly sweating from desire. Now he felt cool, almost cold, and so calm he knew that if left alone and undisturbed, he could sleep for the next ten hours.

“I do?”

“Don’t sound so surprised. Why would you think you don’t please me?” Søren had brought a small trunk from storage, and they used it to conceal their makeshift bonds and the belts he used to beat Kingsley.

Kingsley shrugged.

“Je ne sais pas. Mais…you ask so much of me. I can’t believe I’m giving you what you want.”

“Kingsley, you put your life in my hands. There’s nothing you haven’t let me do to you that I’ve wanted to. You please me more than I can say.”

Heat warmed Kingsley’s face as he flushed from the compliment. While they were in the moment, Søren said the most awful things to Kingsley—that he was nothing, a slave, a servant, mere property to be used for Søren’s pleasure. Did he not really mean those things? Or did he mean them at the time and not after? Or perhaps…perhaps he did mean them, and it pleased Søren that Kingsley didn’t argue?

“I’m…” Kingsley nodded as he pulled the blanket tighter around him. “I’m glad I please you. It’s the most important thing.”

Søren came back over to the bed and touched a strand of Kingsley’s hair. Kingsley willed himself not to move. He wanted to turn his face and kiss the palm of Søren’s open hand, but he stayed strong. He’d debased himself enough tonight.

“It should be.” Søren smiled at him before lightly flicking Kingsley’s swollen lips with his fingertips. Kingsley winced and Søren laughed as he walked back to the trunk.

“Asshole,” Kingsley said, employing his favorite American curse.

“Just for that, you’ll get an extra beating next time we come here.”

Kingsley rolled onto his side and nestled down deep into the blankets.

“When will that be? Soon?” He always asked that, and prayed the answer would be yes.

“Ça dépende.” Søren came back to the bed and stood at the head. Kingsley rolled his eyes dramatically as he sat back up and started to unbutton Søren’s vest. Of all the tasks Søren imposed on him, this one—undressing him for bed—was Kingsley’s favorite. The last thing he wanted was for Søren to know how much he loved tending to Søren’s clothes—carefully removing them piece by piece, folding them and setting them neatly aside even as Kingsley’s own clothes lay in heaps on the floor. Søren never missed an opportunity to step on Kingsley’s clothes when he walked through the hermitage.

“On what?” Kingsley slid the vest off Søren’s shoulders and rebuttoned it before folding it in half and laying it on the bed. Søren had taken off his tie earlier to use as a gag. Kingsley opened Søren’s pants and pulled his shirt free. With every button he unfastened, he placed a kiss onto Søren’s bare chest. Søren never commented when Kingsley did this, never sighed with pleasure or elicited any disdain. He ignored it. Simply ignored it. “Is something happening at the school? I know it’s almost midterms. I’m sure you’ll be too busy for me.”