“You stopped. I’m fine. More than fine,” Kingsley said, drunk on happiness and contentment.

“I could have killed you.”

“Kill me if you want,” Kingsley said, smiling up at him. “I’d die happy.”

Søren closed his eyes and laid his hand on top of Kingsley’s head. It felt like a blessing.

“I’m going to do something for you someday.” Kingsley sighed.

“You do everything for me.” Søren twined his fingers in Kingsley’s hair and tugged it.

“I want to build you a castle.”

Søren laughed, and Kingsley laughed, although he didn’t know what the joke was.

“I’ve had my fill of castles, Kingsley,” Søren said. “What I need is a dungeon.”

* * *

Sam laughed in Kingsley’s arms.

“What are you laughing at?” he asked, pinching her nose.

“So that’s what this is about?” Sam asked. “The club? Your kingdom? You’re building Søren the world’s biggest dungeon?”

“He’s earned it,” Kingsley said. “His father was as rich as God, and Søren risked his wrath, risked getting cut off by telling the new wife what sort of monster she’d married. And he didn’t care. I’ve never met anyone like him in my life. I hope I never meet anyone like him again.”

Sam laughed again and wrapped her arm over his chest. She took a ragged breath.

Ragged?

“I remember that day like yesterday. It should be opening night for our club. November thirtieth—we can finish it in time.”

But Sam didn’t seem interested in talking about the club right now.

“You and Søren fucking in the back of a Rolls Royce.” Sam sighed. “That might be the sexiest story I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“I have better stories,” Kingsley said. “I’ll tell them to you someday.”

“Is it still auto erotic asphyxiation if someone else chokes you, but they do it in the backseat of a car?”

“Whatever you call it, it’s dangerous. That was the last time he choked me. When he married my sister, that put an end to our trysts. She didn’t know about us. But she’s gone now, and I thought when he came here... I hoped, I mean...”

“You hoped you could pick up where you left off?”

“I did. But he’s in love with someone else.”

“Who?”

“A girl at his church.”

“The girl you bribed someone to help?”

“Before you hate him anymore, you should know he hasn’t laid a hand on her.”

“I don’t care if he lays a hand on her as long as he doesn’t ship her off to some kind of reorienting camp, if they get caught together, like that pastor’s wife did to Faith.”

“If they get caught together, they’re moving to Denmark,” Kingsley said. “I think he’s already planned for it.”

“Will you go with them?”

“I tried to learn Danish once. Gave up trying. Russian was easier if that tells you anything.”

“Good,” Sam said. “Then you should just stay here with me.”

She pushed her hip into his leg, and he felt the heat radiating from her body.

Heat?

“I have to say, the thought of you playing with a little girl and her unicorn? So stinking cute. My ovaries want to hug you.”

Kingsley laughed. “I like kids,” he said. Not that he would ever have them. Women tended to want marriage and commitment along with their children, something he didn’t think he could give anyone. Yet, the hope remained.

“You’re amazing.” Sam ran her hand over his chest and kissed his shoulder. “I still can’t believe you were jealous because you saw me kissing someone you thought was a man. That’s adorable.”

“I’ve killed people. I’m not adorable.”

“You are. And you’re very pretty, too,” she said, running her fingers through his hair.

“Sam, you’re flirting with me.”

“I am, aren’t I? That’s a weird thing for a lesbian to do with a man.”

“You are what you are,” Kingsley said. “And I would never try to change you. But if you ever want to play with me, it would be my honor.”

Kingsley rolled onto his side. Sam lay inches from him. She had a full lush mouth, a bow to her bottom lip and her eyes were hooded with the unmistakable look of arousal. Whether it was him that had done it or the story he’d told her, he didn’t care. She was boyish and beautiful and brilliant and he had to touch her.

So he touched her.

Not wanting to scare her, he touched only her lips with his fingertips.

“I’m not used to men wanting me,” she said. “Not men like you. Men who can have any woman they wanted.”

“Get used to it.”

“That story made me really turned on.”

“Do you want to go play in my Rolls Royce?” he teased. “I’ll bring a belt.”

Sam giggled—a beautiful sound, girlish and innocent. She took a fistful of sheet and raised it, covering the lower half of her face like a veil.

“Don’t hide from me,” he said, pulling the cover down.

“I’m hiding from me,” she said. “And from that.”

She looked downward with a meaningful gleam in her eyes. Having Sam lying in his bed, wearing his shirt, draped across his chest, breathing his air and listening while he bared his soul to her had aroused him almost to the point of pain.