“He’s a cop. Beat cop. Cooper. Big man, big as a house. He’s black, too. Grew up in Harlem. Submissive. Loves submitting to women.”
“It’s always the ones you least suspect.”
“He’s terrified his squad will find out what he is. The biggest man I know, scared of other men, of lesser men. It’s not right.”
“No, it isn’t right.”
Kingsley turned his head back to face S?ren.
“They put electrodes on Sam because she likes girls. They gave her drugs to make her vomit while they strapped her to a chair and forced her to watch lesbian porn. She was sixteen. She still has the burn scars. You want to look me in the eye and say our kind doesn’t need protecting?”
“I know we do,” S?ren said. “And more than that. Eleanor has scars on her arms from where she burned herself. Seconddegree burns.”
“Someone needs to teach her how to hurt herself the right way.”
“Someone does, yes.”
“I could teach her,” Kingsley said. “I’m good at it. Didn’t know I was until I started teaching Irina. I used to do all this dirty work for a living—spying, tracking, guarding important people… I have all these skills. I wanted to put them to good use. You know, for us. We need that in this city. Someone to watch over us. Someone who can protect us. Someone to stand between us and them. What’s the word for that?”
“A king,” S?ren said.
“A king…” Kingsley laughed. “Nice dream.”
“You sacrificed your kingdom for your subjects. There is no greater sign of worthiness to be king than the willingness to set aside the crown for the sake of your people.”
“A lot of good it does me.”
“It doesn’t do you any good. That’s the point. I would sleep well knowing you were king of us all.”
Kingsley narrowed his eyes at him. “You would?”
“I trust you with my secrets, with my life. I’ll even trust you with my Eleanor.”
“The Virgin Queen?” Kingsley rolled up. “Here? Where?”
S?ren put his hand on Kingsley’s chest and pushed him on to his back again.
“Behave.”
“She’s so…” Kingsley began, sighing with exaggerated drunken bliss.
“She’s so what?” S?ren asked, increasing the pressure on Kingsley’s chest.
“Vicious.”
Kingsley felt the pressure of S?ren’s hand on his sternum and tried to ignore how good it felt to be held down so roughly.
“Don’t,” S?ren warned.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t enjoy this.”
“Too late,” Kingsley said. “It would help if you moved your hand off my chest.”
“I can’t,” S?ren said.
“Why not?”
“I’m enjoying this.”
Kingsley looked at S?ren, who took measured breaths through his parted lips.
The heat from S?ren’s hand permeated through Kingsley’s shirt and into his skin. With so much pressure on his chest, Kingsley had trouble taking a full breath. Or was it his intense arousal that set him panting?
“I’m going to stop right now,” S?ren said. The buttons on Kingsley’s shirt bit into his skin.
“You don’t have to stop,” Kingsley said.
“I have to.”
The hand remained. The pressure increased.
“I fucked a blond teenager because he reminded me of you,” Kingsley said. “That’s my drunken confession for the night.”
“I never let you fuck me,” S?ren said, and Kingsley shivered at hearing S?ren swear—a rare and erotic occurrence.
“Which is why I fucked him. What’s your drunken confession for the night?”
“If you’d begged hard enough, I might have let you.”
Kingsley’s eyes went huge. S?ren laughed, and then the pressure was gone from Kingsley’s chest.
“I said you didn’t have to stop.” Kingsley rolled into a sitting position again. This time S?ren let him up.
“Yes, I did. I wouldn’t want to accidentally kill you. If and when I kill you, it will be on purpose.”
Kingsley met S?ren’s eyes.