“I think it means you want a family, too.”
S?ren rolled over on to his back, and Kingsley kept his hands to himself, a show of self-restraint he felt he deserved a medal for. If given permission, Kingsley would have spent the entire day kissing and touching every inch of S?ren’s body, which was without f law but for the small round crater on his upper arm where he’d gotten vaccinated for smallpox as a child. Such a little thing, but it reminded Kingsley that S?ren was human. All too easy to forget sometimes.
“I have a family,” S?ren said, looking Kingsley in the eyes.
A horn honked discreetly outside the house.
“That’s for me,” Kingsley said, wishing he hadn’t called the car. He wanted to stay with S?ren and talk. Talk? Yes, even more than pain and sex, he wanted to talk. But they had plenty of time for that. The rest of their lives. S?ren had pledged his fealty to Kingsley, and nothing would tear them apart ever again.
“Goodbye, Kingsley,” S?ren said. Kingsley pulled away. Reluctantly. Very reluctantly.
He left S?ren’s bed. But before Kingsley walked out of the room, he looked back.
“Did you mean it?” Kingsley asked. “The oath? That you would sleep well knowing I was a king?”
“Vive le roi,” S?ren said and rolled on to his stomach.
Long live the king.
“Did you mean the other thing you said?”
“Which was?”
“Your confession?”
S?ren adjusted his pillow, straightened his sheet and settled down back into his bed.
“I suppose we’ll never know, will we?” S?ren asked.
Kingsley decided to take that as a “maybe.”
“Did you find the gift I left you?” S?ren asked.
“Gift? No. What gift?”
“You’ll find it.” S?ren rolled over on to his stomach and pulled the sheets up to his neck—by far the most sadistic thing he’d ever done in Kingsley’s estimation.
On the drive back to the city Kingsley heard S?ren’s words echoing in his mind. Vive le roi. If S?ren, the one man on earth Kingsley respected and loved with all his heart and all his strength and all his soul…if that man could swear his allegiance and loyalty to Kingsley, then how could he doubt his worthiness to be a king to their kind? If S?ren was for him, who could be against him?
By the time he arrived at his town house, Kingsley had made a decision. Fuller or not, Renaissance or not, Sam or not, he would build his kingdom. He would find a place, a different place, a place he and S?ren and all their kind could go and be safe and be themselves, and the rest of the world would be locked outside in the cold.
He wouldn’t waste another day. He would do it for S?ren because Kingsley would do anything for S?ren. And he would do it for himself because a king must have a kingdom.
He would have started right that second if it weren’t for the alcohol lingering in his system. He should sleep more, wake up with his head on straight. His kingdom deserved his best, and so he would give it his best. He wouldn’t even drink again until the night the club opened. He still had the bottle of champagne he had bought from Sam. He and S?ren would drink it. It wouldn’t be right, drinking it without Sam. But he would do it anyway, no matter how much he missed her, no matter how much he wished she was back, no matter how much he wanted to hear her voice.
Kingsley stepped inside his bedroom, turned on his lamp and pulled the covers down on his bed.
From behind him he heard a voice.
“Look what the * dragged in.”
He spun around, suddenly sober.
“Sam?”
37
“DON’T KICK ME OUT,” SHE SAID, HOLDING UP HER hands in surrender. “Please.” Kingsley couldn’t quite believe his eyes. He gazed at her in shock, more curious than furious.