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If you choose, Little OneI can own you You would be my property, mine alone

And her heart had answered before her mouth could find the words

Of course you own me You always have

"But your Wesley, you didn’t want him to tell you as down the rabbit hole" Marie-Laure leaned forward and gave Nora a darkly arin

"No, I didn’t I think instinctively I kneould be lost down there I was right Thoroughbred royalty Southern gentility And God, the money everywhere Old money, new money, mob money I do my damnedest to avoid the mob I’d rather not end up like my father did"

"Not your world?"

"Not at all I like our version of royalty better than the vanilla version"

Money bought nothing in Kingsley’s world but a key to the front door Once inside, they built their own kingdo day jobs earned respect with the power they created out of their own dignity and desires Exquisite submissives--male and female--who laid themselves out on the altar of sacrifice and sexuality in order to find themselves at someone else’s feet Wesley always accused the people of her world of putting on costu dress-up He had no idea that the suits and the ties and the beige pu the day were the real costumes that they shed when they caht of her birthday party, curled up on the couch in her ducky pajamas, which felt as much like a costume as her kink-wear He didn’t understand her world of role-play even as the woman he held in his arms played a role for hi boring and ‘vanilla’ as you call it with your Wesley?"

Nora nodded "I liked it NoI loved it It was a role I was playing, but one I liked playing"

"Playing house?"

Nora smiled before she reme on the bed of a sociopath

"Exactly Playing house Husband Wife Home of our own Dinner on the table No kids, thank God, unless you count Wes It was Here’s the thing," Nora said, shifting position as her foot had started to fall asleep "That day, my birthday, Wes and I went out to eat He took reat hole-in-the-wall place by his school One of his friends he played basketball as there Someone fro I was Søren’s property for ten years froht I’ve been in love with him since I was fifteen and now I’m thirty-four Almost twenty years In twenty years, we’ve never done that, never gone out to dinner together just the two of us Not around here We can’t Too risky Can’t even go to a hole-in-the-wall Indian place A sha loves Indian food"

"You wanted a different life than ive you? That’s why the boy?"

Nora sed

"Maybe I don’t know Wes ishe’s so different from anyone I’ve ever known Life is weird when you’re a professional Dominatrix One day I would have dinner with Ilsa Strix and I’d ask her questions like ‘So when you put the three hundred and thirteen needles into that guy’s dick, did you charge by the ti out at the club and the seventy-year-old age-play fetishist shuffles past you in his diaper and bonnet You go a solid week and you realize you haven’t had a single conversation or day that didn’t have sohts like that and you start to wonder if ot off at the wrong stop Wes was a different stop A prettier neighborhood Good schools Nicer scenery"

"Did you belong there? With your Wesley in his world?"