CHAPTER 13
Wednesday evening at five, he’d said. Mary Queen Junior High, two blocks from Sacred Heart. If Suzanne showed up she would see Father Stearns without his collar on. And although she knew this was a really bad idea, Suzanne couldn’t stop herself from going.
Parking in the main lot, she wandered around the outside of the school. He hadn’t given her any specific information, no doubt wanting her imagination to do all the work. As she neared the rear of the school—all too similar to the Catholic schools of her youth, with its careworn exterior and chipped Mary statues everywhere—Suzanne heard shouting followed by clapping.
Okay. She’d been right. This was a really bad idea. Out on the soccer field, two dozen teenagers and twentysomethings and one tall blond man in his forties played a hard-core game of soccer. Although older than the other players by a couple decades, Father Stearns wasn’t only keeping up, he seemed to be wiping the floor with them. He wore a fitted black T-shirt that showed off his miraculously toned biceps and broad chest and black track pants that no doubt hid equally toned hips and legs.
She stood at the edge of the field and watched the game. No, not the game. She watched only Father Stearns—his blond hair like a halo in the evening sun, his eyes hidden behind black wraparound sunglasses, the slightest hint of sweat staining the shirt around his neck and lower back.
“Holy shit,” she breathed. She’d seen naked men less visually arresting than this one soccer-playing priest.
“None of that,” came a voice from a few feet away from her. A young man with sun-streaked hair sat on the sidelines with an ice pack on his thigh. “Don’t even think about it.”
Blushing, Suzanne sat next to the young man and put on her own sunglasses.
“Think about what?” she asked.
“Him. Father S. My priest. I’m Harrison, by the way. And you’re…”
“Suzanne.”
“Suzanne, lovely to meet you. You’re that reporter chick, right? He warned us you might be stopping by.”
“That’s me. Just working on a story.”
“For Playgirl?”
Suzanne laughed a little as Harrison adjusted his ice pack.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Strained a groin muscle.”
“Poor you. Rough game?”
“Wasn’t during the game.” He wagged his eyebrows at her.
“You’re flirting. And I’m ten years older than you.”
“He’s twenty years older than you and that’s not stopping you from throwing the bedroom eyes at him. Best priest on the planet, and I have to tell my own damn girlfriend to stop drooling all over him.”
Suzanne caught Father Stearns looking in her direction during a pause in the play. She gave him a quick wave, which he returned before heading down the pitch with remarkable grace and speed. The ball careened toward the goal and he intercepted it with a hard kick that sent the ball halfway down the field.
“Best priest on the planet? That’s high praise.” Suzanne wished she’d brought her notebook with her. A flirtatious teenage boy could be a wellspring of information. Reluctantly she pulled her eyes away from Father Stearns and cast them on Harrison. She remembered guys like him from high school—cocky, gregarious, always the center of attention.
“It’s true. He speaks like twenty languages, has two or three PhDs…and kicks ass on our church league team. So don’t go after him because you’re pretty enough to tempt even him.”
Suzanne shook her head.
“A teenage boy defending the unsullied virtue of his Catholic priest—interesting,” she noted. “Do all the kids like Father Stearns?”
“Yeah, of course. He’s really laid-back.”
Suzanne’s eyes widened. Father Stearns, the couple of times she’d talked to him, seemed intimidating and rigid.
“Laid-back?”
“Doesn’t lecture, doesn’t bitch at us for swearing, treats us like people. It’s nice. Blake over there—” Harrison pointed to Father Stearns’s goalkeeper “—goes to St. Mark’s. His dad’s a deacon there. Hates it. They’ve been through three priests in three years. One went to rehab for booze. The other got transferred for ‘reasons,’” Harrison said, putting the word reasons in scare quotes. “And the new guy is sixty going on one hundred and sixty. Father Stearns rocks. So if you put the moves on him, you and I will have words.”
“Have words? That’s cute.”
“I’m cute. And I’m not a priest.”
Suzanne turned back to the game for a second. Father Stearns and his goalie seemed to be plotting. The goalie had a water bottle in his hand. He took a swig before pouring some into Father Stearns’s hands. He took the water and swept it through his hair, slicking it back. At that moment Suzanne realized she’d never been so attracted to someone in her entire life. Need pooled in her stomach like a simmering fire. Priest or not, enemy or not, asterisk or not…she wanted him.
Adam, she whispered to herself. Remember Adam.
“So no rehab trips for Father Stearns? No weirdness?”
“Only weird thing is what’s he doing here with us in the suburbs? He should be pope.”
Suzanne leaned back on her elbows and crossed her legs at the ankles. She wished she’d worn shorts or a skirt, something to show off her legs to Harrison.
“Maybe he’s got a reason for sticking around here.” She looked at Harrison out of the corner of her eye.
“Like what?”
Suzanne shrugged. “I don’t know—Nora Sutherlin?”
Harrison clamped his hand to his chest.
“God, Nora. Be still my heart. Be still my groin.”
“That hot, is she?”
Harrison turned wide eyes at her and slowly nodded.
“You’re a fan?” Suzanne asked.
Again he nodded.
“Father Stearns also a fan?”
Harrison rolled his eyes.
“He’s male and straight. I’d worry if he wasn’t a fan.”
Suzanne pulled a dandelion from the grass and caressed her bottom lip with it. Flirting with a teenager to get answers? How low could she go?
“Think they’re together?”
Harrison shook his head. “No way. Why would he still be a priest getting paid peanuts, putting up with us losers, if he had her waiting for him at home? Besides,” Harrison said, dropping his voice to a whisper. Out on the pitch, Father Stearns blocked yet another attempt at a goal. The teenagers on the team looked tired and thirsty. He’d barely broken a sweat.
“Besides what?”
“I think Nora has a thing for younger men.”
Suzanne raised her eyebrow at him.
“Got any evidence? Or just wishful thinking?” God, now she sounded like Father Stearns.
“Now I’m not one to tell tales out of school,” Harrison began. “But there’s this guy at church—Suicide Mike.”
Suzanne’s hands went cold at the mention of suicide. But she kept her face neutral.
“Suicide Mike?”
“I know. It’s horrible. I never call him that,” he said although he just had. “Michael Dimir.”
“The boy who tried to commit suicide in the sanctuary?”
“The same,” he said, nodding. “Here’s the thing about Suic…about Michael. Michael, he’s glass, breakable. Kid is scared of his own shadow. Barely talks. You say hi to him and it takes a year off his life.”
Suzanne’s stomach dropped in sympathy. Withdrawn? Anxious? Constantly on the alert? Michael sounded like a classic abuse victim to her. But where had the abuse come from? Home? Or church?
“So?” Suzanne prompted, not wanting but needing to know more.
“So Nora’s a little on the intimidating side. Famous, rich, beautiful…you’d think if she said hi to him, he’d die on the spot. But no. I’m sitting there two weeks ago, Sunday morning, staring at Nora like usual. And she looks at Michael and winks at him. I thought, ‘Oh, shit, call 9-1-1—Mike’s going to have a heart attack.’ But no, guess what he does?”
“What?”
“He stuck his tongue out at her like they were old buddies or something. She stuck her tongue out back at him, and the temperature in the sanctuary shot up twenty degrees from the heat of those two eye-fucking each other.”
Suzanne didn’t say anything at first. Father Stearns seemed rather defensive about both her and Michael Dimir. If he acted as confessor to both of them, then no doubt he knew the thirtysomething author was having an affair with a teenage boy. Together she and Harrison watched the game for a few minutes in silence. Or almost silence. Despite being sidelined, Harrison couldn’t seem to stop yelling advice and encouragements at his own team.
She didn’t know much about soccer, but she could tell that Father Stearns owned the field. His team responded to his every quiet command like well-trained soldiers. And he seemed indefatigable, running up and down the field with the fearsome long-legged agility of a jaguar.
“God, he’s good,” she said, as he weaved in between two players and scored a goal from the center line.
“Of course he’s good,” Harrison said, taking off the ice and rubbing his inner thigh. “He’s one hundred and fifty percent pure European. Got the soccer gene on both sides.”
“How can somebody be one hundred and fifty percent European?” Suzanne asked, recalling what little she’d discovered about the priest’s past.
“His father’s British, was British. Dead now. His mother’s Danish. And he went to seminary in Italy.”
Danish mother? That would explain the hair and eyes. And the inscriptions in the books and on the photo—must be Danish.
“Thought his mother was from New Hampshire.”
Harrison scoffed.
“Does that,” he said, pointing at Father Stearns, “look American to you?”
“No,” she admitted. He looked spectacular to her—masculine and handsome and so incredibly attractive. But not particularly American. “European genes—guess that’s why he’s your best player.”
“Second best.”
“Second? Let me guess—you’re the best.”
Harrison shook his head.
“No. Father Stearns’s brother-in-law comes and practices with us sometimes. He’s even better. But don’t tell Father S I said that. They’re really competitive.”
Suzanne furrowed her brow. She knew Father Stearns had a sister, but the older sister, Elizabeth, didn’t live in Connecticut.
“Brother-in-law? One of his sisters is married—”
Harrison shook his head.
“Father S was married.”
Her heart shuddered a little in her chest.
“Father Stearns was married?”
“Yeah, when he was my age—eighteen. Legal adult,” he reminded her. “Apparently didn’t last long. She died. Some kind of accident. If I was an eighteen-year-old widower, I’d probably join the priesthood too.”
Suzanne could barely speak.
“Married…” I’m not a virgin…I wasn’t born a priest… “Eighteen…that would have been a long time ago. He and the brother are still friends?”
“They’re either best friends or they want to kill each other. Hard to tell sometimes. They constantly swear at each other in French.”
“French?”
“Yeah. Brother-in-law’s French.”
Harrison said something else but Suzanne had stopped listening. She looked out across the field and saw the practice coming to an end. Father Stearns’s team had won 2–1. Standing up, Suzanne brushed the grass off her jeans and walked toward him.
As she came to him, he pushed his sunglasses up on his head.
“Good game,” she said. “You were married?”
Father Stearns looked over her shoulder and shot Harrison a death stare. Harrison blew a kiss at Suzanne.
“Every Thursday I devote to praying for vocations for the church,” Father Stearns said. “I pray Harrison will be called to become a Cistercian.”
“Cistercian?”
“They take vows of silence. This prayer has not been answered yet.”
Suzanne laughed and fell into step beside Father Stearns. She had to lengthen her already long strides to keep up with him.
“Yes, I was married,” he finally said. She realized with the church so close by, he likely had just walked here. She decided to walk with him until he shooed her off. “Very briefly. She died shortly after we wed.”
“Can I ask how or is that too personal?”
“Not personal,” he said as they hit the sidewalk. “Merely painful. Marie-Laure fell to her death while out in the woods. I was a mile away, lest you think my asterisk refers to a murder.”
“Beautiful name. She was French?”
“She was. A ballet dancer.”
Suzanne experienced an odd sensation then. Something like jealousy. She pictured a beautiful French ballerina and her handsome young husband. What passion they must have had for each other.
From the street they turned onto a path shrouded in darkness. A canopy of trees lined the walkway. Ahead of them she spied a small two-story Gothic cottage.
“And your mother was Danish? I thought she was from New Hampshire?”
At the gate, they paused. Suzanne stood looking at him, waiting for him to say something, do something.
“My parentage…it’s quite a long story,” he said, his gray eyes as shadowed as the path they’d just walked.
Suzanne swallowed. She should not be doing this, should not be alone with him. Not here. Not in his house.
“I’ve got time.”
* * *
A helicopter. They flew to the city in a freaking helicopter.
The entire way there, Michael sat at the window staring at the ground below, the clouds above and the horizon beyond… He couldn’t believe Griffin could conjure up a helicopter as easily as one called a cab. Griffin…Griffin must think he’s crazy. During the trip, as Michael nearly drooled over the view, Griffin only watched him with unconcealed amusement. Michael didn’t care if Griffin thought he was nuts—he couldn’t look away from the beauty of the evening at eight thousand feet.
“I’ve got my camera.” Griffin tapped Michael on the knee to get his attention. Michael loved the way Griffin looked in his aviator sunglasses with the helicopter’s headset on. “Want to take pics to send your friends?”
Michael shook his head and turned his eyes back to the vista below. After all, he didn’t have any friends to show any pictures to.
The helicopter set down on the landing pad of some building in Hell’s Kitchen as the sun finally sunk over the horizon. Michael followed Nora and Griffin as they headed for the roof door. In his plain cotton pants, white shirt and black jacket, he felt terribly undressed compared to Griffin in his black leather pants and black silk shirt. Nora wore a black suit too—fedora, suspenders, red shirt, black tie…the whole nine yards.
As they descended the stairs, Nora looked back and grinned at him.
“I’m going to keep you outta the papers, kid. Don’t worry. I’ve got a private room set up for us already. You’ll go there first while Griff and I cause a ruckus.”
“I love a good hard ruck…us,” Griffin said, grinning back as he took off his sunglasses and shoved them in his pocket. Michael blinked and forced his eyes away. He really needed to figure out how to stop staring at Griffin all the time.
They reached the bottom of the staircase and Michael heard the first strains of music. Nora went up to the door and knocked hard—three quick taps followed by two heavy ones.
“Secret code?” Michael asked in a whisper.
“Morse code for S&M.”
Michael’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Griffin shrugged and winked at him. “I have no idea.”
The door opened and a man stepped out into the hallway. Michael looked up at him and kept looking up. And up.
“Boys, say hello to my friend Brad Wolfe,” Nora said with an elegant and obviously facetious nod at the only man Michael had even been this close to who was taller than Father S. “Otherwise known as—”
“The Big Brad Wolfe,” Griffin completed, stepping forward and extending his hand. “You’re a legend.”
The man, who Michael guessed was about six foot six with as much muscle to him as height, took Griffin’s hand and shook it. He looked about forty years old and handsome in a way somebody like Nora would describe as “roguish.” He thought Griffin was the height of male perfection. But women seemed to like Brad’s look—chest hair and beard stubble. Nora obviously did from the way she smiled up at him.
“How’s my Big Brad Wolfe?” she asked.
He raised a dark eyebrow at her.
“Little Red Riding Crop, what are you doing in my neck of the woods?”
“Causing trouble. Care to help?”
“I don’t know. You still with…” Brad’s voice trailed off and he glanced meaningfully at Michael and Griffin.
“With my priest?” she finished for him. “Yeah, still together. Don’t take it personally. You’re still the second-best sadist in the city.”
“Damned with faint praise,” Brad said, chucking Nora under the chin. “But I can never say no to you, green eyes. What do you need?”
“I reserved a booth for the show. Can you get Junior to it without anyone seeing him?”
Brad looked at Michael, who squirmed slightly in place.
“Nora…how old is he?”
“He’s legal,” she said without batting an eyelash.
“Legal for what?”
Michael coughed.
“I can drive.”
“Good God,” Brad said, laughing and rolling his eyes. “You might actually be more corrupt than Kingsley is, Nor.”
Nora batted her eyelashes.
“You flatter me. Let’s go.”
Nora grabbed Griffin by the sleeve and the two of them disappeared down another flight of stairs.
“Come with me, little boy,” Brad said with a voice that suddenly seemed even deeper than before. Michael swallowed.
“Yes, sir.”
They entered the club through the back door. Michael kept his head down and his eyes on the back of Brad’s shoes. But he couldn’t help but get an eyeful of the craziness going on inside the club. Everywhere he looked he saw celebrities, or at least wannabe celebrities, dressed in costumes. Well, they were dressed like kinky people—or at least how he imagined non-kinky people thought kinky people dressed. He saw lots of latex catsuits on the too-skinny women and the guys wore leather vests and harnesses. It looked more like a super-fancy Halloween party for too-rich teenagers than a sex club to him.
“You work here?” Michael asked as Brad led him to a cordoned-off booth surrounded by a red curtain.
“Someone has to lend an air of authenticity.” Brad closed the curtain and lit a smattering of candles. “I’ve got my own dungeon—the real thing. Ask your mistress about it sometime. I funnel the few real masochists who come here into my place.”
Michael started to ask a question but Nora and Griffin burst into the booth, laughing riotously.
“How did it go?” Michael asked as Nora and Griffin collapsed into the booth.
“Perfect. I hid my face behind my hat,” Nora said, flipping her fedora up her arm and perching it at a rakish angle on her head. “That got their attention. They probably thought I was way more famous than I really am. Then Griffin threatened to punch a photog.”
“You did?” Michael turned to Griffin. “Can’t you get arrested for that?”
Griffin shrugged. “They love getting threatened. Gives them street cred. Plus I paid him two grand to make sure we hit Page Six.”
“Mission accomplished.” Nora took a glass of red wine from a leather-clad waitress. “Showtime,” she said with a wicked glint in her eye.
At the opposite side of the club was a stage. As the club lights dimmed and faded, the stage lights went up. Four shirtless young men carried a beautiful olive-skinned Amazonian woman out to center stage on a divan. The club erupted into applause.
“Wow,” Michael said. “She’s…tall.”
“She’s a dude.” Griffin winked at him. “Mistress Nyx.”
“Seriously?” Apart from the height Michael couldn’t make out any male features on the Amazon.
“Seriously,” Nora said. “There are some hot male dominatrixes out there. Men can hit harder. Something to be said for that. Don’t tell though. Nyx keeps that on the DL.”
Michael nodded. Nyx now had one of the young men by the throat. She bodily forced him against an X-shaped cross and the other young men of her harem strapped him to it.
“St. Andrew’s Cross.” Nora leaned over the table to whisper loudly at Michael. “You know St. Andrew?”
“Um…a martyr?” Michael hazarded a guess. He might be Catholic but there were more saints out there than stars in the sky.
“Exactly,” Nora said with an approving smile. “According to legend he requested that he die on an X-shaped crossed instead of T-shaped as he did not feel worthy to die like his savior. And he was bound and not nailed.”
“Poor guy. Should have gotten nailed before he died,” Griffin said and Nora swatted him on the arm.
“That’s so weird,” Michael said, laughing at the story. “Poor St. Andrew.”
They watched the show in silence for a few minutes. Nyx had a cat-o’-nine-tails, which she used to flog the bound young man, who writhed and screamed on the cross.
“She’s pulling her punches,” Nora said with a knowing look. “She’s barely hurting him at all.”
“You can tell that?” Michael asked, suitably impressed.
She nodded. “First of all, she’s hitting him all for show. Going too slow and hitting him with the flat of the tails and not the tip.”
“But she’s hitting him pretty hard, it looks.” Michael narrowed his eyes at the scene on the stage.
“The tip of the whip is the business end,” Nora said and reached her arm out and touched Griffin’s face. “It’s the difference between this…” She ran the full flat of her hand over Griffin’s cheek. Griffin sighed. “And this.” She turned her hand and flicked Griffin’s ear with the tip of her fingers. Griffin flinched and grimaced.
“Ow, Nor. I’d say my safe word but I forgot it.”
“It was platypus. So yeah, she’s putting on a good show but not hurting him at all.” Nora pointed at the stage, where the young man on the cross continued to cry out dramatically. “We can go to Brad’s dungeon Dark Forest for some decent S&M after. It’s RACK-rules there.”
“Rack?” Michael asked. “Like a real rack?”
“Not a rack-rack. RACK stands for ‘risk-aware consensual kink,’” Nora explained. “As opposed to SSC rules.”
“Safe, sane and consensual,” Griffin said, rolling his eyes as Nora yawned. “Exactly. SSC is tamer. It’s for the moms and dads in the suburbs with the furry handcuffs under the bed.”
“RACK is for people more like us,” Nora said. “People who do the rougher stuff, edge-play, no safe words, et cetera.”
“You and Søren ever play without safe words?” Griffin leaned back and rested his elbows on the back of the booth. Michael’s temperature rose at the sight of the black silk of Griffin’s shirt stretching across his broad chest.
Nora shook her head.
“I said I like the hard stuff. I didn’t say I had a death wish.”
In front of them on the stage, Nyx allowed her harem to free the young man from the cross. He crawled on all fours to her and kissed her booted feet.
“Aah…” Nora sighed. “The good old days. I miss foot worship. Nothing sexier than a male sub doing homage.”
“Can’t disagree with that,” Griffin said, nodding.
“Are there a lot of male subs?” Michael asked as the young man kissed his way from Nyx’s toe to her knee.
“A lot more than people want to admit,” Nora said. “Men especially. You, Angel, are something special but you are not unique. There’s probably as many male subs out there as male doms.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, Mick,” Griffin chimed in. “And not just in the gay kink scene, either.”
“The number-one sexual fantasy reported by straight men is having sex with a beautiful woman.” Nora took a deep drink of her wine. “But number two?”
Griffin grinned and held up two fingers. “Number two,” he said, “is being tied up by a beautiful woman and then fucked by her. Even I was fine with that.”
“More than fine, if I remember correctly…” Nora sighed wistfully and winked at Griffin.
“If there’s so many of us,” Michael asked, “then why—”
“Why do you feel so alone?” Nora gave him a long look.
Michael nodded silently.
“You aren’t alone,” she said and Griffin reached out and gave his knee a friendly squeeze. Unfortunately that friendly squeeze caused a very more-than-friendly reaction inside Michael’s boxers.
“Male subs paid for my house, Angel,” Nora continued. “They bought my cars. They made me a very wealthy woman. I had every walk of life in my dungeon—poets and artists, priests and rabbis, cops and robbers.”
“Cops?”
“Oh, yeah. The bigger and tougher they pretend to be, the more likely they are to want a woman to call them a slut and put her foot on the back of their neck.”
“Or another guy.” Griffin glanced at Michael as he said the words.
“Hey, hush, boys, act two is starting.”
Nyx had led her harem offstage. Within minutes they returned, but this time Nyx wore the robes of a Roman goddess. And she rode in on a chariot being pulled by her young men. They had bridles in their mouths and harnesses on their chests.
“Oh, my, pony play. How adorable. I love a pony.” Nora leaned forward and rested her chin on her hand. “They are fun to ride.”
“Whatever.” Griffin rolled his eyes. “Like you’ve ever been on a horse in your life.”
Nora sat up straighter. “I’ll have you know, Master Fiske, that I’ve been horseback riding on multiple occasions. Well, like three occasions. My old intern, Wes, was from Kentucky. Apparently everyone in Kentucky rides horses.”
Griffin shrugged. “Not exactly. Mostly just the Central Kentucky blue bloods. Horses are very expensive pets.”
Nora grinned. “Wes Railey? A blue blood? Kid couldn’t even afford a decent car. Drove a Bug. Poor thing.”
Michael looked at Nora, who was smiling. But her smile seemed strange, forced even. Nothing like her usual smiles.
“Railey?” Griffin cocked his head and stared at Nora. “Like the Kentucky Raileys?”
“Well, he’s a Railey and he’s from Kentucky,” Nora said.
“Know his parents’ names?” Griffin turned away from the pony show onstage and gave Nora his full attention. Nora seemed suddenly uncomfortable.
“Well, his mom’s name is Caroline. I used it in my book that just came out. And his dad’s name is—”
“Jackson.” Griffin finished the sentence for her. “Jackson Railey?”
Nora’s eyes widened.
“Griffin…how did you know that?”
Griffin chuckled and the chuckle turned into a laugh.
“Griffin…” Nora’s voice dropped to menacing levels. “Why are you laughing?”
With a heavy exhale, Griffin dug his iPhone out of his pocket, made some quick taps on it and then smiled at whatever it was he’d pulled up on-screen. He handed his phone over to Nora without a word.
“Son of a bitch,” she breathed. Slowly she handed the phone back to Griffin. Then she quickly got up from the table.
“Where are you going?” Griffin demanded.
“Make sure Michael gets home safe. I’ll meet you back at the house later. Gotta check on something.”
Nora disappeared into the crowd, and Michael found himself suddenly alone with Griffin. He didn’t like how much he liked that.
“Griffin?” Michael whispered. “What did you show Nora?”
Griffin slid Michael his phone. Michael picked it up and studied the screen. It took a minute to wrap his mind around what he was looking at.
Michael breathed one word in response.
“Fuck.”