Alexander lay awake, listening to the sound of Isobel’s breathing. It was a little past eight in the evening, so he doubted she had gone to sleep for the night. Outside, it was light, the blackbirds still singing. He twisted a lock of her hair around his index finger. Kissed her forehead, smelled her skin. She stretched, exhaled, a long, satisfied sigh, and he smiled. Out in the real world, she was one of the most competent, self-assured, and driven women he’d ever met. And here, in his bed, she was still all of that. But she was also a woman who enjoyed playing the submissive and who dared do it with him. Maybe he shouldn’t feel like a king, but he did. That was just how things were when you had the best sex of your life. He heard her breathing change, felt her shift. She had woken up. Her stomach growled.

“Hungry?” he whispered.

“Starving.” She yawned.

“Are you sore?”

She turned her head to him and gave him a slow smile. “Yes. And I love it. I’m good.”

“Sure?” He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d crossed some kind of line, that he’d done something wrong.

“One hundred ten percent. But I like that you’re so nice.”

“I’m not so nice.”

“To me you are.”

“Didn’t I just tie you up and whip you?”

“Yeah, and I hope you’ll do it again.” She sat up, her weight on one elbow, and stroked his forehead, a finger tracing his eyebrow. “Did you know that there’s no objective pain? That pain is always subjective?”

“You know the most interesting things.” He took her finger and kissed the tip. Had a woman ever tasted or smelled so good?

“How did it feel?” she asked. “You said it was complicated for you.”

“There are so many things you shouldn’t feel, shouldn’t like. I liked what we did, so damn much. It was kind of scary, to realize that about myself.”

But he had enjoyed it. A dark and primitive side of himself that he’d never been aware of.

“It’s the same for me,” Isobel said with a frown. “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard or read that it’s wrong, that it’s a deviation, a disturbance, a childhood trauma. In the end, you start to believe it. That there’s something wrong with you, that you are fundamentally bad.”

“So you’re right up there with pedophiles, murderers, and rapists, is that what you’re saying?”

“Maybe not when you put it like that. But as a woman, you’re meant to like certain things and stay away from others. It’s hard to exist outside those lines. You feel so vulnerable when you deviate. And ashamed.”

“You’re ashamed of what we did?”

“No. I’ve made up my mind not to be. It has nothing to do with anyone except you and me.” She fell silent. “But, Alexander?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I please have some food before I pass out?”

Alexander nodded, stole a kiss, took a quick shower, pulled on some clothes, and sent Isobel into the bathroom while he got to work in the kitchen.

“There are towels, and I put a robe in there,” he shouted as he started to take pots and pans from the cupboards.

When Isobel came back out into the kitchen, her hair was damp. She tied the belt in a huge bow around her man’s silk robe. She was a tall, curvy woman, but still, she was drowning in it. He peeled a carrot and handed it to her.

“So you don’t starve to death.”

“This is like some film cliché,” she said, satisfied, as she crunched on the carrot and peered around the kitchen. She leaned back against the counter. “Hot guy nonchalantly cooking food in a super-stylish kitchen.”

“Doesn’t that normally end with the pretty girl being pushed up against the kitchen island and getting spanked?”

“Not often enough, if you ask me.”

He laughed. He loved this playful side of her. This was Isobel Sørensen when she felt safe. Giggly and a little goofy. And pretty goddamn sexy.

He put down the pan, went over to her, grabbed her neck, and kissed her until, with a whimper, she wrapped her legs around him. He put a hand on her thigh. She wasn’t one of those women obsessed with working out, and he liked the softness there.

“Did you know you have the world’s softest skin?” he mumbled into her neck.

He could just see it, how he would turn her around, lean her forward over the island, pull up her robe, and push himself into her welcoming warmth. Could already imagine her faint panting as he filled her when he suddenly heard a sound from the stove that made him turn around. The water for the pasta was bubbling violently.

“Food first,” he said.

He rinsed some small tomatoes in a colander, took out a tub of pale yellow mozzarella, grabbed some fresh basil, and began to hunt for honey and garlic.

“That really does smell amazing,” she said, sniffing the air.

Alexander filled two bowls with pasta, sauce, and a generous amount of parmesan, and Isobel poured an Italian wine into simple, everyday glasses. They toasted and started in on the pasta.

“You weren’t kidding, you really can cook. Is there anything you can’t do?”

He twisted the pasta around his fork. “I can’t save lives. I can’t run a hospital in the middle of nowhere. Don’t make me into something I’m not, Isobel.”

“You’re pretty okay in the bedroom, too,” she said lightly.

“I’ll have to work harder then. The way you sounded, I’d hoped you would think I was more than okay.”

“I’m a complete freak, so maybe I’m not the best person to judge it. But I think you’re phenomenal.”

“You’re not a freak, far from it.” He topped up her wineglass.

“If you knew how often I’ve been told there’s something wrong with me because I can’t come like”—she gestured in the air, making quotation marks with her fingers—“‘normal women.’”

“You’re a doctor. Surely you took an anatomy class? Has it never occurred to you that women are not built all the same? You aren’t the one with the problem, you’ve just been with idiots. Insecure men. Lucky you met me so we could get it right.”

“It still feels weird that I like it,” she said as she sipped her wine. “That it’s such a turn-on to be submissive.”

“You’re missing the point.”

“Which is?”

“That I like your weirdness. Christ, I’ve never had such amazing sex in my life.”

“Me neither.” She stretched out her legs in front of her—long legs, pale skin, freckles, perfect feet. He would tie those legs wide apart, he promised himself. Lick her.

“How did you learn to make pasta like this?” she asked.

“My best friend is an Italian chef, you know. It’s his recipe.”

“I guess I’m not the first woman you’ve seduced with your food,” she said with a laugh.

He didn’t reply, didn’t want to think about how right she was.

“When are you going back to New York?” she asked, starting to eat again. “I mean, you live there, don’t you?”

“I don’t know. My real home is there, and most of my friends.” He shook his head. “I need to think a little.”

Alexander played with his glass, wanted to explain that he had never, ever thought of settling down anywhere, with anyone, and that this had all moved so fast, he didn’t know what he felt.

“Alex, don’t worry.” Isobel’s voice was unfazed. He saw no disappointment in her eyes, and that should have been a relief. They could have unbelievably incredible sex without immediately having to talk about the future.

Fuck.

He stood up abruptly.

“Want any more?” he asked, eyeing her near-empty bowl.

She shook her head. “No, thanks. But it was really great.”

“Thanks,” he said. He felt like the world’s biggest idiot for ruining the mood, didn’t know what had come over him.

Isobel gave him an uncertain look and then glanced up at the clock. “God, it’s late. Maybe I should go.”

He put the bowls in the sink. Dried his hands and went back over to her. He crouched down, his hands on her legs. “Sorry I was so awkward. I suck at this kind of thing. And I don’t know what I want in the future. This … it all happened so quickly and it’s been pretty confusing.”

“Yes,” she said, tenderly running an index finger along his nose.

“I want you to stay. Don’t go, please?”

She leaned forward and kissed the corner of his mouth. “You’re right, it’s sexy when someone is on their knees in front of you. I’d love to stay. Can we just ignore all the pressure and see what happens, how things play out?”

Her words were like an echo of the things Alexander himself had said, countless times to countless women. He just hadn’t realized how uncomfortable it was to be on the receiving end of that cliché.

But he was an expert at ignoring complicated feelings, and so he smiled, ran his hands up her thighs, and asked, “Couch?”

“But if your dad was Danish and your mom is French, how did they meet?”

Alexander studied Isobel. She was curled up on his couch, her wineglass clasped in both hands. He had switched to water, and the atmosphere between them was easygoing again. They had talked, given one another long looks, touched one another. He wanted her again. And again. And again. But there was no rush. He loved to watch her as she talked, to catch a glimpse of a voluptuous breast whenever the smooth silk slipped open, to watch her push her hair from her face when it fell down for the twelfth time, to watch her slender fingers move in the air when she explained something.

“At a cocktail party in Casablanca. Have you been there?”

He nodded. He had dated a TV anchorwoman there. Learned to speak Arabic and improved his French. Among other things. Not that he planned on telling Isobel any of that. “Did they travel a lot, your parents?” he asked instead, remembering the photos of beautiful Blanche and her somber military husband in different countries and continents. Cocktail parties. Mingling with ambassadors. Premieres. Preoccupied with their own lives.

“I lived with my grandmother from a really young age. She chose to stay home with me so Mom could focus on building up Medpax in Paris. I was in Sweden, and Mom came back whenever she could. Dad turned up too, sometimes.” She fell silent.

So much to read between the lines. “No surprise you like to be dominated, then,” he said breezily.

She snorted. “What do you mean?”

“You know, all these impossible expectations you’ve had to live up to. World saviors as parents. Heroism. Even you need an outlet somewhere, otherwise you’d be unbearably virtuous.”

“I’m not virtuous,” she protested.

“I know. I still can’t believe the best sex I ever had was with a kinky idealist. It goes against everything I’ve ever believed in.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Nope, apparently I like kink.”

She gave him a gentle slap on the arm. “Not that, idiot. That I’m an idealist.”

“It doesn’t bother me, but I don’t understand it.”

She rested her chin in her hand. “Didn’t you have expectations on you? Your family must have plenty of traditions. How was it, growing up?”

“Yeah, well, I guess I chose the opposite path,” he said. “I’ve spent my entire life provoking my parents.”

“So we’re both ultimately ruled by what our parents think of us?”

“I wish it wasn’t true,” he said, but he knew she was right. Maybe it was time to grow up and stop making decisions based on what would annoy his father most? Start to think about what he wanted from life?

She smiled and twirled the glass in her hand. “Maybe that’s why you like to spank women,” she said.

“Not women. You.”

He received yet another smile in reply, and he knew he would never be able to top this. From now on, he would always be looking to re-create what he’d had with Isobel. And he would fail.

He studied her, saw her eyes glitter. But those worries belonged to the future. Right now she was his, and he planned on exploring and satisfying every need she had.

He took the glass from her hand and put it on the coffee table. “Lie down.”

She ran a finger across her mouth; he could see her natural pride battling her desire.

He made a commanding gesture toward the couch.

“On your back.”

Her desire won out, just as he’d known it would. Isobel sank down.

“Open your robe.”

She obeyed. He leaned forward and ran his thumb over her red curls, traced the slit. She shuddered beneath his touch.

“Put your arms above your head.”

She obeyed him again. He placed a hand on one of her ankles. He liked this, pushing and spurring her to go further and further. Slowly, he pulled her long legs apart. The couch was one of the widest models from Svenskt Tenn, the famous interior design company, and she had plenty of room. He put a hand on each leg and kissed his way up them before he looked up at the moist, pink folds so enticingly exposed. Her skin was warm, her breathing shallow, catching in her throat in small pants. He leaned forward and parted her with his fingers, started to lick her. She gasped and sighed beneath his mouth and tongue. But he knew, from the intuition he had developed when it came to Isobel, that this wasn’t enough for her. And so he stood up, moved her arms so they were parallel to her body, straddled her, and put his knees on either side of her, trapping her arms by her sides. He looked around, going on a feeling. He really wanted to tie her up, but there was nothing in his living room but upholstered, modern furniture; there was nothing he could use. Jesus, he hadn’t realized how complicated this kind of thing could be.

“Stay there like that,” he said, and got up.

He fetched the rope they had bought, smooth red nylon, and tied her legs wide apart; he bound one ankle first, and then looped the rope around the base of the couch to repeat the procedure with the other. And then he was on top of her again. Her breathing was much heavier now. He raised the little whip he had also brought back with him, white with a short, ribbed handle at one end and several thin leather strips at the other. He cracked it in the air. She followed the movement with wide eyes, and he saw the way both the sound and the sight of it affected her. When he bent down between her legs to taste her again, she came quickly. He smiled at how much control he had over her.

Her eyes were bright when, after having pulled on another condom, he moved on top of her, lifted her up with one hand beneath her back, and entered her. Her legs were still bound wide apart, and it was sexy, for a while anyway. But it wasn’t anywhere near as easy as it looked, to make love to a woman in that position. And so Alexander quickly loosened her legs and dragged her into the kitchen instead. Once there, he simply pushed her forward so that she was leaning over the kitchen counter, put a hand on the curve of her back, and plunged into her again.

“Oh, God,” she mumbled huskily. He made her come again, this time first with the help of the paddle, then whip, and then the crystal-covered vibrator, before he thrusted into her, holding her hips, plunging and pumping. As she twisted and bucked beneath him, he pulled out, tore off the condom, and came on her ass and back, marking his territory primitively. He put his hands on her hips, breathing hard, waiting for his heart to calm down, his brain to start to work again. She said nothing, and they stood like that until he grabbed some soft tissues and carefully dried her off. When he was done, she was almost limp, and so he picked her up and she laid her face against his chest. He could feel her eyelashes on his skin, felt the tickle when she blinked.

“If you drop me, I’m going to die of embarrassment,” she muttered.

He laughed and sank down onto the couch with her in his arms. It had been oddly intense, as though they had been someplace else and had only just started to return. Isobel shuddered, and Alexander knew she was coming down. Their game was like being high on sex and endorphins, but it also meant that you had to land afterward, and now she was hurtling back to earth. He already knew the signs. The shivering. The silence. The vulnerability. He shifted her gently in his embrace, rocked her slowly, held her to him, listened to her breathing. He reached out and found a blanket, which he pulled up over her. He stroked her hair softly, allowed himself to just be, here with Isobel in his arms.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she mumbled after a while.

They untangled themselves and he let her go, saw that she was steady on her legs. While she was gone, Alexander went into the kitchen and grabbed bowls, spoons, and glasses.

When she came back, he had laid out cushions on the floor and lit candles, which flickered in the breeze from the open fireplace.

“So nice,” she said. She blinked and then smiled, and Alexander thought to himself that there was almost nothing he wouldn’t do to see that smile of hers.

“Come here,” he said, and she sat down next to him, like a princess in a Bedouin camp.

He passed her some pillows. Held out a spoon and a little bowl.

“What is it?”

“Chocolate mousse. Romeo’s recipe again.”

She ate it all. When she was done, he gave her the last of his. She wolfed that down too.

“You’re staying over, right?” He wanted it more than anything.

She nodded, licked chocolate from the corner of her mouth.

“Want to go to bed?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have the energy, I’m so sleepy. I think every last bit of tension I’ve ever had has gone.”

“Should I carry you again?”

“Let’s not tempt fate.”

And so he built a bed for Isobel on his living room floor instead. Soft cushions, big, luxurious feather pillows and blankets. She lay down, and he brushed her hair with his fingers, one lock at a time, until it was spread out around her like a flame-red sunset.

They lay tightly together, nose to nose, forehead to forehead, and looked one another in the eyes without saying a word. She put a hand on his cheek. He covered it with his own hand and watched her fall asleep, lay like that until she turned away from him. Only then did he close his own eyes.

He woke long before she did. Watched her, curled up beneath his sheets. Her freckled skin, her even breathing.

He had always loved the beginning, the chase, he thought. But as much as he had sought excitement and exploration, he also disliked the morning after.

But things were different with Isobel. Everything was different, so why not that?

“Good morning,” he said when she finally woke.

“Good morning.”

“I’m so glad you stayed over,” he said.

“Me too.”

“Do you have to go anywhere today?”

“No. Do you?”

Alexander shook his head. “I just want to be with you. Want that?”

“Hmm. Are you going to make me breakfast?”

He propped himself up, on top of her, resting on his arms, and looked down into her laughing face. “Didn’t you know? I’ll give you everything you need.”

“Everything?”

“Even more.”

“I’ll stay then.”

It felt more right than anything in Alexander’s life ever had.