CHAPTER 19
A hundred whispers and hints from conversations over the past few weeks came back to Zach in an instant. Nora Sutherlin’s former lover who still haunted her like the shadow of a ghost was a Catholic priest. And if it weren’t for the fear in her eyes and the dread in his stomach he might have laughed.
“Zach, look at me,” Nora ordered, and Zach wrenched his eyes away from the scene below.
“It’s all right,” Zach said, trying to reassure her.
“No, it isn’t,” she said. “He’s here for a reason and it’s probably not a good one. If he wants me, I have to go with him. I won’t have a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice,” Zach said.
Nora shook her head. “Not down here. House rules. Griffin?”
“Yes, my Mistress in Distress?” Griffin said, clearly taking great pleasure in Nora’s extreme agitation.
“I’ll need you to stay with Zach if you can. Just don’t let him out of your sight. That’s an order.”
“I’m all over it. And him, too, if he’ll let me.”
“He won’t let you,” Zach said, and Griffin grinned at him.
“And Griffin.” She reached out to take Griffin’s face in her hands. “For God’s sake and for the first time in your life, keep your mouth shut.”
Zach expected one of Griffin’s witty retorts but the young man merely nodded. Zach saw something pass between them, some sort of secret understanding that he was apparently not to be privy to. He’d already seen Nora’s former lover was a priest. What else was left to shock him?
“He’s coming,” Griffin whispered and Zach’s heart beat hard in his chest.
Zach sensed a presence behind him. He turned and found himself face-to-face with Nora’s former lover. Almost face-to-face. Although Zach stood six feet tall in bare feet, Søren dwarfed him by at least two or three inches. It wasn’t only his height that was so formidable. Strikingly handsome, he was in his mid-forties but while his lean and angular face looked younger than that, his eyes held aeons in their steely depths. On rare occasions Zach had encountered members of England’s lingering aristocracy. But in his simple black clerics, this man appeared more aristocratic, more imperious and commanding than any baron, any duke, any prince he’d ever glimpsed. Now Zach understood the source of Nora’s fear. If God himself was intimidated by this man, Zach wouldn’t have been surprised.
“Eleanor,” Søren spoke first. “Would you care to introduce me to your friend?”
Zach heard the remnant of an accent in his voice. With the name Søren, Zach might have expected a Scandinavian accent and with his impeccable blond hair and steel-gray eyes, Søren certainly looked the part. But in the echo of his inflection Zach heard the slightest trace of something more familiar, the faintest English accent.
“Søren—” Nora’s voice fluttered. “This is Zachary Easton, my editor. Zach, this is Søren, my…”
“Priest is the word Eleanor is looking for, I believe.” Søren spoke with authoritarian hauteur. “You are her editor, Mr. Easton, so I believe helping her find her words is your job, yes? I don’t believe I see a red pen on your person. Are you off duty tonight?”
“Nora just wanted me to help with her research for her book.” Zach sensed Søren weighing him. Zach had an inkling that no matter what he did or said, he would be found wanting.
“Research?” The word seemed to amuse him. Nora stood silent next to Zach; her skin flushed and her hands gripped her riding crop handle with white-knuckled force. “Yes, Eleanor is quite thorough in her research. Eleanor, accompany me please. I need a moment with you.”
“Actually, we were about to leave.” Zach stepped between Nora and Søren.
Søren raised his chin and gazed down on Zach with an expression of ironic detachment. His eyes took in the white flag around Zach’s arm and he raised an eyebrow in apparent amusement. Zach stared at the white collar around Søren’s neck before meeting the priest’s eyes again. But Søren seemed untouchable—no guilt, no embarrassment, not even the slightest hint of shame haunted his eyes. Søren slowly raised his hand right next to Nora’s ear. He snapped his fingers, and Nora flinched at the echoing sound. Søren pointed to the floor at his side, and Nora stepped out and stood where Søren had indicated. Zach wanted to pull her back and run with her as far and fast away from this man as they could. But Nora met his eyes for the briefest moment, and he saw someone he’d never seen before reflected back. No one handles Nora Sutherlin, J.P. had said and Zach had begun to believe it. Now he knew he’d met the one man who could.
“House rules,” she explained with an apology in her wan smile.
Søren inclined his head regally and took a step forward.
They walked away toward a black door next to the end of the bar. Søren held the door open for Nora and as she stepped past him to enter the room, he gripped her by the back of the neck. Zach took a step forward, but Griffin put his hand out to stop him.
“Don’t even think about it, man,” Griffin warned. “I’m not his biggest fan, either, but you come down here, you obey the rules and you respect the ruler.”
“Is she all right?” Zach asked, scared for Nora but feeling impotent to help her in this strange world.
“She’ll be fine. He won’t hurt her.”
“Are you certain of that?”
Griffin looked at the door that had just closed behind Nora. He looked back at Zach.
“No.”
* * *
Nora tried to stay calm as Søren escorted her to the dimly lit bar stockroom. She counted her breaths and tried to slow her racing heart. It didn’t work. Søren opened the door and Nora risked one quick look back at Zach standing with Griffin. He watched her with a question in his eyes. She didn’t know how to answer it.
She wasn’t surprised when Søren grabbed her by the neck as she slipped through the door. The neck was the most vulnerable part of the human body—Søren always went for her weak spots and having just humiliated her in front of Zach meant only one thing: he wanted her.
The door shut behind them. In an instant, Søren had turned her toward him. She was in his arms, his mouth on hers. He tasted like fire and wine. She pressed into him, the dawn of her body meeting the horizon of his. It had been so long since she’d given herself over to him. She didn’t care that Zach was waiting right outside. For a moment she didn’t even remember Zach or the promise she made Wesley. She stiffened as he grasped her by the wrist. With one adept movement he had her arm twisted behind her back, her stomach flat against the wall.
Panting with need, she closed her eyes as Søren lifted the back of her skirt. She knew what was coming and didn’t try to fight it. She breathed him in, inhaling his perfect scent, the scent of winter that clung to him in every season. His mouth lingered at her neck; his warm breath on her bare skin sent a shiver through her whole body. She waited for him to penetrate her but he was too cruel for that. She heard Søren release the slightest throaty gasp, and he came instead on the back of her thighs.
Nora swallowed a groan of frustration. He loved punishing her by withholding himself. Instead of taking her, he’d merely marked his territory. Bastard. Søren pulled away as she yanked her skirt back down and turned to face him.
“Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, let’s talk, shall we, little one?”
“What did I do now?” she demanded. “Obviously I’m in trouble…again.”
A quiver of tension shot through her as Søren raised a single finger and ran it from under her ear, down her neck and across her naked shoulder. He leaned forward and whispered.
“Deep trouble.”
* * *
Zach sat next to Griffin on one of the barstools. He tried not to appear too gauche next to this unabashedly half-naked young man.
“So what do you think of our little acre of Hell?” Griffin asked, reaching over the bar to grab a bottle of water.
Zach glanced around—he saw naked flesh and leather wherever he looked. A young woman wearing not much more than her pale pink collar and cuffs sat at the feet of a slightly older man. The man said something to the girl and she nodded obediently. She tucked her toes under and rose straight up off the floor just the way Nora had in the kitchen that day. Suddenly Zach didn’t see the girl but a younger Nora. And in place of the older man was Søren smiling darkly down at her as she sat on the floor at his feet.
“Nora and Søren…how long were they together?” Zach asked, barely hearing Griffin’s question.
“He owned her about ten years, I think.” Griffin twisted the cap of his water and took a drink. “But she told me she’s known him since she was fifteen. Love at first sight, apparently. For both of them.”
“Ten years…” Zach couldn’t wrap his mind around it. His own marriage had lasted ten years. “She said he’s a sadist. I assume she means he’s…”
“A sadist,” Griffin said simply. “He’s sexually aroused by inflicting pain and humiliation. And he’s phenomenal at it. The Pope there is Machiavelli’s wet dream.”
“Phenomenal? It doesn’t seem that difficult to hurt someone.”
Griffin scoffed. “Look, any jackass with a baseball bat can beat up somebody in the street and in five seconds they’re begging for it to stop. Søren can beat you up and in five minutes you’re begging him to never stop. That’s his gift.”
“He’s a priest. A Catholic priest. He has vows—”
“Which he doesn’t break except with Nora, as far as I know. A Catholic priest who only has sex with one consenting adult woman? Jesus, they’ll probably make him a bishop. Real sadists don’t need to fuck. They need to fuck you up.”
“I can’t believe Nora could stay with someone who hurt her for so long. She’s so…”
“Dominant? Yeah, she’s one helluva Switch. She’s as dominant now as she used to be submissive. You wouldn’t recognize her if you saw her six years ago. Of course you wouldn’t see her face anyway because it’d be buried in his lap.”
Zach had started to take a drink of his gin and tonic but he set his glass down again.
“He forced her to do that in public?”
“Hell, yeah. Fucked her a few times in public, too. Well, not public—private parties. I got invited once. The only time I ever got to top that woman. One of the best nights of my life. He beat her, fucked her, passed her around. He and King would tag team her a lot. Most dominant thing you can do is give your submissive to someone else to play with.”
“Nora allowed that?”
Griffin choked on a laugh and turned to meet Zach eye to eye. “Allowed it? Man, she fucking loved it.”
Zach shook his head. “I don’t believe it. Who would enjoy being treated like that?”
“Believe what you want. All the submissives down here would sell their souls to belong to him. That’s why he’s number one. He’s the real thing. He doesn’t play to get laid. And he doesn’t do it for money like some people. He does it for pure sadistic pleasure.”
“But Nora…why does she do it?”
“Lots of reasons. But for him mainly.”
“Surely he doesn’t approve of her being a Dominant.”
Griffin gave him a sidelong smile. “What? You never pulled the ponytail of the little girl you liked on the playground? This is his playground,” Griffin said, sweeping his arm out to indicate the bar and the writhing pit below. “He’d never allow anyone but him to own her. So if she wants to play on his playground, she does it as a Domme. He doesn’t like it but he won’t stop it. Still loves her too much.”
Zach turned his head and saw the young woman in the pale pink collar return to her master. With her eyes and head lowered she presented him a glass of wine. The man set the glass of wine aside, took her by the hair and pulled her face between his legs. Zach tried to look away but found he couldn’t. The man leaned his head back in arrogant bliss as the girl wrapped her lips and tongue around him.
“God, I love it here,” Griffin said, and Zach could hear arousal in his voice. “I’ve gotta get a sub.”
Zach tried to ignore how aroused he was becoming by watching the girl. The man dug his fingers into the back of the girl’s neck as his hips twitched. Zach wrenched his gaze away as he finally let the girl go.
“Nora and Søren were just like that?” Zach asked, still in shock.
Griffin shrugged indifferently.
“Nora says he’s a great priest.”
* * *
“So what do you want to talk about? We’ve been having the same fight for five years. I guess we can have it again. Yes, I miss you. Yes, I miss it. No, I’m not coming back.”
“You would assume this was all about you, wouldn’t you?” Søren said.
“If it isn’t, then what?” she demanded, angry at herself for still being so affected by him even after all this time.
“I told you when I saw you again we would discuss Wesley.”
Nora took a step back.
“No, not him. He’s not on the table. He’s not up for negotiation.”
Søren’s eyes flashed at her. “Fitting as I do not negotiate.”
“I’m not giving Wesley up.”
“He’s not one of us, Eleanor, and you know it. You never should have allowed him into your home. This is a dangerous game you are playing and one or both of you will be deeply hurt by it.”
“Wes isn’t a game. He’s my best friend. Jesus, Søren, he’s my only friend.” Nora hated admitting it but she knew it was true. Everyone in her life—Zach included—she’d either slept with or planned to.
“Friend? He’s your pet and you are using him. A game is only fair when both parties know they are playing it.”
“You don’t know anything about us. You haven’t even met him.”
Søren took her chin in his hand, gripping it to the edge of pain.
“Do you think,” Søren asked slowly, “that there is any corner of your life you can keep from me?”
“Why do you care what happens to Wes?”
“One of us has to. Is he a virgin still?” Søren demanded and Nora turned away from him. “Answer me, young lady.”
“Yes,” she said, too well-trained to ignore a direct order. “We’re just friends.”
“Only for love would you ever sleep alone. I could have had you when you were fifteen years old, Eleanor. And although I burned for you, although my desire for you grew until the calendar of my life counted down only the days and months and years I had to wait until I could make you mine, I still kept you a virgin. Why?”
Nora rolled her eyes. “Because you’re a sadist.”
Søren reached for her and held her by the shoulders. His hands on her bare skin sent electricity running through her whole body.
“Because I loved you. I wouldn’t take you until you were ready. You keep Wesley for yourself as I kept you for me. But you were born for this life and he was not. You will harm him if you keep him any longer.”
“I would never hurt Wes.” A knot tightened in her throat.
“It will end badly, Eleanor. As will that, if you aren’t careful,” Søren said, indicating Zach sitting at the bar with Griffin. Griffin glanced at the mirror and winked. Of course, Griffin knew it was a two-way mirror that hung behind the bar. She and he had snuck back here for some quick kinky sex more than once. “Your editor. He seemed surprised when we met. You haven’t told him everything about us. What else haven’t you told him?”
Nora twisted her riding crop in her hands.
“Eleanor…” Søren scolded in his most insufferable paternalistic voice. “How will he feel when he discovers that writing isn’t your only source of income?”
“I was going to tell him. I will tell him. When the book’s done.”
“He cares for you, Eleanor. I can see it in his eyes. He’s letting himself care for you and it terrifies him. He won’t take betrayal lightly.”
“Then I won’t betray him. The book is more than halfway done. And Zach…he’s amazing. He’s smart and funny. He’s—”
“Married. I thought I taught you better than that.”
“They’re separated. They even live on separate continents.”
“Are you attempting to convince me or yourself?” Søren asked. Nora closed her eyes, exhaling as Søren slipped his hands down her arms. “If he hasn’t taken you yet, and I’m sure you’ve offered, it is because he still loves his wife. Broken love is the most dangerous love. It will slice you open with every touch.”
“Like your love?”
Søren dipped his head and kissed her from her neck to the tip of her shoulder. She exhaled with bliss as his lips met her skin. No other lover had ever made her feel what Søren could.
“You haven’t broken me yet,” he said into her ear. It took everything she had to keep from turning around and sinking into his arms. “Are you following my rule still, Eleanor?”
Nora bit her bottom lip. “Yes. Mostly. More or less.”
“Eleanor…” he said in a warning tone.
“I do write about you,” she admitted. “All the time. But I always delete or shred it.”
“Then why do you write about me, about us, if you destroy your own words?”
“They aren’t just words. They’re memories. I like to read them, hold them in my hands. And then I can let them go. A little bit at least.”
“You will never love anyone as you love me,” Søren said and as much as she wanted to slap him for his arrogance, she couldn’t disagree. “Not even Wesley. Not even him.” Søren’s eyes came to rest on Zach at the bar talking with Griffin. “But I think you care for him more than you realize. This must be terrifying for you.”
“It is terrifying,” she admitted. “Zach’s my editor. He’s the first person who ever treated me as a serious writer.”
“I told you that you should be a writer when you were seventeen years old,” he reminded her.
Nora smiled at the memory. She’d written a short story for her English class that had gotten her into big trouble at her Catholic high school. Only the intervention of her priest had kept her from getting hauled in front of a whole team of doctors and psychiatric personnel.
“I assumed you were a little biased where I was concerned.”
“Perhaps I was,” he admitted with a smile. “But I knew talent when I saw it. So what will you do with him?” Søren nodded toward Zach.
Nora watched Zach through the two-way mirror. Griffin leaned in close and Zach managed to recoil without even moving—a very English feat.
“It’s not just about sex this time. Not entirely. Zach’s got secrets, bad ones. I want to help him but I don’t even know where to start. What do you think?”
Søren looked at her and she had to fight her training to keep her eye contact with him. Once in a private moment like this she would never have met his eyes without his permission. But that was so long ago. Søren sighed and shook his head.
“My Eleanor…someday perhaps I’ll learn to tell you ‘no.’”
With that Søren stepped to her side. She watched his face as he studied Zach through the glass. In all her life Nora had never known anyone as perceptive as Søren. He could read a soul with the merest glance. He’d known what she would become from the moment he first saw her. He had told her so. It had always been her favorite bedtime story. Tell me about that day, she would beg. Eleanor, he’d begin, his stories always in third person, had pulled her sleeves down over her hands. She was ashamed of the burn on her wrist. But as she reached for the cup, her sleeve slipped back and he saw what she was. Nora always interrupted with an eager, What was she? And Søren would pull her into his arms and answer, She was mine.
“Guilt.” Søren’s pronouncement wrenched her from the past. “Old guilt. He wears it awkwardly as if he hasn’t quite learned how to carry it yet. He committed no crime although he may believe he did.”
“Old guilt—I have to get it out of him,” she said, amused that she and Søren were at once adversaries and conspirators. “He’s choking on his own secrets. I have to break him. But how? That insufferable British dignity is impenetrable. The last thing he needs is some time on the rack and a good whipping.”
“I agree. It would merely insult him. I have seen that guilt before. He hurt someone once.”
Nora heard a turn in his last statement, heard the teacher’s hint.
“He hurt his wife.”
“Then you know what you have to do.” Søren smiled proudly at her. She was always his best pupil.
“Make him hurt me?”
“Yes, little one. Make him hurt you.”
* * *
“So you’re Nora’s new Maxwell Perkins, right?” Griffin asked Zach.
“Well, I am her editor. But Perkins and I have quite disparate philosophies of editing.”
“Good. I’d hate to see her books get all fucked up because her editor can’t keep his hands off her prose.”
“So,” Zach said evenly, “you read?”
Griffin shot him a dirty look.
“I may be a slut, Max, but I’m not a dumb slut. I read Nora’s books. They’re amazing. Of course, my favorite book of hers is the one she hasn’t written yet.”
“And that is?”
“The Nora Sutherlin Story.”
“It would be a page-turner,” Zach agreed. “Is he actually going to keep her all night?”
Zach glanced at his watch. Nora had been gone only a short while but he was already impatient for her return.
“If he wants to. The minute he steps into this place, martial law is in effect.”
“Does she come here often?”
“Used to come all the time. Had to. But she dropped off the face of the earth about a month ago.”
“That was when we began work on her book,” Zach explained.
“And when she began work on you, too, huh?” Griffin grinned at him. Zach tried not to let himself be embarrassed. After all, Nora and Griffin were clearly occasional lovers.
“What do you mean she had to come here?” Zach asked after a moment’s silence.
But Griffin only laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.
“Come on. Let’s check out the pit.”
* * *
“I really should get back to my guest.” Nora didn’t want to leave Søren, but she knew she needed to. God only knew what Griffin was telling Zach right now.
“Not quite yet. We still need to plan how to celebrate our anniversary next week. Or have you forgotten what next Thursday is?”
“If I forgot every other day of the year, I would remember that one. But we aren’t celebrating it. Not this year or ever again.”
“I see.” Søren gave her a cool, appraising stare. “Was last year not to your liking?”
Last year…what he did to her that night was beautiful and brutal and it hurt to even remember.
If you come back to me, will you run or will you crawl?
I’ll fly.
Nora shook her head, tried to forget how much she still wanted him.
“Last year was a mistake. It shouldn’t have happened. It went too far.”
“You are never satisfied until it goes too far.”
“I nearly lost Wes over that night.”
“Yes. What was that promise you made? That if you ever gave yourself over to me again he would leave you? Was that it?”
“You can’t blame him, can you? He doesn’t understand us.”
“I am certain he does not.” Søren reached out and caressed her cheek. Those fingers, she thought. Those hands. Hands that knew every corner of her body as their owner knew every corner of her heart. “My Eleanor…such a creature of Divine Discontent.”
“Divine Discontent?”
“God’s dirty little secret. He will make you suffer, little one, until He makes you wise.”
“No more sermons. Please,” she pleaded.
Søren responded with only the merest suggestion of a smile on his lips. “If you won’t come see me on our anniversary, I suppose I’ll have to give you your gift early. Good thing I brought him with me.”
He pulled something from his pocket and opened his hand for her. A key with a delicate white ribbon in place of a key chain lay across his palm.
“What is it?”
“The key to the White Room, of course. It’s where your anniversary present is waiting for you.”
His hand still open and waiting, Søren took a step toward her.
“He’s a virgin, Eleanor,” he whispered into her ear. “You can close your eyes and pretend he’s Wesley.”
Nora wanted to withdraw, wanted to push Søren away. Zach was out there waiting for her. And she knew better than this. Søren’s gifts were always double-edged swords, and there was no way to take them except by the blade. She heard the voice of reason reminding her that she should find Zach and get him out of here. And then she remembered what she promised him—to show him a place of no regret, no shame and no fear.
She took the key from Søren’s hand.
“I see He’s not finished making you suffer,” Søren said.
Nora didn’t reply. Closing her fingers around the key so tightly the teeth bit fiercely into her hand, she slipped from the room and into a back hallway. Nora felt Søren’s eyes on her. She didn’t look back.