The Mistress

Nora stared into his eyes and saw nothing but the truth in them. It was a beautiful truth, one she wanted to be a part of. Anything she wanted...from her Wesley...and she knew what her answer was. She wanted to take him into her bed tonight and make love to him. She wanted to teach him everything she knew about sex and how good it felt and how right it could be to join your body with someone else’s and let the entire world fall away from you until there was nothing left but you and him and the new being the two created together. She wanted his virginity for her birthday and his heart and body every day after that. And she wanted that because she loved him and treasured him and didn’t want anyone ever hurting him as he never wanted anyone hurting her, even though she loved that sort of thing, not that he would ever understand that. And she didn’t care that he didn’t understand. She cared that he loved her. Oh, yes, Nora knew exactly what she wanted from Wesley for her birthday. She wanted to look into his eyes the moment he entered her the first time, wanted to hear his breathing change with the first thrust, wanted to hold him before, during and after and let him tell her everything he felt and everything he wanted.

But she couldn’t ask for that, could she? Wesley deserved a little bit better for his first time than a woman who was still wet from the last guy she’d f**ked an hour ago. She still could feel Griffin’s warm skin against her br**sts, could still remember the press of him inside her. As cute as he was to offer, she knew Wes couldn’t buy her emeralds and castles. Maybe he wanted to see if she’d believe him. Maybe he wanted to know what she’d wish for if she could have anything on earth.

“Anything, Nora,” Wes whispered, and took both her hands in his. Nora smiled.

“I’ll take the presents on the table, the dinner with you and the movie. And that’s all I want,” she said, reaching out to cup his face. She kissed him on the cheek and he gave her a smile. In his eyes she saw a flash of disappointment quickly hidden.

“Okay, but dinner first.”

“We’re getting Indian, right?” she asked. “The correct answer is yes.”

“Yes.”

“You must have read my mind. I’ll go change out of the fetish-wear first.”

“Thank you. And I’ll change into mine.”

“The assless chaps, please. It is my birthday, after all.”

“Anything for you.”

At the bottom of the stairs, Nora turned around and found Wes still looking at her and on his face she saw no subterfuge, no lies, no jokes, no tricks. When he said, “Anything for you,” he meant it.

* * *

“Do you regret picking the birthday presents on the table?” Marie-Laure asked, dragging Nora out of the past again. It hurt leaving that memory of Wes, especially since returning to the present meant remembering she sat cuffed to the bed of a psychopath. While she dredged up her past, Marie-Laure sat on the bed four feet away, fluffing her goddamn pillows.

“No. Yes. Maybe.” Nora exhaled heavily. “The only thing I wanted was him. And that I didn’t feel right asking for. Castles are too much upkeep. Emeralds I could buy for myself. But I couldn’t buy him. That kid tricked me into coming back home just so he could wish me happy birthday and take me to dinner. And he didn’t even want to f**k me. And even if he did want to f**k me he didn’t try. He didn’t do anything that night but put his arm around me on the sofa and let me lean against him while we watched movies.”

Nora remembered the peace she felt that night curled up with Wesley, eating cake, talking, being vanilla and boring and happy. She forgot all about sex with Griffin, the Gansevoort, even forgot about her birthday. She didn’t even remember it again until she’d gone to bed that night and found a box from Søren on her bed. Kingsley had a key to her house. He must have had one of his underlings sneak it in while she and Wesley were gone. It took her a week to work up the courage to open the box and a week to recover from the gift inside—a handblown glass hart, tiny and exquisite, its antlered head held high proudly. When she was fifteen, she’d dug through boxes of her old toys until she’d found a little plastic hart that had been part of a set of toy animals her grandmother had given her. She’d given it to Søren after midnight mass on Christmas Eve. A visual pun, she’d explained to him. My hart...my heart. What the gift of the glass hart meant she didn’t want to think about. Was Søren reminding her he still had her heart? Or confessing she still had his? Both, most likely, because she knew both were true.

“You know your Wesley’s truth now—his family, his fortune. Do you wish you’d chosen the rabbit hole?”

As much as Nora hated to admit it, Marie-Laure asked a good question.

“I faced that same choice with Søren once,” Nora said, blinking back tears. “I could learn the truth about him and be changed forever. Or walk away from him, from the truth, and stay blissfully ignorant.”

“You made a different choice with my husband.”

“I did. I was seventeen years old and it was here in this house. His father had died and he finally felt safe enough to tell me what he was, what we could be. He warned me it would change everything and that once learned it couldn’t be unlearned.”

“What did you say to him?”

“Two words—tell me.”

Tell me.

And he had. And as he told her the truth of what he was, what she was, what they could be together if she chose, she felt like an amnesiac waking from the haze of forgetfulness and finally remembering herself. The only secrets he’d told her that night were the ones she already knew without knowing she knew them.