The Virgin

“What’s the opposite of a nightmare?”

“The dream I had.” Elle laughed to herself. She could still feel Kingsley inside her. “About once a week I’ll dream something that actually happened to me. These vivid erotic dreams. I’ve never dreamed like this before. It’s like I’m reliving the entire moment, second by second. I woke up having an orgasm.”

“I’ve had some pretty crazy dreams since coming here, too. They warn you that being isolated like this, cut off from the outside world, will cause your mind and your soul to dredge things up and force you to deal with all your unfinished business from your old life.”

“What do you dream about?” Elle asked her. “What’s your unfinished business?”

Kyrie shrugged. “I dream about Bethany a lot, my family. Everyone sort of fell apart after she was killed. The trial, the publicity...it’s like a shipwreck. You start off strong, everybody holding on to each other for dear life. And then you drift away on the tides of your grief and hope you wash ashore someday.”

“Is this where you washed up?” Elle asked. Kyrie always seemed far more interested in learning about Elle’s life before the convent than talking about what hers had been like. Elle didn’t blame the girl. Everyone deserved a fresh start free of baggage. Unfortunately no one ever really got what they deserved.

“This is my dry land,” Kyrie said. “Being here...I finally feel like I’m on steady ground again. You?”

“I’m still at sea,” Elle admitted. “Especially on nights like this when I wake up from my dreams and don’t know where I am for a few seconds. Lost at sea and I can’t find my sea legs. Maybe they were right about being here. Maybe I do have unfinished business.”

“What were you dreaming about?”

“Do you really want to know?” Elle asked. “Or are you asking to make conversation?”

“I want to know. I want to know everything about you. Maybe for the wrong reasons, but there’s at least one right reason in there. I do want to help you. Will you let me?”

Silence settled over them, over the garden, over the moment. In that silence, Elle made a decision. She was lonely and scared, and she didn’t know what to do with her life, didn’t know what to do now that she’d left Søren. And no amount of running and hiding was making the way any clearer. She needed help.

And so she answered.

“I was dreaming about the night I got pregnant.”

19

Haiti

PARFAIT...THERE WAS NO other word for that night with Elle, the night she burned him sixteen times. Every waking moment the day after, Kingsley’s brain had buzzed with the memories of the pain, the intensity of the agony and the incredible release she’d pulled from him again and again. He was drunk with happiness, nearly delirious with sexual satisfaction. It was all coming together. The clouds were clearing, the pattern appearing. For years he wondered what it meant, that Elle had become part of his life. He loved sharing her with Søren. Kingsley loved watching Søren fuck her, loved being watched by Søren as Kingsley fucked Elle. Those were his most potent erotic encounters when sin and sex and sadism merged into one and spent the night in his bed.

But for all that, it hadn’t been enough. As much as Kingsley loved to give pain and to dominate others, he himself needed pain and domination, as well. And if Søren would not give Kingsley what he needed, then perhaps Elle would.

And finally she had.

And not only had she done it, she’d loved it. He’d seen that gleam in her eyes as she’d fired up the scalpel. He’d known exactly what it was that burned in those dark green depths.

Sadism.

Pure, delicious, unadulterated sadism.

It had been too long since he’d let someone hurt him the way he needed hurting and have the sex he needed having. The Dominatrixes in his employ—he couldn’t have sex with them. They worked for him and they never had sex with any of their clients. Mistress Felicia had moved back to England five years ago. And Søren had clearly repented of the night six years ago he’d lost control and beaten and fucked Kingsley in his own house. Another night like that with Søren? It had become nothing but a fantasy.

But another night like that with Elle? He bore sixteen burn marks on his body and eight deep scratches on his chest to prove it had been real. And it would be real again as soon as he found what he was looking for.

Two days after the night Elle burned him, Kingsley left on his quest. It took three days of driving through New England, stopping at every antique store he’d ever heard of and a few he hadn’t before he found what he’d been looking for. At last in a tiny antique shop that specialized in equestrian equipment, there it was. It had cost a small fortune as it was two hundred years old and had belonged to a rather notorious duchess who supposedly did more than ride her horses. Triumphant, he returned to his town house and waited until nightfall to find Elle again.

He found her in his music room sitting near the piano. She did that whenever her longing for Søren grew painful. The piano was his and to sit near it was to be close to him. He’d seen similar behavior before among the priests at his old school, St. Ignatius. Sometimes they’d simply sit by the Eucharist with their eyes closed. They believed Jesus was incarnate in the blessed communion wafers. To sit by the Eucharist was to sit near Him, the man they’d devoted their lives to in service, in love and in marriage. Did Elle believe Søren was incarnate in the piano? Music, after all, was Søren’s communion.