Praise for The Siren

‘A beautiful, lyrical story … The Siren is about love lost and found, the choices that make us who we are … I can only hope Ms Reisz pens a sequel!’ —Bestselling author Jo Davis

‘THE ORIGINAL SINNERS series certainly lives up to its

name: it’s mind-bendingly original and crammed with more

sin than you can shake a hot poker at. I haven’t read a

book this dangerous and subversive since Chuck

Palahniuk’s Fight Club.’ —Andrew Shaffer, author of Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love

‘Tiffany Reisz is a smart, artful and masterful new voice

in erotic fiction. An erotica star on the rise!’

—Award-winning author Lacey Alexander

‘Daring, sophisticated and literary … exactly what good

erotica should be.’

—Kitty Thomas, author of Tender Mercies

‘Dazzling, devastating and sinfully erotic, Reisz writes

unforgettable characters you’ll either want to know or want

to be. The Siren is an alluring book-within-a-book, a story that will leave you breathless and bruised, aching for another chapter with Nora Sutherlin and her men.’ —Miranda Baker, author of Bottoms Up and Soloplay

‘You will most definitely feel strongly for these characters …

this was an amazing story and I’m so happy that it’s not over.

I can’t wait to jump back into Nora’s world.’

—http://ladysbookstuff.blogspot.co.uk

About the Author

TIFFANY REISZ lives in Lexington, Kentucky. She graduated with a BA in English from Centre College and is making her parents and her professors proud by writing erotica under her real name. She has five piercings, one tattoo and has been arrested twice. When not under arrest, Tiffany enjoys Latin dance, Latin men and Latin verbs. She dropped out of a conservative seminary in order to pursue her dream of becoming a smut peddler. If she couldn’t write, she would die.

Also by Tiffany Reisz:

SEVEN-DAY LOAN

(part of 12 Shades of Surrender: Bound)

THE SIREN

(Original Sinners 1)

Watch out for the third book in

The Original Sinners series

THE PRINCE

Available in December from

Mills & Boon® SPICE

The Angel

Tiffany Reisz

www.spice-books.co.uk

To Gina Scalera, my Angel. I miss you.

To Eve, the original Original Sinner.

And to Andrew Shaffer, many waters …

Part I

1

“Fudge.”

Mostly upside down with her head hanging off the bed, Nora saw the ominous slant of sunlight sliding through the window and across the floor. Søren pushed into her again, and she flinched with pleasure.

“Eleanor, are you thinking about food at a time like this?” Søren thrust hard once more and came with a controlled shudder.

Laughing from her recent orgasm and the absurdity of having this conversation in her current position, Nora finished her thought. “You’re the one who told me I wasn’t allowed to swear on Sundays anymore. So, fudge, I’m going to be late for Mass, sir.”

Søren dipped his head and kissed her neck.

“I have it on good authority that your priest would be quite displeased if you were late,” he whispered into her ear.

“Then my priest needs to untie my leg from his bedpost.”

Søren raised up and glared down at her; she innocently batted her eyelashes at him.

“Beg,” he ordered, and Nora started to growl. Arrogant son of a bitch.

He never said anything about not swearing in her mind. Just that she could never curse out loud.

Søren put a finger over her lips.

“No growling. Begging.”

Clenching and unclenching her jaw, Nora took a deep breath.

“Please, sir, will you let me go so I can drive my as—bottom home, take a shower, eat breakfast for once this week, throw on some clothes and drive back to church so I can sit in my pew looking prim and proper all the while imagining you naked as you’re giving some homily on sin and how, shockingly, God’s against it? Pretty please with you on top?”

Søren slapped the back of her thigh hard enough she yelped. But still he reached up and unknotted the black silk rope from her ankle. With obvious reluctance, he withdrew from her and rolled onto his side.

Now free, Nora started to crawl out of his bed.

Søren propped his head on his hand and stretched languidly across his white sheets. She wasn’t going to look at him. If she looked at Søren, she’d crawl right back to him.

“In a hurry, little one?”

“To leave you? No. To not be late for Mass and earn yet another beating this week? Yes.” Søren caressed the back of her calf and Nora turned back to stare daggers at him. “Are you trying to make me late … sir?”

Sighing, Søren pulled his hand away from her. It wasn’t fair. The rectory stood all of two minutes’ walk from the church; being male and not having to worry about what outfit to wear, Søren could get ready in ten minutes.

“A vicious accusation, Eleanor. Of course I would never try to make you late. You are a role model for the young people in the church after all.”

Snorting a laugh, Nora started picking up her clothes. She pulled her shirt off the top of the bedpost she been tied to last night while Søren had flogged her senseless. Her skirt lay in a crumpled heap on the floor where it had landed after Søren unzipped it and let it fall before bending her over his bed and strapping her ankles to a spreader bar. Somewhere under his bed she found her bra, and her underwear was at home in a drawer. She rarely bothered with underwear around Søren—counterproductive really.

“A role model? Nora Sutherlin—erotica writer, ex-dominatrix. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She held out her hand to shake. Søren only looked at it and raised his eyebrow at her.

“You’re a role model to Michael. He adores you.”

“But Michael’s one of us, sir.” She smiled at the memory of Søren’s anniversary gift to her last year: the virginity of possibly the prettiest teenage boy in the known world. Pretty, kinky and unfortunately deeply troubled. “Of course he’s got a soft spot for me. Or a wet spot. Anyway, none of those vanilla twerps at church need to look up to me.”

Nora shoved her feet into her shoes as Søren got out of bed. Her heart pounded at the sight of all six feet four inches of his perfectly sculpted, unashamedly naked body coming toward her. No one watching him now would ever believe Søren was forty-seven years old. And no one seeing them last night and this morning as he beat her and fucked her repeatedly in a variety of delightfully degrading positions would have dreamed he was one of the most respected Catholic priests in all of New England.

“You give them hope that one can be an adult Catholic without being conventional or condescending.”

“You’re trying to say the kids think I’m cool, aren’t you?”

“My sentiments exactly.”

She turned her face up to him for a quick goodbye kiss. Instead he bent down and kissed her long and slow … deeply, possessively. No one had ever kissed her the way Søren did, as though he was inside her body even when he was only inside her mouth. After nearly five minutes of pure passionate kissing, Søren finally pulled back.

“Eleanor, you really should stop dawdling.” His steel-gray eyes glinted wickedly.

Nora glared at him. “You bas—” Nora began, and Søren glared at her. This “no swearing on Sundays” thing was going to kill her. But she would do it come heck or high water. “Bastion of evil intentions. You just stole five minutes by kissing me. God Almighty.”

“Young lady, if you don’t stop using the Lord’s name in vain, I’m going to reintroduce caning into our relationship. Are you really complaining that I kissed you?”

“Yes. You’re cheating. You want me to be late so you’ll have an excuse to beat me.”

“As if I need an excuse.” Søren smiled at her, and she was torn between the twin impulses to either slap him or kiss him again.

“I’m gone. Goodbye. I love you, I hate you, I love you. I’ll see you at eleven, and I’ll try very hard to listen to your homily this morning instead of having flashbacks from last night. But no promises.”

Nora headed for the door.

“Eleanor … forgetting something?”

Nora spun on her heel and came back to him. Reaching up she wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Am I, sir?”

He bent to kiss her again.

“The bed.”

Nora rolled her eyes. She pulled away from him and quickly made his bed, fluffing his pillows with near-hurricane force.

“There, sir. Happy now?”

Søren pulled her to him and ran his fingers over her cheek.

“You’re here. Of course I am.”

Nora sighed at his words and his touch. In the years she and Søren had spent together—those ten beautiful years in his collar before the incident, until she’d left him—they usually spent two or three nights a week together at the most. Then, after five years apart, she’d come back to him, and since returning, she spent nearly every free moment she could with him—at the rectory, at their friend Kingsley’s Manhattan town house or at The 8th Circle, the infamous underground S&M club where Søren was practically worshipped. She hated being at home alone these days. The house seemed too big, too empty, too quiet.

Søren’s hands left her face and reached around her neck. She heard a click, felt something give way, and Søren removed her white leather collar. As always, the moment her collar came off her neck, she felt something tighten around her heart. Søren opened the rosewood box that sat on his bedside table, took out his Roman collar and replaced it with Nora’s collar.

“Jeg elsker dig. Du er mit hjerte.”

I love you. You are my heart.

With a dramatic moan Nora collapsed against his chest.

“Do you know how much it turns me on when you speak Danish?”

“Yes. Now go. You’re running late, and I believe you recall what happened the last time you were late for Mass.”

“I do. But I sort of enjoyed it, so that’s not much of a threat.”

“I could threaten you with a week of celibacy, but as I’m not going to be late, I see no reason to punish myself. Eleanor, you could always move closer. Have you considered that?”

She had considered that. For about five seconds before deciding she’d rather cut off her arm than sell her house.

“I love my house. I want to keep it.”

“Is it the house or the memories you love and want to keep?”

Nora stared at the floor.

“Please don’t make me move.”

Søren had asked her over a year ago to move closer to him and the church. She’d said no then and she was saying no now. She knew he could order her to move closer, and she would if he made her. But so far it hadn’t come to that. Søren nodded and Nora pulled away from him.

“We’re scening after church again, right?” Nora asked from the bedroom doorway. Sunday afternoons belonged to them. Søren’s parishioners always left him alone on Sunday afternoons. They assumed he was busy praying. Not quite.

“Barring divine intervention.”

“Divine intervention, Father Stearns?” Nora tossed her hair with arrogant playfulness. “God oughta know better by now.”

Throwing a smile over her shoulder, Nora gave Søren one last long look. He had, without a doubt, the most handsome face of any man she’d ever known. The most handsome face, the keenest mind, the wickedest libido, the sexiest body and the most devoted heart…. For the five years she’d lived apart from him, four had been agony. And now they’d been back together for over a year and everything was perfect.

Well, almost perfect.

As usual, Michael woke up long before his alarm. He lay in bed with his hand down his boxer shorts and contemplated finding a tie to make this process more enjoyable. But he’d promised Father S that he wouldn’t hurt himself anymore. Father S had no objections to erotic asphyxiation but he forbade Michael from doing it alone. “We almost lost you once, Michael. I’d rather not repeat that experience,” Father S had told him, and Michael knew he would never forgive himself if he put his priest—the man who’d saved his life—through that nightmare again.

So instead, Michael merely closed his eyes and conjured the memory of Nora Sutherlin tying him down, guiding him inside her and clenching so tightly around him he’d flinched. That one sensory memory worked as usual, and Michael came hard on his hand.

Forgoing a tissue, Michael got up and headed straight to the shower. He spent a long time in the shower, longer than most guys his age probably did. Of course, most guys his age didn’t have hair that fell to their shoulders and a predilection for self-abuse in the literal sense. Scalding water wasn’t quite as much fun as scalding candle wax, but it was the best he had.

After his shower Michael toweled off and dressed. He dried his long hair and pulled it into a low ponytail. He ironed his white button-down and his black cargo pants and even put on a tie. But not for erotic reasons … unless he counted trying to impress Nora Sutherlin as an erotic reason.

As usual, before leaving his bedroom, Michael rolled up his sleeves and rubbed liquid vitamin E onto the white scars on both of his wrists. The vitamin E supposedly helped scars heal and fade, but so far the effect had been minimal. He strapped his wide leather watchband on his right wrist and pulled a black wristband on his left before heading to his mom’s room.

Michael tapped on her bedroom door.

“Go without me,” she called out, as he knew she would. Still, he always had to ask. “Leave the car. I have to run errands this morning.”

Leave the car … great. Good thing Sacred Heart was only a few blocks away.

He pushed on his sunglasses, grabbed his skateboard and his backpack on the way out the door, and hit the street. Skating straight up to the front steps of Sacred Heart, he flipped his board up and tucked it under his arm. Before entering the sanctuary, he went to the church secretary’s office, dug something out of his backpack and sent a quick fax.

Michael headed to the sanctuary and saw Nora hadn’t arrived yet. He sat in the tenth pew from the back, two rows behind Nora’s usual spot. Her little shadow, seven-year-old Owen Perry, already waited for his Miss Ellie to show up. Owen adored Nora—Miss Ellie—and did nothing to hide that fact. He sat next to her during Mass and sometimes even curled up on her lap. Once Michael walked past them and saw Owen lying half-asleep on her knee as Nora mindlessly ran her fingers over his tiny forehead. Both of them had wavy black hair. Anyone seeing them for the first time would think Nora was the kid’s mom.

It bugged him seeing Owen cuddling up to Nora. He envied that little kid for so fearlessly showering Nora with affection and attention. Michael would kiss her feet if she’d let him. But then again, he also envied Nora. She at least had someone who wasn’t afraid to touch her in public. Michael couldn’t even remember the last time anyone had touched him. Even his own mother had stopped hugging him after his father moved out.

Nora didn’t just have people who would touch her in public. She had Father S, who touched her in private. Michael secretly worried someone would find out about Father S and Nora. Everybody knew Nora wrote erotica, and the church secretly loved having a mini-celebrity in their midst. And everybody at church worshipped Father S. But Nora and Father S had fallen in love when she was only fifteen. If their past, and even worse, their present, came out … Michael didn’t even want to think how bad it would get.

Checking his watch, Michael saw he had just enough time to run for a drink of water. He stood up quickly and headed to the door. As he exited the sanctuary Nora breezed in through the front doors wearing a tight white skirt and a tailored black blouse. Her long hair was swept up in a loose knot and she wore a little smile at the corner of her full pale red lips. He could only imagine what Father S had been doing to her that morning to put that grin on her face—could imagine and often did imagine.

Nora came toward him and Michael froze. They never talked to each other—not in words anyway, not since that one night together. But as usual he gave her a little wave. Instead of waving back, Nora reached out and took his hand in hers for the whisper of a second. She squeezed his fingers and let him go, walking off as if nothing at all had passed between them.

Michael gazed down at his hand. She’d touched him.

When Michael looked up, one of the married men in the congregation who had a bad habit of flirting with Nora sat staring at him. Staring at him with a look Michael recognized as envy. Michael stood a little straighter and walked back to his pew. He paused a moment before changing his mind, taking two steps forward and dropping down right next to Nora. She didn’t look at him, just chatted with Owen about a drawing he’d done for her. But Nora snuck her hand out again and pinched Michael hard enough on the thigh he knew he’d have a bruise tomorrow.

Michael smiled. God, he loved Sundays.

Suzanne woke up to find Patrick’s arm across her bare stomach and his mouth on the back of her neck.

“Patrick, seriously. I’m sleeping.” She pushed his arm off her. “I still have jet lag.”

Laughing, Patrick nipped at her shoulder. She responded by turning onto her side, her back away from him.

“Sex is a homeopathic cure for jet lag. I read that somewhere.”

Suzanne closed her eyes, pulled the sheets up to her chin and tried to remember exactly when last night she decided sleeping with an ex-boyfriend was a good idea—probably somewhere between the fourth and sixth rum and Coke.

“Last night wasn’t enough for you?” Suzanne vaguely recalled at least two but possibly three encounters—once in the living room and twice in her bed. The third one may not have counted.

“I don’t remember much of last night. Impressive ‘welcome home’ party.” Patrick nuzzled into her neck.

“Patrick, seriously,” Suzanne said when she felt his erection pressing into her lower back. Patrick could be insatiable sometimes—one of his better qualities in her estimation. Not that she ever told him that.

“It’s Sunday morning. Let’s fuck while all the Goody Two-shoes are at church.”

“Mentioning church is not going to get you on my good side, Patrick. Or on whatever side you’re interested in.”

Suzanne felt the bed shift as Patrick rolled up. Turning over onto her back, she made herself meet his eyes. An IED had exploded not far from a convoy she’d been riding in right outside of Kabul two weeks ago. It wasn’t her life but Patrick’s face—his shaggy brown hair, soulful eyes and playful smile—that had flashed before her eyes. He was an ex-boyfriend for a reason, she told herself. Sometimes, though, she had trouble remembering what that reason was. This morning, she remembered.

“Shit, Suz. I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean … God, I was so glad you were coming back, and I’ve fucked it up already.”

“Shut up,” she said, but not unkindly. “I think I heard my fax machine.”

She grabbed Patrick’s shirt off the floor and pulled it on as she left the bedroom. In the corner of her living room sat her small home office. She dumped books and notepads onto the floor. Readers lauded her newspaper and magazine articles for their clarity and organization. Those same readers might be amused to see how much chaos it took to create such organized, erudite stories.

Behind the second pile of books and notes she found her dust-covered fax machine. A single piece of paper lay on the Out tray. Her eyes widened as she took in the logo and the letterhead at the top.

“Patrick?”

“What’s up?” he asked, buttoning his jeans as he entered the living room.

“Read this.” She thrust the paper into Patrick’s hands.

“Anonymous tip?”

“I think so. No cover sheet. No fax number imprint at the bottom. Bizarre.”

Suzanne watched Patrick’s eyes scan the page. He shook his head in either shock or confusion.

“Is this what I think it is?”

Suzanne took the sheet of paper back from him and read it again. “Wakefield Diocese—what do you know about it?” she asked.

Patrick ran his hands through his hair and looked straight up. She knew he always did that when thinking deeply, as if God or the ceiling would tell him all the answers. “Wakefield … Wakefield … small diocese in Connecticut. Safe, clean, suburban. Fairly liberal, pretty boring.”

Suzanne heard the hesitation in Patrick’s voice.

“Just spill it, Patrick. I can take it.”

“Fine,” he said, sighing. “One of their guys, Father Landon, was supposed to take over for Bishop Leo Salter. Last minute, he gets nailed on a thirty-year-old abuse accusation. So instead of becoming bishop, he’s getting sent to wherever they send the sex offenders.”

“They send the sex offenders to another church full of children usually.” Suzanne’s hands nearly shook with barely restrained anger.

Patrick shrugged and took the fax back from her. An investigative reporter, Patrick acted as a walking encyclopedia of every scandal in the tristate area. They’d met two years ago when they were both working for the same paper.

“Suzanne,” Patrick said in a warning tone, “don’t do this, please. Let it go.”

Suzanne didn’t answer. Sitting in her swivel chair, she curled her legs to her chest and reached for the framed photograph that sat on the corner of her desk. Her older brother Adam smiled at her from inside the frame. He was twenty-eight in the picture. Now she was twenty-eight and Adam was gone.

“Suzanne,” Patrick said with quiet solemnity. For a moment she heard the echo of her father in Patrick’s concerned tone. “This is the Catholic Church. They are their own country with their own army and that army is mostly lawyers. I know you hate the Church. I would too if I were you. But you need to think about this before you dive in blindly.”

“I’m not blind. I know exactly what I’m looking at. An anonymous tip that says something’s rotten in the state of Wakefield. And I’m going to find what it is.”

Patrick exhaled heavily. “Okay,” he said. “But you’re going to let me help. Right?”

Suzanne rolled her eyes and tried not to smile.

“Right. Fine. If you insist.”

“So where do we start?” he asked her.

Suzanne pointed to the one name on the fax that interested her.

Father Marcus Stearns, Sacred Heart, Wakefield, Connecticut.

“We start with him.”

Patrick grabbed his laptop out of his messenger bag that he’d left on her sofa last night.

“Easy enough,” Patrick said, booting up his Mac. “What do you want to know about him?”

Suzanne stared at the picture of Adam again. Had Adam not died, he would have turned thirty-four this month.

“Everything.”

Nora bit back a grin as Michael, for the first time ever, sat next to her. Poor kid—for a year now she’d been waiting for him to work up the courage to talk to her. As young and fragile as he was, she didn’t want to push him. Michael might be the name of God’s archangel and chief warrior, but the Michael next to her easily qualified as the meekest young man she’d ever encountered. Out of a mix of affection and plain heathen mischief Nora gave Michael a quick, viciously hard pinch on the leg as Owen bestowed another one of his drawings on her—this one a seven-armed amputee octopus. She declared it worthy of George Condo himself as she carefully folded it and slipped it in her purse. A good morning so far—she’d been fucked by her favorite man, hugged by her favorite boy and silently adored by her favorite angel. But her happiness faded when she noticed a priest she’d never seen before taking his seat in the front pew. He glanced back at her with a disapproving glare. That didn’t shock or surprise her. She’d received her fair share of disapproving glares in her day from the clergy, Søren especially. But then the glare passed from her to Michael. The mysterious priest looked at Michael with a mix of pity and disgust. Michael noticed the look and the color drained from his already pale complexion.

Nora’s heart pounded. Did the priest know something about her? About how she and Søren had “helped” Michael recover from his suicide attempt?

Before Nora could descend into a full-blown panic attack, the bells rang, the processional music began and Søren entered behind the crucifer and took his place at the altar.

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all,” Søren said. The visiting priest remained in his seat. Bad sign. A visiting priest almost always shared Mass duties. That he simply sat and watched meant something. Something bad.

“And also with you,” Nora recited with the rest of the congregation. Søren seemed calm and unperturbed as usual. The visiting priest didn’t bother him at all. Seeing Søren so calm did little to comfort her. Søren could be calm in the middle of a blitzkrieg.

Nora watched as Søren slid his fingers up the side of his podium and tapped the corner three times. To anyone else it would have been a mindless gesture, but Nora knew it was a signal to her. He wanted her to come to his office after the service instead of heading straight for his bed. Something was going on. Barring divine intervention, Søren had said. Nora hated divine intervention.

Nora turned to Michael and she saw her own fear reflected in his strange silver eyes. She looked up at Søren and whispered one terrified word to herself.

“Fuck.”

2

Returning Owen to his bemused parents delayed Nora in the sanctuary a few minutes after Mass. By the time she made it to Søren’s office, Michael already stood outside the door, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

“He summoned you too?” she asked, sitting across from him on the bench opposite Søren’s door.

Michael nodded.

“Kind of feels like we’re sitting outside the principal’s office,” Nora said. “I hear you’re valedictorian this year, so you probably never had to sit outside the principal’s office, did you?”

Nora waited and still got no reply from Michael. He smiled but didn’t speak.

“Michael? Pussy got your tongue?”

He laughed … audibly.

“Finally,” Nora breathed, relieved to hear something from him. “You have any idea why we’re here?”

Michael shrugged. “None. I don’t think it’s good though.”

“Michael, you didn’t talk to anyone, you know, about us, did you?”

The look Michael gave her abounded with so much hurt that she realized immediately she’d been an idiot to even consider that Michael would say a word to anyone about her or Søren.

“Nora,” he said, his voice barely a whisper, “I don’t even talk to myself.”

Now it was her turn to laugh.

“I’m sorry, Angel. I’m just being paranoid.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t say anything, promise. I never talk.”

Nora stood up and walked over to Michael. She sat beside him and stared full-on. He started to look away, but she snapped her fingers in front of his face and pointed right at her eyes. Immediately his silver eyes met her green ones.

“You talked to me that night,” she breathed into his ear.

His pale face flushing, Michael whispered, “That was just a dream.”

Nora blew air over his neck under his ear.

“We had the same dream then.”

Michael’s pupils went wide and she knew he was remembering the night Søren had given him to her—as a gift and a test. She’d enjoyed the gift. She’d failed the test.

“Are you doing okay?” she asked, taking a step back to give him some breathing room.

Michael nervously rubbed his arms.

“Okay, I guess.”

“Did Søren give you that book?”

“Yeah. It helped. Thank you,” Michael said. She’d passed on her old beat-up copy of The Other Secret Garden to him, a classic work on the psychology of sexual submission.

“You’re welcome. Is our priest on the phone?”

Michael nodded.

“What language?”

“French first.” Michael leaned closer to the door. “Now Danish.”

“Hmm … that’s good news and bad news.”

“How?”

Nora returned to the bench and crossed her legs, a move that caught Michael’s attention.

“French is bad. French means Kingsley.”

“Who’s Kingsley?”

Nora grinned. Who was Kingsley? Kingsley Edge, the King of Kink in New York City. Half-French, all pervert. Her occasional lover and Søren’s best friend. Well, best friend on those occasions Søren wasn’t threatening to kill him.

“French is bad since Kingsley gets called when anything disreputable needs doing. But Danish is good. Søren always calls his niece in Copenhagen on Sundays after Mass so whatever’s going on isn’t so bad it’s upsetting the routine yet.”

“Father S has a niece?” Michael looked incredulous at the idea.

Nora grinned at him. Søren did have an aura of having been sprung full-formed from the head of Zeus about him. One could hardly imagine him as a little boy or having parents, going to school and doing homework. But she knew all about his family—the good and the evil.

“Two nieces, one nephew. And—” she held up three fingers “—three sisters. Two American sisters, one in Denmark.”

Michael looked up at the ceiling.

“Wow.”

“Can you imagine having him—” she pointed at the closed door, behind which stood one of the more intimidating men alive “—as your brother? Terrifying, right?”

“I don’t envy the boyfriends.”

They laughed together even though Nora knew Søren hadn’t gotten a chance to have any of the normal brotherly experiences with his sisters. He and Freja had grown up in separate countries and Claire was fifteen years younger than him. And Elizabeth … well, Elizabeth was another story.

“Come here and let me look at you,” Nora said, tearing herself away from the dark trajectory of her thoughts. “How tall are you now?”

Just thirteen months ago he’d been only a few inches taller than her.

“Five-ten.” Michael obediently moved to stand closer to her.

“I knew you weren’t done growing,” she said, remembering how she’d studied him as he slept that night. “You grew into your hands. Haven’t put on much weight though.”

He grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”

“None of that teen angst now, Angel. You’re tall, thin, have perfect porcelain skin and supermodel cheekbones. And unlike mine, your long black hair behaves itself. You, young man, are prettier than any guy I’ve ever seen.”

Nora studied him. Poor kid probably got ostracized at his school for his looks. He wasn’t at all effeminate, but he had passed pretty boy miles ago and landed straight in the middle of beautiful. The girls no doubt envied him for waking up looking lovelier than they could after an hour of primping, and the boys probably hated him for inspiring homoerotic thoughts in their fevered teenage brains.

“If you say so.”

“I do say so. And I’m always right about these things. Aren’t you legal yet, jailbait?” she teased.

“Turned seventeen last month,” he said, blushing.

“That’s legal in this state,” she said and winked at him. The blush deepened and Michael started to say something. But before he could speak, the door to Søren’s office opened. Without a word, Søren crooked his finger at both of them before disappearing back inside.

Nora took a deep breath.

“That’s our cue.” Standing up, she held out her hand. Michael hesitated only a second before slipping his trembling fingers into her grasp.

Hand in hand they entered Søren’s office. Despite knowing Søren for almost twenty years, she’d spent relatively little time in his office. Every member of Sacred Heart knew “Father Stearns’s Rules”—no children under sixteen were allowed in his office without a parent present, no one was allowed alone in his office without the door being left open, private conversations were for the confessional alone, and no one, absolutely no one, was ever allowed at the rectory. Ever.

Except Nora, of course.

The rules were stringent but necessary in the controversy-wary Catholic Church. And in all his years at Sacred Heart, Søren hadn’t caused even the barest whisper of scandal.

Nora and Michael sat in front of Søren’s desk. Glancing around, Nora noted little had changed in the office since he took over Sacred Heart nearly twenty years ago. His neat and elegant office was replete with books and Bibles in nearly two dozen languages. On his huge oak desk sat a framed photo of his beautiful niece, Laila. Laila must be Michael’s age by now. Nora hadn’t seen her since their last trip to Denmark. Nora loved their rare excursions out of the country together—only on another continent could she and Søren walk down the street holding hands. But he was a priest when she gave herself to him, and he’d warned her before she made her commitment that theirs would never be a normal relationship. At eighteen it was nothing to promise him she didn’t care about the sacrifices she’d have to make. At thirty-four she would still make the same decision she had back then, but maybe she wouldn’t make it quite that easily.

Nora turned her eyes to Søren. She still held Michael’s hand for comfort. But whether he was comforting her or she him, she couldn’t say.

“Eleanor, Michael,” Søren began. “We have a situation.”

“Fuck, I knew it,” Nora swore and didn’t even receive the slightest scolding from Søren. Now she knew it was bad, very bad, for Søren to lift the “no swearing on Sundays” edict. “Someone rat us out? I swear to God, I’ll kill them—”

“Eleanor, calm down. I said we had a situation, not a crisis. The priest visiting today—”

“The one who gave me and Michael the stink eye?”

“That one,” Søren said with barely concealed amusement. At least one of them could find this whole nightmare funny. “That was Father Karl Werner—”

“God, I hate German Catholics,” Nora, born Eleanor Schreiber and possessing not one but two German Catholic grandparents, said with venom.

“Father Karl,” Søren continued, pretending not to hear her, “is rather conservative. If he gave you a dark look, Eleanor, it was only because your reputation precedes you.”

“And Michael?” she asked. Michael was only seventeen and apart from scandalously choosing public over Catholic school, he was a model teenager at Sacred Heart: quiet, hardworking and about to graduate at the top of his class.

Michael sighed, flipped his palms upward and thrust his wrists out meaningfully. She didn’t need to see his scars to know that’s what he meant.

“Yes,” Søren said with sympathy. “Father Karl is not pleased that we are home to—”

“A walking mortal sin?” Michael completed for Søren. Nora wrapped her fingers around Michael’s wrist. She slipped her index finger under his wristband and lightly stroked the raised white scar she knew lurked underneath. A little over two years ago, when Michael was only fourteen, his conservative father had found out that Michael had a real and burgeoning interest in BDSM. Much like her when she was a teenager, Michael often hurt himself simply for the sexual thrill of it. Unlike her, it was his own judgmental father, not his empathetic priest, who caught him at it. Michael’s father had laid such shame and guilt on him that Michael had slit his wrists one day and nearly died. Some Catholics, especially of the older generation, considered suicide the most dire of all sins. No doubt Father Karl thought Michael should attend another church. Preferably one that didn’t still sport Michael’s bloodstains on the hardwood.

“Father Karl’s opinion of you both has nothing to do with his visit today,” Søren continued, making it clear in his tone he couldn’t care less about Father Karl’s opinion on anything. “The reason for his visit today had only to do with me. As you both may know, Bishop Leo has colon cancer and will soon retire.”

“And Father Landon is replacing him, right?” Nora asked.

“Father Landon was replacing him. Until three days ago when certain allegations came to the fore.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Nora groaned. “Why priests can’t keep their holy cocks inside their goddamn pants is beyond me.”

Michael inhaled sharply and Nora grimaced. She looked at Søren and smiled apologetically. Søren arched his eyebrow at her.

“Present company excepted, of course,” she said.

“Of course.”

Søren stood up and came around the desk. Nora looked up at him and stared at his face. Everything about him was so aristocratic and aquiline. Even in Denmark, where pale blond hair and blue eyes were the rule and not the exception like here in America, Søren still stood out for his height and his undeniable male beauty.

“With Father Landon’s transfer there remains the question of who will replace Bishop Leo.” Søren paused. The implication of his words hit Nora harder than a rattan cane across the thighs.

“Oh, shit. Søren.” Nora covered her mouth with her hand.

“Well put,” he said, nodding.

“What’s going on?” Michael asked. “This is bad, right?”

“Very bad.” Nora turned to Michael. “Our Father Stearns might be the next bishop of the diocese.”

Michael looked up sharply at Søren.

“Oh, shit,” he said.

“I’m afraid I can’t disagree. That Father Karl came here in person means I’m at the very least on the short list of candidates.”

Nora closed her eyes. Bishop … if Søren became the bishop he’d be the priest to all the priests in the diocese. He’d have to leave the Sacred Heart rectory where a few hundred trees gave him near-total privacy and move to a home he’d have to share with other priests. His already busy schedule would turn hectic and she would rarely if ever get to see him. And that’s if he got the job. Which he would, unless they found out about her and Søren’s extracurricular activities.

“Can’t you just tell them no?”

“Not without raising both ire and suspicion. This is supposed to be a great honor.”

“Honor my ass,” Nora said and saw Michael suppress a laugh. “I don’t mean that literally,” she said to him and noticed again what a gorgeous young man he was turning into. “Okay, maybe I do.”

“Eleanor, five minutes of decorum is all I ask,” Søren said.

“I’m sorry,” she said and meant it. “I’m just a little bit terrified. What’s the plan?”

She knew Søren. He wouldn’t be freaking her out with something like this unless he already had a plan.

“Usually the vetting process for a new bishop is one to two years. With the bishop growing weaker every day, they will attempt to have a new bishop installed by August at the latest.”

Today was May 16th.

“So what do we do for the next two and a half months?” she asked.

“You two will do nothing.” Søren eyed her and Michael. “I will handle this. The diocese will investigate me, of course. This is not a concern. Even if they do discover something about our personal life, Eleanor, the Church will do what it always does when faced with imminent scandal.”

“Hush it up,” Nora supplied, and Søren didn’t disagree. “But?”

“But tomorrow morning an article will appear in the Times about Father Landon. The press will likely descend on the diocese and involve themselves thoroughly in the investigation.”

“The press, huh? Explains why you were on the phone with Kingsley already today.”

Kingsley had a fascinating relationship with the press—fascinating in the way the sack of Rome by invading Barbarian hordes was fascinating. A reporter once threatened to run a story exposing one of Kingsley’s clients—an internationally renowned human-rights attorney—as a transvestite with multiple sexual fetishes. Two nights before the story ran, a sex tape that the reporter and her husband had made played in an endless loop on every computer in their six-year-old’s exclusive private school. The video was unremovable. All two hundred computers had to be scrapped and replaced.

The story never ran.

“I’d rather not resort to any of Kingsley’s methods to keep our private life private,” Søren said. Søren might be a sadist but he only hurt people consensually. “But his information is often invaluable. Rest assured, Eleanor, I will find a way to avoid becoming the next bishop. That is not why I called you both here.”

“I’m already dying not to know why you called us here,” Nora said. Something in Søren’s gray eyes warned her that whatever he was about to say, she wasn’t going to like it.

“You and Michael are the only two members of Sacred Heart who know who and what I am. The press will come, and they will ask questions. I cannot ask either of you to lie for me. And as I know neither of you will tell the truth when asked—”

“Damn straight,” Michael said under his breath, and Nora said a prayer of thanks for Michael’s loyalty. She knew Michael credited Søren with saving his life. She’d never heard the whole story, but she knew Søren had risked his career by telling Michael the truth about himself and his relationship with Nora. The night she and Michael spent together over a year ago was Søren’s reward to Michael for going an entire year without harming himself again. Although an unusually wise and mature teenager then and now, Michael had been fifteen the night she’d taken his virginity. Sixteen, not fifteen, was legal age in Connecticut and New York, and that made their night together a crime. She’d done the deed not knowing his age, but Søren had made the introductions.

“Okay. So Michael and I aren’t allowed to lie about you? Vow of silence then?”

Søren smiled. “You taking a vow of silence, Eleanor, is as likely as you taking a vow of celibacy. No, I think it’s best that you both leave town while this is going on. Together.”

Silence descended on the room like a shroud.

“Can I talk to you alone for one minute please, sir?” Nora asked, and Søren released a much put-upon sigh.

“Michael, would you mind?”

Michael stood up and left the office.

“Are you insane?”

“Little one, who owns you?”

Nora sunk back into her chair.

“You, sir. But you really want—”

“Eleanor, if a reporter asked you if we were lovers what would you do?”

“I’d tell him to mind his own goddamn business. Then I’d have Kingsley freeze his credit cards and bank accounts for the week just for fun.”

Søren raised his eyebrow.

“Okay. Point taken,” she said.

“I need to able to deal with this situation without worrying about you. But the most important reason is Michael. He needs you.”

“Needs me for what?”

“What you are best at,” Søren said simply.

“You expect me to train Michael?” Nora asked, aghast. “I was a pay-for-play dominatrix, remember? Training wasn’t my area. Surely there’s someone else—”

“There’s no one else I trust. And no one else Michael trusts. He starts college in the fall. This summer is our last chance to help him.”

Nora heard something underneath Søren’s words, and a shiver of worry rippled through her. She hadn’t really talked to Michael since their one night together, but she still cared about the kid.

“Help him? The last time I helped him it was because you were afraid he was going to try to kill himself again. What’s wrong with Michael?”

“Nothing I can tell you, I’m afraid.”

Sighing, Nora stood up and wandered over to the stained-glass window that adorned the back wall of Søren’s office. Unlike the stained-glass windows in the sanctuary, this window depicted no saints or biblical scenes but instead a bursting bloodred rose. Nora traced one of the cool metal spokes of the beautiful window with the tip of her finger.

“Søren, we’ve only been back together for a year,” she reminded him, reluctant to leave him for a day much less the entire summer.

“I know, Eleanor.” Søren stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her stomach. “But you have to trust me, trust that I know what I’m doing. I need you to help Michael. I need you to help me.”

I need you…. The infamous underground community they belonged to universally considered Søren its top dominant. Søren had even earned the nickname the Alpha and Omega Male. But those words—I need you—had escaped his lips more times than most who thought they knew him would believe. During their five years apart, Nora would sometimes be awoken early in the morning by a phone call and those three words from Søren. Although she had left him, she never told him no on those rare occasions that he called. Sometimes even he could not rein in his own dark desires. I need you, he would say, and Nora would leave her bed and answer simply, Okay. Tell me where and when.

“Okay.” She answered that need now. “Where and when?”

“As soon as possible, I’m afraid. And I’ll leave the where to you. I would only suggest you go far enough away that no one would attempt to follow you.”

“England?” she asked. “Zach and Grace are trying to get pregnant. This is something I can help them with. Or at least, you know, watch.”

“Out of the question,” Søren said. “I know how you behave in other countries. That you still are allowed a passport is one of the universe’s great mysteries.”

“That was not my fault,” she reminded him. “The consulate cleared me.”

“Eleanor …”

“Fine. We’ll go to Griffin’s,” she said. “He inherited his grandparents’ old horse farm, and he’s been bugging me for months to visit. How’s that?”

Søren heaved a labored sigh. “Griffin …”

Nora bit back a laugh. “Come on, Griffin’s okay. He’s one of my best friends.”

“He’s spoiled, juvenile and a coward.”

He was also rich, gorgeous and great in bed, but she decided not to remind Søren of those facts.

“You always call him a coward. Care to tell me why?” She turned around in his arms.

“No. But I suppose even Griffin deserves a second chance.”

Although curious what Søren meant by a second chance, Nora knew better than to ask. For a moment Søren stood in silence. He tapped his chin as he always did when plotting something.

“I’ll allow you to spend the summer with Griffin,” Søren finally said. “But he is not to touch Michael, or I will revoke both his key to The 8th Circle and you from his life completely. Understood?”

Nora blanched. Serious threats indeed. “Yes, sir.”

“Where is his grandparents’ farm?”

“Way upstate,” she said. “Near Guilford.”

Søren looked at her sharply and his mouth twitched in suppressed mirth.

“That area is rather close to where your mother is, isn’t it?” he asked. “Perhaps you could take a day and visit her.”

“Don’t even think about it,” she said, horrified by the prospect of Søren ordering her to visit her mother. “I’d rather go jogging in hell. Wearing stilettos on a hot day in Aug—”

“Eleanor.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Your cleavage is chirping.”

Nora swallowed and pulled her cell phone from her bra where she’d tucked it before Mass.

“Sorry. Forgot to turn it off.” Nora silenced the ringer.

Søren stared at her. Nora stared back. As usual, Søren won the staring contest.

“It’s Wes,” she confessed, not even having to look at the number. Sunday afternoon—always Wesley.

Søren studied her. This time she couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Does Wesley call you often?”

Nora nodded. “Once a week,” she admitted. “Every Sunday after church.”

“And why is this the first time I’ve heard about this?”

“Doesn’t matter. I never answer.”

“Why don’t you answer the phone when Wesley calls?” Søren asked her in the same tone he used in the confessional booth—lightly curious, not at all condemning, and completely and utterly infuriating.

“Because you haven’t given me permission to.”

“You’ve never asked permission. Were you afraid I would tell you no?”

Nora bit her bottom lip, a nervous habit Søren had been trying to break her of since she was fifteen. Søren reached out and brushed his thumb over her mouth. Nora looked up at him.

“I was afraid you’d tell me yes.”

Søren slowly nodded.

“I love you,” she said, standing up straight. “And I’ll leave you this summer, but only because you’re making me go. But if they pick you to be bishop, I’m going to move to L.A. and convert to Scientology. Fair warning.”

Relief washed through her at the sight of Søren’s smile. But she knew they weren’t done talking about Wesley.

“Michael’s waiting for you outside. I think he would appreciate an explanation and a ride home.”

“I can do both,” she said and started for the door. She paused before leaving and turned around. “Can’t believe I have to spend the whole summer without you just because of this stupid promotion.”

Søren said nothing but Nora saw something flicker across his eyes.

“It’s just the promotion, right?” she asked. “There isn’t anything else, is there?” A sudden fear gripped Nora, a fear that Søren didn’t want her around for some other reason.

“Kingsley called. Last night, someone broke into his town house.”

Nora’s eyes widened.

“Is he okay? Was Juliette there? What happened?” Her heart raced; Nora’s mind immediately flew to the worst-case scenario—that Kingsley and his beautiful Haitian secretary were hurt.

“He and Juliette are both fine. They were … distracted last night. Someone drugged the dogs and stole a file from Kingsley’s private office.”

Nora collapsed into a chair. Whoever the thief was must have balls of steel. Kingsley’s name alone usually scared off anyone who lusted after a piece of the reams of blackmail material he had on nearly every cop, judge, politician and lawyer in the tristate area. If his name didn’t scare off thieves, then his well-trained rottweiler pack usually did.

“Just one file? That’s good at least.”

“Eleanor—it was your file.”

“Mine? Why mine? I’m not even a dominatrix anymore.” The words hurt coming out, more than she expected. While she’d been a dominatrix in Kingsley’s employ, she bitched about it constantly. Now that she’d quit, she found she sort of missed it. Just another thing to add to her “miss every day” list, a list that was growing dangerously long.

“I wish I knew, little one. Kingsley believes an old client might be attempting to dispose of any evidence concerning him.”

“Makes sense, I guess.” Back in her dominatrix days, Nora’s client roster read like a Who’s Who of the rich, famous and kinky; Fortune 500 CEOs, high-level politicians and rock stars had paid through the nose to kiss the toe of her boot. “Doesn’t matter anyway. Whoever he is won’t be able to read what’s in the file.”

Kingsley and Juliette were the perfect team. Kingsley’s files were notorious for two reasons—first, they contained the secrets of an entire city, and second, they were utterly unintelligible to anyone but Kingsley and Juliette. Only they could read the pages written in encoded Haitian Creole.

“It’s the motivation, not the crime, that concerns me,” Søren said. “Still, simply one more reason why you should spend some time away from the city while Kingsley and I sort this out.”

“I could help sort things out if you’d let me. I’m not fifteen anymore, remember?”

Søren stood up and came to her. He held out his hand and she took it. Gently he pulled her to her feet and stared down into her eyes.

“You are my heart,” he said. He’d said those very words to her that morning. But that morning they’d sounded affectionate and playful. Now he said them as if he were stating a fact of anatomy. “I will not lose you. I’m sending you away to keep you safe. Do you understand that? Say ‘Yes, sir.’”

Nora nodded and swallowed a sudden lump in her throat.

“Yes, sir.”

Søren bent his head and kissed her long and slow before pulling back. Relaxing against him she put her ear to his chest. She loved hearing the steady beat of his heart. She’d called Søren dangerous, and to those who crossed him, he certainly was. Whoever it was who stole her file … she didn’t envy him. But Søren was not evil. He had the best heart of any man she’d ever known. A strong and good heart.

“My heart,” she whispered and gazed up at Søren.

“Rest assured, little one,” Søren said as he ran his hands possessively from her neck down her back, “I may send you away, but I will give you a goodbye that will hold you all summer.”

Michael waited outside of Father S’s office hoping that was what he was supposed to be doing. He sat on the bench with his skateboard under his feet and rolled it mindlessly back and forth while recalling every word Nora and Father S had said. The priest who was going to be the next bishop was being transferred. Father S was on the short list of candidates to be the next bishop. Father S wanted him and Nora to go away for the summer. He was supposed to spend the entire summer away with Nora Sutherlin.

The entire summer … with Nora Sutherlin …

Michael had dreams like that. Just last night he’d had a dream like that.

Nora emerged from Father S’s office and smiled at him.

“Good, I’m glad you waited. Want a ride home?”

Michael shrugged and stood up. He couldn’t believe this—over a year without saying a word to each other and now she was offering to drive him home?

“Sure. Thanks.”

The parking lot sat deserted but for a shiny two-seater silver convertible.

“Like it?” Nora clicked the button on her keys to unlock the car.

“Yeah. Awesome,” Michael said, walking around the car. He bit his lip with suppressed laughter when he saw Nora’s vanity license plate: it read NC-17.

Nora stood in front of her car and studied it.

“Decided to treat myself last month. Not as nice as my Aston Martin, but a BMW Z4 Roadster is nothing to sneeze at. I’m a fan of fine German engineering.”

Michael looked her trim but curvaceous body up and down—talk about fine German engineering. He started to say that out loud, knowing she’d laugh at the compliment and the reference to her German background. But as usual he couldn’t get the words out.

“Here, you drive.” She tossed him the keys.

Michael reached out and caught the keys with his fingertips.

“You want me to drive your brand-new BMW?”

“You’re old enough to drive, right?” She opened the passenger-side door and looked over the top of the car at him. “And considering I’ve let you inside my body, it’s not that big of a stretch to let you drive my car, right?”

She dropped into the seat and closed the door.

Michael’s knees buckled at her words. Taking a deep breath, he opened the driver-side door. He slid his skateboard behind the seat and sat down slowly behind the wheel.

“Let’s talk,” Nora began as he started the ignition and started to drive. “Well, you don’t talk so you can listen while I talk.”

“Just, please don’t—”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t say stuff like that again or I’ll get us into a wreck.”

Nora laughed and squeezed his knee.

“All right, Angel. I promise I won’t talk about the night I tied you down and took your virginity. If you insist.”

“Nora, please,” he begged. He loved that she still called him Angel. No one ever called him that except for Nora.

“Fine, I’ll behave. For now. Anyway, here’s the deal. Søren wants us gone for the summer so he can handle things in his own way. I think he knows that if someone started sniffing around me, I’d probably kick their ass, which, admittedly, might not help the situation.”

“Probably not.”

“And considering I sort of kind of committed statutory rape the night you and I were together, well, I think he’s trying to keep me out of this whole mess as much as possible. And you too.”

Michael put on the turn signal at a four-way stop. No cars were coming from any direction. As nervous as he was, he hoped they didn’t encounter another car the entire trip home.

“You didn’t rape me, Nora. I wanted it. I was fifteen, almost sixteen, not five.”

He couldn’t believe he was finally getting to talk to her about that night. He knew Nora and Father S were upset about this whole thing. But today might be the best day of his life.

“The courts have a funny way of not caring about the legal age of consent when underage boys and famous writers are involved. But hey, you aren’t jailbait anymore.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” Michael sent up a quick prayer that he hadn’t been hallucinating when Father S had said he and Nora needed to get out of town together.

“I have a friend named Griffin Fiske. He’s got a farm in upstate New York. I think we should go wait this catastrophe out with him this summer.”

“Griffin Fiske?”

“Yeah. He’s the son of John Fiske, Chairman of the Stock Exchange. Wall Street type. Griffin’s a trust fund baby. But he’s a sweetheart. Søren can’t stand him, but Søren has terrible taste obviously,” she said, pointing at herself.

“Is he—” Michael paused and tried to force the words out. “You know, one of us?”

Nora grinned. “Let’s just say that in the Underground, his nickname is Griffin Fist.”

Michael’s stomach clenched.

“Oh, God.”

“Tell me about it.” Nora patted his knee again. She really needed to stop touching his knee. “So the plan—we’ll go hide out at Griffin’s place for the summer.”

“Hide and do what?”

Michael pulled into the driveway of the small bungalow he lived in with his mother. Thank God his mom didn’t seem to be home.

“This is where you live?” Nora asked with nothing but curiosity in her voice.

“I know it’s not great. But it’s a nice neighborhood.”

“It’s a palace compared to the house I grew up in. Do you like it here?”

Michael shrugged. “Things aren’t great with Mom,” he said. “She’ll probably be glad when I start college.”

“Where are you going?”

“Yorke. Got a full ride. Faxed in my scholarship acceptance letter this morning.”

“Yorke? Good school. My old roommate used to go there. Anyway,” she said and seemed to brush off a sudden sadness, “Søren said this summer might be our last chance to help you. Help you—what did he mean by that?”

Michael didn’t answer at first. But everything within him told him Nora could be trusted. That not only could he trust her but he should trust her.

He leaned back in the seat and shut the car off.

“Two weeks ago … I almost hooked up with someone I met on the web.”

“A dominatrix?” Nora asked.

Michael nodded and said nothing.

“Michael, do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”

“I know, I know. Father S gave me hell for it too. I was just …”

“What, Angel?”

“Lonely. For you.”

Nora reached out and touched his face. His heart fluttered in his chest as her gentle fingers traced the line of his lips, the curve of his jaw.

“Now you don’t have to be lonely anymore. You’ll get me the whole summer. Søren thinks you’re ready to be trained. I think so too.”

“Trained?”

“To be a submissive.” Nora let her hand drop from his face. She got out of the car and Michael followed suit.

“I thought I was …” Michael glanced around to make sure none of his neighbors were out. He’d die if anybody found out what he was. “I thought I was a submissive.”

Nora leaned back against her car and crossed her shapely legs at the ankles.

“Søren trained me for two years before he ever hit me or fucked me the first time, kid. Subs have to be as well trained as dominants if you’re going to do it right and not get hurt.”

“I want to get hurt.”

“Different kind of hurt.”

Michael hazarded a smile.

“Michael,” Nora began and all the mirth had left her voice, “being a sub is hard. Being a male sub is even harder. A woman says she wants to be tied up, everybody thinks it’s sexy. A man says that and everybody thinks—”

“He’s a fag,” Michael finished for her. “At least that’s what my dad thinks. Says I need therapy for my fetish.”

“Forget what your dad thinks. I’ll teach you how to be the best damn sub in the Underground. And to quote the wise and powerful Kingsley on the subject of fetishes,” Nora began and then slipped into an exaggerated but sexy French accent, “‘Fetishes … they’re the pet you feed or the beast that eats you. We’ll feed your beast until it’s tamed. Oui?’”

Michael laughed. Feeding that beast sounded like a great idea to him.

“Oui.”

“Good. So you’re in?”

“I’ve been dreaming about this for … ever. If you and Father S think I’m ready—”

“That doesn’t matter. Do you think you’re ready?”

Was he ready? God, for Nora Sutherlin he’d been born ready. Michael nodded. “I’m in.”

“Great. Now how do we get you out of Dodge without your mom calling the cops?”

Michael scoffed. “You don’t know my mom. She’ll be relieved if I disappeared for a few months. Or forever.”

Nora pushed her sunglasses on top of her head. Empathy shone in her green eyes.

“I’m sure she loves you, Angel. If she doesn’t come around, you’ve always got us. I got in trouble when I was fifteen—big trouble. My mom totally washed her hands of me. Our priest practically raised me after that. How do you think I turned out?”

“Amazing,” he said, and Nora curtsied.

“Your mom will come around, maybe. Hell, maybe my mom will eventually come around.”

Michael hoped it was true. He missed his mom. They lived under the same roof but they existed in two different worlds.

“I’ll just tell her I got a summer job upstate. I was gone most of last summer working as a camp counselor.”

Nora mulled it over.

“When’s graduation?” she asked. “You have to be there if you’re valedictorian, right?”

“It’s Wednesday night. I can skip though. I’m not valedictorian. I flunked AP physics.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Michael.”

“I’m not. I flunked it on purpose.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t want to give the speech.”

He expected Nora to chew him out for his willful stupidity. Instead she just laughed.

“I like your style. Look, don’t skip graduation. Even I went to mine. I’ll send a car for you Thursday morning.” She pulled a pen and notebook from her purse. “Here. This is my email address. Keep in touch, okay? Ask me anything.”

Michael took the sheet of paper with subtly trembling fingers.

She traded the sheet of paper for her keys.

“Nora?” Michael said as she opened her car door.

“What, Angel?”

Michael looked down at the paper in his hands.

“Thank you.”

She smiled at him. “You’re welcome.”

“Father S … it’s going to be okay with him? He’s going to fix it, right?”

“He has his ways of getting anyone to bend to his will. If he doesn’t want to be bishop, he’ll find a way out of it.”

Michael nodded, wanting to believe her. He hated the thought that Nora and Father S would get in trouble just for being in love with each other.

“You really think he’s going to have to deal with the press?”

“The media is all over sex scandals in the Church these days. Probably so.”

“What’s he going to do?” Michael’s stomach formed a tight knot of worry. But Nora only smiled at him.

“He’ll probably do what I do when I talk to reporters—charm the pants off of them.”

“Anything?” Suzanne asked and stretched out her aching arms.

“Not much. Every time I click on a link to a Marcus Stearns, all I get is an essay on the expulsion of the French Huguenots.”

“Me too,” Suzanne said and closed her laptop. She looked down at her notes. In four hours of searching online she and Patrick had found out nothing about Father Stearns. Nothing useful anyway. The anonymous fax she’d received hadn’t merely been a list of names. At the bottom of the page the asterisk had been explained within four ominous words—”possible conflict of interest.” That list of names told her two vital truths—Father Marcus Stearns was on the short list to be the next bishop of the diocese, and Father Marcus Stearns had something to hide.

“Dug around on Facebook, et cetera. A few parishioners mention him,” Patrick said, flipping through his notes. “‘Father Stearns performed a wonderful wedding homily from the Book of Sirach,’” Patrick quoted. “‘I can’t believe Matthew didn’t howl when Father Stearns poured the water on his head.’ Nothing exciting. Going from all this, we’re looking at a perfect priest who’s adored by his church.”

“I don’t buy it. Nobody’s that perfect. And I’ve got an asterisk that says differently,” Suzanne said, holding up the fax again. All day she’d been picking up the fax again and staring at the asterisk by Father Stearns’s name.

“Suzanne,” Patrick said, giving her a level stare, “the phrase conflict of interest could mean anything. You know that, right? He might have donated money to some political candidate the church doesn’t like. It doesn’t automatically mean he’s a child molester.”

Suzanne shook her head. “If it were that innocuous, no one would have gone to the trouble to send me the fax. We’ve got to keep digging.”

“Fine. So what now?” Patrick asked, dragging Suzanne into his lap. She knew he hoped the answer would be Give up and get over it. But she’d only just begun to fight.

“You’re the investigative reporter. What would you do?” she asked.

“Start making phone calls. Get the gossip from the locals.”

Suzanne pulled away from Patrick and found her cell phone.

“You’re the pro,” she said, giving her phone to Patrick. “I’m just a war correspondent. Show me how it’s done.”

Patrick sighed heavily and flipped his laptop back open. Peering over his shoulder, Suzanne watched as he looked up the phone number for the chief editor of the Wakefield newspaper. Patrick dialed the number and talked his way past a few peons.

“Patrick Thompson for the Evening Sun,” he said, and Suzanne was impressed he was using his own name and newspaper. “I’m looking into an incident that happened at Sacred Heart Catholic Church a few years ago. I’m sure you know what I’m referring to.”

Suzanne covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. What a bullshitter. She and Patrick knew absolutely nothing about anything that happened at Sacred Heart in its entire history.

Patrick had been smiling when he called but the smile faded as he listened to whatever the voice on the other end was saying.

“Two years ago,” Patrick repeated and scribbled something down on the notepad next to his knee. As she read the words, the blood drained from her face and hands.

Patrick hung up and looked at Suzanne. Suzanne tore her eyes from the page and looked back at Patrick.

“Now you know why I’m going after this,” she said, and Patrick nodded. “It’s not just about Adam. Not anymore.” She gazed down at the words again.

Michael Dimir, age fourteen, attempted suicide in Sacred Heart sanctuary.

One witness—Father Marcus Stearns.

3

Nora waited until after dark and drove to Sacred Heart. She parked her car in the shade of the densely wooded copse that shielded the rectory on all sides. As she walked the short path from her car to the back door of Søren’s home, she smiled up at the trees. She remembered sneaking out to the rectory one Friday when she was sixteen, when she was still Eleanor Schreiber and Nora Sutherlin didn’t even exist yet. She’d skipped school that day for no reason in particular other than the sunshine called to her, and she’d had a hunch that if she had to sit through chemistry, she’d end up chugging the acetone in the supply closet. Strolling through the woods behind her church, she’d come upon Søren in his backyard. Never before had she seen him wearing anything other than his vestments or clericals. But that day he wore jeans and a white T-shirt. Even in his clericals she could tell he was well muscled but now she could see his sinewy arms, taut biceps and strong neck without his Roman collar for once. His hands were covered in dirt as he dug holes with impressive strength and efficiency and put three- and four-foot saplings into the ground. In his secular clothes and sunglasses, the April sunlight reflecting off his blond hair, her priest appeared a being of ungodly beauty. The deep muscles in her hips tightened just at the sight of him.

“Eleanor, you’re supposed to be in school.” He didn’t even look up at her from his work as he squatted on the ground and covered the roots of the sapling in black earth.

“It was a life-or-death situation. If I stayed in school, I would have killed myself.”

“As suicide is a mortal sin, I’ll absolve you for cutting class. But you know you are also not supposed to be at the rectory.” He didn’t sound at all angry or disappointed, only amused by her as usual.

“I’m outside the fence. I’m not at the rectory—I’m just near it. What are you doing anyway?”

“Planting trees.”

“Obviously, but why? Are the two million trees around us not enough for you?”

“Not quite. You can still see the rectory from the church.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

Søren stood up and walked over to the fence. Nora remembered how her heart had hammered at that moment. She thought for certain he could hear it beating through her chest.

Face-to-face with only the fence and a fourteen-year age difference between them, Søren pulled off his sunglasses and met her eyes.

“I like my privacy.” He gave her a conspiratorial smile.

“It’ll take years before you get any.” Søren arched an eyebrow at her, and she’d blushed. “Privacy, I mean. Trees take forever to grow.”

“Not these. Empress trees and this particular species of willow are some of the fastest growing.”

“In a hurry for your privacy?”

“I can wait.”

Something in his eyes and his voice told her that they weren’t talking about the trees anymore. I can wait, he’d said and looked at her with a gaze so intimate she felt as if it was his hand on her face and not just his eyes.

She summoned her courage and returned the gaze.

“So can I.”

Nora shook off the memory and entered the rectory through the back door. In the nighttime quiet, the only sound came from the creaking hardwood. She would miss that sound this summer, miss this house and the priest who presided here. Tonight would be their last night together until the end of summer and the bustle about a replacement for Bishop Leo had died down. Then she and Søren would be able to return to their own unusual version of normal life.

But only if he wasn’t chosen to replace the bishop. Please, God, she prayed, please don’t pick him.

Passing through the kitchen, Nora saw a single candle alight on the center of the table. Next to the candle sat a small white card, and written on it in Søren’s elegant handwriting were instructions: Bathe first. Then come to me.

Holding the card by the corner, she dipped it into the candle flame and let the fire eat Søren’s words. She blew out the flame just as it touched her fingers, and she rinsed the ashes down the sink. Like almost all parish priests, Søren had a housekeeper who handled all his household needs. Nora was grateful for Mrs. Scalera—a woman formidable enough that she could force even Søren to sit down and eat something on occasion—but Nora knew all it would take would be for his housekeeper to find a stray note from him to her, a single long black hair or hairpin, or any other telltale sign that a woman had spent the night to endanger Søren’s career.

Nora started undressing even as she took the narrow stairway to the second floor. She loved the rectory. For seventeen years it had been her secret second home. A small Gothic two-story cottage, Nora knew it was a far cry from the sprawling mansion where Søren had been born and had lived until he was eleven. But that house had never been a home to him. For all its exterior beauty it had been a house of horrors. This place, however, had captured his heart just as she had all those years ago.

Breathing in the steam from the warm water, Nora let the heat seep into her skin. Søren often bathed her before their sessions. It was an act of dominance, the act of a parent with a small child, but more importantly, it relaxed her muscles so that his beatings would only hurt, not injure her.

Nora did not linger in the bath. Nor did she bother washing her hair. She wanted him, needed him. Tonight was their last night together for two or three months. Five years, she reminded herself, as tears welled up in her eyes. Five years they’d lived apart. Two months should feel like nothing.

But what if she left him and this time she couldn’t come back?

She pulled herself out of the water and dried off. Wearing nothing but a white towel, she walked down the hallway to his bedroom. At first glance Søren’s bedroom seemed an appropriate reflection of what he appeared to be. The dark wood of the two-hundred-year-old four-poster bed perfectly matched the wood of the floor. The ceiling arched like a church nave. The oriel window broke apart the moonlight that intruded into the room. All was neat, spare, humble, elegant and pious. Unsullied by modern technology, uncluttered by superfluous decoration, it was the bedroom of a man who had nothing to prove.

Still … a trained eye that knew what to look for would see marks on the bedposts that were not the natural byproducts of time. The lock on the heirloom chest under the window seemed unnecessarily heavy for simply guarding linens. And the rosewood box on the bedside table didn’t just hold his white collar—it held hers.

Nora’s eyes scanned the candlelit room trying to locate Søren. She didn’t see him. Instead she saw the bed … He’d changed the sheets. The white sheets were gone and in their place rich black sheets graced the bed. Black sheets meant only one thing. Nora inhaled sharply and forgot to exhale again.

“Breathe, little one,” Søren instructed as he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.

“Yes, sir.” In and out she breathed, dragging air into her stomach and pushing it out through her nose. Nora closed her eyes as he brought her collar around her neck; she shivered as he raised her hair to buckle and lock it closed.

“Down,” he ordered.

Nora stepped away from him; her feet trembled beneath her. As she walked to the bed, Søren took the towel from her. Naked, she lay across the sheets, the black sheets, and forced herself to keep breathing.

Søren stood next to the bed looking down at her. He reached up to his neck and removed his own white collar. He unbuttoned his shirt and slowly pulled it off. Nora had never seen a man with a more beautiful body than Søren’s. His morning runs and the five hundred push-ups and sit-ups he did every day kept him in immaculate shape. Lean, taut muscle wrapped every inch of his tall frame. Sometimes she could simply not keep her hands off him. But tonight she feared his touch as much as she craved it.

Søren let his shirt fall to the floor. Barefoot and wearing only his black pants, he crawled onto the bed, crawled over her.

He bent his head and kissed her. She loved how he kissed her, like he owned, as he owned her. Sometimes Nora marveled at the thought that while she’d had more lovers than she could count, Søren had shared his body with only three people in his entire life. His devotion to her humbled her, and Nora wrapped her arms around him to pull him even closer. Rarely, if ever, could she touch him when they made love. Søren was a sadist and a dominant. When he took her she was almost always tied down, bound to the bed, the floor or the St. Andrew’s Cross. Only on nights like this did he leave her arms and legs free. The act he was about to perform was sadistic enough no bondage was necessary to satisfy him.

Søren pulled up from her and reached to the bedside table. Nora’s hands dug into the sheets, the black sheets.

Nora looked up and into his eyes—gray eyes the color of a rising storm.

When he brought his hand back she saw the small curved blade shining in his hand.

Michael paced his room while trying to decide exactly how to tell his mom he planned to leave town for the summer. He hated to lie to her. But he couldn’t just come out and tell her that he was running off with Nora Sutherlin. He knew his mom knew what he was. Or at least she knew that he wasn’t like other kids. The boys at his school got in trouble for Playboy magazines stashed under their mattresses or for knocking up the cheerleaders. But when Michael got in trouble it was for burning and cutting himself, for downloading pictures of men being tied up and beaten by women and even other men. And when in trouble, he didn’t get grounded. He got slapped and thrown against the wall by his dad with enough force to leave bruises—the bad kind—all over him.

Sicko … pervert … freak … His father had said them all. When his mother tried to defend him against his father, saying Michael was just young and confused, his father had hit her too. The fighting had become an everyday thing, until his dad finally just up and moved out. Michael’s mom had gone into shell shock and still hadn’t completely recovered from it. The night Michael slashed his wrists it was with one thought in mind: maybe if he died his parents wouldn’t have anything to fight about anymore.

Michael took a deep breath and left his bedroom. He found his mom in the kitchen putting away groceries.

“Hey,” he said, rubbing his arms as if he was cold. He wasn’t, but he had goose bumps anyway.

“Hey, you,” she answered as she balled up a plastic bag and threw it under the kitchen sink. His mom was still pretty even after two kids and a marriage that had fallen apart around her. From her, Michael had inherited his straight dark hair, thin frame and pale complexion. From his dad he’d gotten nothing as far as he could tell. Sometimes he wondered if his father wasn’t his real dad. No one on either side of the family had his color eyes. But he knew it was wishful thinking. He looked a lot like his father’s youngest sister, so he knew there was no loving, forgiving real father out there waiting to be found.

“Can I help?” Michael had learned to ask before he helped with anything involving the kitchen. No matter where he put things away, his mom always came back and moved them to their mythical “right” place.

“Almost done. How was your day?” His mom opened the cabinet over the stove and rearranged the pitchers and jars on the shelf to make more room.

“Good. Glad to be out of school. I took your books back to the library. You were done, right?”

“I was. Thank you.”

Michael shifted from one foot to the other. His mother’s stiff posture and her refusal to make eye contact with him did not portend anything good. He wasn’t sure what he’d done this time, but he decided now might not be the best time to tell her he was leaving for the summer.

“Okay, I’m going to go read, I guess.”

“Michael, are you missing something?” his mother asked before he could leave the kitchen.

“What? No, I don’t think so.”

His mother gave him a long, searching look, a familiar look, a look he’d been getting from her for the past three years. He’d even named the look—he called it the Who are you and what have you done with my son? look. The long hair, the incident over the websites and the burns, the night he’d tried to kill himself … Michael knew his mother was convinced he’d lost his mind a few years ago and she’d given up all hope he’d ever get it back.

She shook her head and walked to the back door. She pulled his skateboard out from behind the open door and handed it to him.

“Thanks. I left this somewhere.”

“You left it in the backseat of Nora Sutherlin’s car.”

Shit. Michael took a breath, decided to try a little deflection on his mom, a survival strategy Father S had taught him during their counseling sessions.

“It’s a BMW Z4 Roadster. It doesn’t have a backseat.”

Her eyes flashed with anger.

“What were you doing in Nora Sutherlin’s BMW Z4 Roadster that doesn’t have a backseat, Michael?”

“Nothing. She gave me a ride home from church.”

Michael’s mother continued to stare at him.

“You know she’s old enough to be your mother, right? I know she doesn’t look like it and God knows she doesn’t act like it, but she is.”

“It was just a ride home, Mom. She’s nice. She’s not like you think she is.”

“I think she’s a very dangerous woman. And I think you could get hurt if you spend any more time with her.”

Michael thought about Nora, how she lived so brazenly. Would he ever be as fearless as her? Michael remembered a few months ago he’d been lurking around the hallways after church, eavesdropping on Nora’s conversations. One of the resident old bats had been going on about the abomination of sodomy. Nora had patted the woman on the back and said, “If it’s an abomination, it’s because you’re doing it wrong. Bear down hard, then relax. It’ll fit better.” Then she’d breezed off, leaving the old ladies blushing and huffing. Michael had run into the bathroom and laughed his ass off in one of the stalls.

Fearless. He could do that.

“I like getting hurt,” he said.

His mother shook her head. “Don’t remind me.”

Michael started to turn and walk away. He felt as though he’d spent most of the past two years turning and walking away from his mom. He’d much rather run up to her and hug her than walk away from her yet again. But that didn’t seem to be an option anymore.

“I’m going to be gone this summer. I leave on Thursday. That’s okay, right?”

“Fine,” his mom said. He thought he heard a note of relief in her voice. “If that’s what you need to do. You’re going to be a camp counselor again?”

“Something like that,” he said. “I’m good on money and stuff. So you don’t have to worry about me.”

“I’ve been worried about you since the day you were born. Won’t stop now.”

Michael tried to laugh but the sound didn’t come out quite right. He started to leave.

“Michael?”

Slowly Michael turned around and faced his mother.

“You aren’t really going to camp, are you?”

“Mom, I—” Michael said and stopped.

“I don’t think I want to know what you’re doing this summer, do I?”

Michael weighed his words.

“No, probably not.”

Søren placed the first cut on her hip.

A shallow cut only an inch long, it bled out slowly. Nora’s blood welled up and slid in a thin line over her hip, drying on her skin before it reached the black sheets.

Second, Søren cut her stomach right at the edge of her rib cage.

“Talk to me, Eleanor,” Søren ordered as he made a third cut, only a half inch long, on her chest.

“Ow.” Nora laughed a little. Søren looked down at her, love and desire burned in his eyes.

“It will hurt less if you talk to me. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking we haven’t done this in a long time, sir.”

The last time they’d done blood-play was over a year ago, just two weeks after she’d returned to him. That night they’d recommitted themselves to each other—Nora pledging to belong to him again, and him promising that he would do everything in his power to make her happy and keep her safe. Like their first night as lovers fourteen years ago, blood was spilled that night, her blood. Their very first night together, the blood of her torn hymen had stained his sheets; the night one year ago, the blood came from eighteen cuts all over her body. Eighteen … one cut for each year he’d known her, one cut for each year he’d loved her.

“It’s for the best we do this rarely,” he said, gently caressing the side of her face with the back of his hand. Søren seemed perfectly calm right now, his face a mask of utter serenity. But she knew him like no one else did. Under the surface of his placid demeanor rippled dark, dangerous and barely restrained desires.

Nora looked down as Søren brought the blade just underneath her right breast and made a deliberate cut.

“You love this,” she said and Søren solemnly nodded. “We could do this more often if you wanted, sir.”

“Of course we could,” he said simply, and Nora smiled even as the eye-watering pain from the stinging, burning cuts bit into her. They could and would engage in blood-play every day if he decreed it so. “But we both do have to work.”

Søren smiled down at her and she grinned through her tears.

“Work? What is that again?” Since quitting her other job as a dominatrix, Nora worked only as a writer these days. A job that required little more than drinking coffee and tea and wearing pajamas until four in the afternoon didn’t really qualify as work to her. Søren, on the other hand, gave his life to the church. Up nearly every morning at five to run, he was in his office at Sacred Heart by seven at the latest. He heard confessions, visited the sick and dying, counseled married couples, performed weddings, christenings, baptisms, funerals and celebrated Mass four to eight times a week…. Nora knew if it came out that she and Søren were lovers, it wouldn’t be the sex that caused the greatest scandal. Søren was himself nearly an object of worship at Sacred Heart and within the diocese. If the Church discovered he was a sadist who beat women, even consensually, he would be expelled from the priesthood. Søren would not give her up, would not repent and would never agree that their relationship was a sin. And so the Church would excommunicate him. Few outside the Catholic Church understood what excommunication meant.

It wasn’t just being fired or kicked out of the church. Søren would be denied the sacraments, shunned and condemned.

“I’m scared, sir,” she finally admitted.

“Do we need to stop?”

She shook her head. “Not of this. Of what might happen. What about Michael? What if it gets out what he is? What if they learn about The 8th Circle?” Nora didn’t even want to think about how bad it could get if the press found out about them. Kingsley Edge guarded the members of their underground community with terrifying tenacity. But not even he could stop the sharks once the blood was in the water. A Catholic priest and an erotica writer who’d belonged to him in one way or another since she was fifteen … a teenage boy who’d attempted suicide over his sexual orientation and who had lost his virginity to Nora during a ritualized S&M scene … and The 8th Circle, where everyone from a high-level FBI agent to the governor’s stepdaughter were key-carrying members. If the world found out about her and Søren, there would be no end to the digging. The 8th Circle, named for the level of Dante’s Inferno where dwelled those who abused their power, would become a real hell for those who thought they had found the one safe place where they could be themselves.

“Eleanor, what did I promise you the last time we did this?”

Nora inhaled and bit her bottom lip.

“You promised you would keep me safe.”

“I meant it. I will handle this, and nothing bad will happen to you or Michael.”

The fifth cut was short and sharp and fell along the edge of her collarbone.

Søren set the knife aside and spread her legs. He kissed her inner thigh; the kiss moved higher until he touched her clitoris with his lips and opened her with his tongue. Blood-play made Søren even more amorous than usual. As blood welled up and dried on her skin, Nora felt her climax building hard and deep within her. Søren knew her body like no lover ever had or ever would.

“Permission to come?” she asked and knew Søren wouldn’t deny her, not tonight. The orgasm, like the hot bath, had a utilitarian purpose. The more endorphins flooding her system, the more pain she could take.

“Come,” Søren ordered as he slid a finger into her and pushed into the front wall of her vagina. As Nora’s orgasm waxed, Søren picked up the small knife again and made a quick slash to her thigh. She flinched but only a little. The pleasure and pain danced together without touching.

Nora panted as Søren brushed her hair off her forehead.

“Can you take more?” he asked.

She wanted to say no and end it. The pain was almost too much even for her. But the intensity of it was heady, intoxicating. The intimacy of it greater than even sex. Only with Søren would she ever submit to this act. Søren did not demand sexual fidelity from her. She continued to see Sheridan, the favorite of all her old clients, and Søren still shared her with Kingsley on occasion. But when it came to pain, only he was allowed to hurt her.

“Yes, sir.”

Søren pushed her over onto her stomach.

The sixth cut sliced open her shoulder.

Nora bit into the sheets trying to stifle her cry of pain. Turning her head to the side she swallowed hard and braced herself.

The seventh cut didn’t come at all.

“Look at me, little one.”

Nora turned over again, wincing as her raw and bleeding shoulder made contact with the sheets.

“You will come back to me. You believe that, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, nodding. Søren had never failed her before. When she’d been arrested at fifteen, it was Søren who’d kept her from going to juvie. When her fuckup of a father had tried to take her away, Søren had stopped him. When she’d gotten into trouble at school over a story she’d written, it was he who’d come and pulled her ass out of the fire yet again. He’d helped her get into college, helped her graduate, kept her safe, kept her close, kept her happy, and shown her a world that few even knew existed and then had made her queen of it … and all he’d ever asked in return was that she give herself to him, heart, body and soul.

It seemed such a small price to pay.

“How many cuts tonight?” she asked as Søren studied her bleeding body with reverent eyes. She saw his chest heave; his eyes had turned black from desire. Blood-play aroused him like nothing else. And nothing aroused her more than seeing him like this … so desperate for her it made even him almost weak.

“Seven,” he answered, his voice low and breathy. She’d already survived the first six.

“A good biblical number,” she noted.

“Five for the years we were apart. And one for the year you’ve been back with me. And one for the rest of our lives.”

The final one was always the worst. And she didn’t have to ask where it would be. Søren waited and Nora worked up her courage. This was Søren, she reminded herself. The man she’d loved for nearly twenty years. She’d only ever loved one person other than him, and for Søren she’d given him up. If she could give up Wesley for Søren, she could do this.

Nora spread her legs wide-open. Søren positioned himself between her thighs and with shockingly steady hands, spread her wide.

Nora closed her eyes tight and breathed through her nose as Søren ran the flat of the blade along the seam of her vagina and left a small cut on her labia. She refused to flinch as she knew her bravery would be rewarded.

The pain had already faded even as Søren took her hand and laid the knife in her palm. Nora steeled herself as she raised her hand. With one swift and sure motion, she cut his chest over his heart. She lowered her hand and sat the knife aside. Lifting herself up, Nora brought her mouth to his skin and licked his bleeding wound. The act severed the last thread of Søren’s restraint. He shoved her onto her back and opened his pants. When he pushed into her bleeding body, she felt a pain so acute it threatened to overwhelm her. Her safe word sat poised on the edge of her tongue. But she breathed in and swallowed it whole as Søren began to move in her.

She wrapped her arms and legs around him, dug her fingernails into his back and scored his skin. He bit at her neck and breasts, dug his fingers into her skin. Her body came alive with pain, pain that turned to pleasure as he continued his assault on her. She pressed her heels into the bed and arched back into his hips. When she came, she came hard. The orgasm racked her back. The pleasure spiked through her, clawed at her and cut into her like the sharpest of knives.

Søren kept thrusting and she clung to him in love and desperation. At moments like this, he was lost to himself, lost in the shadows that hid beneath his heart. Rarely did he let himself go, and when he did it was only with her. Nora lay beneath him and let him use her body as a vessel for his need. When he came at last, it was with a final thrust so fierce Nora knew she would be bruised inside from the force of it. He gasped her name as his whole body shuddered in her arms.

Nora held Søren as they lay intertwined, his body still embedded in hers. For a long time they said nothing, merely lying together content in their silence and their nearness to each other.

“You’re shaking, Eleanor,” Søren finally said, touching her cheek with his lips.

“A little. I’m just cold,” she admitted. Nora ran her hands through Søren’s hair and kissed his forehead.

“You’re shaking too.” His arms, his back trembled beneath her hands.

“Not from cold,” he confessed. She knew why, and he needed to say no more. “You belong to me … always.”

“Always,” she repeated.

“I will do whatever I must so you can come back to me.”

“I know you will, sir.”

“And we will keep our promise to each other.”

Nora reached up and touched his face.

“I will die in my collar.” She repeated her part of the pledge.

Søren turned his head and kissed the inside of her palm.

“And I will die in mine.”

Suzanne sat cross-legged on her sofa with her laptop open on her legs. She’d started a file on her computer called Asterisk and in it she was putting all the information she could dig up on Sacred Heart and Father Marcus Stearns. So far, it was a very small file. Patrick had gotten almost no additional information on the boy who’d attempted suicide in the sanctuary. No charges had been filed and the boy apparently still attended church there. What sort of kid would keep going back to the same church that had inspired him to kill himself? she wondered. Who was this priest who had that sort of pull on him? It turned her stomach just to imagine it.

She was dangerously close to thinking about her brother Adam when her cell phone rang. She checked the number. Patrick, of course.

“Any luck?” he asked as soon as she answered.

“Not much. This guy is a ghost. What about you?”

She heard a laugh on the other end of the line.

“What?” she demanded.

“I’m about to go into a dinner meeting so I can’t really talk. But you’ll never guess who goes to Sacred Heart. Not just goes but apparently never misses Sunday Mass.”

Suzanne exhaled noisily. She didn’t have time for games.

“I don’t know. The Dalai Lama?”

“Even better—Nora Sutherlin.”

Suzanne’s eyes widened and her stomach did a small flip.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’ve gotta run. I’ll call you back tomorrow. But no, I’m not kidding you.”

Hanging up, Suzanne simply stared out at her living room for a long time. She closed her computer and headed over to her bookcase. Scanning the titles, she finally found what she was looking for—a book entitled The Red. On the cover was a picture of a woman’s beautiful pale hands tied with a bloodred silk ribbon. The author? Nora Sutherlin. It was the story of a woman who owned a failing art gallery called The Red and the mysterious man who shows up and offers to save it in return for her submitting to him in every possible way for one year. Lurid and graphic with some of the most explicit sex scenes she’d ever read, The Red was possibly one of Suzanne’s favorite novels. Not that she ever told anyone that.

A fourteen-year-old boy attempting suicide in the middle of the sanctuary … the world’s most infamous erotica author attending Mass with the constancy of a nun … and that mysterious asterisk by the name of its priest.

“Jesus,” she breathed. “What kind of church is this?”

4

Søren made love to Nora twice more that night. He pulled her to the edge of the bed and took her while she lay on her stomach and he stood behind her. And after that they lay side by side, her back to his chest while he moved slowly and gently in her. As he thrust into her, he whispered how deeply he loved her, how much he would miss her and what he would do to her when she came back to him again. When Nora came the final time, she did so through tears.

“Hush, little one … it’s only for two months,” he promised her as he kissed the tears off her face.

She clung to him and cried even harder. “But I miss you already.”

Her tears dried, Nora lounged before the fireplace in the living room—Søren had built a low fire to warm her up again—and smiled at the sight before her. As if Søren hadn’t tortured her enough already tonight….

Studying the board on the floor before her, peering at it first through her left eye and then her right, Nora reached out and moved a pawn two spaces forward.

“Little one,” Søren said with thinly disguised disgust. “That was pointless.”

“Well, it wasn’t a step backward so we’ll consider it a step forward. Besides, I’m only playing chess with you to keep you awake longer,” she admitted. “I’m terrible at this game and you know it.”

“I do indeed.” Søren moved his queen. Checkmate.

“Fine. You win,” Nora conceded. “I’d kick your ass if we were playing Battleship though. That’s my game.”

“Battleship?”

Nora smiled. Søren had had such an unusual childhood that things she took for granted—silly board games, Saturday morning cartoons—Søren had no experience with. At age five he’d been sent to England to attend school. An unpleasant incident with a fellow student forced him back to America at age ten. A far more unpleasant incident at his home ended with him being shipped off to a Jesuit boarding school in rural Maine when he was only eleven. But it was there among the priests and monks that Søren found not only his salvation, but his calling. That and he met a certain young half-blood Frenchman who would change the course of his life forever.

“Battleship. It’s this stupid game Wes and I played when we were procrastinating from doing our work.”

“You so rarely speak of Wesley, Eleanor. And yet so many memories you have of him make you smile. Why don’t you talk about him more?”

Why didn’t she talk about him more? Nora shook her head and stared at the chessboard. Looking back she still wasn’t sure why she’d asked Wesley to move in with her, other than he’d intimated that he might have to move back home to Kentucky as Yorke was a prohibitively expensive liberal-arts college.

But as soon as Wesley was in her home, she’d begun to wonder how she’d ever lived without him. Before Wesley, she’d practically lived at Kingsley’s Manhattan town house. She worked in the city so much that several days would pass before she’d return to her home in Connecticut. Once Wesley was there, however, she’d find herself racing back to her house after a job, throwing on normal clothes and curling up on the couch with him.

Nora would never forget the day she got tired of writing in her office and had taken her laptop to the kitchen just for a change of scenery. Wesley joined her in the kitchen and sat opposite her at the table. He opened his laptop and started working on a paper due in his European History class that week. Nora remembered casting furtive glances over the top of her computer at him. He had brown eyes with little flecks of gold in them and dark blond hair that fell over his forehead. Only eighteen then, he was utterly adorable, and sometimes she had to practically sit on her hands to keep from reaching out and grabbing him when he walked past her. They were just roommates, just friends, she always had to remind herself. And Wesley was a good Christian kid and a virgin. One night with her wouldn’t just take his virginity, it would steal his innocence too. But that day all she felt for him was affection. Affection and amusement.

“Wes, I’m going to say it,” she said, glancing at their back-to-back open laptops.

“Don’t say it, Nora,” Wesley said as he kept typing.

“I have to say it.”

“Do. Not. Say. It,” Wesley ordered, trying and failing to sound intimidating. His sexy hybrid Kentucky-Georgia accent made her toes curl but it did not lend itself to intimidation. “If you say it, I’m leaving.”

“Wesley …”

“Nora …”

Nora took a deep breath, pretended to type something and whispered, “Wes?”

“What?”

“You sunk my Battleship!”

At that Wesley stood up and left the kitchen. Nora dissolved into giggles as Wesley threw on his coat, grabbed his car keys and walked out of the house. She was still laughing half an hour later when Wesley returned carrying a just-purchased Battleship game with him. Nora closed their computers and they set up the game on the kitchen table. She beat him soundly, two to one. After that, every time one or both of them needed a break from work, they’d sneak up behind the other, yell, “You sunk my Battleship,” and the game would be on.

“Eleanor?” Søren’s voice pulled her out of the memory and back to the present.

Nora touched her face and held out her hand. In the light of the fireplace, the tears shimmered on the tips of her fingers.

“This is why I don’t talk about Wes,” she said, and Søren reached for her and pulled her into his arms.

He bent his head and kissed her as his hand crept under the shirt she wore—his shirt—and slipped two fingers into her. She wanted him to make love to her again, but the moment had passed. A true sadist, Søren could only become aroused by inflicting pain and humiliation. So instead it was his probing fingers that penetrated her. He spread his fingers wide within her, slipped in a third and pushed hard up against her pubic bone. Nora’s hips lifted as her inner muscles gripped him. She grew wet at his touch even as the cut on her labia still ached and burned.

“Come for me,” Søren ordered, “and then we’re sleeping.”

“I can hold off having an orgasm for a long time,” she teased. “Anything to keep you awake.”

Søren, as she knew he would, took that as a challenge. He pressed his thumb into her clitoris and made precision circles that left her panting. Still she breathed through the pleasure.

With his free hand, Søren unbuttoned her shirt and bared her breasts. He kissed her nipples and they hardened in his warm mouth. As his lips and tongue made languid circles on her breasts, his fingers continued their gentle onslaught inside her. Nora flinched and clutched at the rug beneath her. Still she didn’t let herself come.

Søren slid his hand behind her neck and forced her to meet his eyes.

“The day we met, you were wearing a black pleated skirt and combat boots,” he said, and Nora knew no matter how hard she fought him, he would win. “You had scrapes on your knees and wore too much eye makeup. And I would have laid you out on the altar, beaten you and taken your virginity in front of God, Christ, all his saints and angels, and the entire church that very day had I one ounce less of self-control. I would have drunk the blood off your thighs, turned you onto your stomach and taken you again, fucking you until you begged me to stop. And do you know what I would have done had you begged me to stop?”

“No, sir,” she breathed, her heart pounding so hard she thought it would burst from her chest.

“I wouldn’t have stopped,” he said and shoved his hand hard into her. Nora cried out; the climax ripped through her stomach and hips as her inner muscles contracted wildly around Søren’s fingers.

She lay underneath him gasping through the orgasm that was so intense her lower back spasmed. After a few minutes her heart slowed and her eyes were able to focus again.

“You cheated.”

“I can’t imagine what you’re referring to,” Søren said, carefully pulling his hand out of her sore opening.

“You brought up the day we met. That’s cheating.”

Søren rolled onto his back and Nora crawled on top of his chest and collapsed against him.

“You’re the one who is going to be sleeping with two young men who are not me this summer, and you accuse me of cheating?”

Nora grinned up at him.

“Jealous?”

“Not even remotely,” he said and she knew it was true. Søren’s certainty in her love for him precluded even the slightest hint of jealousy. He couldn’t care less who she had sex with as long as he owned her. More than not caring, Søren was aroused by the sight and thought of her with other men. He didn’t even mind if she did kink with others as long as no one hurt her—that was his job alone.

“Speaking of jealous, Simone and Robin said they’d happily take my place on the rack this summer while I’m gone.”

“Lovely girls, both of them,” Søren said, smiling. If Nora was going to spend the summer in bed with two other guys, the least she could do for Søren was arrange for him to have access to two of the most beautiful, well-trained and discreet submissives in the Underground. She knew he wouldn’t have sex with them. Sadism was sex for him. So Søren going two months without beating someone would be akin to her going two months without sex—horrifying thought.

“Now I’m afraid this nonsense will have to end. I’m hearing confessions in—” Søren paused and glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantel “—four hours.”

Nora winced.

“Shit, I knew there was something I was supposed to do before I left. Will you have time for me before I leave tomorrow morning?” she asked. She’d meant to go to confession during the past week but had completely forgotten. Wasn’t her fault. She blamed her editor Zach—the other sadist in her life—for sending her fifty pages to revise in two days.

“I can hear it now if you like.”

Sitting up, Nora buttoned Søren’s shirt over her breasts. Søren rolled up and faced her. And although he too wore his black pants and nothing else, the minute he met her eyes, she knew her lover had gone, and she now sat in the presence of her priest alone.

Nora took a deep breath and began.

“God have mercy on me, a sinner.”

“‘Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs on your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.’”

Nora smiled. Luke chapter twelve, verses six and seven—one of her favorite passages.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been …”

“Eight days,” Søren supplied.

“Eight days since my last confession. Let’s see … where to start?”

“Pace yourself, Eleanor. If you forget something, I will remind you.”

“Oh, thank you very much, Father. You are too kind. I have done some serious lusting this week.”

“Per usual.”

“I lied in a phone interview. Not the first time for that, either. They wanted to know summer plans and I said I’d probably be overseas working on a new book. Let’s see … what else? Oh, I got a big fat royalty check and I didn’t give a damn bit of it to charity.”

“To whom much is given, much is required,” Søren reminded her. God knew he certainly had room to talk.

“I know,” Nora said and sighed. She did know. She just needed a refresher of that every now and then. “Does the church need anything?”

“Owen’s parents have suffered financially this year. Not terribly but they may have to put him into public school.”

“Public school? That little guy will get eaten alive in public school. He loves St. Xavier.”

“St. Xavier is not inexpensive.”

“Will five cover it?”

“Yes, and then some.”

Nora nodded. Not that long ago she could make 5K in a few hours topping someone. Surely Owen deserved as much kindness as her clients received of her cruelty.

“I’ll leave a check on the kitchen table tomorrow morning. Don’t tell them it’s from me.”

“Of course not. Anything else?”

“Well, I did do blood-play with a priest this evening, after which came much fucking.”

“Those were good works.”

“I’ll say.”

“Eleanor, what else?”

She heard in Søren’s voice an expectation. He knew she had more to confess.

“I lied about something else,” she finally whispered.

“You never have to be afraid to tell me anything,” Søren said, in that priestly tone that coaxed confessions like scared shadows from the darkest corners of hearts.

“You asked me today why I don’t answer the phone when Wes calls. I said it was because you hadn’t given me permission. That wasn’t the truth.”

Nora stared at the floor, unwilling and unable to meet Søren’s eyes.

“What is the truth?”

Swallowing, Nora forced herself to meet his eyes.

“I think,” she began and took a hard breath, “it wouldn’t be good for us if I did.”

Søren seemed to study her through the low and dying light of the fireplace. Her heart ached at the thought of hurting Søren. But he wanted the truth from her no matter what.

“Your penance,” he began and she braced herself.

“Yes, Father?”

“Make your peace with Wesley this summer while you’re away from me. Make your peace and do not return to me until you do.”

Nora’s stomach clenched. Make her peace with Wesley? What did that even mean? Just get over him? Or would she have to talk to him? She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.

“Yes, Father” was all she could answer.

She bent her head.

“Through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

Nora crossed herself.

“Amen.”

Nora stood up with a heavy heart. She hated that on their last night together before she left, she’d had to confess something so hurtful. But suddenly she was off her feet and in Søren’s arms. Without a word, he carried her upstairs to his bedroom.

“You aren’t angry?” she asked as he stripped her of his shirt and laid her in the bed. He slipped out of his pants and pressed his naked body into hers.

“Eleanor, will you ever learn that when I say ‘I love you’ I mean it?”

“Eventually maybe,” she said and smiled at him through the dark. “I’ll miss you so much this summer. Are you sure I have to go? Running away really isn’t my thing. Not anymore anyway.”

“I’m afraid in this scenario, discretion will be the better part of valor. Eleanor, this isn’t simply about the Church or the public finding out about us. There is more to fear than someone simply discovering that we’re together.”

“You don’t agree with Kingsley, do you? You don’t think it was just an old client of mine who stole my file, right?”

“I’m truly in the dark on this matter.” Søren gazed toward the shadows that lurked outside of the lamplight. “Whoever it is, and for whatever reason … I will not let them harm you. I’d let them cut out my heart first.”

Nora reached out and touched the wound over Søren’s heart. A superficial cut, it would heal in just days. The wounds underneath, however, were old and scarified and likely would never completely heal. Scar tissue, she’d once read, was the strongest of all tissues. Maybe Søren’s heart was so strong because it was so scarred.

“Eleanor? Do you remember my father’s funeral?”

Nora closed her eyes and became suddenly seventeen years old again. She’d faked a good excuse for her mother and accompanied Søren to his father’s funeral. She was there for Claire, his sixteen-year-old sister. Or at least, that was the cover story.

The night after the visitation she’d found Søren sitting in a large armchair in his childhood bedroom—a bedroom that held only the memories of nightmares for him. She remembered walking in and seeing him sitting, praying silently in a pool of moonlight. The white light had illuminated his face, his pale hair. On silent feet she came to him, and he’d taken her in his arms and held her. It had been the first time he’d admitted that he loved her, had loved her from the moment he saw her when she was only fifteen years old. His sadness and grief for the father who’d tried to destroy him came out that night as he told her the horror story that was his childhood. She’d only meant to comfort him. She’d made it to the next morning still a virgin, but just barely.

Nora giggled. “Oh, no. As long as I live I will never forget that night.”

Søren caressed her lips with his fingertips. “I know what you overheard, little one.”

Another memory came to her. This time it wasn’t nearly so pleasant. After leaving Søren that night, she’d headed for the room she and Claire were sharing. The house had over a dozen bedrooms but Søren insisted that neither she nor Claire sleep alone. The minute they’d arrived at the house, Søren changed. He’d always been highly protective of her, but suddenly he’d turned almost paranoid with both her and Claire. He acted as if there was a dangerous ghost haunting his childhood home. And in Søren’s arms that night she learned that wasn’t far from the truth. On her way to the guest room she saw the outline of a woman standing by an open window. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest and her head bowed. Next to her stood Søren, and they whispered back and forth to each other. Nora had slipped into a shadow and hidden herself there. Closer she crept and heard the woman say to Søren three words—I’m not sorry. And she heard Søren’s three-word reply. Neither am I.

At that moment Nora knew she’d heard something she shouldn’t. She disappeared into the room she shared with Claire and stared wide-awake at the ceiling until dawn—her body burning from where Søren had touched her, her mind reeling with what she thought she’d heard.

At the funeral she’d come face-to-face with the woman Søren had been speaking to the night before. Tall and elegant with auburn hair and violet eyes, the woman had terrified her with both her beauty and the despair that seemed to surround her like a dark halo. Søren introduced her as Elizabeth, his elder sister, and introduced Nora as a friend of Claire’s. Nora remembered studying Elizabeth and realizing that she was looking not at a person, but at a ghost. A living, breathing ghost, but a ghost all the same. Even in the dark, Nora saw that ghost flicker across Søren’s gray eyes.

“I promised I would protect you, little one. That is the only reason I’m sending you away,” Søren said and pulled Nora into his viselike arms.

“Your sister … You’re afraid they’ll find out about what Elizabeth did, aren’t you?”

Søren pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

“My fear of Elizabeth is the same as it has always been. I’m afraid she’ll find out about you.”

5

On Monday morning, Suzanne woke up with the dawn and didn’t even bother turning on her computer. She’d never been stymied like this before. It was as if some sort of presence sat on the other end of the internet purposely thwarting her every attempt to find out anything of substance about Father Marcus Stearns. But today she was going to pull out all the stops. Desperate times called for desperate research.

She was going offline.

The library opened early but she arrived even before the doors unlocked. As soon as they let her in, Suzanne rushed the research desk with pencils and notepaper. She hadn’t done hardcopy research in years. Probably not since middle school when her entire class had taken a field trip to the library and learned how to dig through the fat green tomes and write down the name, date and issue of the periodical they were looking for. Suzanne didn’t have much to go on. All she’d gleaned from her online research was that Father Marcus Stearns had been at Sacred Heart for nearly twenty years and had presided at no other parishes. Apparently Father Stearns also acted as confessor to a nearby order of Benedictine sisters. One of them had a blog and mentioned that their Father Stearns, like her, had been born in New Hampshire. Guessing he graduated seminary at age twenty-eight, that meant he would be forty-seven or forty-eight. So she knew his name, approximate age and state of birth. A place to start at least.

By noon, Suzanne decided to give up again. There was simply nothing on Marcus Stearns out there. But she took one more dive into the stacks and came up with a Marcus Stearns who’d been in his early forties in 1963 and lived in New Hampshire. At least it was the same name if not the right age. Possibly a relative, she decided, and kept digging.

By one o’clock, Suzanne knew she was onto something.

Marcus Augustus Stearns, born in England in 1920, was the heir to a small barony. He’d come to New England in his late thirties and used his title to marry into a spectacularly wealthy family. The mother, Daisy, had realized her Edith Wharton fantasy and married the baron despite the fact that his only asset was his title. After just one year of marriage, Daisy had given birth to a daughter, Elizabeth Bennett Stearns. Not just an Edith Wharton fan but a Jane Austen fan as well, Suzanne noted. And then barely one year after, Suzanne was thrilled to discover, a son, Marcus Lennox Stearns, was born. Beyond that, the trail went cold. Marcus the Younger seemingly disappeared. No school records, no college records, no mentions of him at all.

Suzanne leaned back in the chair in her cramped library study carrel and closed her eyes.

Catholic priests made almost no money. No one became a Catholic priest to get rich. And yet, if this was the same Marcus Stearns, he’d given up a huge inheritance and a title, albeit a minor one, in the British peerage to become a priest. She had trouble believing it was possible. Still, a tantalizing possibility.

“Father Stearns,” she whispered to herself, “who the hell are you?”

When Nora awoke the next morning, she found her neck bare of her collar and the bed empty but for her. She disposed of all evidence of her presence—she replaced the white sheets on the bed, put the candles away and made a sweep for any stray female flotsam—before dressing in Søren’s bathroom and heading down to the kitchen. Nora got out her purse and wrote a check for Owen Perry’s school fund. She knew Søren would find a way to get the money to the Perry family without them learning it was from her. Her small shadow at church, Owen’s sweet, innocent company during Mass was always welcome. But still … she had a very bad reputation to uphold.

Leaving the check on Søren’s table, Nora groaned when she saw he’d left her another note. This time the note was in a sealed envelope and on the outside were the words Do not open until instructed.

“Sadist,” Nora growled and stuffed the envelope into her purse. She dug out her keys and checked the time on her cell phone. She had one new text message.

Hurry up, it read. My cock can’t wait to see you. Love, The Griffin.

Nora wrote back, Just for that, I’m taking the scenic route.

With a hint of heaviness in her heart, Nora left Søren’s house and headed to her car. She threw her stuff and herself inside and started the engine.

Griffin … It had been over a year and a half since they’d slept together. The last time had probably been in Miami at his father’s beach house. She’d lied to Wesley and said she’d had a book-signing at an alternative bookstore down there when all she really wanted to do was get away from her slightly disapproving roommate for a few days and have uninterrupted kinky sex. She’d gotten her wish. She probably would have continued to see Griffin even after going back to Søren, but even Søren’s patience could be tested by the young and often obnoxious Griffin Fiske. For Søren, S&M was like air or water—he needed it to function. For Griffin, S&M was a game that he played to get laid as often as humanly possible.

Nora remembered her last night with Griffin at the beach house. They’d gone out to a club and brought home some insanely hot Portuguese kid named Mateo or Mateus … something like that. Bi-curious and barely twenty-one, he’d never been with another guy before or done kink. Nora had taken her turn first, Griffin second. Then they’d tackled him at the same time. The next morning the kid dropped to his knees begging them to take him back to New York with them.

Suddenly Nora found herself grinning like an idiot. She and Griffin did make a good team.

Nora revved up her engine, put on some Beastie Boys, headed for the parkway and hit the gas.

Fuck the scenic route.

It didn’t matter where he’d fallen asleep the night before—the couch in the living room, his tiny twin bed at his grandmother’s house, his own bed under his mother’s roof—no matter what bed he fell asleep in, he was always back in the hospital bed when he woke up.

Michael remembered the dryness in his mouth when he’d finally woken up, how his lips felt like torn paper. He remembered the tubing around his nose and the wires running in and out of his arms. He’d been afraid to move his hands, afraid if he tried they wouldn’t be there to move.

He’d opened his eyes and blinked painfully. A man in black stood at the window in the hospital room staring out onto the helicopter pad. Deepest night, the only light in the room came from the life-support equipment that beeped and breathed in the dark.

“Father S?” It took everything Michael had to croak out those words.

His priest turned from the window and walked to his bed. Looking down on Michael, he smiled and Michael saw nothing in the smile but forgiveness.

“Your mother is here, Michael,” his priest said in a voice quiet as the night that surrounded them. “She’s with your father and the doctor right now. Should I find her for you?”

Michael shook his head. He wasn’t ready for his family yet, wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready to face them again.

“Am I,” he began and coughed a little. “Am I going to hell?”

Father S reached out and briefly placed a hand on Michael’s forehead.

“No,” he said simply and with such conviction that Michael immediately believed him.

Michael looked up into his priest’s face. He’d admired Father S from the moment his family started going to Sacred Heart. What he wouldn’t give to have Father S’s peace and certainty.

“Am I going to live?” Michael barely heard his own voice.

“You are, yes. Thank God.” Michael heard the shadow of fear lurking behind the relief in his priest’s voice. He never imagined he’d ever see Father S afraid of anything. Even in the dark he could see a smudge of red on Father S’s white collar. Michael’s own blood, he realized. “Your hands will have some numbness, but all feeling should return eventually. You lost a great deal of blood, and will be fatigued for a few weeks as you recover. I’m afraid you’ll be in counseling for some time.

I’ve asked your family if they’ll allow me to counsel you instead of sending you to a secular psychiatrist. They’re discussing it with your doctor right now.”

“I don’t think even you can help me.”

Father S had looked down at him and exhaled slowly.

“Your mother told me about the pictures your father found you looking at a few months ago, and the cuts and burns.”

Only the severe blood loss kept Michael from blushing.

“Dad thinks I’m sick. He left Mom because they keep fighting over me. I think I’m sick too. I want bad things. I don’t know why.” He paused to cough again. “I don’t know what I am.”

Father S looked at him for a minute and Michael felt himself being weighed in his priest’s mind. He must have passed the test because Father S sat on the side of Michael’s bed and began to speak words Michael never even dreamed he would hear from the sainted Father Marcus Stearns.

“Michael, as a priest I hear a hundred confessions every week. But now if you’ll allow me, I’m going to let you hear my confession. And be warned, it is a long confession and will certainly shock you.”

“Your confession?” Michael swallowed the sandpaper in his throat.

Father S crossed his arms over his chest and met Michael’s eyes. Michael studied his priest’s profile. Even now he seemed the epitome of piety and tranquility, his handsome face un-lined and serene, his eyes as strong and gray as steel.

“Michael,” Father S said, his voice low but steady, “I know what you are.”

“You do?”

“Yes. You are something different—something some people find strange and fearful—but what you are is as natural as being male or female or awake or asleep. The things you desire, you long for, I understand them. You belong in a different world from the one you now live in.”

“What world? What am I?” Michael asked, wanting to sit up but finding his body would not work with him yet.

Father S had met his eyes and Michael saw the hint of a smile in them, a secret smile and the passing shadow of a green-eyed girl who could make any man lose his religion.

“My confession begins,” Father S said, “as the confessions of many men begin—with three words.”

“Father, forgive me?” Michael hazarded a guess.

Father S sighed.

“I met Eleanor.”

Michael opened his eyes and saw, as he knew he would, that he lay in his own small, neat room at his mother’s house. Rolling out of bed, he threw on clothes and booted up his computer. His hands shivered with excitement when he saw he had an email from Nora.

Michael—A car will pick you up Thursday morning at ten. Pack whatever you want, but I’ll make sure you get everything you need. It’s a long drive so bring something to read and eat. Can’t have you wasting away. God knows you’ll need your strength this summer. Oh, don’t bother packing your halo, Angel. You’re not going to need it.

This message, and your pants, will self-destruct in five minutes.

Covering his mouth as he laughed, Michael leaned back in his desk chair.

Michael knew enough about dominants and submissives to know that the relationship between them wasn’t always sexual. He’d happily live as Nora’s personal slave whether she fucked him or not. Dominants got off on dominating, and submissives got off on submitting, and if Nora wanted him to mop his floor with his hair, he’d do it with bliss. Finally his long hair would come in handy. But something about that line—Don’t bother packing your halo—made him think that Nora intended to use him for something other than janitorial services. Awesome.

You took my halo over a year ago, he wrote and hit Send with a smile.

Making a quick mental calculation he realized he had forty-nine hours until the car came for him. Forty-nine hours … He’d pack tomorrow, leave the next day, and today he’d be lazy and read.

Digging behind his headboard, he found his copy of Nora’s newest novel. He hadn’t read this one yet. He’d been forcing himself to wait until school was out so he could properly enjoy it. Propping himself up on his pillows, Michael started to flip through to the first page. On the way he stopped at the dedication and looked for Nora’s usual secret message to Father S.

Michael’s eyes widened a little when he saw the dedication page.

To W.R. Many waters …

Michael furrowed his brow at the message.

Who the hell was W.R.?

It took a lot of money to impress Nora Sutherlin. She had enough money of her own to not think very highly of it. And she’d had enough wealthy clients, very wealthy clients and stratospherically wealthy clients and acquaintances, and seen their homes, at least their bedrooms, to know there was more elegance and beauty in Søren’s rectory than in all their mansions combined.

But at her first glimpse of Griffin’s house, farm, estate … dukedom, she couldn’t hold back a flabbergasted, “Holy shit, Griff …”

Nora double-checked her GPS to make sure she hadn’t ended up in Scotland by mistake. Soft rolling hills lay back under sheets of softest green. A white fence ran the length of the fore and back land. And the house—Greek Revival with a touch of medieval castle—rose up proudly, straining across her field of vision. No wonder Griffin had been haunting The 8th Circle less these days. Now that he had installed himself in this secluded Wonderland, he had a private playground of his very own.

She drove up to the massive gate—wrought iron and guarded by two stone griffins on either side. It seemed Griffin had been named for the family avatar.

Nora pressed the call button on the intercom. She’d expected to hear the voice of a servant or security guard.

“Hey, bad girl,” came the deep, sexy voice of The Griffin himself. “Can’t believe the Pope let you out of the Vatican.”

“Call it an indulgence. Now are you going to let me in, Griff?”

“Say please and call me sir.”

“Did you forget who you’re dealing with?” Nora raised her eyebrow and directed a stern stare at the security camera.

“Never, babe. Come on in. Let’s get this orgy started.”

The iron gate screeched open and Nora pulled up to the house—even more impressive up close than from a distance—and turned off the car. The door yawned open as she neared it. Stepping into the cathedral-like foyer, she gazed around her with unabashed awe at the interior; it might be a farm in name but it was a castle in spirit. And coming down the main spiral staircase taking two steps at a time and wearing nothing but a black kilt and Doc Marten boots was the lunatic laird of the manor himself.

Griffin Fiske … He was one of Kingsley’s finds seven years ago. Griffin had been only twenty-two then but he was damaged, dangerous and dead sexy—Kingsley’s favorite combination.

Apparently one night Griffin had been partying at the Möbius, Kingsley’s infamous strip club, and Kingsley watched Griffin beat the hell out of a guy who’d crossed the line with one of the strippers. Six feet tall, bronzed skin and with the broad chest and shoulders of a heavyweight boxer, there wasn’t much in the world more fun to stare at than Griffin Fiske. He had elaborate armband tattoos around both biceps, dark hair that spiked up just too perfectly, and the dirtiest smile she’d ever seen on anyone besides her. The house might be Greek Revival but the master was Greek warrior.

“Fiske isn’t a Scottish name, Griff,” Nora reminded him as he skipped the last four steps to land right in front of her.

“But the house is from Mom’s side. And she was a Raeburn. Anyway, I heard you had a weakness.” He grinned at her before pulling her into a bear hug.

“Two words—easy access,” she said, giving him a sharp swat on the kilt.

“Topping me already? Can’t have that.”

Nora squealed as Griffin picked her up, slung her over his shoulder and started up the stairs.

“Sir?” came a low, well-modulated English accent from the bottom of the stairs. At the landing Griffin turned around before Nora could glimpse the source of the voice.

“Alfred, are you looking up my skirt?” Griffin demanded as Nora squirmed on his shoulder.

“Master Griffin, I would marry my own mother for the excuse to stab my eyes out with her brooches rather than see anything under your kilt,” the man’s voice said with elegant aplomb. “Where would you like your guest’s things, sir?”

“That’s an Oedipus Rex reference,” Nora, the eternal English major, supplied. The voice clearly came from Griffin’s butler, who sounded utterly unperturbed by the sight of his employer strolling around in nothing but a kilt and boots with a woman over his shoulder. Nora guessed this was not an uncommon occurrence.

“Stick them in the Blue Room. And no interruptions for the next couple of hours, please. My guest and I will be fucking. Two hours, Nora?”

“At least,” she agreed.

“Better make it three, Alfred.” Griffin shifted Nora higher on his shoulder and continued up the stairs.

“This is going to be a long summer, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Eight and a half inches long, if you’ll recall.”

Griffin kicked open the door to the master bedroom. He threw her unceremoniously across the monstrous bed draped in mountains of black pillows and luxurious white-and-black-striped sheets. Nora’s heart raced as Griffin climbed on top of her. She playfully put up a struggle but only for the pleasure of having Griffin capture her wrists and push them over her head. If she had to choose only one man to be with the rest of her life, it would be Søren, hands down and for all eternity. But as Griffin held her down with one hand while digging under her skirt with the other, she couldn’t deny Griffin had his own charms.

“Left boot or right?” he asked, teasing her clitoral piercing through her lace panties.

“Right.”

He dug around her right boot and pulled out a condom.

“Griffin, before you fuck me, I have to tell you something.”

Griffin paused after ripping the condom wrapper open with his teeth. He leaned close and put his mouth at her ear.

“Tell me anything….” He kissed her from her ear to her neck.

“It’s just,” she panted as he started to slip a finger into her underwear, “I need to pee.”

Griffin groaned and rolled off her. “There,” he said and pointed at a door.

“Thank you, darling. That was one helluva drive, you know? You get sick of the city?” Nora stood up and walked into the bathroom.

“Parents are in the city. Parents who want grandchildren. I am here so I won’t be forced to give them any.”

“Understandable,” Nora called out. “My mom stopped asking about grandchildren ten years ago. Just start fucking a priest and they’ll back off.”

“Your priest doesn’t put out for me.”

“True. But he’ll beat the hell out of you if you ask nicely though. Jesus, Griffin, your bathroom is bigger than my basement. Spoiled much?”

“Not nearly enough. You done yet?”

“Yes and no.”

“I don’t want to know what that means, do I?”

Nora washed and dried her hands. Pausing in the bathroom doorway, Nora looked at Griffin, who sat on the bed with his legs open wide enough she could see he wore his kilt in true Scottish fashion. She approved of this.

“You know, I should probably take a shower before we fuck. Søren gave me a very intense goodbye last night, and I haven’t washed it off yet.”

“You know I don’t mind sloppy seconds. And knowing Pope Whatadick, he probably blesses his cum before he blows it.”

“I promise you he does not,” Nora said as she strolled slowly back to the bed. “Why do you and Søren loathe each other so much?”

“Ask him,” Griffin said, reaching out to unbutton her shirt.

“I did. He won’t tell me.”

“Let’s just say we have an ongoing difference of opinion. My opinion is that he’s a pretentious arrogant prick, and he disagrees with that.”

Nora stared Griffin down. He couldn’t quite meet her eyes.

“I know that’s not true. I tell him he’s a pretentious arrogant prick all the time and he’s in full agreement. I could beat it out of you.”

“Not a chance. You don’t get to top me anymore. This summer you’re my bitch, switch.”

“You used to let me top you all the time.” Nora recalled the dozens of time she’d tied Griffin down and used and abused his poor willing self.

“Only because it was the only way you’d let me fuck you. And even then you never got to beat me.”

“Too bad. I think a good hard beating would be good for your soul. Fine, you can top me. But no beating me, either. Only dominance and bondage, alas. Søren’s rules.”

“I know. He called and read me the riot act yesterday,” Griffin said as he unbuttoned her top button with a deft flick of his fingers.

“He’s very protective of his property.”

“I can’t say I blame him.” Griffin leaned back on the bed and stared her up and down. “Strip for me, beautiful.”

At thirty-four, Nora would take all the erotic appreciation she could get from younger men. She let her shirt drop to the floor and peeled slowly out of her camisole.

“Jesus,” Griffin said and took her by the arm; gently he pulled her to him. The grin vanished as he stared at her stomach and chest. “He did give you one helluva goodbye, didn’t he?”

“Oops. Sorry. Should have warned you.”

“You two did blood-play?” Griffin asked in horrified awe.

Nora shrugged.

“A little. Just seven cuts. Speaking of, we should probably stick to anal for the next couple of days. The last cut was in a pretty sensitive area.”

She expected Griffin to laugh—if they weren’t fucking, they were laughing. But Griffin only stared at her a moment while he studied her skin. He gently ran a finger around her wounds—the cut on her collarbone, on her rib cage, under her breast.

“We don’t have to play if you aren’t up for it,” he said.

“Griff, I’ve had papercuts worse than this. And also on my crotch. This is what happens when you fall asleep while working on your edits naked. I’m up for it. Seriously.”

“Okay. We’ll fuck if you make me,” he said, smiling at her again. “We’ll just go vanilla until you’re healed.”

Vehemently Nora shook her head. “Not a chance. No vanilla. The one time I even attempted vanilla sex I nearly passed out.”

“Nora Sutherlin tried vanilla sex? This I have to hear about.”

Griffin stretched out on his side and playfully patted the bed next to him. Rolling her eyes Nora crawled onto his sheets.

“It’s not a big deal. Tried it. Didn’t like it. Stopped.”

“Why’d you stop? Vanilla sex is boring but it’s not hard. You’re the chick. You just lie there and pretend to like it.”

Pretend to like it … that was the problem. She didn’t have to pretend…. Nora closed her eyes. For a second she wasn’t in Griffin’s bed anymore … she was on her bed back home with Wesley on top of her. They were kissing, their bare chests pressed to each other’s. Wesley’s hands stroked her hair and caressed her arms. She kissed his neck and muscular shoulders. He was so young, only nineteen then, and still a virgin. And there he was, as brave as he was beautiful, ready and willing to give her his virginity. And she wanted it, wanted him … and not for his body and not for the pleasure and not for the sex. For something else so much deeper and scarier that instead of letting him make love to her, she let him go.

“It’s hard to explain,” she said, opening her eyes. “Vanilla just doesn’t work for me.”

“Not that hard to explain—vanilla blows,” Griffin said. “So what? Celibacy?”

“Don’t even joke about that. Just tie me down, fuck me up the ass, call me a slut and just watch the cuts.”

Griffin grinned at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Ha,” she said. “I’m still the top.”

Griffin raised his eyebrow at her and she knew she was in trouble—the good kind.

In a second she found herself flat on her stomach with Griffin peeling her clothes off. From behind the corner of his bed, Griffin pulled out a leather strap. He grabbed two sets of bondage cuffs from the bedside table. With practiced expertise, Griffin buckled the cuffs around her wrists and ankles, bound her hands to the bedpost and strapped her legs wide-open to a spreader bar.

Nora groaned with pleasure as Griffin prepared her body for him—she was going to have to ask him what kind of lube he was using because it felt amazing—and then pushed carefully inside her. She felt the brush of wool as his kilt rubbed against her naked skin. Nora decided there and then to take her next vacation in Scotland.

This is who she was, she reminded herself. She was a switch. All summer long Griffin would top her. All summer long, she would top Michael. She’d have the best of both worlds and no vanilla sex at all. No staring into big brown eyes with flecks of gold in them and saying “Wesley” instead of “sir.” No holding each other while they made love with only sweat wet between them and not blood. Sex was sex. Pain was pain. And Wesley and that part of her was in the past.

Griffin continued to move inside her. Nora buried her head against her arm and whispered Wesley’s name into the sheets.

6

Michael sat on the porch outside his house waiting for the ride Nora promised. He still couldn’t quite believe that in a few minutes, he’d be whisked away to a farm in upstate New York to hang out with Nora Sutherlin and her kinky friend Griffin all summer. The Griffin part of the equation worried him. Nora he’d known for over a year now, even known her in the biblical sense. They hadn’t talked much since the night they spent together, but he still felt comfortable around her. Well, as comfortable as he felt around anyone. This Griffin guy might hate him. After all, Nora was supposed to train him this summer. Griffin might not like sharing her with somebody else, especially not a teenage boy with no money, from nowhere. Michael still couldn’t believe Father S would share Nora with any guy. But then again, Father S was an unusual man. He had a very literal concept of ownership where Nora was concerned. Since he owned her, he could lend her out and she’d still be his. Michael wondered how Nora felt about being treated like a library book. Michael kind of liked the idea himself. The thought of being owned by someone he was in love with got him so turned on he could barely breathe. He felt disowned these days. His mom didn’t really want him anymore. And God, his dad … his dad?

“Michael? What are you doing?”

Michael froze. Slowly he turned his head to the side and saw his father in his usual blue business suit stalking toward him. So engrossed in thoughts of Nora, Michael hadn’t even noticed his father had parked across the street.

“Nothing,” Michael said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Waiting on a ride.”

His dad stopped and looked down at him. Even if Michael hadn’t been sitting and his rather tall, stocky father standing, his dad would still be looking down at him.

“A ride to where?” his father demanded.

Michael decided to try a little deflection again.

“It’s Thursday morning.”

“I took the morning off. Your mother said you were going to be gone the whole summer. I thought I should see what was going on with my son.”

“I’m your son again?”

“Michael, I thought we put that behind us,” his father said in his most ingratiating voice. Michael liked the yelling better than the sucking up. At least the anger seemed genuine. His father’s friendly voice only meant he wanted something. Answers obviously. And Michael wasn’t about to give him any.

Yeah, I’m totally over that whole you wailing on me and Mom thing. We’re best buds again, Dad, Michael thought but didn’t say out loud. His father could turn anything against him, so Michael wore his silence as a shield.

His father’s eyes turned cold and menacing.

“Young man, tell me what you’re doing this summer, or I’ll make very sure whatever it is doesn’t happen.”

“I’m staying with some friends this summer. That’s all.”

Michael’s father stared at him without speaking. Bad sign. His dad talked. Constantly talked. He spouted off about sports teams, about the assholes at work, about the president, the job market, the world’s problems that would go away if everyone were just more like him.

“Didn’t know you had any friends, Michael,” his father said with cold suspicion.

Michael clenched his jaw and didn’t answer.

“What friends are these?” his father asked in a neutral tone Michael didn’t trust for one second.

Pulling his knees even tighter to his chest, Michael concentrated on the cold concrete underneath him. He always played this game when his father was angry. Michael would disappear, pull into himself, let his body become a hard outer shell that protected that part of him only Nora and Father S understood.

“Answer me, Michael.”

At times like these Michael wished he could talk like Nora did, wished he could say everything he thought. What he wanted to say right now was, You asshole.

“You as—” Michael began, but stopped when a shiny silver car, a Rolls Royce maybe, turned the corner of his street.

“What the hell?” his father asked, his angry dark eyes narrowing at the car.

Michael stood up, grabbed his duffel bag and head toward the car.

“Michael, get back here,” his father yelled after him. Whoever was driving the Rolls Royce slowed in front of Michael’s house, and the door opened for him. Michael threw himself and his duffel bag into the backseat and the car started off again. Glancing out the window, Michael saw his father glaring at him with unstrained fury. There’d be hell to pay when he came back at the end of the summer. But at least now he was free.

Suddenly Michael realized he wasn’t alone in the back of the lavish car. First he saw riding boots, black riding boots, and dark gray trousers. The trousers belonged to a rather old-fashioned but dashing-looking suit worn by a crazy-good-looking dark-haired man who studied him with a little smile on his sculpted lips. Michael had no idea who the man was, but he had no doubt in his mind that he sat in the presence of a dominant friend of Nora’s, and probably a very important one.

Michael hazarded a timid, “Hello, sir.”

“Bonjour, Michael,” the man said with a French accent, pronouncing his name like Michelle. French? So this was Kingsley, Father S’s necessary evil. The man looked Michael up and down once more before reclining back and throwing his riding boots on the seat opposite him and crossing them at the ankles. “Mon Dieu, chérie does have good taste in her pets, doesn’t she?”

“Pets?” Michael repeated, in some distress.

The man leaned forward and Michael nervously studied his handsome face—the dark umber eyes, strong European nose, the sensual tilt to his mouth.

“Tell me, Michael, have you ever had sex in the back of a Rolls Royce?”

Nora arched her back and tilted her hips high. Finally she found the right angle of penetration. Admittedly, it had been her idea for she and Griffin to fuck on top of her Aston Martin, but once he tunneled inside her, she realized that car hoods and sex didn’t always mix. Not that Griffin seemed to mind. While she lay on her stomach across the car hood, her hands tied behind her neck, Griffin thrust blithely into her. Once she raised her hips, he slipped his hand under her and found her clitoris. Now equally blithe, Nora turned her head to the side and smiled.

“When did you get a Ducati?” Nora asked, noticing for the first time the motorcycle sitting in the corner of Griffin’s garage stocked with Ferraris, Porsches and one hardcore Shelby Mustang.

“I’m fucking you and you’re asking me about my motorcycle?” Griffin gasped through gritted teeth.

“Sorry, sir,” she said without any actual contrition. “A Ducati is the reason Søren and I are together.”

“Dammit, I hate that he has one too.”

“I don’t …”

Nora closed her eyes as a memory floated up out of the mists of the past.

“Eleanor Louise Schreiber! Get out of bed this instant,” her mother shouted at her. Nora remembered throwing the covers over her head in her determination that this would be the day she broke her mother’s spirit. This would be the day she would defeat the tyranny of organized religion. She’d skip Mass today and never, ever, go back.

“I’m a Buddhist,” she shouted back from under the sheets.

“Eleanor, get out of bed this instant and get ready for Mass.”

Nora remembered hearing real anger in her mother’s tone. Good. Anger made her erratic. She’d either kill her or storm out. Either way, it meant no church today. If Eleanor could just fight her way out of Mass, she’d be free … unchained, unfettered, unbound by the Catholic Church forever.

“I’m an atheist.” She flipped over onto her stomach. “I’ll incinerate the second I walk into church. It’s for everyone’s good that I stay away from that place.”

Her mother had growled under her breath. So that’s where Nora got that habit from?

“Eleanor,” her mother said, sighing. Damn. Sighing wasn’t good. Sighing meant her mother was going to try to either reason with her or bribe her.

“What?”

“Father Greg is retiring soon. Today is the day the new priest is starting at Sacred Heart. If the new priest hires someone else to do the church’s books, you don’t get free tuition to St. Xavier anymore.”

“Don’t care. Send me to public school. No more uniforms.”

Nora remembered the sharp breath her mother took. That her mother hadn’t just beat the shit out of her yet was one of life’s great mysteries.

“Eleanor,” her mother began, her voice dripping with saccharine. “Mary Rose told me the new priest is supposed to be very handsome.”

Rolling her eyes, Nora had flipped back over and glared at her mother.

“Mom, he’s a priest. That’s gross.”

But her mother continued.

“And he rides a motorcycle.”

That got her attention.

“What kind? Not some no-thrust piece of crap from Japan, is it?” Her father hadn’t taught her much but he had taught her cars and motorcycles.

Shaking her head, her mother tapped her chin. “I can’t remember what it was called. Something Italian sounding. Du-something.”

“A Ducati?”

“That was it.”

Nora remembered her heart racing a little right then. A handsome Catholic priest who rode the finest, fastest, most wicked motorcycle money could buy? She’d have to see it to believe it.

“Fine,” she’d said, throwing off the covers. “I’m coming.”

Nora came hard and relaxed against the hood of her Aston Martin as Griffin made a few more spiraling thrusts inside her before pulling out of her and untying her hands.

“Good idea,” he said, dragging her back to him. With her hands now free, Nora tugged down her skirt and leaned back against Griffin. “Never fucked on an Aston Martin before. Something for the scrapbook,” he said.

“Neither have I. Or in it. Came close with Zach though. He had a major hard-on for this car.”

“Zach?” Griffin asked, peeling off the condom and zipping his pants up.

“Blue Eyes, remember? My insanely hot Jewish editor who left me for his wife?”

“Right. That guy. I think he had a hard-on for you. The car was just a bonus.”

“She is a very nice car,” Nora said, running her hands over the hood. The Aston Martin had been a gift from a lover three years ago—a member of a Middle Eastern dynasty who came to the States every few months to indulge his very top-secret obsession with female dominants. Gorgeous man. He loved painting Arabic poetry on her naked body after sex. After their first week together she’d found the Aston Martin in her garage as a thank-you. “She’s my baby.”

“Why did you have me drive her up here and put her on blocks then?” Griffin asked, making a circuit around the car.

Nora kissed her fingers and touched the hood in a little benediction. Noticing the smears on the paint, she grabbed a chamois. With care and elbow grease she buffed the Nora/Griffin smudges off the inferno-red finish.

“I was going to give it to Wes, my old roommate.”

“You had a roommate?”

“Live-in intern. Never told you. Gorgeous kid. You would have tried to fuck him.”

“That’s probably true. What happened to this gorgeous intern?”

Nora sighed heavily. “He fell in love with me. Bad situation. Had to let him go.” She tried to sound cold but she could tell Griffin wasn’t buying it.

“Sounds like he wasn’t the only one in love.” Griffin eyed her meaningfully.

“Griff, you’re too pretty to also be smart.”

Nora deserved the glower he leveled at her.

“Do you still talk to him?”

“He calls, but I don’t answer. All I know is that he withdrew from Yorke and went back to Kentucky.”

“You ever Google-stalk him? See what he’s up to on Facebook or Twitter?”

Nora shook her head. “I’ve been tempted, but I don’t know. What if he was still sad and lonely? It would break my heart.”

Griffin came around the car and stood in front of her. He cupped her chin and forced her to meet his eyes.

“What if he was happy? Dating somebody even?”

Nora exhaled heavily.

“It would break my heart.”

“Nora,” Griffin sighed. “You really need to—”

“Master Griffin? Mistress?” came an English-accented voice from the door to the garage.

“God, it turns me on when he calls me Master Griffin,” Griffin groaned as Nora laughed and straightened his clothes. He’d actually put on pants today—khakis with a white T-shirt that stretched across his powerful tattooed biceps. Pants and a shirt but no shoes or socks. Still, they were making progress.

“Your other guest has arrived,” Griffin’s stately white-haired butler said.

A grin spread across Nora’s face. “Junior kinkster’s here. Let’s go.”

Nora grabbed Griffin’s hand and raced past his butler.

“So tell me about this kid,” Griffin said. “You said he’s a seventeen-year-old submissive from your church. Anything else I need to know about him?”

“Like what? Food allergies?”

“Let’s just say I barely remember being seventeen. I think I spent half the year drunk and the other half of the year high.”

“You don’t have to worry about Michael. He’s very straight edge. Søren said he doesn’t even drink. But there’s three things you probably should know about him.”

“I’m ready,” Griffin said, opening the front door just as Kingsley’s silver Rolls Royce pulled up in front of the house. “Hit me.”

Nora slapped his arm.

“First, Michael doesn’t talk.”

“Is he a mute?” Griffin asked, sounding slightly horrified. Griffin only shut up when you put something in his mouth—preferably a body part.

“No, just really quiet. Nervous type. Quiet.”

“Submissive?”

“That,” Nora said as the door to the Rolls opened and Michael stepped out. He pushed his sunglasses onto his head and smiled up at her. Raising his hand, he gave her a nervous wave.

“Holy shit,” Griffin breathed, his dark eyes widening at the sight of Michael.

“Yeah,” Nora said, smiling back at Michael. “Number two—Michael is absolutely, completely, ridiculously beautiful.”

“Nora …” Griffin said in a distressed voice. “I think I’m in love.”

“You’re in heat, Griff. Big difference. Oh, and number three … Søren says you can’t fuck him.”

Skipping down the steps, Nora left a speechless Griffin behind her. She grabbed Michael and pulled him into her arms.

“Hey, Angel,” she said, kissing him on the lips. “How was the trip?”

“Bizarre,” Michael whispered. “There was a guy in the backseat. In riding boots. We dropped him off at Father S’s.”

“Oh, that was just Kingsley. He likes to inspect the new recruits. Did he hit on you? Ask you if you’ve ever had sex in the back of a Rolls Royce?”

“Um, yeah,” Michael confessed, blushing. “But I didn’t—”

“Good,” Nora said. “You passed inspection. Go say hello to Griffin while I make out with your driver.”

Nora bodily spun Michael, aimed him toward the steps and slapped him on his jeans-clad bottom. Robin, one of her and Søren’s favorite submissives from The 8th Circle, stepped out of the driver’s seat in her chic gray chauffeur’s costume complete with driving hat and leather gloves.

“I love a woman in uniform,” Nora said, giving Robin a long, thorough kiss. From the top of the steps, Nora heard applause. She pulled back from the pretty submissive and saw Griffin clapping and Michael gaping. Michael looked at Griffin, who looked at Michael. Michael looked at her. Griffin kept looking at Michael.

Nora groaned. “Robin, take me back to the city with you.”

“I’m sorry, mistress. Mr. King said I wasn’t allowed. Oh, and Mr. S has a message for you.”

“What, pray tell, is Mr. S’s message?” Nora asked, already dreading whatever message Søren decided to pass on to her through an underling.

“He wanted me to ask you if you still had that note he left for you? The one that said ‘Do not open until instructed’?”

“Yes. I still have it. What about it?”

“He said you still can’t open it.”

Nora nodded. “Fine. Great. Wonderful. You can tell Mr. S that he can take his note and shove it up—”

“Nora?” Griffin called down to her. “Kiss Robin again. I want to get a pic.”

Nora rubbed her forehead. Long summer ahead. Too long.

Nora shook Robin’s hand goodbye, a move that led to booing from the peanut gallery at the top of the steps. Robin got into the Rolls and drove off, leaving Nora alone with a timid teenage boy and a horny Griffin.

Looking up at the blue sky above her, Nora sent up a quick prayer to St. Mary Magdalen, patron saint of ex-prostitutes, and St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes. Her prayer consisted of one word.

“Help.”

Suzanne took a deep breath and whispered one word to herself—”Afghanistan.”

An odd mantra, but it worked for her. She’d been in Afghanistan for the past three months, and in that desolate, broken country, she’d eaten fear and slept with courage. Lieutenant Hatton, the handsome Texan who always called her Red—IED took his right arm. Staff Sergeant Zimmerman, the New York Jew who couldn’t stop flirting with her—a bullet to the sternum. And Private First Class Goran, the shy North Dakotan with a one-year-old daughter back home—a bullet to the brain. His own.

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