[English] The Siren

The Siren
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“That is not what I’m implying. But when you market yourself as a *** object, it can’t come as a shock when someone decides you can be bought.”

“Bought?” she scoffed and met Zach’s eyes. She looked at him so coldly he was almost afraid of her. “I can’t be bought, Zach. And even if I could I’m out of your price range.”

“Nora—” he said, trying to apologize.

Lex opened the door with Wesley right behind him. Nora raced across the room and ran straight into Wesley’s arms.

“You okay, kid?” She ran her hand over him as if checking him for injuries.

“I’m fine. The cops have him. He’s apparently a Bellevue resident off his meds.”

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Nah,” Wesley said. “He went down hard, fast and easy.”

“Sounds like one of my characters,” she said, wrapping her arms around Wesley.

Zach met Wesley’s eyes from across the room. His voice had been glib with Nora, but Zach could see the sheer panic written across the boy’s face.

“Come on. We’re going home,” Wesley said, letting Nora go.

“Home? That’s ridiculous. All those people are out there. We’ve got to finish the signing.”

“No, Nora.” Wesley’s voice was stern and intractable. For a moment Wesley seemed older than Nora. “We’ve got to give the cops a statement and then we’re going home. You can finish the signing when Lex gets some more security in here.” Lex voiced his agreement with Wesley, and Nora promised she’d reschedule as soon as possible.

“That guy didn’t hurt you, did he?” Wesley asked as he opened the door for Nora.

Nora stopped and looked back at Zach. Zach stomach’s flinched from the look of pure pain in Nora’s eyes.

“No worries, Wes. Just sticks and stones. It’s the words that hurt.”

13

Zach returned to his flat after the book-signing but found himself unable to concentrate on work. All he could do was replay Nora’s words in his head. “I can’t be bought, Zach…” It didn’t take long to realize how unconscionably he’d acted. A fan had attacked Nora, and he had blamed the victim.

He checked the time—still only five o’clock. He couldn’t spend the rest of the day agonizing over Nora. Racing from his building he made only one stop on the way to the train station. He stood on Nora’s porch trying to collect his words. He wanted to have them just right so when he said he was sorry she would know he meant it. But he knew something would change between them if he crossed her threshold for any other reason but her book. Zach took a step toward the door but it opened before he could knock. Wesley was standing there with a sardonic half smile on his face.

“Nora told me to let you in. She said you were starting to look a little cold.”

“May I see her please?”

Wesley took a step back and let Zach enter.

“In her office,” Wesley said. “She’s writing.”

Zach followed Wesley to the office and remembered how very different things were just three weeks ago. He’d come here determined to be rid of Nora and her book. Now here he was ready to beg for another chance to make their partnership work.

Before they reached the door to Nora’s office, Wesley stopped and turned to him.

“You know, your opinion means more to her than anything,” Wesley said. “I came home today after the signing and came pretty close to throwing up. She just went into her office and got back to work.”

Zach nodded, humbled by this nineteen-year-old child.

“I’ve come to apologize if she’ll let me.”

“She’ll let you. Maybe she shouldn’t, but she’ll let you.”

Wesley knocked on Nora’s office door and entered without waiting for her response.

“Nor? Got a minute?” Wesley asked. Nora was at her desk in black silk men’s style pajamas. Her hair was piled high on her head and held up with two ballpoint pens serving as chopsticks. She was typing away furiously, not even stopping to look at them.

“What are you still doing here, Wes? I thought you had something at church tonight.”

“Yeah, I’m supposed to help chaperone the middle school retreat this weekend,” Wesley said, walking around the desk to stand behind her chair. “But I’m not going to leave you alone after today—”

“Yes, you are. You just go and keep those kids from making out in the coat closet. ***ual repression must begin as early as possible. Go, Wes. You deserve a night off from my dramas.”

“Are you sure?” Wesley put his hands on Nora’s shoulders and tilted her chair back toward him. She leaned her head against his stomach and looked up at him.

“Yes. Go. Have fun. You’ve earned it.”

“If you let me go, I’m going to eat pizza,” he warned her and smiled down at her.

“One slice,” she said, raising her arm and waving her index finger in his face. “One.”

“What if it’s thin crust? That’s low carb.”

“Hmm…” Nora held up a second finger. “Two. But no more than two.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be home tomorrow morning. Zach?” Zach turned to face Wesley who was looking at him with determination. “You’ll keep an eye on Nora tonight, right?”

“Wes, I’m fine,” Nora said. “You were in the hospital last week. I have survived much scarier **** than what happened today.”

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“Yeah, well, I haven’t,” Wes said. He touched Nora’s shoulder and she laid her head briefly against his hand. Wesley’s touch and Nora’s response was light and chaste, but Zach felt he’d witnessed something very private between them. “I’ll see you later.”

“Be safe,” she said. “It may snow again tonight.”

Wesley left them alone and Nora returned to her typing. Zach didn’t wait for an invitation that was likely not forthcoming. He sat in the armchair across from her desk and watched her. He heard the house door open and close and Wesley’s car start and back out of the driveway.

“Nora, will you please look at me?”

“I can’t. I’m working. I’ve only got three weeks to get the last three hundred pages out of the gutter.”

“The rewrite is in fantastic shape. I think you’ve earned a night off, too,” Zach said.

Nora stopped typing. She swiveled in her chair to face him. She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs.

“Can I tell you something?” she asked.

“Anything, of course.”

“My books,” she began, and Zach saw the bright shadow of a tear forming in her eyes turning them from black to green, “are the only thing I do that isn’t selling myself. No, it’s not even something I do—it’s what I am. And no one can buy that part of me. Not you, not Royal, not some psychotic ass**le who thinks my books are letters written straight to him.”

“I’m sorry, Nora. I didn’t mean to blame you for that madman’s behavior today. I haven’t been scared like that in a long time. I just took my fear out on you since Wesley beat me to the person who actually deserved it.”

Nora stared past him and seemed to watch something only she could see. Whatever it was, it brought a faint, sad smile to her face.

“You know I didn’t start writing books until after I left Søren. I could barely get out of bed that first month. I thought I was losing my mind. Some days I thought I was dying. I started creating worlds in my head, other people, other lives. I slipped out of my skin and into theirs, and while I was there I wasn’t grieving anymore. I was feeling what they were feeling. Writing resurrected me, Zach. Trust me, I know what it feels like to sell yourself. Writing my books is the opposite of selling myself. Do you believe that?”

Zach swallowed.

“Yes, I believe that.” He met her eyes.

“Okay,” she said. “We’re okay. I could have told you all this over the phone, you know.”

“I know. But you pegged me as a Scouser the day we met. So I thought I’d say ‘I’m sorry’ the way a Scouser does.”

“And how is that?”

Zach reached inside his trench coat and brought out a brown paper bag. From it he pulled a bottle of Irish whiskey and set it in front of her on her desk.

“Interesting,” she said eyeing the bottle.

“What is?”

Nora opened the bottom drawer of her desk and brought out two shot glasses and placed them next to the bottle.

“How much Catholics and Scousers have in common.”

Zach stared at her across her desk and suddenly found himself doing something he hadn’t done in a very long time—he laughed loudly and freely and it felt so foreign and wonderful that if he’d been braver, he might have kissed Nora right then and there.

Standing, Zach reached for the bottle. But Nora beat him to it. She held it in her hand and gave him the most dangerous smile he’d ever seen.

“Zach…let’s play a game.”

It took five minutes before Zach regretted coming to Nora’s.

“Truth or drink?” Zach asked as he shed his coat. “You will recall I’m in my forties.”

“There’s no age limit on alcohol-induced stupi***y,” Nora countered. “And this is an easy game. I ask a question and either you answer it or you take a shot. Same rules for me. Whoever gets the drunkest loses, or wins, depending on your mood.”

“This game is hardly fair. You are far more forthcoming than any other person I’ve ever met.” Zach tossed his coat over the back of Nora’s armchair.

Nora leaned forward across her desk.

“Trust me, Easton. You’ve got secrets you want to keep. I’ve got secrets I have to keep. I think we’re pretty evenly matched here.”

“Is that so?” he asked, his curiosity piqued. “Let’s find out then.”

“Game on,” Nora said. “You go first.”

Zach knew his first question immediately. “I’ll ask you the question you didn’t answer today—who is, excuse me, was Ellie?”

“Ellie was me once upon a time. My mother and friends always called me Elle or Ellie. Søren, being rather formal, calls me Eleanor. I was born Eleanor Schreiber.”

“A German Catholic then. This poor Jew is even more intimidated. So Nora Sutherlin is your pen name?”

“It’s the name I work under, yes,” she said, and Zach thought he saw a shadow of one of her secrets cross her face. “But that’s two questions. My turn—why did your wife leave you? Or was it you who left her?”

Zach leaned forward, poured his whiskey and took a shot. He swallowed a cough as the liquor burned his throat and stomach all the way down. He hadn’t done any hard drinking in a long time. He was afraid if he started he would never stop. Here with Nora he still felt as if he was at a funeral but now at least it was a jazz funeral.

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“Fair enough,” Nora said. “Your turn.”

“On the subject of our respective exes, why did you leave your mysterious and formal Søren?”

Nora seemed to think about it. She reached forward, poured her shot and downed it.

“Søren’s off-limits,” she said. “More for his sake than mine. My turn to ask—are you going to sign my contract?”

“Honest answer, I don’t know.” Zach worried Nora would be hurt by his reticence. “It’s going well, better than I’d hoped. But there’s still a great deal of work to do on it. And I never know if I like a book until I’ve read the last page. The ending makes or breaks every book. I hope that doesn’t upset you.”

“Water off a drunk’s back.” Nora raised her shot glass to him in a salute. “Your turn.”

“Why is Søren such a secret?”

Nora smirked at him and downed her whiskey without the hint of a cough or discomfort.

“You’re trying to get me drunk. I appreciate that. I will tell you this—I highly doubt Søren is a secret for the same reason your wife, ex-wife, whatever, is.”

“Who is also off-limits.”

“Let’s forget wives then. How about lovers? Ever had a threesome?”

“There’s no warm-up here, is it? It’s just straight for the jugular.”

“I’m known for my directness, gorgeous. Answer or drink.”

“The answer,” Zach said, “is that I’m going to drink.”

Nora hooted with laughter.

“I’ll take that as a yes then,” she said as Zach swallowed hard and set his shot glass down with an emphatic clink.

“It is a yes, but I wanted the whiskey anyway.”

“My kind of guy. Who, what, where, when, and can you draw me a picture?”

Zach leaned back in the armchair and felt the heat from the drink and the memory quickly rushing to his head.

“I will admit I barely remember the evening. It was when I was at university, as a student not a professor, and I was at a birthday party. I believe there was some Irish whiskey involved in that night, as well. I was seeing a young lady, and her rather liberated flatmate decided to join us in bed after the party. Lovely girls, both of them. One’s married to an M.P. now.”

“I’m jealous,” she said. She left her chair and crawled up onto her desk and sat on top of it cross-legged. “I’ve never had a threesome with two other women. All of mine have been with one man and one woman. Or two men.” She looked down at him and winked.

“Can’t believe there’s anything you haven’t done. Is there anything else?”

“One or two things. Keep asking, you might find out what they are.”

Zach knew she expected a question about her *** life. He decided to try a different approach.

“Apart from the occasional heroic rescue you don’t really seem to need the services of a live-in personal assistant. Why did you ask Wesley to move in?”

Nora blinked and reached for her shot. Her hand pulled back and she met Zach’s eyes.

“Wesley… That kid blew my mind from day one. He was so damn sweet. I’m not around sweet people very often. When I had him in class I found myself doing something I hadn’t done in a long time.”

“What was that?”

“Smiling. I’d been working so much, living a pretty hard life. Wes was the opposite of me in so many ways—soft where I was hard. Probably hard where I’m soft, too.” She laughed again. “He made me feel human again…like the kind of person who could stay up too late watching stupid movies and talking. I’d forgotten how to be normal, or maybe I never knew how. My life got weird at a pretty young age and it’s been weird ever since. But Wes came along and suddenly I had another reason to get out of bed in the morning besides money.”

“Are you in love with him?” Zach asked.

“That’s two questions,” Nora said, wagging a finger at him. She downed her shot. “That wasn’t me admitting to being in love with the kid. That was me being driven to drink yet again by that twerp.”

“Frustrating roommate, I imagine.”

“Very. No one that ***y should be that off-limits. I could say the same about you.”

“I’m your e***or, Nora. I don’t think we should be involved,” Zach said, squirming a little in his seat. “J.P. would kill us both.”

“You’re not scared of J.P. and we both know it. It’s me you’re scared of—why?”

Zach gave the question some thought. The three shots had gone quickly to his head on his empty stomach. He felt light-headed and warm. He knew Nora deserved an answer no matter how badly he didn’t want to tell her.

He picked up his shot glass.

“Again, I’ll answer. But not without some liquid fortification,” he said and took his drink. He bent over for a moment and breathed. He looked up and saw Nora looking down at him, waiting patiently. “You’re beautiful enough and wild enough that you make me think things I never thought I would think again and feel things I didn’t think I’d ever feel again. And you make me afraid I’ll start forgetting things I don’t ever want to forget. You’re dangerous.”

She nodded her head and didn’t look flattered.

“You’re not the first man who’s called me that. When I was sixteen, Søren told me that there were suicide bombers on the Gaza Strip who were less dangerous than I was. At that age, I took it as a compliment.”

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“Were you engaged in domestic terrorism at the time?”

“No, I told him I knew he was in love with me. That was his response.”

“You were sixteen. How old was he?”

“Thirty.”

“I thought Søren was off-limits for discussion.”

“He was. But I’m getting drunk fast and have very little self-control under the best of circumstances. You could get Søren ten times as ****-faced as we’re getting and he’d still have the self-control of a desert father.”

“He must not be that disciplined if he made love to you at such a young age.”

“Young age? That bastard made me wait until I was twenty years old, Zach. You are sitting in the office of probably the most famous erotica writer since Anaïs Nin and she’s telling you that she didn’t lose her virginity until she was twenty,” Nora said and shook her head.

“I’m aghast. Why so long?”

“If he just wanted *** he would have taken me on day one, I have no doubt. But with D/s couples, the *** is the least of it. He wanted obedience, total submission. Keeping me a virgin waiting for him for so long proved he owned me even more than f**king me would have. He was also preparing me for everything he had planned. SM is not for children or the faint of heart. He had to wait to make sure I was neither. My question now—how old were you?”

Zach stared at her. She reached out and he handed her his shot glass. She refilled it and handed it back.

“Younger than twenty,” he said and raised his glass to drink.

Nora cleared her throat and waved her hand in a “give it up” gesture. Zach put his glass down.

“Oh, very well, I was thirteen,” Zach said and had a sudden memory of running off into the trees behind his school with his best mate’s pretty older sister and coming out ten minutes later with a smile on his face.

“Holy ****,” Nora said, laughing. “Good thing Wes is watching those middle school kids tonight.”

“She was only fourteen and while it was a rather awkward and quick affair, it was hardly traumatizing or particularly scandalous.”

“My first time was orchestrated and took all night, and I could barely move for a week after. I guess since I put Søren back up for discussion, we can talk about your wife.”

“Not drunk enough for that.”

“Well, keep drinking and at least tell me why it’s so hard for you to talk about her.”

While they’d been talking, the sun had set. Zach sipped at his whiskey while Nora flipped on her desk lamp. Warm light suffused the dark room and cast amber shadows everywhere he looked. Turning his head, Zach saw his reflection in the window. But he didn’t see himself. He saw the door behind him and the door opened and in the doorway stood Grace who should have been anywhere in the world but standing in his doorway…

“Talking about how it ended, why it ended…it feels too much like it ended. And I don’t know if I’m ready for that, Nora. I’m sorry.”

“I understand not wanting something to be over. Can you at least tell me how it began?”

Zach tapped his knee with his half-empty shot glass.

“It began very badly. I would say we were doomed from the start.”

Nora slid off her desk and sank to the floor in front of him. He thought it looked like an excellent idea. He joined her on the floor and leaned back against the chair.

He watched Nora take down the whiskey bottle and pour another shot.

“That year after I left Søren, I became obsessed with one question—when was it, when were we, irrevocable? When did all the little tumblers fall into place and our fate was locked in and it became impossible for us to be anything other than what we became? When was the guilty moment?”

“Did you find your answer?”

Nora shook her head. “Never. I suppose doom and destiny are just two sides of the same coin.”

“I don’t have to ask or wonder. I know my guilty moment. But you left your lover and mine left me. You could go back to yours, couldn’t you?”

“Zach, Søren isn’t some boyfriend you have a fight with and then kiss and make up. He’s the invading army you surrender to before it burns your village down.”

“He sounds even more dangerous than you are.”

“He is. By far. He’s also the best man I’ve ever known. Tell me about Grace. What’s she like?”

Zach paused before answering. How could he describe his wife to anyone? To him Grace was the open arms he fell into when he crawled into bed at 2:00 a.m. after staying up reading a new manuscript. She was the laughing water thief in the shower at least one morning a week. She was the quiet comfort and the hand he’d been unable to let go of at his mother’s funeral three years ago. Unable to get the words past his throat, Grace had taken his notes from his hand and read his eulogy for him. She was every evening and every morning and every night, and during the day when they were apart he was always happy knowing evening and night and morning were coming again.

“Grace is…well-named. She’s intelligent, far smarter than I. A poet and a schoolteacher,” Zach said as the alcohol swirled around his head. “She has red hair and the most perfect freckles I’ve ever seen on a woman.” Zach closed his eyes. The first time he’d seen her completely naked when they’d made love in his bed the first time, he’d almost stopped breathing. “Even on her back all the way to her hips…the most perfect dusting of freckles.”

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“Freckles? That’s just ruthless, isn’t it?”

“Merciless. No woman that beautiful should also have freckles.” Zach laughed mirthlessly. “She would lie across my lap in the evenings and read her obscure Welsh poets while I worked on a manuscript. Once she fell asleep on my lap. I used my red pen to connect all the freckles on her lower back. She was livid. We laughed for days about it.”

“You had a good marriage. What happened?”

Zach stared at Nora. She sat two feet away from him but it seemed an ocean of truth and lies and memories lay between them. He held out his shot glass. She refilled it with a shaky hand. Zach drank the whiskey and enjoyed the burn all the way down.

“This is a terrible game.” He closed his eyes and leaned back against the chair.

“I know a better one.”

Something in Nora’s voice sobered him up momentarily. He opened his eyes and Nora now sat even closer to him. She had something behind her back.

Zach reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. He raised his hand to her hair, pulled the ink pens out and watched the dark curls fall around her face.

“How long has it been?” Nora asked, her voice soft and insinuating.

“Thirteen months.” He didn’t have to ask what Nora meant by her question. He didn’t have to think before he answered it.

“How long’s it been for Grace?”

Zach took a hard breath.

“Less than thirteen months. Friday…she emailed me. Bill questions, addresses, all sorts of marital flotsam. She casually mentioned some bloke named Ian.”

Nora winced.

“How casually?”

“Not casually enough for me to not picture them in bed together. It’s my own fault. When we decided there was a chance our marriage was going to work—we made each other promise no secrets and no lies. I told her I could get over anything, even straying, as long as she didn’t lie to me about it. I hate lying more than anything.” Zach shook his head. “Here we are eight months separated and she still can’t lie to me about anything, damn that girl.”

Zach looked at Nora and saw something flash across her eyes, some secret worry of her own.

“I’m sorry,” Nora said and Zach could tell she meant it. Zach ran a single finger over Nora’s forehead and down her face. With his thumb he caressed her full bottom lip.

“Thank you. So what’s the new game? This one’s about to drive me to quit drinking.”

“Perish the thought. Ever played ‘I’ve never’?”

“I’ve never played I’ve never.” Zach knew he was as drunk now as he’d been in a long time.

“Fun game. Very easy. I say something I’ve never done, and if you’ve actually done it then you take a shot.”

“What haven’t you done?”

“A few things. For example, I’ve never…” She leaned in toward him. She moved close enough he could smell her perfume and even taste it on his burning tongue, close enough to feel the heat radiating from her body. “I’ve never let an erotica writer handcuff me to her desk and go down on me.”

Something caught in Zach’s throat. He looked into Nora’s eyes and felt the foundations of his resolve shudder. He’d never let a woman handcuff him and do anything to him. But tonight…he looked down at his shot glass.

“Never done that. Never will.”

“You sure about that?” Nora stared him down. He reached out to touch her knee, and she slapped the handcuffs on his right wrist. “Look familiar? I thought we should put your prankster’s gift to good use at least once.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“And you’re so turned on right now you can hardly breathe. Your pupils are dilated, your skin is flushed, and it’s not from the whiskey and we both know it.”

Zach met her eyes and said nothing.

“Thirteen months, Zach. You don’t need to be afraid of me anymore.”

He had a vague memory of standing on Nora’s porch thinking that if he crossed her threshold tonight for any reason other than her book everything would change between them. Zach took the shot glass in his hand. He looked down at the amber liquid and then back into Nora’s eyes. Raising the glass to his lips, he downed his shot. He watched a grin spread ear to ear across Nora’s face. For a single moment she was all smiles.

“Good boy.”

For someone he thought was as drunk as he, Nora moved with a swiftness and precision that almost terrified him. She pushed him on his back, yanked his arms over his head and cuffed his wrists around the leg of her desk. Straddling him at the stomach, Nora unbuttoned her black silk pajama top and let it slide off her arms. He felt the wisp of silk brush his face before she threw it aside and on top of his coat. Under her shirt she wore a black bra that revealed far more than it concealed. He couldn’t take his eyes off her curves, off her pale skin and shoulders.

Nora slid her hands under his T-shirt. Her hands on his bare skin sent every nerve firing. She bent over and kissed the center of his stomach. Unzipping his jeans, she worked them down low enough to expose the top of his hips. Zach inhaled sharply when she bit his hip bone.

“Nora—”

Nora rose up and covered his lips with one finger.

“Søren used to call me his Siren,” she whispered, bending over him until she hovered an inch away from his face. “He said the things I did with my mouth could blow any man off course. Don’t you want to know what he meant by that?”

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Zach didn’t answer but Nora didn’t seem to care. She started at his neck and kissed her way down his body. A soft sigh escaped his lips as she took him in her mouth. Not even all that alcohol could blunt the pleasure of what her tongue, her lips did to him. Her hair covered her face like a veil. The tendrils of her curls tickled his stomach.

So long…it had been so long since he’d felt something so intense, so sharp that he could almost mistake the pleasure for pain. Zach ached to touch Nora but when he tried he remembered the handcuffs.

“Relax, Zach. Just enjoy.” Nora paused to kiss his stomach again. “Your only job right now is *****rrender.”

Surrender? He’d forgotten how. He took a deep breath and laid his head back as she kept working on him. Pressure built deep in his hips.

“Nora,” he gasped a warning that she didn’t heed. He flinched hard and came with a ragged breath. Through the haze of alcohol and orgasm he saw Nora sit up on his thighs. She picked up the whiskey, poured it and downed him and the shot in one swallow.

She looked down at him.

“I love a whiskey chaser.”

* * *

Zach opened his eyes and immediately regretted the decision. He closed them again when he realized he wasn’t in his flat. He was still at Nora’s.

With grave reservations, Zach dragged himself to a sitting position. The movement jarred his already ringing skull and had the unfortunate side effect of jarring his memory into recalling last night’s events. Nora and he had… No, almost. Zach leaned back and rested his aching eyes. Shame flooded his system when he remembered how he’d succumbed to her and let her… God, he let his writer go down on him.

Zach opened his eyes again and looked around. He sat fully dressed and on Nora’s living-room sofa, not in her bedroom. Where she was he had no idea. He stood and wandered to her office but she was nowhere to be seen. He picked up her phone and called for a taxi to take him to the train station. He hung up and found the downstairs bathroom. On the mirror Nora had taped a note—“Morning, Sunshine,” it read. “Catholics-1, Scousers-0.” Zach ripped the note off the mirror and tossed it in the wastebasket. He noticed she’d left a toothbrush out for him and a bottle of aspirin. He made quick use of both. When he opened the medicine cabinet door to return the aspirin to the shelf, his eyes caught Nora’s name on a pill bottle. He knew he was being shamefully nosy but he couldn’t stop himself from squinting his aching eyes to read the label. Why on earth, Zach wondered, would Nora take a beta-blocker, the same drug his father had to take for his heart trouble? Zach couldn’t believe someone who seemed as alive and vibrant as Nora could have such a serious health problem. With a shaking hand, Zach returned the bottle to the cabinet and shut the door.

Stumbling from the bathroom, Zach heard a noise coming from the direction of the kitchen. Every part of him wanted to grab his coat and leave before anyone noticed he’d awoken. But he knew he’d have to face the morning-after awkwardness sooner or later. And after finding that terrifying pill bottle, he had to see Nora and make sure she was well.

He found Nora and Wesley bustling about the kitchen attempting to cook breakfast in a manner that appeared more combative than collaborative.

“Jesus H. Christ, Wesley,” Nora said with feigned anger. “Cheese omelets have to have cheese or they’re just flat scrambled eggs.”

“Woman, Wisconsin is out of cheese now because of your omelet.” Wesley smacked her hand as she tried to put more cheese on the eggs. “Set the table and stop being a backseat chef.”

Nora took plates out of the cabinet and Zach winced at the clattering sound of the ceramic dishes knocking against each other.

“Could we possibly use paper plates?” he asked as he stepped into the kitchen. “They’re quieter.”

Nora turned and smiled at him. He saw nothing in the smile but friendliness and concern. Had he imagined what happened between them last night?

“Morning, Zach. How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Coffee,” he said. “Please.”

“Coffee. I know that feeling well.” Nora poured him a cup of black coffee, which he took with gratitude. “We’re having breakfast for lunch. You should join us.”

“You okay, Zach?” Wesley asked. He stood with his back to the stove with a frying pan and a spatula in his hand. “You look like you’ve been rode hard and put up wet.”

Nora snorted a laugh.

“What?” Wesley asked.

“It’s a horse thing.”

“Of course it is.” She flashed a wicked grin at Zach as soon as Wesley turned his back. Dammit, he hadn’t imagined last night at all.

“I’m fine,” Zach said, answering Wesley’s question. “Hungover and disgusted Nora isn’t.”

“She was puking her guts out when I got home at eight this morning,” Wesley said, and Nora threw a napkin at him. Wesley batted it away with his spatula. “I think you both need a sermon on the wages of sin.”

“No sermons, please. Just greasy food,” Nora begged.

“Can you stomach an omelet, Zach?” Wesley asked.

Zach forced his eyes to focus on Wesley. He had a dish towel thrown over his shoulder as he stirred his eggs with expertise.

“I’m not sure I can eat anything…for the next week. The coffee is fine, thank you.”

“What were you two doing last night? Trying to be Hemingway or Faulkner?” Wesley asked.

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“I was going more for Oscar Wilde,” Nora said. Zach looked up at her and she winked. “He was…Irish.”

Wesley didn’t seem to pick up her double meaning. He merely slid the omelet onto Nora’s plate and sat down to his own.

“Whatever we were doing was clearly a bad idea and will not happen again,” Zach said.

The smile fell out of Nora’s eyes. She started toying with her omelet.

Wesley took a healthy bite of his breakfast.

“I can make toast or—”

A blaring ring that seemed to originate from the top of the refrigerator interrupted Wesley’s question.

“Good God, what is that?” The sound bored a hole into Zach’s head.

Nora and Wesley exchanged a look. Nora stood and grabbed a red cell phone off the top of her refrigerator and silenced the ringer. Before she answered she checked the number.

“****. It’s not King.” She looked at Wesley with something like fear in her face, more fear than she’d shown yesterday at the book-signing. Zach saw the same fear mirrored in Wesley’s eyes.

“Is it—” Wesley asked, and Nora nodded.

She took a quick, deep breath.

“Yes, sir?” she said, finally answering the phone.

Wesley stood up slowly and started to walk to the door.

“Wes?” Nora said and Zach heard a quaver in her voice.

“What?” Wesley turned around to face her.

“It’s Søren.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Nora looked ghost-pale.

“I mean, it’s Søren for you. He wants to talk to you.”

Wesley’s eyes widened in shock. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Just talk to him, please.”

Wesley took the phone from her with obvious reluctance.

“Hello,” Wesley said and Zach winced with sympathy at the pain in the boy’s voice.

Nora stood with her arms crossed and leaned back against the counter. Wesley listened a moment and walked out of the kitchen, out of earshot.

“What on earth is that about?” Zach asked.

“I don’t know.” Nora seemed genuinely concerned.

“Søren and Wesley chat often?”

“No, they’ve never met, never spoken. Wes hates Søren.” Nora sat down at the table again. After what seemed like an eternity but what was probably only a minute or two, Wesley returned to the kitchen. He handed the red phone back to Nora.

“What did he want, Wes?” Nora asked.

Zach studied Wesley’s face. The boy looked flushed and fearful.

“He thanked me.”

“Thanked you for what?” she asked.

“For pulling that guy off you yesterday. He said that as he was no longer in a position to protect you, he was grateful you had someone who was seeing to your safety.”

Nora laughed a little.

“That sounds like him. What did you say?”

“I said ‘you’re welcome.’ I didn’t know what else to say. Nora, how did he even know about what happened?”

“If it involves me, he knows.”

“Why did he call me?”

“Because he’s Søren,” she said. “And he was grateful to you. That simple.”

“I didn’t pull that guy away from you for him, Nora. I did it for you.”

“I know you did. But Søren—”

“He still thinks he owns you, doesn’t he?”

“He still loves me.”

Wesley turned away from Nora. He picked up his plate and dumped his uneaten omelet in the trash bin. He looked back at Nora on his way out of the kitchen.

“I thought he was in your past,” Wesley said, and Zach saw the twin demons of sorrow and jealously in Wesley’s expression.

“I can’t help it if he doesn’t want to stay there,” Nora said.

Wesley left, and Nora started playing with her food again. She didn’t take a single bite.

“Nora, are you all right?”

Nora stood up and let her breakfast join Wesley’s in the trash.

“Come on, Zach. I’ll take you home.” Nora held out her hand.

Zach looked at her hand but didn’t take it.

“I’ve called a cab.”

14

William pushed her onto her back and forced her arms over her head. He’d done this so many times he didn’t even have to think about how much strength to exert to keep her down with one arm while his free hand bound her wrists to the bedpost. He pulled the knot taut but not tight enough that it would cut off the circulation to her hands. He would hurt her and hurt her but he would cut off his own arm before he harmed her. Looking down, he saw her face turn to the window. Sunlight poured in and turned her eyes and her pale hair white as the feathers of a dove. A soft gasp across her lips as he pushed slowly into her. Her head tilted back and a sob escaped her throat.

He pulled out of her and she dragged her knees to her chest and rolled onto her side, her arms still pinned over her head.

“I don’t know,” she answered the question he hadn’t been able to ask. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Talk to me, Caroline. What is it?”

“I don’t know,” she said again. She took a deep breath and then another. She slowly rolled onto her back again. “We don’t have to stop.”

He leaned forward and untied her wrists and gathered her into his arms. The gesture seemed to release whatever was tied up inside her. Sobbing, she collapsed against his chest.

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Pulling her as close to him as he could without crushing her, he said the three words that most terrified him.

“Maybe we do…”

Nora stopped typing and stretched her hands and wrists. She was tempted to delete everything she’d just written. It felt like melodrama to her. But then again most relationships falling apart often genuinely degenerated into melodrama. There was no dignity in grief, a truth she knew all too well. After leaving Søren she’d turned into a ghost for almost a year. It wasn’t until she grew bored and disgusted with her own sorrow, the days spent half-sick on dirty sheets, that she picked up a pen and started jotting down sentences—sentences that turned into paragraphs that turned into pages and pages of demons she exorcised out of her own soul. Still she hadn’t been able to get her life back together. It wasn’t until her mother had laid down the final ultimatum—get up or get out. For once Nora listened to her mother. She’d done both. She’d humbled herself at the feet of Kingsley Edge, the King of the Underground and Søren’s oldest friend. She’d do anything, she told him, just so she could afford her own place to write and grieve in peace.

“Anything, chérie?” he’d asked her. “Anything at all?”

“Just a job, King. I’ll ****tail waitress at the club, I’ll mop floors…I don’t care.”

He’d laughed and stared her down. Her years with Søren had taught her to never meet a Dominant’s eyes unless ordered. But that day she had. She looked at him and knew that in her eyes shone all the hurt and desperation that a year of hell had hammered into her like armor.

“Non,” he’d said, taking her chin in his hands. He’d smiled then, and she knew she was in the biggest trouble of her life. “Not a waitress, not a maid. No more serving for you. I have a much better idea… .”

“Nor?”

Nora turned her head and saw Wesley standing in the doorway to her office.

“Hey, kiddo. Sorry, I was in another world. What’s up?”

“Nothing. How’s the book coming?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Did Zach like the new chapters you sent him?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him in a couple of days.”

Wesley came into her office and sat down in her armchair. He studied her, and she hated the intelligence behind those brown eyes. She should have hired a stupid intern.

“Saturday night…something happened between you two, didn’t it?”

“We didn’t f**k, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“You worry too much. I’m fine. The book’s coming along fine.”

He stood up and looked at her. She met his eyes and smiled. She never had to lie to him as long as she could still smile. Poor kid bought it every time.

“All right, I’m going to Josh’s. I’ll see you later.”

“Study hard. Learn all those quadratics and isotopes and such.”

“You really were an English major, weren’t you?”

“And an English minor,” she reminded him as she shooed him out of the office. Standing up, she paced the floor, grateful for her solitude. She looked at her office phone. It hadn’t rung all day, or yesterday, or the day before. Zach hadn’t spoken to her since Sunday when he’d given her an awkward goodbye and climbed into a cab. She kept emailing him her pages. He’d send them back with comments and suggestions but no personal notes, no encouragements, no insults, nothing. She handed fistfuls of her heart while he circled her comma splices.

Nora turned away from her black office phone and found her red cell phone. She hit the number eight, the only number she had programmed into her speed dial.

“Oh là là,” Kingsley said in his usual seductive drawl, “clearly reports of your demise have been greatly exaggerated. Or am I talking to a ghost?”

“You’re talking to Mistress f**king Nora and I’m bored and pissed off.”

“Your usual sunny self then. How can I assist you?”

“Who’s on my waiting list?”

“Tout le monde, maîtresse. Absolutely everyone.”

“Pick somebody and set it up.”

“Mais bien sûr, ma chérie. I’ll call you back in five.”

In less than five minutes King called back with a name, a place and a time—one hour from now.

Nora ran to her bedroom and threw open her closet. She pulled out her client’s favorite costume—her tailored white Marlene Dietrich suit. She adjusted the pale blue suspenders, threw on the jacket and stood in front of the mirror tying her tie.

“Nor?”

“****.” Nora turned around to find Wesley in her bedroom looking pale and cold. “Thought you had study group.”

“I ran off without my notes,” he said with a tremor in his voice. “I came back for them. Nora—”

“Save it. I need a night off.”

She grabbed her matching white fedora but didn’t put it on. Finding her coat and her keys, she headed for the front door.

“Nora, you said everything was fine.”

“It is fine,” Nora said at the door.

“Please, please be safe.” His voice caught in his throat.

“Don’t worry, kid. She’s five-two and a hundred pounds. I can take her. And I will.” She rolled the hat up her arm and set it on her head. “Don’t wait up.”

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Nora made good time to the club and parked in her usual spot. She checked her coat and took the secret entrance in the coat closet that led downstairs. At the last door on the left she paused and took a breath. She opened the door and couldn’t suppress a smile at the sight that greeted her.

“Sheridan…” Nora nearly purred the girl’s name as she entered her room at the club. Sheridan lay stretched out on Nora’s bed wearing nothing but a white lacy garter and a smile. Nora snapped her fingers and Sheridan came up on her knees at the edge of the bed.

In the beginning Kingsley had taught Nora the rules of being a paid Dominant. He was no pimp and never allowed his employees to have *** with clients on his time clock.

Rule number one, he’d intoned in his erotic French accent. Do not kiss your clients. They may kiss you…but only on the toe of your boot.

“Hello, Mistress.”

Nora cupped Sheridan’s face in her hand and gave her a long, thorough kiss. Sheridan tasted of strawberries and Nora breathed into her lips. Kingsley and his rules were powerless against the petite blonde beauty of Sheridan Stratford, star of Empire City, the number one drama on television. Only twenty-three, Sheridan had been a client of Nora’s for two years now. She’d come running to Kingsley after four years of being unable to have an orgasm during vanilla ***. In her first session with Nora, Sheridan had climaxed five times.

Sheridan held on to Nora’s suspenders as Nora ran her hands from Sheridan’s shoulders down to her hips. Right now Sheridan’s skin was a pristine porcelain canvas waiting for Nora to mark it. But first…

Nora pushed Sheridan down and onto her back. With her knees Nora wrenched Sheridan’s thighs apart. Out in the real world, Sheridan had earned the moniker “America’s Sweetheart” because of her innocent blue-eyed beauty and sweet smile. In nearly every role she played a virgin. Virgin? Sheridan hadn’t been a virgin since age fourteen when her father’s best friend had turned her over his knee, spanked her and f**ked her right on her councilman father’s big oak desk. She’d developed an appetite for extreme ***, intense BDSM, and couldn’t orgasm unless submitting to a Dominant. Her father’s best friend had kept on his Armani business suit while deflowering Sheridan and now Sheridan had a delicious little fetish for men’s clothing.

With one hand Nora held Sheridan down by her throat while her mouth tasted the tips of Sheridan’s small but perfectly formed br**sts. Nora’s other hand slipped down Sheridan’s flat stomach and teased her already swollen clitoris.

“You started without me.” Nora met Sheridan’s eyes as she pushed two fingers into Sheridan’s wet body.

“Am I in trouble, mistress?”

Nora laughed, low and throaty.

“Do you want to be in trouble, little miss?”

Sheridan nodded humbly and smiled so sweetly it took everything Nora had in her not to kiss the smile right off her face.

“Yes, mistress,” she whispered and the smile remained.

Nora raised her hand and slapped it off instead.

Sheridan gasped as Nora grabbed her by the back of the neck; her fingers tangled in the girl’s blond hair, and she dragged her to the head of the bed. From under the bed, Nora pulled her famous red riding crop.

“Hands here,” Nora ordered and Sheridan came up on her knees and gripped the black metal headboard as instructed.

Nora found Sheridan’s clitoris again and kneaded it. In a few moments Sheridan started panting and pushing her hips into Nora’s hand.

“Pick a number between one and five,” Nora instructed, and Sheridan groaned. Poor little thing hated this game. Nora never revealed in advance what Sheridan was picking. One to five orgasms? One to five beatings?

Sheridan’s small hands twisted nervously on the black metal of the headboard.

“Five, mistress?” her worried voice replied.

“Five then, little miss.” Nora pulled her hand away from Sheridan. “Five welts.”

Sheridan released a moan of fear. A well-justified moan as Nora brought her crop down hard and swift between Sheridan’s shoulder blades. Another blow landed in the center of Sheridan’s back. Another on her lower back. Nora hit even harder on her bottom and hardest still on her thighs. With each strike, Sheridan cried out. It hurt. Of course it hurt. Sheridan didn’t love it until it hurt.

Nora dropped the crop and ran her hand down Sheridan’s welted back. She, like Søren, knew how to beat someone brutally without leaving marks. But Sheridan cherished her welts and bruises just as Nora once did. The public believed Sheridan didn’t do nude scenes because of modesty. Modesty? The girl once let four men f**k her in one night while Nora watched and directed the action. No, the only reason Sheridan kept her clothes on in public was because of what Nora did to her in private.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” Nora whispered as she traced a finger around a bright red slash on Sheridan’s back. Nora slid between Sheridan and the headboard. Once more she lightly sucked on Sheridan’s ni**les. With both hands, Nora opened up Sheridan’s wet folds and looked up at the gasping girl. “It wasn’t just five welts you were choosing.”

“No, mistress?”

“No…you also picked five fingers.”

Sheridan shuddered as Nora pushed first two, then three fingers into her. Nora considered pausing for lube but Sheridan was so wet right now, lube would be a moot point. A fourth finger followed. Finally Nora turned her hand and pushed her thumb into Sheridan and Sheridan cried out in shocked pleasure.

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“Don’t you dare, little miss,” Nora warned.

Sheridan’s breaths came in short bursts as she forced herself not to orgasm. Nora never let her come on her own…only on command.

Spreading her fingers, Nora pushed in deeper.

“Now,” Nora said as she lightly pinched Sheridan’s clitoris. The girl released a desperate gasp as her inner muscles spasmed wildly around Nora’s hand.

As Nora pulled out, Sheridan released a little whimper. It seemed such a crime to take Sheridan’s money for these sessions. Nora would pay good money herself just to hear that sound.

“I’m going to tell you another secret, little miss.” Nora gathered a fistful of Sheridan’s hair again and pulled her off the bed. She shoved Sheridan forward so the girl stood with her legs a foot apart and her hands on the bed.

“Yes, mistress?”

Nora gathered supplies before coming to stand at the opposite side of the bed. She threw down a crop, a flogger, a cane, a paddle and a whip—five implements of torture. Then she lay down in a straight line five vibrators of increasingly larger sizes.

“It wasn’t just five fingers, either,” Nora said as Sheridan started panting again in anticipation at the sight of all the pain ahead of her, all the pleasure.

“Mistress…” Sheridan breathed. “I only paid for an hour.”

Nora laughed.

Rule number two, maîtresse…give them everything they paid for and not a minute more.

Nora came back to Sheridan and caressed the girl’s trembling back, kissed her shivering shoulder.

“Shh…” Nora instructed as she ran a single finger down the side of Sheridan’s exquisite face. “What Kingsley doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Nora took off her jacket and tossed it aside. She reached for the cane and Sheridan whimpered.

That sound…worth every minute, worth every penny.

Before this night ended, she’d break Sheridan open—body and soul.

Some days Nora loved her job.

* * *

Several hours later Nora pulled up her suspenders and stuffed her tie in her pocket.

Sheridan still lay in bed, the sheet twisted around her hips leaving her petite back, scored with welts and bruises, bare to the eye.

“You did very well tonight, little miss,” Nora said. “A pleasure as always. Until next time.”

“Nora?” she said and Nora turned around. Sheridan sat up and pulled the covers primly up to her chest, an odd gesture considering the last three hours of *** and SM they’d shared.

“What’s up, Sher?” Nora sat on the bed next to the pale, small beauty.

“I don’t know if there’ll be a next time. I’m getting married.”

“Married? People still do that?”

Sheridan laughed. “God knows why, but yes.”

“You’ve told him—”

She nodded. “He says…he’ll try. We’re working on it. He won’t be as good as you, but then again who is?”

Nora smiled in agreement.

“I’ll miss you, beautiful.” Nora leaned forward and kissed the girl with a passion she rarely allowed herself to share with her clients. She pulled back and looked into Sheridan’s wide, tired eyes. “But you do what you have to do. Are you sure you have to do it?”

Sheridan shrugged and looked so small and sad that for a moment Nora hated the girl’s fiancé with an anger she usually reserved only for her fights with Søren.

“Can’t do this forever, can we?” she asked. “I mean, I have to have something in my life besides money and work and waiting for you to have a few hours for me. You’ve got your books, Nora. I want to have something like that, something that matters more than anything. Can you understand that?”

Nora nodded and didn’t say anything. She just pressed her forehead to Sheridan’s and rested it there. She kissed her quick on the forehead and stood up.

“Call me if he needs me to show him the ropes, little miss.”

Nora headed to the door.

“I’ll miss you, too, mistress.”

Nora turned around and doffed her hat like a matinee idol.

“Be a good girl,” Nora said and left before she changed her mind. “Or else.”

Sheridan stayed on her mind all the way home. Can’t do this forever, can we?

Nora went into her office and turned on the desk lamp. She threw her hat onto the armchair, turned on her computer and opened the working draft of her book.

She thought about Zach, how he’d told her in the beginning that he thought she’d fail. She wondered if a part of him still thought that. Part of her certainly still thought that. But she wouldn’t fail. She’d show Zach who she really was. Nora Sutherlin was a writer, a good writer. And once he finished the book and signed the contract then she could finally tell him she was a Dominatrix—an ex-Dominatrix by then.

She leaned back into her chair and yawned. She reread the scene she’d been working on earlier. Deciding she didn’t like it, she erased it and started over.

15

Zach pulled Nora’s latest chapter off his office printer and picked up his red pen. Skimming the lines, he rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. He needed to talk to Nora about the last few chapters she’d sent. They were going well, but he was afraid she was starting to lose her way again. She was obviously in love with her characters and wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. But her musings slowed the story down. He had to give it up and face her again. It had been five days since that night. He still couldn’t think of it without hating himself a little more each time he remembered how he’d been unable to stop himself from touching her face…her skin was so soft and warm…and how he wanted to see her hair down and loose…so he pulled out the pens and let it fall…and her voice seemed to get inside him and stoke a fire he thought he’d long ago extinguished.