[English] The Virgin

Author: Tiffany Reisz

2015
Scotland
“IT WAS A dark and stormy night,” Nora said as she came to stand next to Søren at the window. She gazed out on the summer storm tearing up the Scottish sky.
“Please tell me that isn’t the first line to your next book.”
“Oh, but it’s such a good first line. Classic even.” She tucked her hand into his and watched the light show with him. Wind and rain lashed the trees and the moors. A flash of lightning set the night afire for a split second and the hills revealed their colors before fading into black again. “How about this—‘It was a dark and stormy night in the castle, and a woman named Nora was determined to seduce her priest.’”
Søren smiled slightly.
“An improvement. A minor improvement.”
“Everyone’s a critic.” Nora squeezed his hand, and he lifted it to his lips for a kiss. He’d arrived this morning but she’d been so busy with her work here that they hadn’t had more than five minutes together. At last the day was done, her work was over until tomorrow, and they could hold hands and simply be.
“Do I want to know what you’re thinking?” Nora asked him.
“Merely watching the storm,” he said, but she could tell he had something on his mind, on his heart. They both did.
Tomorrow was the big day... Everything between her and Søren would change tomorrow. It was happening finally and there was no going back.
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” she asked.
“Should I be?”
“I am,” she admitted. “Big day for us.”
“I’m at peace,” he said. “Although I will admit the peace is hard-won.”
“We’ve waited...

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1

2015

Scotland

“IT WAS A dark and stormy night,” Nora said as she came to stand next to Søren at the window. She gazed out on the summer storm tearing up the Scottish sky.

“Please tell me that isn’t the first line to your next book.”

“Oh, but it’s such a good first line. Classic even.” She tucked her hand into his and watched the light show with him. Wind and rain lashed the trees and the moors. A flash of lightning set the night afire for a split second and the hills revealed their colors before fading into black again. “How about this—‘It was a dark and stormy night in the castle, and a woman named Nora was determined to seduce her priest.’”

Søren smiled slightly.

“An improvement. A minor improvement.”

“Everyone’s a critic.” Nora squeezed his hand, and he lifted it to his lips for a kiss. He’d arrived this morning but she’d been so busy with her work here that they hadn’t had more than five minutes together. At last the day was done, her work was over until tomorrow, and they could hold hands and simply be.

“Do I want to know what you’re thinking?” Nora asked him.

“Merely watching the storm,” he said, but she could tell he had something on his mind, on his heart. They both did.

Tomorrow was the big day... Everything between her and Søren would change tomorrow. It was happening finally and there was no going back.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” she asked.

“Should I be?”

“I am,” she admitted. “Big day for us.”

“I’m at peace,” he said. “Although I will admit the peace is hard-won.”

“We’ve waited a long time to do this.”

“It’s time now,” he said. “We’ve waited long enough.”

A clap of thunder interrupted their conversation and together they peered into the storm outside the oriel window.

“What are you thinking?” Nora asked.

“Thinking about Job, chapter thirty-eight,” he said. “It’s every priest’s dream to have God come and speak to him face-to-face. Even if it is to tell him how little he knows about the world. Storms always remind me of those verses. God says, ‘Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place?’”

Nora looked up at the sky. “‘Can you raise your voice to the clouds / and cover yourself with a flood of water? / Do you send lightning bolts on their way? / Do they report to you / Here we are.’”

“It’s comforting to know God is so powerful. Comforting to know we aren’t,” Søren said.

Perhaps only a priest could find comfort in his powerlessness. Perhaps only Søren.

“Are you coming to bed?” she asked Søren.

“Not yet. I won’t be ready to sleep for hours.”

In Scotland, it was nine-thirty. In New Orleans, where they’d been living for the past two years, it was half past three in the afternoon.

“Who said anything about sleeping?” she asked.

Søren arched his eyebrow.

“Well, in that case...” Søren turned from the window and cupped her face with his hands. He kissed her on the lips, softly at first, a slight kiss meant to arouse and torment. Ever so slowly he deepened the kiss. As much as she wanted to, Nora didn’t rush the moment. She’d been away from him for five weeks—four weeks spent with Nico at his vineyard and another week here in Scotland making the final preparations for tomorrow. Leaving Søren for any extended period of time was much like this kiss—a torture and a tease. Being away from him hurt, always. But the reunion at the end of the separation made every second apart worth the price.

He took her hands in his and brought them up and around his neck. His arms encircled her back and he drew her to him, deepening the kiss. The heat of his body warmed her to the core. She kissed his lips, his chin, his ear and his neck. He’d abandoned his collar for traveling and tonight wore only black trousers, black jacket and a white button-down shirt open at the neck. She pressed her lips into the hollow of his throat, a hollow made for her kisses.

And the moment when the kiss was perfect, everything she wanted and needed from him, she heard from behind her a small cough.

“Ms. Sutherlin?”

“God ****ing dammit.” Nora growled the words, and dropped her head to the center of Søren’s chest.

“Eleanor, you’re scaring the waitstaff,” Søren said.

She turned and faced the interrupter, a young woman holding a bouquet of flowers. Her name might be Bonnie, or maybe she was just “bonnie” in the Scottish sense of pretty. Nora didn’t know and didn’t care.

“Miss, you’ve signed the nondisclosure agreement, haven’t you?” Nora asked. Kingsley was treating tomorrow like a celebrity wedding with ironclad nondisclosure agreements for everyone even remotely involved. Even she’d had to sign one.

“Yes, ma’am?” The girl made everything she said into a question.

“Good. This man is a Catholic priest. We’ve been sleeping together since I was twenty. I’m sure you can imagine it’s not easy being the mistress of a Catholic priest. We don’t get to spend nearly the amount of time together we’d like to. In fact, I haven’t seen him in five weeks. Admittedly that’s because I was sleeping with someone else most of the time, but that’s neither here nor there. As you can see, my priest here is possibly the most handsome man in the world, although I am admittedly biased. He’s also kinky, well-hung and you’ve just interrupted the kiss I’ve been waiting for all day. So please tell me this interruption is more important than that kiss was.”

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“Your dress is here. We hung it in your room. You told me to tell you when it arrived and to interrupt you no matter what you were doing even if you were, as you said, ‘blowing the pope.’ Also, these arrived for you earlier today. They were accidentally put away with the wedding flowers,” the girl said, passing the bouquet to Nora.

“Oh.” Nora tapped her foot on the stone floor. “How nice.”

“Eleanor...” Søren made her name into a threat.

“And sorry about the, you know, well-hung priest rant there,” Nora said. “Pre-wedding jitters.”

“It’s fine, ma’am,” the girl who was either bonnie or Bonnie said. “If he was kissing me, I’d be bloody pissed off to be interrupted, too. Catholic priest?”

“No comment,” Søren said.

“We had a priest like you when I was a girl,” she said. “We called him Father What-A-Waste. Glad you’re not going to waste.”

The girl bobbed a slightly sarcastic curtsy and sauntered off.

“Is it weird I kind of want to **** her now?” Nora asked. “Castles makes me so horny.”

“Little One?”

“Yes, sir?” She turned back to face him.

“Who are your flowers from?”

“No idea,” she said. She looked through the small but exquisite posy of white roses, pink hydrangeas and green Cymbidium orchids until she found the small ivory card. She opened it up and read aloud,

“Dear Mistress,

I’m sorry I have to miss your wedding tomorrow but I never attend weddings where I’m not allowed to kiss the bride. Think of me during the ceremony—and on the wedding night. Love, Your Nico”

“Very kind of him,” Søren said, smiling.

“He’s a smart-ass like his father,” Nora said. She tucked the card back into the envelope. “Now, where were we?”

“Here, I think,” Søren said as he brought his arms around her waist and pulled her to him. He dropped gentle but hungry kisses along her neck.

“Oh yes, that’s where we were.”

“It’s been too long since I’ve had the pleasure of beating you and putting you in your place.” He whispered the words in her ear, and she shivered. “Do you even remember your place?”

“Underneath you, my sir,” she said. “Or wherever you tell me it is.”

“Very good answer.”

He tapped her under the chin and she smiled. She did so love to please him. Collaring Nico two years ago and making him her property had been the best thing she could have done for her relationship with Søren. At the time she and Nico became lovers, she’d been running on pure instinct and grief and need. She’d gone to Nico searching for something she was missing and found it with him. Once she had a submissive of her own, her own personal property collared and owned, she fully grasped Søren’s love for her. Owning Nico had filled up a void in her that not even Søren’s love—boundless as it was—could fill. She hadn’t cleaned up her act, hadn’t reformed. She hadn’t turned over a new leaf. Nora Sutherlin did not turn over leaves—new or otherwise. But for the past two years she’d had only two lovers—Søren and Nico—and wanted and needed no one else in her bed or her heart. It might be the closest she would ever get to monogamy.

Kingsley was already taking bets on how long it would last.

Søren took her by the hand and led her down the long ancient hallway. Portraits of noble Scotsmen, dead for centuries, followed their progress as they walked the faded crimson carpet and took a set of stone stairs to the next floor. Lightning created mad shadows in the castle. A suit of armor seemed to move with one flash of light. A portrait of a young noblewoman with pre-Raphaelite hair winked at Nora. The long-dead princess must have guessed what Nora and Søren had planned. Her smile was one of approval. Envy even. Nora didn’t blame the lady. Who wouldn’t want a night in Søren’s bed?

The wink reminded Nora of someone she knew long ago. And the castle reminded her of somewhere she’d once run away to and hidden herself. The abbey. Her mother’s abbey. The gray stone walls, the wandering hallways and the portraits like icons. The sound of her feet on the stone floors brought to mind that year she’d lived in her mother’s convent. Not quite a full year but close enough. Close enough that she thought of it always as “that year.”

She pushed thoughts of the past away. The present was a far more pleasant moment. Through an arched wooden door they entered their bedroom. The fire in the fireplace was dead, but no matter. Linen sheets and silk pillows invited them to the bed. They needed only each other for warmth now.

Søren left her standing by the bed as he lit the bedside oil lamp for light and the candles on the fireplace mantel for ambience. Nora slipped out of her shoes and let her feet sink into the soft woven rug that covered the stone floor. She put her flowers in the ice bucket, which made for a perfect makeshift vase. Displaying them on the table by the bed might be a little too much even for Søren so she set them on the fireplace mantel instead.

“We’ve never made love in a castle before, have we?” Nora asked as she turned from arranging her flowers to gaze around the room. She walked from the great stone fireplace to the hanging blue-and-red tapestries on the wall adorned with unicorns, dragons and knights.

“Belgium,” Søren said as he strode to the bed, carrying a box in one hand and something long, thin and wrapped in fabric in the other. He snapped his fingers and she jogged to his side.

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Nora smiled at the memory of a long-ago journey through Europe they’d taken together. An anniversary gift from Kingsley.

“We’ll always have Belgium. And what was her name?”

“Odette.” Søren opened the box that held her collar.

“Oh yes. That was it. She was fun, wasn’t she?” While in Belgium, she and Søren had toured a little brewery and had met a beautiful Swiss translator named Odette. During the tasting, Odette had flirted shamelessly with them both—she and Søren had dueled over who knew more languages. Søren won, but just barely. After the tour, Odette had come back with them to their hotel room in a renovated castle. Nora had been young then, only twenty-four, and had never been that intimate with a woman. Søren hadn’t touched Odette, but he’d certainly enjoyed watching the two of them together that night.

“You’re smiling, Little One.” Søren brought her collar around her neck and locked it on. While his fingers were at her throat he toyed with the necklace she wore always these days. It had three charms on it—two rings engraved with the words Everything and Forever and a small silver locket Nico had given her as a token of his adoration. They made a gentle clinking sound like tiny wind chimes when she moved.

“Good memories,” she said. “So many good memories I’ve forgotten some of them.”

“Speaking of memories, I have a gift for you. A gift in memory of something.”

“You don’t have to give me anything,” she said, keeping her eyes low, respectful, submissive.

“I know,” he said with that touch of arrogance she’d always loved and loathed in equal measure. “But it was time I gave you this.”

He held up the bundle still covered in its fabric wrapping.

“What is it?”

“You’ll find out. But you have to earn your gift first.”

“It’s not a gift if I have to earn it,” she reminded him.

“Then we’ll call it a ‘prize.’”

“How do I earn my prize?”

“Trial by fire.”

“You are in a mood tonight, aren’t you?” she asked. “Sir?”

“Do you accept the challenge?” he asked, his eyebrow ****ed, his smile tight but amused. She was thirty-eight years old, and she had loved Søren since she was fifteen...and yet...after all this time he could still scare the **** out of her.

God, she loved him.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I want my prize.”

Søren cupped her face again, kissed her lips again.

“I already have my prize.” He kissed her on the forehead.

She stood unmoving and made no protest as Søren stripped her naked. He unbuttoned her blouse and slid it off her arms. Under her shirt she wore a black corset, which he took an unnecessary amount of time unlacing. The more eager she was to have him inside her, the longer he took getting there. Her own fault for falling in love with a sadist, not that she regretted it. He unzipped her leather skirt and pushed it over her hips and down her legs. His fingers on her bare skin as he unhooked her stockings set her to shivering, even more when he tickled the bottoms of her feet as he pulled them off.

If she hadn’t loved Søren before, she would fall in love with him again for looking at her thirty-eight-year-old body with the same desire that had once gazed on her naked seventeen-year-old form. She’d never suffered from a lack of self-esteem and had, more than once—rightly—been accused of being egotistical. A woman who took money from men for the privilege of letting them worship her had to have more than her fair share of confidence. But finding herself so much closer to forty than thirty had taken a little getting used to. Time had only increased Søren’s beauty. The gray in his hair could barely be distinguished from the blond. The years had sharpened his features, scraped off the rough edges, and sculpted him into a man worthy of all the respect and love she had to give him. She had an older man to adore and a younger man who adored her.

Life was good.

“Someone’s quiet,” Søren said as he lifted her off her feet and laid her onto the bed on her back. The linen sheets tickled her, made her aware of every nerve in her body. “Are you nervous?”

“I was thinking about tomorrow.”

“‘Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself,’” Søren said.

“Yes, Father Stearns. I’ve read Matthew, too.”

Søren set a basin on the nightstand by the bed and soaked a small white towel in the water.

“Good. Now stop worrying and hold still while I set you on fire.”

Nora held still.

Fire-play wasn’t so much about pain as it was fear. Fear and its mirror twin—trust. She closed her eyes while Søren painted her stomach with an ice-cold gel that smelled of rubbing alcohol. He took each of her wrists and buckled them one by one to the headboard with leather cuffs.

Søren lifted the candle off the bedside table and moved it slowly up and down her body six inches or less from her skin. When he inflicted his sadism on her, he did so intently, with respect for the act and respect for her willingness to serve him. Playing with fire was dangerous and it was rare when Søren asked her *****bmit to this sort of edge-play. She knew him. When anxious, troubled or under stress, he centered himself with sadism. He could pretend he wasn’t worried about tomorrow, but she knew better. It was on his mind as much as hers.

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Outside the castle, the storm battered the windows and the walls. But the eye of the storm was their bed. All was quiet if not calm. Søren brought the flame to the edge of the S and at once it flared into life.

Eleanor breathed in and didn’t exhale. She could see the fire, smell the bitter smoke, but strangely could not feel it. The fluid formed a barrier between the fire and her body. As if the fire was a tongue lapping at her skin. But it did scare her and it was real fear. Real fire meant real fear. Real fear meant Søren was burning in his own fire. His breaths were shallow with barely controlled desire. His eyes were all pupil now, black as night, and in the inky depths she could see the fire reflected. Not once did he look away from the flame and neither did she.

Søren stripped himself of his clothes even as he watched the fire burn itself out on her.

He wrote on her with the gel again, set it alight again and watched her burn again.

When the fire was nearly but not entirely out, Søren straddled her hips and stretched out on top of her, using his own body to snuff out the last of the fire. He was aroused, brutally hard, and she felt his erection pressing against her thighs. She opened her legs wide for him and pushed her hips into his. He entered her fully, sliding through her wetness all the way to the core of her. Nora pulled against the bonds on her wrists, moaned and exhaled as he pulled out and thrust into her again.

This was bliss. How she had missed him these weeks she’d been in Europe. She loved Nico, loved the days and especially the nights she spent with him at his vineyard. The rest of her time was Søren’s. Nico’s one true love was his vineyard, and the vineyard was a demanding and possessive mistress. And Nora’s one true love was Søren, who was a demanding and possessive master. She and Nico understood each other perfectly. She was a Dominant herself, and when she had Nico on his knees in front of her, his lips on her ankles, her welts on his back, that was Nora. But Nora was only one half of her.

“My Little One,” Søren said into her ear as he moved inside her, filling her. “My Eleanor.”

And Eleanor was the other half.

He kissed her breasts, sucking deep on the hard tips, and massaged her clitoris until the room filled with the sounds of her cries of pleasure, her cries for release. He didn’t let her come yet. He ordered her not to come. An impossible command. He was inside her, thick and heavy, pushing hard and deep. She spread her legs wider, dug her heels into the bed and breathed into her stomach as she staved off her building climax.

“Tell me you love me and I might let you come,” Søren said, punctuating the command with a rough thrust that made her flinch with both pain and pleasure.

“I love you, my sir, with all my heart.”

“Tell me you want me.”

“I want no one in the world as much as I want you. I love your body, your ****. I want you to come inside me. Please...”

“Tell me a secret you’ve never told me, and I’ll consider letting you come.”

“I ****ed a nun at my mother’s convent,” Nora said, and Søren stopped moving. He pushed himself up and stared down at her.

“What?” she said, batting her eyelashes up at him in feigned innocence. “You asked.”

“Lesson learned.” He lowered himself onto her again and kissed her once more. The kiss was wild now, as wild as the night. He bit her lips, pushed his tongue into her mouth as he rammed into her with ruthless unforgiving thrusts. It was exactly what she needed. Her back arched and the muscles in her back coiled tight as a spring. She felt the ecstasy drawing together, pooling in her stomach. Then she rose and rose, higher and higher until she reached that throbbing peak and her body went still and stayed that way for one long perfect moment.

With a final cry, she came with a shudder that racked her entire body. She crashed back to earth with a thousand flutters of her inner muscles that left her shaking underneath Søren. He ignored her climax as he sought his own, thrusting into her faster and harder until he released at last, filling her with his heat.

Still coupled together Nora wrapped her legs around his back and relaxed her breathing. She loved this moment when she could feel the wild racing of his heart against hers. Bliss suffused her, peace and contentment. And then Søren spoke.

“You ****ed a nun at your mother’s convent.”

“This is what you get for making me earn an orgasm by telling you a secret. It was the first thing that popped into my head.”

Søren pulled out of her and looked down at her again. Then he laughed, a bright big laugh, big as the castle. Even as he unlocked her wrists from the bed and chafed her hands that had grown cool while in bondage, he still laughed.

“I will never reach the end of you,” Søren said. “Every time I think I’ve seen it all, you lead me to a hidden door and open it.”

“In my defense,” Nora said, “she was beautiful, and I hadn’t had *** in a very long time.”

“When was this?” he asked as he slid off the bed and pulled his trousers back on. He didn’t bother with his shirt and that was fine by her.

“That year,” she said, and didn’t have to say anything else. Søren knew what “that year” was, what it meant. They didn’t talk about that year, never talked about that year. In fact, they did their best to pretend that year never happened.

“I see.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bring it up. I have no blood in my brain when you’re inside me.”

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“I’m not angry.” Søren poured water into a porcelain basin and brought it to the bedside table. He dipped a white cloth into the water. With it he wiped the residue of candle wax off her body.

“I would have told you if you’d asked,” she said as Søren rinsed the cloth in the basin. She opened her legs for him and now he cleaned the semen off her vulva and inner thighs. “You never asked,” she reminded him.

“That was a hard year for all of us,” he said.

“I never asked you what you did while I was gone.”

“Suffered,” he said, meeting her eyes.

“Now I remember why I didn’t ask.”

“It sounds as if you didn’t suffer the entire time you were gone.”

“You know me. If I’m not having ***, I go a little crazy.”

“What’s your excuse the rest of the time then?” he asked and she play-punched him in the arm. He captured her by the wrists and kissed her again, entirely against her will. Well, mostly against. Partly. She pretended it was against her will anyway.

After he released her arms, she clambered out of the bed and found her suitcase. The castle was full of guests now, and all day she’d been working, answering questions, making decisions, putting all the finishing touches into place. If someone came knocking on her door—a distinct possibility—she should probably have some clothes on before she answered it. She slipped into a pair of black-and-white silk pajama pants and a matching lacy camisole top. She kept her collar on for no reason other than she’d missed it. From Nico she’d learned the fine art of starting a fire in a fireplace, and she went to work stacking her kindling.

“So do I get my prize?” she asked.

Before she could answer, the door flew open, the rusty hinges screaming in protest. Kingsley rushed in and slammed the door behind him.

“What the hell?” she said, standing up.

“You have to hide me,” Kingsley said, out of breath from running. “She’s after me.”

“Who? Céleste?” Nora asked. Kingsley and his daughter had been playing hide-and-seek all day in the castle.

“Juliette,” Kingsley said. He looked at Søren and said, “Take off your pants if you want me to live.”

“You’ve tried that line before,” Søren reminded him. “It didn’t work the last time you tried it, either.”

“I’m a dead man then,” Kingsley said, barring the door behind him.

“Why do you need Søren to take his pants off?” Nora asked. “I mean, other than the usual reason.”

Kingsley pointed down at himself.

“That’s why,” he said.

Nora looked at him. He wore a black shirt and had his hair pulled back in a ponytail. His feet were bare; he looked like a pirate or a rogue or both and none of this was unusual. Except for one thing. Every man in the wedding party had already been given their formal wear.

So instead of his usual clothes, Kingsley wore a kilt.

“Juliette has a kilt fetish?” Nora asked, now understanding Kingsley’s panic.

“A newly discovered kilt fetish,” Kingsley said. “She’s had me three times yesterday and three times today already—”

“You’re her Dominant,” Søren reminded him. “Satisfying her needs is your job.”

Kingsley ignored him. “She’s hunting me down for a fourth. I’m a man, not a machine. I feel violated, used...”

“You’re being melodramatic. You know you love it,” Søren said.

“Why does she keep calling me Connor in bed?” Kingsley asked.

“This explains why she’s always trying to make me watch Highlander with her,” Nora said as she stood up in front of the fireplace.

Nora looked at Søren and awaited his verdict.

“Please don’t make me go,” Kingsley said in a pleading tone. “I swear it’ll break off if she gets her hands on me again.”

Søren delivered his judgment.

“Throw him out.”

“You heard the man,” Nora said as she strode to the door, her feet tingling on the cold stone floor. “The priest has spoken.”

“I’ll be dead by morning,” Kingsley said, pressing his back to the door.

“We’ll miss you very much.” Nora reached past him for the door bar. “I have my collar on. I have to follow orders.”

“I’ll beg for my life. How’s that?” Kingsley looked straight at Søren.

“Beg then,” Søren said as he dug through his suitcase and pulled out a T-shirt. He was a cruel man and putting on clothes was the most sadistic of all the many cruelties he inflicted on his lovers. “I’d like to hear this.”

“He’s in a mood,” Nora said to Kingsley. “I had to beg for my orgasm.”

“I can beg. I’ll beg.”

Nora crossed her arms and waited. She hoped Kingsley would find a way to earn his way into staying. She’d missed him too these past few weeks she’d been gone.

“S’il vous plaît, mon ami, mon amour, mon coeur, mon maître, mon monstre, I will do anything if you let me stay. Anything at all.”

“Anything?” Søren repeated. “Define anything.”

Kingsley looked at Nora then he crooked his finger at Søren.

Søren sighed and walked over to Kingsley, who cupped his face and whispered something. Nora strained to hear what Kingsley said to Søren, but his voice was too low and his French too rapid. But whatever he said must have been good. Søren’s eyes widened.

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Søren met her eyes. “He can stay.”

“Merci, mon amant.” Kingsley took Søren’s face in his hands and kissed him first on each cheek and then on the mouth. Nora rolled her eyes. “You have saved me. Bless you.”

Kingsley released Søren, walked to the fireplace and warmed his feet and hands. It was spring in Scotland and the castle was drafty. She almost felt sorry for all the men running around in kilts. Their pain. Her gain.

“It’s good you’re here anyway,” Nora said as she returned to her suitcase. “I have something from Nico for you.”

She pulled a bottle of wine out of her suitcase and a small envelope.

“‘Rosanella Petite Syrah, 2004,’” Kingsley read the label aloud. “I have such a good son.”

“He says it’s the best vintage so far. He sent six bottles with me.”

“We’ll save it for the reception tomorrow then.” Kingsley opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper. Nora peeked over Kingsley’s shoulder. Reading French wasn’t her strong suit but even she knew enough to recognize the words With love from your son, Nico. Kingsley grinned at the note before folding it again and slipping it into his sporran. “He’s inviting us all to the vineyard’s one-hundred-year anniversary fête this fall. He says it wouldn’t be a real celebration without me, Juliette and Céleste there.”

“You better go then,” Nora said. “You wouldn’t want to ruin his party.” Her relationship with Nico hadn’t been easy for Kingsley to accept at first. He’d never been angry with her, not really, but he’d struggled as they all had, herself included. But after some time, some talking, Kingsley had given them his blessing. While Kingsley had loved his son from the moment he knew of his existence, Nico rebelled at the idea of accepting any man but the man who’d raised him as his father. But Nora had served as a bridge between father and son, and step by step, story by story she’d led Nico by the hand to Kingsley’s side. Kingsley had Juliette as his submissive, Søren as his Dominant. He didn’t need Nora in his bed anymore for either purpose. What Kingsley needed far more was his son’s love, and that Nora had given him.

“Thank you for this,” Kingsley said, folding up the invitation and tucking it back in the envelope. She knew he wasn’t thanking her simply for delivering the mail.

“My pleasure,” Nora said, and kissed him on the cheek.

“So what will we do tonight?” Kingsley asked as he left the heat of the fireplace and walked to the window. Outside the storm continued its assault on the castle. “Tell ghost stories? It’s a good night for it.”

“Perhaps Eleanor would be willing to tell us about the time she, and I quote, ‘****ed a nun’ at her mother’s convent,” Søren said, sitting on the bed and stacking a large red pillow behind his back.

“You ****ed a nun at your mother’s convent?” Kingsley asked, turning back to stare at her askance. “When did that happen?”

“That year,” Nora said, and Kingsley winced. He knew what she meant, as well.

“And you never told me?” Kingsley asked.

“How is me sleeping with a nun any of your business?”

“Because it’s you sleeping with a nun,” Kingsley said with dramatic emphasis. “That is the very definition of my business. I need to know what she looked like, her name, if she had small breasts or large. Do you have pictures of her and you together? And can you tell me exactly what you did with her in detail while I take notes?”

“I could,” Nora said. “I’m not going to.”

“I could order you to,” Søren said, and Nora groaned.

“You’re as bad as he is,” she said, pointing a finger at Kingsley. “You’re perverts, the both of you. J’accuse.”

Kingsley nodded. “J’accepte.”

“That was a really hard year for all of us,” Nora said. “And it was twelve years ago. Can you give me one good reason why we should dredge all of that up tonight?”

“I can,” Kingsley said. “Because you ****ed a nun. C’est la raison.”

Nora put a hand to her forehead. “Dear Lord, save me from these men tonight.”

“I would like to know,” Søren said, and the room went still and solemn with the tenor of his words. “Neither of you ever told me what happened that year you both were gone.”

“Maybe because you don’t want to know,” Nora said as she walked to the bed and crawled into it on the side opposite Søren. She pulled a pillow to her stomach and sat cross-legged. “You weren’t our favorite person that year, after all.”

“I wasn’t my favorite person that year, either,” Søren said, bending his leg to rest his arm on his knee. Kingsley came to the bed and stretched out at the foot, lying on his side to face them. “You both had disappeared on me and when you came back, everything had changed.”

“I met Juliette,” Kingsley said. “That’s what I did that year.”

“You’ve never told me how,” Søren said. “And you—” he looked at Nora “—never told me why you came back.”

“Do you really want to know?” she asked, meeting his eyes. “We’re happy now, all of us.” She glanced at Kingsley and back at Søren.

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“Ignorance is a poor excuse for bliss,” Søren said, looking pointedly at her. “Tell me what happened.”

Nora turned her head and looked into Kingsley’s dark brown eyes. They stared at each other for a long quiet moment. She’d never told Kingsley what had happened when she’d left Søren. And Kingsley had never told her. In her more honest moments she’d admit she was curious what Kingsley did in that time and why he’d left when she had.

“That sounded like an order,” Nora said to Kingsley.

“It was,” Kingsley said, as accustomed to following Søren’s orders now as she.

“Who starts?” she asked him.

“You left first,” Kingsley said to Nora. The playfulness had left his demeanor. She saw the dark light of secrets in his eyes.

“You left after me, though. Why?”

“You don’t know?” Kingsley said.

“No. I was afraid to ask,” Nora confessed. “I thought...I thought all kinds of things that year. I think I went a little crazy for a while. But I guess you would too if you were trapped in a convent surrounded by nuns with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company.”

“And a nun in your bed,” Kingsley reminded her.

“And yes, there was a nun in my bed,” Nora said with a sigh.

“This is my favorite story already,” Kingsley said. “Go on.”

Nora took a breath, got comfortable with the sheets and pillow.

“Well...” she began. “It was a dark and stormy night...”

“Eleanor,” Søren said.

“It was,” she said. “I’m not making that up. That night we fought, it was dark and stormy, remember?”

Søren nodded. “I remember. Go on.”

Nora closed her eyes, let herself drift back to that night, that terrible night and that year, that dark and stormy year.

She was twenty-six years old.

Søren had just returned home from Rome.

And she was in the worst pain of her life.

“It was a dark and stormy night,” Nora began again, opening her eyes to look at Søren. He returned her gaze with placid, waiting curiosity. “And I was leaving you. Forever.”

2

2003

New York City

THIS IS NOT a drill.

This is not a drill.

Elle repeated those words in her mind as she wove between the dawn-weary commuters at Penn Station.

This is not a drill.

She wanted to walk faster, but she couldn’t. Pausing by a trash can, she held the wire rim of it with both hands and breathed through her nose. A cramp twisted in her stomach and nausea hit her like a bus. The sickness passed quickly. Five hours since she last threw up. Her nausea ebbed. Her panic crested.

This is not a drill.

Standing up straight she strode forward again, tucking a loose strand of black hair under the Mets cap she’d bought at a gift shop. She didn’t watch baseball often, although Griffin had taken her to a few games this season. He would never have forgiven her if she’d bought a Yankees hat. Then again, she would probably never see him again so what did it matter?

But still, it mattered.

Every few steps, temptation whispered to her, telling her to turn around, look around... She wasn’t paranoid. But what was it Joseph Heller had said? It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you? By now Kingsley had surely sent the troops out looking for her, and this was the first place they’d look. It might have been a mistake coming here. This had been the plan though, the only plan she had.

This is not a drill.

Twice a year, every year, Kingsley had run her through the drill.

“There are five possible scenarios that would force you to run,” Kingsley had warned her each time they’d run through the drill. “I want you to be ready.”

The first time she’d been twenty years old. She and Søren had been lovers for only a few months. That was reason number one for the drill, scenario number one.

“He’s a priest, chérie, and you’re his lover now. You get caught in bed with him, and your world will explode. If that happens, the best thing you can do for him is run,” Kingsley had said, his tone solemn and sober. He meant it.

“I’m not running away from Søren,” she’d said. “Not now. Not ever. Especially not when he needs me the most.”

“Your willingness to martyr yourself will only make things worse. Journalists are sharks, and the last thing we need is a feeding frenzy. This isn’t an option, Elle. This is an order. From him and from me. Scenario number one—if you and le prêtre get caught, you run.”

An order was an order. Søren had told her to do whatever Kingsley told her to do. Everything within her had rebelled at the idea of running away if and when she and Søren were caught, but she belonged to him—she’d sworn to obey him. Because of that vow, her decisions were not hers to make. Søren had decreed it—if the outside world found out about them, she would leave town. Immediately.

But that’s not why she was here now hiding her hair under a baseball cap and walking as fast as the pain and the nausea would allow.

Scenario number two scared her more than the possibility of scenario number one.

“I know dangerous people, Elle, and they might kill me someday. They might take me captive. It’s happened before,” Kingsley had said, and she recalled the scars on his body, his chest and his wrists. “You two are the most important people in the world to me and that means they’ll come after you two if they want to hurt me. If something happens to me, if anything happens to me, you go. You and Søren both. Together. Apart. I don’t care. You go.”

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He’d meant it, and by now she knew how true those words were. He already had four bullet wounds on his body from four other attempts on his life. He had an in with every Mafia family in New York. He had reams of blackmail material on every politician in the tristate area. He could get the Prime Minister of Canada on the phone with one call, US senators, and billionaire CEOs. He knew too much and that made him a target. Elle had been Kingsley’s lover since she was twenty years old—Kingsley’s and Søren’s. She knew much of what Kingsley knew and that made her a target, too.

But scenario two was not why she left, either.

Scenario three seemed unlikely, but Kingsley insisted on preparing her for it. If Søren died for any reason—motorcycle accident, sudden illness or foul play, she would need to get out of town. Fast. The rectory wasn’t private property. It belonged to the church and the moment he was gone, his home would be flooded with the grieving and the curious. Even worse, a new priest would arrive to take over the church. Søren’s personal effects would be gone through, his private life uncovered. It might happen before Kingsley could get someone to clean the house out. Even now, a large trunk sat at the foot of his bed. If anyone unlocked it, opened it and pulled the stacks of linens aside, they would find floggers, whips, canes and—most damning of all—photographs. They were of her, of course. A famous burlesque photographer who frequented Kingsley’s clubs had been dying to photograph her since he first saw her. The black hair, the curves, those eyes, he’d said. According to him, she was Bettie Page reborn. She’d posed for a nude photo spread for him and given Søren the pictures for his thirty-seventh birthday. They were beautiful pictures—black-and-white, tasteful, not pornographic. But undeniably erotic. They were signed “As Always Beloved, Your Eleanor,” and they sat in that steamer trunk anyone with a crowbar could open. A priest hiding naked pictures of a woman wouldn’t be much of a scandal. But a priest hiding naked pictures of his lover, who also attended his church and had since she was born, would ruin his legacy and possibly her life.

Søren was the healthiest man she knew, however. And he was careful on his Ducati. And who would murder a priest? He had no enemies as far as she knew. She pitied anyone who would go up against Søren. She’d merely nodded at Kingsley when he told her she would need to run if something happened to Søren. It would never happen. And she was right. Nothing bad had happened to Søren.

So that’s not why she’d left.

Scenario number four had also seemed preposterous when Kingsley had been training her for this moment.

“You could get pregnant,” Kingsley had said. “Try not to do that. But if it happens, leave town before you start to show.”

“I’m not going to get pregnant,” she’d said, rolling her eyes. Nothing was going to get in the way of her life with Søren. Not a scandal, not the press, not the church and definitely not a kid.

And then it had happened. But it wasn’t Søren’s and it wasn’t why she left. Not entirely.

Finally Elle found a bank of rental lockers and pulled out her keys. Locker number 1312 was three up and four over. She unlocked it and pulled out a black leather duffel bag.

Twelve times she and Kingsley had run through the drill. Twice a year for six years. She was required to go the station, get the duffel bag and make it to one of Kingsley’s safe houses in less than twelve hours. Now at twenty-six years old, Elle, for the first time in six years, realized how right Kingsley had been. She wished she’d paid more attention to his warnings.

“Scenario number five...” Kingsley had paused before speaking again. That pause had scared her.

“Scenario number five,” Kingsley began again. “If Søren crosses a line, loses control, goes too far and—”

“No,” she’d answered him the first time they’d run through this drill. “That won’t happen.”

“It might happen. It can happen. And you need to be ready for it.”

“I know him, King. He loves me. He won’t lose control with me.”

With more compassion than she expected Kingsley to have left in his scarred heart, he’d cupped her face and forced her to meet his eyes.

“He hurt me so much after our first time together, I vomited on the ground after he was done with me. I passed blood for three days. My body wasn’t bruised. My body was a bruise.”

“You liked it.”

Kingsley smiled at her, a smile that scared her. “You won’t.”

“He was seventeen then. He’s an adult now—”

“He’s more dangerous today than he was back then. He’s better trained, but don’t mistake well trained for tame. He is anything but tame.”

“He’s not like that anymore.”

“I told you the first night you and I spoke that your shepherd was a wolf. He is a wolf on a leash and that leash might break someday. When that happens, you take care of yourself. I’ll take care of him.”

“It won’t happen.” She’d whispered the lie, and it had been a lie because it had already happened. She hadn’t told Kingsley about that morning in the shower when the wolf had come off the leash. She’d wanted to, tried to...but the words never quite made out of her mouth. Shame was a foreign concept to her until that morning.

But surely Søren would never do it again.

Elle didn’t take the time to unzip the duffel bag and check its contents. She already knew what was in it.

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A passport.

Five thousand dollars cash.

Cre*** cards that Kingsley could track to find her if she couldn’t get to any of his safe houses.

Three changes of clothes and toiletries.

A can of mace on a key chain.

A Swiss Army knife.

A wig to change her appearance.

Keys to the safe houses—one in Canada, one in Maine, one in Seattle.

A mobile phone and charger.

Beneath the duffel bag sat a black permanent marker. The marker was there for one reason only.

“I might be out of the country when it happens,” Kingsley had said, the “it” being whatever scenario had occurred that meant Elle would need to flee.

“Write a number inside the locker so I know why you went. And know this...if it’s number five, don’t go to any of the safe houses.”

“Why not?” she’d asked.

“Because whether I want to or not, I’ll help him find you if he asks. And if I’m helping him find you, I’ll find you.”

She’d shivered then, because he was telling the truth. Søren had Kingsley’s loyalty and his love. Even if Kingsley believed she was fleeing for the right reasons, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from helping Søren find her.

“What do I do?” she’d ask. “If I can’t go to a safe house, where do I go?”

“I can’t tell you that. You’re as smart as he is. Use your brain. Find somewhere he can’t follow. And whatever you do, don’t tell me.”

This was not a drill.

This was real.

Elle uncapped the marker. Inside the door of the locker she scrawled her message.

5.

3

ELLE STARED AT the number she’d drawn on the metal door and knew what it meant—she had to go somewhere Kingsley couldn’t find her.

Could she live with that? Never seeing Kingsley again? She would have to, wouldn’t she? If she wanted to leave Søren she had to leave Kingsley, too. From inside her purse Elle pulled out a six-inch length of intricately carved bone. A beautiful thing, or it had been once. She held it in her hand for a second longer than necessary. Kingsley would know what it was the moment he saw it. He would know what it was, and he would know what had happened.

And he would know it was her way of saying goodbye.

It hurt to let go of it, but there was no reason to keep it, right? She had the other two pieces in her purse. This third piece was for Kingsley. She laid it inside the locker, slammed it shut and walked away.

Use your brain, Kingsley had said. Go where Søren wouldn’t expect her to go. Go where Søren couldn’t follow.

She had three ideas. One she dismissed out of hand. As furious as she was at Søren right now, she would not bring his family into this by showing up on his mother’s doorstep in Copenhagen. The other two options were both bad, but one was worse than the other.

With the cre*** card from the bag, she bought a bus ticket to Philadelphia. Then she walked to another counter and with cash bought a bus ticket to New Hampshire. She threw the one she’d bought with the cre*** card into a garbage bin. The one she bought with cash she shoved into her pocket. She doubted the ruse would throw Kingsley off her track, but she had to try.

Kingsley had taught her how to flee from the press, from the church, even from Søren. But she wasn’t sure how to get away from Kingsley. He could track like a bloodhound. He had eyes and ears everywhere. She needed someone who would be on her side, not Kingsley’s. She needed someone who cared more about her than him. Or, more importantly, she needed someone who owed her a favor.

And only one man owed her a favor.

She got on the bus and found a seat near the back. Bus—when was the last time she’d sat on a bus? Maybe high school? Her senior year. Most days she walked to school, but if she was running late she took the bus. One morning she’d overslept because of Kingsley. The day before had been her eighteenth birthday, and he’d taken her to her first S and M club. She hadn’t played, only watched while couples and trios had engaged in acts she’d only read about and dreamed about. Kingsley had asked her if she liked what she saw, if anything intrigued her, if there was anything she wanted to do.

“All of it,” she’d answered.

She’d stayed out so late with him, she’d slept through her alarm the next morning and had taken the bus to school.

That wasn’t right, was it? That wasn’t normal. High school seniors shouldn’t be oversleeping because they were at kink clubs with notorious underground figures the night before, right? How had it seemed so normal at the time? Why had it seemed so right? Where was her mother in all this? Pretending Elle didn’t exist, more or less. They’d become strangers to each other, roommates at most. What if her mother had found out about her daughter’s secret life when she was still in high school? Why had her mom not stopped her and said, “What are you doing with these people, Ellie?” If her mother, if anyone had asked that question she would have answered, “Because these people are my people.” She was one of them.

But now she wasn’t one of them anymore.

So who was she?

She pondered that question for the next two hours, only stopping when another stomach cramp hit her. She doubled over and rested her head on the back of the seat in front of her. Only June nineteenth but it was already as hot as August. The bus was air-con***ioned—barely—and the stifling air added to her misery.

“Carsick?” an older man asked her. He was black with gray hair and sat on the seat opposite hers. He had a face like the grandfather you wished you’d had growing up. She nodded her head and squeezed her eyes shut tight.