[English] The Virgin

The Virgin
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“Anything. You name it.”

Elle narrowed her eyes at Kyrie.

“Anything is a dangerous word where I come from,” Elle said.

Kyrie didn’t look the least intimidated.

“I trust you. Is it a deal?”

“Not a deal. Definitely not a deal. I haven’t written anything since college. And you really shouldn’t trust me. For a lot of reasons.”

“Too late. I already do.”

Elle rolled her eyes.

“Fine,” she said at last. “But only if I get a perfect idea for the story. Otherwise I’m not going to waste my time trying to fix a three-thousand-year-old myth that’s doing fine without me.”

“It’s got a terrible ending. It needs you.”

“If, and only if, I get a perfect idea. Then I’ll write it. And if I write, then you can do something nice for me. Maybe sneak me extra dessert or something.”

“I can do that.”

Kyrie stood in the darkened doorway of the library. This girl...this crazy girl...what on earth was she doing letting this crazy girl into her life? Not just a girl. A nun. An intelligent, weird, wonderful, breathtakingly beautiful nun...

“Have a good night,” Kyrie said. “I’ll say a prayer God hits you with a good idea.”

“Gotta be perfect. Not good. Perfect. Otherwise I’m not writing it.”

“God can handle perfect. That’s His strong suit.”

Kyrie gave her one last smile, turned around and on her naked feet disappeared into the darkness.

Elle exhaled. In that exhale she realized she’d been tense for the past half hour. Tense? Why? Kyrie, of course. She liked her. Liked her much too much. And the last thing Elle needed was a friend in this place. Especially a very pretty friend under a very serious vow of chastity. She’d come here to get away from people, get away from the world, get away from love and *** and men and complications.

Kyrie had the potential to be a serious complication.

For the first time in years, Elle had begun to feel completely safe someplace. She was safe in the abbey, far away from her old life where every day carried with it the risk that Søren would get caught, she would get hurt, or Kingsley would get killed. Here at the convent she had nothing to fear. She had a roof over her head, three meals a day, a small warm bed and a library full of books—boring books. And even worse, she’d read them all by now.

But still...this was what she needed now. Safety. Peace. Quiet. Complications were the last thing she needed. She’d had enough of those for a lifetime. She’d back away from Kyrie. Far far away from her. She’d get away from Kyrie if she had to turn herself into a tree to do it. And tonight would mark the first and the last of their late-night fireplace conversations. No more of those. Never. No. Not a chance.

Elle returned the copy of Bulfinch’s Mythology to the shelf. She went to bed and slept and when she woke up she was still thinking about Kyrie. About Kyrie and her sister the writer, who’d died, and Kyrie’s demand that Elle write her a romance novel.

Sweet girl. Very pretty. Totally delusional.

Outside the window in the light of dawn, she saw a blur in the distance. Elle pulled on a sweater and squinted into the new morning. It was a woman out jogging in winter running clothes. Jogging. That was all. The abbey had neighbors, normal people who lived out in the country. Sometimes Elle saw them driving or walking. Nothing special about a woman jogging in the morning.

Or was there?

In the back of Elle’s mind she saw something.

Not something...someone. A girl.

And the girl was running for her life. Elle closed her eyes, let the picture come into focus. It was a teenage girl who was running. Long stick-thin legs, arms pumping, feet pounding the fresh green earth under her feet and trees racing past her with every step. She ran because someone chased her. A man. A beautiful man who was beauty and music and reason personified.

“Don’t run...” Elle whispered to the girl. “He’s the only one you shouldn’t run away from.”

Elle’s eyes opened, but the vision remained.

“****...” Elle sat down on her bed with a groan.

Kyrie’s prayer had been answered.

Elle had the most perfect idea.

16

Haiti

BY DAWN THE next morning, Kingsley had returned to his beach hut. He’d only slept an hour or so the night before. He hadn’t wanted to waste a single moment he had with Juliette sleeping. When she wouldn’t talk to him, he’d ****ed her again. And again. He’d spent most of the night inside one part of her body or another. They’d had so much *** he could hardly move this morning. And he didn’t want to move, didn’t want to think. But when he closed his eyes all he could hear was Juliette’s voice speaking her perfect French.

“Mort,” she’d said when he asked her what he could give her.

Death.

She wanted to die. And she wanted him to kill her. But he’d kill himself first before he killed her.

Madness. She’d refused to say anything more to him about last night. She’d only kissed him until he forgot everything. But this morning, he remembered.

Rolling out of his bed hurt but he did it anyway. He found his cell phone and dialed home. Calliope answered on the third ring.

“Yes, Mr. King?”

“Report?”

“It’s too quiet here,” she said. “The dogs are napping. The house is closed up like you asked. Are you coming home soon?”

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“Not yet. Look, I need you to find out some information for me.”

“Absolutely,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. His assistants were always chosen for their interest in and ability to find out things they shouldn’t know and get themselves in trouble. Calliope, although painfully young, was no exception.

“I have an address,” he said. “A house outside Petionville. I need you to see who owns it.” He gave her the address. “Also, look up a name for me. Juliette Toussaint.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Stunning. I’ve never seen her equal.”

“Good. Are you bringing her back with you?”

“I will or I’ll die trying.”

Calliope laughed. “You sound much more like your old self,” she said, and he could hear her typing in the background. “I’ve missed you. Everybody really misses you.”

“That’s not true.”

“Okay, your ex-girlfriends don’t miss you, but everyone else does. People think you’re up to something since you’ve been gone so long. They’re talking about you and Elle both being gone.”

“What’s everyone saying?” he asked, curious despite himself.

“Um...well, one rumor I heard is that you and Elle fell in love. You stole her from her priest and eloped with her. You two are supposedly on an around-the-world honeymoon.”

“She would commit ritual suicide in Times Square before she married me. Anything else?”

“Some people think you’re on a talent scouting mission, and you’re out to find new Subs and Doms for the club.”

“Not true, but much more likely than the first rumor.”

“I heard someone say you’d run out of money and that’s why you sold the Cuffs and Le Cirque.”

“I have so much money I couldn’t spend it all in ten lifetimes. Especially now that I sold the clubs.”

“You might not want to know this...but there’s this new Dom around who’s talking **** about you.”

“Who?” Kingsley demanded.

“He works for a new kink club. His name is Brad Wolfe.”

“I refuse to believe that’s his real name.”

“He was at a party me and Tessa were at. Wolfe said you probably got in trouble with the law and you’re on the run from the cops.”

“If you see him again, tell him I’m on vacation. With his mother.”

“I’ll send him that message today. With pleasure. Are you ever coming back?”

“I’ll come back as soon as I can. I have unfinished business here, however.”

“Well, you have the most beautiful woman in the world to deal with, right?”

“Absolument.”

“We need a new white queen around here now that Elle’s gone.”

“Juliette’s black.”

“Okay, a new black queen then,” Calliope said. “I don’t care what color she is. But it’s really boring around here without you and Elle. It’s like...”

“What?”

“It’s like the lights went out when she left.” Calliope paused. “Literally. I’ve never seen the town house this dark. No one ever stops by anymore. It feels like the whole Underground’s gone dark.”

“I know,” Kingsley said. That’s exactly what it was. And now she was gone and everything had gone dark.

“Elle was supposed to teach me how *****b. She said I was a natural.”

“I’ll find you a teacher when I get back.”

“I don’t want another teacher. I liked her.”

“Has anyone heard anything from her? Has she contacted anyone at all? Griffin? Tessa? Irina?” Kingsley asked, already knowing the answer. He knew Calliope would have called the second she had news.

“No. Sorry, King. No word from her or your priest. Do you want me to send someone to check on him?”

“Leave him be. He’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Kingsley considered lying. Reconsidered it.

“No. If she doesn’t come back to him, I doubt he’ll ever be fine again.”

“King, it’s been eight months. I don’t think she’s coming back.”

“That’s her choice then.” He kept his voice flat, but inside his guts churned with the idea he might never see Elle again. That maybe no one would ever see her again. “Did you find anything for me?”

“Yeah, here it is. That address? It belongs to Gérard Guillroy.”

“Why do I know that name?”

“Did you have to see him about your passport?”

“Why would I have to see him about my passport?”

“Because he’s the French ambassador to Haiti.”

Kingsley’s blood went cold.

“The man who owns that house...the address I gave you, he’s the French ambassador to Haiti?”

“He is. Has been for over fifteen years. Forty-eight years old. Two children in their late twenties. One grandson. Rich wife lives in Paris. They’re still married but apparently separated. She stays in France. He spends most of his time in Haiti. What about him?”

“He’s forty-eight you say?”

“But incredibly handsome. Silver fox.”

“What?”

“I mean he has gray hair. But he’s really handsome. French George Clooney.”

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“And rich?”

“Super rich. He’s got Oprah money. Should I send you all this stuff I have on him?”

“No. And pretend we never had this conversation.”

“I pretend that with all our conversations.”

“What about Juliette? Did you find anything on her?”

“Nothing but the basics. Age and birth date. Born in a Petionville hospital. Parents aren’t married. Father’s and mother’s names are listed. That’s it.”

“There has to be more.”

“This is Haiti, not Manhattan,” Calliope reminded him. “Not every country has computerized records on everything.”

“They should. It would make my life easier.”

“Yours and mine both, boss. But if you want to know more about this girl, why don’t you ask her yourself?”

“I’ve asked. I can’t get anything out of her.”

“Why not? Did you piss her off?”

“I ****ed her for eight straight hours last night.”

“Eight hours? Tell me again why we’re not sleeping together.” Calliope sighed.

“Because you’re eighteen, and I don’t sleep with my assistants.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I’m old enough to be your father, and you should remember that.”

“Juliette is thirteen years younger than you are.”

“Do as I say, not as I do.”

“I don’t know why I put up with you,” Calliope said. “Except you’re gorgeous and you pay me really well to put up with you.”

“I’ll give you a raise if you can find out anything about Juliette. Anything at all. Parents. Siblings. Hospital records. I’ll see what I can do on this end.”

“Got it. I’ll call if I find anything,” Calliope said. He could hear one of his dogs barking in the background.

“Who is that? Brutus?” he asked.

“Max. They miss you.”

“I miss them, too,” Kingsley said. “Talk soon.”

“Hey, King?” Calliope asked before he could hang up.

“Oui?”

“She’s never coming back, is she?”

“I don’t know. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”

“****.”

Kingsley laughed.

“Sorry, boss,” Calliope said.

“Don’t be sorry, chérie. I feel the same. If...” He stopped and took a breath. “Cal, if she calls for any reason, give her a message for me.”

“What’s the message?”

“Tell her I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? For what?”

“She’ll know.”

“Okay,” Calliope said, her voice soft. “I’ll give her the message. Do you have any idea when you’re coming back?”

“I’ll come back when I can convince Juliette to come back with me. I’m not leaving this island without her.”

“Then stop wasting time talking to me. Go get her, boss.”

Kingsley smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”

He hung up the phone and threw on clean clothes. For months now he’d been living the life of a beach bum. Doing nothing, going nowhere except from one beach to another. Weeks had passed when he hadn’t even bothered putting on shoes.

But he had never desired any woman the way he’d desired Juliette. And he hadn’t been exaggerating. He would not leave Haiti without her. Enough killing time. Enough hiding. Enough grieving.

It was time to go back to work.

He made a call to his accountant and had money wired into a Haitian bank account.

Then Kingsley got dressed and went shopping.

First he rented a car using the fake ID he’d brought with him in his duffel. They didn’t care about who he was at the rental place anyway, as long as the money was real. He picked out a black Jaguar. Something sleek and shiny, but not ostentatious.

Second he purchased five suits in beach-appropriate colors. He felt more like himself already.

Third purchase, a gun and ammunition. By sleeping with Juliette he’d inadvertently found himself swimming in the deep end of the ocean. He needed to be prepared.

In two days, he had transformed his beach hut into a home worthy of a woman like Juliette. Complete with a much larger bed.

Without waiting for an invitation Kingsley knew wouldn’t come, he drove the long winding road up to Guillroy’s home, where Juliette had taken him. In the light of the late-afternoon sun, the road appeared far less treacherous than it had when Juliette had driven him there two nights earlier.

He’d paid close attention to everything she’d done, every turn she’d made. He even knew the security code she’d punched into the gate. He didn’t punch it in, however. He parked the car far back from the gate to the house and walked through the trees on the side of the road until he found the edge of the property. It was easy enough to scale the wall and jump down onto the lawn. He stayed away from the driveway, from the one security camera he’d noted, and took the most circuitous, most hidden route possible to get to the house.

He couldn’t get caught. He knew that. If he got caught breaking into Guillroy’s house, he could be arrested and deported.

But he had to see her again. She’d said they could only have one night together but he refused to believe she’d meant it. He needed all her nights, not just that one. And he needed to give her all of his.

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Kingsley made it to the house at last and carefully walked its perimeter, looking everywhere for Juliette. The house was open on every level—open doors, open windows. Anything to keep the air flowing and the heat at bay. Finally he saw her. She emerged from a set of open double doors at the back of the house and stood on the balcony looking out onto the garden. The sight of her alone swept the breath from his body. She wore a white dress, strapless with an ankle-length skirt that moved with the breeze. Every kiss of wind bared her long beautiful legs to her knees. He grew hard simply looking at her. He’d been joking with Calliope when he’d said he would have this woman or die trying. Now he made the vow to himself. Whatever it took, she would be his.

He started to step out from the shadows of the trees, but then a man appeared behind her. He was tall, gray-haired, handsome as Calliope had said. He dipped his head and kissed Juliette on the side of her neck.

It was nothing but a kiss, a gentle kiss between lovers. But the sight of Juliette’s passive resigned acceptance of the kiss sent possessive rage welling up within Kingsley. It took everything within him, all his sanity, all his willpower to not pull his gun right then and shoot Gérard between the eyes.

Gérard took her by the arm and together they walked along the balcony and disappeared through another door.

Without knowing why he did it, Kingsley walked up the steps. He took off his shoes and as silently as he could, followed them.

The door they’d passed through led to some kind of sitting room. He went through the room and out into the hall. Carefully as he could, he looked in every room he walked past. One room was well decorated with a woman’s taste—French novels on the shelves, a Bible by the bed and the scent of jasmine perfume in the air.

Juliette’s room.

Kingsley entered it, shut the door behind him. He opened the closet door and found her clothes hanging there. A few of the island print dresses still had tags on them. They were from the finest fashion houses, the most luxe designers. One dress cost more than one of Kingsley’s hand-tailored suits. He saw the canvas bag she’d carried on the floor of her closet. It still had the rocks in it. Why did she have a bag of heavy rocks? It made no sense. He closed the closet door and gazed around her bedroom. The bed was queen-size and the sheets were white, soft, and the bed looked inviting and luxurious. This was a room designed for seduction, for ***. It even had a slatted headboard and he noticed dings in the wood and faded areas. Someone had been cuffed and/or tied to this headboard on many occasions. His own bedposts bore the same marks. The candles on the bedside table no doubt served a dual purpose—ambience and sadism. He opened a drawer and found further evidence of this—lubricant, handcuffs, a small flogger. But he saw something else, too. A book. Kingsley fully expected it to be a book about ***, but it wasn’t. It was a biography of Virginia Woolf translated into French. He flipped through it and found where someone had left in a bookmark. It was on the page that detailed Woolf’s suicide.

Woolf filled the pockets of her coat with stones, waded into the river, and drowned herself.

Kingsley closed his eyes and felt the life go out of him. Juliette was planning to kill herself. That’s what the rocks in the bag were for, why she’d had rocks at the ready when the boys attacked the birds.

Sickened by his discovery he shut the book and shoved it back into the drawer.

He withdrew quickly from the room and walked down the hallway again. He had to see her if only to see that she was alive and well. Or at least alive. If she had a plan to kill herself, she certainly wasn’t well.

Kingsley found a room with a door that led to an interior garden. At the far end of that room was another door, a glass door standing open.

Quietly...so quietly he didn’t let himself breathe, Kingsley came to the glass door. He angled himself so that he could see out, but no one could see him inside.

They stood in the center of the garden, Gérard and Juliette. And now the kiss they shared was one of ardor, at least on Gérard’s part. Juliette stood before him, receiving the kiss and returning it, but without any of the passion Kingsley knew she had within her.

Gérard’s mouth moved from hers to her neck. He pulled her dress down and bared her breasts to him. He cupped the back of her neck, forced her to arch her back, and then kissed her breasts like a man possessed. Juliette put her hands on his shoulders to steady herself and she received his attentions without protest. Not only did she not protest, she seemed to enjoy it, him, all of it.

With a show of strength that Kingsley found in poor taste, Gérard lifted Juliette and carried her five steps to the chaise longue that sat under an umbrella by a clear blue swimming pool. He stripped naked in seconds and pushed the skirt of Juliette’s dress to her stomach. She had nothing on underneath and when he mounted her and entered her, she gave him no resistance at all. She simply opened her legs, received him into her and let him have his way with her body.

Gérard sucked hard on her nipples and she lay beneath him, running her hands through his short silver hair, whispering words that must have been encouragements, though Kingsley couldn’t hear them. He thrust hard into her body and she lifted her hips to take him. He gripped her shoulders as he bore into her with his most powerful thrusts. She should have just lain there. She should have hated it. She should have borne it in stoic silence, made a martyr of herself, or a corpse. Instead, as his hips pumped into hers and his hands grasped her breasts, pinched her nipples and rubbed her clitoris, she pumped back, moving with him, an equal partner in pleasure.

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After a few minutes Gérard pulled out, motioned with his hand, and Juliette turned over onto her hands and knees. He entered her from behind now, gripping her hips, pulling her back hard against him as he pushed forward and into her.

Kingsley took the tiniest step forward and Juliette’s eyes flashed open. Had she heard him? He knew Gérard had not. He was too lost in his own pleasure to even notice her utter indifference to him. But Juliette, she stared into the shadows where Kingsley stood.

“Go.” She mouthed the word at him. “Go.”

It was the last thing he wanted to do. But Gérard gave a hoarse cry as he finished inside her and rested his body on top of hers.

Gérard pulled out of her body and she rolled onto her back. She smiled up at her lover and mouthed, “Merci.”

He had two choices as he counted them. He could kill Gérard right now for no other reason than he’d touched the woman Kingsley already considered his own property.

Or he could do what she’d ordered him to do.

She’d told him to go.

Kingsley left.

17

Upstate New York

JOHN APOLLO CHASED Daphne all the way into the woods behind the school. Daphne feinted left, but he didn’t fall for it. She took a sharp turn right, and he followed close behind. He was fast but she was faster. But he was male and had better stamina. After two miles on rough terrain she couldn’t go another step. She collapsed against a tree and swallowed air until she coughed.

“Don’t touch me,” she said when he came to stand in front of her.

“I won’t.” He was panting just as hard as she was. She’d never seen perfect John Apollo looking so wrecked. His dark hair fell over his forehead in a wet mass, his jeans splashed with mud and muck, his shirt stained with sweat. “I just need to talk to you. Please talk to me.”

“You killed my brother.” Her hatred for this man in front of her was like a poison arrow in her heart. She felt the point digging in deeper with every breath.

“I know,” he said between heavy breaths. “I know I did.”

Those were the last words she expected from him.

“I killed your brother, yes,” he said, and it sounded as though he were exorcizing a demon with his confession. “And I don’t regret it.”

“How can you say that? He was—”

“He was bashing another student’s face into the wall, Daphne. You’re sixteen years old now. Grow up and face the truth that your brother was a time bomb. And he went off.”

“You didn’t have to kill him.”

“Do you think that’s what I wanted? I was trying to restrain him, not kill him.”

“It doesn’t matter what you were doing. He’s dead.”

“He’s dead and another boy isn’t. My conscience is clear.”

“Well, good for you,” Daphne said, anger boiling as hot as her blood. “My brother’s still dead but you sleep like a baby at night.”

“I don’t. I don’t sleep at all at night. I can’t sleep.”

“Because you killed my brother?”

“Because I’m in love with you.”

Daphne only stared at him. He bent over and coughed.

“You’re in love with me?”

“Of course I’m in love with you. Do you think I’d run after you for three goddamn miles in the woods in loafers if I wasn’t?”

Daphne ran her hands through her hair.

She laughed.

She laughed and then John laughed. The laugh rolled through her like a wave washing all the anger out of her heart. It poured out sobs that crested and ebbed. Before she knew it, John had her in his arms.

“He tried to choke me once,” Daphne whispered in his ear. “I thought my own brother would kill me. But he loved me. He did love me.”

“He loved you,” John whispered, stroking her hair. “I’m sure he didn’t want to be how he was. He was lucky he had you to love him back.”

“I don’t love you back.” Daphne met his eyes. “I can’t.”

“I know.” John nodded. “It’s fine. I don’t expect you to. Just let me love you, and let me help you and that’ll be enough.”

“It’s not enough.”

“What else is there then?” he asked, wiping her face with the end of his sleeve.

She raised her face to his and kissed him. He pulled back and looked at her. She saw in his eyes it was the last thing he expected her to do.

His eyes changed from shock to something else. The change scared her, but she didn’t look away. And when he kissed her, she wasn’t shocked at all.

She opened her mouth and his tongue slipped inside. He grabbed the strap of her tank top and yanked it down her arm. A rough hand reached into her bra and cupped her breast, pinching the nipple and squeezing it. She’d never been touched like this before, and the pleasure of it left her gasping. He rolled her nipples between his fingers and she moaned into his mouth. His hips pushed into hers, and she felt something big and brutally hard against her, and it made her ache with a new kind of wanting. John lowered his head to her chest, pulled her bra down to bare her breasts and sucked on her nipple.

Nobody had taught her how to be kissed like this. She’d taken *** ed, but it hadn’t prepared her for being pushed up against a tree in the woods with a twenty-four-year-old cop sucking and fondling her breasts. She thought about asking him to stop, but right then he chose to slip his hand into her running shorts and touch her clitoris. All words, all rationality even, left her, and all she could get out of her lips was one desperate, “Please...”

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Please stop? Please don’t stop? She didn’t know what she begged for, only that she had to beg for it.

John grasped her shorts and pulled them down and off her. He ripped her shirt up and off her and her bra joined the rest of her clothes on the ground. She needed skin, needed contact. With terrified fingers, she unbuttoned John’s shirt and got it halfway down his arms before he lifted her off her feet and brought her down onto him.

She cried out, a sound that echoed through the quiet forest around them.

Instinctively Daphne wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders. The bark on the tree cut into her naked back but she couldn’t feel it, couldn’t feel anything but him inside her.

“Shh...” John whispered in her ear. “It’s all right. I’ll make it all right.”

“I’ve never—”

“I know,” he said. His fingers dug into her hips. Why did this pain feel so good? So necessary? Like only this pain could banish the pain from her brother’s death? This was the pain she’d been waiting for. “Let me hold you. I’ll stop when you tell me to.”

She buried her head into the crook of his neck and nodded. She didn’t want him to stop but she didn’t know what to do, how to proceed. John knew, though. He pulled her hips toward him as he pushed against her. When he did it again, it felt as if something gave way inside her and she opened up for him. Her body wanted him in it. Her head fell back and her hips moved on his, working against him and with him until he lifted her up again and brought her down once more, harder this time, impaling her on his **** all the way to the center of her stomach. His mouth was on her mouth again, his tongue in her mouth. The kiss was wild, hungry, violent, as were the thrusts that he slammed into her. She couldn’t get enough of this part of him inside her. She’d never get enough of it.

The heat of their joined bodies rose to a fever pitch. She moved her mouth from his so she could breathe. He’d pounded her so hard against the tree behind her she felt as if she would become one with it as she became one with John. Her hands grasped his broad muscular shoulders and her nipples tightened painfully against his burning chest. He’d said he would stop if she told him to but she knew they were both too far gone to stop now. Ecstasy writhed and trembled along every nerve inside her hips. Her vagina poured wetness over him, a mix of blood and desire. Her muscles contracted into a knot and with a cry she couldn’t contain, she exploded around his still-thrusting length. As she spasmed and flinched, he slammed into her with rough jerks of his pelvis, at last coming inside her with a burning rush.

Finally it stopped. Her heart rattled against her rib cage like a prisoner banging on the bars. But John lowered her feet to the ground. He pulled out slowly and she winced in fresh agony.

“Daphne...” he breathed as he kissed her stomach, caressed her nipples with his tongue, kissed her neck and mouth. Even as his semen dripped down her thighs, he couldn’t stop touching her.

“Stop, please...” At last she got the words out. As promised, he stopped. He stepped away from her and nervously straightened his clothes. Before he buttoned his shirt again, she saw she’d left deep red scratches on his shoulders.

In pain like she’d never felt before, she got onto her hands and knees and gathered her clothes.

“Daphne, I—”

She raised her hand.

“Don’t talk to me,” she said. “You killed River and ****ing me doesn’t change anything.”

She pulled her shorts on and winced as the fabric met the ravaged flesh. Her arms shook when she hooked her bra and pulled on her running tank again.

“Tell me what I can do to help,” he said. He was begging, pleading, offering her anything. She saw it in his eyes—he would do anything she asked.

“Take me to your house,” she said. “And what you just did to me—”

“What? Tell me.”

She looked up at him.

“Do it again.”

* * *

“What do you think?” Elle asked, bracing herself for Kyrie’s judgment. She sorted through a pile of towels she needed to fold. If she looked busy maybe Kyrie wouldn’t notice how nervous she was, letting someone else read the story she’d been writing.

“You made Apollo into a cop?” Kyrie asked, flipping through the sixty handwritten pages Elle had created over the past week.

“Yeah, and Daphne and her brother lived in a group home—no parents. Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Elle said. “Trying to make the story more contemporary. Daphne’s a runner. That’s the only thing I could think of that would be like a wood nymph—a girl who runs cross-country.”

“He’s also a music teacher?”

“Well, Apollo was the god of music,” Elle said, “and I needed a reason for him to be at the group home. He volunteers there with the kids in the home, teaches them music. He’s an off-duty cop, so when her brother goes off and starts beating another kid to death, he intervenes and Daphne’s brother dies in the process.”

“Where did the arrows go?”

“I thought it would be more interesting if Daphne had a really good reason for hating Apollo rather than just getting hit by an arrow from a pissy little cherub with an inferiority complex. So I gave her a twin brother who was emotionally unstable and then had Mr. Apollo accidentally kill him while restraining him. Daphne blames him and voila! Hate.”

“That’s kind of dark,” Kyrie said, flipping through the pages again.

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Elle smiled. “I like dark.”

“Cop–teenage girl affair. Interesting,” Kyrie said, putting the pages back down.

“Just interesting?” Elle had been hoping for more of a reaction.

“Very interesting. And hot.”

“Kyrie.”

“What?”

“You’re a nun. You’re not allowed to find anything hot.”

“If I put my hand on a stove, I’m allowed to find it hot. This story is the fictional equivalent of putting your hand on a hot stove.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Don’t tell me if it isn’t, okay?”

Kyrie’s eyes went wide and she whistled to herself. Kyrie could whistle? Cute.

“This is wow,” Kyrie said.

“Wow? I can live with wow.” Elle tried to hold back her smile.

“Really wow. I love it. I have never loved a story as much as I love this story. I want to read it again. And I want to read more of it. I want it to be one thousand and ninety-five pages long so I can read one page a day for three straight years. Wait. Leap year. Better make it one thousand and ninety-six pages long.”

“I think you’re exaggerating.”

“I’m not exaggerating,” Kyrie said. “I love this story. You have to keep working on it. Please?”

“Sure, why not?” Elle said. “Nothing else to do around here. Except laundry.”

“You could come to Mass.”

“I could. I won’t. But I could.”

“Your mom is a nun. You’re obviously Catholic. Why do I never see you at Mass?”

“I’ve gone to Mass enough for a lifetime.”

“Are we getting into an area you don’t want to talk about again?”

“Very much so,” Elle said. “I’d rather talk about why you’re still a virgin at twenty-one.”

“Is it that surprising?”

“No girls even?”

“Elle,” Kyrie said as she hopped off the counter, “I’ve never even been kissed.”

“You have got to be kidding me.” Elle stared blankly at her, the towel in her hand forgotten.

“I’m not counting the kisses you get in elementary school from boys who grab you from behind.”

“No, those definitely don’t count. Nothing before puberty counts.”

“Well, what can I say? I come from a very Catholic family. I have three brothers and two sisters and the most conservative parents ever. And the day I realized I liked girls and only girls was the same day I realized I wanted to be a nun.”

“How old were you?” Elle asked.

“Thirteen.”

“You knew you wanted to be a nun when you were thirteen?”

“Sister Mary Patrick came to my high school and gave a little talk on joining religious orders. I fell in love with her and the idea of being a nun all at once. I think...”

Kyrie leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms. If Sister Mary Patrick had looked anything like Kyrie did now, like an angel all in white, no wonder Kyrie had fallen for her. “I think they became the same thing to me. The idea of love and the idea of joining a convent. They were one and the same, two strands of the same cord. If I wanted one I had to have the other.”

“How’s it working out for you so far?”

“So far...” Kyrie smiled. “So far the past month has been the happiest month of my life.”

“Honeymoon phase,” Elle said. “It’ll pass.”

“You think so?”

“I’ve been here long enough to see three novices go from ‘This is Heaven on earth’ to ‘Get me the **** out of here’ already.”

“But they didn’t leave?”

“One did. Two are still here. She’s better now. At least she stopped having panic attacks during Vespers. Sister Aquinas calls it progress.”

“Your mom seems to love it here.”

“She does. But Mom’s wanted to be a nun since she was—I don’t know. Forever, she says.”

“What took her so long to join?”

“Me,” Elle said with a shrug. She placed her folded towels into the basket and started on a new stack.

“She got pregnant with you?”

“When she was seventeen. Then she got divorced and of course you can’t join a religious order if you’re divorced and you have a kid. But then my father was killed and that meant she was technically a widow. She went back to college, got her degree and joined here a couple of years ago.”

“Good for her.”

“Yeah, I guess it is. I didn’t see that at the time. I’m starting to see it now.”

“You can see a change in her?”

“In Mom? Definitely. She used to be really angry,” Elle said. “Angry at herself, but she took it out on me a lot. Not physically. She wasn’t abusive or anything. Just...sad. Really sad and I made her even sadder.” The memories of a hundred mother-daughter fights flashed through her mind in an instant. “She wasn’t who she thought she should be. And now she finally is.”

“It’s a terrible thing to not be who God called you to be. I think that’s the cause for most of the suffering in all the world,” Kyrie said. “People trying to be who they aren’t supposed to be or not getting to be who they should be.”

“Maybe. But what do you do when you don’t know what you’re supposed to be?”

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“Ask me. I’ll tell you.”

“Great. What am I supposed to be?”

Kyrie held up the pages again.

“This.”

“That? A girl having *** with a cop?” Elle asked, arching her eyebrow. “I don’t think I’ve ever ****ed a cop. Or a music teacher.”

“A writer,” Kyrie said. “You should write books. Professionally. For money. Like my sister did.”

“Write books,” Elle said.

“Professionally,” Kyrie repeated. “For money. There. I told you I would figure out what you should do with your life. You can even do it here. You don’t have to leave to do it.”

“I’d probably have to go somewhere with a computer,” Elle said. “You know, for typing. I doubt publishers have accepted handwritten manuscripts since 1890.”

“Mother Prioress has a computer in her office.”

“That’s good. I’ll ask her if I can borrow it to type up my novel about the rookie cop deflowering a high school girl against a tree after killing her brother.”

“Well...you might not want to word it quite like that.” Kyrie laughed. “Maybe call it a dissertation.”

Elle winced at the word dissertation.

“What?” Kyrie asked.

“Force of habit. Sorry. Anyway, it’s a fun idea, writing books. I’ve been writing short stories since I got here. Very depressing ones.”

“Toss them,” Kyrie said. “No money in short stories. Write novels.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You say that in a tone that makes me think you won’t think about it.”

“I’ll think about it, I promise.”

“You’ll finish the book, right?” Kyrie asked. “I want to know what happens next.”

“I don’t know what happens next.”

“You’re smart. You’ll figure it out. You should write more tree ***, though. That was fun.”

“It’s not as fun in real life. The bark on your back is really itchy.”

“You’ve had tree ***?” Kyrie asked, her eyes wide.

“Not with a tree. Against a tree.”

“Oh my.” Kyrie grinned and leaned over Elle’s ironing board. “Tell me all.”

“I had *** once and it was against a tree. The end.”

“Okay, maybe you shouldn’t be a writer.” Kyrie stood up straight again and sighed.

“I’m not going to tell the dirty details of my *** life to a virginal nun who’s never been kissed.”

“Elle, I will tell you the truth and you should believe it because it is the truth.”

“What?”

Kyrie reached out and took Elle’s hand in hers. It had been so long since someone had held her hand that Elle had forgotten how good it felt, the simple act of fingers touching fingers, of palms pressed to palms.

“The truth is...there is no one on earth who needs to hear the details of your *** life more than a virginal nun who has never been kissed.”

Elle stared at Kyrie. She thought they’d been joking, only joking. And while Kyrie’s words were joking, the way she said them was serious.

It wouldn’t hurt anything, would it? A kiss? A kiss was such a small thing, small as a hiccup, small as a firefly. And maybe if she kissed Kyrie, it would scare the girl enough to send her running away. Then Elle could have her peace and quiet back. Worth the risk anyway.

It was only a kiss.

“Ellie? Ellie, are you here?”

Kyrie dropped Elle’s hand as if it had caught fire.

They both turned to the door. Elle’s mother rushed into the laundry room. Her pale skin was whiter than usual, almost as white as her habit.

“I’m here. What’s up?” Elle glanced at Kyrie who was discreetly sliding Elle’s pages underneath a pile of towels.

“Have either of you seen Sister Mary Angelica?”

“Which one is she?” Elle asked.

“The old one,” Kyrie said. “Really old, right?”

“Yes, she’s ninety-two. And she has dementia. She’s wandered off again, and no one can find her.”

“I’ve been in here for three hours,” Elle said.

“When is the last time you saw her?” her mother asked Kyrie.

“Breakfast,” Kyrie said. “Not since then.”

“Everyone is looking for her,” her mother said. “Can you help?”

“Yeah, sure.” Elle dropped her towel back into the basket. Kyrie followed her out of the door. In the hallway they were met by Sister Aquinas.

“She’s locked herself in the supply pantry in the infirmary,” Sister Aquinas said. Her words were rushed, her faced flushed.

“Can’t you unlock it?” Elle asked.

“No. It used to be an office so it’s got an old lock on the inside. We haven’t had the key in years.”

“Did you call a locksmith?” her mother asked.

“Yes, but he’s on a call and can’t be here for another hour. There are needles in there, scalpels. We’re going to have to take the door off the hinges,” Sister Aquinas said. “Or call the fire department to come.”

“Is it a normal lock?” Elle asked. “A key lock? Nothing fancy?”

“Nothing fancy,” Sister Aquinas said.

“Hold on,” Elle said. “I’ll meet you in the infirmary.”

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She raced off down the hall to her cell.

“Elle?” Kyrie stood in the doorway of her room.

“I got this,” Elle said. She pulled open her purse and dug to the bottom of it. From it she pulled out a leather case.

“Got what?” Kyrie asked. But Elle didn’t answer. She ran off down the hall again and down the stairs. She could hear Kyrie behind her racing to catch up.

“What room?” Elle asked once she was in the infirmary. But she already saw it. Three sisters were kneeling by the door, their ears against it.

“She’s crying her eyes out,” one of them said. “She might be hurt.”

“Get up,” Elle said. The nuns hesitated a moment but then moved out of her way. She knelt on the floor in front of the lock and examined it. Sister Aquinas hadn’t been kidding. The metal works were old and tarnished. This wouldn’t be easy. She opened her case, pulled out a lock-pick tool and inserted it into the keyhole. It took some doing to get the ancient tumblers to move. By the time she’d pushed the first one up, sweat had beaded on Elle’s forehead.

“Elle, can we help?”

Kyrie sounded as scared as Sister Mary Angelica but Elle only shook her head and pushed up the second tumbler. She wiped her sweaty palm on her jeans and a minute later, had the lock picked. Elle got up and wrenched the door open. Her mother and Sister Aquinas raced inside the pantry and brought out the weeping elderly nun.

Elle’s mother took her gently by the arm and put her in a chair. She called for water and a towel and every nun in the room rushed to help Sister Mary John calm Sister Mary Angelica down.

Every nun in the room except for Kyrie.

“How do you know how to pick locks?” she asked Elle.

“Long story,” Elle said, and put her lock-pick tool back into the case. She got off her knees and left the infirmary. She walked to the nearest bathroom. Kyrie followed.

“I’m serious. I want to know how you did that.”

“Just a hobby,” Elle said. “I was curious about how to pick locks. I figured out how to do it.”

“Are you a cat burglar?”

Elle laughed. “I haven’t stolen anything since I was fifteen years old. Well, one car, but I gave it back.”

“You stole a car?”

“No, I was kidding. I borrowed it. It was a friend’s.”

“Who? The complicated guy?”

“No. A different guy. Doesn’t matter. I’m not friends with him anymore.” She turned on the water and washed the dirt and oil from the lock off her hands.

“Who taught you how to pick locks?”

“Kyrie, I’m not going to talk to you about any of this, okay?”

“Why not?”

“I told you. I don’t want to talk about my life. I want to keep my head down, do my work and figure things out. I don’t want to get into trouble because a little virgin nun has a crush on me and won’t leave me the hell alone.”

The smile and the delight washed out of Kyrie’s eyes like color fading from too many washings.

“I don’t have—”

“Yes, you do. You follow me everywhere, you ask me a million personal questions, you are obsessed with finding out why I’m here even though I’ve told you a dozen times I don’t want to talk about it. You’re not the first girl who’s had a crush on me. I know what it looks like. And I’m not interested, okay? Go be a nun. Go back to the infirmary and help them with Sister Mary Angelica. Stop thinking about me.”

Kyrie clasped her hands in front of her. They disappeared under her bell sleeves.

“I can’t, Elle,” Kyrie said. “I try to stop thinking about you and there you are, back in my mind again. I ask you about your life because I told myself that the reason I’m thinking about you is because you’re a mystery to me. And if I solve the mystery then you won’t be so interesting to me anymore, and I won’t think about you anymore. But it’s not working. You won’t tell my anything about yourself and here I am, still thinking about you, morning, noon and night.” Kyrie paused, and when she spoke again her voice had become a whisper. “Especially at night.”

“That’s not my problem,” Elle said, grabbing a paper towel to dry off her hands.

“I know it’s not. But maybe if you tried to help me...maybe if you told me something about you...how you know how to pick locks or why you came here or why your complications are so complicated. I mean, I know complicated. I’m a nun with a crush on another woman who’s standing two feet in front of me. That’s complicated.”

“He’s a priest.”

“What?”

“You really want to know why my situation is so complicated? There. I told you. My lover who I ran away from is a Catholic priest. He was into hardcore kink, sadism and bondage, and I taught myself how to pick locks so I could get out of anything he put me in if I wanted to. There you go. Your questions are answered.”

Kyrie stared at her. Her eyes were wide with shock. She said not a word, made not a sound. It was the longest Kyrie had ever been silent in her presence. The shock in her blue eyes turned to horror and then something worse.

Disgust.

Kyrie turned and walked out of the bathroom without another word.

And as she’d wanted, Elle was finally alone.

18

ELEANOR TURNED THE page in her book, pushed a second pillow under her head and read. She was so engrossed in the story she barely heard the door to her bedroom open. But she wasn’t so engrossed in the story that she didn’t feel the bed move when someone sat on it.

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Still, she kept reading, not looking away from the words in front of her.

“The Count of Monte Cristo,” Kingsley said, as he reached out and plucked the book from her hands. “Excellent choice. A story of bitter vengeance with a perfect ending.”

“I’m enjoying it,” she said. “Was enjoying it, until someone rudely interrupted.” She took the book back from him with a flourish and settled into her pillows. It was nearly midnight so she wore only one of Kingsley’s shirts—a white one with pearl buttons down the front. She crossed one leg over the other and attempted to resume her reading. Then she felt Kingsley’s hands on her legs. He uncrossed them for her.

“Kingsley...”

“Are you feeling better, chérie?”

She looked over the top of her book at him.

“Much.”

“Bon. Très bon,” Kingsley said as he bent and kissed her thigh.

She kept reading.

Kingsley opened the third button on his shirt she’d stolen to sleep in. He pushed the fabric aside and kissed her left nipple. She felt a delicious pull in her stomach.

“Kingsley, are you here to seduce me?” she asked. “While I’m trying to read?”

He rolled his tongue around her nipple before answering, “Oui.”

“Oh,” she said, closing the book with a loud snap. “What the **** am I doing reading this then?”

She tossed the book across the room. Kingsley laughed and sat up.

“You should be nicer to Dumas,” he said. “The greatest French novelist.”

“I’d rather be nice to you, monsieur. The greatest French lover.”

Kingsley straddled her knees and kissed her on the lips. It was a slow, soft sensual kiss, merely a prelude to whatever decadent plans he had for her that night. As much as she missed Søren when he was gone, at least he always left her with the world’s best babysitter.

Kingsley slipped his hand under her shirt and rested it on her stomach. Like the well-trained submissive she was, she opened her legs for him and gave him access to every part of her he could possibly want.

He parted the folds of her vulva with his fingertips and gently massaged the outside of her vagina. When she grew wet from his touch, he pushed one finger into her.

“You’re the only woman I come inside,” he said, kneading her favorite spot right under her pubic bone. “Did you know that?”

She flushed a little at his words. Kingsley was adamant about using condoms. There wasn’t a room in the house that didn’t hold a crystal bowl of them. But with her he never used one. Her and only her.

“I know, monsieur.”

“Do you know why?” he asked, pushing in a second finger.

“No.”

“He comes inside you,” Kingsley said. “And that makes this hole very special to me.”

She laughed and raised her hips.

“Come inside me all you want. He gave me to you. Until he gets back, I’m all yours.”

They kissed again, kissed for a long time as he ****ed her with his fingers. He spread them apart inside her, opening her up for him. Soon she was dripping wet and panting.

“I was thinking of trying something special with you,” Kingsley said. “Since you are so special to him and to me.”

“Anything you want,” she said. “You know I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”

Kingsley kissed her earlobe, her neck under her ear.

“Come to my bedroom. I’ll tell you there. But...”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“But what?”

“What we do, it will have to stay a secret,” he whispered.

“A secret? From who?”

“From him.”

She stiffened a moment.

“Why do we have to keep it a secret from Søren?” she asked. “He doesn’t care what kink we do.”

“He’ll care about this,” Kingsley said with a smile that for one split second looked almost nervous.

“What is it?”

Kingsley pulled his fingers out of her.

“Come find out. If you dare,” he said, and the old roguish smile was back.

He left her alone in her bedroom as he walked back to his.

Eleanor wanted to follow him, but she hesitated. What could Kingsley have planned for them tonight that was so kinky he didn’t want her to tell Søren about it? She and Kingsley had done every sort of kink she could think of, even the harder stuff like rape-play, breath-play, blood-play. Søren was usually there for it, but not always. All that mattered to Søren was that she was a good girl, submitted to Kingsley when told to and told Søren all the erotic details of whatever happened afterward.

Something they couldn’t tell Søren? A mix of desire and curiosity led her down the hall to Kingsley’s bedroom. When she opened the door she found he’d lit half a dozen candles. They burned on each side of his big red bed. And the dogs that always slept in his room at the foot of his bed were nowhere to be seen.

“Lock the door,” he said, a rare command. No one would dare interrupt the master of the house in his bedroom without knocking first.

She locked the door behind her.

“King, I’m a little freaked out here,” she admitted as she walked to him. He stood by the bed and had already started undressing. He was barefoot and had removed his jacket. He could have been the Count of Monte Cristo with his fitted black trousers, his white shirt and black-and-red embroidered vest. His hair was looking particularly Byronic tonight. His ex-girlfriend Charlie had cut it short, but he’d started growing it back out and now it curled its way to his earlobes.