“Then why even ask me?” he said as she went into the other room. “Wait, her? Eleanor? Her?”
Nora cackled softly as she went to fetch the carrier from the guest bedroom. She took the cat, gone limp with the terror of new surroundings, out of the carrier and brought her to Søren at his piano bench.
“She’s a stray, but a sweet stray, Mercedes said,” Nora told him as she piled the soft furry bundle into Søren’s arms. “And she doesn’t have a name yet. But I think you two will get along.”
“A cat? You’re giving me a cat?” Søren seemed dazed by the gift, though he was already settling the terrified cat onto his lap, stroking the glossy black coat with the back of his hand.
“She’s got food and water in the kitchen. Litter box in the downstairs bathroom. You can make Kingsley clean it.” He looked at her, a little dazed. Very rare day when she managed to surprise him. “You only have about a year on the outside. Might as well enjoy it as much as you can, do all the things you can’t do when you’re back in the order. And when you do go back, Céleste can take her. She’s been dying for a cat.”
“Why are you so certain I’m going back?”
“Grace emailed and asked if I was all right. That’s all the email said. I guessed you had contacted her, asking for the letter absolving you of parental responsibility toward Fionn, and she wanted to check in with me. Then Cyrus said you’d asked for the name of his therapist. You have to go to therapy before they’ll let you back in the Jesuits, right?”
“A good guess, but the wrong one. Don’t give up your day job yet, Miss Marple.”
He didn’t look at her, only his new cat who’d started to purr in his hands. He always did have a way with cats.
“So…are you not going back?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I called Grace to reassure her that I had no intention of seeking joint custody—or any form of custody from Fionn—whether I went back or not.”
“Why? If you’re not going back, if you’re not sure, why make that decision now?”
“Hard to explain,” he said, glanced away, breathed.
The cat bumped her head against his hand, and he obligingly scratched the top of her head.
“You would be a wonderful father,” she said. “I know you’re worried you’d be like your father, but you wouldn’t be. I know you wouldn’t.”
“I took advantage of a teenaged girl in my church, Eleanor. I am already like my father.” He looked at her as if daring her to contradict him. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. “If I truly believed, down to the bottom of my soul, that I was better for Fionn than Zachary and Grace, nothing would keep me from my son.” He ran his hands over the cat’s sleek back as if seeking comfort. “I…I wouldn’t be very good at playing Doctor Who with him.”
“Søren,” she said, wishing she’d never mentioned Zach and Fionn and Doctor-fucking-Who. He took a long breath, then met her eyes, and from the look he wore on his face, she knew the subject was closed. For now.
She swallowed a lump in her throat. “So why the therapist then, if you’re not going back?”
“As much as I loathe the very thought of seeing a therapist, I thought it might help. Us.”
“Us?”
“Me,” he said with finality.
“I think we should both go. Can Catholic priests go into couples counseling?”
At least that got a smile out of him.
“So…dare I ask what the bad news is?” he said. “Or are you giving me my other two gifts first?”
The cat jumped off his lap and started exploring her new surroundings. She hopped onto the camelback love seat and started grooming, already at home.
“Bad news. Then more gifts. Fair?”
“Fair enough.”
“Before I tell you, you need to know I didn’t make this decision lightly.”
“What decision?”
“Whether or not you go back to the Jesuits, I’m not going back,” Nora said, “to the Church.”
“What?” He looked at her sharply.
“I’m leaving the Church. The Catholic Church. For good.”
“Eleanor—”
“Just listen. I can’t be around men playing God anymore. I can’t give an organization that won’t ordain women as priests any more of my time or money while they play shuffleboard with sexual predators. The punishment for a raped woman having an abortion is more severe than for a priest who molests a child.”
“Is this because I tried to talk you out of calling the papers? I was wrong, I admit it. That was fear talking, fear of you getting named in a scandal like this. And I couldn’t take my own advice. I told Cyrus to assume the worst, and then I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “You made very good points. Under other circumstances, you might have been right. That’s not why I’m leaving. I’m leaving because I want to.”
Søren rose from the piano bench and walked to the window. He rested his hand on the sill, one hand on his hip, the very picture of deepest contemplation.
“Don’t do this to me,” he said softly.
“I’m not doing it to you. I’m doing it for me.”
“How is leaving our church good for you? The Catholic Church is its people, its sacraments, not its priests.”
“I’ll miss the sacraments, too. But sacredness is everywhere. I’m going to look for it, and I’m going to find it.”
“Is this because you’re angry at me? Or angry at God?”
“Neither. It has nothing to do with you.” Nora had to make him understand. “I love her, you know.”
“Who? Your new witch friend?”
“God.”
He turned, met her eyes.
“Even you, the most liberal Catholic priest I know,” she said, “can’t wrap your mind around God being a ‘her.’”
“That is incredibly unfair, Eleanor.”
“Tell it to all the women throughout history who have been treated like second-class citizens in the Church, all because it was ‘Our Father.’ All because Jesus had a dick. The Church only likes Mary because she was a virgin.” Nora braced herself, then delivered her knock-out blow. “How many Catholic women we know would have made a better priest than Father Murran? Most of them?”
The blow landed. Søren lowered his head. He raised it again, a man defeated by a worthy adversary.
“If you turn into a witch,” he said, “I’m not going to be pleased.”
“Oh, shove it, warlock,” she said. “You turn wine into God’s blood. You have no room to talk.”
“Do you know what ‘warlock’ means?”
“Evil wizard?”
“Oath-breaker,” he said. “Vow breaker.”
She waited. He had his own news to share.
“If I do go back,” he began. Then, “Cyrus said something to me about the married men he catches cheating. How if they can’t keep their vows, they don’t get to keep their wife.”
“The Church’s rules are antiquated and wrong,” she said.
“But they are the rules. And if I do go back…”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. She knew. If he went back, he would keep his vows.
She reached out, stroked his face again, and the beard that protected him from seeing his father’s face in the mirror.
“I hope the next present is very good,” he said.
“I think you’ll like it.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a pair of handcuffs and presented them to him as if they were a priceless jewel.
“Handcuffs? I have my own.”
“These are new handcuffs, unmarked, straight from my own dungeon. I know King gave you the engraved ones, but I thought you might want to get rid of those. Considering.”
“Considering they’re a reminder of a very unpleasant chapter in our life?”
“Boner-killer, right?”
“Precisely.”
He held the handcuffs in his hand, studying them almo
st as if he’d never seen handcuffs before.
“Søren?”
“A cat and handcuffs. Two very good gifts. I should give you something in return.”
“Like what?”
“Like this.” He held out the handcuffs to her, and she took them back. Then he did the last thing she ever expected him to do. He held out his hands for her to cuff.
“You are shitting me.”
“You said you dream about it.”
“Everyone who’s seen you has dreamed about it. But you know I can’t top you. It won’t work.” They’d tried sex without him hurting her one night when he’d woken up hard. They’d managed it for about a minute before he’d lost his erection. Vanilla sex wasn’t for them, but he wasn’t talking about vanilla sex. He was giving her permission to top him.
“It might. We’ve never tried.”
“Just when I think I have you figured out…”
“You will never have me figured out.”
“This is crazy. Absolutely crazy. I can’t—”
“Nervous? Scared?”
“You think?” Even as she protested, she clutched the handcuffs in her grip, holding them like a child with a favorite toy that might get taken away any second.
“When I was in your dungeon, it occurred to me, there’s an entire side of you I’ve never truly experienced. A very important side of you.”
She exhaled heavily, suddenly shaky, nervous as a virgin. “It’s incredibly…generous? Let’s go with that. Incredibly generous—and brave—of you to offer. But I really don’t think it’s gonna work.”
“What’s the worst that could happen? Neither of us enjoy it, so we stop and do something else? Céleste gave me a housewarming gift. We could play that instead.”
“What was it?”
“Candy-Land.”
Nora laughed. She had to, it was all so ridiculous.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said.
“Making you an offer you can’t refuse?”
“Will you ever stop manipulating me? Ever?” She hadn’t gone near him in a week, staying home, all alone, hiding from him, hiding from her pain. Only this offer would tempt her back into bed with him after all she’d been through. Truly, only this and nothing else. And he knew it.
“I’ll stop the day you stop enjoying it, Little One.”
She snapped her fingers in his face as he’d done to her a thousand times.
“That’s Mistress Little One to you.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
They retreated to the downstairs guest room. Inside it was quiet, still. Nora imagined she could hear her own heartbeat, but it was only the pounding of nervous blood in her ears.
The last of the evening’s sunlight streamed through the sheer white curtains over the large mullioned windows above the bed. The room was filled with golden light and silver shadows.
As soon as they entered the room, Nora shut the door to keep the new roommate out for the next hour. Something about the lock clicking made it all real to her and she closed her eyes, hand still on the knob.
“Eleanor?”
“Tell me this is real.”
He took her in his arms and held her to his heart. She rested her ear against his chest, his heart beating steady and ready and slow. He wasn’t scared. Of course not. Just a game, she told herself. Just another mind game.
“It’s not real,” he said. “It’s only a dream. And we never have to be afraid in our dreams.” Was he talking to her? Or himself? Either way it helped. The pressure lifted. Only a dream. Just a dream. Just her most deliciously decadent impossible dream.
Slowly, she pulled herself from his arms, faced him.
“Stand there.” She pointed at a spot on the floor at the foot of the bed next to the steamer trunk. He raised an eyebrow but obeyed.
“Here?” His bare feet were placed precisely where she’d pointed. “Or here?” He moved one centimeter to the right.
“Submitting for five seconds and you’re already a brat.” This was a very good dream. “There is fine. Stay.”
She found the matches and lit the candles arrayed on the fireplace mantel. The room was dark and growing darker. Soon the candlelight would be the only light they would dream by.
“Tell me again you want this?” She turned to face him.
“I want you,” he said. “All of you. For once.”
All of her. If that was what he wanted…
“Take your clothes off.”
She waited for the refusal, for him to remember who and what he was—dominant, master, owner—and who and what she was—submissive, slave, possession. Instead, he pulled his t-shirt off, folded it in half and lay it neatly over the back of the leather armchair. Jeans next, then his black—of course—boxer briefs, both folded and left on the chair, just so.
A clock gently chimed from somewhere in the house, telling them the hour was nine. The sun was almost gone.
“Lay on the bed, on your back, hands behind your head.”
His only act of rebellion was to wait a full three seconds before obeying. But obey he did. He went to the bed, lay down on the thick white antique lace counterpane and rested his head on the pillow.
“Safe word?”
“Yours will do,” he said. Hers was Jabberwocky.
“Hard limits?”
“Decapitation.”
“Søren.”
He looked at her, his eyes saying “silly girl” and his expression patted her on the head.
“Do you really think I have any limits when it comes to pain?”
No, of course she didn’t.
She placed a candle on the bedside table, picked up the handcuffs and took out the key, which she set next to the candle. She wanted to have it in case Søren changed his mind about being restrained.
Carefully, as if he were a wild animal easily startled into attack, she moved onto the bed, kneeling at the head. She took his wrists into her hands, pulled them into place, feeling his pulse under her thumbs. Steady pulse, cool skin. She cuffed his right wrist, and wrapped the links around the center iron bar. Then she snapped the other bracelet on the left wrist, where Søren had his son’s name tattooed over his pulse point. Fionn’s name. Nora’s handwriting. Now she knew what she was going to do to him.
Only when the cuffs were on did she let herself enjoy the moment. She touched his side, touched that shivery spot between his ribs. His skin was cool and supple but at the first trembling contact between his body and hers, gooseflesh rose up all over his chest. Smiling, she lowered her head, kissed the spot she touched. Søren breathed once, hard, but held still. When she raised her head, she saw him watching her every move, like a captured wolf watches its captor from the back of the cage.
Nora left him on the bed and went to the steamer trunk. She took a deep breath and opened the lid of the trunk. Kingsley did not disappoint. One whip. Two sets of floggers. Spreader bar. X-bar. Rope. Rope cuffs. Lube. Bamboo cane. Misery stick. And a tiny brown leather bag full of scalpels. And under the scalpels, a first-aid kit.
While he was looking at the ceiling—no doubt ruing whatever idiotic romance impulse that had led him to make this offer—she looked at him, all six-feet-four long lean strong perfectly proportioned body of a man half his age inches of him. He was probably hating every minute of this. She was in unholy heaven.
Nora took the scalpels out of the trunk and tossed the case on the bed. He wasn’t aroused, not yet, but she could tell he was intrigued. He knew perfectly well what was inside that leather case.
While he watched her, she undressed, laying her clothes on the armchair next to his. She could have tormented him, tossing his clothes on the floor, walking on them, bossing him around and about like he did with her for the sheer heathen pleasure of it all. But she didn’t, couldn’t. This meant too much to her to make light of it. And she knew he’d meant it when he said this was it. She only had this one chance, and she wasn’t going to waste it.
The sun was gone now. The only light c
ame from the candles on the mantel, the candle by the bed. She returned to the bed and crawled next to him. Because she could, she touched his face, his lips, traced the perfect lines of his perfect ears. He wasn’t aroused, but Nora was, wet and shaking like a sapling in a storm inside. Her training went too deep, however, so she feigned calm on the outside, collected and in control.
She straddled him at the waist, pushing her vulva against his still soft cock. She bent to kiss him, because she had to, because she had never wanted him more than she did right then. She kissed him hard and deep, forcing his lips to part and pressing her tongue inside his mouth. When he returned the kiss, it was tentatively at first, letting her have her way with him, humoring her, she knew. Then something changed. The room darkened, the darkness deepened. He kissed her back harder. He pressed his tongue to hers. As she moaned in response, he caught her bottom lip between his teeth and bit it.
Nora gasped, sat up, and pressed her fingertips to her lip, saw he’d drawn blood. He licked the blood from his lips. Her blood. Then he lifted his hips and she felt him growing hard against her. With her hands on his chest for support, she pushed down and back onto his cock, rigid now and thick. It slid along the slick seam of her vulva. She spread her knees, pushed down again, and he entered her. With each slow roll of her hips, he filled her more and more. Slowly she rose and sank down again, taking more of him into her, letting him fill her, spread her, pierce her until he was so deep inside her body she felt the tip of his penis nudge her cervix.
She clenched her inner muscles around him, squeezing him. His head fell back and his throat was bared. And there she was with a set of knives in a case on the bed. With one little flick of her wrist, she could kill him and he couldn’t stop her, couldn’t fight back. As strong as he was, the iron bed was stronger, the steel cuffs were stronger. For the first time in their twenty-three years together, he’d put himself entirely at her mercy. Maybe, possibly for the first time since he was a child, he’d made himself this physically vulnerable to another person.
“Why did you do this?” she asked him softly.
He opened his eyes, met hers.
“If the day comes when I can’t give you anything, at least here, now, I can give you everything.”
The Priest: An Original Sinners Novel Page 32