“I will never leave you,” she said.
He nodded solemnly. “Now that’s all I wanted to hear.”
With their bodies locked together, Nora reached for the leather case. She took out the smallest, thinnest, sharpest scalpel and used the flame of the candle to clean it. His watching wolf eyes followed her every move.
Carefully she set the candle on the center of his chest. A short, wide candle, it would stay in place as long as he didn’t flinch. She didn’t have to tell him that. She’d spent many a terrifying hour with a votive candle balanced between her breasts while he worked some sort of erotic havoc on another part of her body.
With the slightest, lightest touch, she carved a quick shallow N over his heart. His eyes closed as bright red blood welled to the surface of his skin. Now an O made from two parentheses, made to kiss. She let the blade do all the work as she cut the R into him, even as his hips moved slightly under her, his cock pulsing inside of her. Her concentration was unbreakable. She would cut him, carve him, slice him open, but she wouldn’t harm the man to save her life. With a last little flourish, she finished off the A.
She lifted the candle off him, put it on the table. The key gleamed gold in the firelight.
“Can you come?” she asked.
“I want to,” he said. “I don’t know if I can.”
The vulnerable honesty in his answer broke something in her that needed breaking.
“Let me help.” She picked up the key and released his right wrist, but left his other cuffed to the bedpost. She offered him the scalpel. “One for you.”
Again, he waited a full three seconds before obeying her—she counted. But he did take the blade from her at last. Nora sat up, arched her back, offered her body to him, offered all of her.
The blade grazed her lower stomach. She dug her fingers into his thighs to steady herself. As aroused as she was, she barely felt the cut. Only when she opened her eyes did she see what he’d done—with one practiced cut, he’d carved an S under her bellybutton over that aching place where the tip of his cock met her cervix. She’d claimed his heart. He’d claimed her cunt.
She could only smile. The smile evaporated instantly when Søren used his free hand to grab the key off the bedside table and release his left hand. Free, he pushed her onto her back, mounting her like the whore who’d taken his last penny. He dragged her against him, holding her hard in place under him. She lay trapped beneath him, her head half off the bed as he speared her.
Trapped, she didn’t put up a fight. She simply let him have her. Her one act of revenge was to bite his chest where she’d cut him, causing him to let out one small cry even as her blood stained his belly.
He pounded her hard and slow and the harder he pounded her, the harder she wanted it. Split and speared, her surrender was complete. She gave him her breasts and he sucked her nipples sore. She gave him her neck which he bit to the point of bruising. She gave him her heart and he swallowed it whole. A thousand heady nights ached in her memory, a thousand heavy hours under him, keeping her screams silent and careful with her cries. But those were the old nights, long gone, spent in the bed of a man who would turn back into a priest in the morning. She wasn’t sure who this man inside her was, only that she wanted him there, beautiful stranger that he was.
Nora moaned because she could. Her cunt hurt from needing to come. Every thrust was a punishment until she came. Once more, twice more, three times more he rammed her and with that third thrust she came writhing and crying out his name. As her stomach spasmed, he poured into her, filling her until his scalding semen slicked her thighs.
After, they lay entwined, cock and pussy, arms and legs, blood and sweat and come. Her vagina pulsed around him even as the organ inside her softened. Søren released her wrists and stroked her hair. He held her to his chest.
“I’m sorry. I tried.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said, meaning for that, for them, for everything. “I’m not.”
Slowly they pulled themselves apart and tenderly tended to each other’s wounds. Nora cleaned Søren’s cuts with alcohol and gauze. The S on her stomach had stopped bleeding. A little antiseptic ointment, and she was good as new. She started to ask him if he wanted some water when a small squeak sounded through the door.
Søren turned his head.
Nora said, “Was that your pussy or mine?”
“Mine, I think.”
He rose up off her, opened the door, and the little black cat sashayed into the bedroom like the guest of honor. She hopped onto the bed with one nimble leap, sauntered over to Nora and let out a meow.
“Guess she’s made herself at home,” Nora said.
Søren sat on the bed, scratching the cat under her chin.
“Are you all right?” Nora asked him.
“I am. You?”
“Still in shock.”
He smiled, almost shyly. “It went better than I thought it might. But if you tell Kingsley, it’ll be foot torture for a month.”
The cat, still unnamed, sat between them. Nora reached across her and touched Søren’s hand.
“Eleanor?”
“You’re cold.”
“I’m fine.”
“You were cold from the second I put the handcuffs on you. Cold sweat. Cold skin. Symptoms of panic.”
He said nothing. The cat shook herself, seemingly for no reason, then leapt onto the pillow. She turned in circles to soften a place for herself, and laid down again, making herself into a soft black donut.
“You were scared the entire time,” she went on, “but you didn’t stop me.” He stroked the cat, long gentle strokes from between her ears to her happy twitching tail. “Things happened to you as a child so awful you begged me once to never even think about it. And I’ve never even asked you what this has done to you.” It seemed fitting they would have this conversation, both of them naked.
She waited. Still, he stroked the cat. Still, he said nothing.
“Søren?”
“Should I have taken you to my mother?” He looked at her once, then returned to petting the cat.
“Maybe,” she said. “And maybe I would have loved being with her. But, knowing me, I would have run away eventually and come back to you.”
That got him to smile. A little. A very, very little.
“I got your postcard,” she said. “That split-second I thought you had left again, I think my heart stopped.” She laughed at herself. “Then I saw the postmark and it started again.”
“I won’t leave without telling you again. There was something I wanted to say to you, but it wouldn’t fit on a postcard. I only wanted to say it to you when you were ready to hear it.”
“What is it?”
“What I wanted to say was this. If you ever asked me to choose between you and the Church…”
“I would never—”
“I know you wouldn’t. But if you did, I would choose you. When I was trying to stop you from calling the media, it was only because I was afraid it could come to that. If the Church turned on you, accused you of something, made you the into their scapegoat—”
“I know you’d leave them if they did that to me.”
“I wouldn’t leave them. I would destroy them.”
He met her eyes so she could see he meant it. The threat hung in the air, sweet as perfume, and she fell in love with him again, like she had a thousand times before, like she would a thousand times again before their story was over.
The cat rolled over again, leaving a hundred black hairs on the bed. The spell was broken.
“Blood, come, and cat hair on the antique white counterpane,” Søren said with a sigh. “I’ll have to ask for black sheets as a housewarming gift.”
“It’s fine. It’ll all come out in the wash.”
The cat began licking her own stomach. It was not a graceful procedure.
“Cats are very strange,” Søren said.
“You like your housewarming gift?”
“I do. Both o
f them.” He picked up the handcuffs, twirled them once, just to show her who was boss. He was. Of course he was. Now. Always.
“Wait. I forgot the last present. Stay here.” Nora grabbed her panties off the floor and her tank top, pulled them on. “Hope it’s still warm.”
“Warm? Eleanor, what’s warm?” he called after her.
She ignored him, went into his kitchen, returned with two mugs. He’d put on his clothes again and sat in the armchair, the cat still on the bed, cat-napping. She sat on the floor at his feet and offered him one of the mugs.
“Drink,” she said. He stared at her. “Please?”
He drank. At the first sip, his eyes widened. Though he was fifty-one years old, it was a wounded eleven-year-old boy’s eyes that met hers.
“Sometimes you need hot cocoa, even in New Orleans in September.”
He held the cup in his hands, cradling it as tenderly and carefully as he’d ever carried a communion chalice.
“You’re nothing like your father,” she said, “and you’re full of shit if you think that.”
He smiled behind his mug and said softly, “Thank you.”
She held out her mug. “To Father Henry,” she said, “a very good priest.”
They clinked glasses and drank.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Cyrus drove by Nora’s house that morning to check on her. He found her standing in her front yard, looking up at her beaded oak tree. He parked, got out and leaned on her fence. She wore a long swishy witchy black skirt and white tank top. She looked pretty, if a little tired. But they were both tired. It would pass.
“You,” Nora said, acknowledging him without taking her eyes off her tree. “What are you doing here? You should be at honeymoon practice, right?”
“Is that a thing?”
“I just invented it, but it’s a thing now.”
Crazy like a fox.
“What are you doing to that poor tree?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“Mercedes took a set of my rosary beads, and she took all the sad and bad energy out of me and put them in the beads. Now I’m supposed to find a tree to give the beads to. Trees, she says, breathe out what we breathe in—oxygen, and trees breathe in what we breathe out—nitrogen. So she figures that if we exude bad energy, trees take it and absorb and then release it as good energy. I realize how insane that sounds, but it’s worth a shot, right?”
“That kind of makes sense. You and the Good Witch are getting kinda tight? Something going on there I need to know about?”
“I have two men in my life already.”
“So that’s a maybe?”
Nora only smiled. Good to see her smiling again.
“If all your bad jujus are in your beads,” he said, “maybe you ought to take them far away from your house.”
“I was thinking that, too. Know a good tree that could take some pain?”
“I know the best tree in town. You wanna see it?”
“Definitely.”
“Come with me.”
They drove to the house on the corner of Annunciation and Rose. They didn’t go into the house and they never would again. Time to move on. St. Valentine’s must have thought so, too. There was a For Sale sign in front.
“This way,” he said and pointed down the street. They set out walking.
“How are you handling this?” she asked. “Better than me, I hope.”
“I’m remembering why I swore I’d only work for women and children.” He laughed softly at himself. “But I’m okay. Paulina’s feeling really hurt. Bad.”
“I’m sure she is. Is there any new news coming?”
“Archbishop’s releasing more names of abusers tomorrow. It’s starting to steamroll,” he said. “But no more case talk. What’s goin’ on with you? How’s things with you and the Viking?”
“We’re all right,” she said. “A little shaky, but we’ll make it.”
“That’s good. I like him for you. I’d like him more for you if he wasn’t a priest.”
“Well, you might get your wish. Or not. Still figuring that one out.”
“I need to meet the other one though. Gotta give him my stamp of approval,” he said, punching his fist into his palm.
“I get to see him Tuesday,” she said as they passed houses that were growing bigger and fancier as they got away from Rose Street. “But I’m going to France. He’s not coming here.”
“You’re leaving?” It surprised him how much that bothered him.
“Just to be on the safe side,” she said. “In case my name shows up in the news.”
“How long you gonna be gone?” he asked.
“As long as I have to be. A couple weeks. A month or two. If the shit hits the fan, I’ll see you in a few years.”
He couldn’t blame her for being worried. The story had already gone national—CNN, Fox News, New York Times. He’d had to turn off his phone Friday because of all the calls coming in from the media. In the next few weeks, things were only going to get hotter as more victims came forward, more names were named. Probably a good thing for Nora to get out of Dodge.
“You might miss the baby coming.”
“I hope I’ll be back in time. If not, Juliette says she understands.”
“All right, you can go, but you gotta at least come back for the wedding.”
“Your wedding? I’m invited?”
“Yeah, you’re invited.”
“That’s very sweet, Cy,” she said, “but you don’t really want a dominatrix in a leather catsuit at your very Catholic wedding, do you?”
“Can you do the electric slide?”
“Is that a kink thing?”
“Nora.”
“I went to high school in the ’90s. Of course I can do the electric slide.”
She smiled again. This time the smile stuck around a little longer.
“Almost there,” Cyrus said. “Come on.” He tugged her arm and pulled her past a white SUV blocking their view. And there it was.
“Oh my God,” Nora said, eyes wide, mouth open.
Before them stood a tree, a great gorgeous monster of a tree with a million branches and a billion leaves.
“I give you the Tree of Life.”
“It’s so beautiful.” She wandered around the tree, staring up at it. Cyrus had done the same the first time he saw it as a kid. “I had no idea this was here.”
Cyrus and Paulina had taken their engagement photos here. It was a massive ancient live oak tree with low branches made for climbing. Follow Annunciation Street to the very end and BAM, a little bit of Eden right before your eyes.
“This tree is amazing,” she said.
“It gets better. Ready to climb?”
“What? Climb the tree? I’m wearing a skirt.”
“It’s a long skirt. Trust me, you want to climb this tree.”
“Fine. Fine. Let’s do this.”
The branches of the tree were thick and low to the ground, easy for climbing. Nora clambered up first and Cyrus followed. It wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t easy. About fifteen feet up, he stopped and pointed.
“Oh my God!” Nora burst into startled laughter.
“That’s the zoo,” he said. “Wave at the giraffes.”
Nora waved at the two giraffes hanging out in their pen at the zoo next door. Cyrus waved, too.
“We’re standing in a tree,” Nora said, “waving at giraffes. I think the paint fumes did permanent damage.”
Cyrus laughed. “Paulina showed it to me on our first real date. I knew about the tree, but I didn’t know you could see the giraffes until she dared me to climb it.” He couldn’t wait to bring their kids here.
“You and Paulina are a great couple,” Nora said. “You two have my blessing.”
“Good. I was thinking about not marrying her until you said that.”
She glared at him. “Smartass.” One giraffe stuck its tongue out at another. She laughed gently. “
Céleste has to see this.”
“What about Søren’s son? Fionn? When’s he coming to visit?”
She blinked. He saw her do it and he wished he hadn’t asked. “He’s not.”
They were quiet together a moment, watching the giraffes.
“You ready to get down?” he asked.
“Almost.” She reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a set of beads—rosary beads.
Nora clutched them in her hand for one second more, then reached up and draped them over a low branch. They carefully climbed down, leaving the silver rosary beads glinting solemnly on a high branch.
“Feel better?” he asked once they were on the ground again.
“A little,” she said. Then, “Do you really want me at your wedding?”
“Yeah, I do. Paulina does, too.”
“What the hell are you going to tell people when they ask who I am? Just your friendly neighborhood dominatrix?”
“I’ll tell them the truth. I’ll tell them you’re my friend.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be there. It’ll be my honor.”
They both stood back to get a good long view of the tree.
“Pretty tree,” Nora said.
“Yeah,” Cyrus had to agree. “It’s not too bad.”
He took her hand in his and squeezed it. She squeezed back.
“You were kidding about wearing a leather catsuit to my wedding, right?”
“Guess you’ll find out.”
* * *
The End.
About the Author
Tiffany Reisz is the USA Today bestselling author of the Romance Writers of America RITA®-winning Original Sinners series from Harlequin’s Mira Books.
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Her erotic fantasy The Red—self-published under the banner 8th Circle Press—was named an NPR Best Book of the Year and a Goodreads Best Romance of the Month. It also received a coveted starred review from Library Journal.
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Tiffany lives in Kentucky with her husband, author Andrew Shaffer, and two cats. The cats are not writers.
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The Priest: An Original Sinners Novel Page 33