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 cock. 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 fucked 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 fucked 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 sex 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.”
“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 sex, 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 rogu
e 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.
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, ‘fucked a nun’ at her mother’s convent,” Søren said, sitting on the bed and stacking a large red pillow behind his back.
“You fucked 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 fucked 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.
“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?”