“I wasn’t tired,” Céleste said, wrapping her arms around his neck. She was a beautiful little girl who did take after her mother, especially in her personality. She certainly had her father wrapped around her tiny fingers, as her mother did. “And I can’t sleep until you kiss me.”
Kingsley kissed her on the end of her nose. “Better?” he asked.
“One more.”
He kissed her again. “Now you sleep.”
“Not yet,” Nora said. “She has to kiss me good-night, too.”
“Kiss your aunt and uncle,” Kingsley said, patting her on the bottom of her little pink nightgown. Nora held out her hand and helped Céleste navigate her way across the rumpled sheets and piles of pillows on the bed.
“Are you ready for the big day tomorrow?” Nora asked, looking deep into her dark brown eyes. “You have your petals all ready to throw?”
“I’m ready,” she said, nodding solemnly. She reached out with her small hand and laid her palm on Nora’s neck. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
“You know the rule,” Nora reminded her in a faux stern voice. Céleste was being raised bilingual, and teaching her that not everyone spoke French had been the hardest part of the process. “French with Maman and Papa, and English with everyone else.”
Céleste groaned.
“Ask your question again,” Nora said.
“What is that?” Céleste tapped Nora’s collar. “That thing on your neck.”
Kingsley chuckled and Juliette sighed. Any child growing up in the home of Kingsley Edge was sure to receive an interesting and thorough education in alternative lifestyles.
“What do you think it is?” Nora asked her.
“It looks like a dog collar.”
“That’s exactly what it is. Didn’t you know I was a dog?” Nora growled and barked, and Céleste exploded into giggles. Nora gave her a play bite on the neck.
“Don’t get her wound up before bed,” Kingsley said to Nora.
“She does the same thing to me,” Søren said. Nora couldn’t decide who to glare at—Kingsley or Søren—so she glared at them both.
“Go kiss your uncle good-night,” she told Céleste. “And then go to sleep so I don’t get in trouble with your papa.”
Céleste kissed Søren on the cheek and he kissed her back. Juliette swept her daughter off the bed and into her arms again.
“I heard the good news, by the way,” Nora said. Juliette grinned at her. “I’m thrilled for you both.”
“Thank you,” she said. She nodded down at Céleste. “Someone doesn’t know yet.”
“Know what?” Céleste asked.
“That it’s your bedtime,” Juliette said.
“I knew that.” Céleste rolled her eyes, a know-it-all at age three.
“Are you coming to bed?” Juliette asked Kingsley.
“Is it safe?” he asked.
“I make no promises. But you should leave them alone.” Juliette glanced at Søren and Nora. “They haven’t seen each other in weeks.”
“Fine. I’m coming,” Kingsley said.
“That’s right—you are.” Juliette pointed her finger at the center of his chest. “It’s a good thing I’m already expecting or that kilt would get me in trouble.”
“You are trouble,” Kingsley said to her. “I’ll be there soon. Stay awake.”
Juliette bent and kissed him before bidding them all a good-night and leaving with Céleste. She threw one last “You better behave” look at Kingsley over her shoulder before departing.
“God, I am a lucky man,” Kingsley said. “What did I ever do to deserve her?”
“Chained her to a bed for a week?” Nora asked. “That’s one way to get a girl.”
“That was a good week.” Kingsley stood up. “I should see if she packed the ankle chains.”
“Good night, King,” Nora said. “Try to survive the night. We need all our groomsmen in one piece.”
Kingsley looked at her, at Søren, and laughed.
“It’s a miracle, isn’t it?” Kingsley said. “After all we put each other through that we’re still together. All of us. A fucking miracle.”
Nora laughed. “Miracle is the word for it.”
“In the New Testament,” Søren said, putting on his most priestly voice, “the word miracle isn’t used in most translations. The phrase signs and wonders appears instead. I prefer that terminology. A miracle is a discrete act, special in and of itself but with no greater meaning to it. A sign, however, is trying to tell us something.”
“What do you think it’s a sign of?” Kingsley asked. “That we’re all still together after everything?”
“I know,” Nora said.
“What is it then?” Kingsley crossed his arms and leaned against the bedpost.
Nora unclasped the necklace she always wore that held the two engraved bands Søren had given her two Christmases ago and the little silver locket Nico had asked her to wear while they were apart.
“Your son gave this to me,” she said, opening the locket. “Nico said my naughty stories remind him of The Canterbury Tales. So he gave me this.”
She held it out to Kingsley.
“Amor vincit omnia,” Kingsley read. He looked at Søren for the translation.
“Love conquers all,” Søren said.
“That’s what we’re a sign of,” Nora said. “The three of us. This wedding. Everything. Amor vincit omnia.”
“Amen,” Søren said.
“That,” Kingsley said, “even I can say amen to.” He gave Nora her silver locket back. She slipped it onto the chain and clasped it back around her neck where it belonged.
“I’ll walk you out,” Søren said to Kingsley, and Nora bit back a smile. They left the room together and she crawled into bed and curled up on Søren’s pillow. He was a right side of the bed sleeper and would no doubt take issue with her stealing his side. Good.
She feigned sleep and kept on feigning it even when she heard the door open, close and lock. It wasn’t easy to keep the ruse up when she felt Søren’s mouth on her shoulder.
“Did you kiss Kingsley good-night?” she asked, trying not to smile.
“An entire castle full of people who’ve signed confidentiality agreements? Of course I did.”
She giggled and squirmed deeper under the covers. Søren’s kisses followed.
“He’s happy,” she said. “I’ve never seen Kingsley so happy as I have the past two years.”
“He has Juliette, Nico, Céleste—”
“You,” Nora said. “He has you. And even better, he has you to himself when I’m in France with Nico.”
“I promise, by the time you come home from Nico, he’s more than happy to give me back.”
“And I’m more than happy to take you back.” She rolled over and smiled up at him. “What about you? Are you happy?”
He nodded slowly. “Happier than I’ve ever been in my life. Getting older has its advantages. The past feels like ancient history now, gathering dust on the bookshelf. The ghosts have finally moved on to the other side.”
“And you’re turning into a silver fox,” she said, running her fingers through his hair, the blond and the gray. “Another advantage of getting older.”
He smiled and took her hand in his, kissed it. “Perspective. That’s the greatest advantage. I can look back and see my life from far off and at a great height. And looking back on that year in particular I see that I owe you something. A long overdue apology. And your prize, of course.”
“Prize?” She sat up in bed and batted her eyelashes at him. “I’d almost forgotten my prize.”
“Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”
She reluctantly obeyed. “The last time I played this game with Griffin,” she said, “I did not get the prize I wanted.”
“You’ll want this prize,” Søren said. He pressed something into her palms, something thin and smooth. “Open your eyes.”
She opened them as ordered and saw that she held a riding c
rop in her hands. Thin black polished wood with a white carved bone handle.
“Is this—?”
“It’s the same handle,” Søren said. “We had to replace the actual crop, however.”
Nora looked at it in awe. It wasn’t quite the same as the one Kingsley had given her all those years ago, the one Søren had broken into three pieces. But it was close enough it gave her chills to look at it.
“Where did you get it?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Juliette helped with the restoration. She knows where Kingsley gets all his toys.”
“You know I have dozens of riding crops.”
“You should have dozens plus one,” he said. “It was wrong of me to break it, and I should have replaced it years ago.”
“Is this why you wanted to know about that year?” she asked, running her hand along the wood shaft to the leather triangle tip. A wooden riding crop could inflict the kind of pain a rattan cane could. It could even split the skin. A vicious devilish little weapon—she couldn’t wait to use it on someone.
“Recent events have brought that year back to mind.”
“What recent events? Me and Nico?”
“Yes,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Kingsley warned me when you were sixteen years old that you weren’t the submissive that I thought I wanted you to be. I ignored his warnings, smug in my certainty that you would always obey me no matter what you were in your heart.”
“I did promise I would obey you forever. I tried for a long time, as long as I could.”
“And I promised you everything. Part of that everything should have been letting you be who you are and not trying to force you to be who I wanted. And now that you and Nico are together, and you and I have never been happier, I realize how foolish I was to be afraid.”
It was true. They had never been happier together or during their four months a year apart. Søren had her and Kingsley and she had Søren and Nico. They both were living the life God had created them for and that, she’d found, was the key to happiness.
“I would have been afraid, too. If you’d come home from Rome and told me you’d decided you were a submissive now and not a Dominant anymore, I don’t think I would have taken it any better than you took my news.” She laughed at the very thought. “You’re two people to me—Father Marcus Stearns and Søren—and I love both of you. I’m Eleanor and Nora. I was angry at you for so long because I loved both of you, and you weren’t willing to love both of me.”
“I tried to protect you, and I made it worse.”
“Worse? No. Harder? Yes, but not worse. I might never have started writing novels if I hadn’t left you. And if I hadn’t started writing, I would never have met Zach. And...you know.” She grinned. He tapped her under the chin in that fatherly way he had with her.
“All things work together for the good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose,” Søren said.
“I think I heard that somewhere,” she said.
“You should know that as much as I love my Eleanor, my Little One, I do love Mistress Nora, too. It took me longer to fall in love with her, but now I love her as deeply as I love my Eleanor.”
“And as deeply as your Eleanor loves you.”
She traced the carvings on the handle and remembered the rush of power she’d felt when Kingsley first put it in her hand. She still felt that rush every time she held a crop in her hand. Where was Nico and his beautiful back when she needed it?
She raised the crop to her lips and kissed it.
“Thank you for this. It’s beautiful. And I can’t tell you what it means to have my first riding crop back. At least part of it.”
“Use it wisely and well.”
“I’ll use it to beat the shit out of the first person I can until he screams like a little bitch.”
“As God intended.”
Nora laughed and kissed Søren.
“I love you, Søren,” she said. “And I love you, Father Stearns.”
“And?” he prompted.
“And I love you, my sir. Now and always.”
She pulled back from the kiss and took his wrist in her hand. She laid the crop on his palm.
“Would you do me the honor of christening my crop for me?” she asked.
“You aren’t ready to sleep yet?” he asked.
“I will always pick kink with you over sleep. Sir,” she added at the end.
“You have a busy day tomorrow. Are you sure you want bruises?”
“Black and blue goes with everything. Especially white,” she said. “Please, sir?”
“Well...” Søren said with a long-suffering and therefore entirely fake sigh. “Since you asked so nicely...”
He dug his fingers into her collar and pulled her off the bed and onto her feet. She stood still while he undressed her, moving only to cooperate with him taking her camisole off and stepping out of her pajama bottoms. He left her standing naked by the bed as he went to her toy bag. From it he pulled out her rope cuffs, which he brought over to the bed. He turned her to face the bedpost and lifted her arms. She let him move her, manipulate her body any way he wanted. Happiness was giving herself to him, putting her body and her life into his hands, knowing that when he was done, he would give her back, and she would belong to herself again.
He knotted the rope cuffs around the top of the bedpost and slipped her hands through the loops, pulling them taut around her wrists.
Nora waited for the first blow of the riding crop. But it remained on the bed. Instead, Søren stepped directly behind her and brought his hands around her head and rested them on her face. Slowly and gently he ran his hands over her hair and her ears, her neck and shoulders. He slid them up and down her back, up and down her arms. It had been years since he’d done this, since he’d reclaimed her body by touching every inch of it. He passed his hands down her inner thighs and over her calves. She shivered as his fingers caressed the soles of her bare feet. He worked his way back up her body, touching her stomach, her hips, her breasts and all the way back to her neck. There was no part of her he didn’t touch.
With his hand flat against her throat he tilted her head back so that it rested against his chest.
“Why are you crying, Little One?” he asked.
“Because I love you, sir.”
“Are you scared?”
“Not anymore.”
Søren brought his hands to her face again and touched her tears.
He kissed her neck where the collar met her flesh. When he pulled away, she immediately missed the heat of his body against hers. He took the crop off the bed and Nora braced herself. The first strike hit her a few inches above the back of her knee. A red line of fire burst across her skin. The second strike landed on the middle of her thigh. She let out a gasp of pain. That was going to leave a bruise.
The sound wasn’t the worst part although that whipping noise as it cut the air certainly added to the agony of anticipation. Once she heard that sound, it was too late. No stopping it. He struck her a dozen more times at least, although the pain had gone to her brain and she’d lost her ability to count. A dozen times. A hundred times. What did it matter? Søren would hurt her until she couldn’t take anymore, and then he’d take her until she didn’t hurt anymore.
When the beating ended, Søren brought the crop around her body.
“Kiss,” he ordered, and she kissed the leather tip. “What do we say?”
“Thank you for my beating, sir.”
He didn’t untie her immediately. Instead, he left her there while he wiped the crop with a soft cloth to clean it, wrapped it in the black felt it had come in and put it away in her toy bag. Twelve years ago the thought of her exploring her Dominant side had