The Mistress (26 page)

“You won’t let me keep it.”

“Because I love you too much. You stupid, infuriating man, why do I love you this much?”

Silence followed again. What could they be doing in there? Laila hoped it was kissing or hugging or something. Anything. Their pain hurt so much worse than her own. For years she longed to join the Enchanted Kingdom of Adulthood, that world where people like her aunt and uncle lived and loved and no one told them what to do. But here they were, two people madly in love with each other and they couldn’t be together. The unfairness of it felt like a bruise on her heart. He could no more leave the church than her aunt could quit writing or breathing. It would be suicide for a man who’d found his true calling. She couldn’t ask him to leave it. But unless he left it, she couldn’t go back. Why...why did anyone think there was any sin in the two of them loving each other? How could anyone who saw them together think they did anything wrong? How could God create two people so perfect for each other and then force them to stay apart? God was a sadist. No doubt in her mind.

No wonder her uncle loved Him so much.

“We’re a mess,” her aunt finally said, breaking the silence. “Look at us. Your mother is being buried tomorrow, and all we can do is fight the same old fight.”

“I’d rather fight with you than bury her.”

“Me, too. But I’m sure we can find something better to do than fight.”

“It’s hard to stay calm right now, Little One. Help me.”

“That’s why I’m here. I came here for you. Come to bed now. Hurt me. I want you to.”

“I don’t know if I can control myself enough tonight.”

Laila remembered holding her breath during the silence that followed before her aunt started to speak again.

“Then don’t. I know you’re hurting. Don’t be afraid to hurt me, too. I know you want to let go. Let go with me. You need comfort. Let me comfort you with my body. Lose yourself inside me. Forget what you’ve lost, forget what you can’t have. There’s no shame in trying to forget for a night even if you know you’ll remember in the morning.”

* * *

Laila blinked and tears fell onto the sheets. Wesley reached out and wiped them off her cheek with his thumb.

“I think I learned what sex was that night,” Laila said. “I mean, I learned what it should be.”

“And what is that?” Wes asked, his fingers lingering on her face.

“A gift. A gift you give someone you care about. A consolation, a comfort, even a distraction, but always a gift. I didn’t listen after that. I made sure I didn’t hear any more. I read her books. I know what happens with people like them in private. I didn’t need to hear. But I’m glad I heard that much so I know...I know that love is giving yourself to someone else. Giving yourself to someone without losing yourself.”

Laila knew she’d remember those words all her life.
Let go with me. Let me comfort you with my body...there’s no shame in forgetting for a night even if you know you’ll remember in the morning.

They sounded like a poem to her, like a vow.

“No one loves like Nora loves,” Wes said. “I wish I knew how she did it, how she could love so hard and still stay sane.”

“Are you sure she is?”

Wes grinned. “Not entirely.”

“You know, you have a big smile.” She spread her hands out a foot apart.

“I do?”

“I think they can see it on the space station.”

“Why are those astronauts so freaking obsessed with us? It’s creepy.”

“They get bored up there, maybe,” Laila suggested.

“Then they should watch porn.”

“Space porn?”

“What other kind is there?”

They laughed together and Laila felt human for the first time since arriving at her uncle’s house two days ago. Had it only been two days? It felt like two years. Even Wes, this complete stranger...she felt like she’d known him all her life.

The tail end of Wes’s laugh turned into a yawn.

“Sorry,” he said. “You didn’t need to see my molars.”

“It’s fine. Here’s mine.” She opened her mouth wide and Wes peered at her teeth.

“Good molars.”

“They work out.” She smiled at him once more before sitting up.

“Where are you going?” Wes sounded almost distressed.

“You’re yawning. I’ll let you go to sleep.”

“You don’t have to go,” Wes said as Laila crawled off the bed and started folding the blanket. “It was just a yawn. You can stay if you want.”

“It’s not a good idea.” She put the blanket in the top of the closet.

“Let me guess, you grope in your sleep. Should have known.”

“Not that I know of.” Although if she slept with Wes, she probably would grope him in her sleep. And she’d grope him while awake, too. She’d grope him every chance she got. “No, it’s just that if you and I slept in the same room...”

“What?”

Laila opened the door and cast one last longing look at Wes. She wanted to go back to the bed, kiss him, stretch out on top of him and sleep on his chest all night long. A nice dream. But only a dream.

“My uncle would kill you.”

28

THE QUEEN

N
ora’s eyes fluttered open and in an effort to stave off the panic she knew would descend on her like a ravenous vulture, she started an inventory of her body. She knew she’d been tased as soon as she came to. But not just tased—drugged, as well. Tased and drugged—she was almost flattered. Now she made them nervous. Everything still seemed to be in place—all the body parts, anyway. Although they weren’t feeling all that fabulous at the moment. Everything hurt from her head to her heels.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m in agony,” she said simply as she opened her eyes and looked up at Marie-Laure. She must have hit the ground hard when she blacked out. Her entire body felt like one solid bruise. “Typical morning after for me. It is morning, right?”

“Dawn.”

“Dawn and I have never gotten along. We try to avoid each other.”

“Try to enjoy it. This will be your last one unless someone shows up.”

“Might help if you told them where I was.”

“Oh, they know,” Marie-Laure said, kneeling down at Nora’s side. Nora wriggled in the ropes but this was some hard-core bondage going on here. Handcuffs, rope and duct tape. No way could she cut or squirm her way out of this mess. “They’ve known from the beginning. I made sure they knew.”

“Then they’re coming.”

“I don’t see anyone yet....”

“Don’t try to mindfuck a mindfucker. Either they don’t know where I am and you’re lying, or they do and they’re coming. Two and two is four. I know Søren.”

“You’re so certain of his love?”

“Two and two is four.”

“Harder question,” Marie-Laure said. Nora glanced around. She still lay on the floor of Marie-Laure’s room. Damon watched her from the bed, a gun in his hand, no emotion in his eyes. “Is he certain of your love?”

“Do I have to do the math again? Yes, I love him. Yes, he knows I do.”

“You love him, you say. Strange answer for a woman wearing another man’s engagement ring.”

“I love Wesley, too. You can love more than one person.”

“You’re not supposed to. That’s not how it works.”

“Maybe your heart’s just a few sizes too small, Mrs. Grinch. Some of us are capable of loving more than one person.”

“Who do you love more?”

“That is a stupid question.”

“That is deflection. Don’t want to answer? I would guess you love your fiancé more. You turned my husband down when he proposed. You said yes when your Wesley asked.”

“I don’t want to get married to anybody. I love Wes, but I said yes to get him out of the stables. I saw the writing on the wall, someone in the shadows. I couldn’t get him to shut up and move any other way.”

“Still...you have the ring on.”

“What was I going to do—swallow it?”

“You could have tried to bargain with it. I know diamonds. That one is easily worth seven figures.”

“It’s not mine to bargain with. It belongs to the Raileys.”

“It belongs to you if you’re his fiancée.”

Nora winced. Wesley’s fiancée? Next, someone would be calling her the Queen of England.

“It belongs to whomever Wes marries someday.”

“Not you?”

“Not... Jesus, can you flip me on my back or something? I’m going to suffocate on this damn carpet.”

“Of course.” Marie-Laure stood up, put her foot on Nora’s hip and pushed.

“Better.” Nora scooted into a sitting position. Her hands were cuffed in front but the ropes encircled her arms and ankles. She felt half-mummified. She started to stretch out her legs but another rope tightened around her neck. “Oh, that’s lovely. Choke collar. I’m good at those, too.”

In addition to the rope, the tape and the cuffs, someone, Damon probably, had tied the rope around her neck. If she stretched out her legs, she’d choke herself.

“So am I,” Damon said. “I also have very good aim.”

“So does Søren. Oh, you were talking guns.”

Marie-Laure knelt down again.

“You...I’m starting to think you aren’t even a person. Just an animal with an animal’s appetites.”

“At least I’m housebroken. Usually.”

“At the very least. I can’t believe someone like you who makes these kinds of disgusting jokes all the time is even capable of something as complicated as love. You seem like some kind of rutting beast.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Nora knew she was asking for it. But if she died today, she would at least die with her sense of humor intact. She would try to die with her dignity intact but she wasn’t entirely sure she ever had any.

“I want to find out something. Indulge me.”

“Milk bath? Chocolates? Massage?”

“Another story. A short story this time.”

Nora sighed heavily. “Fine. Whatever. What do you want? I can tell you about the time Søren and I spent two nights at this great B & B owned by one of our freak friends. Søren beat me, he fucked me, we went for long walks on the beach in the middle of the night. The end.”

“Not good enough.”

“Yeah, it needs more sex, doesn’t it? Story of my life.”

“What I want is a very specific story...about this.”

Marie-Laure reached into the pocket of her black robe and pulled out a square of white linen. Nora recognized it immediately.

“No...no. Fuck, you were in my house, weren’t you?” She stared at the linen, aching at the very sight of it.

“I was. Spent a little time in your closet. We made a wonderful mess. It was a bit silly and melodramatic of us. I couldn’t help myself. My only real interest was in seeing the things you hide, the things you cherish. I found this scrap of linen in a locked metal box. When I saw the box I thought, Oh this is where she keeps her most precious possessions—diamonds, pearls, secret papers.... But no. Only this. Tell me what it is. Tell me a story.”

Nora couldn’t even look at Marie-Laure, only at the white linen cloth in her hand.

“Once upon a time...” Nora began, her voice quivering under the words. “A great and fair lady whose heart was made of music and who had given birth to a great and fair son...died.”

* * *

The phone call came late at night and from her hotline. Not even Kingsley called that late, not unless it was an emergency. When Nora answered and heard Søren’s voice saying her name, she already knew what happened.

“Your mom?”

“An hour ago,” he said. “Freyja called.”

“Call your sister back,” Nora said. “I’ll make the flights. I’ll handle it all.”

“Flights? You’re coming?”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that.”

“Thank you, Little One.”

Nora hadn’t even been able to speak at that point. She nodded even though he couldn’t see her, wiped the tears off her face and managed only to choke out the words, “I’ll be right over.”

She’d packed in a hurry, focusing on the little mundane tasks one always focused on in times of grief. She’d need clothes for the funeral, for the wake afterward. She needed to call Kingsley and tell him to cancel her appointments this week. She’d call her editor from the airport and let her know that the book would be a week late due to a family emergency that would take her out of the country.

Into her suitcase went her shoes, clothes, makeup, toothbrush, the full-length, rather conservative gray silk robe she wore only when staying with Søren’s family in Denmark. When alone with Søren, she always slept naked so she needed something to put on for nighttime trips to the bathroom. Right before she left the house to go to the rectory, she stopped, remembering something she knew she shouldn’t forget. For almost a full minute she stood at the front door debating whether or not to take it with her. Had she not left Søren three years ago, it wouldn’t have even crossed her mind. But she had left him and ever since the square of linen in the closet had taunted her, whispered at her, told her that it didn’t belong to her anymore.

She decided to take it with her and let Søren decide.

When she arrived at the rectory, she found Søren sitting in the armchair by the fireplace staring into the fire. He had on pants and a shirt. He hadn’t buttoned the shirt yet and his bare chest glowed in the firelight as if it burned from within him. She came to him and knelt at his feet, resting her head on his lap. The moment she felt his fingers twining through her hair, the tears started to flow.

“Her heart gave out,” he said, his voice quiet and steady. “She’s only eighteen years older than I am, and she’s gone.”

“She was sick for a long time. And her heart was never strong.” In fact, it was a miracle she’d survived as long as she had. A congenital heart problem had plagued Søren’s mother her entire life. A blessing in disguise, Gisela had always called it. Had she been a healthier child, she never would have had the patience to stay inside and learn the piano.

“I know, Little One. It’s only...I thought I would have her a few more years. The women I adore always leave me before I’m ready to let them go.”

She laughed and buried her face against his thigh.

“That is not fair.” She smiled up again. “I am here, after all. When you need me, I’m always here.”

He cupped her face in both hands and brought his lips to her forehead.

“I always need you.”

She raised her head and kissed him. Even in their shared grief there could be no denying the passion. He pulled her off the floor and into his arms.

“When does our flight leave?” he whispered against her lips.

“We have time.” That was all he needed to know, all that mattered.

He laid her on the rug in front of the fireplace and stripped her of her clothes. They had no time for equipment, for cuts or candle wax, whips or floggers. But they didn’t need them. Søren knew her body better than even she knew it, knew how to bring it to the extreme edge of pleasure and down into the depths of pain...all with his bare hands.

Gently he ran his fingers all over her naked body and desire quickened at the lightest of his touches. He didn’t meet her eyes, merely stared at her body that she’d given up to him. She was glad he didn’t look at her face since it gave her the freedom to study him. He’d no doubt been asleep when his sister in Denmark had called. Only in sleep did his perfect blond hair ever get mussed. It fell over his forehead, almost into his eyes. His eyes, how she loved looking at his eyes. She’d never known a more intelligent man with such perceptive eyes. And how strange that someone with such pale hair had such long dark eyelashes. She and Kingsley had gotten stoned together one night and spent an hour sitting in Kingsley’s bathtub waxing poetic about those damn eyelashes. If she remembered correctly, they never even turned on the water. Or taken their clothes off, for that matter.

“Are you ready?” he asked, running a finger over her lips.

“Always, sir.” She nodded, and tried to steady her breathing.

Søren slid his hand from her shoulder down to her wrist and back up again. He pressed his thumb hard into the top of the muscle where her forearm met her elbow. She gasped with a sudden pain she felt even in her legs. He pressed again and her back arched off the rug. If she’d been standing her legs would have involuntarily collapsed under her.

He moved his attention from her arm to her leg. Søren raised her ankle to his legs and kissed the soft spot above the outer heel. She braced herself for what was next. When Søren covered her mouth with his other hand, she made no protest.

With two fingers and two fingers only he dug deep into the cavity under her ankle bone. The pain came so sharp and sudden she screamed against his palm.

For what felt like an hour he traversed her body with his hands, finding all the pressure points on her that when touched the right way would send acute agony flashing through her body like lightning. By the time he stopped, she lay panting and sweating on the rug. She had not a single mark on her body, not a single bruise. A flogging would have hurt less.

Søren licked his fingertips and pressed them into her clitoris as he pushed her thighs wide open with his knees.

Pleasure pooled between her legs and radiated out through her entire body. He kissed her mouth, her neck, her nipples, and she raised her hips into his hand.

“Please...” she whispered, desperate to have him inside her. Making her wait was always the cruelest of his tortures.

Tonight he didn’t make her wait. He moved her onto her stomach and raised her knee to her chest to open her more for him. He pushed inside her, releasing the slightest of groans as she raised her hips to take him deeper. As he thrust into her, he kissed the back of her neck, her shoulders. He pressed her wrists into the floor, holding her arms immobile.

“Jeg elsker deg, min lille en,”
he breathed into her skin.
“Du tilhører mig.”

I love you, Little One. You belong to me.

“Tonight, I do,” she whispered back in English.

He lingered inside her, not rushing, not hurrying to the end. She relaxed underneath him and cherished each moment of their joined bodies. She felt pleasure with other men, ecstasy even sometimes...but only when Søren was inside her did she feel whole.

Søren came with his hand digging into the back of her neck and his teeth in her shoulder. She turned her head and kissed his upper arm before he let her go.

They rarely traveled together—it was far too great a risk. Tonight she threw caution to the wind and had booked the same flight but seats on opposite ends of the plane. She’d give her grieving priest the first-class seat. She’d hide out in coach. They wouldn’t even get to speak to each other for the entire trip, but even apart for the eight-hour flight, she would keep something of him inside her.

Once in Denmark they could relax. A wonderful thing to come to a country so secular where no one knew him or her. When Søren told her years earlier that less than one percent of the Danish population was Catholic, she asked if they could move here. He’d laughed but she hadn’t been joking. Once at his sister’s house, the peace she felt being in such a safe and secular country evaporated. At the door she felt a sudden fearfulness, a sense of not belonging here anymore. Søren seemed to sense her fears for he took her hand in his, kissed it and whispered, “This is your home, too.”