Kingsley came to her and wrapped the whip around her neck.

“I won’t let anyone take your head,” he said.

“Thank you.” She took the whip in her hands and pulled it taut. “I love it. Wish I knew how to use it.”

“You will. You have your first whip lesson today.” He lifted his arm and glanced at an imaginary watch. “Your whip teacher is here right now. Allons-y.”

“I have a whip teacher?”

“You do. If you feel strong enough. Do you?”

She felt weak from the orgasm, languid and happy.

“I feel relaxed. I mean, I want to cut that bitch, but I feel relaxed about it.”

“Good enough. Just keep your focus on defeating her, and you’ll be fine.”

Kingsley took the whip from her hands and coiled it neatly. He took her by the arm and led her from the office.

“I’ve always wanted to use a whip,” Nora said. “I think I saw too many Indiana Jones movies as a kid. Do you think he was kinky?”

“French Vanilla,” Kingsley said.

“What’s that?”

“Vanilla with a strong libido and a taste for anal.”

“I can see that.”

“Zorro, however, was kinky,” Kingsley said. “And he was much better with a whip than Dr. Jones.”

“Zorro was kinky? That explains the mask. You think he was a switch?” Nora asked as they reached the playroom door. Kingsley opened the door and ushered her inside. “Can I have Zorro for my whip teacher?”

“No,” Kingsley said. “But you can have him.”

Nora gasped. For there standing in the playroom wearing his off-duty uniform of black jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt was...

“Søren.”

13

Reunion

SØREN UNCROSSED HIS arms and raised one hand. With his finger he carved the letter Z in the air.

Behind her the door closed. Kingsley had left her alone in the room with Søren.

“Søren,” she said again, not quite believing her eyes. She took a shuddering breath. He was here. Søren. Standing there right by an entire wall of whips and floggers looking beautiful and handsome and poised all at once while she stood there gulping air like a fish on land.

“How are you, Eleanor?” His voice was calm and controlled, and she hated him for that. How could he be so calm at a time like this? And how could he ask that question of all questions?

How was she? How was she? This was what he said to her after not seeing her for a year? How was she supposed to answer that question? What was she supposed to say to him, to this man who’d been her entire life since she was fifteen years old? This man who had saved her and doomed her all at the same time? Nothing to say. Nothing she could say. So she did the only thing she could do at a moment like this when words were meaningless.

She started out walking but halfway across the room the walk turned into a run. She threw herself into his arms and kissed him.

He was shocked at first. That was obvious from the look on his face.

“I was under the impression you hated me,” he said.

“I’ll hate you again later.”

His mouth found hers and the kiss was everything she’d forgotten she needed. He dominated her with the kiss, overwhelmed her, overpowered her. She was on her back on the bed before she knew it had happened. If she’d had any pride or any dignity or any self-control whatsoever she would have stopped it with a word. But she didn’t want her pride and she didn’t want her dignity and God knew she didn’t want self-control. She just wanted him.

“I have to hurt you,” Søren said as he dug his hands in her hair and tilted her head back. He bit and kissed and licked her neck and throat. He was all over her, his body, his hands, his knees pushing between her thighs, staking a claim on her.

“Hurt me, then. Do it fast before I change my mind.” A pointless warning. There was no changing her mind. She thought about stopping this moment the way one thinks of stopping a runaway train by stepping in front of it and holding out your hands. A fine heroic fantasy but nothing ever to be attempted in the real world.

Søren rose up on his knees between her legs and ripped her blouse open and off her body. It was rare he tore her clothes. He had more self-control than that. But not today. Neither one of them did.

With rough hands and with no regard to her comfort, Søren stripped her naked. Her clothes ended up on the floor with her shoes. As Søren pulled his own shirt off, Nora reached up to touch his chest and stomach. This body, how she had missed it. This long, lean, indomitable body that she had craved like the drowning craved air.

As her hands touched the sensitive sides of his rib cage, he grabbed her wrists and pushed them into the bed over her head. He did it hard enough to hurt her and she released a cry of true pain. Søren closed his eyes, inhaled, breathing in her pain. Her suffering. His oxygen. She bit his chest over his heart, giving pain for pain.

While he held her pinned to the mattress, he sucked her nipples. They were hard already but his hot wet mouth made them ache and throb. His knees edged her legs open wider. Blood rushed through her, pounding in her veins, in her lungs, in her hips. She begged to be allowed to touch him again, but he kept her imprisoned against the bed, unable to lift her hands held in his iron grasp. She would have bruises on her forearms.

God, she had missed this.

Søren moved down her body, kissing her sides, her stomach. Heat radiated from his mouth all through her. There would be no escape. He held her down with his hands but she stayed there because of her heart.

Without warning Søren turned her, pushing her onto her stomach. She felt the bed move. He stood at the foot, holding her ankle in his hand, tying it to the bedpost with a length of rope. He tied the other ankle to the opposite bedpost. She tried to push her legs together but couldn’t. They were trapped, held open three feet wide.

She heard him undressing. He moved quickly, as impatient as she. She heard other sounds—he took a flogger off the wall and something else, too. A cane? A crop? Didn’t matter. It was all the same to her.

The bed moved again. He knelt between her thighs. The first blow of the flogger fell right in the center of her back. The second blow struck the same spot. The third hit her harder than the first two combined. But between the fourth and the fifth brutal strike, Søren entered her. She was wet from Kingsley’s expert ministrations, but it still burned going in. Her whimper of pain didn’t stop him nor did she want it to. Søren pushed in again, all the way in, and she arched her back to receive him fully. When he was as deep as he could be in this position, he flogged her again.

It was a special torture to be flogged while being fucked. Pleasure warred with pain. One would gain ground over the other before the other took control of the field. Nora dug her fingers deep into the black sheets and rocked her hips into the bed. She felt a flood of wetness bathing him and coating her thighs. He moved easily in her now and she groaned. His every movement sent her reeling. Her vision swam. Her muscles clenched and released, clutching at him inside her. He was still flogging her, but the pleasure had won the battle against the pain. All she felt was him embedded inside her. All she wanted was for him to fuck her as if he owned her.

Nora heard another sound, the sound of a flogger landing on the floor. She felt his hands flat on her battered back and he slid them upward to her hair. He dug both hands into the waves, lifting her hair and baring the back of her neck to him. Then he bit down hard into her neck, clutching her with his teeth. No conscience, no consideration. Only brute animal fucking.

The pounding seemed to go on endlessly. Pinned down underneath him with her legs tied open, Nora could do nothing but take his merciless thrusts. She could have stopped him with a safe word, of course, but that was the last thing she wanted. Once he came and she came it would be over and then she would hate him again. Once she let herself hate him again, that would be it. They would be done. Their bodies would part and they would part and that would be it.