I break my vows when I know I can justify it before God and know God will say, “I don’t blame you.” When God looks at you and He looks at Kingsley, something tells me that’s what He would say.

When she stood before God and He asked her why she loved this priest and had given her body to him, she had a feeling God would say the same to her.

Søren exhaled, a pensive sound. “Yes, actually, I would.”

“Then... I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel right now.”

“If it’s any comfort to you, neither do I.”

Søren raised a wet hand from the water and caressed her cheek with it. Water ran down her face and into the water like tears.

It shouldn’t have been so nerve-racking to do something as simple as scrub the blood off Søren. But he watched her every move intently and without speaking as she lathered her hands in soap and ran them gently over his lower stomach and penis. Did he see how much it affected her, being this intimate with his naked body? The first time she’d touched him in a sexual way, she’d been seventeen years old and he’d put her hand on his erection. They were at his family home for his father’s funeral. She’d snuck out of her room and found him in his childhood bedroom. They’d told each other secrets in the dark, and when she couldn’t wait another minute more for him to see her as a woman who wanted him and not a girl needing his protection, she’d taken her clothes off for him and offered him her body. His pleasure meant her pain. His pain meant her pleasure. He hurt her because it aroused him; when it aroused him he pleasured her. The cycle went on and on, repeating itself night after night. She’d come to crave pain like Pavlov’s dog had learned to salivate at the ringing of a bell because it signaled feeding time.

She’d broken off her leash. If only she could break the bell...

Until then she could pretend. She pretended she was still his and nothing bad had ever happened. She ran the sponge over his broad shoulders, down his strong chest and flat stomach. She lathered her hands again and washed his feet, massaging the soles and ankles, digging her fingers between his toes until she forced a smile from him.

“How can such a beautiful man with an otherwise perfect body have such weird feet?” she asked.

“My feet are not ‘weird.’”

“Your big toes are crooked.”

“It happens to runners.”

“Your toes are weird. If that’s what happens to runners, it’s yet another reason for me never to go running.”

“You ran from me.”

Nora dropped the sponge into the water.

“Run from you? That’s funny.” She’d been bleeding so hard she could barely walk. It had taken everything she had to stand on her two feet in front of him, and it took more than she had to walk out his door. She’d fainted in his bathroom from hunger since she couldn’t keep any food down. She had literally crawled on the floor of his house when he’d broken her riding crop, and she’d had to pick up the pieces.

“I saw a nature show once when I was kid,” she began, keeping her voice as low as possible. “There was a wolf caught in a trap and he gnawed his own foot off to get free. It was awful. I couldn’t imagine being so desperate to be free I’d amputate a part of my own body. I couldn’t understand the wolf. Now I do.”

“Are you so desperate to be free of me you’d gnaw your own leg off?”

“I’m saying leaving you was as easy as gnawing my own leg off.”

“My Little One...”

“It’s been over a year, Søren. I’m not the same person I was. A lot can happen in a year.”

“I realize this. Apparently in one year my submissive decided she was a dominatrix.”

“I didn’t decide I was a dominatrix. I am a dominant. I want to make money. You put the two together and you get dominatrix.”

“You aren’t a dominant, Eleanor.”

“Then what am I, since you seem to be the expert on me?”

“You’re mine. That’s what you are.”

She shook her head. “Not anymore, Søren. I’m doing this. I know you don’t like it. I know you don’t agree with it, but I’m doing it.”

“There are easier ways to hurt me than by becoming a dominatrix.”

“That you think I’m doing this to hurt you is all the proof I need that leaving you was the right thing to do. You know I have this part of me. You know this is who I am. You’ve always known. Pretending it’s not there won’t make it go away. If you’d let me explore my dominant side instead of ignoring it, hiding it from me...I might never have left. But you forbade me from seeing Kingsley, one of your precious three nonnegotiables. God, me and Kingsley. Have you ever considered he might be one of my nonnegotiables, too?”

“He’s using you to get back at me. I’d choose your nonnegotiables more wisely.”

“Fine. Then I choose me. You and Kingsley both can go fuck yourselves. Or each other. God knows you both want to bad enough.”

She stood up and dropped the sponge into the bathtub.

“You’re clean,” she said. “You can get out whenever you want.”

Søren didn’t stand up like she expected him to, not at first. No, first he sank down into the water, submerging himself entirely. When he came back up, it was with a cascade of water. As he stood he ran his hands through his hair, slicking it back as water poured off and down him, licking every inch of his six-foot-four frame—his strong thighs corded with runner’s muscles, his narrow hips, his taut stomach and back that seemed to go on forever when one kissed it from hip to neck and down again like she had so many nights after they finished making love. And his eyelashes, naturally dark, darkened even more when wet and his blond hair turned to shining gold. Wet and naked he was magnificent and shameless, and he was putting on this show all for her benefit. And it worked because she did want him so much it hurt, and when it hurt she wanted him, because when she wanted him it hurt. Somewhere in the distance she heard Pavlov’s bell ringing. This time she ignored the sound.

“Remember when I said I would hate you again later?” Nora asked, handing him a thick white towel.

“Yes.”

“Later is now.”

14

Reign of Terror

NORA DRESSED IN her own bedroom. It took an act of will to go back to the playroom and face him. At least she had one tiny victory under her belt. He’d tempted her with his body, and she’d walked away. Miracles did happen.

When she opened the door to the playroom, she found him fully dressed again, his hair still wet but otherwise he’d returned to his neutral state of clothed and calm and clean.

“What exactly are you doing here?” she asked from the open doorway, not sure she wanted to go back inside.

“Teaching you to use a whip. I thought that was obvious.” He held up the whip coiled around his hand.

“Why you?”

“Whether or not you acknowledge you’re still mine, I know you are. As long as you are mine, your safety is my primary concern and responsibility. This career path you’ve chosen is not an easy one. We’d like to think everyone in this community is simply a pervert with a heart of gold, but there are dangerous men out there who will hire you for less than pleasant reasons. I’ve known hard-core masochists who are as dangerous as sadists. If you fail to give them what they want and what they’ve paid for, they can and will turn on you. You need to know what you’re doing. Doing your job well will be your best defense. As long as your clients are afraid of you, you’ll be safe. Safer.”

“Kingsley is trying to turn me into the Queen of the Underground,” she said, taking the whip from his hands.

“Make it a reign of terror, then. For your sake and theirs.”

The whip lesson started off easy. Søren demonstrated how to hold the whip and explained the different sorts of cracks—a forward crack, the sidearm crack, the coachman’s crack. She’d never paid any attention to the techniques Søren had used before. She’d always been content to simply enjoy watching him in action when he beat someone else. But now she longed to understand everything—how to flick the whip in such a way to make the sonic boom, how to strike someone in such a way you didn’t rip their back open, how to strike someone in such a way you did rip their back open.