But he did. His aloofness and reserve were his armor. She’d seen it with her own eyes—parishioners at Sacred Heart ached to be close to him. He was their priest and they adored him for his dedication to the church, his love for God and his devotion to their spiritual well-being. But although he would regularly dine in the homes of his parishioners when invited or spend hours with them when they brought their troubles to his office, he never reciprocated by inviting them to his home at the rectory or asking them for help unless it was church-related. The one secret about his personal life he’d ever let slip was the story of his marriage to a young French ballerina when he was eighteen, and that had been a calculated maneuver so that his congregation would know he wasn’t the sort of priest from whom they need hide their children.

Here, however, in this room, all the armor came off. Here he was free. He didn’t hide his passions, his hungers. Hungers few outside these walls would understand. But she did. She understood because they were her desires, too.

Nora wandered the room, touching this and that. A black crop. A white set of leather cuffs that matched the collar he’d given her when she was eighteen. Handcuffs. Rope cuffs. A set of scalpels of various sizes.

On a shelf sat a black lacquer box that she feared to open for the memory she knew lurked inside it. But Nora had Pandora’s self-restraint when it came to secret boxes. She opened it. Anyone who saw the box out of context of this room and its owner would likely assume it held something like jewelry or love letters or a nice set of mah-jongg tiles. They could have guessed for hours without knowing what it actually held, which was a set of surgical steel needles, a set of needle receiving tubes, small clamps of various sizes and a collection of silver rings. Not the sort of rings for fingers, however.

What few people realized about Søren was that he possessed a wicked sense of humor. Nora, when she’d still been Eleanor, awoke on a Valentine’s Day years ago to find a card on the otherwise empty pillow next to her. The front of the card bore the words “The club, my room, tonight at 9:00.” That was all. When she opened the card she found a simple hand-drawn heart on the inside pierced by an arrow. But on closer inspection she saw it wasn’t an unfletched arrow as she’d assumed.

It was a needle.

That night she arrived at the club on time. She knew better than to keep Søren waiting. Outside his dungeon door she took off her snowy, sludgy boots and knocked once before slipping inside.

She shut the door but didn’t lock it. No one would interrupt them tonight, not even Kingsley unless he was invited, and then of course it wouldn’t be an interruption—Kingsley was always welcome in Søren’s dungeon. In addition to all the usual furniture in the room—the bed, the cross, one chair—she found a table covered in a white sheet between the foot of the bed and the St. Andrew’s Cross on the opposite wall. Next to the end of the table sat a black lacquer box, closed, lying on a small metal table with wheels, the sort she’d seen in doctor’s offices to hold medical instruments.

She went to the bathroom where she found Søren at the sink, the sleeves of his white button-down shirt rolled up to his elbows while he washed his hands. Not washed, scrubbed. He scrubbed his hands with the dedication of a surgeon.

“Sir?”

He turned his face to her but kept his hands under the steaming water.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Little One.” He kissed her forehead.

“You’re in a good mood, my sir,” she said to his bright smile, his bright eyes. He looked almost feverish. “Should I be worried?”

“I would be if I were you,” he said with a wink.

“My pussy just whimpered.”

“I wondered what that sound was. Now go change. There’s a shirt on the bed. Then sit on the table at the end closest to us.”

The instructions were simple enough. The shirt on the bed was one of his, a black Oxford shirt he must have been wearing earlier today, as she could smell his scent on it. She might have been cold wearing nothing but his shirt, except Søren had turned the heat up in the room. Even when torturing her, he thought of her comfort.

Sitting on the end of the table as ordered, she felt like a child with her naked feet dangling, not able to reach the floor. Soon Søren came out of the bathroom, drying his hands on a small white towel.

He tossed the towel aside and stood between her knees. He kissed her.

“Nervous?” he asked between soft, gentle kisses.

“A little,” she said. “What’s going on, sir?”

“Do you remember a few months ago when Kingsley was reading to us from Story of O?”

She nodded and said nothing. Of course she remembered it. Both of them had taken their turns with her that night and when the kink and the sex were over and done with, none of them could sleep. Kingsley had offered to read a bedtime story and had procured from his library an English translation of Histoire d’O, the most infamous erotic novel in the history of the French language. Was there anything in the world more erotic than to be in bed with a beautiful man who’d beaten and fucked her while another beautiful man who’d also beaten and fucked her lounged in a chair by the bed, wearing nothing but fitted trousers and reading French erotica to them?

“If I recall correctly,” Søren continued, “you were particularly enamored of the scene when Sir Stephen has O pierced.”

“A genital piercing seems more intimate than a collar,” she said. “Something that can’t be taken off easily. Something that you can wear in public that no one can see.”

“Exactly,” Søren said. “Which is why I’m going to pierce you tonight.”

“Pierce me?”

“Don’t be afraid. I learned from the best. Mistress Irina took me through all the steps. I’ll do a simple clitoral hood piercing. A ring. Something you’ll wear always, in public and private. Something, like you said, more intimate than a collar.”

She could have asked questions. Søren often allowed her to ask questions before he hurt her.

She could have asked, Do I have to? Or Will it hurt? But instead she asked, “Can I see the ring?”

“Of course, Little One.” He opened the lacquer box and removed a small plastic bag.

“Mistress Irina has already sterilized everything for me. Don’t touch the ring.”

She looked at the ring—a silver steel circle with a ball for a clasp. Couples exchanged wedding bands when they married. A diamond ring on her finger seemed a hollow symbol compared to this ring. She would wear it not on her body, but pierced into her body, and she would bleed for it. And it would be her own lover who put it in her.

“I’m ready,” she said, returning the ring to him.

“Lie back,” Søren instructed.

She rolled down onto the table and heard the sound of metal moving. From under the white sheet, Søren had pulled out stirrups like those she’d put her feet in every trip to her gynecologist’s office. Her knees fell open wide as she moved into position. Because he was Søren he also cuffed her ankles to the stirrups. No running away now—not that she wanted to. Much. Søren angled a light at the most intimate part of her body. And yet she wasn’t embarrassed, wasn’t ashamed. Her body belonged to him. She wouldn’t hide his own property from him.

She heard the distinctive snap of latex gloves, and felt the cold touch of the cleansing cloth that he wiped over her clitoris and vulva to disinfect the area. His fingers delicately prodded the tender flesh. He seemed to be measuring, checking position. With the tip of a pen he marked one spot and another. He pressed something small and cold up and under the hood that covered her clitoris.

“Mistress Irina suggests you blow out while I push the needle through.”

She nodded, unable to speak. She was mute from fear and arousal. Around Søren they were inseparable sensations, twin strands of the same cord.