After four days Nora was spent. She had no more pain to give and still no peace in her heart. She lay on her back on the bed in her dungeon, her black-and-white braided riding crop in her hand. Lazily she twirled it like a majorette with a baton. If her hands went idle for a single second she knew the devil would use them for playthings. He’d use them to make her call Søren or worse, go to Søren. She had no right to ask him not to take his Final Vows. None. She’d left him. She’d also told him to stop waiting for her time and time again. She’d begged him to find someone new to love, someone new to fuck. Go back to Kingsley, she’d said to him on more than one occasion. Sleep with Simone, she adores you, she’d said on another. Find someone else to fuck. Stop playing martyr, waiting for me to come back to you. It was a selfish request on her part, wanting him to move on. She couldn’t move on completely until he did. When they were together they’d been like a couple holding hands, tightly clinging to each other in a viselike grip. She’d left him but his hand still held hers even as she struggled to pull away from his fingers. At last he was letting her hand go and as soon as he let go, she’d realized his hand was the only thing holding her up.

Søren had found a new love and it was his oldest love—older than his love for her, even older than his love for Kingsley. He was leaving them both for God. And how on earth or how in the hell was she supposed to compete with God?

Nora’s hotline phone rang but she didn’t answer it. Either it was Kingsley calling about scheduling another client or it was Søren, the only person other than Juliette who had her hotline number. She didn’t have the mental energy to talk to Kingsley right now.

Had Søren told Kingsley he was taking Final Vows yet? Possibly. The minute after Kingsley learned of Søren’s accident and injuries, he’d hired a private nurse to tend to their wounded priest twice a day. A relief for Nora. It gave her an excuse to keep her distance from him, gave her time to recover.

When near Søren, she felt too much. He exhausted her the way she imagined the people who lived at the foot of a sleeping volcano were exhausted from pretending they didn’t live at the foot of a sleeping volcano. She’d seen a volcano once, long ago, during a trip out West. At first she thought it nothing more than a snow-capped mountain until someone had called it what it was, and she knew the fear of it then for it was as fearsome as it was beautiful. Finally she understood why Søren’s skin smelled of snow and yet his touch was warm. At the volcano’s core lurked a buried sleeping fire, a channel direct from the molten center of the earth that rose to the coldest corners of the sky. When the volcano erupted—and it would someday—not all the ice and snow in the world would be able to contain the conflagration.

But the snow had to try.

And yet Nora would rather go on living in fear at the foot of that volcano than live in safety anywhere else in the wide world.

Reluctantly Nora glanced at her phone. It had been Kingsley calling. She’d call him back in a few minutes. Or maybe she’d go over to the town house and crawl into bed with him. Not for sex. She just couldn’t stand the thought of spending the night alone in her house with this news, this news hanging over her like a poison cloud. She’d sleep at Griffin’s tonight. Or King’s. Or a total stranger’s. She wished Talel would show up on her doorstep to take her away from her life for a day or two. Or anyone...

With a heavy sigh, Nora walked over to a coffin sitting on the floor of her dungeon. She unlocked the brass latches and opened the lid.

“Time’s up, Troy,” she said.

“Already?” the man in the coffin said. He was naked apart from his black socks and the smile on his face.

“Already. I even gave you five bonus minutes.” She held out her hand and helped him from the coffin. “No charge.”

“You’re wonderful, Mistress. I feel like a million bucks.”

“I wish lying in a coffin for an hour made me feel better,” she said. “I’d sleep in one every night.”

“Nothing like being locked in a coffin and facing your own mortality to make you feel alive.” Troy pulled on his jeans and T-shirt and slipped on his shoes. He did look annoyingly refreshed and happy. “Thank you very much.”

“I still can’t figure out why you pay me for this,” she said as Troy handed over a two-hundred-dollar tip. He was a Wall Street hotshot who regularly made six-and seven-figure commissions. He’d told her once that sensory deprivation helped with his focus and he credited his success at the brokerage to his sessions in his closed and locked coffin. “All I do is lock you in and let you out an hour later. Can’t you get your own coffin and do it at home?”

“I can’t lock myself in. It doesn’t work unless I’m actually locked in and can’t get out. My last domme would open the box every ten minutes to make sure I was still breathing. Ruined my focus. Killed my Zen. Killed my boner, too. Horrible. You leave me alone in there and that’s all I ask. Same time next week?”

“You’re welcome to pseudo-kill yourself in my coffin anytime. Or actually kill yourself.”

“See? This is why you’re the best domme,” Troy said. “You can pull off the whole ‘I don’t care if you actually die’ routine so well. That’s part of the release, the excitement, knowing I could literally die and you’d let me. I face death and conquer it. Then I hit the trading floor like Godzilla, totally immune to fear.”

“Of all the Wall Street guys I know, you are by far the most Wall Street,” she said, opening the dungeon door for him.

“Mistress, I will take that as a compliment,” he said, grinning.

“Troy?”

“Yes, Mistress?”

“It wasn’t a compliment.” She slammed the door in his face.

Through the door she heard a muffled “Love you, Mistress.”

She picked up her red leather day planner off the side table and flipped through it. She thought she had another appointment today but couldn’t remember who it was with or where it was. Juliette had taken over scheduling Nora’s clients while Kingsley was giving her the silent treatment. Juliette was so much better at it Nora almost wished Kingsley hadn’t forgiven her for Talel. Juliette actually scheduled her days off and other wonderful things like that. And whenever scheduling a new client, Juliette would work up something like an intake form for Nora so she would be better prepared for the session.

Inside her planner Nora found the envelope Juliette had clipped to today’s date. She opened and read the form.

White male, American, age 29.

Client requests a one-hour weekly session for pain and release.

Release? Basic code for “beat him until he comes.” And if he didn’t come from the beating he would be, if he earned it, allowed to masturbate while she watched and made commentary.

Client has a strong tolerance for pain but requests no broken skin. A sustained beating is preferred as client wishes to achieve and remain in subspace for the duration of the session. He has been to several dominas before. His experience level is high.

Okay. No whippings. Whips did too much damage. The flogger then, the thick elk-skin one. Those marks healed fast. And candle wax, too. The wax left red marks, but they faded within a day.

One hour of flogging? Easy money.

Nora kept reading.

Medical warning: client has an inoperable brain aneurysm. In case of confusion, strange behavior, fainting, stroke or sudden illness, cease play immediately and call 911. Client has no immediate family with whom he is in contact.

“Knock, knock.”

Nora turned and saw none other than Thorny himself standing in the doorway to her dungeon. He held what looked like at least two dozen red and white roses in his hand.

“You,” she said.

“Me?” He pointed at himself.