“I never planned on falling in love with my priest, either. Love is a game of Russian roulette. You and I both lost.”

“Funny,” Thorny said.

“What is?”

“Funny how much losing can feel like winning.”

Thorny grinned the grin of a man madly in love and she knew now why it was called “madly” in love. You’d have to be crazy to do it. Call her crazy.

She shut the door behind him, locked it and leaned back against it.

Maybe it was for the best Søren was leaving. If Milady, whoever she was, wanted to hurt Nora, then out of the country might be the best place for Søren. Milady couldn’t catch her going in and out of his house at night if Søren wasn’t there. She couldn’t take a picture of them kissing, couldn’t film them fucking. God, she was getting as paranoid as Kingsley if she was imagining a woman sneaking into the woods by the rectory to watch them together. Then again, she’d never expected Thorny of all people, the man who’d helped her beat Milady two summers ago, to turn against her. She’d walked right into it, too. Gorgeous tattooed guy with a sexy grin and a bad reputation brings her two dozen roses and offers a trade—his gift for pleasure in exchange for her gift of pain. As if she needed further proof she was lonely—she’d known the second he turned up in her dungeon something wasn’t right, and she hadn’t wanted to believe it. She’d gone against her instincts and only by the grace of God and Kingsley had she figured it out before it was too late.

So yes, maybe it was for the best Søren went away while she dealt with Milady.

And maybe the world was flat, Kingsley was vanilla and Nora did calculus for the fun of it.

Fuck Milady and fuck Søren for thinking she would let him go without a fight. Both of them were on her shit list today and she wasn’t about to let either of them beat her. She was Mistress Nora and Mistress Nora did not get beaten. Mistress Nora did the beating.

Nora grabbed her car keys and headed out.

Without knocking she’d let herself in and although she knew he’d heard the door open and close, he didn’t look at her as she walked over to the piano and set a small potted tree on top of it.

“Ficus delivery,” she said.

“Lovely.” He glanced at the plant as his hands stilled on the keys. “I’ll add it to my collection.”

He resumed playing his piece and she let him, comforted to know he had healed enough to use his right wrist again. While he played she lifted his shirt to examine his back, an act of casual intimacy only she and Kingsley could have gotten away with. The bruise was healing well as was the road rash. His back still wasn’t a pretty sight, but she knew the truth about pain—the healing often hurt as much as the wounding.

Nora lowered his shirt and sat next to him on the bench, her back to the piano, and looked around the living room. Two black trunks sat next to the sofa. One leather overnight bag sat on top. One garment bag that likely contained his two secular suits and his Jesuit cassock lay across the arm of the sofa.

And one steamer trunk packed with floggers, whips, bondage cuffs and spreader bars sat by the cold empty fireplace waiting for someone from Kingsley’s household to pick it up and store it.

“What were you playing?”

“Ravel’s Jeux d’eau.”

“Play my song.”

“No.”

“Please? Please, sir? It’s a Swedish song. That’s practically Danish, right?”

“I don’t know who would be more insulted by that comparison—the Danes or the Swedes.”

“Oh, just play it. Please?”

Søren sighed heavily. “One of these days I will learn how to tell you no.”

“But not today,” Nora said.

And with that he launched into eighties Swedish pop sensation A-ha’s “Take On Me.”

He stopped after the famous keyboard riff and turned to her.

“Oh, dear,” he said. “It appears I’ve reinjured my wrist.”

“Big liar. Scoot over,” she said. Søren shifted to the left giving her more room on the small bench. “What’s going to happen to your piano after you leave?”

“Elizabeth gave it to me. She’ll take it back if she wants it, but most likely she’ll simply donate it to the church.”

“And your trunk of toys?”

“If you want them, you’re welcome to them. Otherwise Kingsley will store them for me.”

She turned and faced him. He was dressed casually, jeans and a white T-shirt. Of course he would look more handsome than usual today. Was his hair always that touchable? Were his lips always this kissable? Were his eyelashes always that dark?

Or was he so desirable today because he was leaving her and it was human nature—the worst part of human nature—to want what you can’t have?

“You really are leaving?” she asked.

Søren reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and from his wallet took out an airline ticket with his name on it. A one-way trip from JFK to Jordan to Damascus. He left next Wednesday.

“Why?” she breathed, shaking her head as he put the ticket and his wallet back in his jeans pocket.

“Priests are like doctors. We have to be where the wounded are. Some doctors work in hospitals. Some doctors work on the battlefield. I’ve been in the hospital long enough. Time to get back out on the field.”

“There are wounded people who need you right here in this town.”

“They’ll find another priest.”

“They need you, not some other priest.”

“They need me?”

“They need you.”

“What about you?” he asked, looking at her face. “Do you need me?”

“No,” she said. “But I want you.”

“You’ll survive without me. You’ve been surviving without me for over three years.”

“Kingsley might not.”

“Kingsley survived without me for ten years.”

“He would have died without you, and you know it.”

“He won’t die without me now. He has Juliette. He loves her. She loves him.”

“He loves her. He needs you.”

“He shouldn’t need me.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that he does.”

“Did Kingsley put you up to this?”

“Kingsley screamed at me today, and he did so after he entered my house without permission and watched a sex tape I’d made with a friend—also without permission. So as you can imagine, he’s not my favorite person today. And yet, here I am, begging you to stay. For his sake and mine.” She didn’t tell him Kingsley fired her. She didn’t tell him the tape was a blackmail tape. She didn’t tell him a lot of things she wanted to tell him including the words I do need you, whether I want to or not.

“What about my sake?”

“You really want to go to Syria?”

“Why is it so hard for you to believe that I want to do what Jesuits do? Eleanor, I was never supposed to be a parish priest. If that had been the case I hardly would have joined the Jesuits. I could have skipped five years of seminary and been a diocesan priest instead. I was sent to Sacred Heart because it was their way of slapping me on the wrist for informing on a sex offender priest. I stayed here this long because of you. And then you left. Why should I stay?”

“If you want a new assignment, fine. Ask them to transfer you to the Jesuit mission in the city or go teach at your old school in Maine or one of the eight million Jesuit schools in New England. Go somewhere we can at least see you every now and then.”

“Do you know how few Jesuit priests speak Arabic?”

“If I truly believed you were doing this because you wanted to do it and not for any ulterior motive, I would kiss you right now and give you my blessing. But I can’t. I don’t.”

She shook her head in consternation.

“I have to tell something, Eleanor, and you’re not going to like it.”

“What?”

Søren leaned in and whispered in her ear.

“I didn’t ask for your blessing.”

Nora growled at him. Søren laughed. He took her hand in his, kissed the back of it.

“I need time,” Søren said finally.