Текст книги "The Queen"

Автор книги: Tiffany Reisz

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

20

The Red Queen

KINGSLEY STEPPED OUT into the darkness and the cacophony first. He reached back for her but she didn’t take his hand. On her own, without his help and without fear, she stepped across the threshold and stood at his side. Music roared from mountain-size speakers. She recognized the song. It was one of Kingsley’s favorites, a perfect score to accompany a seduction, a beating, a sin, a confession and absolution in bed.

Time slowed down as they descended the stairs into the pit below. Between flashes of blue and red she could see Kingsley’s pupils dilating as they adjusted to the low light. His lips parted slightly and she could see his chest rise with a breath. His face, handsome, imposing, unsmiling, wore the expression of a veteran soldier going into battle. Alert and unafraid.

Nora looked up and saw Griffin at the ledge of the VIP bar’s balcony, staring down at her, watching her every move. He blew her a kiss. Mistress Irina, Kingsley’s Russian dominatrix, quietly walked away from a man at a kneeling bench and fell into step behind her and Kingsley. A sign of allegiance no one would miss. The trio walked on, their destination the elevator that would take them to the VIP bar. Anything that would happen would happen in those one hundred steps between the stairs and the elevator. She sensed everyone around her knew this. They were waiting, all of them. Waiting for whatever was to happen. She recognized every face in the crowd, which meant every face in the crowd recognized her. Kingsley had made it known far and wide that the girl called Eleanor Schreiber no longer existed and a woman name Mistress Nora had taken her place. The faces watching her smirked and rolled their eyes. But no one spoke to them. No one stopped them. Kingsley pressed on and the crowd parted for him as they always did. No one would dare defy the king. He could have anyone banished from the city’s kink community with a word. They’d be personae non gratae, denied play at any club in the city. And that was the punishment for a first strike. If someone did dare to piss off Kingsley Edge, they never did it twice.

So there was a chance, a slim chance, they would make it to the elevator without anyone stopping her. They were halfway there already. Fifty steps away. She’d made this journey countless times, Søren leading her through the crowd, her head bowed in quiet submission. Now she walked it with her head high, next to Kingsley, not behind him. Equals. Forty steps. Thirty five. Almost there.

Nora saw Milady in the crowd standing next to a mountain of a man. His head bent to her ear as she whispered to him. No one else seemed to see what was happening. No one but Nora. She knew what it meant, what the whispers signified. There was no way in hell Nora would make it from here to the elevator that easily.

The man stood up straight and stepped into their path, blocking the way between the trio and the elevator. The three of them stopped because the three of them had to. The crowd pressed in around them, watching. Milady stood off to the side, smiling.

The music stopped.

“Bonsoir,” Kingsley said, looking up at the mountain. He was six foot six if he was an inch, taller than both Kingsley and Søren. He had the build of a professional weightlifter, a night club bouncer, a linebacker, all shoulders, no neck. Nora guessed his weight at three-fifty—pure muscle and no mercy.

“Who’s the new girl?” the man nicknamed Unbreakable asked.

“Show a little respect, Trent.” Mistress Irina had never lost her Russian accent and it made every word she said sound twice as intimidating. That she called him by his real name, Trent, instead of his nickname meant she’d either tried and failed to break him herself or she was jonesing for her turn.

“For who? Her?” Trent pointed at Nora.

“Yes, her and King,” Mistress Irina said. “You want to get out of our way?”

“I want to know who the new girl is, is what I want,” Trent said. He crossed his arms over his chest, one slab of meat over another slab of meat.

Kingsley sighed. “Mistress Nora, this is Trent, otherwise known as Unbreakable for obvious reasons. Trent, this is—”

“Mistress Nora,” she said, smiling because it was in her nature to smile at dumb animals. “A pleasure to beat you.”

Trent barked a laugh.

“Beat me? You, little girl?”

“Yes, if you like. What’s your safe word?”

“Mommy,” he said, grinning like a rabid dog.

“That’s cute. You’re cute.”

“And you’re...short,” Trent said. “You have nice tits, though.”

“Thank you.” Nora pushed her breasts up in her bustier. “My mom gave them to me.”

“You kind of look familiar.” Trent bent over and pretended to examine her face. Of course he knew who she was. Who didn’t?

“I have one of those faces,” Nora said.

“No... I know who you are. Aren’t you the priest’s little slut?”

“No, but I used to be the priest’s big slut.”

That got a laugh out of the crowd. Good.

“I think I saw him drag you on a leash through this club once on your hands and knees, didn’t I?”

“No.”

“That didn’t happen?”

“Oh, it happened. But it happened more than once. He did that to me a lot.”

Another laugh. If she kept the crowd laughing she’d own them all with or without a collar.

“So where is he? Where’s your master?”

“He’s probably at church right now alphabetizing his altar boys.”

“Is that like sodomizing?” Trent asked.

“This is a different thing. It involves words and reading. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I’ve never heard you talk before. I liked it better when your master wouldn’t let you speak.”

“Too bad I don’t have a master anymore, then. But you’ll like me if you get to know me. I’m a very nice dominatrix.”

“You’re not a dominatrix. You’re a dumb little slut playing dress-up. Nobody here is afraid of you. Nobody here is impressed by you. And nobody here wants you.”

“That hurts. It really does. I could have sworn somebody here wanted me. Did anybody here want me?” she shouted to the crowd.

“Up here,” Griffin called from the balcony. “I want you, Mistress Nora.”

“Thank you, Master Griffin,” Nora called back. “You want to tag team someone later?”

“Sure. Girl or guy?”

“Griffin’s choice.”

“Both then. Hurry up. I have a boner, and I want to use it before I lose it.”

“On my way,” Nora called back and gave Griffin a salute. She saw uncertainty on the faces around her. Kingsley saw her as a dominatrix. Mistress Irina did. And now Master Griffin, too? But Trent remained unmoved and unimpressed. “Could you excuse us? We need to get to the elevator now so Griffin and I can fuck some people up.”

“Say please,” Trent said, glaring down at her.

“Well, I suppose I could fuck some people up down here. But Griffin’s up there. So you should move. Right now. If you don’t move, I’ll break your face, smash your balls and make you cry in front of this entire assembly of perverts.”

She stood up straight and tall—as tall as a woman who was five foot three and wearing four-inch heels could stand—and put her hands behind her back. From under the waistband of her tight skirt she pulled out a cold piece of metal and slipped it over her hand.

“You talk a very good game, little girl,” Trent said. “I wish I believed you. Might be nice to find a woman around here with real balls.”

“Are you giving me permission, then, to break your face and crush your balls? Kingsley says I can’t hit anyone without their permission. I mean, unless it’s self-defense. That’s okay, right?” She looked at Kingsley.

“Bien sûr,” he said. “If he tries anything with you, you can kill him for all I care.”

“Oh, goodie. Would you please try something with me, Trent?” Nora asked.

“If you insist,” Trent said. He leaned his head back and spit at her.

Nora ducked the spit and used Trent’s moment of distraction to bring her fist around, knuckles first like Kingsley had taught her. He’d told her to aim for the cheekbone but she slightly miscalculated and instead struck Trent in the nose. She felt it go soft under her hand, like a cracker turning to crumbs. She heard a scream and saw a spurt of blood like Mount Vesuvius erupting and Trent was Pompeii. Party over. Her boots were steel-tipped and as Trent raised his hands to cup his bloody nose, Nora kicked him in the testicles. In an instant he was on his side on the floor in the fetal position. The crowd gasped and moved away. Kingsley stood watching as she put her foot on Trent’s neck and started to stand on it with her full weight.

“Mommy,” he said. Except he didn’t say it, he screamed it.

“Well, poo,” Nora said, dramatically lifting her foot off his neck. “That didn’t take long. And I was just getting warmed up.”

“You broke my fucking nose, you bitch.” He wailed the words.

“That’s ‘You broke my fucking nose, Mistress Bitch,’ to you.”

Trent tried to get up on his hands and knees. He reached for Kingsley’s foot.

“Don’t scuff my leather,” Kingsley said, kicking Trent’s hand away.

“King, she broke my nose.”

“She told you she was going to, silly boy,” Kingsley said. “Did you think she was joking?”

“I think he thought I was joking,” Nora said. She did a little turn and looked around, the assembly watching in stony silence. “Do you all think I’m joking?”

No one dared speak.

Nora continued. “Does that look like I’m joking?” She pointed down at Trent, who was still cradling his bloody nose on the floor.

Still...no one spoke.

“Look,” Nora said, smiling at the crowd. “I know. I know. You’re all saying, ‘That’s Eleanor, Søren’s submissive.’ I know a lot of you respect him and fear him. I know a lot of you know what sort of sadist he is. No one knows that better than I do. I respect him, too, of course. I learned a lot from him. And the most important thing I learned was this—if someone fucks with you, you show them the wrath of God. This is what the wrath of God looks like.” Nora pointed to Trent in the fetal position at her feet. Unbreakable was thoroughly broken. “Does anyone else want to piss me off tonight? Anyone?”

No answer at all. No volunteers.

“I’m asking very little of you all,” Nora said. “I’m not asking for your respect or your loyalty or your understanding. If I deserve that, then I’ll earn it in time. I don’t want much. All I want is to walk from here to that elevator without touching the ground. Is that too much to ask? I’d say about twenty male bodies flat on their stomachs should do it. Leave about a foot between each.”

Everyone stared in silence, wide-eyed and uncertain.

“Am I speaking Greek?” Nora asked. “Human red carpet. On the floor. Right now or Kingsley and I will start choosing people at random to ban from the club for a solid year. Everyone obeys or everyone is punished. You all decide.” She snapped her fingers and pointed. A young man stepped forward and lay on the ground halfway between Trent and the elevator. Another man, quite a bit older but still handsome, took his shirt off and lay down a foot away from the younger man. One by one by one, a bridge of sorts built itself between her and the elevator.

Nora stepped on Trent, who grunted under her weight on his back. From Trent she stepped onto the young man’s back, careful not to hurt him. Not too much anyway. Kingsley followed behind her and so did Mistress Irina. They, too, used the human bridge Nora had built. The eleventh step on the bridge wasn’t lying on his stomach but on his back. Nora recognized him as the very first person who had jumped to follow her order.

“You were very quick to obey,” Nora said, looking down at the man. He had a black handkerchief tied over his hair like a pirate and he wore a black mask over his eyes and a black pirate’s shirt. He lifted the shirt to his chest to offer her his stomach to stand on. “This pleases me.”

“Don’t forget,” he said, grinning up at her. “Money up front.”

Nora rolled her eyes before playfully kicking Thorny’s side.

“On your stomach, whore. That’s an order.”

He flipped over onto his stomach as ordered, wiggling his ass for her as he moved. She would deal with Thorny later—probably by fucking his brains out. But now she had to get to the elevator without anyone else stopping her. As she strolled along her human promenade, she heard grunts and gasps from beneath and behind her. Kingsley and Irina were using her walkway, as well. A much-needed reminder to the denizens of The 8th Circle where everyone stood. Kingsley, Nora and Irina stood on the denizens of The 8th Circle when they felt like it. That’s where everyone stood.

They made it to the elevator and Kingsley and Irina stepped inside. But Nora stopped.

“Maîtresse?” Kingsley asked.

“One second. I forgot something.”

Nora turned on her heel and walked back on her human body sidewalk to where Trent still lay on the floor.

“Let me see your face,” Nora said. Groaning, Trent came up on his knees. She knew masochists like him, dangerous as wild horses until you broke them. But once broken, they were meek as lambs. Blood dripped from his nose. He wouldn’t bleed to death. Probably.

She put her hand under his chin and smiled at him.

“Call me if you want to play again,” she said. “I cost a thousand an hour.”

Then, using the back of her hand, she wiped the blood off his face. She turned and saw Milady standing far off to the side, almost as if she were trying to hide.

Nora walked toward Milady and the crowd parted for her.

“Brass knuckles?” Milady asked. “That’s cheating.”

“It’s my game. My rules.” Nora wiped her bloody brass knuckles off on Milady’s pristine white dress. “Look at that. The White Queen becomes the Red Queen,” Nora said to her with a grin she hoped looked as maniacal as it felt. “And you have something that belongs to me.”

“I do?”

“You do.” Nora reached out, wrapped her fingers around the locket that contained Søren’s hair and yanked it off.

“I want her removed,” Kingsley said from inside the open iron elevator. “I watched her ignore a submissive’s safe word during a whipping. She’s henceforth banned from any of my clubs. Au revoir, Milady.”

Two of Kingsley’s bouncers, nearly the size of Trent, came forward.

“I can tell the world about your priest,” Milady said. “And I will.”

“You think Søren’s stupid enough to come down here using his real name? What are you going to tell them anyway? That you paid two thousand dollars for a lock of his hair? Unless you fucked him, he didn’t break any vows.”

“He’s fucked you.”

“I’ve been gone for over a year. You’ve been here a year. You haven’t seen him break any vows, have you?”

“Everyone here has seen you two together.”

“I’m not afraid of you and neither is he,” Nora said. “But you’re afraid of me.”

“I’m not afraid of you. You’re a nobody.” Milady laughed. Nora moved as if to punch her in the nose, brass knuckles bloody and shining. Milady squealed, turned and covered her face. Instinct, of course. Anyone would have done it, even Nora. But Nora hadn’t done it. Milady had.

“Kidding,” Nora said. “See? It pays to be an ex-submissive. We know how to take a hit without flinching.”

Now the crowd around them laughed and laughed and laughed as the once-formidable dominatrix was reduced to squealing and hiding her face from Nora. From Mistress Nora.

Nora smiled. Milady looked afraid. Leaning in, Nora whispered a final farewell.

“Now we’re even.”

21

A Confession

DEFEATING MILADY HAD been a breeze compared to what Nora had to do the next day. She borrowed a car from Kingsley, drove to Wakefield, Connecticut, and walked through the heavy wooden front doors of Sacred Heart Catholic Church. She passed through the lobby—narthex, Eleanor, it’s called the narthex—and headed to his office.

“Elle?”

Nora froze at the sound of a familiar voice. She turned and found Diane, Søren’s secretary, striding down the hall toward her.

“Diane,” Nora said, bracing for a hug. Diane could hug the life out of someone.

But Diane stopped three feet from her. No hugs were forthcoming.

Fuck.

“How are you, Elle? Haven’t seen you in a while.” Diane put her hands in her pockets. As if the lack of a hug wasn’t tell enough...

“I went away for a year. Traveling.”

“I see. And you’re back now?”

“For a quick visit.”

“I see.”

“I see you see,” Nora said. “You know, since that’s the second time you said ‘I see.’”

That tugged a small smile out of Diane.

“Something tells me you have something to say to me?” Nora waited, bracing herself.

Diane raised her hand to her head and breathed out hard.

“You were in my wedding.” She said the words as if she were accusing Nora of committing a crime.

“The wedding he officiated,” Nora reminded her.

“You could have told me.”

“Sounds like somebody told you.”

Diane took her by the arm and escorted her into the small office next to Søren’s.

“He told you,” Nora said in a whisper since Diane’s office didn’t have a door.

Diane turned to the window and nodded. She was ten years older than Nora, a wife, a mother, and so loyal to Søren that Nora already knew where this conversation would go.

“I love him,” Diane said. “You know that.”

“I do,” Nora said. Diane had been one of Søren’s first minor scandals at Sacred Heart. It was a snow-white conservative congregation and Diane was black and divorced. She’d had forty dollars in her checking account when Søren had hired her and the only thing that exceeded his loyalty to his secretary was her loyalty to him. “He loves you, too. I don’t know how many times he’s told me he couldn’t run the church without you.”

“I almost had to. Last year, he comes into the office looking like someone died, and he wouldn’t tell me why. Not for a week. Not until I begged him on my knees—and that is not an exaggeration—did he tell me what happened. Twelve years I have worked for that man and I had no idea—none—that he had...you. Until you were gone.”

“So are you mad at me or are you mad at him?”

“I wasn’t mad at either of you. You’re both adults. He said nothing much happened between the two of you until you were twenty.”

“I was a virgin until I was twenty. Until him.”

Diane winced.

“I’m sorry,” Nora said, although she wasn’t. “You probably don’t want that image in your head. Look, I know you care about him and it must have been hard for you to learn he had a...”

“Mistress?”

“You wouldn’t be the first person to call me that. Anyway, I know it was a shock for you, but he’s—”

“Are you coming back to him?”

“What? Are you serious?”

“I am. Are you coming back to him?”

“I hadn’t planned on it. Why?”

“Because he misses you. And he’s not the same without you.”

“Let me get this straight—you, a priest’s secretary, are telling a priest’s ex-lover to start sleeping with him again?”

“I don’t judge him for having a relationship. The Bible says it is not good for man to be alone. But I... I don’t. I don’t want to see him in pain anymore.”

“I don’t want to be in pain anymore. Do you know how hard it is to be in love with a Catholic priest?”

“I can’t imagine it’s easy.”

“It isn’t. And before you decide I’m the bad guy for leaving him, you should know he pushed me away. He crossed a line with me, and I had no choice.”

“He crossed a line with you?” Diane sounded dubious.

“He did.”

“You were twenty when you slept with him the first time. A grown-ass woman. When I was twenty I was already on my first marriage. If you’d been fifteen, maybe I could sympathize here. But when it comes to talking about crossing lines, an adult woman who sleeps with a priest has no room to talk.”

Nora smiled. “You know, Diane, he warned me the night of your wedding that if we ever got caught, I’d take the lion’s share of the blame. Guess he was right.”

“All I’m saying is that he needs you. He loves you. He says—”

“What do I say?”

Søren stood looming in the doorway.

Nora sighed. “You should let your secretary have a door to her office,” Nora said.

“She doesn’t want one. I’ve offered,” Søren said.

“If I have a door, people will want to come in and close it and tell me things I don’t want to hear. His job is taking care of those people and their problems. My job is taking care of him.”

“Which you do admirably,” Søren said to his long-suffering secretary. “Too admirably perhaps.”

“Someone has to take care of you, right?” Diane asked. The question was a knife in Nora’s stomach. The message was clear—Diane had to take care of him since Nora wasn’t doing it anymore.

“Eleanor? I assume you’re here to see me?”

“If you have a minute.”

“I don’t, actually. I have a date with some repentant sinners. But if you’d like to wait in my office, I’ll be finished in an hour.”

He turned on his heel and walked down the opposite hallway.

“He’s hearing confessions now,” Diane said. “Like he said, you can wait if you want.”

“No. I don’t want to wait. Excuse me.”

She left Diane in her office and followed Søren down the hall. Sacred Heart had a traditional-style confessional booth, two doors on opposite sides and a screen in between. Once it had sat in the corner of the sanctuary but Søren had it moved to an alcove at the end of the west hallway that had once been a Chapel of Perpetual Adoration. It was a safer, quieter, more intimate spot for baring one’s soul than the sanctuary. She stepped into the old chapel and shut the wooden door behind her. An engraved plaque on the door warned not to enter if the door was shut. No one would disturb them until she’d had her say.

Nora entered the side of the confessional reserved for the penitent.

“I’m here when you’re ready to speak,” Søren said from the other side of the booth. Although she couldn’t see his face, she could tell from his voice he didn’t know it was her.

“Oh, I’m ready to speak, Father.”

She heard him sigh.

“Far be it from me to stop a sinner from confessing,” he said.

“I’m actually here for your confession.”

“Mine?”

“What happened between you and Milady?”

“Nothing you need to know about.”

“She was wearing your hair in a locket around her neck, and now I have a laptop. These things are related.”

“If you must know, I went to speak to her because she’d threatened us both. All of Kingsley’s dominas are sane and reasonable women. I assumed I could reason with her. She said she had no intention of exposing me to anyone but was merely attempting to needle you. When I went to leave she asked me if she could have a lock of my hair. I told her no. She asked me if I would sell it to her. I remembered you were in great need of a computer so you could write your next book and that you thought it would cost two thousand dollars. I named my price. She paid it willingly.”

“Did she touch you?”

“I don’t believe you can cut someone’s hair without touching that person.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do you care if she did?”

“There are people who deserve to touch you and people who don’t. She doesn’t deserve to touch you.”

“She kissed me. I let her.”

“Did you like it?”

“I believe the standard saying is ‘It was like being kissed by my sister,’ but, of course, you know that means something entirely different coming from me.”

“So you did like it?”

“No.”

Nora closed her eyes tight. It would have almost been better if he had liked it. To imagine him sitting there, suffering through a kiss, closing his eyes and thinking of England, and all so she could have a fucking laptop which she could have bought for herself in a week or two...

“Why? Why did you do that, Søren?”

“I wanted to give you a gift.”

“No, you wanted to make me jealous or make me angry or make me lose my mind. If you wanted to give me a gift you would have picked a bunch of goddamn daisies off the side of the road.”

“You can’t write a book with daisies,” he said.

Nora wrapped her arms around her stomach, feeling sick and dizzy and torn.

“Do you like it?”

“It’s perfect,” she whispered. “It’s exactly what I wanted.”

“Diane picked it out. I’m something of a Luddite, as you know.”

“Søren, I...” Nora was in an agony of indecision. “I’m not giving up my job and my life and coming back to you just because you bought me a gift or whatever that was. You know that, right?”

“Keep it. Use it. I paid dearly for it after all.”

“I’ll keep it,” she promised. “I won’t come back to you...but I will keep the gift.”

“You’ll come back to me when you’re ready.”

“I’m not going to be ready. And you have to get it out of your head that I’m the one who ran away from you because you lost your temper one night. You rejected me. I told you the truth about me, and you didn’t want to hear it. If I came back to you, you would take me from me. You would take Nora from me, and I just found her. I’m not giving me up for you. I can’t sacrifice so much of myself that there’s nothing left to give back to you.”

“You promised me forever, Eleanor.”

“You can’t give me everything any more than I can give you forever.”

“I can give you everything. Whatever it takes, I will keep my promise to you.”

“Call me Nora just once, and I’ll believe that. Then I’ll know you won’t take from me everything I’ve worked for and fought for. Jesus, Søren, I broke a man’s nose. I made a notorious dominatrix squeal like a little girl. I fucked with Kingsley’s head so hard he cried. And I loved every second of it. Every single second. That’s me. That’s how I am now. And you want to take it from me.”

“If you truly trusted me, you’d know that whatever I took from you, I would give back tenfold.”

“Then you owe me a hundred years of dominance for the ten years of submission I gave you. And ten riding crops to replace the one you broke.”

“Ten crops? I hope I have enough hair to sell.”

“Don’t even joke about that.”

“Why not?”

Nora could barely get the words out. They backed up in her throat, a verbal bottleneck. She forced them through anyway.

“Because I love your hair.”

“Eleanor... Little One...please...”

His words sounded as pained as her own.

Nora couldn’t stand it any longer. She slipped out of her side of the booth and opened the door to his.

“Here. This belongs to you.” She held out the glass locket that contained his lock of hair. Søren took it and tucked it in his pocket. He looked at her.

“So does this.”

Søren took her by the wrist and yanked her to him, then shut the door behind them.

His kiss traveled to her mouth, and she opened to him. In such close quarters she had little room to move or breathe. Their bodies were pressed together, and she couldn’t escape unless he let her. He seemed to have no intention of letting her.

“Come back to me,” he said against her lips.

“I can’t.”

“Come back to me,” he said, against her neck.

“I won’t.”

“Come back to me,” he said, lifting her skirt to her hips.

“I don’t...”

“You can’t say it, can you?” He slipped his hands into her panties and ripped them off with one fierce tear. “You can’t say you don’t want to come back to me because we both know you do.”

“Not enough to do it.”

“Not yet. But you will.”

“Arrogant pr—” Before she could finish the insult, Søren’s mouth was on hers again, devouring it with kisses. She tasted his tongue, smelled the winter on his skin and surrendered. When he dug his fingers into her thighs and squeezed them hard enough to leave bruises, she knew he meant to have her. Right here. Right now. And nothing would stop him unless she said her safe word. With his tongue in her mouth she couldn’t speak, nor did she try to. She let him swallow her cries of pain because it was her pain he fed on, her pain that sustained him. Oh, but it fed her, too. And every cruel and beautiful thing he did to her, the gifts he gave her at once merciless and merciful, left her starving for him.

Søren dug his fingers into her hips, finding the pressure point that made her weak with pain. A skilled sadist, he could give her agony and leave her with not a single mark, except for the marks he left on her heart. Again he hurt her. Again he swallowed the cry of pain that rose in her throat. His hand moved between her thighs and eased her wet lips open, forcing her vagina to widen enough to take him. Her inner muscles protested at first but then opened for him, growing slick and ready in seconds. He didn’t so much lift her off her feet as slide her up the smooth polished wood of the confessional to bring her down onto him, impaling her. Their bodies were locked tight together, her wetness sealing him to her, their backs against the walls as the smallness of the space forced them as close as two people could be. Her booted foot on the wall behind him was all it took to hold herself in place, and his hand at the side of her head and his full length inside her was all it took to hold her to him. He moved, barely an inch, and drank the cry of pleasure from her lips. They couldn’t make a sound, the two of them. Not here. Not now. She couldn’t risk even a whimper, not if someone waited outside.

In heated silence Søren unbuttoned her white silk blouse and unhooked her bra in the front. Her breasts spilled out as he released the clasp, and her nipples hardened as they brushed the rough fabric of his clericals, an exquisite teasing torture.

Nora didn’t know which one of them, her or Søren, moved first, but within her body she felt her vaginal muscles tightening on him, clenching him, holding him inside her. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, as if they moved through honey or deep water. If he thrust roughly into her, the wood would creak, the sound would be overheard. All they could do was push against each other, slowly, willfully, methodically, making no noise, muting even their breaths by breathing into each other’s mouths.

Her breasts felt swollen with the need to be touched and sucked. She arched her back and he took her nipple in his mouth. She bit the fabric at his shoulder to muffle her moan. Inside she burned and pulsed, burned and clenched. Her clitoris ached and throbbed, desperately needing attention. Her hips tilted upward and his cock shifted inside her, sliding in deeper. She stiffened, closed her eyes, tilted her hips again. Tiny explosions of pleasure ripped through her. She felt weightless, suspended as she was between his body and the wall behind her, dizzy with pleasure, near to bursting with the fullness of him inside her. The less she could move, the more intense every movement felt.

Søren’s teeth scraped her nipple, and she flinched with pleasure. His warm mouth moved up her breast, up her chest, up her neck and to her ear.