Søren looked at her. She expected to see fury but he seemed strangely pleased.
“Let me go, Søren,” she said, too tired to fight him anymore. “I’m on my own now. I love who I love and I fuck who I fuck.”
Søren reached for the key again but did not turn it.
“You love whom you love. You fuck whom you fuck. I see you do need your editor after all. Go.” With an arrogant smirk he flipped the key and opened the door. Nora rushed out and into Zach’s waiting arms.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, Eleanor?” Søren called out after her. Nora grimaced and took a deep breath. She tried smiling at Zach before she turned back to Søren, now standing on the threshold between the hallway and the elevator.
Returning to him, she bobbed the necessary curtsy. But it was not enough for Søren. He took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. His fingers were still damp from being inside her.
“My little one…” he breathed, turning his face so that his cheek pressed against her forehead. He had done that so many times to her. How many? A million? It never failed to make her forgive him. She met his eyes and smiled, her anger momentarily forgotten. He was still too powerful a force in her life to leave things unfinished between them. She pulled away reluctantly, wondering if she would have to spend the rest of her life leaving this man.
“Oh,
cloro al clero
.” She sighed and Søren laughed. It was the real laugh she heard so rarely these days and missed so much. She smiled back and returned to Zach with only the hint of regret in her heart.
Zach still waited patiently for her. Something had indeed changed in him during his time with Søren. She reached out for her coat, but Zach gave her his hand instead and pulled her close to him. Just because she could, she unwrapped the white scarf from around Zach’s bicep. Zach looked down at her and she winked. She tossed the white scarf at Søren’s feet. Søren glanced down at the scarf and then up at her again.
“How easily you forgive, Eleanor.” Søren stared at them with his wise and all-knowing eyes. “How freely you absolve the sins of others. Tell me, little one, when the time comes, how will you absolve yours?”
Nora had no answer. Søren merely smiled again and took a step back into the elevator. The doors closed and Søren descended into the pit below.
Hell was due for another harrowing.
23
Z
ach greeted the cool March night air with gratitude as they exited the stifling atmosphere of the club and returned to the parking garage.
“I’m sorry, Zach,” Nora said as they reached the car. “I should have warned you about Søren.”
“I can understand now why you were reluctant to. It must have been very difficult to have a relationship with him…for so many reasons.”
Nora threw her coat in the car. “Tell me about it. It was like being with a married guy, except this guy happens to be married to God and the entire Catholic Church. That’s a lot of competition.”
“I’m glad you left him. He’s—” Zach searched for the right word “—terrifying.”
“Thought I was terrifying.”
“You were. Then I met him.”
“You’ve never met a Jesuit before, have you?”
Zach gave her a blank look.
“Søren was trained as a Jesuit. They’re an infamous militant religious order. Otherwise known as ‘God’s Marines.’ They used to eat Protestant heretics,” Nora said with a dark grin. “But these days they’re known more for their rather liberal stance on abortion, homosexuality and…priestly celibacy.”
“Very liberal stance, I see. Are you sure he’s on God’s side?” Zach asked.
Nora laughed. “Very sure. And believe me, God’s relieved that he is. But don’t overreact. Søren was just fucking with your head. It’s his favorite part of the body to fuck with. Well, maybe second favorite.”
“I can’t believe you’re defending him.”
“Well, he
was
defending me.”
Zach looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“Back there with you. He’s worried you’re going to hurt me if you and I get involved. I mean, technically you’re still married. Søren’s really protective of me still. He wasn’t just trying to be a bitch to you, Zach. He was making sure you knew that if you hurt me, you’d have to answer to him.”
Zach blanched a little. He remembered the day he’d had to answer to Grace’s father about what had happened between them. That had possibly been the second worst day of his life. And Grace’s father was a teddy bear compared to Nora’s Father.
“Nora, I’ll no more answer to him than you should have to. He dragged you away and ordered you around like you were his own personal property. You aren’t even with him anymore. House rules or not, he has no right to treat you like that.”
Nora took her keys out of her coat pocket and held one up.
“Here. Want to go back in and tell him that?”
Zach stared at the key and remembered the dread he felt around Nora’s priest.
“Yeah,” Nora said, spinning the key ring on her finger. “I thought so. How about this one?” she said, holding up another key.
“Is that the key to the Aston Martin?” Zach raised an eyebrow.
“It is. Forgive me for Søren?” she asked dangling the key.
Zach took the key ring from her hand. “I’ll forgive you for anything.”
“I’m going to hold you to that, Zach.”
Zach slipped in the driver’s seat while Nora entered on the passenger side.
“You can drive a stick shift, can’t you?”
“Of course. Just haven’t ever done it on the right side of the road,” Zach said and grinned at her.
Zach started the car and felt the engine’s gentle vibrations run through his body.
“Now behave yourself,” Nora said. “I’ve got a friend on the force, but he says he’s fixed all the speeding tickets he can for me.”
“If I get a ticket in an Aston Martin, I plan to frame it and put it on my desk.” And with that Zach gunned the engine and spun out of the parking garage.
“So what did Søren say to you tonight?” Nora asked. Zach looked at her. She sounded a little too casual.
“He did more showing than telling.”
“I suppose you approved of that. What did you think of my room?”
“I think you should clean it a little more often,” Zach said, pulling the white garter from his pocket and tossing it at Nora. “Yours?”
Nora laughed as she played with the delicate piece of lace.
“I see Sheridan left me a souvenir. Naughty little slut. Too bad she’s engaged now or we could have a threesome with her.”
Zach’s groin tightened a little at the erotic tone in Nora’s voice. He hated what a stereotypical male he was when it came to the thought of two beautiful women together.
Zach was silent for a few moments as he worked up his courage.
“Nora, talking with Griffin this evening—”
“Oh, God, Griffin. He’s the reason gags were invented. What did he say?”
“He told me about what it was like when you and Søren were together. About what he did to you. Why did you stay with him so long?”
Nora only laughed.
“Zach, there’s an alley up here on the left. Pull in and park. I want to show you something.”
Nervously, Zach obeyed. He turned the car off and looked at Nora. She unbuckled her seat belt and before Zach could react, she had reached across him, reclined his seat and straddled his lap. She ran her hand down his chest and unzipped his pants. Zach inhaled sharply as she took him in her hand.
“I’m flattered.” She grinned at him through the dark. “Is this for me or the car?”
“Nora, I told you—”
Nora ran her fingers up and down him so possessively he panted.
“Pay attention, Zach. I’m only going to say this once.” Bending close, she bit him lightly on his neck. She kissed a path from his throat to his ear as she stroked him with knowing fingers. “I know you want to fuck me. And I know you wish you didn’t. So how about we compromise and you can sit here and say, ‘No, Nora,’ ‘Don’t, Nora,’ ‘Stop, Nora,’ and I’ll ignore all those protests and slide right down on your cock anyway? And I’ll do it because
no
and
don’t
and
stop
aren’t your safe word. So you can finally get fucked and still sleep like a baby in your big lonely bed tonight feeling all clean and shiny and virginal because, after all, you did say ‘no’ and that awful Nora Sutherlin just wouldn’t listen.”
Zach swallowed hard. He remembered his safe word, knew all he had to do was say it and Nora would stop touching him. He didn’t say it. Nora let go of him and grabbed his wrist. She brought his hand between her legs and pushed his thumb and forefinger into her. She was so warm inside Zach groaned aloud.
“I’m wet,” Nora said. “And you’re hard. I’ve got an IUD, no STDs and nowhere I have to be for the rest of my life. I know exactly what Griffin told you Søren used to do to me. I was there, after all. So yeah, maybe I did beg Søren to stop beating me, maybe I did scream when he caned me, maybe I did cry out when he slapped me, and maybe I did beg him to not share me with King, maybe I did lie underneath him and cry while he fucked me in the middle of a room full of people, or yanked a fistful of my hair and forced me to go down on him at that very table we were sitting at half an hour ago. But I never said my safe word, the one thing I could have done to stop it. And I’ll give you one guess why I didn’t stop it.”
Unable to stop himself, Zach pushed into her a little deeper, spread his fingers apart a little wider. Nora inhaled, her breath caught in the back of her throat. Zach’s free hand held her thigh where her stocking met her bare flesh. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this painfully aroused.
Zach met Nora’s eyes.
“You didn’t want to stop it,” he said.
Nora nodded at him. “You can be taught. Zach, I was never Søren’s victim. We were lovers, we were equals, and what we did together was a game we were both very good at playing. Some nights he would make me orgasm so hard my lower back would hurt the next day. When’s the last time you felt something that good?”
“On the floor of your office,” Zach admitted.
Nora’s eyes glowed bright black in the dark of the car. “You know, you’re the second man tonight who’s had his fingers inside me. Does that bother you?”
Zach recalled Nora’s flushed face when she raced from the elevator once Søren finally let her go. She was so wet that he could hear it as he turned his hand.
“No.”
“There’s hope for you yet, Zachary Easton.” Nora leaned in again and put her mouth at his ear. Her breasts pressed close to his face. “I still remember what you taste like.”
Every nerve in his body fired at once.
Nora turned her head so her ear was now at his mouth.
“I’m still waiting to hear that safe word,” she taunted. Zach didn’t answer. A tendril of her hair brushed his cheek. He didn’t speak; he wanted her to do exactly what she threatened. More than anything he wanted to have sex with the world’s most erotic woman in the world’s most erotic car in a dank, dirty New York City alley where anyone who wanted to could stop and watch.
Nora met his eyes again. Zach pulled his fingers out of her and waited. She lowered herself until the tip of his arousal pressed lightly against her wet outer lips. He started to lift his hips, to press into her. Then he heard a click as Nora opened the driver’s side door and she stepped out. The cool night air rushed in and Zach struggled to button his jeans back up over his straining erection.
“Better let me take over,” Nora said. “You don’t need to be driving my baby in your condition.”
Zach took a few calming breaths before exiting the car. He walked around slowly to the passenger side and got in. Nora dropped into the driver’s side and turned the engine on.
“You okay?” Nora asked as she backed onto the street and headed toward his apartment building.
“Haven’t decided yet.”
Nora turned onto his street.
“I’m just following your rules. No fucking until the book’s done. I guess I should hurry up and get that book finished.”
Zach rubbed his face, breathed through his hands. “Please do.”
“Better give me my homework then. If we’re going to play again, I guess I’ve got to get some work done this week. And for some reason I get the feeling you may want to play again.”
Zach could still feel her heat on his hand. He could hardly think or speak and she was talking about the book.
“I’ll email you tomorrow morning…when I’m lucid.”
“Lucidity’s vastly overrated. I shall await your email with bated breath.” Nora pulled in front of his building.
Zach opened the door and stepped out. Once exposed to the cold night air his senses finally returned to him. He walked around to the driver’s side and Nora rolled the window down.
“What was that you said to Søren tonight right before we left? It sounded like Italian,” Zach asked, curious about their cryptic exchange ever since he witnessed it.
“
Cloro al clero.
It’s pretty common graffiti around the Vatican. It means ‘poison the clergy.’”
Zach laughed appreciatively. He could agree with the sentiment.
“Are you ever going to tell me what you were doing when you disappeared for over an hour tonight?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“Are you at least going to tell me if it was fun?”
Nora looked at him and didn’t smile. But there was dark mirth shining in her eyes as if she knew a great joke that she wanted to tell him.
“I’ll tell you this…I didn’t have sex with a man. And it was so much fun it oughta be illegal.” Zach took a step back as she revved the engine. She rolled up the window.
Then she was gone.
Zach stared after the car and felt Nora take a shard of himself away with her. It was his rule, his proclamation that they wouldn’t become lovers until the book was finished. But for a few moments he’d felt no guilt, and the world hadn’t ended.
Zach entered his building and took the elevator up to his flat. He was out of his coat by the time he got to his door. He pulled off his shirt, yanked down his jeans and kicked his clothes into the corner of the room before crawling with the reluctance of a weary soldier into the bitter trench of his bed.