The Angel (The Original Sinners)
Read The Angel (The Original Sinners) Online
Authors: Tiffany Reisz
No safe word can protect the heart
Infamous erotica author and accomplished dominatrix Nora
Sutherlin is doing something utterly out of character: hiding. While her
longtime lover, Søren–whose fetishes, if exposed, would be his ruin–is under
scrutiny pending a major promotion, Nora’s lying low and away from temptation in
the lap of luxury.
Her host, the wealthy and uninhibited Griffin Fiske, is
thrilled to have Nora stay at his country estate, especially once he meets her
traveling companion. Young, inexperienced and angelically beautiful, Michael has
become Nora’s protégé, and this summer with Griffin is going to be his training,
where the hazing never ends.
But while her flesh is willing, Nora’s mind is wandering. To
thoughts of Søren, her master, under investigation by a journalist with an ax to
grind. And to another man from Nora’s past, whose hold on her is less bruising,
but whose secrets are no less painful. It’s a summer that will prove the old
adage: love hurts.
Praise for
The Siren,
book one of
The Original Sinners
“A beautiful, lyrical story…
The Siren
is about love lost and
found, the choices that make us who we are.... I can only hope Ms. Reisz
pens a sequel!”
—Bestselling author Jo Davis
“The Original Sinners series certainly
lives up to its name: it’s mindbendingly original and crammed with more sin
than you can shake a hot poker at. I haven’t read a book this dangerous and
subversive since Chuck Palahniuk’s
Fight
Club.
”
—Andrew Shaffer, author of
Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love
“Tiffany Reisz is a smart, artful and
masterful new voice in erotic fiction. An erotica star on the
rise!”
—Award-winning author Lacey Alexander
“Daring, sophisticated and literary…exactly
what good erotica should be.”
—Kitty Thomas, author of
Tender Mercies
“Dazzling, devastating and sinfully erotic,
Reisz writes unforgettable characters you’ll either want to know or want to
be.
The Siren
is an
alluring book-within-a-book, a story that will leave you breathless and
bruised, aching for another chapter with Nora Sutherlin and her
men.”
—Miranda Baker, author of
Bottoms
Up
and
Soloplay
Also by Tiffany Reisz
THE SIREN
Watch for the next book in The Original
Sinners series
THE PRINCE
coming soon from Harlequin MIRA
To Gina Scalera, my Angel. I miss
you.
To Eve, the original Original Sinner.
And to Andrew Shaffer,
many waters…
Part I
1
“
F
udge.”
Mostly upside down with her head hanging off the bed, Nora saw
the ominous slant of sunlight sliding through the window and across the floor.
Søren pushed into her again, and she flinched with pleasure.
“Eleanor, are you thinking about food at a time like this?”
Søren thrust hard once more and came with a controlled shudder.
Laughing from her recent orgasm and the absurdity of having
this conversation in her current position, Nora finished her thought. “You’re
the one who told me I wasn’t allowed to swear on Sundays anymore. So, fudge, I’m
going to be late for Mass, sir.”
Søren dipped his head and kissed her neck.
“I have it on good authority that your priest would be quite
displeased if you were late,” he whispered into her ear.
“Then my priest needs to untie my leg from his bedpost.”
Søren raised up and glared down at her; she innocently batted
her eyelashes at him.
“Beg,” he ordered, and Nora started to growl. Arrogant son of a
bitch.
He never said anything about not swearing in her mind. Just
that she could never curse out loud.
Søren put a finger over her lips.
“No growling. Begging.”
Clenching and unclenching her jaw, Nora took a deep breath.
“Please, sir, will you let me go so I can drive my as—
bottom
home, take a shower, eat breakfast for once
this week, throw on some clothes and drive back to church so I can sit in my pew
looking prim and proper all the while imagining you naked as you’re giving some
homily on sin and how, shockingly, God’s against it? Pretty please with you on
top?”
Søren slapped the back of her thigh hard enough she yelped. But
still he reached up and unknotted the black silk rope from her ankle. With
obvious reluctance, he withdrew from her and rolled onto his side.
Now free, Nora started to crawl out of his bed.
Søren propped his head on his hand and stretched languidly
across his white sheets. She wasn’t going to look at him. If she looked at
Søren, she’d crawl right back to him.
“In a hurry, little one?”
“To leave you? No. To not be late for Mass and earn yet another
beating this week? Yes.” Søren caressed the back of her calf and Nora turned
back to stare daggers at him. “Are you trying to make me late…sir?”
Sighing, Søren pulled his hand away from her. It wasn’t fair.
The rectory stood all of two minutes’ walk from the church; being male and not
having to worry about what outfit to wear, Søren could get ready in ten
minutes.
“A vicious accusation, Eleanor. Of course I would never try to
make you late. You are a role model for the young people in the church after
all.”
Snorting a laugh, Nora started picking up her clothes. She
pulled her shirt off the top of the bedpost she been tied to last night while
Søren had flogged her senseless. Her skirt lay in a crumpled heap on the floor
where it had landed after Søren unzipped it and let it fall before bending her
over his bed and strapping her ankles to a spreader bar. Somewhere under his bed
she found her bra, and her underwear was at home in a drawer. She rarely
bothered with underwear around Søren—counterproductive really.
“A role model? Nora Sutherlin—erotica writer, ex-dominatrix.
It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She held out her hand to shake. Søren only looked
at it and raised his eyebrow at her.
“You’re a role model to Michael. He adores you.”
“But Michael’s one of us, sir.” She smiled at the memory of
Søren’s anniversary gift to her last year: the virginity of possibly the
prettiest teenage boy in the known world. Pretty, kinky and unfortunately deeply
troubled. “Of course he’s got a soft spot for me. Or a wet spot. Anyway, none of
those vanilla twerps at church need to look up to me.”
Nora shoved her feet into her shoes as Søren got out of bed.
Her heart pounded at the sight of all six feet four inches of his perfectly
sculpted, unashamedly naked body coming toward her. No one watching him now
would ever believe Søren was forty-seven years old. And no one seeing them last
night and this morning as he beat her and fucked her repeatedly in a variety of
delightfully degrading positions would have dreamed he was one of the most
respected Catholic priests in all of New England.
“You give them hope that one can be an adult Catholic without
being conventional or condescending.”
“You’re trying to say the kids think I’m cool, aren’t you?”
“My sentiments exactly.”
She turned her face up to him for a quick goodbye kiss. Instead
he bent down and kissed her long and slow…deeply, possessively. No one had ever
kissed her the way Søren did, as though he was inside her body even when he was
only inside her mouth. After nearly five minutes of pure passionate kissing,
Søren finally pulled back.
“Eleanor, you really should stop dawdling.” His steel-gray eyes
glinted wickedly.
Nora glared at him. “You bas—” Nora began, and Søren glared at
her. This “no swearing on Sundays” thing was going to kill her. But she would do
it come heck or high water. “Bastion of evil intentions. You just stole five
minutes by kissing me. God Almighty.”
“Young lady, if you don’t stop using the Lord’s name in vain,
I’m going to reintroduce caning into our relationship. Are you really
complaining that I kissed you?”
“Yes. You’re cheating. You want me to be late so you’ll have an
excuse to beat me.”
“As if I need an excuse.” Søren smiled at her, and she was torn
between the twin impulses to either slap him or kiss him again.
“I’m gone. Goodbye. I love you, I hate you, I love you. I’ll
see you at eleven, and I’ll try very hard to listen to your homily this morning
instead of having flashbacks from last night. But no promises.”
Nora headed for the door.
“Eleanor…forgetting something?”
Nora spun on her heel and came back to him. Reaching up she
wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Am I, sir?”
He bent to kiss her again.
“The bed.”
Nora rolled her eyes. She pulled away from him and quickly made
his bed, fluffing his pillows with near-hurricane force.
“There, sir. Happy now?”
Søren pulled her to him and ran his fingers over her cheek.
“You’re here. Of course I am.”
Nora sighed at his words and his touch. In the years she and
Søren had spent together—those ten beautiful years in his collar before the
incident, until she’d left him—they usually spent two or three nights a week
together at the most. Then, after five years apart, she’d come back to him, and
since returning, she spent nearly every free moment she could with him—at the
rectory, at their friend Kingsley’s Manhattan town house or at The 8th Circle,
the infamous underground S&M club where Søren was practically worshipped.
She hated being at home alone these days. The house seemed too big, too empty,
too quiet.
Søren’s hands left her face and reached around her neck. She
heard a click, felt something give way, and Søren removed her white leather
collar. As always, the moment her collar came off her neck, she felt something
tighten around her heart. Søren opened the rosewood box that sat on his bedside
table, took out his Roman collar and replaced it with Nora’s collar.
“Jeg elsker dig. Du er mit
hjerte.”
I love you. You are my heart.
With a dramatic moan Nora collapsed against his chest.
“Do you know how much it turns me on when you speak
Danish?”
“Yes. Now go. You’re running late, and I believe you recall
what happened the last time you were late for Mass.”
“I do. But I sort of enjoyed it, so that’s not much of a
threat.”
“I could threaten you with a week of celibacy, but as
I’m
not going to be late, I see no reason to punish
myself. Eleanor, you could always move closer. Have you considered that?”
She had considered that. For about five seconds before deciding
she’d rather cut off her arm than sell her house.
“I love my house. I want to keep it.”
“Is it the house or the memories you love and want to
keep?”
Nora stared at the floor.
“Please don’t make me move.”
Søren had asked her over a year ago to move closer to him and
the church. She’d said no then and she was saying no now. She knew he could
order her to move closer, and she would if he made her. But so far it hadn’t
come to that. Søren nodded and Nora pulled away from him.
“We’re scening after church again, right?” Nora asked from the
bedroom doorway. Sunday afternoons belonged to them. Søren’s parishioners always
left him alone on Sunday afternoons. They assumed he was busy praying. Not
quite.
“Barring divine intervention.”
“Divine intervention, Father Stearns?” Nora tossed her hair
with arrogant playfulness. “God oughta know better by now.”
Throwing a smile over her shoulder, Nora gave Søren one last
long look. He had, without a doubt, the most handsome face of any man she’d ever
known. The most handsome face, the keenest mind, the wickedest libido, the
sexiest body and the most devoted heart.... For the five years she’d lived apart
from him, four had been agony. And now they’d been back together for over a year
and everything was perfect.
Well, almost perfect.
* * *
As usual, Michael woke up long before his alarm. He lay
in bed with his hand down his boxer shorts and contemplated finding a tie to
make this process more enjoyable. But he’d promised Father S that he wouldn’t
hurt himself anymore. Father S had no objections to erotic asphyxiation but he
forbade Michael from doing it alone. “We almost lost you once, Michael. I’d
rather not repeat that experience,” Father S had told him, and Michael knew he
would never forgive himself if he put his priest—the man who’d saved his
life—through that nightmare again.
So instead, Michael merely closed his eyes and conjured the
memory of Nora Sutherlin tying him down, guiding him inside her and clenching so
tightly around him he’d flinched. That one sensory memory worked as usual, and
Michael came hard on his hand.
Forgoing a tissue, Michael got up and headed straight to the
shower. He spent a long time in the shower, longer than most guys his age
probably did. Of course, most guys his age didn’t have hair that fell to their
shoulders and a predilection for self-abuse in the literal sense. Scalding water
wasn’t quite as much fun as scalding candle wax, but it was the best he had.
After his shower Michael toweled off and dressed. He dried his
long hair and pulled it into a low ponytail. He ironed his white button-down and
his black cargo pants and even put on a tie. But not for erotic reasons…unless
he counted trying to impress Nora Sutherlin as an erotic reason.
As usual, before leaving his bedroom, Michael rolled up his
sleeves and rubbed liquid vitamin E onto the white scars on both of his wrists.
The vitamin E supposedly helped scars heal and fade, but so far the effect had
been minimal. He strapped his wide leather watchband on his right wrist and
pulled a black wristband on his left before heading to his mom’s room.
Michael tapped on her bedroom door.
“Go without me,” she called out, as he knew she would. Still,
he always had to ask. “Leave the car. I have to run errands this morning.”
Leave the car…great. Good thing Sacred Heart was only a few
blocks away.
He pushed on his sunglasses, grabbed his skateboard and his
backpack on the way out the door, and hit the street. Skating straight up to the
front steps of Sacred Heart, he flipped his board up and tucked it under his
arm. Before entering the sanctuary, he went to the church secretary’s office,
dug something out of his backpack and sent a quick fax.
Michael headed to the sanctuary and saw Nora hadn’t arrived
yet. He sat in the tenth pew from the back, two rows behind Nora’s usual spot.
Her little shadow, seven-year-old Owen Perry, already waited for his Miss Ellie
to show up. Owen adored Nora—Miss Ellie—and did nothing to hide that fact. He
sat next to her during Mass and sometimes even curled up on her lap. Once
Michael walked past them and saw Owen lying half-asleep on her knee as Nora
mindlessly ran her fingers over his tiny forehead. Both of them had wavy black
hair. Anyone seeing them for the first time would think Nora was the kid’s
mom.
It bugged him seeing Owen cuddling up to Nora. He envied that
little kid for so fearlessly showering Nora with affection and attention.
Michael would kiss her feet if she’d let him. But then again, he also envied
Nora. She at least had someone who wasn’t afraid to touch her in public. Michael
couldn’t even remember the last time anyone had touched him. Even his own mother
had stopped hugging him after his father moved out.
Nora didn’t just have people who would touch her in public. She
had Father S, who touched her in private. Michael secretly worried someone would
find out about Father S and Nora. Everybody knew Nora wrote erotica, and the
church secretly loved having a mini-celebrity in their midst. And everybody at
church worshipped Father S. But Nora and Father S had fallen in love when she
was only fifteen. If their past, and even worse, their present, came out…
Michael didn’t even want to think how bad it would get.
Checking his watch, Michael saw he had just enough time to run
for a drink of water. He stood up quickly and headed to the door. As he exited
the sanctuary Nora breezed in through the front doors wearing a tight white
skirt and a tailored black blouse. Her long hair was swept up in a loose knot
and she wore a little smile at the corner of her full pale red lips. He could
only imagine what Father S had been doing to her that morning to put that grin
on her face—could imagine and often did imagine.
Nora came toward him and Michael froze. They never talked to
each other—not in words anyway, not since that one night together. But as usual
he gave her a little wave. Instead of waving back, Nora reached out and took his
hand in hers for the whisper of a second. She squeezed his fingers and let him
go, walking off as if nothing at all had passed between them.
