The Angel (The Original Sinners) (7 page)

Hanging up, Suzanne simply stared out at her living room for a
long time. She closed her computer and headed over to her bookcase. Scanning the
titles, she finally found what she was looking for—a book entitled
The Red.
On the cover was a picture of a woman’s
beautiful pale hands tied with a bloodred silk ribbon. The author? Nora
Sutherlin. It was the story of a woman who owned a failing art gallery called
The Red and the mysterious man who shows up and offers to save it in return for
her submitting to him in every possible way for one year. Lurid and graphic with
some of the most explicit sex scenes she’d ever read,
The
Red
was possibly one of Suzanne’s favorite novels. Not that she ever
told anyone that.

A fourteen-year-old boy attempting suicide in the middle of the
sanctuary…the world’s most infamous erotica author attending Mass with the
constancy of a nun…and that mysterious asterisk by the name of its priest.

“Jesus,” she breathed. “What kind of church is this?”

4

Søren made love to Nora twice more that night. He
pulled her to the edge of the bed and took her while she lay on her stomach and
he stood behind her. And after that they lay side by side, her back to his chest
while he moved slowly and gently in her. As he thrust into her, he whispered how
deeply he loved her, how much he would miss her and what he would do to her when
she came back to him again. When Nora came the final time, she did so through
tears.

“Hush, little one…it’s only for two months,” he promised her as
he kissed the tears off her face.

She clung to him and cried even harder. “But I miss you
already.”

Her tears dried, Nora lounged before the fireplace in the
living room—Søren had built a low fire to warm her up again—and smiled at the
sight before her. As if Søren hadn’t tortured her enough already tonight....

Studying the board on the floor before her, peering at it first
through her left eye and then her right, Nora reached out and moved a pawn two
spaces forward.

“Little one,” Søren said with thinly disguised disgust. “That
was pointless.”

“Well, it wasn’t a step backward so we’ll consider it a step
forward. Besides, I’m only playing chess with you to keep you awake longer,” she
admitted. “I’m terrible at this game and you know it.”

“I do indeed.” Søren moved his queen. Checkmate.

“Fine. You win,” Nora conceded. “I’d kick your ass if we were
playing Battleship though. That’s my game.”

“Battleship?”

Nora smiled. Søren had had such an unusual childhood that
things she took for granted—silly board games, Saturday morning cartoons—Søren
had no experience with. At age five he’d been sent to England to attend school.
An unpleasant incident with a fellow student forced him back to America at age
ten. A far more unpleasant incident at his home ended with him being shipped off
to a Jesuit boarding school in rural Maine when he was only eleven. But it was
there among the priests and monks that Søren found not only his salvation, but
his calling. That and he met a certain young half-blood Frenchman who would
change the course of his life forever.

“Battleship. It’s this stupid game Wes and I played when we
were procrastinating from doing our work.”

“You so rarely speak of Wesley, Eleanor. And yet so many
memories you have of him make you smile. Why don’t you talk about him more?”

Why didn’t she talk about him more? Nora shook her head and
stared at the chessboard. Looking back she still wasn’t sure why she’d asked
Wesley to move in with her, other than he’d intimated that he might have to move
back home to Kentucky as Yorke was a prohibitively expensive liberal-arts
college. But as soon as Wesley was in her home, she’d begun to wonder how she’d
ever lived without him. Before Wesley, she’d practically lived at Kingsley’s
Manhattan town house. She worked in the city so much that several days would
pass before she’d return to her home in Connecticut. Once Wesley was there,
however, she’d find herself racing back to her house after a job, throwing on
normal clothes and curling up on the couch with him.

Nora would never forget the day she got tired of writing in her
office and had taken her laptop to the kitchen just for a change of scenery.
Wesley joined her in the kitchen and sat opposite her at the table. He opened
his laptop and started working on a paper due in his European History class that
week. Nora remembered casting furtive glances over the top of her computer at
him. He had brown eyes with little flecks of gold in them and dark blond hair
that fell over his forehead. Only eighteen then, he was utterly adorable, and
sometimes she had to practically sit on her hands to keep from reaching out and
grabbing him when he walked past her. They were just roommates, just friends,
she always had to remind herself. And Wesley was a good Christian kid and a
virgin. One night with her wouldn’t just take his virginity, it would steal his
innocence too. But that day all she felt for him was affection. Affection and
amusement.

“Wes, I’m going to say it,” she said, glancing at their
back-to-back open laptops.

“Don’t say it, Nora,” Wesley said as he kept typing.

“I have to say it.”

“Do. Not. Say. It,” Wesley ordered, trying and failing to sound
intimidating. His sexy hybrid Kentucky-Georgia accent made her toes curl but it
did not lend itself to intimidation. “If you say it, I’m leaving.”

“Wesley…”

“Nora…”

Nora took a deep breath, pretended to type something and
whispered, “Wes?”

“What?”

“You sunk my Battleship!”

At that Wesley stood up and left the kitchen. Nora dissolved
into giggles as Wesley threw on his coat, grabbed his car keys and walked out of
the house. She was still laughing half an hour later when Wesley returned
carrying a just-purchased Battleship game with him. Nora closed their computers
and they set up the game on the kitchen table. She beat him soundly, two to one.
After that, every time one or both of them needed a break from work, they’d
sneak up behind the other, yell, “You sunk my Battleship,” and the game would be
on.

“Eleanor?” Søren’s voice pulled her out of the memory and back
to the present.

Nora touched her face and held out her hand. In the light of
the fireplace, the tears shimmered on the tips of her fingers.

“This is why I don’t talk about Wes,” she said, and Søren
reached for her and pulled her into his arms.

He bent his head and kissed her as his hand crept under the
shirt she wore—his shirt—and slipped two fingers into her. She wanted him to
make love to her again, but the moment had passed. A true sadist, Søren could
only become aroused by inflicting pain and humiliation. So instead it was his
probing fingers that penetrated her. He spread his fingers wide within her,
slipped in a third and pushed hard up against her pubic bone. Nora’s hips lifted
as her inner muscles gripped him. She grew wet at his touch even as the cut on
her labia still ached and burned.

“Come for me,” Søren ordered, “and then we’re sleeping.”

“I can hold off having an orgasm for a long time,” she teased.
“Anything to keep you awake.”

Søren, as she knew he would, took that as a challenge. He
pressed his thumb into her clitoris and made precision circles that left her
panting. Still she breathed through the pleasure.

With his free hand, Søren unbuttoned her shirt and bared her
breasts. He kissed her nipples and they hardened in his warm mouth. As his lips
and tongue made languid circles on her breasts, his fingers continued their
gentle onslaught inside her. Nora flinched and clutched at the rug beneath her.
Still she didn’t let herself come.

Søren slid his hand behind her neck and forced her to meet his
eyes.

“The day we met, you were wearing a black pleated skirt and
combat boots,” he said, and Nora knew no matter how hard she fought him, he
would win. “You had scrapes on your knees and wore too much eye makeup. And I
would have laid you out on the altar, beaten you and taken your virginity in
front of God, Christ, all his saints and angels, and the entire church that very
day had I one ounce less of self-control. I would have drunk the blood off your
thighs, turned you onto your stomach and taken you again, fucking you until you
begged me to stop. And do you know what I would have done had you begged me to
stop?”

“No, sir,” she breathed, her heart pounding so hard she thought
it would burst from her chest.

“I wouldn’t have stopped,” he said and shoved his hand hard
into her. Nora cried out; the climax ripped through her stomach and hips as her
inner muscles contracted wildly around Søren’s fingers.

She lay underneath him gasping through the orgasm that was so
intense her lower back spasmed. After a few minutes her heart slowed and her
eyes were able to focus again.

“You cheated.”

“I can’t imagine what you’re referring to,” Søren said,
carefully pulling his hand out of her sore opening.

“You brought up the day we met. That’s cheating.”

Søren rolled onto his back and Nora crawled on top of his chest
and collapsed against him.

“You’re the one who is going to be sleeping with two young men
who are not me this summer, and you accuse me of cheating?”

Nora grinned up at him.

“Jealous?”

“Not even remotely,” he said and she knew it was true. Søren’s
certainty in her love for him precluded even the slightest hint of jealousy. He
couldn’t care less who she had sex with as long as he owned her. More than not
caring, Søren was aroused by the sight and thought of her with other men. He
didn’t even mind if she did kink with others as long as no one hurt her—that was
his job alone.

“Speaking of jealous, Simone and Robin said they’d happily take
my place on the rack this summer while I’m gone.”

“Lovely girls, both of them,” Søren said, smiling. If Nora was
going to spend the summer in bed with two other guys, the least she could do for
Søren was arrange for him to have access to two of the most beautiful,
well-trained and discreet submissives in the Underground. She knew he wouldn’t
have sex with them. Sadism was sex for him. So Søren going two months without
beating someone would be akin to her going two months without sex—horrifying
thought.

“Now I’m afraid this nonsense will have to end. I’m hearing
confessions in—” Søren paused and glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantel
“—four hours.”

Nora winced.

“Shit, I knew there was something I was supposed to do before I
left. Will you have time for me before I leave tomorrow morning?” she asked.
She’d meant to go to confession during the past week but had completely
forgotten. Wasn’t her fault. She blamed her editor Zach—the other sadist in her
life—for sending her fifty pages to revise in two days.

“I can hear it now if you like.”

Sitting up, Nora buttoned Søren’s shirt over her breasts. Søren
rolled up and faced her. And although he too wore his black pants and nothing
else, the minute he met her eyes, she knew her lover had gone, and she now sat
in the presence of her priest alone.

Nora took a deep breath and began.

“God have mercy on me, a sinner.”

“‘Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of
them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs on your head are all
counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.’”

Nora smiled. Luke chapter twelve, verses six and seven—one of
her favorite passages.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been…”

“Eight days,” Søren supplied.

“Eight days since my last confession. Let’s see…where to
start?”

“Pace yourself, Eleanor. If you forget something, I will remind
you.”

“Oh, thank you very much, Father. You are too kind. I have done
some serious lusting this week.”

“Per usual.”

“I lied in a phone interview. Not the first time for that,
either. They wanted to know summer plans and I said I’d probably be overseas
working on a new book. Let’s see…what else? Oh, I got a big fat royalty check
and I didn’t give a damn bit of it to charity.”

“To whom much is given, much is required,” Søren reminded her.
God knew he certainly had room to talk.

“I know,” Nora said and sighed. She did know. She just needed a
refresher of that every now and then. “Does the church need anything?”

“Owen’s parents have suffered financially this year. Not
terribly but they may have to put him into public school.”

“Public school? That little guy will get eaten alive in public
school. He loves St. Xavier.”

“St. Xavier is not inexpensive.”

“Will five cover it?”

“Yes, and then some.”

Nora nodded. Not that long ago she could make 5K in a few hours
topping someone. Surely Owen deserved as much kindness as her clients received
of her cruelty.

“I’ll leave a check on the kitchen table tomorrow morning.
Don’t tell them it’s from me.”

“Of course not. Anything else?”

“Well, I did do blood-play with a priest this evening, after
which came much fucking.”

“Those were good works.”

“I’ll say.”

“Eleanor, what else?”

She heard in Søren’s voice an expectation. He knew she had more
to confess.

“I lied about something else,” she finally whispered.

“You never have to be afraid to tell me anything,” Søren said,
in that priestly tone that coaxed confessions like scared shadows from the
darkest corners of hearts.

“You asked me today why I don’t answer the phone when Wes
calls. I said it was because you hadn’t given me permission. That wasn’t the
truth.”

Nora stared at the floor, unwilling and unable to meet Søren’s
eyes.

“What is the truth?”

Swallowing, Nora forced herself to meet his eyes.

“I think,” she began and took a hard breath, “it wouldn’t be
good for us if I did.”

Søren seemed to study her through the low and dying light of
the fireplace. Her heart ached at the thought of hurting Søren. But he wanted
the truth from her no matter what.

“Your penance,” he began and she braced herself.

“Yes, Father?”

“Make your peace with Wesley this summer while you’re away from
me. Make your peace and do not return to me until you do.”

Nora’s stomach clenched. Make her peace with Wesley? What did
that even mean? Just get over him? Or would she have to talk to him? She didn’t
know. She didn’t want to know.

“Yes, Father” was all she could answer.

She bent her head.

“Through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and
peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

Nora crossed herself.

“Amen.”

Nora stood up with a heavy heart. She hated that on their last
night together before she left, she’d had to confess something so hurtful. But
suddenly she was off her feet and in Søren’s arms. Without a word, he carried
her upstairs to his bedroom.