âDonât look at me like that,â Nora said as she stepped into his kitchen.
âHow am I looking at you?â Søren closed the door behind her and locked it. She shucked off her coat and sat on the edge of the kitchen table.
âLike youâve been expecting me.â
âI was expecting you. I knew youâd want to talk about Natasha. I saw it in your eyes last night at Kingsleyâs.â
âHa,â she said as Søren came to her and stood in front of her. âShows how much you know. I donât want to talk about Natasha.â
He crossed his arms over his chest. Now late evening, heâd abandoned his clerics for normal clothesâblack long-sleeved T-shirt, black jeans. Even off-duty he couldnât get away from all black. She saw a glass of wine on the kitchen counter and smelled a fire burning in his fireplace. Briefly she wondered if sheâd interrupted him entertaining someone. But no, it was one glass of wineânot twoâon the counter. They were alone, and she was ashamed of her relief.
âIs that so?â he asked. âThen what do you want to talk about, Eleanor?â
âNothing,â she said as she raised her mouth to him for a kiss. âNothing at all.â
Søren didnât seem to care if they talked tonight or not. She kissed him first, but he kissed her harder, deeper, and with such desperate possessiveness she almost forgot she didnât belong to him anymoreâa dangerous sort of amnesia. Nora could have stopped him with a word but the only word that passed her lips came in the form of a question.
âBedroom?â
âNow,â Søren ordered and in seconds theyâd reached the top of his stairs. Once there he lifted her off the floor, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his back. As a Dominatrix she had to be strong, all the time. Men submitted to her, feared her, knelt at her feet and worshipped her. Tonight she needed to be his, needed to submit, needed to be the one on her knees. So sheâd come to Søren, the one man she gave up her power to, if only for the night.
âHurt me,â she begged and he slammed her back into the wall with bruising force. His kisses were equally bruising. He bit at her bottom lip and she tasted blood.
He let her down and the moment her feet touched the floor his hand grabbed the back of her neck with a vicious, merciless grip. In the open doorway of his bedroom, he shoved her to her knees, exactly where she wanted to be. Impossibly strong fingers dug into her skin as she rested her forehead against his hip. She breathed through the pain, breathed through it and into it, not fighting it. She had come here tonight for the pain, for the surrender, for the chance to forget everything she didnât want to remember.
âNow,â he said again and the one word constituted all the instruction she needed. She opened his pants and took him into her mouth. Even as she sucked him, licked and caressed him with her lips and tongue, he gripped her neck. She clung to the fabric of his shirt with both hands as she made herself a willing slave. Sheâd left him, and no matter how often he reminded her of how much she missed him, she never admitted it to him. But here and now on her knees in front of him, she admitted it to herself.
She pushed his shirt up. The muscles of his hard stomach tightened as she scratched deep, scoring his skin with her fingernails. Like many sadists she knew, he had a love for pain that manifested in borderline masochism. Heâd never allow himself to be dominated but heâd take any pain she gave him during sex without complaint. Sex was at its most potent to them both when spiked with pain.
He thrust his hips forward and she almost choked on him. Søren could be gentle in the bedroom but only after heâd unleashed his sadism on her. And theyâd only just begun to play this game.
Without warning he pulled her to her feet and turned her back to him. He wrenched her skirt up, pushed her black lace underwear down, and shoved his fingers inside her from behind. Bracing herself against the doorframe, she closed her eyes and forced herself to remain perfectly still as he pried her open. She grew wet against his hand, wet enough he laughed at her bodyâs eagerness.