Nora grabbed Griffin’s hand and raced past his butler.

“So tell me about this kid,” Griffin said. “You said he’s a seventeen-year-old submissive from your church. Anything else I need to know about him?”

“Like what? Food allergies?”

“Let’s just say I barely remember being seventeen. I think I spent half the year drunk and the other half of the year high.”

“You don’t have to worry about Michael. He’s very straight edge. Søren said he doesn’t even drink. But there’s three things you probably should know about him.”

“I’m ready,” Griffin said, opening the front door just as Kingsley’s silver Rolls Royce pulled up in front of the house. “Hit me.”

Nora slapped his arm.

“First, Michael doesn’t talk.”

“Is he a mute?” Griffin asked, sounding slightly horrified. Griffin only shut up when you put something in his mouth—preferably a body part.

“No, just really quiet. Nervous type. Quiet.”

“Submissive?”

“That,” Nora said as the door to the Rolls opened and Michael stepped out. He pushed his sunglasses onto his head and smiled up at her. Raising his hand, he gave her a nervous wave.

“Holy shit,” Griffin breathed, his dark eyes widening at the sight of Michael.

“Yeah,” Nora said, smiling back at Michael. “Number two—Michael is absolutely, completely, ridiculously beautiful.”

“Nora…” Griffin said in a distressed voice. “I think I’m in love.”

“You’re in heat, Griff. Big difference. Oh, and number three…Søren says you can’t fuck him.”

Skipping down the steps, Nora left a speechless Griffin behind her. She grabbed Michael and pulled him into her arms.

“Hey, Angel,” she said, kissing him on the lips. “How was the trip?”

“Bizarre,” Michael whispered. “There was a guy in the backseat. In riding boots. We dropped him off at Father S’s.”

“Oh, that was just Kingsley. He likes to inspect the new recruits. Did he hit on you? Ask you if you’ve ever had sex in the back of a Rolls Royce?”

“Um, yeah,” Michael confessed, blushing. “But I didn’t—”

“Good,” Nora said. “You passed inspection. Go say hello to Griffin while I make out with your driver.”

Nora bodily spun Michael, aimed him toward the steps and slapped him on his jeans-clad bottom. Robin, one of her and Søren’s favorite submissives from The 8th Circle, stepped out of the driver’s seat in her chic gray chauffeur’s costume complete with driving hat and leather gloves.

“I love a woman in uniform,” Nora said, giving Robin a long, thorough kiss. From the top of the steps, Nora heard applause. She pulled back from the pretty submissive and saw Griffin clapping and Michael gaping. Michael looked at Griffin, who looked at Michael. Michael looked at her. Griffin kept looking at Michael.

Nora groaned. “Robin, take me back to the city with you.”

“I’m sorry, mistress. Mr. King said I wasn’t allowed. Oh, and Mr. S has a message for you.”

“What, pray tell, is Mr. S’s message?” Nora asked, already dreading whatever message Søren decided to pass on to her through an underling.

“He wanted me to ask you if you still had that note he left for you? The one that said ‘Do not open until instructed’?”

“Yes. I still have it. What about it?”

“He said you still can’t open it.”

Nora nodded. “Fine. Great. Wonderful. You can tell Mr. S that he can take his note and shove it up—”

“Nora?” Griffin called down to her. “Kiss Robin again. I want to get a pic.”

Nora rubbed her forehead. Long summer ahead. Too long.

Nora shook Robin’s hand goodbye, a move that led to booing from the peanut gallery at the top of the steps. Robin got into the Rolls and drove off, leaving Nora alone with a timid teenage boy and a horny Griffin.

Looking up at the blue sky above her, Nora sent up a quick prayer to St. Mary Magdalen, patron saint of ex-prostitutes, and St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes. Her prayer consisted of one word.

“Help.”

* * *

Suzanne took a deep breath and whispered one word to herself—“Afghanistan.”

An odd mantra, but it worked for her. She’d been in Afghanistan for the past three months, and in that desolate, broken country, she’d eaten fear and slept with courage. Lieutenant Hatton, the handsome Texan who always called her Red—IED took his right arm. Staff Sergeant Zimmerman, the New York Jew who couldn’t stop flirting with her—a bullet to the sternum. And Private First Class Goran, the shy North Dakotan with a one-year-old daughter back home—a bullet to the brain. His own.

She’d seen all of it. Witnessed horrors she could barely recall because her mind had done such a good job of burying the visuals so deep even she couldn’t find them. No one really understood why she did what she did, not even her really. In college when she decided to major in journalism, her advisor told her she had the looks to be a top-notch weathergirl. Her impressive intelligence could get her far, he’d said. But a face and body as choice as hers could take her anywhere she wanted to go. And he’d grabbed her ass and told her exactly where he wanted her to take it. Instead she took it to the dean and got the tenured, award-winning professor canned. As he cleaned out his office, she knocked on his door, smiled at him and said, “Cloudy with a chance of fired,” before walking off. Weathergirl her ass. A man who couldn’t keep his hands to himself had been the death of her brother Adam. Her advisor had been the first abusive man with too much power she’d taken out. Father Stearns might be next.

“Afghanistan,” she repeated. She’d been in war zones. She could do this. Suzanne changed into a reasonably nondescript black dress and pulled her long red hair back into a knot. Earlier that day when she’d hit yet another brick wall attempting to dig up anything on Father Stearns, she’d decided she had no choice but to meet the man. Scanning Sacred Heart’s website she found that Father Stearns presided over Thursday evening mass. Purposefully she hadn’t told Patrick about her trip to Wakefield. He worried about her, worried she’d get hurt. “Afghanistan,” she told him every time he started to patronize her. He chased cheating politicians around the Upper East Side. She covered war zones. That usually shut him up.

Before leaving, Suzanne slipped into a pair of plain black flats. At five-nine in bare feet, Suzanne stood as tall as most men she knew. The priests of her childhood were all small men, old and weak. She wanted this priest to feel comfortable around her, comfortable enough to talk. Intimidating him with her height wouldn’t help the situation.

Being a city girl to the core, Suzanne didn’t own a car. Luckily Patrick did, and he trusted her just enough to let her borrow it. Either that or he really did want her back and would use any means to get in her good graces. Using Google Maps she found Sacred Heart Catholic Church a scant five minutes before Thursday evening Mass was due to start. She raced from the car and into the sanctuary, taking a seat near the back where she could lurk unnoticed. Once inside and seated, Suzanne took the opportunity to look around and get her bearings. Digging in her bag, she pulled out her little steno pad and flipped it open.

Beautiful sanctuary, she wrote.  Stained-glass windows depicting Christ’s miracles,  traditional architecture—Richardsonian Romanesque maybe? Choir loft above  me, seats about 300 people. Truly gorgeous church. I fucking hate it  here.

She hadn’t sat in a Catholic Church in years, not since Adam died. Even before that she’d given up on the church, on her childhood faith, on prayer. Any God who could let the sort of evil she’d witnessed happen on His watch wasn’t a God she wanted any part of. And since there didn’t seem to be any other gods out there doing any better, she’d just given up on the concept altogether. She didn’t miss Him or It one bit.

Suzanne stiffened with nervousness as a hymn she hadn’t heard in a million years began and filled the sanctuary. For a 5:30 p.m. evening mass, an impressive number of people were in attendance, almost a hundred by her estimate. Well, if Father Stearns had made the short list to be a bishop so comparatively young, he must have something going for him. Maybe he was one of those liberal theologians who did a lot of social work. Or maybe the church had a fairly active youth group or music ministry. Or maybe…

Suzanne’s body rose from her pew as her heart plummeted through the floor. Shock came first and gave way to disbelief. Disbelief lasted but a moment before suspicion reared its head.

Never before in her life had Suzanne seen a man more strikingly, viscerally handsome. Blond, incredibly blond, and so tall she could have worn five-inch stilettos on her feet without fear of even meeting him eye to eye.

The vestments, the white collar…it had to be him. But how could a Catholic priest be so… She couldn’t even find the right word. Attractive? Beautiful? Desirable?

Still staring, Suzanne nearly forgot to sit down with the rest of the congregation. She’d chosen her seat carefully hoping to go unnoticed in the crowded middle of the sanctuary. But as Father Stearns came up to the altar he cast his eyes across his people and let them rest on her for a long, deliberate moment.

As his gaze touched her, Suzanne felt something stirring in the recesses of her stomach, something that formed a tight knot and sunk in deep and hard. Her hands went numb. Her skin flushed. Even her toes tingled in her plain black flats. For the first time in over a decade, for the first time since Adam died, she felt compelled to release one tiny desperate prayer under her breath.

“Oh…my…God.”

7

If Michael didn’t worship the ground Nora walked on, he’d probably kill her. From what he could tell, Griffin’s horse-house-mansion-farm, as Nora called it, had about a billion rooms. And of all those one billion rooms, she was forcing Michael to sleep here. She’d left Griffin in the grand foyer while she’d escorted him to his room. His room in the—

“The nursery?” Michael asked in horror.

“Isn’t it cute? Griffin said he spent half of his childhood up here. This is his old room. There’s no crib anymore. It’s been redecorated.”

“It’s the nursery,” Michael reiterated, feeling about five years old. Nora merely batted her eyelashes at him and kissed his cheek.

“Get settled in. I’ll be back for you later so we can start training.”

With that she flounced out of the room—an impressive feat considering her tight skirt and low-cut shirt weren’t even remotely flouncy—and left him alone.

Michael stood in the middle of the nursery and decided it wasn’t as bad as the name implied. In fact, the room, suite actually, was pretty impressive. In an arched alcove sat a sumptuous-looking full-size bed. A big bay window looked out onto a huge inground swimming pool. The pool…perfect, Michael thought, mentally draining it. Deep with perfectly sloped sides. He dreamed of skateboarding in swimming pools like that.

“She’s fucking with your head.”

Michael turned toward the voice and saw Nora’s friend Griffin standing in the doorway. Never before had Michael seen anyone quite like Griffin. Really tall and handsome and obviously all muscle, Griffin had hair that was kind of long but still spiked up in a way he’d only seen on male models with their own hair stylists. He had a slight crook in his nose as though it had been broken once and not fixed right. Instead of marring his appearance, it made him look more interesting, as if he’d really lived. He seemed young though. Too young to own a house this big and old. Michael guessed he was in his late twenties, if that.