Author: Tiffany Reisz

Nothing…which is what Suzanne had on Father Stearns.

Kingsley Edge said go visit the sister—the one she didn’t want to see. She knew Father Stearns had a sister in Denmark. He’d told her that night at the rectory. Surely Kingsley didn’t mean her—that would be one hell of a research trip. So that left Claire or Elizabeth.

She’d researched Claire last night. Lovely woman about Nora Sutherlin’s age—a rich Manhattan socialite, no husband, no kids, no scandals. As a war correspondent, Suzanne did really hate talking to socialites. Maybe that’s what Kingsley meant. But then she’d looked into Elizabeth. Her very first Google hit on Elizabeth Stearns revealed one vital and terrifying fact. Despite also being exceedingly well-off, Elizabeth Stearns had a real job. She worked as a therapist for victims of childhood sexual abuse.

The very phrase created aching knots in Suzanne’s stomach and a thousand memories of Adam came crashing to the forefront of her mind. After his suicide, the revelation of the abuse he’d suffered from their priest had tainted every memory of him. Every recollection of him from after the age of nine—Adam’s goofy grin in his graduation photo, the day he pushed her in the pool on her twentieth birthday, the pride in his voice when she’d come home from her first assignment in the Middle East, alive and triumphant—was blighted by the knowledge that every grin had been a fake, every laugh a mask. The last thing she wanted to do was spend the day with a woman who worked with victims of sex abuse.

Suzanne closed the file as she reached her stop. In ten minutes she had her rental car. In fifteen minutes she was on the road to New Hampshire.

In four hours, she was there.

* * *

After a huge dinner in the dining room on Griffin’s anal table, the three of them—Griffin, Nora and Michael—adjourned to the living room. Nora threw confetti everywhere in honor of Griffin’s six years clean and sober while Michael sat in near silence on the leather sofa and watched Griffin and Nora do some ridiculous dirty dancing on top of the coffee table. Michael wanted to join in the celebration, would have joined in, but Griffin’s threat from earlier that Michael too would be getting tattooed that night had put him into hardcore freak-out mode. His sexuality he could hide more or less. At least he could keep the submission and the attraction to guys a secret from his mom. But a tattoo? That’s not something one could keep in the bedroom.

A little after five, the doorbell rang and Griffin commanded Jamison to answer it, which he did only after calling Griffin a “well-arranged waste of molecules.”

Griffin’s butler returned with a leggy, purpled-haired woman at his side who had elaborate tattoos running up and down both her muscular arms. Dark green vine tattoos ran across her ample cleavage and climbed up her neck—the tip of the top vine ended in the hollow behind her multi-pierced ears.

“Griffin Fiske, you dirty whore. One more year again?” she asked in a Scottish accent.

“Spike…don’t pretend you didn’t miss me.”

“Don’t have to pretend.” She slapped Griffin hard on the biceps, hard enough Michael flinched in sympathy. But Griffin only grinned.

“Nora, Michael. This is Spike. She does my ink for me. Best in the business.”

“Lovely to meet you,” Nora said, shaking Spike’s hand. “You do gorgeous work.”

“And you have gorgeous skin,” Spike said, making a circuit around Nora. “Would look better with ink on it.”

Nora sat on the couch and picked up the edits on her books she’d been working on all day.

“I would love a tattoo. Big-ass Jabberwocky all over my back. But my priest doesn’t allow me to get anything weird done to my body.”

Griffin rolled his eyes while he stripped out of his shirt and sat two chairs side by side.

“Nora, you have your clit hood pierced,” Griffin reminded her.

“Yes,” she agreed. “But who do you think did that?” She put on her glasses, pulled her hair into a bun that she secured with a pen, instantly transforming herself into Writing Nora, the only version of Nora Michael found sexier than Dominatrix Nora.

“Father S did your piercing?” Michael’s mouth went suddenly dry.

Nora only shrugged as she turned a page in her notes.

“You celebrate Valentine’s Day in your way and we’ll celebrate it in ours. Carry on.”

Nora waved her hand dismissively while Spike and Griffin got settled in. Spike plugged in her electric needle, mixed her ink and cleaned Griffin’s arm with alcohol.

“Anything fancy, mate?” she asked as she adjusted Griffin’s arm.

“Not this year. Just add another band to the bottom.”

It took less than fifteen minutes to finish Griffin’s tattoo—a black vine around the bottom of his right bicep. Michael could only watch in fascination as blood pooled and dripped. Griffin barely even winced as the needle pushed ink deep into his skin. For the entire time Spike worked on Griffin’s arm, Michael studied his face. He had such a handsome profile. And even in obvious pain, he couldn’t stop laughing or smiling every few seconds. Where did all that happiness come from? Michael didn’t really care. He just wanted to be a part of it.

Once finished, Spike cleaned Griffin off and took a photo of the tattoo.

“When are we getting that griffin on your back we’ve been talking about?” she asked.

“Think we’ll save that for next year and lucky anniversary number seven.” Griffin turned to Michael. “Spike specializes in big work. Did big black angel wings all over the back of some guy in Scotland.”

“My best work,” she said with pride. “I love wings. They’re my favorite to do. Speaking of…” She gave Griffin a meaningful look.

Griffin looked at Michael.

“Come here, Mick. Got a present for you.”

Michael stood up and walked over to Griffin. Nora put her notes away, shoved her glasses on her head and watched them both.

“Griffin, I don’t think I should get a tattoo. My mom might kill me. And I don’t know what to get or where.”

Griffin reached out and took Michael by the forearm. He lifted Michael’s hand and placed it on the center of his bare chest. Every nerve in Michael’s body came alive at the contact of his fingers on Griffin’s skin.

Griffin started to unbuckled Michael’s watch.

“Wait. Stop,” Michael said. Griffin clapped a hand onto his arm and held Michael in place.

“It’s okay, Mick,” Griffin whispered. “You can trust me here. Please.”

Swallowing, Michael nodded. “Okay.”

Griffin removed Michael’s watch and set it aside as carefully as if it was Griffin’s three-hundred-thousand-dollar Audemars Piguet and not Michael’s twenty-three-dollar eBay special.

After removing the watch, Griffin took off Michael’s black wristband. He turned Michael’s arms over and showed the scarred wrists to Spike.

“Can you do it?” Griffin asked.

Spike narrowed her eyes at the scars, and Michael inwardly writhed in mortification.

“I’ve covered worse. Much worse,” Spike said as she ran her fingers over Michael’s wrist scars. “Yeah, I can do it. ’Course I can.”

“This is what I was thinking, Mick.” Griffin pulled a folded piece of paper out of the back pocket of his pants. He opened it up and showed Michael. “I stole your sketchbook while you were with Nora and sent some of your drawings to Spike. This is what we came up with.”

Griffin gave a drawing to Michael, who could only stare at it in speechless wonder.

“I thought we could cover the scars,” Griffin whispered. He tucked a loose strand of Michael’s hair behind his ear, and Michael shivered at the intimacy of the gesture. Watching Griffin have sex with Nora didn’t feel as private as Griffin absentmindedly taming Michael’s hair. “You won’t have to hide them anymore. Your wrists will look like that.”

“Like this?” In his hand Michael held a drawing of angel wings—open and unfurled and almost solid black. One wing would be tattooed on each wrist.

“You’ll be able to do this,” Griffin said, holding both wrists out and together, “and you’ll have a full wingspan. Want to do it? My treat, okay?”

Michael swallowed a throatful of tears. No more hideous scars on his wrists he’d have to cover up… Just beautiful ink that Griffin had bought and paid for. Getting this tattoo would be like being marked by Griffin.

“Yes.” He looked up at Griffin with eyes that never wanted to look away again. “Let’s do it.”

Griffin clapped his hands loudly and grabbed Michael by the shoulders.

“You won’t regret this, Mick. Ink doesn’t get into your skin. It gets into your soul. Changes you. And this will change you in the good way.”

“You sure you want to do this, Angel?” Nora asked, her eyes full of concern but no judgment.

“Yeah, definitely. It’s okay, right?” he asked.

“This decision is all yours to make. If you want it, do it.”

“I want it.”

“Good,” Spike said. “I hope you mean that because inking scar tissue is a bitch. We’ll do the basics tonight and get some decent coverage. I’ll need you back in six weeks for touch-ups.”

Michael sat down while Griffin brought a table over and placed it front of the chair.

“Griff,” Spike said, giving him a stern glare. “You’ll have to hold him steady. This won’t be easy going.”

Griffin looked at Michael, and Michael gazed back at Griffin without blinking or looking away. That strange feeling he always experienced when about to start a scene with Nora came over him. He started to sink into that weird Zen place that Nora and Griffin called subspace.

Michael extended his left hand and Spike started to swab his wrist with alcohol.

“Hold him down, mate,” Spike ordered Griffin. “Don’t let him move a muscle.”

Griffin took Michael’s hand in his and held his fingers and forearm hard against the table.

“I won’t even let him flinch.” Griffin and Michael’s eyes still remained locked on each other. Michael felt blood surging through his body. The buzz of the electric needle started up.

“Won’t lie to you, kid,” Spike said, making a final adjustment on her needle. “Skin on the wrist is thin and sensitive. Getting ink on your cock would hurt less than this will.”

Michael took a deep breath in and slowly let it out of his nose the way Nora had taught him.

“It’s okay,” Michael said and knew he’d never been so calm or certain in his life. He had Griffin’s hands on him holding him down. No fear, no agony, nothing in the world could penetrate the armor of his happiness. “I can take pain.”

* * *

Slowly Wesley turned around. Standing in the doorway to Nora’s bedroom was a man well over six feet tall, with perfect pale blond hair, penetrating steel-gray eyes and a face too handsome to be human. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt that revealed impressively taut biceps, and in his right hand he held a motorcycle helmet.

“So Søren rides a motorcycle,” Wesley said, not knowing why that was the first thing that came out. “For some reason, I’m not surprised.”

Søren’s eyes narrowed and the corner of his mouth twitched with amusement. He tossed the helmet onto a chair and crossed his arms over his broad chest.

“Hello, Wesley,” Søren said and spoke no other words.

“I’m not going to say hello to you.” Wesley took a deep breath and took a few steps closer. “We’re not friends. This isn’t going to be a friendly conversation.”

Søren stared at him a moment and Wesley felt himself being weighed in the priest’s eyes. For more than two years, Wesley had wondered about Søren—what did he look like, how did he act, what the hell did Nora see in him? Now the man himself stood in front of him. And that’s what Wesley saw. A man—mortal, very handsome, but still only a man.