Author: Tiffany Reisz

Only her years of training at Søren’s feet had instilled enough self-control into Nora to keep her from collapsing into her mother’s arms.

Nora crossed her arms over her chest and stared past her mother and tried to think of anything and anyone but Wesley.

“It’s for the best,” she finally said. “Whatever the reason we broke up, it’s for the best. Wesley…he…”

“You still love him, don’t you?”

Nora touched her face and came away with her fingers wet with tears. She held out her hand and let her mother see them.

“Many waters…”

Her mother took Nora’s hand in hers and squeezed.

“I never saw you cry over him, that year you were here. Not one tear.”

“Some hurts are too deep for tears.”

Her mother shook her head.

“Or maybe not deep enough. Try, Ellie. Try for me. Just once, try to be with someone who makes you cry like this, out of love. Not out of pain or fear. Is that too much to ask?”

Nora shrugged and shook her head.

“It’s too late. It’s been so long I’m sure he’s moved on by now. I hope he has, anyway.”

“Liar,” her mother teased and Nora laughed. Laughed? Laughed with her mother while talking about a guy? So shit like this did happen in real life, not just movies. Who knew?

“I have to go,” Nora said. “Things to do. People to beat. It was good to see you again.”

Her mother clasped her hands in front of her in a posture of resigned piety.

“Of course. Try not to let another six years pass without coming to visit again.”

“I didn’t think they’d let me back in after all I pulled.” Nora grinned, remembering all the trouble she’d caused back here behind the gates where no men could come.

“Are you kidding? They still talk about you. You’ve given us six years of dinner conversation.”

“I live to serve.” Nora bobbed a curtsy before heading back toward the back doors. She walked quickly, wanting to be out of this world and back into hers as soon as possible. All these celibate women freaked her out. She couldn’t imagine giving up sex for a higher power. Even her Wesley had given up waiting and had surely slept with his sexy older girlfriend by now. The thought of another woman laying her hands on her Wesley put almost murderous thoughts in Nora’s head, thoughts she had no right to have.

They walked through the motherhouse toward the gate. Her mother opened the door that led back to the real world, to the unconsecrated ground where Nora lived.

“I’ll come visit again. Soon, I promise,” Nora said. “Can I bring you anything? Smuggle in anything? Pizza? Swedish fish? Pot? Anything?”

Her mother smiled.

“Just my daughter, happy and in one piece.”

Nora indicted her body with a sweeping gesture of her hands.

“One piece,” she said.

“And happy?”

“Believe it or not, yes. Maybe not by your definition, but by mine.”

“Then I can live with that.”

Nora paused and looked at her mother. She wanted to say something more, say something else, but she couldn’t find the words. Or she knew the words but didn’t have the courage to say them.

“I’ll see you later, Mom.”

“Oh, Ellie?”

“What, Mom?” Nora turned back to her and gasped as her mother slapped her hard and quick across the cheek.

At first Nora couldn’t speak from shock alone.

“That seems to be the only way you let someone tell them they love you. So be it,” her mother said, lowering her hand.

Nora stood up straight and smiled.

“That didn’t feel like love to me,” Nora said, stepping through the gate. “Just felt amateur. Next time I visit, we’ll work on your technique.”

Nora strode to her car and fought tears the entire way. She refused to believe her mother was right. She wasn’t going to give up Søren simply to satisfy her mother and society’s restrictive, vanilla, fucking boring definition of what love was supposed to be.

Didn’t matter anyway. The only vanilla guy she’d ever loved was Wesley, and she would never see him again. Søren surely wouldn’t allow it. Not if she told him the truth that her feelings for Wesley crept along inside her heart like the snake in the garden. Life with Søren was paradise, a dark, dangerous paradise but still, a perfect naked Eden.

“Almost perfect,” she whispered to no one as she sat behind the wheel of her car. She stuck her key into the ignition but before she turned the car on, she heard the ominous sounds of Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

Nora snatched her phone out of her bag.

“Søren…” she breathed with relief. “God, I’ve missed—”

“Tell me the truth, little one. Have you made your peace with Wesley?”

Nora exhaled. She and Wesley would never be together. And she could live with that. For this man and what they had, she would live with that.

“Yes, sir.”

He then spoke the words she’d been waiting all summer to hear.

“Come home to me.”

24

Nora nearly broke the sound barrier driving back to Griffin’s estate. Once there she took only three seconds to listen at the door to Griffin’s bedroom. She heard Michael laugh and then silence, heavy silence. She’d let the boys have their privacy. Scribbling a note, she pushed it under the door, letting them know Søren had given her the all clear to come home.

She packed fast and hit the road faster. After nearly two months apart, Nora couldn’t wait another minute to see Søren. She had to touch him, kiss him, let his arms remind her that she belonged to him and him alone. Once she felt him inside her again, Nora could let go of those traitorous thoughts about Wesley and her regret that she’d let him go too easily, too soon.

When she arrived at the rectory, night had already fallen. She parked her car in the copse of trees that shielded her and the house from prying eyes.

Into the house and up the stairs she ran, her shoes clicking loudly on the hardwood. Her heart thudded against her rib cage, her blood burned in her veins. After almost twenty years, Søren could still stir her passions like no one else she had ever or would ever love.

She didn’t even get all the way to his bedroom. He must have heard her shoes on the hardwood because he stepped into the hallway and met her halfway. Without any words they came to each other, arms holding, hands grasping, lips and tongues seeking and finding. She dragged her fingers through his hair. His shirt tore in her frenzy to get to his skin. Søren bit at her collarbone and gripped her thighs so furiously she cried out. Pain…of course pain. He had to hurt her before he could make love to her. Søren didn’t have a vanilla side. He had to play hard to get hard, as she’d told Kingsley years ago. And she was okay with that.

Søren slammed her against the wall and wrenched her skirt up. In seconds he was deep inside her. Nora wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held on to him as if her life depended on it, and in that moment she knew it did. If she ever let Søren go again…if she ever walked away from him again, she didn’t know if she’d be strong enough to come back. So she held on tight, dug her fingernails into his shoulders, gasped his name in his ear and gave herself over to the brutal thrusts that would leave her bruised, inside and out.

When she came, she breathed his name with her eyes closed. And even after he’d spent himself inside her, he still held her in his arms, pinned to the wall.

“My little one,” he whispered as he kissed her cheek, her eyes.

Slowly he pulled out of her and lowered her to the floor. They straightened their clothes as their bodies disentangled. Holding her breath, Nora waited.

She didn’t have to wait long.

Søren took a step backward. And then another.

“Hands and knees,” he said and Nora knelt gracefully on the floor.

He’d asked her two years ago on their anniversary how she would come back to him if she ever returned to his bed.

If you come back to me, little one, will  you run, or will you crawl?

I’ll fly, she’d answered.

Tonight as she returned to him, she crawled.

* * *

Michael spent nearly three days in Griffin’s bedroom. They came up for air only for food and showers and the occasional glimpse of sunlight before retreating back into bed. The second night together, Griffin strung Michael to the bedpost and flogged him for the first time. And Michael had thought Nora had a vicious flogging arm. Even getting his wrists tattooed hadn’t hurt that much.

He loved every single second of it. Nothing scared him anymore about being with Griffin. The sex part took a little getting used to but the incredible pleasure of having Griffin inside him was worth all the work and occasional grimacing. The S&M they would figure out. The love…the love he had no complaints about. Michael basked in Griffin’s love, wallowed it in, let his heart that had been so thirsty for affection drink in every drop. Every morning Griffin told him, “I love you.” Every night he said the same. And all Michael had to do was come anywhere near Griffin’s reach if he wanted to be pulled into the two most wicked-strong arms he’d ever encountered in his life. Ever since his suicide attempt, Michael had felt near-constant loneliness, anxiety, and a sense that while people like Father S and Nora would understand him, no one ever truly loved him. But with Griffin he finally felt loved, at peace and safe.

But on day three, Griffin did and said the one thing guaranteed to shatter Michael’s bliss.

“I don’t do secret relationships, Mick. If we’re going to do this, I want to meet your mom. Pack up. We’re out of here.”

The words were said in a tone that brooked no challenge. Michael had known it was too good to be true anyway. Once Griffin saw how truly humble his origins were—the tiny house, the ten-year-old car in the driveway, the shabby furniture—he’d realize how different they were and how little Michael belonged in Griffin’s world.

In tense silence Michael stared out the window of Griffin’s Porsche as they drove from the estate to Wakefield. Griffin seemed to sense Michael’s anxiety and left him alone with his thoughts.

When they hit Wakefield, Griffin cruised by Sacred Heart but they found the church empty. Michael guessed Father S and Nora were still in bed enjoying their reunion. He wished he could say the same for him and Griffin. Before leaving the church, Michael went to the shrine of the Virgin Mary in the corner of the narthex and lit a candle in prayer.

Mary, Mother of God, Michael prayed in his heart. Please help my mom. Please help me and  Griffin. That was it. He had no idea what else to pray. He knew he didn’t want to hurt his mother, but he didn’t want her hurting Griffin, either. So many horrible scenarios ran through Michael’s mind as Griffin drove them to Michael’s house. His mother would lose her shit, for sure. She’d probably forbid Michael from seeing Griffin. And Michael would refuse. So what? Move out? Live with Griffin? Seemed a little early for that. Of course, there’d be no Griffin after all this shit with his family went down.

Griffin pulled onto the street and Michael swallowed a wave of nausea. The nausea worsened with every house they passed on the way to his. When they reached Michael’s home the nausea turned to dread, shock and panic.

“Oh, fuck,” Michael breathed as he noticed a familiar and truly unwelcome sight.

“What, Mick?” Griffin asked, grabbing Michael’s knee.

“My dad’s here.”

* * *

Nora stretched across Søren’s chest and released a blissful sigh.

“Thank you, sir,” she purred, turning her head to give him a quick bite under his collarbone.

“Do I want to know what specifically you’re thanking me for or should I simply say you’re welcome?”