“Now stay there.”

“Stay here?” she called out as he left the room. “I’m tied to the damn bed. Where would I go?”

Søren didn’t answer.

“I hate you!” she called out even louder. This time he answered.

“One hundred twenty-seven,” he called back.

As soon as Søren left the room she decided she had to get out of these damn ropes. If she had two minutes she could give herself the orgasm he’d denied her. Her whole body still pulsed with need. Maybe if she twisted her hands, turned this way, dislocated her shoulder and twisted her body around …

“Good, you’re still here.” Søren came back into the room carrying a book in his hand.

“I wonder why.” She pulled her knees to her chest and fumed. “You are the most evil man on earth.”

“I am, yes. Would you like to hear your bedtime story now?”

“I would like to punch you in the face.”

“It’s Lewis Carroll. I found this in an antique bookstore in Rome.”

“I hate it. I want to set it on fire.”

“It’s Through the Looking-Glass. I know how partial you are to the Jabberwocky.”

“You are the Jabberwocky, you monster.”

“It’s a long book. Get comfortable. I’ll read.”

“And I’ll murder you in my mind.”

Eleanor entertained a few dozen violent fantasies of retribution on Søren. He’d spanked her, aroused her, denied her an orgasm and then tied her to the bed so she couldn’t touch herself. And now he blithely ignored her fury as he flipped open the pages of the book and began to read.

“‘One thing was certain,’” he began, “‘that the WHITE kitten had had nothing to do with it—it was the black kitten’s fault entirely.’”

Trapped, Eleanor could do nothing but lie there and listen as Søren read the story to her. Soon she’d lost herself in the story, in the moment, in the ludicrous pleasure of being almost twenty and having a bedtime story read to her. She forgot about the ropes on her wrists and the need in her stomach. After an hour she even forgot she’d planned to kill Søren with a pickax the second he untied her.

He read to her until Eleanor yawned and her eyelids fluttered. She wanted to stay awake and keep listening but she fought a losing battle against her need to sleep. Søren closed the book and sat it on the bedside table.

“Are you asleep, Little One?” Søren asked.

She felt him untying her hands. Once free of the ropes he gently chafed her wrists.

“Almost, sir.”

Søren gathered her in his arms and she fell against his chest.

“I love that book.” She sighed.

“I know you do. It’s one of my favorites, too.”

“I love you, too, sir. Even when I want to kill you with a pickax.”

“That is all I can ask.” He bent and kissed her on the forehead, the cheek. “Before you sleep, there’s one thing we need to talk about.”

“If it’s not about us having sex, I’m going to sleep right now.”

“Then wake up.”

Eleanor’s eyes flew open and she sat up straight.

“When? How soon? Tonight?”

“When I decide, I will tell you.” She had the face-punching fantasy again. Of course he would decide when. “But you’ll be twenty soon. Not a teenager anymore. You’ll need to be ready.”

“I’ll go to the school clinic and go on birth control.”

“Good girl.”

Eleanor grinned at the irony of a Catholic priest telling her to start birth control.

“You really are the weirdest priest on earth.”

“Little One,” Søren said, “you don’t even know the half of it.”

She should have expected that.

“Now go to sleep,” he ordered. “You need sleep to recover from what you’ve been through.”

“Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?”

“That I can do,” he said and sat on the bed, his back against the headboard. She lowered her head and rested it on his stomach. Never before had she felt so loved, so adored, so special and so cherished as she did at this moment. She’d spent the past week dating Wyatt. She’d spent last night fooling around with a stranger. Søren had not only forgiven her, but he’d also absolved and then punished her in ways even sexier than sex. This morning she’d woken up in a hospital bed. Tonight she would fall asleep in Søren’s arms, the slow steady rhythm of his heart beating against her ear.

“Will you tell me another bedtime story?” she asked.

“I can. What story would you like?”

“A love story.”

“I think I can provide that.” He wrapped both arms around her and gently rubbed her back.

“Once upon a time,” he began, “there was a beautiful girl named Eleanor who had secrets she wanted to keep. Eleanor had pulled her sleeves down over her hands. She was ashamed of the burns on her wrist and feared someone would see them and judge her for them. Then the time came for this girl to take communion. As she reached for the cup, her sleeve slipped back, and her priest saw what she was.”

“What was she?” Eleanor asked.

Søren kissed her on the top of her head and whispered.

“She was mine.”