“And as deeply as your Eleanor loves you.”

She traced the carvings on the handle and remembered the rush of power she’d felt when Kingsley first put it in her hand. She still felt that rush every time she held a crop in her hand. Where was Nico and his beautiful back when she needed it?

She raised the crop to her lips and kissed it.

“Thank you for this. It’s beautiful. And I can’t tell you what it means to have my first riding crop back. At least part of it.”

“Use it wisely and well.”

“I’ll use it to beat the shit out of the first person I can until he screams like a little bitch.”

“As God intended.”

Nora laughed and kissed Søren.

“I love you, Søren,” she said. “And I love you, Father Stearns.”

“And?” he prompted.

“And I love you, my sir. Now and always.”

She pulled back from the kiss and took his wrist in her hand. She laid the crop on his palm.

“Would you do me the honor of christening my crop for me?” she asked.

“You aren’t ready to sleep yet?” he asked.

“I will always pick kink with you over sleep. Sir,” she added at the end.

“You have a busy day tomorrow. Are you sure you want bruises?”

“Black and blue goes with everything. Especially white,” she said. “Please, sir?”

“Well...” Søren said with a long-suffering and therefore entirely fake sigh. “Since you asked so nicely...”

He dug his fingers into her collar and pulled her off the bed and onto her feet. She stood still while he undressed her, moving only to cooperate with him taking her camisole off and stepping out of her pajama bottoms. He left her standing naked by the bed as he went to her toy bag. From it he pulled out her rope cuffs, which he brought over to the bed. He turned her to face the bedpost and lifted her arms. She let him move her, manipulate her body any way he wanted. Happiness was giving herself to him, putting her body and her life into his hands, knowing that when he was done, he would give her back, and she would belong to herself again.

He knotted the rope cuffs around the top of the bedpost and slipped her hands through the loops, pulling them taut around her wrists.

Nora waited for the first blow of the riding crop. But it remained on the bed. Instead, Søren stepped directly behind her and brought his hands around her head and rested them on her face. Slowly and gently he ran his hands over her hair and her ears, her neck and shoulders. He slid them up and down her back, up and down her arms. It had been years since he’d done this, since he’d reclaimed her body by touching every inch of it. He passed his hands down her inner thighs and over her calves. She shivered as his fingers caressed the soles of her bare feet. He worked his way back up her body, touching her stomach, her hips, her breasts and all the way back to her neck. There was no part of her he didn’t touch.

With his hand flat against her throat he tilted her head back so that it rested against his chest.

“Why are you crying, Little One?” he asked.

“Because I love you, sir.”

“Are you scared?”

“Not anymore.”

Søren brought his hands to her face again and touched her tears.

He kissed her neck where the collar met her flesh. When he pulled away, she immediately missed the heat of his body against hers. He took the crop off the bed and Nora braced herself. The first strike hit her a few inches above the back of her knee. A red line of fire burst across her skin. The second strike landed on the middle of her thigh. She let out a gasp of pain. That was going to leave a bruise.

The sound wasn’t the worst part although that whipping noise as it cut the air certainly added to the agony of anticipation. Once she heard that sound, it was too late. No stopping it. He struck her a dozen more times at least, although the pain had gone to her brain and she’d lost her ability to count. A dozen times. A hundred times. What did it matter? Søren would hurt her until she couldn’t take anymore, and then he’d take her until she didn’t hurt anymore.

When the beating ended, Søren brought the crop around her body.

“Kiss,” he ordered, and she kissed the leather tip. “What do we say?”

“Thank you for my beating, sir.”

He didn’t untie her immediately. Instead, he left her there while he wiped the crop with a soft cloth to clean it, wrapped it in the black felt it had come in and put it away in her toy bag. Twelve years ago the thought of her exploring her Dominant side had made him so furious he’d broken her riding crop into three pieces. Now he treated it with the same respect he treated his own implements of sadism. She almost wept again watching him wrap up her riding crop and put it away for her. They had come so far together. She couldn’t wait to see where they went next.

Søren returned to her and pressed his hand into the welts on the back of her body. She flinched and winced as his every touch renewed her pain.

“Are you mine?” he asked her.

“I am yours. Forever.”

And she was hers. But she was his too, and always would be.

At last Søren released her wrists from the rope cuffs. He turned her and bent her over the bed, pushing her feet wide. She heard him removing his clothes and grew wet with the anticipation of having him inside her. From behind her he opened her up with his fingers, and she exhaled in pleasure, her hands digging into the sheets.