Author: Tiffany Reisz

“So that’s why you knew—when Nora fell that night she went back to you, when she fell on purpose—you knew she was doing it because she loved me.”

“Exactly. She pushed you away for the same reason I pushed her away. That deliberate act of cruelty, like my deliberate act of cruelty to her, was born of love.”

Søren stared into the wineglass, the liquid lapping the sides of the cup like blood.

“I only hated you because I wanted her to be safe,” Wes explained. “I don’t want you to think I hated you for any other reason. And I don’t want her with me because I think you’re evil or something. Not anymore. I don’t like you. But I have to admit I don’t know if I’d like anyone Nora was in love with. No one’s good enough for her, you know? Not even me.”

“I can empathize. I have trouble imagining finding anyone good enough for Laila.”

“I’m glad you get it. It’s not personal. I’m protective, I guess. The way you’re protective of Laila.”

“Protective is one word for it. Paternalistic might be another.” Søren gave him a pointed look.

“Yeah, it might be,” Wes reluctantly admitted.

“I only want Eleanor to be safe, as well. We want the same thing for her.”

“Thank you. I mean, for not putting me in the hospital that day.” Tonight he’d apologized to Søren and even said thank you to the man. He better get the hell out of here before he converted to Catholicism next.

“Eleanor would never forgive me if I broke one of her favorite toys.”

Wesley started to argue but he saw the glint of amusement in his eyes.

“You do that on purpose, don’t you?” Wesley asked. “Goad people?”

“Only worthy adversaries.”

“Then I’ll take it as a compliment.” Wesley paused to yawn into his hands.

“Go, Wesley. You should sleep. It’s late.”

“I don’t know if I can. I see too much when I close my eyes.”

“Eleanor would want you to take care of yourself.”

“She’d want the same for you.”

Søren didn’t answer. He opened the fallboard of the piano again. A few stray and beautiful notes wandered about the room—Brahms’s famous lullaby. Wesley had never heard anyone play piano sarcastically before.

Wesley started for the door. Sleeping...that did sound like a good idea. Maybe he’d go to sleep and when he woke up it would all be over. Kingsley would have gotten Nora out of the house and he’d find her sitting on the edge of his bed when he opened his eyes.

“Wesley?” Søren’s voice stopped him at the threshold.

“Yeah?”

Søren laid his fingers on the keys but played no notes.

“This past week when she was with you at your home...was she happy?”

The question came so out of left field, Wesley couldn’t even answer it at first. Was Nora happy with him? The entire week he’d spent with Nora flashed across his mind’s eye like a movie played at top speed. The nights together, the mornings, the sexual discoveries... Then voices intruded into his memories. He heard his father calling her a “whore.” He heard his own angry voice demanding to know why she pulled back from him every time they got close to sleeping together. He saw Talel’s horse dead on the stable floor and the heartbreak in Nora’s eyes. The fight about how he couldn’t do the things to her in bed that she needed. But the makeup sex had been amazing. Then Track Beauty going down and only Nora could get her back up again...and Nora’s sobs in the shower when she realized what she’d done.

“Yes. She was happy with me.”

Søren stared at his own hands resting on the keys.

“Good.”

“Kingsley...you trust him, right?” Wesley asked, not sure he trusted the man at all.

“With my life,” Søren said, still not looking at him.

“Do you trust him with hers?”

“Same answer,” Søren said. “Same question.”

Without another word, Wesley left Søren alone with his wine and his music. He trudged up the stairs feeling so much older than his twenty years. The past two days had taken years off his life. How did people do this—survive hostage crises and wars without losing their minds? Everything felt off, felt foreign, the sky had turned the wrong color. Even sleep seemed like the enemy. But maybe if he slept he would wake up and discover it had all been a dream. He’d wake up and Nora would be there in his bed, alive and beautiful. What he wouldn’t give to have a beautiful woman lying in his bed when he opened the door. Would God judge him for praying for that? He didn’t care. He prayed for it, anyway.

He opened the door to the bedroom he’d been given and switched on the lamp. He saw the two longest, shapeliest legs he’d ever seen in his life peeking out from a pair of short white shorts.

God was in a prayer-answering mood tonight.

25

THE QUEEN

By the time Kingsley and Søren returned to the room, Eleanor had fallen asleep on her stomach. She awoke to the sensation of someone sliding inside her from behind. A hand covering her wrist held her down. She didn’t speak, didn’t protest, didn’t care if it was Kingsley or Søren inside her. It gave her the greatest pleasure to lie there, to feign sleep, and let whomever it was take her. Unable to resist peeking, Eleanor finally opened her eyes and saw a glimpse of olive-skinned forearm marred by old scars and fresh bruises. With one glance it all made sense, everything fell into place, all questions were answered. She knew none of the details and all of the truth. Kingsley and Søren had never gotten the wine.

She buried her face deep into the pillow to silence herself. They’d certainly be suspicious if they heard her laughing. No wonder Søren had been so easy to arouse tonight. And no wonder Kingsley, although ceaselessly charming and seductive with her from day one, had always watched her with suspicious, wary eyes. They’d talk tomorrow and she’d tell him she didn’t care, didn’t mind, wouldn’t stand in their way. She thought it was funny, thought it was sexy. Goddamn, she couldn’t stop looking at the bright blue bruise on Kingsley’s wrist, the twin to the bruise on her own arm. Søren and Kingsley? Lovers? Maybe if she asked nicely, they’d let her watch next time.

When Kingsley had finished with her, finished in her, Søren took his turn. He brought her to orgasm with his mouth and fingers before biting his way up her body and sliding into her. When he kissed her she tasted both her and Kingsley on Søren’s lips.

An hour passed, maybe two—she didn’t speak, not once. She gave herself over to them in total surrender, becoming nothing but a vessel to be used for their desires. She slept again and woke up in the final minutes of night right before it surrendered to dawn. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness but when they did she saw the outline of Søren’s naked back. He sat at the edge of the bed, one hand behind him to steady himself, the other hand... She saw another hand, not Søren’s, clinging to the edge of the bed. Søren’s head fell back in obvious pleasure and a soft sigh escaped his lips.

She closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

Not long after, she felt a hand on her shoulder and awoke to Søren at eye level.

“Time to go, Little One.”

She dressed by dawn light and kissed a sleeping Kingsley goodbye.

On the way from the room she glanced over her shoulder and saw Kingsley lying on his side, the sheets around his hips, his naked back on display. On his shoulder she saw a black-and-blue bruise the size of Søren’s hand and another mark that looked like a bite. She met Søren’s eyes and he brought a finger to his lips.

“Why?” she whispered.

“For his sake, not mine.”

Once safely ensconced in the back of the Rolls Royce, Eleanor curled up on Søren’s lap. He ran his fingers through her hair, traced the outline of her lips with his fingertips.

“So you and Kingsley?” She laughed as she rolled onto her back and looked up at him.

“Kingsley and I,” he said. “It’s a very long story, Little One.”

“We’ve got an hour. How about the CliffsNotes version?”

He smiled at her, tapped her nose.

“Tonight,” he began, “that was the first night we’ve touched each other in sixteen years. It may be that long before it happens again, if it ever happens again.”

“Why not? I don’t care. I mean, I do care but not that way.”

“It’s for the best,” he said, and the smile left his eyes. “Trust me, it is for the best.”

* * *

“What did he mean, it’s for the best?” Marie-Laure asked, her eyes blazing with old hatred.

“Because of what Kingsley is, it was for the best he and Søren didn’t sleep together. Or play together. Not alone.”

“And what is Kingsley? What is my brother?”

Nora exhaled through her nose. For all their difficulties she loved Kingsley and hated betraying him to this madwoman. But perhaps if she knew about them, maybe she would understand and hate them all a little less.

“I was a professional Dominatrix for years so you have to believe I know what I’m talking about here. I’ve seen it all. And I mean all. So when I say this you should know it’s not an exaggeration. Your brother is an extreme masochist. He doesn’t want to get hurt. He wants to be destroyed. Søren told me that in the car ride back home that morning. I’ll admit I thought it might be a little self-serving. How convenient for a sadist to say that the partner he brutalized was even more into receiving the pain than he was into giving it? Then I became a Dominatrix, Kingsley’s Dominatrix, and I realized that Søren hadn’t been exaggerating at all.”

Marie-Laure got out of bed and stood at the window. As soon as her back was turned, Nora worked the razor blade out of her back pocket. Damon had tied her only with rope tonight. She couldn’t waste this chance. Energy surged through her, adrenaline. She had a chance. Finally.

“An extreme masochist...poor dear,” Marie-Laure said, her voice far away. “If only he were here, I would give him all the pain he wanted.”

“Then I’m glad he’s not here right now.”

Nora remembered that early-morning ride back to Connecticut, Søren’s voice soft and solemn as he recounted the story of his nights with Kingsley when they were teenagers...

“We can’t be together anymore, Little One—an extreme masochist with an extreme sadist? We were like a two-headed ouroboros devouring each other. I know our encounters scared him. They must have. They terrified me.”

“You? Scared?”

“You can’t even imagine what it’s like to have someone’s life in your hands. Especially the most precious life, the life of the one person in the world you’ve ever loved...until you, of course.”

Søren’s voice trailed off and her heart had broken for him.

“You still love him, don’t you?”

Søren paused before answering. He stared into the morning light of the city.

“Yes.”

She’d shivered a little at the simple honesty in the one single word.

“But you must know it takes nothing away from us, away from my love for you, any more than my love for you takes anything away from what I feel for him. Not that he understands that.”

“I get it. I do. Does Kingsley know how you still feel?”

“No. It’s for the best.”

“You don’t want him to know, do you?”

“Telling him that I still love him and then refusing to be with him? That’s a sort of sadism even I won’t touch. Please don’t tell him. Even tonight I went too far.” She heard a strange new note in his voice, something she didn’t recognize. Regret, perhaps? Repentance?