Author: Tiffany Reisz

“I never meant to hurt you. I was trying to save you.”

“Save me? From what?”

“Me. My life. My world.”

“I didn’t need saving. I just needed you. I needed our life together in our house. That was our house, you know. You bought it—I know that. But it was ours.”

A lump swelled in Nora’s throat and she had to swallow twice to get rid of it.

“I could have bought your house from you with the money I had in my checking account,” Wesley continued. “That’s pocket change in the Railey family. You don’t know this, you probably didn’t even notice, but every now and then, when you’d send in your mortgage payment to the bank…I’d take the check and tear it up. And I’d make the payment myself, just because I could. So yeah, it was our house.”

Nora didn’t try to speak again. She wasn’t actually sure if she could.

“And you kicked me out. For Søren. You made me leave after living with you for a year and a half. After doing your dishes and cooking your meals and cleaning up your office and carrying you to bed after you passed out from either too much wine or too much writing…or both…I was gone. As if all that meant nothing to you.”

Finally, Nora found her voice. “It meant everything to me. I just…Wesley…” She closed her eyes to obliterate the stars. “You were eighteen years old the day I met you.”

“Seventeen.”

“What?”

“I was seventeen. Birthday’s in September, remember? I turned eighteen during the second week of classes.”

Nora pressed her hand to her stomach. “Seventeen…not even old enough to vote. Seventeen the day I met you, the first day of class. Kingsley called me that morning. I was hungover and on top of Griffin Fiske when the phone rang. One of Kingsley’s best clients was the academic dean of your old school.”

Wesley laughed coldly. “I didn’t want or need to know that.”

“You need to know this. Kingsley called me and ordered me to Yorke, to your school. The guy who was supposed to teach that freshman creative-writing class had a heart attack. They need a sub…I mean, a substitute. I was the one writer they could get on such short notice. God, that was a fucking awful morning. Fighting with Kingsley about the job, fighting with Griffin about how I’d never let him top me, half-sick from a few too many shots the night before…and then my old editor at Libretto sent me seventeen pages of changes on my book. Seventeen fucking pages. I told her she had me confused with Nora Roberts—I wrote smut. I got my six hard fucks in the book. Take it or leave it.

“Bad day. Very bad day. All I wanted that day…all I desperately fucking wanted, was Søren. I ached for him. He would have made all the bad stuff go away. Had I been his that morning, he would have put the fear of God in Griffin, told Kingsley to find someone else, told me to shut up and do whatever my editor told me to do, and then he would have stripped me naked, put me into bed, pressed his beautiful naked body to mine and held me until I fell asleep and woke up human again.”

“I don’t want to hear this. I don’t—”

“Wesley, just listen. The day I met you started out horrible. So horrible all I wanted was to give up on the life I’d made for myself, and go back to Søren and live at his feet. You think he’s terrifying and dangerous. The truth is I was never safer than I was when I was with him. And when I left him…things got scary and they got ugly and they got hard. Some days I loved working for Kingsley. Some days I would nearly puke in my car after a session with a client who paid me to do things no one should have ever done, not for love or money. I was ready to do it, to go back to Søren. I was going to call him…that day. I’d go to your school and check out this stupid class, raise some hell in the hopes that they’d show me the door, and then I was going to call him and ask if I could meet him at the rectory. And once there, I’d give him my collar, get down on my knees and beg him to take me back. That was the plan. And it would have happened. No doubt in my mind. Except for one thing.”

Wesley tore his eyes from the night sky and looked at her.

“What?” he whispered.

Nora smiled.

“I saw you.”

Finally, Nora silenced Wesley.

“I saw you, my Wesley. And I just…forgot. I forgot I was going to go back to him. Totally slipped my mind. And for the rest of that day, after that first class, you were all I could think of. Those big brown eyes of yours and that smile and the way you looked at me like…like—”

“Like I’d never seen anything like you before and didn’t think I ever would again, so I better not take my eyes off you for one second.”

“Yeah.” Nora sighed. “Just like that. And I didn’t even remember to go back to Søren the next day. Or the next. I had you. Remember all those lunches we had in the cafeteria at Yorke? All those looks we got?”

“They couldn’t believe I was having lunch with my hot writing teacher and bringing my Bible with me.”

“Those were some good debates we had. I’m still sad, though, that I never converted you to liberation theology.”

“Too Methodist. Sorry.”

Nora laughed. Then the laugh faded and died. “You said you thought you’d have to leave Yorke. Scared the hell outta me. That’s why I asked you to move in.”

“I only said that hoping you’d say something about missing me. Winter break was coming up. I just wanted your phone number.”

“Well, you got that and then some.”

“More than I ever dreamed I’d get.”

“But still not enough?” Nora met his eyes and tried to smile.

Wesley rested his forehead against hers for the barest second. “That might be one of those questions you shouldn’t ask.”

“Wes, I…” And nothing. Nothing else came out. No words could heal the hole she’d bored in his heart.

“I’m going to bed,” Wesley said as he stepped back and away from her. “It’s late. I’m sorry I brought you down here. We should have stayed up north somewhere. I just wanted you to see my world. But it’s not as pretty as I thought it was.”

“You’re here. And that makes this beautiful country.”

Wesley said nothing, only looked back up at the night sky.

Nora reached out a hand to touch his arm and stopped without making contact. Funny…during those fifteen months apart she’d felt closer to him than she felt right now, only a foot away.

She took a step back. And another. Tomorrow…tomorrow would be better. Tonight they’d sleep and clear their heads if they could.

Three days in and Nora had to admit that things between them would never be like they used to be.

“Nora?”

She spun back around. Wesley turned the full force of his gaze onto her face. His eyes burned as bright as the candles in the gazebo.

“What is it, Wes?”

“I should hate you…but I don’t.”

Nora recognized the look in his eyes. She’d seen it in the eyes of dozens of men—the heat, the hunger, the need... But never had it shone so sweet, so bright and so beautiful.

No, things would never be the same between them again. But they might be better.

For three years Wesley had loved her and wanted her. He’d even saved himself for her.

Three years…she wouldn’t make him wait another day longer.

NORTH

The Past

One day passed. Two days. By day three Kingsley thought he would die if Søren didn’t make some kind of move on him again. He’d never been in this position before. Always he’d been the pursuer, the seducer. He chose a girl and made the right moves on her, and when he invited her to his bedroom and told her to open her legs, she did as she was told. Always. Without fail. Then he let her go and left her to wait by the phone for his next summons.

Now he waited and watched and told himself, “Today…it will be today.” But it wasn’t today. Or the next.

Kingsley had never been more grateful that the bathrooms in the older boys’ dorm had doors that locked. He’d been spending more time than usual there, and not for reasons of hygiene or gastrointestinal distress. This torture, this horrible waiting for Søren to strike, kept Kingsley in a constant state of nervous arousal. He’d come and in mere minutes would be feeling the familiar tightness in his stomach, the ache in his back, the strain in his thighs... Nothing could and would alleviate the need but a night with Søren. A night that never seemed to come.

After one week back at school, Kingsley decided that Søren had been fucking with him. That night in the forest had been violence and nothing more. Not lust, not love…mere violence. It had meant everything to Kingsley and nothing to Søren. At least that’s what he told himself, or tried to. Had he still been Stearns and not Søren, Kingsley might have believed that night had meant nothing. But he knew Søren’s name now and he felt the power of that. So he continued to walk around with his testicles as heavy as lead, his stomach sore, his heart in agony.

On Friday night sleep was impossible for Kingsley. The physical discomfort paled before the mental anguish of wanting Søren and waiting for Søren and getting absolutely nothing from Søren.

At some point Kingsley nodded off, because he dreamed of a house and a bed on fire, and woke up just as the flames began to lick at his legs. His eyes shot open and he sat up in bed, panting. Raising a hand to his forehead, he felt his sweat-soaked skin. He ran his fingers through his long, wet hair.

A cup of cold water came to his lips and Kingsley gulped it eagerly.

Wait. Water?

Kingsley nearly choked on the water, but a hand covered his mouth and silenced his cough.

“Are you sick?”

Kingsley felt the whisper more than heard it.

He shook his head and the hand slowly came away from his mouth.

“Merci,” he said. “Not sick. Just a bad dream.”

The bed shifted slightly and Kingsley’s eyes quickly adjusted to the dark. Søren sat on the edge of his bed, holding the now-empty glass of water.

Kingsley blinked, not quite certain he was awake. Søren on his bed in the middle of the night. He’d dreamed of this. Daydreams, but still dreams.

He’d never seen Søren so casually dressed before. He had on only pants and his white oxford shirt unbuttoned at the collar. No tie. No vest. No jacket. No shoes, even.

No shoes? Kingsley looked at Søren’s bare feet. Silence. He wore no shoes so he could move in the corridors in silence. Good thinking. Kingsley would remember that.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in French. If one of the other boys woke up and overheard them talking, at least he wouldn’t understand what they were saying.

Søren didn’t answer at first. But no words were necessary, not with the look in his eyes. For days now Kingsley had lived on the edge of panic at the mere thought of another night with Søren—or worse, that he’d never have another night with him. But now that Søren sat on his bed, ready to take him, Kingsley went utterly calm. His racing heart stilled. His breathing settled.

Anywhere…he’d follow Søren anywhere. And anything…he would do anything Søren asked of him.

Søren stood up and walked to the door. Reaching under his bed, Kingsley grabbed his T-shirt and a small overnight bag.

As they left the room, Kingsley glanced around to make sure all his dorm mates still slept. As clever as he was with lies, he couldn’t think of any probable explanation for why he and Søren were skulking about in the middle of the night together.

In silence they slipped through the dormitory, the tile of the floor cool and slick beneath Kingsley’s bare feet. He walked behind Søren, not beside him. Søren hadn’t told him to in words, but the imperious nature of his posture demanded Kingsley walk behind, and something inside Kingsley gloried in taking the lesser role.