Carefully she eased two fingers inside herself. Going inside always made her nervous, which added to the excitement. She felt resistance against her fingers, like something would rip if she pushed in too hard. But she had to go inside. Her body wanted it. The heat inside her vagina surprised her. Was it from the hot water in the bathtub, or did that fire come from within her? Maybe it came from Søren. With her eyes closed she could easily imagine lying on a bed, naked and waiting. And in her mind, Søren crawled over her, kissing her stomach, her hips, her br**sts. In her mind she reached for him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, pulling him to her. Had he had sex before? Or was he a virgin like she was? What would he be like in bed? Gentle? Careful? Rough? Did he talk or stay silent? Would he tell her he loved her or simply show her all night long?

She felt the pressure building in her lower back and stomach as she rubbed her clitoris again with her thumb. Her body rose in the water as muscles deep in her hips and her bottom started to contract and flutter. She felt like a taut cello string had been plucked inside her. Everything hummed and vibrated. At last the pressure reached its peak. The orgasm sent her clitoris pulsing hard between her fingers as if it had a heartbeat of its own. And within her, her vagina clenched over and over again, pressing against itself. In that final moment of pleasure, Eleanor imagined the moment Søren entered her body and buried himself deep in her, penetrating her like Teresa’s angel had, all the way into her entrails.

As the climax waned, Eleanor sat up in the water and washed her hands and arms with soap. She’d started sweating in the bath so she turned the tap on and ran cold water now, splashing her face with it.

Feeling relaxed and clean, Elle got out of the bath and wrapped a towel around herself. She drained the tub and hid the candles away. Friday night. Best night of the week.

Eleanor padded to her room and curled up in bed. She found her secret notebook she kept hidden behind her headboard. She had to write down all the thoughts she had about Søren. In her mind she could see his pulse throbbing in the hollow of his throat and his unusually dark eyelashes casting shadows on his face. She wanted to capture those images before they were gone. They lived and died quick deaths in her mind. Ink could preserve them long after her mind had moved onto new fantasies.

Søren thrust into her, she wrote. Thrust? She’d already used the word thrust twice in this scene. She got out her thesaurus and flipped to the entry for thrust.

“Ram, jab, prod, push, poke, drill,” it read.

Drill? He drilled into her?

“He’s f**king me, not installing new kitchen cabinets,” she said to her useless thesaurus. Whatever. Back to writing. She’d fix her thrust issue later.

Lost as she was in her writing, she at first ignored the tapping on her window. A branch, a bird, a burglar coming to rob them—she couldn’t give a damn about that now. Only when the tapping morphed into knocking did she turn her head toward the sound.

Eleanor peered through the dirty glass and spied a man’s face. She flung the window open.

“Dad, what the hell?” she whispered.

“Long story. I need you to get your things and come with me.” His face wore no smile. She saw fear in his dark green eyes.

“Dad, what’s—”

“Get your stuff right now,” he ordered.

“Okay, okay. I’ll be right back.” She started to pull away but her dad grabbed her hand.

“Put on your school uniform. I’ll be waiting in the car.”

He released her hand and stepped back into the darkness.

In the bathroom Eleanor stripped out of her pajama shorts and T-shirt and pulled on her abandoned school uniform—plaid skirt, white polo shirt, tights and boots. She’d put her hair in pigtails when she’d gotten home from school in a failed effort to tame the black waves. She looked like some kind of cartoon character with the pigtails, the combat boots and the Catholic-schoolgirl getup. But her dad had promised to explain so she grabbed her coat, grabbed her backpack and snuck out the window, shutting it behind her.

A beige Camry idled across the street. She’d never seen her father in a car so nondescript before. Bad sign.

“So what’s up?” she asked as she threw herself in the passenger seat and her dad took off at twice the speed limit.

“I’m in trouble,” he said.

“How bad?”

Her dad paused before answering.

“Bad.”

“Oh, f**k.”

“Yeah, I got into some money trouble a few months ago. I had to take out a loan. They called it in early. I either pay by morning or—”

Eleanor gripped her knees in fear. Her hands shook. Her stomach flip-flopped.

“Or I don’t.”

She leaned forward and breathed through her hands. “Or you don’t …”

Her dad tried to shield her from what really happened at his shop. And when he talked about his business partners, he never used the words mafia or mob—because he didn’t have to. She was young, not stupid. She’d seen enough gangster movies to know the score. If her father didn’t pay back his loan by dawn, he was in trouble. Bad trouble.

“What do you want from me?” she asked.

“We need quick money. Manhattan. I have the crew out and working. We need more.”

“Dad, I can’t—”

“You can. You’re faster than any of the guys on my crew.”

“That’s only in the garage. I’ve never done this on the street before.”