“I want to talk about pain with you tonight,” he said as the ice cube melted against her skin. “Does this hurt?”

“A little. It makes all my muscles contract.”

“That’s your body’s way of trying to protect itself from the cold. I’m using my bare hands. The ice hurts me, too.”

“Kingsley said dominants and sadists use floggers and canes and stuff so they don’t hurt themselves while inflicting pain.”

“That’s part of it. There is another part.” He lifted the ice cube off her skin and put the remnant of it in her mouth. She swallowed it.

“What’s the other part, sir?”

He fed her another bite of soup. He seemed uninterested in his own dinner.

“People have an instinctive trust of authority figures. It’s almost a cliché. Women are attracted to men in uniform. Boys grow up and marry women who remind them of their mothers. We fantasize about our teachers, our doctors—”

“Our priests?” She grinned at him.

“Even priests.” He took another ice cube out of the glass. This time he ran it down her neck and over her chest. Goose bumps exploded all over her body.

“Do you see me as an authority figure?”

“Yes, sir. Obviously.”

“What sort?”

She bit her bottom lip out of simple nervousness. Søren rubbed his thumb over her mouth to remind her not to do that. Dumb girls. She’d never forget that talk.

“It won’t make me uncomfortable if you say you see me as a father figure. I’m addressed as ‘Father’ daily by people twice my age.”

“People would say it was weird to be in love with someone who’s like a father to you.”

“Why do we care what those people think?”

A good question. She had an even better answer for it.

“We don’t.”

“Do you enjoy submitting to my authority?”

“I do. It’s embarrassing right now. But I trust you. I know you’re not going to rape me or kill me. Just humiliate me by making me eat dinner naked and forcing me to talk about your penis. Sir.”

“This is only the beginning, Little One. There will be other, greater humiliations. And we aren’t even close to playing with real pain yet.”

“I want to do everything with you, anything you want to do, sir.”

Søren leaned in and kissed her. She loved these nights when they were together at Kingsley’s and could be together without fear and without judgment from the outside world.

“Go stand by the fireplace,” Søren ordered. “Warm up.”

“I’m fine, I promise.”

“I gave you an order.”

Eleanor stood up and, feeling ridiculous in her high heels and collar, went to the fireplace. Søren picked up the wineglass and brought it over.

“Feel better?”

“Yes,” she admitted without shame. “I thought that ice cube might kill me for a second there, sir.”

“So how does the fire make you feel?”

“Warm. Grateful. Relieved.”

“Relieved? Grateful? If you hadn’t been cold to start with, how would the fire make you feel?”

“Warmer, I guess.”

“So it would be only a physical sensation, not an emotional reaction?”

“Right.”

“If you were in pain and then suddenly the pain stopped and you experienced pleasure, what would you feel?”

“Pleasure, of course. And relief. And gratitude. Happiness.”

“So again, an emotional reaction instead of simply a physical reaction?”

“Yeah, that. Is that what S&M does?”

“Precisely that. Instead of the simple pleasures of vanilla sex, S&M adds the emotional and psychological component. Fear. Humiliation. Trust. Longing. Desire. Relief. Gratitude. Also, a young woman like yourself who feared her father and didn’t respect or love him can explore those feelings with a father figure she trusts and loves and has a healthy fear of.”

“Sounds like good therapy. With orgasms.”

“I won’t even charge you by the hour.” He dipped his head and kissed her again. She heard a clink as he sat the wineglass on the mantel and sighed as he wrapped both arms around her.

He ran his hands up and down her naked back, cupped her bottom.

Taking her hand, he led her to the fainting couch. He sat down first and he pointed at the floor. She knelt at his feet and rested her head in his lap. He tickled the back of her shoulders with his fingertips.

“Now that I’m collared, can we … you know?” She made a hand gesture.

“Use your words, Eleanor.”

“Fuck.”

“No,” he said. “Not yet. I know it’s not the answer you want, but I have my reasons for waiting. Sex was created by God and He made it pleasurable. But He also made it complicated. I’ve had intercourse with two people in my life, Eleanor. Two. And I will feel a lifelong bond with these people. I won’t make that bond with you until I’m certain you’re ready for it.”

“Do you think you should only have sex with someone you’re in love with?”

“Complicated question. Sex between women and men is especially complicated. There’s always the risk of conceiving. I would never tell anyone else who they should or should not be intimate with. For my own part, I choose not to do it except with someone I can imagine having a connection with for the rest of my life.”