Part 54 (1/2)

For an eternity she could do nothing but breathe through the pain, breathe it into her and breathe it back out again. But as he moved in her, the pain waned and something else took its place. Something ... desire, hunger, greed for more of him. S0ren slid a hand between their bodies and kneaded her c.l.i.toris, stroking it as she ground her pelvis into his hand. A deep and primal need overtook her. She writhed underneath him, writhed and thrashed. Her inner walls throbbed against him. He pulled out and pushed in again as he teased her c.l.i.toris, dragging her close to a climax again.

The moment she saw him the first time all those years ago, she'd felt as if a golden cord had encircled her at the sight of him and tightened with each step toward him. Now she felt the cord again tight around her hips and her heart. As he pressed deeper and deeper into her, she felt the cord lifting her, carrying her higher and higher until her heart sc.r.a.ped the sky. The cord broke at its apex and she crashed to earth. She came apart, crying out as her climax crashed through her. This was it, the moment she had lived for and longed for since she'd first seen him. Communion was theirs at last.

S0ren pushed faster against her and with a final thrust that left her gasping, he came inside her, driving into her, pouring into her endlessly as she shuddered around him and shattered beneath him. He lingered inside her after coming, devouring her mouth with his. At last he pulled out and blood and s.e.m.e.n rushed out, pooling underneath her.

Once more S0ren knelt between her thighs. He lapped at her sore inner lips, at her still throbbing c.l.i.toris. She rose up again and crashed once more. When S0ren kissed her this time, she tasted blood.

He pushed his fingers into her tender opening. Soon he mounted her again, entered her again, f.u.c.ked her again. Their first time might have had pretensions of lovemaking. The second time he didn't bother with any of the niceties of civilized s.e.x. He f.u.c.ked her brutally, unapologetically, f.u.c.ked her like he would never have another chance to f.u.c.k her again this side of heaven and h.e.l.l, and he would make the most of it even if it killed them both.

After he came a second time inside her, he pulled out and stared down at her naked, bleeding body. Welts and bruises scored her back. Cuts covered her feet. Her v.a.g.i.n.a felt lacerated from his thrusts. She'd come four times tonight and knew one thing for certain from the look in his eyes.

He'd only begun to hurt her tonight.

The cane came out again. Then the flogger. He unlocked her from the bonds and brought her to her hands and knees and entered her still bleeding body as she steadied herself with one hand on the headboard, one hand digging into the sheets. His hands roamed over her bruised back, her thighs and hips. He grasped her by the back of the neck and held her still as he rammed into her from behind. She felt like property in his hands, owned, possessed and enslaved.

She lost herself in the night, ceased to be Eleanor, ceased to be a person with a mind or a will of her own. She was His and His became her only ident.i.ty. If someone asked her who she was, ”I'm His” would be the answer. He pushed four fingers into her, more than she'd ever dreamed she could take. And yet she took them and then him again because he gave her no choice in the matter.

”How much more can you take?” he asked as he pushed her down to her stomach.

”I can take anything you want to give me,” she said. The s.e.x and the beatings had sent her into a near-ecstatic state of peace and bliss. The pain had anesthetized her. She barely felt her body anymore. It was as if she floated above the bed. The hardest strikes of the flogger only tickled. The most vicious blow of the cane barely stung. S0ren put her on her stomach and pushed into her again. For sixteen years he'd abstained from s.e.x. He seemed determined to make up for lost time all in one night. Let him. Let him f.u.c.k her until neither one of them could move anymore. She begged to drink from this cup. She would drink until she choked on the wine of his body and his sadism. She would drink until she drowned in it.

S0ren f.u.c.ked her a fourth time, pausing every few minutes to bite her back and shoulders. Then he knelt on her thighs and struck her with a thin reed cane that left a line of fire on her skin wherever it landed. Never had she dreamed he would beat her while inside her. She should never have doubted his sadism. She would never doubt it again. As he rode her with long, hard thrusts, he spoke to her and told her how proud he was to own her, how she was his most precious possession, how she pleased him more than she could imagine, how he would love her always and never let her go.

By dawn she could take no more from him. By dawn he could give no more to her. He gathered her body, bruised from shoulder to knee, front and back, and held her in his arms.

They didn't speak of what had happened between them. What could they have said to each other? He had shown her his soul. She had given him her heart. They had joined their bodies and an immutable bond now sealed them together. And nothing could break them apart because nothing could break them.

When she awoke the next morning, the sun had joined them in bed.

Eleanor flinched as she stretched against the sheets. The bottoms of her feet throbbed. No doubt she still had shards of gla.s.s embedded in her skin. Her shoulders and back ached as if she'd been stretched on a rack. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and nipples were sore and swollen. Inside she was bruised and raw. She couldn't recall ever being in this much pain.

It was the best morning of her life.

S0ren opened his eyes and gazed at her like he was trying to remember where he'd seen her before. She kissed him. He kissed her back.

”So now what?” she asked.

S0ren smiled and something in that smile told her she was in the biggest trouble of her life.

”Everything.”

33.

Nora NORA OPENED HER EYES AND ACROSS FROM HER IN the bed was Nico, not S0ren. And she was glad to see him there, glad enough she smiled.

”Is that the end of the story?” Nico asked. She could see his eyelids were heavy, as heavy as her heart.

”The story never ends. It's only the storyteller who grows too tired to keep telling it.”

”What happened next?”

”Kingsley came for me at S0ren's house. He came right into S0ren's bedroom and carried me to the car. I spent a week at his house recovering from that one night. Your father ...” She paused and conjured the memory. She could still feel it all the way to her feet. ”He put me on his bed and sat at my feet and with a pair of tweezers cleaned the shards of gla.s.s out of my skin. He said some poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d had to pick the shrapnel out of his chest once. This was his way of returning the kindness to the universe.”

”What happened with you and your mother?”

”She did it.” Nora rolled her eyes. ”She joined a convent. When I was in college she went back to school. The order she wanted to join-the Sisters of Saint Monica-required the postulants to have a bachelor's degree and no debt. Took her four years, but she got there. She took her first vows when I was twenty-four.”

”Were you happy for her?”

”No,” Nora admitted. ”We weren't even speaking then. I moved back in with her after college to try to mend the rift. Didn't work. Instead she found out about me and S0ren. It was a bad time. I didn't speak to her for three years. So ... you should forgive Kingsley and your mother.” She poked him in the chest. ”Trust me on this. Do it now before it's too late.”

”I want to love him,” Nico said.

He gave her a tired smile.

”I'll tell you the story of him and Sam and his club, The 8th Circle, one day. Then you'll love him.”

”Tell me now.”

”No, it's almost dawn.”

”My vines need me,” he said, reaching for her and pulling her close.

”Do you like being needed?” She settled against his chest, so broad and so warm. ”Doesn't it scare you?”

”I like knowing another life depends on me for its being. I like proving it made the right choice to put its faith in me. Does it scare you?”

”Being needed? Yes. Very much. Probably one reason why I decided long ago I didn't want children, not even S0ren's. And it's why I've never owned anyone.”

”Never?”

She shook her head. ”I've had pets-human ones. But that was just play at the club. I never owned anyone the way S0ren owned me. It's terrifying to be needed. Being responsible for another human being? For years? Sounds like a prison sentence. I don't even have plants.”

”You should try it,” he said. ”It's not as bad as you think it is. It's not always a prison. Sometimes it's a palace. Subjects need their kings and queens.”

He brushed her hair off her shoulder. Nora smiled to herself.

”What?” Nico asked, touching her lips. ”What's the smile for?”

”You just reminded me of something I said once-it's nothing.” She kissed his fingertips.

”You said you never needed S0ren, but he needed you.”

”He did, yes. Even after I left him he would call me sometimes and tell me he needed me. I loved him so I went to him.”

”Did that feel like a prison sentence to you?”