The Angel (The Original Sinners) (13 page)

One thing they had been able to talk about was safety. Tomorrow
he’d start taking the sub-cocktail, as Nora called it. vitamin K and zinc, to
help his bruises heal faster. During their scenes he was to use the
green/yellow/red light system to let her know how he was faring. And, of course,
his safe word would still be what she’d given him their one night they spent
together: wings.

Michael remembered that night, that moment when he’d told her
his name. Nora had smiled and reminded him that Michael was the name of God’s
chief archangel, God’s fiercest warrior. A fierce warrior? Whatever. His father
had named him and obviously expected a different sort of son. His dad would have
been much happier with a masculine, athletic son. Not the pale, thin, almost
feminine-looking kid he’d ended up with. A guy like Griffin, that’s what his dad
would have wanted in a son. With his sinewed muscles and powerful build, his
strong nose and jaw, Griffin was the sort of man anyone would want—men, women,
everybody. He’d said as much to Nora when she asked him about his parents.

“Your father would find as much fault with Griffin as he does
with you,” she’d said, caressing his forehead with the loving touch of a mother
checking for a fever. God, when was the last time his mom had even touched him?
“Griffin was a hell-raiser of the highest order when he was your age, and didn’t
even begin to settle down until his twenties. Plus he’s crazy kinky and
bisexual.”

“Griffin’s bisexual?” Michael had asked, a strange thrill
running through his body.

“He is. So, you know, watch your back, beautiful,” she said,
winking down at him.

Michael had groaned. “Guys aren’t supposed to be beautiful,”
he’d protested as Nora stroked the high arch of his cheekbone.

“But angels are,” she said and gave him another soft kiss. And
then she’d brought her lips to his ear and whispered, “Saturday night.”

“What’s Saturday night?” he’d asked.

“That’s when I’m going to beat you and fuck you again. If
you’re ready. Ready?”

“Very ready, ma’am.”

Michael exhaled loudly, irritated at himself. He’d grown hard
again just thinking about Saturday night, which fell an agonizing two days from
now. And Nora had already warned him he couldn’t come without her permission.
Apparently Father S imposed the same rule on her during the two years he’d
trained her before they became lovers. She said that being a madly-in-love
eighteen-year-old virgin with a raging libido who had to get permission from her
priest before she could even masturbate might have been the worst torture Søren
had ever inflicted on her. Caning was a breeze in comparison.

Slowly Michael crawled out of bed, pulled on his boxers and
T-shirt, and walked to his bathroom. No, he corrected himself. Griffin’s
bathroom. Everything belonged to Griffin, and Michael was merely a guest in this
house. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, get used to this luxury. At the end of the summer,
he’d move from his mother’s small house to an even smaller dorm room where he’d
go back to being alone. If he got used to this house and the people in it, it
would hurt so much worse when he left it in August.

Leaning over the sink, Michael splashed cold water on his
flushed face. He brushed his teeth and combed out his hair with his
fingers—routine actions that helped his arousal die down a little. His stomach
rumbled. How long had it been since he’d eaten? Yesterday maybe? Griffin had
told him where to find the kitchen and that anything in it was fair game. Food.
Food was good. Food would distract him.

He crept out of the room in the nursery wing and headed for the
main stairs. He remembered Griffin’s rather idiomatic instructions—down the
fuck-off big stairs in the middle, left at that stupid marble whatever that I
want to get rid of but Mom would kill me if I did, past the dining room with the
anal table, and the kitchen’s on the right.

“The anal table?” Michael had asked.

“Perfect height for anal sex,” Griffin explained.

So Michael descended the fuck-off big stairs in the middle of
the hall and turned left at the marble statue, which was some kind of horse, he
guessed. A door on the left side of the hall stood slightly ajar. From inside
escaped soft sounds of pleasure.

Quietly he crept to the door. Inside the expansive, opulent
dining room Michael saw Nora and Griffin. Nora lay naked on the center of the
enormous table. Long cords of red silk bound her wrists to the table legs while
her own legs lay splayed open at the edge. Griffin, wearing nothing but leather
pants that rested low on his trim hips, stood between her knees as he worked his
hand into her. Carefully he pushed first three, then four and finally all five
of his fingers inside her straining body. Michael winced but Nora seemed to
enjoy it. Her back arched and her hips rose off the table as Griffin’s entire
hand disappeared inside her.

If a cannon had gone off behind Michael, he still wouldn’t have
been able to look away. Nora had such beautiful breasts, and they rose and fell
with her every ragged breath. The sight of Griffin’s muscled, tattooed arm
wrist-deep in Nora brought Michael nearly to orgasm from watching alone. He
never thought he had a leather fetish or anything, but for some reason the sight
of Griffin in leather pants, looking like some kind of rock star bathed in sweat
and candlelight, brought every part of Michael’s body to full attention.

He heard Griffin whispering carnal encouragements to Nora, who
rode his hand with hungry undulations of her pelvis as she pulled at the scarlet
scarves. Her breathing grew harsh and labored. Griffin’s fingers massaged her
swollen clitoris until her entire body went rigid for what seemed like an
eternity before she released an exalted cry.

Her orgasm over, Nora lay still for a minute panting and
laughing a little as Griffin gingerly worked his way out of her. He untied her
wrists from the table and used the scarf to clean his hand. Reaching out, he
grabbed Nora’s spent body and lifted her off the table with a casual display of
strength. A small puddle of fluid glimmered on the table’s polished surface
right where Nora’s hips had rested.

Pulling Nora to him, Griffin hissed a harsh command into her
ear as he took the silk scarf and tied her wrists behind her back. Nora
protested, pouted, begged a little. But Griffin only took her by the neck and
pushed her onto the floor. He leaned against the table as Nora sunk to her knees
in front of him. Michael nearly moaned out loud as Griffin freed his erection
from the confines of his leather pants. Good God, Griffin was seriously well
hung. Michael couldn’t tear his eyes away as Griffin grabbed the back of Nora’s
head and forced her to take his impressive girth into her mouth. Griffin braced
himself on the table with one hand as he moved in and out slowly.

Michael knew he shouldn’t be watching this. Griffin and Nora
were having sex. No way would they want him gaping at them the whole time. But
he couldn’t leave, couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop staring at the line at the
center of Griffin’s chest, the line that started at his strong neck, trailed
down his broad chest, divided his ridged stomach and led down all the way into
Nora’s mouth. Griffin’s stomach tightened further as a little grunt of pleasure
passed his lips.

The hand in Nora’s hair now caressed her face, her cheek, and
Griffin stared down at her with hooded, lust-filled eyes. He playfully tapped
her on the chin and winked. Winked? At the wink, Nora’s rather occupied mouth
twitched with a little smile. Until now Michael had always thought of kink as
something dark and dangerous, something for fetishists and freaks like him. Now
it suddenly dawned on him. BDSM was a game—a game where both players won.

Griffin returned Nora’s smile before another desperate breath
escaped his lips. Michael’s heart clenched at the obvious affection Griffin felt
for Nora. Would someone ever do that to him—smile at him like that, touch him
like that, with affection, with love during sex? He worried constantly he would
never find anyone to love him. Finding someone who understood his sexuality and
didn’t judge him for it seemed a near-impossible dream. Nora had Father S, and
surely Griffin had tons of lovers who satisfied all his wants and desires. Would
Michael ever have that? Surely most girls would make a run for it the second he
told them he needed to be dominated in the bedroom. And Nora sort of seemed like
one of a kind.

With a heavy heart, Michael finally pulled away from the
cracked-open door and headed back to his room. Once again the demon of envy
danced in his chest. He stopped and rested his head against the wall to breathe
for a few seconds.

The scene he’d just witnessed flashed in front of his mind’s
eye again, but this time it was him in the dining room. He could feel the plush
Persian rug soft but prickly under his knees, the cord taut around his wrists.
In shock, Michael’s eyes flew open as he realized for one second he didn’t envy
Griffin because he got to be with Nora.

He envied Nora.

10

Nora checked the time on the clock in her bedroom and
made a quick mental calculation. Sunset hit at about nine o’clock and it was
just six. She still had three hours to kill before Michael’s first session. She
didn’t want to have sex with Griffin first. Knowing him, he’d wear her out and
she wouldn’t have as much to give Michael. Too wound up to write, she decided to
do the next best thing.

Digging into her purse, she found her cell phone and hit number
three on her speed dial. A slightly groggy voice answered after three rings.

“Nora, do I need to remind you that it’s midnight in England?”
came Zach Easton’s sexy British accent over the line.

“Were you dreaming about me again?” she teased as she sat on
the floor and stretched her legs out in a V.

“God, I’m never going to hear the end of that, am I?”

“Your fault for telling me you had a sex dream about me,” she
said, leaning over to stretch her back. A few weeks ago, Zach had sounded a
little odd on the phone when she’d called him one morning. He’d confessed he’d
just woken up from an intensely sexual dream about her. They’d been back at her
S&M club, The 8th Circle, and playing in her old dungeon. She never got it
out of him exactly what they’d been doing, but it must have been pretty steamy
for him to tell her he needed a good five minutes alone before they could finish
their conversation.

“I shall never do it again, I assure you,” Zach groused but
Nora heard the smile in his voice.

Nora flipped over and raised her hips off the ground.

“I had this dream the other night that I was eating oysters at
Sacred Heart, and Søren rode in on a unicorn. I thought it meant something, but
when I told him about it, he said I wasn’t allowed to eat Cajun food before bed
anymore. That man has no respect for Jungian archetypes.”

Zach sighed. “Yes, well, Gracie and I have the same
problem.”

“Speaking of your wife, where is she? I want to ask her how to
say ‘Roughly from behind’ in Welsh.”

“Gracie’s in the bathroom taking her temperature.”

“She has to do that in the bathroom?”

Zach coughed. Nora understood.

“Oh…I see. Also, now I’m wondering if they make butt plugs with
built-in thermometers. You know, for when you might have a slight fever and the
urge for anal penetration.”

“Your mind is both fascinating and repulsive,” Zach said.

“Thank you. I try. I’m guessing you two are still attempting to
conceive?”

“Hence the constant temperature taking.”

“Try dominating Grace in bed.” Nora lowered her hips to the
floor and twisted her knees to the side.

“Is kink your answer for everything, Eleanor?”

Nora winced at the use of her birth name. Retaliation was in
order.

“No, Zechariah. It’s just the answer for everything sexual. For
male dominants, kink causes a testosterone surge. That can up your sperm count.
For female submissives, kink can cause the body to release opiate-like hormones.
She relaxes deeply. Makes conceiving easier when you’re less stressed. There is
a method to my madness. Tie her up. Knock her up. Doctor’s orders.”

“You may very well be my new favorite doctor.”

“You’re welcome. You can borrow my speculum. Borrow only. You
have to give it back.” Nora twisted her legs to the other side and let out a
small grunt of pain-pleasure as her back loudly popped.

“Are you having sex right now?” he asked in response to the
sound.

“Nope. Just doing some pre-sex stretching,” she said, turning
over into a yoga downward-dog position. “I’m fucking a teenager tonight. Gotta
be prepared.”

“Fucking a teenager?” Zach asked, laughing. “Good to hear both
you and Wesley have moved on.”

At the mention of Wesley’s name, Nora dropped the phone and
collapsed onto her side.

She heard Zach saying her name and she grabbed the phone off
the floor.

“Nora? Everything all right?” Zach asked.

“What did you say about Wesley?” she asked, her hands almost
shaking. “Do you talk to him?”

She heard Zach exhale heavily. “I’m sorry. I’m still
half-asleep. I shouldn’t have said anything. Yes, Wesley and I exchange emails
on occasion. He said you won’t answer his calls so he emails me to check on
you.”

Nora pulled herself off the floor and sat on the edge of her
bed.

“You still talk to Wesley,” she repeated, stunned by the news.
It never once occurred to her that Zach and Wesley would stay in touch.

“Just an email every few weeks,” Zach said. “He worries about
you.”

“Why?” she asked, her heart pounding against her rib cage.

“Why? Oh, I don’t know. You’re sleeping with a sadist?”

“Søren’s the best man on the face of the earth,” Nora said
sharply.

“You say that and I want to believe you,” Zach said. “And if
any woman on the face of the earth can handle being with such a man, it’s you.
But Wesley’s a teenage boy and rather romantically inclined. He simply sees
Søren as dangerous and violent.”

Closing her eyes, Nora pictured Wesley’s face the last time she
saw it. His beautiful golden-brown eyes had turned bloodred with unshed tears.
His lips that she’d kissed too few times had gone bloodless. Her handsome,
sweet-faced boy disappeared and was replaced by a broken man.

“He’s not a teenager anymore,” Nora said, her voice soft and
hollow. “He turned twenty on September 9th. Did you know I’d already decided on
his birthday present?”

“No, I didn’t,” Zach said, his voice flush with sympathy.

“I was going to surprise him with a trip to the Virgin Islands.
Just me and him. I planned on teasing him that while we were there, we could
change the island’s name.”

Zach laughed. “Why am I not surprised?”

“You said he moved on,” Nora said, suddenly remembering Zach’s
words.

“Nora, let’s not talk about this.”

“What did you mean, ‘Glad to hear both you and Wesley have
moved on’?” Nora demanded, putting her dangerously good memory to use.

“You’re sleeping with a teenager tonight. Yes? Or was that a
joke? I can never tell with you,” Zach teased awkwardly.

“I am. I’m training a new submissive. The training will be
rather thorough,” she said, matching false levity with false levity.

“Well,” Zach began and paused. And in that pause Nora’s stomach
clenched into a knot so tight it formed a tiny diamond that shone bright with
agony. “Wesley has a girlfriend. She’s a little older than he.”

Nora swallowed.

“Who is she?” Nora asked, trying not to let the sorrow and
anger she felt with unreasonable force seep into her voice.

“I believe he said her name is Bridget. She’s his father’s
secretary, apparently.”

“Bridget?” Nora repeated, snorting a little in disgust. “Sounds
like a high-functioning moron. I’ve yet to meet a woman named Bridget who could
read.”

“This isn’t some latent jealousy talking, is it?” Zach asked.
Nora heard something in the background, the sound of a woman’s voice. She heard
the soft sound of a mattress sighing and knew Zach’s wife, Grace, had gotten
back into bed with him.

“No,” Nora said. “Of course not. Are they sleeping
together?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him that. Have you considered
answering the phone the next time he calls?”

Nora nodded and then remembered she and Zach were on the
phone.

“I’ll think about it. Søren wants me to. He thinks I need to
make peace with my past.”

“Then I’ll say something I never thought I’d ever say in my
life—I agree with Søren.”

Nora gave a little rueful laugh.

“Here, Grace wants to speak with you,” Zach said and she heard
him whisper something and pass the phone.

“Nora? Are you all right?” came Grace’s lilting Welsh-accented
voice over the line.

“I’m fabulous. I was just flirting with your husband while you
were out of the room.”

“I don’t blame you. He’s looking quite nice tonight. I can’t
tell you what he’s wearing because he’s not wearing anything,” Grace teased and
Nora smiled finally, a real genuine smile.

“You’re torturing me, Grace,” Nora said, impressed. She still
couldn’t believe how cool Grace was with her continued friendship with Zach. The
ocean between them probably helped. “I think you might be a sadist. I approve of
this.”

“I really do want to meet this mysterious priest of yours.”

“We’ll have a foursome next time you and Zach come to the
States.”

“Capital idea,” Grace said before bidding her good-night. Nora
hung up and dropped the phone back into her bag. For a long time she stared
around her room, stared without seeing anything.

Wesley…a girlfriend? An older woman? His father’s
secretary?

Wait, Nora thought. From what Wesley told her, his father
worked as a trainer on a horse farm. Horse trainers had secretaries? And
gorgeous young men who could have any girl they wanted dated older women for one
reason only—sex.

Nora heard a knock on her door. She turned her head and saw
Griffin standing in her doorway wearing nothing but well-fitting dark gray boxer
briefs.

“I’m going to go check on Mick, okay?” Griffin said. Nora
vaguely remembered ordering Michael to stay in his room all day as a punishment
for doing absolutely nothing wrong since arriving at Griffin’s. He needed to
make some mistakes or she wouldn’t have an excuse to punish him.

“Fine,” Nora said as she rose off the bed.

“And then I’m going to tie him up and fuck him,” Griffin said,
apparently deciding to press his luck.

“Fine,” Nora said again as she wandered around the room.

“Groovy.” Griffin started to leave but she stopped him when she
remembered something.

“Yes, mistress?” he asked, smiling.

“This house. This place was a horse farm once, right?”

“Yeah,” Griffin said. “When my grandfather was younger, they
raised Thoroughbreds here. I sold all the horses when I got the place. Horse
racing can be pretty gruesome.”

“The horse trainers, did they have secretaries?”

Griffin furrowed his handsome brow at her.

“No. Not that I know of. Just my grandfather, but he owned the
place.”

Nora nodded and Griffin left her doorway. She saw him heading
toward the nursery wing. Shaking her head, she tried to dislodge the dark
thoughts that fluttered around her mind like angry bats. She couldn’t dwell on
Wesley right now. She had Michael to think of. Of course Wesley had a girlfriend
now. Tall and handsome, smart and sweet, Wesley was a catch. What had she
expected him to do? She had kicked him out of her house and given herself—heart,
body and soul—back to Søren. Did she think Wesley would just sit around waiting
for her to come back to him for the rest of his life?

No, she hadn’t thought that. But she had secretly hoped it.

Nora took a deep breath.
Grief,
she
told herself, naming the sensation that took over her body at the moment. Søren
had taught her this trick years ago. If she could name her feelings, enumerate
them, label them, she could distance herself from them, make them objects
separate from her. Burning. Stinging. Aching. Bruising. Giving her agony a name
gave her mastery over it. An old S&M trick for controlling pain, she used it
now.
Sorrow,
she told herself. Irrational, stupid,
feminine sorrow.

An image flared up in her mind, an image of her sweet, virginal
Wesley naked and burying himself inside another woman, thrusting into her,
coming inside her.

Jealousy,
Nora named the new
feeling. Raging jealousy.

Nora took another deep breath. She sucked in her pain, her
misery, held it in her stomach and pushed it out of her nose.
Michael
. She repeated his name in her head. He had to
be her focus tonight. As she opened her eyes, she caught a glimpse of a bundle
of white paper sitting on her bedside table. Michael’s checklist. Picking it up,
she skimmed through Michael’s answers. Underneath the section on S&M,
Griffin had left her a note.

Mick’s not just a sub. He’s a masochist
too. Can I have him when you’re done with him?

A subtle line existed between submissives and masochists.
Submissives enjoyed submitting even if they hated the pain part of the process.
But masochists not only liked submitting to pain, they got off on it.

Good,
Nora thought, putting the
checklist aside. Tonight, for some reason, she felt like beating the holy living
hell out of somebody.

* * *

Michael Dimir
—Suzanne typed
the name into her Google search bar and paused before hitting Enter.

For days now Suzanne had avoided researching the kid who’d
tried to kill himself at Sacred Heart. It hurt too much to think about, hit too
close to home. But she couldn’t avoid it anymore. After one meeting with Father
Stearns, she’d discovered he was a man to be reckoned with. Even now, sitting
alone in her apartment, her body recalled the fissure of shock she’d experienced
upon seeing the priest for the first time. And when they’d spoken, she’d had the
distinct impression he was playing her, toying with her. He’d been expecting a
reporter—that much was obvious. And he hadn’t betrayed the slightest flicker of
fear or nervousness around her. Even the purest innocent got a little nervous
around a reporter. Who the hell was this priest?

Suzanne pressed Enter and started sorting through all the hits.
She hated herself for digging up dirt on a kid. But she kept hitting a wall with
Father Stearns. Maybe she’d have better luck with one of his parishioners.

Nothing came up about the suicide attempt, of course. A minor
at the time, the newspapers would have withheld his name. His name—Dimir…young
Michael must be of Eastern European stock, she decided. She’d known a couple of
Dimirs during her two-month stint in Romania and Serbia.
That’s it,
she told herself.
Keep it
professional, keep it vague, keep it impersonal. Don’t think about him as a
person, as a kid, as a Catholic kid who loved the church and trusted his
priest and who…