The Virgin

“What?” she said, batting her eyelashes up at him in feigned innocence. “You asked.”

“Lesson learned.” He lowered himself onto her again and kissed her once more. The kiss was wild now, as wild as the night. He bit her lips, pushed his tongue into her mouth as he rammed into her with ruthless unforgiving thrusts. It was exactly what she needed. Her back arched and the muscles in her back coiled tight as a spring. She felt the ecstasy drawing together, pooling in her stomach. Then she rose and rose, higher and higher until she reached that throbbing peak and her body went still and stayed that way for one long perfect moment.

With a final cry, she came with a shudder that racked her entire body. She crashed back to earth with a thousand flutters of her inner muscles that left her shaking underneath Søren. He ignored her climax as he sought his own, thrusting into her faster and harder until he released at last, filling her with his heat.

Still coupled together Nora wrapped her legs around his back and relaxed her breathing. She loved this moment when she could feel the wild racing of his heart against hers. Bliss suffused her, peace and contentment. And then Søren spoke.

“You fucked a nun at your mother’s convent.”

“This is what you get for making me earn an orgasm by telling you a secret. It was the first thing that popped into my head.”

Søren pulled out of her and looked down at her again. Then he laughed, a bright big laugh, big as the castle. Even as he unlocked her wrists from the bed and chafed her hands that had grown cool while in bondage, he still laughed.

“I will never reach the end of you,” Søren said. “Every time I think I’ve seen it all, you lead me to a hidden door and open it.”

“In my defense,” Nora said, “she was beautiful, and I hadn’t had sex in a very long time.”

“When was this?” he asked as he slid off the bed and pulled his trousers back on. He didn’t bother with his shirt and that was fine by her.

“That year,” she said, and didn’t have to say anything else. Søren knew what “that year” was, what it meant. They didn’t talk about that year, never talked about that year. In fact, they did their best to pretend that year never happened.

“I see.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bring it up. I have no blood in my brain when you’re inside me.”

“I’m not angry.” Søren poured water into a porcelain basin and brought it to the bedside table. He dipped a white cloth into the water. With it he wiped the residue of candle wax off her body.

“I would have told you if you’d asked,” she said as Søren rinsed the cloth in the basin. She opened her legs for him and now he cleaned the semen off her vulva and inner thighs. “You never asked,” she reminded him.

“That was a hard year for all of us,” he said.

“I never asked you what you did while I was gone.”

“Suffered,” he said, meeting her eyes.

“Now I remember why I didn’t ask.”

“It sounds as if you didn’t suffer the entire time you were gone.”

“You know me. If I’m not having sex, I go a little crazy.”

“What’s your excuse the rest of the time then?” he asked and she play-punched him in the arm. He captured her by the wrists and kissed her again, entirely against her will. Well, mostly against. Partly. She pretended it was against her will anyway.

After he released her arms, she clambered out of the bed and found her suitcase. The castle was full of guests now, and all day she’d been working, answering questions, making decisions, putting all the finishing touches into place. If someone came knocking on her door—a distinct possibility—she should probably have some clothes on before she answered it. She slipped into a pair of black-and-white silk pajama pants and a matching lacy camisole top. She kept her collar on for no reason other than she’d missed it. From Nico she’d learned the fine art of starting a fire in a fireplace, and she went to work stacking her kindling.

“So do I get my prize?” she asked.

Before she could answer, the door flew open, the rusty hinges screaming in protest. Kingsley rushed in and slammed the door behind him.

“What the hell?” she said, standing up.

“You have to hide me,” Kingsley said, out of breath from running. “She’s after me.”

“Who? Céleste?” Nora asked. Kingsley and his daughter had been playing hide-and-seek all day in the castle.

“Juliette,” Kingsley said. He looked at Søren and said, “Take off your pants if you want me to live.”

“You’ve tried that line before,” Søren reminded him. “It didn’t work the last time you tried it, either.”

“I’m a dead man then,” Kingsley said, barring the door behind him.

“Why do you need Søren to take his pants off?” Nora asked. “I mean, other than the usual reason.”

Kingsley pointed down at himself.

“That’s why,” he said.

Nora looked at him. He wore a black shirt and had his hair pulled back in a ponytail. His feet were bare; he looked like a pirate or a rogue or both and none of this was unusual. Except for one thing. Every man in the wedding party had already been given their formal wear.

So instead of his usual clothes, Kingsley wore a kilt.

“Juliette has a kilt fetish?” Nora asked, now understanding Kingsley’s panic.

“A newly discovered kilt fetish,” Kingsley said. “She’s had me three times yesterday and three times today already—”

“You’re her Dominant,” Søren reminded him. “Satisfying her needs is your job.”

Kingsley ignored him. “She’s hunting me down for a fourth. I’m a man, not a machine. I feel violated, used...”

“You’re being melodramatic. You know you love it,” Søren said.

“Why does she keep calling me Connor in bed?” Kingsley asked.

“This explains why she’s always trying to make me watch Highlander with her,” Nora said as she stood up in front of the fireplace.

Nora looked at Søren and awaited his verdict.

“Please don’t make me go,” Kingsley said in a pleading tone. “I swear it’ll break off if she gets her hands on me again.”

Søren delivered his judgment.

“Throw him out.”

“You heard the man,” Nora said as she strode to the door, her feet tingling on the cold stone floor. “The priest has spoken.”

“I’ll be dead by morning,” Kingsley said, pressing his back to the door.

“We’ll miss you very much.” Nora reached past him for the door bar. “I have my collar on. I have to follow orders.”