The Original Sinners: The Red Years

Nora took a step back.

“No, not him. He’s not on the table. He’s not up for negotiation.”

Søren’s eyes flashed at her. “Fitting as I do not negotiate.”

“I’m not giving Wesley up.”

“He’s not one of us, Eleanor, and you know it. You never should have allowed him into your home. This is a dangerous game you are playing and one or both of you will be deeply hurt by it.”

“Wes isn’t a game. He’s my best friend. Jesus, Søren, he’s my only friend.” Nora hated admitting it but she knew it was true. Everyone in her life—Zach included—she’d either slept with or planned to.

“Friend? He’s your pet and you are using him. A game is only fair when both parties know they are playing it.”

“You don’t know anything about us. You haven’t even met him.”

Søren took her chin in his hand, gripping it to the edge of pain.

“Do you think,” Søren asked slowly, “that there is any corner of your life you can keep from me?”

“Why do you care what happens to Wes?”

“One of us has to. Is he a virgin still?” Søren demanded and Nora turned away from him. “Answer me, young lady.”

“Yes,” she said, too well-trained to ignore a direct order. “We’re just friends.”

“Only for love would you ever sleep alone. I could have had you when you were fifteen years old, Eleanor. And although I burned for you, although my desire for you grew until the calendar of my life counted down only the days and months and years I had to wait until I could make you mine, I still kept you a virgin. Why?”

Nora rolled her eyes. “Because you’re a sadist.”

Søren reached for her and held her by the shoulders. His hands on her bare skin sent electricity running through her whole body.

“Because I loved you. I wouldn’t take you until you were ready. You keep Wesley for yourself as I kept you for me. But you were born for this life and he was not. You will harm him if you keep him any longer.”

“I would never hurt Wes.” A knot tightened in her throat.

“It will end badly, Eleanor. As will that, if you aren’t careful,” Søren said, indicating Zach sitting at the bar with Griffin. Griffin glanced at the mirror and winked. Of course, Griffin knew it was a two-way mirror that hung behind the bar. She and he had snuck back here for some quick kinky sex more than once. “Your editor. He seemed surprised when we met. You haven’t told him everything about us. What else haven’t you told him?”

Nora twisted her riding crop in her hands.

“Eleanor…” Søren scolded in his most insufferable paternalistic voice. “How will he feel when he discovers that writing isn’t your only source of income?”

“I was going to tell him. I will tell him. When the book’s done.”

“He cares for you, Eleanor. I can see it in his eyes. He’s letting himself care for you and it terrifies him. He won’t take betrayal lightly.”

“Then I won’t betray him. The book is more than halfway done. And Zach…he’s amazing. He’s smart and funny. He’s—”

“Married. I thought I taught you better than that.”

“They’re separated. They even live on separate continents.”

“Are you attempting to convince me or yourself?” Søren asked. Nora closed her eyes, exhaling as Søren slipped his hands down her arms. “If he hasn’t taken you yet, and I’m sure you’ve offered, it is because he still loves his wife. Broken love is the most dangerous love. It will slice you open with every touch.”

“Like your love?”

Søren dipped his head and kissed her from her neck to the tip of her shoulder. She exhaled with bliss as his lips met her skin. No other lover had ever made her feel what Søren could.

“You haven’t broken me yet,” he said into her ear. It took everything she had to keep from turning around and sinking into his arms. “Are you following my rule still, Eleanor?”

Nora bit her bottom lip. “Yes. Mostly. More or less.”

“Eleanor…” he said in a warning tone.

“I do write about you,” she admitted. “All the time. But I always delete or shred it.”

“Then why do you write about me, about us, if you destroy your own words?”

“They aren’t just words. They’re memories. I like to read them, hold them in my hands. And then I can let them go. A little bit at least.”

“You will never love anyone as you love me,” Søren said and as much as she wanted to slap him for his arrogance, she couldn’t disagree. “Not even Wesley. Not even him.” Søren’s eyes came to rest on Zach at the bar talking with Griffin. “But I think you care for him more than you realize. This must be terrifying for you.”

“It is terrifying,” she admitted. “Zach’s my editor. He’s the first person who ever treated me as a serious writer.”

“I told you that you should be a writer when you were seventeen years old,” he reminded her.

Nora smiled at the memory. She’d written a short story for her English class that had gotten her into big trouble at her Catholic high school. Only the intervention of her priest had kept her from getting hauled in front of a whole team of doctors and psychiatric personnel.

“I assumed you were a little biased where I was concerned.”

“Perhaps I was,” he admitted with a smile. “But I knew talent when I saw it. So what will you do with him?” Søren nodded toward Zach.

Nora watched Zach through the two-way mirror. Griffin leaned in close and Zach managed to recoil without even moving—a very English feat.

“It’s not just about sex this time. Not entirely. Zach’s got secrets, bad ones. I want to help him but I don’t even know where to start. What do you think?”

Søren looked at her and she had to fight her training to keep her eye contact with him. Once in a private moment like this she would never have met his eyes without his permission. But that was so long ago. Søren sighed and shook his head.

“My Eleanor…someday perhaps I’ll learn to tell you ‘no.’”

With that Søren stepped to her side. She watched his face as he studied Zach through the glass. In all her life Nora had never known anyone as perceptive as Søren. He could read a soul with the merest glance. He’d known what she would become from the moment he first saw her. He had told her so. It had always been her favorite bedtime story. Tell me about that day, she would beg. Eleanor, he’d begin, his stories always in third person, had pulled her sleeves down over her hands. She was ashamed of the burn on her wrist. But as she reached for the cup, her sleeve slipped back and he saw what she was. Nora always interrupted with an eager, What was she? And Søren would pull her into his arms and answer, She was mine.

“Guilt.” Søren’s pronouncement wrenched her from the past. “Old guilt. He wears it awkwardly as if he hasn’t quite learned how to carry it yet. He committed no crime although he may believe he did.”

“Old guilt—I have to get it out of him,” she said, amused that she and Søren were at once adversaries and conspirators. “He’s choking on his own secrets. I have to break him. But how? That insufferable British dignity is impenetrable. The last thing he needs is some time on the rack and a good whipping.”

“I agree. It would merely insult him. I have seen that guilt before. He hurt someone once.”

Nora heard a turn in his last statement, heard the teacher’s hint.