Eleanor took a deep breath. “Yeah. Happy?”
“Very.”
She took another breath and stared blankly at the ceiling. She flinched at Daniel’s first touch. “Sorry. That stuff is cold.”
“I know. But it’s necessary. Just relax.”
“The guy always says relax. Would you be relaxed if someone were about to stick their whole hand in you?”
“I can’t say I would be relaxed, but I’m quite certain I wouldn’t be argumentative.”
“Point taken.”
Daniel stopped touching her. “Close your eyes,” he ordered softly. “Just breathe in and out. Tell me if anything hurts.”
She nodded but didn’t answer. She began to breathe slowly—in...then out, in...then out. She could do this, had done this. If she was being honest she’d even admit that she loved this.
Daniel’s fingers returned to her. He pressed her outer lips apart with his left hand while he pushed two fingers from his right hand deep inside her. Eleanor kept breathing. She’d learned the secret. She knew she couldn’t allow herself to become too aroused. The vaginal muscles tightened when aroused. She had to stay calm, empty herself, let him completely in, push nothing but fear out. The perfect passive act for a true submissive.
Inside her Daniel made slow spirals with his hand...spiraling outward pressing against her inner walls, opening her until three then four fingers were inside her.
“Are you okay?” Daniel asked, gentle concern in his voice.
“Very okay.”
“Are you ready?” She didn’t have to ask him ready for what....
“Yes.”
If the four fingers filled her, it was nothing compared to the sensation of his whole hand, his whole fist inside her. Her calm broke for a moment and she gasped at how he now filled her. She spread her thighs wider, pressed hard into his hand. She felt her own fluid cool and slick on her thighs.
Daniel barely moved. He didn’t need to. Eleanor writhed around his hand, her body torn between the twin needs to push him out or pull him in deeper and deeper.
She leaned up and gripped her own knees. For the first time she looked down and saw Daniel’s wrist deep inside her. She collapsed on her back, lifted her hips and orgasmed so fiercely even Daniel gasped.
As she panted, he pulled gingerly out of her. He used the corner of the towel underneath her to dry his hand. He rolled her onto her stomach, Eleanor limp as a rag doll. She felt the cold liquid on her again, this time inside her ass. Then it was Daniel inside her thrusting hungrily. She was too tired to enjoy it. She merely waited patiently underneath him as he used her for his own pleasure and spent himself inside her once and then again when once proved inadequate to sate his appetite for her.
Finally they lay naked, near each other, sore and tired and smiling.
“I was thinking,” Eleanor said turning to drape herself over Daniel’s chest.
“Always a dangerous pursuit...what were you thinking?”
“Your wife. I know she died of cancer but still—”
“Still what?”
“I kind of envy her.”
* * *
Eleanor spent the next three days in a haze of sex and books and happiness. There was no room of the house they did not christen; there was nothing they were afraid or unwilling to do to each other. The fog grew so thick that Eleanor had to keep reminding herself what day it was and how long she’d been there. Arrived on Saturday, today was Wednesday, leave on Friday...leave on Friday.
Wednesday night Daniel came for her and brought her back to his bedroom. He stripped her naked and left her standing by the bedpost. She relaxed and breathed knowing exactly what was coming.
“Tell me your safe word, Eleanor,” Daniel commanded as he yanked her arms behind her back, bent her over the bed, and put bondage cuffs on each wrist.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Do your worst. You won’t hear it.”
“Arrogant, aren’t we?”
“Not arrogant at all,” she countered. “Just very well-trained, sir.”
He pulled her up to her feet and chained her arms high over her head to the bedpost. The first blows of the flogger landed on her back softly. Daniel was well-trained too. A long hard beating was always prefaced by a gentle one to desensitize the skin. Breathing in and out slowly, she let the pain wash over her as she’d been trained to do. The pressure intensified, the pain grew. Daniel paused only long enough to penetrate her from behind with short hard thrusts. He came on her thighs, pulled roughly out of her, picked up the flogger, and beat her again.
An hour later he finally released her and let her fall to the floor. He was everywhere with vicious hands and probing fingers. He bit at her neck and breasts and thrust until she nearly cried from the mix of pleasure and pain. She felt Daniel coming more and more back to life every time he took her. Pushing her onto her stomach, he forced himself into her again. Her thighs were wet as his fluid mingled with hers. Her back burned with welts. Underneath him, pinned to the floor, a part of her wanted to stay there forever.
An hour...three hours later...she lost track of time. She forgot her name, forgot where she was...and most dangerously forgot momentarily who she belonged to. Bucking her hips hard into Daniel’s, Eleanor came so hard he gasped from the intensity of the muscle contractions that gripped him like a hand. When Daniel came, it was with a force that tore into her stomach and sent her calling out his name. For a long time after they lay tangled together, Daniel still inside her.
She lay in his arms and tried not to say what she knew needed said.
“I leave Friday morning.” It wasn’t a reminder or a taunt. She just had to say it to remember it was true.
“Friday,” Daniel said, leaning over her to blow out the two candles that burned on the bedside table. A clear signal that it was time for sleep. “Still time.”
Daniel eased into the covers and pulled Eleanor close to him.
“Time for what?” she asked, already half asleep.
“Time to change your mind.”
* * *
Daniel and Eleanor spent the next morning finishing his library. All the books had been recoded and properly shelved. The work progressed quickly as, for once, Eleanor toiled in silence. She couldn’t get Daniel’s words out of her mind. He wanted her to stay with him...here in his exquisite prison. It was unthinkable. She belonged to someone else, belonged to him like her heart belonged to her chest. She would no more leave him than she would amputate her own arm. Unthinkable...and yet, she was thinking about it.
“Want to break for lunch?” Daniel asked shortly after one.
Eleanor didn’t answer.
“Elle? Eleanor?”
She exhaled slowly. “Seven-day loan, remember?”
“What was that?”
Eleanor turned to face him. “Seven-day loan. That was the deal.”
Daniel nodded, but it was clear he wasn’t quite nodding in agreement.
“That was the deal. The deal can change.”
“No. It can’t,” Eleanor said, suddenly angry. “It’s not a joke. I’m not a library book. I’m not a part of the permanent collection.”
Daniel said nothing for a long time. “You could be.”
Eleanor just shook her head. “I can’t believe this. You’re his friend and I’m his everything and you’re doing this.” She left the library and kept going down the hallway, stopping only to grab her coat. She was out the door and in the snow. She headed down the long winding driveway. Soon she heard footsteps behind her.
“Eleanor, get back in the house.”
“You get back in the house. It’s your goddamn prison. Not mine.” She kept walking. It was cold out but she was too upset to notice or care.
“You’re in a jacket and jeans and it’s twenty-five degrees out.”
“Well, you should have thought of that before you asked me to stay.”
“That makes no sense whatsoever.” They were nearly to the edge of the long driveway. “I’m not the one running away.”
Eleanor turned around and stopped. She was at the end of the drive. Two steps back and she would be off his property and in the road.
“No. You’re not running away. You’re not running or walking or strolling or going anywhere. You’re staying and rotting and hiding. And there’s not much you and I haven’t done together this week, but I will not do that with you.”
Daniel took a step toward her. Just one but she took another step back.
“Eleanor.” Daniel’s voice was calm, controlled. He sounded like a jockey trying to gentle a spooked horse. “We can talk about this. Nothing has to be decided today. Just come in out of the cold. I’m cold, too, and I’m never cold. I know you have to be freezing. Come inside.”
Eleanor only looked at him. Even so angry at him, and cold and scared, she couldn’t deny he was breathtakingly handsome. Grief had left its mark on him. His eyes were haunted and his body lean and cold...like granite. She knew about granite, how you could build on it or be broken on it.
Still without a word she took the last steps back off his property.
“If you want me back in the house, come and get me.” She wasn’t mocking him. All she wanted was to help him.
“Don’t do this to me.” Daniel looked at her so gently that she was instantly ashamed of herself. But still she didn’t budge.
“You’re doing this to me,” she countered. “I love him with all that I am and you’re asking me to let that go, to leave him. I won’t do it. I can’t do it. I love him as much as you loved her. More maybe because if he died I would live like he would have wanted me to and not like some hermit in a cave.”
“Then just say ‘no’ to me. Let me ask you to stay and just tell me ‘no.’ No frostbite or theatrics required.”
“I can’t let you ask me,” she said.
Daniel took a half step toward her.
“Why not?”
“Because,” she said looking down at the snow that caked her shoes like white icing. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to say ‘no.’”
“Why not?” Daniel asked again as he inched another minuscule step forward.
“Who he is and what he is...” she paused and tears flooded her eyes. “Every single second I spend with him I have to steal. I sleep in his bed and know there’s no place in the world I’d rather be but it’s the last place in the world I should be. I get Saturday nights with him, sometimes a Thursday night if I’m lucky. But never the mornings. What I wouldn’t give for a Wednesday or a Sunday morning...”
“You’re in love with a priest, Eleanor. What did you expect?”
“Not to be in love with a priest for starters,” Eleanor said, half laughing, half crying. “Every morning this week you’ve made love to me. You’re all mornings and afternoons and evenings and I didn’t have to steal a single second of it. You just have them all to give. So if you ask me to stay...Please, Daniel, don’t ask me to stay.”
When Daniel nodded, it was in agreement this time.
“The only thing I’ll ask is that you come back inside with me.” He was still on his property but when he reached out his hand it crossed over to her side. She took it and hated how good her small cold fingers felt wrapped up in his warm large hand. She hated it but didn’t let go until they were back inside.
Daniel let go of her hand but only so he could take her by the shoulders and pull her to him. He kissed her and undressed her at the same time. She was pinned to the front door before she knew it.
“I’ll let you leave,” he said into her ear as he lifted her by her thighs and pushed his cock into her. “But I’ll make sure you miss me.”
He was relentless. Eleanor gripped his shoulders. He was still dressed. Only she was naked and spread out against the unforgiving front door. Only she was taking and taking as he was giving more and more of himself each time he pushed into her: she took his need, his sorrow, his determination to keep her, his anger that he couldn’t, his fingers on her clitoris, and finally his cum that poured into her as she shuddered from the orgasm that he’d also given her.