When Kingsley had finished with her, finished in her, Søren took his turn. He brought her to orgasm with his mouth and fingers before biting his way up her body and sliding into her. When he kissed her she tasted both her and Kingsley on Søren’s lips.
An hour passed, maybe two—she didn’t speak, not once. She gave herself over to them in total surrender, becoming nothing but a vessel to be used for their desires. She slept again and woke up in the final minutes of night right before it surrendered to dawn. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness but when they did she saw the outline of Søren’s naked back. He sat at the edge of the bed, one hand behind him to steady himself, the other hand... She saw another hand, not Søren’s, clinging to the edge of the bed. Søren’s head fell back in obvious pleasure and a soft sigh escaped his lips.
She closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
Not long after, she felt a hand on her shoulder and awoke to Søren at eye level.
“Time to go, Little One.”
She dressed by dawn light and kissed a sleeping Kingsley goodbye.
On the way from the room she glanced over her shoulder and saw Kingsley lying on his side, the sheets around his hips, his naked back on display. On his shoulder she saw a black-and-blue bruise the size of Søren’s hand and another mark that looked like a bite. She met Søren’s eyes and he brought a finger to his lips.
“Why?” she whispered.
“For his sake, not mine.”
Once safely ensconced in the back of the Rolls Royce, Eleanor curled up on Søren’s lap. He ran his fingers through her hair, traced the outline of her lips with his fingertips.
“So you and Kingsley?” She laughed as she rolled onto her back and looked up at him.
“Kingsley and I,” he said. “It’s a very long story, Little One.”
“We’ve got an hour. How about the CliffsNotes version?”
He smiled at her, tapped her nose.
“Tonight,” he began, “that was the first night we’ve touched each other in sixteen years. It may be that long before it happens again, if it ever happens again.”
“Why not? I don’t care. I mean, I do care but not that way.”
“It’s for the best,” he said, and the smile left his eyes. “Trust me, it is for the best.”
* * *
“What did he mean, it’s for the best?” Marie-Laure asked, her eyes blazing with old hatred.
“Because of what Kingsley is, it was for the best he and Søren didn’t sleep together. Or play together. Not alone.”
“And what is Kingsley? What is my brother?”
Nora exhaled through her nose. For all their difficulties she loved Kingsley and hated betraying him to this madwoman. But perhaps if she knew about them, maybe she would understand and hate them all a little less.
“I was a professional Dominatrix for years so you have to believe I know what I’m talking about here. I’ve seen it all. And I mean all. So when I say this you should know it’s not an exaggeration. Your brother is an extreme masochist. He doesn’t want to get hurt. He wants to be destroyed. Søren told me that in the car ride back home that morning. I’ll admit I thought it might be a little self-serving. How convenient for a sadist to say that the partner he brutalized was even more into receiving the pain than he was into giving it? Then I became a Dominatrix, Kingsley’s Dominatrix, and I realized that Søren hadn’t been exaggerating at all.”
Marie-Laure got out of bed and stood at the window. As soon as her back was turned, Nora worked the razor blade out of her back pocket. Damon had tied her only with rope tonight. She couldn’t waste this chance. Energy surged through her, adrenaline. She had a chance. Finally.
“An extreme masochist...poor dear,” Marie-Laure said, her voice far away. “If only he were here, I would give him all the pain he wanted.”
“Then I’m glad he’s not here right now.”
Nora remembered that early-morning ride back to Connecticut, Søren’s voice soft and solemn as he recounted the story of his nights with Kingsley when they were teenagers...
“We can’t be together anymore, Little One—an extreme masochist with an extreme sadist? We were like a two-headed ouroboros devouring each other. I know our encounters scared him. They must have. They terrified me.”
“You? Scared?”
“You can’t even imagine what it’s like to have someone’s life in your hands. Especially the most precious life, the life of the one person in the world you’ve ever loved...until you, of course.”
Søren’s voice trailed off and her heart had broken for him.
“You still love him, don’t you?”
Søren paused before answering. He stared into the morning light of the city.
“Yes.”
She’d shivered a little at the simple honesty in the one single word.
“But you must know it takes nothing away from us, away from my love for you, any more than my love for you takes anything away from what I feel for him. Not that he understands that.”
“I get it. I do. Does Kingsley know how you still feel?”
“No. It’s for the best.”
“You don’t want him to know, do you?”
“Telling him that I still love him and then refusing to be with him? That’s a sort of sadism even I won’t touch. Please don’t tell him. Even tonight I went too far.” She heard a strange new note in his voice, something she didn’t recognize. Regret, perhaps? Repentance?