“You give them hope that one can be an adult Catholic without being conventional or condescending.”
“You’re trying to say the kids think I’m cool, aren’t you?”
“My sentiments exactly.”
She turned her face up to him for a quick goodbye kiss. Instead he bent down and kissed her long and slow … deeply, possessively. No one had ever kissed her the way Søren did, as though he was inside her body even when he was only inside her mouth. After nearly five minutes of pure passionate kissing, Søren finally pulled back.
“Eleanor, you really should stop dawdling.” His steel-gray eyes glinted wickedly.
Nora glared at him. “You bas—” Nora began, and Søren glared at her. This “no swearing on Sundays” thing was going to kill her. But she would do it come heck or high water. “Bastion of evil intentions. You just stole five minutes by kissing me. God Almighty.”
“Young lady, if you don’t stop using the Lord’s name in vain, I’m going to reintroduce caning into our relationship. Are you really complaining that I kissed you?”
“Yes. You’re cheating. You want me to be late so you’ll have an excuse to beat me.”
“As if I need an excuse.” Søren smiled at her, and she was torn between the twin impulses to either slap him or kiss him again.
“I’m gone. Goodbye. I love you, I hate you, I love you. I’ll see you at eleven, and I’ll try very hard to listen to your homily this morning instead of having flashbacks from last night. But no promises.”
Nora headed for the door.
“Eleanor … forgetting something?”
Nora spun on her heel and came back to him. Reaching up she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Am I, sir?”
He bent to kiss her again.
“The bed.”
Nora rolled her eyes. She pulled away from him and quickly made his bed, fluffing his pillows with near-hurricane force.
“There, sir. Happy now?”
Søren pulled her to him and ran his fingers over her cheek.
“You’re here. Of course I am.”
Nora sighed at his words and his touch. In the years she and Søren had spent together—those ten beautiful years in his collar before the incident, until she’d left him—they usually spent two or three nights a week together at the most. Then, after five years apart, she’d come back to him, and since returning, she spent nearly every free moment she could with him—at the rectory, at their friend Kingsley’s Manhattan town house or at The 8th Circle, the infamous underground S&M club where Søren was practically worshipped. She hated being at home alone these days. The house seemed too big, too empty, too quiet.
Søren’s hands left her face and reached around her neck. She heard a click, felt something give way, and Søren removed her white leather collar. As always, the moment her collar came off her neck, she felt something tighten around her heart. Søren opened the rosewood box that sat on his bedside table, took out his Roman collar and replaced it with Nora’s collar.
“Jeg elsker dig. Du er mit hjerte.”
I love you. You are my heart.
With a dramatic moan Nora collapsed against his chest.
“Do you know how much it turns me on when you speak Danish?”
“Yes. Now go. You’re running late, and I believe you recall what happened the last time you were late for Mass.”
“I do. But I sort of enjoyed it, so that’s not much of a threat.”
“I could threaten you with a week of celibacy, but as I’m not going to be late, I see no reason to punish myself. Eleanor, you could always move closer. Have you considered that?”
She had considered that. For about five seconds before deciding she’d rather cut off her arm than sell her house.
“I love my house. I want to keep it.”
“Is it the house or the memories you love and want to keep?”
Nora stared at the floor.
“Please don’t make me move.”
Søren had asked her over a year ago to move closer to him and the church. She’d said no then and she was saying no now. She knew he could order her to move closer, and she would if he made her. But so far it hadn’t come to that. Søren nodded and Nora pulled away from him.
“We’re scening after church again, right?” Nora asked from the bedroom doorway. Sunday afternoons belonged to them. Søren’s parishioners always left him alone on Sunday afternoons. They assumed he was busy praying. Not quite.
“Barring divine intervention.”
“Divine intervention, Father Stearns?” Nora tossed her hair with arrogant playfulness. “God oughta know better by now.”
Throwing a smile over her shoulder, Nora gave Søren one last long look. He had, without a doubt, the most handsome face of any man she’d ever known. The most handsome face, the keenest mind, the wickedest libido, the sexiest body and the most devoted heart…. For the five years she’d lived apart from him, four had been agony. And now they’d been back together for over a year and everything was perfect.
Well, almost perfect.
As usual, Michael woke up long before his alarm. He lay in bed with his hand down his boxer shorts and contemplated finding a tie to make this process more enjoyable. But he’d promised Father S that he wouldn’t hurt himself anymore. Father S had no objections to erotic asphyxiation but he forbade Michael from doing it alone. “We almost lost you once, Michael. I’d rather not repeat that experience,” Father S had told him, and Michael knew he would never forgive himself if he put his priest—the man who’d saved his life—through that nightmare again.
So instead, Michael merely closed his eyes and conjured the memory of Nora Sutherlin tying him down, guiding him inside her and clenching so tightly around him he’d flinched. That one sensory memory worked as usual, and Michael came hard on his hand.
Forgoing a tissue, Michael got up and headed straight to the shower. He spent a long time in the shower, longer than most guys his age probably did. Of course, most guys his age didn’t have hair that fell to their shoulders and a predilection for self-abuse in the literal sense. Scalding water wasn’t quite as much fun as scalding candle wax, but it was the best he had.
After his shower Michael toweled off and dressed. He dried his long hair and pulled it into a low ponytail. He ironed his white button-down and his black cargo pants and even put on a tie. But not for erotic reasons … unless he counted trying to impress Nora Sutherlin as an erotic reason.
As usual, before leaving his bedroom, Michael rolled up his sleeves and rubbed liquid vitamin E onto the white scars on both of his wrists. The vitamin E supposedly helped scars heal and fade, but so far the effect had been minimal. He strapped his wide leather watchband on his right wrist and pulled a black wristband on his left before heading to his mom’s room.
Michael tapped on her bedroom door.
“Go without me,” she called out, as he knew she would. Still, he always had to ask. “Leave the car. I have to run errands this morning.”
Leave the car … great. Good thing Sacred Heart was only a few blocks away.
He pushed on his sunglasses, grabbed his skateboard and his backpack on the way out the door, and hit the street. Skating straight up to the front steps of Sacred Heart,