LITMIR.BIZ

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but now she felt them singing in her skin. The collar he’d locked around her neck now encircled her heart. She raised a hand to her neck and found it bare. He’d taken off her collar in her sleep. Knowing he did not expect total submission from her right now, she rose from the bed and followed the sound of running water to the bathroom. She found him in the shower and without asking permission joined him under the steaming water. He was not angry. She knew he wouldn’t be. Everyone she knew was intimidated by him—by his intelligence, by his imposing height and strength, by his ethereal beauty—but she knew him as a man of flesh and earthy desire who loved her beyond comprehension. She knew his kindness, his generosity, and although he could make the surface of her body ripple with fear when as he locked her in her bonds at night, underneath that fear moved deep ocean currents of trust. For five years he’d been teaching her how to trust him. And as he bent his head to kiss her, she laughed into his mouth, proud of how well she’d learned the lesson.

      His hands, as gentle this morning as they’d been brutal last night, explored every corner of her body. She ran her fingers through his hair and slicked it back. When he moved his mouth to her neck and drank the water from the hollow of her throat, she taunted, “No toys, no chains—how are you going to dominate me now?”

      It happened so fast that she didn’t even have time to gasp. She was pinned with her stomach flat against the shower wall. At first she wasn’t scared.

      “Like this,” he whispered in her ear. “This is how.” And he pushed into the one part of her body he hadn’t yet penetrated. The pain was beyond anything he’d ever inflicted on her. She screamed in the back of her throat, screamed broken formless words, words ripped in half as she was. She knew there was a way to stop it, but in her panic and her agony, the way was forgotten. On her lips she tasted blood and realized she’d bitten her own arm. He continued to thrust as her tears mingled with the water and ran down her face. It was over then as quickly as it began. He pulled out of her and left her in the shower. Her legs gave out and she sank to the floor. The water continued to beat down on her. When he came back to her, he was dressed.

      Slowly, she forced herself to look up at him and in a hollow voice she whispered, “I forgot my safe word.” Horror dawned in his eyes. Slowly, he knelt on the floor, knelt like he meant to pray. He reached for her and she shrank back instinctively in fear. He waited and did not move to touch her again. Finally, she pulled herself slowly up. He held open a towel and she stepped into it, leaning into his body as he wrapped it around her. Picking her up he carried her back to the bedroom. He sat in the armchair by the window and held her to him, rocking her in his strong arms while she cried.

      He did not apologize and she did not expect him to.

      She never forgot her safe word again.

      Nora read the words with a slight smile on her lips before deleting the last hour of writing with a wistful sigh. She opened her email and found a new set of notes from Zach on the last chapters she’d sent him. Although he liked where she was taking it, Zach was back in attack mode and she couldn’t stop grinning as she read some of his more sarcastic comments.

      “Nora— Forgive me for copyediting, but it must be said—you have raped the semicolon yet again. Stop it. It wasn’t asking for it no matter how it was dressed. If you don’t know how to use punctuation then do away with it altogether, write like Faulkner and we’ll pretend it’s on purpose.”

      Bite me, Easton, Nora said to herself as she corrected her sexually compromised semicolon in chapter eighteen. Seriously, bite me.

      “Nora— Aristotle said character is plot. Aristotle is dead and can’t hurt you. I’m alive and I can. Plot is plot. Find one and keep it.”

      You want to try to hurt me, Zach? I’d love to see you try.

      Nora looked up as Wesley entered her office. She smiled but he didn’t smile back. He merely sat her red cell phone on her desk, turned around and walked out.

      With relief Nora noted that her one missed call was from Kingsley and not Søren. She called back, but only out of courtesy.

      “Bonjour, ma chérie, ma belle, mon canard,” Kingsley started in on her as soon as he answered.

      “King, calling me ‘your duck’ isn’t going to change the fact that I’m still busy.”

      “Too busy for a 10K evening with a dear friend of yours?”

      “Tell him it’s 20K or the waiting list.”

      “The waiting list then.”

      “We are in a recession after all. Just tell him to tell his wife how much he’s paid me in the last year. That should earn him enough of an ass-kicking to last him until I’m done with the book.”

      “I’ll pass your well-wishes along to the happy couple.”

      Nora hung up on Kingsley and left her office. She followed the thrumming of a guitar to Wesley’s room.

      “That’s pretty. What it is?” she asked.

      “The Killers.” Wesley stopped playing the song and adjusted his capo. “Ever heard of them?”

      “If they came after Pearl Jam’s Ten then probably not.”

      He looked at her and laughed a little.

      “A little after. You going out tonight?”

      “Nope. I hung up on King. And in three weeks if Zach signs my contract I will put on my best pair of stilettos and slam my heel through my hotline once and for all.”

      Wesley smiled and started picking out a melody. Nora started to leave.

      “What if he doesn’t sign it?” Wesley asked.

      Nora considered the terrifying possibility that after reading the finished novel, Zach would still think it wasn’t Royal House material.

      “I guess the hotline will have to stay hot a little while longer.”

      Nora watched Wesley’s face.

      “I like Zach,” he said. “I didn’t at first, but I do now. He’s a really good guy.”

      She cocked her head and looked at him.

      “I agree. Wholeheartedly.”

      “I think you should tell him, you know, about the other job.”

      Nora’s stomach tightened.

      “I will. I promise I will. But not yet. I want him to read the book with clear eyes. If I tell him what I do he’ll think I’m just writing a knock-off memoir with the names changed instead of real fiction. If and when he signs the contract, then I’ll tell him,” she promised.

      Nora left Wesley in his room and headed to the kitchen. She only made it as far as the living room when she heard a knock on her door. She glanced at the clock. Who would be stopping by her house at almost eight o’clock at night?

      Nora went to the door and opened it. Zach stood on the other side looking flushed and sheepish and so handsome she had to force her heart to slow its frantic beating.

      She said nothing, only raised an eyebrow and waited.

      “I know why he calls you his Siren,” Zach said without preamble.

      Nora grinned at him.

      “You finally decide to let me blow you off course?”

      “Yes. I think. I’m not sure, but I know I can’t keep living like this, Nora.”

      Nora reached out her hand and this time Zach took it in his. His strong hand felt so good wrapped around hers she was afraid that now she had it she wouldn’t ever let it go. She yanked him into the house with her left hand while her right hand hit the eight on her phone.

      “What now?” he asked as Nora lifted the phone to her ear.

      “We’re taking a little trip. King, don’t talk,” she said when Kingsley answered. “I’m hitting the club

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