"As a teenager I lost control once. It was consensual, but I crossed a line. Since then, no. I had a teacher in Rome who taught me ways of inflicting enormous amounts of pain without causing harm. At worst the person will have bruises for a few weeks. Bruises and welts. The m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.ts I play with are as well trained as I am. They trust me and do as I tell them to do. They put their lives in my hands, and I honor that trust."

"Your father hurt people against their will. You don"t do that, right?"

"Never. I only hurt those who wish to be hurt, who enjoy it."

"So you"re the opposite of your father, then. Right?"

"It"s not that simple."

"If you stick your d.i.c.k in a woman who wants it, it"s s.e.x. If you stick your d.i.c.k in a woman who doesn"t, it"s rape. It"s the same act but totally different, right? If this is why you"re holding back from me, you can stop that right now."

"Something broke in me a long time ago, Eleanor. Or perhaps I was born broken. But yes, when the time comes for us to make love, I will have to hurt you."

Eleanor"s hands shook as the words make love escaped S0ren"s lips again. She tucked her toes under her and rolled back. She rose up in front of him.

"Eleanor?"

She pushed her shorts down and pulled off her T-shirt. Naked and unashamed, she stood before him in the moonlight.

"Then hurt me."

22.

Eleanor SREN GAZED UPON HER NAKED BODY WITH REVERENT eyes. Still, he made no move to touch her. She took his right wrist in her hand and pressed his palm flat against her bare stomach. His hand slid to her back and he pulled her into his lap.

She straddled his thighs in the chair as he scored her back with his fingers. Her head fell back as he kissed her neck, her throat. His teeth found the tendon where her shoulder met her neck. He bit down hard, hard enough she gasped, and he shuddered in her arms.

"More," she whispered.

The world around her drained of color. Flesh and fire turned to black-and-white. Music thrummed in the back of her mind. For no reason and every reason, she felt like laughing.

S0ren lifted her easily and carried her to the bed, throwing her down onto the sheets. She lay there, still, as he unb.u.t.toned his shirt. With his knees he pushed her thighs apart. When she raised her hands to touch his naked chest, he captured them and pinned them above her head. He put his full weight into holding her down. The muscles in her forearms contracted in agony, and she cried out in real pain.

"This is how it is," S0ren rasped into her ear. "Do you still want this?"

"I want more." She turned her head and kissed his collarbone where it met his shoulder. "Hurt me."

He scoured her skin as he dragged his fingers down her body. Pushing his thumbs into the hollow of her hipbones, he pressed down hard. She cried out in the back of her throat as she felt a deep wrenching in her legs. Panting through the pain, she looked up at S0ren. S0ren ... her S0ren, he was the one inflicting this pain on her. What did she have to fear? Nothing.

He released her hips and brought his mouth down onto her lips. Panting had left her parched as the desert and his kiss was the only sea that could quench her thirst. He cupped the back of her neck with one hand and held her head, cradling it like a father holding an infant.

"I love you." She fought the pain, the fear, to release the words. He let her go and rose up over her. In the moonlight she watched as he pulled off his shirt and let it fall to the floor. She had never desired anyone as she desired him and knew she never would.

"Your eyes change color," he said, gazing down at her. "I noticed it the day we met. Green one moment, black the next. I"ve never seen anything like it."

"You"ve never seen anything like me." She smiled up at him.

"Have you ever had a dream feel so real that upon waking you thought you were still asleep?" He took her hand in his.

"Once or twice."

"I felt like that the moment I saw you, Little One. I dreamed you once. I think I"m still dreaming."

Eleanor kissed his hand. He cupped the side of her face.

"Call me sir," he ordered.

"Yes, sir."

"Tell me I own you."

"You own me, sir."

"Say I am the only Father you will ever obey."

"I will obey you only, sir."

They spoke the words-call and response-like the most sacred of liturgies.

"Do you like the pain?" S0ren gripped her thighs.

"Yes, sir."

"Even now?"

His impossibly strong hands pressed deep into her skin. She arched against the sheets, her body awash with pain. S0ren covered her mouth with one hand and she screamed against it. How could bare hands hurt so much? How could she want more of it? Because it was him, the pain. S0ren and pain became one in her mind and her body. She could never get enough of either.

At last he released her and she sank into the sheets. He traced a path down her neck with his hand, sliding his palm over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her nipples hardened in response to his touch.

"Tell me to stop."

"Is that an order?" she asked.

"No."

"Then don"t stop, sir."

In the next breath S0ren slammed her flat on her stomach, grasped her arm and pinned it behind her back.

She felt teeth at the nape of her neck, teeth in the center of her back, teeth in the small of her back. All the while her shoulder burned like fire as the muscles strained to hold it in the socket. The pain threatened to overwhelm her.

The pain ceased as he released her arm. In that moment when the pain stopped, a relief far greater than pleasure suffused her.

S0ren stretched out on top of her. He covered her hands with his hands, twined her fingers in his fingers, buried his face into her hair. The full weight of his body on top of hers, the feel of his bare chest against her naked back, caused her stomach to knot up and blood to rush to her hips.

His hand traveled between their bodies. She heard a zipper open and felt his erection pressing against the back of her thigh.

She loved him. He would never take her anywhere she wasn"t ready to go.

She trusted him. He pushed up and pressed her into the bed, his hand on the back of her neck, his hips riding against her.

She needed him. He inhaled softly and liquid heat rained on her back.

A sigh escaped his lips-or was the sigh hers? She lay beneath him, warm and naked, and welcomed his s.e.m.e.n on her body.

Eleanor wanted to roll onto her back, but she waited, sensing an order would come. How simple it seemed, obedience did, when she loved the man she obeyed so completely. There was nothing he could order her to do that she wouldn"t do, because she knew he would never order her to do anything she didn"t want.

She waited in silence and listened as he cleaned himself off and righted his clothes.

S0ren slid a hand under her hip and turned her over onto her back. His mouth captured hers again. She breathed in and inhaled that winter"s scent on his skin.

"Is that what it will always be like?" she asked as his right hand cupped her breast.

"No. Some nights it will be much worse."

"Worse?"

"More pain."

"I can take it." She smiled at him through the dark and he raised his eyebrow at her.

"But do you want to take it? Will you always?"

"From you? Yes, always."

He brought his mouth down onto her breast. She arched into his mouth as pleasure spiked deep into her belly. More, more, more, she wanted to beg. His tongue teased her nipple. His fingers toyed with her other breast. He kissed his way back to her mouth.

"For you, pain is the prelude," he said into her lips.

"Prelude to what?"

"The reward."

"What is the pain to you?"

"Its own reward," he said, and she saw a shadow cross his face.

S0ren slipped a hand between her legs and found her c.l.i.toris. Her body twitched from the shock of the touch, so intimate and unexpected. She spread her legs for him, wanting to offer all of herself to him. She met his eyes in the dark and he pushed one finger inside her.

Eleanor nearly came right then simply from him penetrating her so suddenly. She gripped the sheets as he explored inside her. He pushed in deep and slid out slowly before pushing in again.

"It"s been so long ..." He breathed the words, his eyes closed.

"Since you"ve been inside someone?"

He nodded and inhaled sharply as she raised her hips into his hand.

"Does it feel ..." She paused and asked the question she really wanted to ask. "How do I feel?"

"There"s not a word that"s been invented to describe how you feel inside, Little One." He sat up and wrapped her leg around his back so he sat between her open thighs. He pressed his finger into a spot deep within her and sank into her softness. He seemed to be so far inside her she could feel him in the pit of her stomach. "Has anyone ever been inside you?"

"No one but me." She flinched with pleasure as he sc.r.a.ped the front wall of her v.a.g.i.n.a. He hit a spot inside her that made her shoulders come off the bed.

"I can feel your hymen," he said, turning his hand and pressing down. She winced at the sudden burning pain and he inhaled as if suddenly aroused.

"Feel free to get rid of it."

"That would be a terrible idea."

"You don"t want to take my virginity?"

"No, I want it too much. I"m not entirely sure I could control myself to keep from truly hurting you."

"Is your ... I mean, are you-"

S0ren pulled his hand out of her and started to open his pants.

"Wait, I"m not on-"

But before she could finish protesting, S0ren had taken her hand and wrapped it around him.

"Oh, f.u.c.k," she said.

"Does that answer your question?"

Even after coming a few minutes earlier, he was hard again, incredibly so. She stroked him from the base to the still-wet tip of his erection. He was big-big enough it made her nervous. When they had s.e.x the first time it would hurt and hurt badly. That didn"t stop her from wanting it.

"You"re gonna kill me with that, aren"t you?"

"Very likely."

"I can think of worse ways to die."

He removed her hand from him and she whimpered in protest. Laughing, he settled next to her on the bed again.

Once more he slipped his hand between her legs.

"I want you to come for me. Will you do that?" he asked her.

"h.e.l.l, yes, sir."