“Pencil skirts?”

“Yeah, those. She wore those all the time, with these classy shirts that made her look, I don’t know, kind of glamorous. She turned heads like crazy when we went out. I took her to a fundraiser…everybody there worth millions of dollars and Bridget makes maybe forty thousand a year. But no woman at that party got half the stares she did. I barely got to dance with her. She had guys falling all over her. She’s smart, too. Undergrad degree in equine studies, MBA from Harvard. She’ll be running a farm this big someday. Probably sooner than later. For a guy like me who’s going to inherit thousands of acres of horse farm? She was the perfect woman. Mom and Dad were already planning the wedding.”

Nora swallowed. Every single compliment that came out of his mouth about Bridget hit her harder than Søren with a cane in his hand.

“So what was the problem?” Nora tried to ask the question calmly, without emotion. But her voice was barely louder than a whisper.

“The problem is…” Wesley met Nora’s eyes for the first time that day “…she wasn’t you.”

For a moment Nora tried to come up with a clever response, something to make Wesley laugh, something to break the tension. But words failed her and she stayed silent.

“I couldn’t sleep with her,” Wesley continued, “because she wasn’t you. And I have to wonder if the reason you keep turning me down is because I’m not him.”

Finally, Nora understood. Completely understood. For once in her life she knew exactly what the man in front of her felt, what he needed, what he wanted. And for once in her life, she knew exactly how to give it to him.

“No. You aren’t Søren. If you were, yes, I would have had sex with you last night, like I’ve had sex with him a million times before. But you aren’t Søren, and I could get down on my knees and thank God for that right here and now but for the huge pile of horse shit that’s at my feet. One Søren is enough for this world.”

Now Wesley seemed incapable of speech. She decided to take advantage of the sudden silence.

“I sleep in your bed, Wesley.”

“What?”

“I sleep in your bed at my house in Connecticut. I haven’t slept in my own bed since the day…since the day I went back to Søren. I haven’t once slept in my bedroom. I sleep in your room when I’m at the house. I sleep in your room wearing the Kentucky T-shirt you left behind in the dirty laundry. I tried sleeping in my own bed and I just…I couldn’t sleep.”

“You were a twenty-year-old virgin, too. You said that was when you and Søren—”

“First of all, I was never a virgin. Having an intact hymen does not a virgin make. Go to a Muslim country. Those girls take it up the ass from their boyfriends so they can still have a hymen to break on their wedding nights. Hymen doesn’t equal virgin.”

“Fine. But still—”

“But nothing. And butt everything. Søren started to train me for him the day I turned eighteen. No. Stop. Scratch that. He started training me for him the day we met. He taught me to sit and stand, to perform, to obey, to serve him and his every want and need and desire. He could tell me to meet him at three o’clock outside his office with just a look in his eyes. And I’m not exaggerating, Wes. By the time we spent our first night together, I was ready for him, ready to be broken. And my God, he broke me. I was shattered and every single piece of me loved him for it. But we were together. He collared me. He owned me. I was his.”

“Nora, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that the last time I had sex with a virgin he ended up in four-point restraints and had candle-wax burns. I’m saying that I might break you, too, the way Søren broke me. But you might not love me for it the next morning. And if I shatter you, I don’t know how to put you back together.”

“Nora…you don’t get it, do you?” Wesley cupped her face and smiled at her.

“Get what?”

“That I know being with you is a big risk. And that you’re worth it.”

Nora’s hands clenched as tightly as her heart.

“I know how to tie knots that sailors who’ve spent half their lives at sea have never even heard of. I can pick locks that would stump half the cat burglars in New York. I can slice a Post-It note in half with the tip of a bullwhip. I can get any kinky man in the world to drop to his knees, kiss my feet and confess his darkest sins to me just for the pleasure of having me punish him for them. But, Wesley…I do not know who to be with somebody like you. A sweet, kind, vanilla virgin has me stumped. It’s been fifteen months since the last time we tried, and I still haven’t figured it out.”

Wesley exhaled so heavily his breath ruffled Track Beauty’s mane. The horse twitched her head in mild irritation.

“You know, if you want to know how to be with me…maybe you could just ask me?”

Nora opened her mouth, paused and closed it again. “That honestly never occurred to me.”

Wesley laughed and Nora laughed. And she almost cried from the sheer relief of hearing them both laugh.

“Okay, vanilla.” Nora laid her hand on top of Wesley’s. Track Beauty’s coat bristled underneath their twined fingers. “So tell me how to be with you.”

“Not that hard to explain. You know how we were together back at your house? How we hung out and watched movies and talked and ate dinner together and all that?”