“Do you like the pain?” Søren 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. Søren 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. Søren 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 br**sts. Her ni**les 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 Søren 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.

Søren 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 se**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.

Søren 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.

Søren slipped a hand between her legs and found her clitoris. 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 scraped the front wall of her vagina. 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—”

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

“Wait, I’m not on—”

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