“Don’t you dare, little miss,” Nora warned.

Sheridan’s breaths came in short bursts as she forced herself not to orgasm. Nora never let her come on her own…only on command.

Spreading her fingers, Nora pushed in deeper.

“Now,” Nora said as she lightly pinched Sheridan’s clitoris. The girl released a desperate gasp as her inner muscles spasmed wildly around Nora’s hand.

As Nora pulled out, Sheridan released a little whimper. It seemed such a crime to take Sheridan’s money for these sessions. Nora would pay good money herself just to hear that sound.

“I’m going to tell you another secret, little miss.” Nora gathered a fistful of Sheridan’s hair again and pulled her off the bed. She shoved Sheridan forward so the girl stood with her legs a foot apart and her hands on the bed.

“Yes, mistress?”

Nora gathered supplies before coming to stand at the opposite side of the bed. She threw down a crop, a flogger, a cane, a paddle and a whip—five implements of torture. Then she lay down in a straight line five vibrators of increasingly larger sizes.

“It wasn’t just five fingers, either,” Nora said as Sheridan started panting again in anticipation at the sight of all the pain ahead of her, all the pleasure.

“Mistress…” Sheridan breathed. “I only paid for an hour.”

Nora laughed.

Rule number two, maîtresse…give them everything they paid for and not a minute more.

Nora came back to Sheridan and caressed the girl’s trembling back, kissed her shivering shoulder.

“Shh…” Nora instructed as she ran a single finger down the side of Sheridan’s exquisite face. “What Kingsley doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Nora took off her jacket and tossed it aside. She reached for the cane and Sheridan whimpered.

That sound…worth every minute, worth every penny.

Before this night ended, she’d break Sheridan open—body and soul.

Some days Nora loved her job.

* * *

Several hours later Nora pulled up her suspenders and stuffed her tie in her pocket.

Sheridan still lay in bed, the sheet twisted around her hips leaving her petite back, scored with welts and bruises, bare to the eye.

“You did very well tonight, little miss,” Nora said. “A pleasure as always. Until next time.”

“Nora?” she said and Nora turned around. Sheridan sat up and pulled the covers primly up to her chest, an odd gesture considering the last three hours of sex and S&M they’d shared.

“What’s up, Sher?” Nora sat on the bed next to the pale, small beauty.

“I don’t know if there’ll be a next time. I’m getting married.”

“Married? People still do that?”

Sheridan laughed. “God knows why, but yes.”

“You’ve told him—”

She nodded. “He says…he’ll try. We’re working on it. He won’t be as good as you, but then again who is?”

Nora smiled in agreement.

“I’ll miss you, beautiful.” Nora leaned forward and kissed the girl with a passion she rarely allowed herself to share with her clients. She pulled back and looked into Sheridan’s wide, tired eyes. “But you do what you have to do. Are you sure you have to do it?”

Sheridan shrugged and looked so small and sad that for a moment Nora hated the girl’s fiancé with an anger she usually reserved only for her fights with Søren.

“Can’t do this forever, can we?” she asked. “I mean, I have to have something in my life besides money and work and waiting for you to have a few hours for me. You’ve got your books, Nora. I want to have something like that, something that matters more than anything. Can you understand that?”

Nora nodded and didn’t say anything. She just pressed her forehead to Sheridan’s and rested it there. She kissed her quick on the forehead and stood up.

“Call me if he needs me to show him the ropes, little miss.”

Nora headed to the door.

“I’ll miss you, too, mistress.”

Nora turned around and doffed her hat like a matinee idol.

“Be a good girl,” Nora said and left before she changed her mind. “Or else.”

Sheridan stayed on her mind all the way home. Can’t do this forever, can we?

Nora went into her office and turned on the desk lamp. She threw her hat onto the armchair, turned on her computer and opened the working draft of her book.

She thought about Zach, how he’d told her in the beginning that he thought she’d fail. She wondered if a part of him still thought that. Part of her certainly still thought that. But she wouldn’t fail. She’d show Zach who she really was. Nora Sutherlin was a writer, a good writer. And once he finished the book and signed the contract then she could finally tell him she was a Dominatrix—an ex-Dominatrix by then.

She leaned back into her chair and yawned. She reread the scene she’d been working on earlier. Deciding she didn’t like it, she erased it and started over.

15

Zach pulled Nora’s latest chapter off his office printer and picked up his red pen. Skimming the lines, he rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. He needed to talk to Nora about the last few chapters she’d sent. They were going well, but he was afraid she was starting to lose her way again. She was obviously in love with her characters and wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. But her musings slowed the story down. He had to give it up and face her again. It had been five days since that night. He still couldn’t think of it without hating himself a little more each time he remembered how he’d been unable to stop himself from touching her face…her skin was so soft and warm…and how he wanted to see her hair down and loose…so he pulled out the pens and let it fall…and her voice seemed to get inside him and stoke a fire he thought he’d long ago extinguished.