“Last year was a mistake. It shouldn’t have happened. It went too far.”

“You are never satisfied until it goes too far.”

“I nearly lost Wes over that night.”

“Yes. What was that promise you made? That if you ever gave yourself over to me again he would leave you? Was that it?”

“You can’t blame him, can you? He doesn’t understand us.”

“I am certain he does not.” Søren reached out and caressed her cheek. Those fingers, she thought. Those hands. Hands that knew every corner of her body as their owner knew every corner of her heart. “My Eleanor…such a creature of Divine Discontent.”

“Divine Discontent?”

“God’s dirty little secret. He will make you suffer, little one, until He makes you wise.”

“No more sermons. Please,” she pleaded.

Søren responded with only the merest suggestion of a smile on his lips. “If you won’t come see me on our anniversary, I suppose I’ll have to give you your gift early. Good thing I brought him with me.”

He pulled something from his pocket and opened his hand for her. A key with a delicate white ribbon in place of a key chain lay across his palm.

“What is it?”

“The key to the White Room, of course. It’s where your anniversary present is waiting for you.”

His hand still open and waiting, Søren took a step toward her.

“He’s a virgin, Eleanor,” he whispered into her ear. “You can close your eyes and pretend he’s Wesley.”

Nora wanted to withdraw, wanted to push Søren away. Zach was out there waiting for her. And she knew better than this. Søren’s gifts were always double-edged swords, and there was no way to take them except by the blade. She heard the voice of reason reminding her that she should find Zach and get him out of here. And then she remembered what she promised him—to show him a place of no regret, no shame and no fear.

She took the key from Søren’s hand.

“I see He’s not finished making you suffer,” Søren said.

Nora didn’t reply. Closing her fingers around the key so tightly the teeth bit fiercely into her hand, she slipped from the room and into a back hallway. Nora felt Søren’s eyes on her. She didn’t look back.

20

Zach followed Griffin to the balcony section of the bar. Leaning over the railing, they studied the show below.

A lovely dark-haired woman with sinister-looking chopsticks in her hair and wearing a kimono stood on a platform below them. She twined a black rope around a shapely red-haired girl who stood calm and naked next to her.

“That’s Lady Noy. She’s the queen of Asian Rope Bondage around here.” Griffin pointed out two women down in the pit. “And that babe she’s tying up is Alyssa Petrosky.”

“Petrosky?” The name sounded vaguely familiar.

“Yeah, that Petrosky. She’s the governor’s stepdaughter. She’s a pretty infamous submissive down here. Really into exhibitionism.”

“I can see that.” Zach marveled as Lady Noy finished her work and hoisted the girl into the air with a complicated rope and pulley system. The girl lay back in an elegant asymmetrical arch and seemed completely at peace with both her nudity and her bondage.

“And that’s Agent Byers—he’s high-level FBI,” Griffin said, pointing out a man strapped to a cross and being flogged by a woman half his age. “And a sub, too.”

“Are you allowed to tell me all this?”

“What? You’re going to tell someone? No one would believe you if you did tell. And if you spill a word, Kingsley Edge will destroy you. He watches all our backs—it’s part of the membership fee. I’d bet you my bank account that he’s already got a file on you.”

“On me? Are you serious?” Zach asked. He remembered how Nora seemed to know so much about him at their first meeting.

“You get within five feet of Nora and you get a file. And it sounds like you’ve been a helluva lot closer than five feet.”

“I’m hardly blackmail material,” Zach protested.

“Really? Anybody out there you’d prefer not know that Nora blew you?”

Zach flushed and said nothing. Yes, there certainly was.

“Point taken,” Zach said.

“You gotta know, Zach—Nora’s not just some smut writer with a wild sex life. She’s the motherfucking queen of the Underground. And Kingsley Edge is, obviously, our king.”

“And him? What is he?” Zach didn’t even want to say Søren’s name.

“He’s whatever’s higher than a king and queen.”

“An emperor?” Zach guessed.

Griffin smirked. “A god.”

“A god,” Zach repeated and looked down at the worshippers beneath them. The FBI agent Griffin spoke about was now being dragged from his cross and the woman in leather wrapped a collar around his neck and attached a leash to it. She led him on his hands and knees across the floor.

“I can’t believe you put collars on human beings,” Zach said with renewed disgust.

“The collar is everything down here. Subs love their collars.”

“Do all submissives wear collars?”

“Not all of them. House submissives, those are subs that work here at the Circle, wear house collars to show they’re on the payroll. They look like this,” Griffin said, pointing at the collar he wore as part of his punishment. Where a dog tag usually would be hung a small silver number eight inside a circle. “But in private a Dom will use a collar either for utility, for love or both. A collar can be as meaningful as a wedding ring to some couples.” Griffin laughed. “Holy shit…you should have seen Nora and Søren back when they were still together. I’d only been coming here a year before she left him. But I got to see them in their glory days. Collars are leather usually, black or brown, right? Guess what color her collar was?”