“How am I destroying myself?” She gasped the words. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. “By loving someone else?”

“By denying yourself. You don’t love him. You only love that he loves you. This is what you love.” Søren turned his hand and slipped a third finger inside her. His thumb found her clitoris and rubbed it. “Giving yourself to me completely. Tell me this isn’t who you really are.”

“It isn’t,” she said even as she spread her legs wider and pushed her hips into his hand again and again.

“Liar.” Søren punctuated his word with a dexterous twist of his fingers, and Nora came hard on his hand, gasping with each sharp, spiking contraction. She leaned against him as the pleasure waned, and he stroked her hair. For a moment she let herself forget she didn’t belong to him anymore.

Nora stood up straight as Søren pulled his hand out of her. He took a black handkerchief out of his pocket and began casually wiping off his fingers.

“I hate you sometimes.” Nora said the words without venom or remorse.

Søren reached out and caressed her burning face.

“You’ve been saying that since you were fifteen.”

“You want me to pick you over Wes,” she said, shaking her head. “I won’t do it.”

Søren leaned in again. His hand moved to her neck, his mouth brushing her shoulder.

“The choice was never Wesley or me,” he said, cupping her breast. Nora felt a rising panic. If she didn’t stop him he would take her here on the floor with Zach just outside. If she didn’t stop herself, she would let him. “The choice is Wesley or you.”

Søren gripped her by the neck. His fingers dug into her soft skin. It hurt and yet for all the world she didn’t want it to stop. She wanted him to shove her onto the floor, wanted him to hurt her, bruise her, mark her and take everything from her…but she remembered her promise to Wesley, felt a new panic at the thought of losing him. The house would be so empty without him…

Nora pressed close to him. She would never want anyone as she wanted Søren.

“Jabberwocky,” she whispered into Søren’s ear.

Søren’s hands were off her in an instant. Even she was shocked that she’d spoken the word. In all their years together, this was only the second time she’d safed out.

Søren looked at her. She expected to see fury but he seemed strangely pleased.

“Let me go, Søren,” she said, too tired to fight him anymore. “I’m on my own now. I love who I love and I f**k who I f**k.”

Søren reached for the key again but did not turn it.

“You love whom you love. You f**k whom you f**k. I see you do need your editor after all. Go.” With an arrogant smirk he flipped the key and opened the door. Nora rushed out and into Zach’s waiting arms.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Eleanor?” Søren called out after her. Nora grimaced and took a deep breath. She tried smiling at Zach before she turned back to Søren, now standing on the threshold between the hallway and the elevator.

Returning to him, she bobbed the necessary curtsy. But it was not enough for Søren. He took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. His fingers were still damp from being inside her.

“My little one…” he breathed, turning his face so that his cheek pressed against her forehead. He had done that so many times to her. How many? A million? It never failed to make her forgive him. She met his eyes and smiled, her anger momentarily forgotten. He was still too powerful a force in her life to leave things unfinished between them. She pulled away reluctantly, wondering if she would have to spend the rest of her life leaving this man.

“Oh, cloro al clero.” She sighed and Søren laughed. It was the real laugh she heard so rarely these days and missed so much. She smiled back and returned to Zach with only the hint of regret in her heart.

Zach still waited patiently for her. Something had indeed changed in him during his time with Søren. She reached out for her coat, but Zach gave her his hand instead and pulled her close to him. Just because she could, she unwrapped the white scarf from around Zach’s bicep. Zach looked down at her and she winked. She tossed the white scarf at Søren’s feet. Søren glanced down at the scarf and then up at her again.

“How easily you forgive, Eleanor.” Søren stared at them with his wise and all-knowing eyes. “How freely you absolve the sins of others. Tell me, little one, when the time comes, how will you absolve yours?”

Nora had no answer. Søren merely smiled again and took a step back into the elevator. The doors closed and Søren descended into the pit below.

Hell was due for another harrowing.

23

Zach greeted the cool March night air with gratitude as they exited the stifling atmosphere of the club and returned to the parking garage.

“I’m sorry, Zach,” Nora said as they reached the car. “I should have warned you about Søren.”

“I can understand now why you were reluctant to. It must have been very difficult to have a relationship with him…for so many reasons.”

Nora threw her coat in the car. “Tell me about it. It was like being with a married guy, except this guy happens to be married to God and the entire Catholic Church. That’s a lot of competition.”

“I’m glad you left him. He’s—” Zach searched for the right word “—terrifying.”