The Original Sinners: The Red Years

“What haven’t you done?”

“A few things. For example, I’ve never…” She leaned in toward him. She moved close enough he could smell her perfume and even taste it on his burning tongue, close enough to feel the heat radiating from her body. “I’ve never let an erotica writer handcuff me to her desk and go down on me.”

Something caught in Zach’s throat. He looked into Nora’s eyes and felt the foundations of his resolve shudder. He’d never let a woman handcuff him and do anything to him. But tonight…he looked down at his shot glass.

“Never done that. Never will.”

“You sure about that?” Nora stared him down. He reached out to touch her knee, and she slapped the handcuffs on his right wrist. “Look familiar? I thought we should put your prankster’s gift to good use at least once.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“And you’re so turned on right now you can hardly breathe. Your pupils are dilated, your skin is flushed, and it’s not from the whiskey and we both know it.”

Zach met her eyes and said nothing.

“Thirteen months, Zach. You don’t need to be afraid of me anymore.”

He had a vague memory of standing on Nora’s porch thinking that if he crossed her threshold tonight for any reason other than her book everything would change between them. Zach took the shot glass in his hand. He looked down at the amber liquid and then back into Nora’s eyes. Raising the glass to his lips, he downed his shot. He watched a grin spread ear to ear across Nora’s face. For a single moment she was all smiles.

“Good boy.”

For someone he thought was as drunk as he, Nora moved with a swiftness and precision that almost terrified him. She pushed him on his back, yanked his arms over his head and cuffed his wrists around the leg of her desk. Straddling him at the stomach, Nora unbuttoned her black silk pajama top and let it slide off her arms. He felt the wisp of silk brush his face before she threw it aside and on top of his coat. Under her shirt she wore a black bra that revealed far more than it concealed. He couldn’t take his eyes off her curves, off her pale skin and shoulders.

Nora slid her hands under his T-shirt. Her hands on his bare skin sent every nerve firing. She bent over and kissed the center of his stomach. Unzipping his jeans, she worked them down low enough to expose the top of his hips. Zach inhaled sharply when she bit his hip bone.

“Nora—”

Nora rose up and covered his lips with one finger.

“Søren used to call me his Siren,” she whispered, bending over him until she hovered an inch away from his face. “He said the things I did with my mouth could blow any man off course. Don’t you want to know what he meant by that?”

Zach didn’t answer but Nora didn’t seem to care. She started at his neck and kissed her way down his body. A soft sigh escaped his lips as she took him in her mouth. Not even all that alcohol could blunt the pleasure of what her tongue, her lips did to him. Her hair covered her face like a veil. The tendrils of her curls tickled his stomach.

So long…it had been so long since he’d felt something so intense, so sharp that he could almost mistake the pleasure for pain. Zach ached to touch Nora but when he tried he remembered the handcuffs.

“Relax, Zach. Just enjoy.” Nora paused to kiss his stomach again. “Your only job right now is to surrender.”

Surrender? He’d forgotten how. He took a deep breath and laid his head back as she kept working on him. Pressure built deep in his hips.

“Nora,” he gasped a warning that she didn’t heed. He flinched hard and came with a ragged breath. Through the haze of alcohol and orgasm he saw Nora sit up on his thighs. She picked up the whiskey, poured it and downed him and the shot in one swallow.

She looked down at him.

“I love a whiskey chaser.”

* * *

Zach opened his eyes and immediately regretted the decision. He closed them again when he realized he wasn’t in his flat. He was still at Nora’s.

With grave reservations, Zach dragged himself to a sitting position. The movement jarred his already ringing skull and had the unfortunate side effect of jarring his memory into recalling last night’s events. Nora and he had… No, almost. Zach leaned back and rested his aching eyes. Shame flooded his system when he remembered how he’d succumbed to her and let her… God, he let his writer go down on him.

Zach opened his eyes again and looked around. He sat fully dressed and on Nora’s living-room sofa, not in her bedroom. Where she was he had no idea. He stood and wandered to her office but she was nowhere to be seen. He picked up her phone and called for a taxi to take him to the train station. He hung up and found the downstairs bathroom. On the mirror Nora had taped a note—“Morning, Sunshine,” it read. “Catholics-1, Scousers-0.” Zach ripped the note off the mirror and tossed it in the wastebasket. He noticed she’d left a toothbrush out for him and a bottle of aspirin. He made quick use of both. When he opened the medicine cabinet door to return the aspirin to the shelf, his eyes caught Nora’s name on a pill bottle. He knew he was being shamefully nosy but he couldn’t stop himself from squinting his aching eyes to read the label. Why on earth, Zach wondered, would Nora take a beta-blocker, the same drug his father had to take for his heart trouble? Zach couldn’t believe someone who seemed as alive and vibrant as Nora could have such a serious health problem. With a shaking hand, Zach returned the bottle to the cabinet and shut the door.

Stumbling from the bathroom, Zach heard a noise coming from the direction of the kitchen. Every part of him wanted to grab his coat and leave before anyone noticed he’d awoken. But he knew he’d have to face the morning-after awkwardness sooner or later. And after finding that terrifying pill bottle, he had to see Nora and make sure she was well.

He found Nora and Wesley bustling about the kitchen attempting to cook breakfast in a manner that appeared more combative than collaborative.

“Jesus H. Christ, Wesley,” Nora said with feigned anger. “Cheese omelets have to have cheese or they’re just flat scrambled eggs.”

“Woman, Wisconsin is out of cheese now because of your omelet.” Wesley smacked her hand as she tried to put more cheese on the eggs. “Set the table and stop being a backseat chef.”

Nora took plates out of the cabinet and Zach winced at the clattering sound of the ceramic dishes knocking against each other.

“Could we possibly use paper plates?” he asked as he stepped into the kitchen. “They’re quieter.”

Nora turned and smiled at him. He saw nothing in the smile but friendliness and concern. Had he imagined what happened between them last night?

“Morning, Zach. How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Coffee,” he said. “Please.”

“Coffee. I know that feeling well.” Nora poured him a cup of black coffee, which he took with gratitude. “We’re having breakfast for lunch. You should join us.”

“You okay, Zach?” Wesley asked. He stood with his back to the stove with a frying pan and a spatula in his hand. “You look like you’ve been rode hard and put up wet.”

Nora snorted a laugh.

“What?” Wesley asked.

“It’s a horse thing.”

“Of course it is.” She flashed a wicked grin at Zach as soon as Wesley turned his back. Dammit, he hadn’t imagined last night at all.

“I’m fine,” Zach said, answering Wesley’s question. “Hungover and disgusted Nora isn’t.”

“She was puking her guts out when I got home at eight this morning,” Wesley said, and Nora threw a napkin at him. Wesley batted it away with his spatula. “I think you both need a sermon on the wages of sin.”

“No sermons, please. Just greasy food,” Nora begged.

“Can you stomach an omelet, Zach?” Wesley asked.

Zach forced his eyes to focus on Wesley. He had a dish towel thrown over his shoulder as he stirred his eggs with expertise.

“I’m not sure I can eat anything…for the next week. The coffee is fine, thank you.”

“What were you two doing last night? Trying to be Hemingway or Faulkner?” Wesley asked.

“I was going more for Oscar Wilde,” Nora said. Zach looked up at her and she winked. “He was…Irish.”

Wesley didn’t seem to pick up her double meaning. He merely slid the omelet onto Nora’s plate and sat down to his own.

“Whatever we were doing was clearly a bad idea and will not happen again,” Zach said.

The smile fell out of Nora’s eyes. She started toying with her omelet.

Wesley took a healthy bite of his breakfast.

“I can make toast or—”

A blaring ring that seemed to originate from the top of the refrigerator interrupted Wesley’s question.

“Good God, what is that?” The sound bored a hole into Zach’s head.

Nora and Wesley exchanged a look. Nora stood and grabbed a red cell phone off the top of her refrigerator and silenced the ringer. Before she answered she checked the number.

“Shit. It’s not King.” She looked at Wesley with something like fear in her face, more fear than she’d shown yesterday at the book-signing. Zach saw the same fear mirrored in Wesley’s eyes.

“Is it—” Wesley asked, and Nora nodded.

She took a quick, deep breath.

“Yes, sir?” she said, finally answering the phone.

Wesley stood up slowly and started to walk to the door.

“Wes?” Nora said and Zach heard a quaver in her voice.

“What?” Wesley turned around to face her.

“It’s Søren.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Nora looked ghost-pale.

“I mean, it’s Søren for you. He wants to talk to you.”

Wesley’s eyes widened in shock. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Just talk to him, please.”

Wesley took the phone from her with obvious reluctance.

“Hello,” Wesley said and Zach winced with sympathy at the pain in the boy’s voice.

Nora stood with her arms crossed and leaned back against the counter. Wesley listened a moment and walked out of the kitchen, out of earshot.

“What on earth is that about?” Zach asked.

“I don’t know.” Nora seemed genuinely concerned.

“Søren and Wesley chat often?”

“No, they’ve never met, never spoken. Wes hates Søren.” Nora sat down at the table again. After what seemed like an eternity but what was probably only a minute or two, Wesley returned to the kitchen. He handed the red phone back to Nora.

“What did he want, Wes?” Nora asked.

Zach studied Wesley’s face. The boy looked flushed and fearful.

“He thanked me.”

“Thanked you for what?” she asked.

“For pulling that guy off you yesterday. He said that as he was no longer in a position to protect you, he was grateful you had someone who was seeing to your safety.”

Nora laughed a little.

“That sounds like him. What did you say?”

“I said ‘you’re welcome.’ I didn’t know what else to say. Nora, how did he even know about what happened?”

“If it involves me, he knows.”

“Why did he call me?”

“Because he’s Søren,” she said. “And he was grateful to you. That simple.”

“I didn’t pull that guy away from you for him, Nora. I did it for you.”

“I know you did. But Søren—”

“He still thinks he owns you, doesn’t he?”

“He still loves me.”

Wesley turned away from Nora. He picked up his plate and dumped his uneaten omelet in the trash bin. He looked back at Nora on his way out of the kitchen.

“I thought he was in your past,” Wesley said, and Zach saw the twin demons of sorrow and jealously in Wesley’s expression.

“I can’t help it if he doesn’t want to stay there,” Nora said.

Wesley left, and Nora started playing with her food again. She didn’t take a single bite.

“Nora, are you all right?”

Nora stood up and let her breakfast join Wesley’s in the trash.

“Come on, Zach. I’ll take you home.” Nora held out her hand.

Zach looked at her hand but didn’t take it.

“I’ve called a cab.”

14

William pushed her onto her back and forced her arms over her head. He’d done this so many times he didn’t even have to think about how much strength to exert to keep her down with one arm while his free hand bound her wrists to the bedpost. He pulled the knot taut but not tight enough that it would cut off the circulation to her hands. He would hurt her and hurt her but he would cut off his own arm before he harmed her. Looking down, he saw her face turn to the window. Sunlight poured in and turned her eyes and her pale hair white as the feathers of a dove. A soft gasp across her lips as he pushed slowly into her. Her head tilted back and a sob escaped her throat.

He pulled out of her and she dragged her knees to her chest and rolled onto her side, her arms still pinned over her head.

“I don’t know,” she answered the question he hadn’t been able to ask. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Talk to me, Caroline. What is it?”

“I don’t know,” she said again. She took a deep breath and then another. She slowly rolled onto her back again. “We don’t have to stop.”

He leaned forward and untied her wrists and gathered her into his arms. The gesture seemed to release whatever was tied up inside her. Sobbing, she collapsed against his chest.

Pulling her as close to him as he could without crushing her, he said the three words that most terrified him.

“Maybe we do…”

Nora stopped typing and stretched her hands and wrists. She was tempted to delete everything she’d just written. It felt like melodrama to her. But then again most relationships falling apart often genuinely degenerated into melodrama. There was no dignity in grief, a truth she knew all too well. After leaving Søren she’d turned into a ghost for almost a year. It wasn’t until she grew bored and disgusted with her own sorrow, the days spent half-sick on dirty sheets, that she picked up a pen and started jotting down sentences—sentences that turned into paragraphs that turned into pages and pages of demons she exorcised out of her own soul. Still she hadn’t been able to get her life back together. It wasn’t until her mother had laid down the final ultimatum—get up or get out. For once Nora listened to her mother. She’d done both. She’d humbled herself at the feet of Kingsley Edge, the King of the Underground and Søren’s oldest friend. She’d do anything, she told him, just so she could afford her own place to write and grieve in peace.

“Anything, chérie?” he’d asked her. “Anything at all?”

“Just a job, King. I’ll cocktail waitress at the club, I’ll mop floors…I don’t care.”

He’d laughed and stared her down. Her years with Søren had taught her to never meet a Dominant’s eyes unless ordered. But that day she had. She looked at him and knew that in her eyes shone all the hurt and desperation that a year of hell had hammered into her like armor.

“Non,” he’d said, taking her chin in his hands. He’d smiled then, and she knew she was in the biggest trouble of her life. “Not a waitress, not a maid. No more serving for you. I have a much better idea… .”

“Nor?”

Nora turned her head and saw Wesley standing in the doorway to her office.

“Hey, kiddo. Sorry, I was in another world. What’s up?”

“Nothing. How’s the book coming?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Did Zach like the new chapters you sent him?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him in a couple of days.”

Wesley came into her office and sat down in her armchair. He studied her, and she hated the intelligence behind those brown eyes. She should have hired a stupid intern.

“Saturday night…something happened between you two, didn’t it?”

“We didn’t fuck, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“You worry too much. I’m fine. The book’s coming along fine.”

He stood up and looked at her. She met his eyes and smiled. She never had to lie to him as long as she could still smile. Poor kid bought it every time.

“All right, I’m going to Josh’s. I’ll see you later.”

“Study hard. Learn all those quadratics and isotopes and such.”

“You really were an English major, weren’t you?”

“And an English minor,” she reminded him as she shooed him out of the office. Standing up, she paced the floor, grateful for her solitude. She looked at her office phone. It hadn’t rung all day, or yesterday, or the day before. Zach hadn’t spoken to her since Sunday when he’d given her an awkward goodbye and climbed into a cab. She kept emailing him her pages. He’d send them back with comments and suggestions but no personal notes, no encouragements, no insults, nothing. She handed fistfuls of her heart while he circled her comma splices.

Nora turned away from her black office phone and found her red cell phone. She hit the number eight, the only number she had programmed into her speed dial.

“Oh là là,” Kingsley said in his usual seductive drawl, “clearly reports of your demise have been greatly exaggerated. Or am I talking to a ghost?”

“You’re talking to Mistress fucking Nora and I’m bored and pissed off.”

“Your usual sunny self then. How can I assist you?”

“Who’s on my waiting list?”

“Tout le monde, maîtresse. Absolutely everyone.”

“Pick somebody and set it up.”

“Mais bien sûr, ma chérie. I’ll call you back in five.”

In less than five minutes King called back with a name, a place and a time—one hour from now.

Nora ran to her bedroom and threw open her closet. She pulled out her client’s favorite costume—her tailored white Marlene Dietrich suit. She adjusted the pale blue suspenders, threw on the jacket and stood in front of the mirror tying her tie.

“Nor?”

“Shit.” Nora turned around to find Wesley in her bedroom looking pale and cold. “Thought you had study group.”

“I ran off without my notes,” he said with a tremor in his voice. “I came back for them. Nora—”

“Save it. I need a night off.”

She grabbed her matching white fedora but didn’t put it on. Finding her coat and her keys, she headed for the front door.

“Nora, you said everything was fine.”

“It is fine,” Nora said at the door.

“Please, please be safe.” His voice caught in his throat.

“Don’t worry, kid. She’s five-two and a hundred pounds. I can take her. And I will.” She rolled the hat up her arm and set it on her head. “Don’t wait up.”

Nora made good time to the club and parked in her usual spot. She checked her coat and took the secret entrance in the coat closet that led downstairs. At the last door on the left she paused and took a breath. She opened the door and couldn’t suppress a smile at the sight that greeted her.

“Sheridan…” Nora nearly purred the girl’s name as she entered her room at the club. Sheridan lay stretched out on Nora’s bed wearing nothing but a white lacy garter and a smile. Nora snapped her fingers and Sheridan came up on her knees at the edge of the bed.

In the beginning Kingsley had taught Nora the rules of being a paid Dominant. He was no pimp and never allowed his employees to have sex with clients on his time clock.

Rule number one, he’d intoned in his erotic French accent. Do not kiss your clients. They may kiss you…but only on the toe of your boot.

“Hello, Mistress.”

Nora cupped Sheridan’s face in her hand and gave her a long, thorough kiss. Sheridan tasted of strawberries and Nora breathed into her lips. Kingsley and his rules were powerless against the petite blonde beauty of Sheridan Stratford, star of Empire City, the number one drama on television. Only twenty-three, Sheridan had been a client of Nora’s for two years now. She’d come running to Kingsley after four years of being unable to have an orgasm during vanilla sex. In her first session with Nora, Sheridan had climaxed five times.

Sheridan held on to Nora’s suspenders as Nora ran her hands from Sheridan’s shoulders down to her hips. Right now Sheridan’s skin was a pristine porcelain canvas waiting for Nora to mark it. But first…

Nora pushed Sheridan down and onto her back. With her knees Nora wrenched Sheridan’s thighs apart. Out in the real world, Sheridan had earned the moniker “America’s Sweetheart” because of her innocent blue-eyed beauty and sweet smile. In nearly every role she played a virgin. Virgin? Sheridan hadn’t been a virgin since age fourteen when her father’s best friend had turned her over his knee, spanked her and fucked her right on her councilman father’s big oak desk. She’d developed an appetite for extreme sex, intense BDSM, and couldn’t orgasm unless submitting to a Dominant. Her father’s best friend had kept on his Armani business suit while deflowering Sheridan and now Sheridan had a delicious little fetish for men’s clothing.

With one hand Nora held Sheridan down by her throat while her mouth tasted the tips of Sheridan’s small but perfectly formed breasts. Nora’s other hand slipped down Sheridan’s flat stomach and teased her already swollen clitoris.

“You started without me.” Nora met Sheridan’s eyes as she pushed two fingers into Sheridan’s wet body.

“Am I in trouble, mistress?”

Nora laughed, low and throaty.

“Do you want to be in trouble, little miss?”

Sheridan nodded humbly and smiled so sweetly it took everything Nora had in her not to kiss the smile right off her face.

“Yes, mistress,” she whispered and the smile remained.

Nora raised her hand and slapped it off instead.

Sheridan gasped as Nora grabbed her by the back of the neck; her fingers tangled in the girl’s blond hair, and she dragged her to the head of the bed. From under the bed, Nora pulled her famous red riding crop.

“Hands here,” Nora ordered and Sheridan came up on her knees and gripped the black metal headboard as instructed.

Nora found Sheridan’s clitoris again and kneaded it. In a few moments Sheridan started panting and pushing her hips into Nora’s hand.

“Pick a number between one and five,” Nora instructed, and Sheridan groaned. Poor little thing hated this game. Nora never revealed in advance what Sheridan was picking. One to five orgasms? One to five beatings?

Sheridan’s small hands twisted nervously on the black metal of the headboard.

“Five, mistress?” her worried voice replied.

“Five then, little miss.” Nora pulled her hand away from Sheridan. “Five welts.”

Sheridan released a moan of fear. A well-justified moan as Nora brought her crop down hard and swift between Sheridan’s shoulder blades. Another blow landed in the center of Sheridan’s back. Another on her lower back. Nora hit even harder on her bottom and hardest still on her thighs. With each strike, Sheridan cried out. It hurt. Of course it hurt. Sheridan didn’t love it until it hurt.

Nora dropped the crop and ran her hand down Sheridan’s welted back. She, like Søren, knew how to beat someone brutally without leaving marks. But Sheridan cherished her welts and bruises just as Nora once did. The public believed Sheridan didn’t do nude scenes because of modesty. Modesty? The girl once let four men fuck her in one night while Nora watched and directed the action. No, the only reason Sheridan kept her clothes on in public was because of what Nora did to her in private.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” Nora whispered as she traced a finger around a bright red slash on Sheridan’s back. Nora slid between Sheridan and the headboard. Once more she lightly sucked on Sheridan’s nipples. With both hands, Nora opened up Sheridan’s wet folds and looked up at the gasping girl. “It wasn’t just five welts you were choosing.”

“No, mistress?”

“No…you also picked five fingers.”

Sheridan shuddered as Nora pushed first two, then three fingers into her. Nora considered pausing for lube but Sheridan was so wet right now, lube would be a moot point. A fourth finger followed. Finally Nora turned her hand and pushed her thumb into Sheridan and Sheridan cried out in shocked pleasure.