“I won’t bore you with the whole story of me and Søren,” she said, glancing away. “Let’s just say we’ve got history and leave it at that. Last year, I went to see Søren on the day we consider our anniversary. I do it every year. Can’t stop myself for some reason. Anyway, I had a weak moment. I came home the next morning covered in welts and bruises and with a nice fat lip. Wes was horrified. He started packing.”

Zach winced. The thought of welts and bruises on Nora horrified him, too.

“So you made your deal?”

“Right. If I go back to Søren one more time, Wes is gone.”

“Moving out seems a rather extreme threat. Of course, moving in with you seems a rather odd decision.”

“He’s Methodist. I think he’s trying to save me. Methodists are always trying to save people.”

“Are you sure he doesn’t have feelings for you?”

“He does have feelings for me. Namely irritation, frustration and disgust mingled with amusement. But that’s not surprising since he’s not in the game.”

Zach sympathized with the boy. He had the same feeling for Nora, too. As well as intoxicated, amazed and aroused mingled with petrified.

“You said he was a virgin. How do you know he isn’t like you?”

“K-dar,” Nora said and tapped the side of her nose. “Kinksters can smell it on each other. And my Wesley smells like warm vanilla.”

“Wonder what I smell like.” Zach cursed himself for accidentally speaking the words aloud.

Nora cocked her head at him; Zach’s heart started to race. She rose up out of her chair and slid onto the top of the kitchen table. She stretched across it and put her nose at his neck. Slowly, she inhaled. A slight rush of air whispered over Zach’s skin and he immediately knew what every muscle in his body was doing.

“Not kink. But not vanilla, either. Smells like…curiosity. It killed the cat, you know.”

“Nora,” Zach said in a warning tone. J.P. would yank him off Nora’s book in a heartbeat if he saw them right now.

“S&M is as psychological as it is physical and sexual, Zach. Imagine being as deep inside a woman’s mind as you are inside her body.”

Zach’s hands gripped his mug, still warm from the steaming liquid inside.

“We’re working,” he reminded her, reminded himself. He remembered their photograph in the newspaper; her mouth had been at his ear just the way it was now. If he turned his head only a few inches their lips would meet.

“I write erotica. I am working. Want to earn some overtime?”

“Nora, we’ve got less than six weeks and more than four hundred pages to write. Now get off the table and stop wasting my time.”

“Oh, fine,” she said, sounding playfully disappointed. Zach exhaled with relief when she slid back and sat in her chair again. She reached under her notes and pulled out a copy of the trade newspaper that had their picture in it. She leaned back in her chair and threw her legs up on the table as she flipped through the paper. Zach stared at their picture again prominently displayed right in front of his face. The byline read Erotica Writer Nora Sutherlin Gets the Royal Treatment.