“Your body should win awards, medals even. Your body should be given honorary degrees from Ivy League schools.”

“In what discipline?”

“Anatomy. Maybe even chemistry. No...art.” She looked up at him and smiled. “You’re a work of art.”

“You can keep this up all night and I won’t complain, but that won’t change the fact that I know you’re stalling. I want you naked.”

“I am naked.” She pointed at her body. “You can’t get any more naked than I am right now...unless you skin me and that would just be gross and messy. I know you’re a sadist but I don’t think even you are into flaying.”

“I can’t say for sure. Never tried it.”

“Practice on Kingsley. Flaying is my hard limit.”

“You seem to have an aversion to answering my questions, too, Little One. Your body’s naked, but your heart isn’t.” He flicked the tip of her nose. “Would you rather answer me or let me flay you?”

“Let me think about this for a minute.”

“Eleanor Louise,” Søren said in a warning tone. She could only try his patience for so long before he brought out the dreaded first and middle name warning.

“Fine.” She sat up and pulled a pillow to her chest. Søren stretched out on the white sheets and waited. “But just remember, you’re making me talk about this.”

“I accept that. Now tell me.”

Nora took a deep breath as she tried to gather her words. She trusted no one in the world as much as she trusted Søren, valued his insight more than anyone else’s, cherished his counsel. But he loved her, wanted her back. To talk about Lance seemed almost too cruel.

“You know you can tell me anything.”

“I don’t want to hurt you...not any more than I already do.”

He pulled the sheet down to display the scarlet scratch marks she’d left on his stomach. Scratches? More like welts. Or worse, claw marks. He would wear them on his body for days.

“You don’t want to hurt me? How do you explain these?”

She dipped her head and kissed the welts.

“We hurt each other.” Søren spoke the words softly as he brushed her long hair over her bare shoulder. “It’s what we do. Hurt me. Trust that I can take it as well as I give it.”

Tears pricked at her eyes but Nora ignored them.

“Life has suddenly gotten annoyingly complicated,” she confessed.

“Life has a bad habit of doing that.”

“That guy in my dungeon last night when you knocked on the door...I like him.”

“You like him?”

“I like him. I just met him. I realize this. Then again, I fell in love with you the first second I saw you so there is some precedent for me taking these feelings seriously.”

“He was half-dressed and in your dungeon. Something tells me he rather liked you, too.”

Nora nodded.

“He’s a sub. One of those knight-in-shining-armor type subs. The ‘I was born to serve and worship women’ types. You should hear this guy talk—it’s like something from a movie or a romance novel. He really believes in all that honor and chivalry bullshit.”