Søren lowered his head.

“What?” she asked.

He lifted his head. “Nothing. Except I’m glad you’ve decided you’ll never leave me. Because even if I could live without you, I would never want to.”

“You should kiss me after you say stuff like that.”

“I will,” he said. “But I’m going to torture you first. Adjustable spreader bar?”

“How short we talking?”

“Twelve to fourteen inches.”

“There’s a one-footer on the wall by the med table.”

“Ankle cuffs?”

“In the cabinet over the sink.”

Søren—magnificently naked—strode from the little bedroom into her dungeon. Like she’d go anywhere with that view… He returned quickly with all his little wicked implements—the spreader bar and the ankle cuffs.

And one leather strip, about a foot long and a couple inches wide. He must have cut it off her flogger with the thick fat tails.

“What’s that for?” she asked as Søren passed her the leather strip.

“You may need to bite down on something,” he said. “Turn over.”

Just like that…all the punch-drunk half-asleep joking stopped. It stopped like someone had flipped a switch, turned off the lights, turned on the pain. He could do that, Søren, with a glance and a subtle change of tone that came with the standard warning—I am not playing anymore.

She turned over as ordered and rested her cheek against the cool white sheets. Søren took each ankle in his hands and wrapped and buckled the cuffs around them. With small hooks, he secured the cuffs to the spreader bar.

Then he picked up the misery stick.

Then he grabbed the metal bar in the middle and pulled her into place as if she weighed nothing.

Then he lifted the bar, forcing her to bend her knees. Her feet were at his stomach on either side. Nora started breathing hard.

“I’d bite down on the strap now if I were you,” Søren said.

“You’re going to beat the soles of my feet, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck.” Nora grabbed the leather strap and put it between her teeth.

She hated foot torture. Hated it. Not the good kind of hate. Not the playful kind of hate. Not “Oh no, not that, Sir, anything but that, Sir.” She would rather take a hundred cuts from a scalpel, an hour-long session with a single-tail whip, or even red-hot wax-play that left her covered in first degree burns. Foot torture was one of her limits. But it wasn’t a hard limit, which meant she wouldn’t safe out if Søren tried it.

No, she wouldn’t safe out. But she wasn’t going to enjoy it.

She couldn’t even enjoy Søren’s thumbs on her insoles, caressing them tenderly. She was too tense, too scared, already breaking out into a cold sweat.

“You broke someone’s foot tonight,” he said. Nora didn’t say the kid deserved it. Søren knew that. “There is no one in the world that respects your sadistic impulses more than I, but I would be very disappointed if you got yourself arrested or sued. One of these days, Eleanor, you really are going to have to learn to control that temper of yours.”