The Original Sinners: The Red Years
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“You give them hope that one can be an adult Catholic without being conventional or condescending.”
“You’re trying to say the kids think I’m cool, aren’t you?”
“My sentiments exactly.”
She turned her face up to him for a quick goodbye kiss. Instead he bent down and kissed her long and slow … deeply, possessively. No one had ever kissed her the way Soren did, as though he was inside her body even when he was only inside her mouth. After nearly five minutes of pure passionate kissing, Soren finally pulled back.
“Eleanor, you really should stop dawdling.” His steel-gray eyes glinted wickedly.
Nora glared at him. “You bas—” Nora began, and Soren glared at her. This “no swearing on Sundays” thing was going to kill her. But she would do it come heck or high water. “Bastion of evil intentions. You just stole five minutes by kissing me. God Almighty.”
“Young lady, if you don’t stop using the Lord’s name in vain, I’m going to reintroduce caning into our relationship. Are you really complaining that I kissed you?”
“Yes. You’re cheating. You want me to be late so you’ll have an excuse to beat me.”
“As if I need an excuse.” Soren smiled at her, and she was torn between the twin impulses to either slap him or kiss him again.
“I’m gone. Goodbye. I love you, I hate you, I love you. I’ll see you at eleven, and I’ll try very hard to listen to your homily this morning instead of having flashbacks from last night. But no promises.”
Nora headed for the door.
“Eleanor … forgetting something?”
Nora spun on her heel and came back to him. Reaching up she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Am I, sir?”
He bent to kiss her again.
“The bed.”
Nora rolled her eyes. She pulled away from him and quickly made his bed, fluffing his pillows with near-hurricane force.
“There, sir. Happy now?”
Soren pulled her to him and ran his fingers over her cheek.
“You’re here. Of course I am.”
Nora sighed at his words and his touch. In the years she and Soren had spent together—those ten beautiful years in his collar before the incident, until she’d left him—they usually spent two or three nights a week together at the most. Then, after five years apart, she’d come back to him, and since returning, she spent nearly every free moment she could with him—at the rectory, at their friend Kingsley’s Manhattan town house or at The 8th Circle, the infamous underground S&M club where Soren was practically worshipped. She hated being at home alone these days. The house seemed too big, too empty, too quiet.
Soren’s hands left her face and reached around her neck. She heard a click, felt something give way, and Soren removed her white leather collar. As always, the moment her collar came off her neck, she felt something tighten around her heart. Soren opened the rosewood box that sat on his bedside table, took out his Roman collar and replaced it with Nora’s collar.
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