The Original Sinners: The Red Years
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“Just saying a simple thank-you,” Soren explained.
Zach glanced down as Griffin looked up at him and winked. He started to argue with Soren—nothing about him seemed remotely simple—but at that moment Nora entered the bar through the side door and strode toward their table.
Rarely in his life had Zach been so glad to see someone. He ran his eyes up and down her—she seemed completely unharmed by whatever activity had distracted her for the past hour. She gave Soren the most perfunctory of curtsies and stepped onto the platform, ignoring Griffin’s attempts to bite her ankles. She collapsed dramatically onto Zach’s lap and Zach wrapped an arm around her waist. Such possessive alpha male maneuvers were never his style, but he couldn’t resist showing Soren that he and Nora weren’t completely in his thrall.
“Where have you been, my dear?” Zach wanted to see how Soren would react to outright flirtation. He dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder.
“Sorry that took so long.” Nora took a quick drink of Zach’s gin and tonic. “Had to do a favor for a friend.”
Zach breathed in and recognized a sweet and heady scent on her skin—a familiar scent that Grace’s skin had carried after they’d made love. She hadn’t been with Soren, he knew. Or Griffin…Zach remembered the lingerie in his pocket and wondered if she’d run off with another woman.
“Quite all right, Eleanor.” Soren dipped his middle finger into his wine and delicately ran the wet tip slowly around the rim of the glass. “I kept your guest entertained in your absence.”
Nora shot Griffin a dirty look, but Griffin only shrugged a helpless apology from the floor.
“Well, Zach and I both had a long night then,” she said to Soren. Leaning back against Zach’s chest, she asked, “You ready to go?”
“Absolutely,” Zach said and stared at Soren. Zach saw no jealousy in Soren’s eyes, but no mercy, either. Zach realized he could never win in a game with this man, especially not on his territory.
“With your permission, sir,” she said to Soren.
“Of course. I will show you out.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Zach stood by Nora and took her hand. She moved her fingers in his grip, wrapping them tightly around his thumb.
“I insist,” Soren said. Nora squeezed Zach’s hand in a warning. Apparently Soren was not to be denied.
Soren stepped to the floor and set his glass of wine on Griffin’s back, balancing it on the flat plane between his shoulder blades. “Stay,” Soren ordered Griffin who stayed stiff and motionless on the floor. Soren offered Nora his arm and Zach was pleased to feel her reluctance to let him go.
Soren and Nora led as Zach followed closely behind. They went back down the elevator and across the pit where the play had grown louder as more Circle denizens had joined in. Zach expected Soren to leave them at the elevator, but the priest entered it with them, taking a key and inserting it under the down button. The doors closed and the elevator ascended. The door opened onto the first entry hallway and Zach stepped out.
“Excuse us, Zachary,” Soren said, still inside the elevator. “I need another word with Eleanor.”
Soren flicked his wrist and the doors closed once more leaving Zach alone in the empty hall.
* * *
“Soren, let me out,” Nora demanded. “Zach and I want to get home.”
“He can wait. We have things to discuss.”
“We have nothing to discuss.”
“Not even Michael?”
Nora sighed. There was no point in fighting Soren.
“Yes, of course. Michael was lovely. Thank you very much.”
“You are certainly welcome. I take it Michael is no longer a virgin?”
“No, of course not.”
Soren nodded. “How funny.”
“What is?” Nora said, exasperated.
“Tonight you took the virginity of a boy you’ve never met…and yet you still think you can keep Wesley safe from you.”
“It’s different. Michael’s obviously one of us. Wes is vanilla. Michael’s a sub. Michael was born—”
“Michael was born fifteen years ago.”
Nora could only gape at him.
“You gave me an underage boy for our anniversary?” she breathed in shock.
Soren smiled and moved closer to her. She backed into the farthest corner of the elevator.
“Yes, I did.” He stroked her face with the back of his hand. “Which you would have known had you asked. But I knew you wouldn’t ask. And so tell me again how safe Wesley is with you.”
“You bastard.” She tried to turn her face away from his hand but she had nowhere to go. “God, you’ll do anything to make a point, won’t you?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t for that reason alone. I had to give him some incentive to stay alive.”
“And I was the incentive?”
Soren brushed her hair with the back of his hand. “You have kept me alive all these years.”
Nora shook her head, moved away from his hand.
“I will do whatever I can to protect you even if I’m only protecting you from yourself. You are a creature of appetite. You take what you desire without thought or remorse. And that is how God created you and it is much of why I love you. But do not stand there and claim to be otherwise. Not with me. I know you. You must make a choice, little one—bring Wesley into this world with you or let him go.”
“I won’t do either. And he stays with me for as long as he wants to.”
Soren stared her down with a look of pure skepticism.
“Fine,” she said. “I admit it. I can’t be trusted with him. But it doesn’t matter because he can be trusted with me.”
“Wesley…you don’t even know him. The things he has kept from you—”
“Wes is perfect the way he is. I don’t care if he has secrets. He’ll tell me when he’s ready. I won’t ask him to change.”
Soren turned away from her.
“Of course you won’t. God forbid you allow anyone to make any kind of sacrifice for you. Because if Wesley changed for you, then you would be indebted to him. And you won’t allow that. You are so in love with your own profligate freedom that you refuse to even be grateful to another person lest you be weighed down by the smallest shred of guilt or obligation.” Soren faced her again. “Your obsession with your own liberty is why Wesley is still a virgin and I am still a priest.”