Nora waited in submissive silence as Søren built a fire in the living-room fireplace. Glancing around, Nora saw the secret signs of their long association: the Bösendorfer piano she’d given him as a gift last December 21 for his forty-sixth birthday, the tassel of an embroidered bookmark she’d made for him at church camp the summer she turned sixteen peeking out from a volume of John Donne poetry, a lock on the bottom door of a cabinet under one of the bookcases. Only she and he knew what he kept behind that lock. And on the fireplace mantel were ten slight scratches in the wood left by her desperate fingernails on a night he had shown her no mercy. She knew she might add another ten there tonight.
Søren came to her and gazed down at her face. She kept her eyes respectfully lowered. It had been the first submissive act he’d taught her.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“To give myself to you, sir.”
“You wish to be mine again?”
“Yes.”
“Completely?”
“And utterly, sir,” she said. “Without conditions or constraints.” The words came so easily to her she knew they must be true. Coming back felt as easy as falling, as simple as death.
“You weren’t mine last night, were you?” Søren demanded and Nora blushed.
“No, sir,” she whispered.
“You were with your editor last night. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“And did you do as I told you? Did you make him hurt you?”
“Yes, sir.”
From the corner of her eye she saw him raise his eyebrow at her in clear skepticism.
“Show me.”
Nora held out her hands and displayed her wrists, the purple bruises on her skin.
“He held you down,” Søren said. “Your arms were over your head.”
“Yes,” Nora said, amazed how Søren could read that simply from the angle of the marks.
“What else?”
Nora unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall to the floor. She unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it. Without shame or fear she shed all her underclothes, as well. She stood naked before Søren and waited. He studied her body with appraising eyes. Stepping behind her, he raised her hair off her back.
“He bit your shoulder, I see. Several times. He took you from behind.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anal?”
“Once.”
Søren moved to her front again. He reached down and slipped his hand behind her knee. He raised her leg, inspecting the inside of her thigh with the perfunctory expertise of a judge at a dog show.
“Finger marks,” he said, releasing her leg. “And knees. You fought him.”
“I made him work for it.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Will you fight me tonight?”
“My God, what happened?”
Zach heard Wesley cough like he was gagging on something. But it only took one word to explain all.
“Søren.”
* * *
The ride to the hospital was nearly as torturous as the ride to Grace’s hotel had been the day before. Zach found the emergency ward where Wesley said they took Nora. He stood in the middle of the vast antiseptic room prepared to do battle with any doctor or nurse who dared ask him to leave. He wasn’t sure exactly where Nora was, what curtain to look behind. He listened, hoping to hear her voice or even her tears, anything to lead him to her. Instead, he heard her laugh.