Читать книгу 12 Shades Of Surrender: Bound - Lisa Renee Jones, Adelaide Cole - Страница 6

“At twenty-three years of age, I would have hoped pouting would be far behind you, Eleanor.”

Eleanor turned her face to the car window and rolled her eyes. She didn’t pay any attention to the soft winter woods gliding past her; she simply didn’t want him to see her childish response to his rebuke. She was in enough trouble with him already. Him—she wouldn’t even think or speak his name.

“I’m not pouting … sir.” She delayed adding the term of respect for as long as safely possible. “Pouting is what I do when you send me to bed without supper. You’re leaving me for a week and just pawning me off on some stranger. Pouting is not what this is.”

She heard him sigh and felt a tug of sympathy that she quickly forced aside. She knew she was being difficult, but he was being impossible.

“Then what is it?” he asked.

Eleanor kept her jaw tight. “Righteous indignation.”

“Righteous indeed,” he said. “You realize that Daniel is only a stranger to you,” he reminded her, but Eleanor only stared out the window again. Daniel … something. She didn’t even know his last name or anything about him. He was rich apparently. He’d sent a limo to bring her to him. She’d thought the limo was a little ridiculous, but at least it gave her the privacy to vent her frustration at him during the whole drive. “He is an old and dear friend,” he continued. “One of the best men I have ever known. As I’ve told you before, his wife died nearly three years ago. He’s been something of a recluse ever since.”

“So giving me to him to fuck for a week is supposed to mend his poor broken heart?” she challenged. “You must think I’m pretty damn good in bed.”

“Although considerable, it’s hardly your prowess in the bedroom that I imagine will help Daniel return to the outside world again. I merely wish you to keep him company while I’m away. Whether or not he chooses to sample your talents is his decision.”

“So I don’t get a say?”

Eleanor started at the sound of the tinted window separating them from the driver being raised. But she wasn’t surprised when he grabbed her by the knees and wrenched her toward him. She ended up on her back stretched across the dark leather of the seat, his hands lifting her skirt and prying her thighs apart. With two fingers he penetrated her quick and hard.

“Who do you belong to?” he demanded, his voice quietly threatening.

She forced herself to breathe, forced herself to meet his eyes—eyes gray and ominous as a rising storm.

“You, sir,” she answered through teeth gritting against the sudden violation.

“And this,” he said, spreading his fingers open inside her. She felt herself growing wet at his touch and had to curse her betraying body for being so endlessly responsive to him. “Who does this belong to?”

“You, sir.”

“Mine to keep?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mine to give away?”

She swallowed before answering. “Yes, sir.”

“And mine to come claim again?”

Tears tried to form in her eyes but she forced them down. She nodded and whispered, “Yes, sir.”

Slowly he pulled his fingers out of her. She sat up and straightened her skirt while he wiped her wetness off his hand with a black handkerchief.

“Now,” he said without bothering to look at her, “you’ve had your say.”

Eleanor said nothing else as the limo pulled into the long, winding driveway of a snow-covered colonial manor. At least he’s got a nice house, Eleanor told herself. She’d almost expected it to look like a prison. But still, a pretty home was cold comfort for spending a week alone with a man she’d never met.

The limo stopped at the front door and a man, presumably Daniel, came out to greet them. She stood to the side shivering as she let the old friends exchange greetings and handshakes. Out of the corner of her eyes she studied Daniel. She guessed he was thirty-six or thirty-seven; he certainly looked no older. And, she grudgingly conceded, he was very handsome. Far from the thin pale hermit she’d imagined, he was well-muscled with a face as chiseled as an old Hollywood movie idol. His blond hair made him seem slightly less threatening but when he turned his attention to her, she stiffened in fear. His eyes were neither cold nor cruel, but flush with sorrow. The sadness rendered him immediately human to her and that was the last thing she wanted or needed. To get through this week, she needed to keep her guard up. She’d let him have her body if he demanded it of her. She’d give him nothing else.

“So this is Eleanor,” Daniel said as he offered her his hand. She shook it briskly and quickly before dropping it and pulling her arms tight in around her.

“My Eleanor, yes,” he said with a smile of affection and pride. His obvious love for her didn’t stop her from still thinking of him as just him. Faced with the reality of the week ahead, she was more furious at him than ever.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” Daniel said. “It’ll be nice to have a houseguest again. I’ve been a bit of a Miss Havisham lately.”

Eleanor bit her lip not wanting to laugh at his astute, if ridiculous, literary reference. She hadn’t expected him to be a Dickens fan.

“I’ll be sure not to eat the wedding cake,” Eleanor said before she could stop herself. She was naturally chatty and even a bad mood couldn’t quite keep her from bantering.

“Ah, she reads,” Daniel said. “Good. I’m trying to reorganize my library this week. An extra pair of hands will be a great help.”

“Eleanor loves books,” he said. “She even works in a bookstore so at the very least you’ll have a perfectly alphabetized collection.”

“Oh, it’s already alphabetized,” Daniel said as he ushered them inside the house. “I’m just not sure which alphabet. Certainly not the English one.”

Eleanor glanced around Daniel’s home as they made their way to what she guessed was the drawing room. The house seemed vast but warm and would have been cozy but for its enigmatic master. In the presence of such pain, Eleanor doubted she could ever feel at home.

Daniel gestured toward a chair and he sat down. One glance from him brought her to her knees at his feet. In private she always sat at his feet. That she was to take the standard submissive posture in front of Daniel meant only one thing—Daniel was one of them. Or had been, at least, before his wife died.

“Could I offer either of you a drink?” Daniel asked, taking a seat on the sofa across from them.

“No, thank you.” Eleanor let him speak for her. “I really must be going. My flight leaves in three hours.”

“Back to Rome again?” Daniel asked.

“Again,” he said, sounding tired of it all.

“I’ll walk you out.”

Usually he would never leave her without a long and intimate goodbye. But this time he merely stood, brushed a finger gently across her cheek and chin, and left her alone in the room. She waited on the floor although she desperately wanted to run after him and beg him to take her with him. But she was far too well-trained to break a submissive posture for the sole purpose of engaging in what she knew would be a futile emotional outburst.

After a few moments, Daniel returned to the drawing room. He said nothing at first and Eleanor could only keep her silence and her eyes lowered.

“Please, sit,” he said, his voice kind and quietly amused. “In a chair.”

“Oh, a chair. How extraordinarily generous,” she said, unable to maintain her submissive comportment now that she was truly alone with Daniel.

“I understand that you’re upset with this arrangement.”

Eleanor smirked. Upset?

“I get it,” she said as she sat in the armchair behind her. “This is good cop, bad cop, right? Bad cop works me over and leaves and then good cop comes in and offers me the milk and the cookies and the nice comfy chair. How cute.”

“He warned me you were smart. He neglected to mention you were a smart-ass as well.”

She had to give Daniel some credit. He was impressively unimpressed by her sarcasm. Tougher even than he looked.

“He may live to be a hundred and the word ‘smartass’ will never pass those perfect lips of his and you know it,” she said.

Daniel half laughed. “He is a bit too proper for that, isn’t he? I suppose he would say you were—”

“Impudent,” she suggested.

“A fair assessment, I think. He could have warned me you were impudent.”

“I guess he thinks it goes without saying. Since you’re playing good cop, should I expect a big dinner now? A massage maybe? Or how about the sob story about your poor dead wife and how you’re so sad I should blow you nine ways to Sunday?” she asked, deliberately trying to get a rise out of him. But he still seemed unmoved. That scared her even more than an emotional reaction would have. His pain was too deep to be touched. It made him seem far beyond her.

“I think we’ve left the kingdom of impudent and entered the realm of bitchiness.”

She almost laughed. Bitchiness—another word she would never hear him say.

“A fair assessment,” she said, repeating Daniel’s words.

Daniel inhaled and exhaled heavily. She could tell he was considering his next words.

“I won’t burden you with a sob story,” he said. “But you deserve some explanation for your presence here. I was married, blissfully, for seven years. My wife and I were as you and—”

“If you want to get on my good side, please don’t say his name. I’ll make it through this week a hell of a lot easier if I don’t have to hear about him or talk about him.”

Daniel nodded. “As you and he are,” he continued. “She was more than my wife. She was my property, my possession … and my best friend. She died three years ago. I have been with no one since. When I confessed this to S—to him, he insisted that some time with you would be therapeutic. As you belong to him, there is no threat of romantic entanglement. And as you are already familiar with the specific requirement of the lifestyle—”

“I’m kinky. You don’t have to resort to euphemisms.”

“Then the transition from celibacy back to sexuality would be far smoother.”

“So you do plan to fuck me then?” she asked although she knew the answer already.

“When you’re ready and if you have no objection.”

“I’m here, aren’t I? Nobody’s got a gun to my head.”

“Force is for amateurs. I will sleep alone for eternity before I would ever take an unwilling partner to bed. He has shared you with others before, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah, of course. But—” she said and took a breath “—he was always there.”

“I understand. As I said, when you’re ready. And not until then.”

“So what now?” she asked after a moment’s pause. Daniel stood up and went to the door. She quickly joined him.

“I’m sure you need to unpack and rest. So I suppose for the night I’ll simply send you to your room.”

“Send me to my room? After what a bitch I’ve been?” Eleanor scoffed. “From good cop to cop-out. Fine, I’ll go to my room.” She moved to take a step but Daniel caught her by the chin. She gasped at the sudden unexpected movement, shocked by the sudden change in his demeanor.

He forced her to meet his eyes.

“I haven’t played this game in years,” he said, his voice low and forbidding. “That does not mean I’ve forgotten how.”

Eleanor didn’t dare to blink or breathe. Daniel loosened his grip on her chin but did not let her go.

“I may not touch you again for the rest of this week,” he said. “Or I may fuck you blind, deaf and dumb. But you will be respectful of me while you are here no matter what the sleeping arrangements prove to be. Understood?”

Eleanor blinked and nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said through trembling lips.

“Good. Your room adjoins mine. It is at the top of the stairs, the second to the last room on the right. Your bags are already there.”

“Thank you,” she said, her voice little more than a squeak.

Daniel smiled but it was not a kind smile. It sent a chill into her stomach even as his fingers against her skin made her uncomfortably warm. “You flinched,” he said. “This must not be how he usually gets your attention.”

“It isn’t. He grabs my neck. Or my wrist.”

“Which do you prefer?”

She shrugged. “I hate them all the same.”

Daniel’s eyes momentarily brightened with suppressed laughter and Eleanor was struck again by how handsome he was. This was going to be a long week.

“Go,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Relieved to be dismissed from his unnerving presence, Eleanor practically bolted toward the staircase. Taking two steps at a time she made it to the top and down the hall to her room in no time. She threw open the door and slammed it behind her, grateful to be safe and alone for once that day. Well, perhaps not safe, she told herself. But at least alone.

He had told her why she was here, what would be expected of her. But only now did the realization that she would be Daniel’s sexual possession this week truly register. She went to the window and peered out, trying to see where Daniel’s property ended and the outside world began. But a new snow had begun to fall and Eleanor had lived in New England all her life. She knew those heavy dense flakes dropping from a deep gray sky meant a snowstorm. She was trapped here, trapped with him. She was here and for now she was his.

Unpacking had only taken a few minutes and although her bedroom was elegant and spacious with an equally elegant bathroom attached, there was little to be explored. Eleanor tried to read—she’d packed one whole suitcase full of nothing but books—but her mind wandered too much down too many dangerous paths. She was consumed by thoughts of Daniel. Lying on her bed she stared at the ceiling, recalling the rough grip of Daniel’s hand on her face. She’d felt the force in him, felt he was a man to be reckoned with. She lay there until she fell asleep and dreamed she was drowning in a sea of black snow.

An hour or a day later, she awoke shivering in the dark. She glanced around trying to get her bearings. She reached for the bedside lamp and tried to switch it on. Nothing happened. She stumbled to the wall and flipped that switch, but again the darkness remained untouched. Wearing only a white cotton nightgown, she dove under her bedclothes, desperate for what warmth they could offer her. In bed she noticed a light streaming from underneath the door that separated her room from Daniel’s. How did he still have electricity when she didn’t? Curiosity overcame fear and she eased out from underneath the covers and trod quietly across the floor. She considered knocking but the silence in the house seemed too pervasive to break. With a shaking hand, she turned the door handle and found the door unlocked. She took a deep breath and slipped inside.

“Can’t sleep?” Daniel’s voice came from a chair in front of an imposing fireplace. The orange and roaring fire was the source of the light she’d seen.

“I’m cold,” she said and moved nervously toward the sound of his voice. “What happened to the lights?”

“Just a line down from all the snow.” He sounded world-weary, tired. “They’ll be back on by morning, I’m sure.” Eleanor found him still dressed but with an extra button undone on his dress shirt and a glass of white wine in his hand. “You’re welcome to share my fire. I won’t even charge you rent.”

She gave him a tight smile, knowing exactly what he meant by rent, and sat down on the plush rug in front of the fireplace. She wrapped her arms tight about her and breathed the smoky heat into her lungs.

They sat in silence for what felt like an hour, the only sounds in the room the popping and spitting of the wood being consumed.

“I’m sorry.” Eleanor finally broke the silence.

“For what?” Daniel asked, taking a leisurely sip of his wine.

“For what I said about your wife. That was uncalled for.”

“Uncalled for? Yes, I suppose it was. Still, this can’t be the most comfortable situation for you.”

She shrugged. “No one held a gun to my head. I do what he tells me to do, what he wants me to do. Because I love him. That simple.”

“Simple … is it? We’ve never met before today, Eleanor. He expects you, wants you to give yourself up to me. Not very simple from where I sit.”

“He’s infuriating but I’ve known him and loved him since I was a kid.”

“You’re twenty-three, yes? You’re still a kid.”

“But he’s never taken me anywhere I was too young to go. Never asked me to do anything …” Her voice trailed off as she realized the implications of what she was saying. She took a quick breath. “Anything I wasn’t ready to do.”

Eleanor met Daniel’s eyes for the briefest moment and glanced back at the fire.

“Are you ready?” Daniel asked and sat his glass on the table next to his chair.

She counted to ten before answering. She knew the answer at “one” but the little feminine pride she had made her wait nine more seconds.

“Yes.”

If Daniel was pleased by her response, his face didn’t show it. His expression was inscrutable.

He sat forward in his chair. Eleanor studied him as he moved. It seemed he was looking only at his own right hand. He fanned his fingers out, gazed at his own palm. His hand curled tight into a fist. But it was the sound of his fingers snapping, loud and unexpectedly sharp, that really demanded her attention. He snapped and pointed at the floor. She responded with well-trained obedience, rising off the rug and kneeling again at his feet.

She inhaled as he laid a hand on the side of her face. His thumb caressed her cheek.

“I won’t kiss you if that makes you uncomfortable.”

“To be honest, I think not kissing would make it worse.”

“Honest,” he repeated. “Yes, be honest. It’s been over three years for me, you realize. I need you to tell me if it’s something you don’t like.”

“What if …” She stopped and took another breath. His hand was on her neck now, his muscular fingers kneading her skin in a way that made her stomach knot up and the flesh between her thighs damp. “What if I do like it?”

Daniel smiled at her question and for the first time she thought she caught a glimpse of the man he must have been before the pain burrowed in and made a home out of his heart.

“Then tell me that too. Understand?”

She smiled back at him. “Yes, sir.”

“Sir … I haven’t been called that in so long. I’ve forgotten how much I like it. Stand up, Eleanor,” he ordered and she came immediately to her feet. He reached out and untied the ribbon at the neck of her nightgown. The fabric loosened and gave way to his hands. He slid the gown down her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. She wore nothing under her gown so she now stood naked before him, shivering, even, despite the fire.

Daniel placed his hands against her stomach before letting them roam slowly over the contours and curves of her body. The act felt strangely unsexual. She felt as much wonder and curiosity in his touch as she did desire.

He gathered her breasts in his hands, cupping them gently. He brushed his thumbs across her nipples and she flinched with pleasure. He took her by the hips and moved her even closer to him, close enough for him to take a nipple into his mouth. She grasped his shoulders to steady herself as he sucked at her breasts, alternating between his mouth and his fingers as he pinched them and kissed them until her nipples were painfully swollen.

Eleanor took slow breaths as he continued his assault on her senses. He slipped a hand behind her knee and lifted her leg, placing her foot on the chair next to his thigh.

Still holding onto his shoulders for balance, she looked down and watched as Daniel slid a single finger into her. She heard a sigh of pleasure but wasn’t sure if it had escaped from his lips or hers.

A second finger joined the first and Eleanor began to pant as Daniel moved them in and out of her until they shone with her wetness against the light of the fireplace.

With his other hand he explored her clitoris, probing gently and slowly until he found her rhythm, the prefect pace and pressure that brought her to the edge of orgasm.

“I can’t …” she gasped. “I can’t stand.”

Daniel immediately took his hands away from her. He gathered her in his arms and carried her to his bed. It was dark away from the fire, and cold. She wriggled under the covers as Daniel lit a smattering of candles.

She saw now that his room was both masculine and elegant; dark wood furniture contrasted with the off-white linens and rugs. But as he stood next to the bed and started to undress, her appreciative eyes fell only on him.

Daniel’s naked chest was even more broad and strong than his clothes had hinted at. His stomach was a flat hard plane of muscle. Candlelight flickered over his skin, throwing every line and angle into sharp relief. Eleanor pulled the heavy covers to her chin, suddenly uncertain at the prospect of seeing all of him.

She rolled onto her back and stared into the darkness that hovered at the high ceiling as he discarded the rest of his clothing. She knew from the shifting of the bed that he had joined her. Then it was his face, his naked body that claimed her field of vision. He pulled the covers down her body, revealing every inch of her to his sight again.

“Spread your legs,” he ordered and it was, without question, an order. She heard the imperative in his voice, the tenor of command. She obeyed. She was trained to obey, trained to want to obey.

As she spread her legs, Daniel reached for one of the candles that burned on the bedside table. He brought it to him, careful to spill no wax. He settled between her open thighs and looked down at her.

“Use your hands,” he said. “Open yourself.”

Eleanor reached down and with trembling fingers spread the lips of her vagina as wide as she comfortably could. “Your clit,” he said. “Show me.” Eleanor blushed in the semi-dark, but embarrassment did not stop her from using her thumb and pulling back the hood of her clitoris. Now nothing of her secret parts remained hidden from his view.

She looked at Daniel as he looked at her. His eyes seemed to devour her. She’d rarely felt so exposed in her life.

“I’d forgotten,” he said quietly, “how beautiful this is.”

He moved the candle to his left hand and with his right he touched her. One by one he dipped every finger into her—his thumb, his index finger … sliding one in, pulling slowly out, and then pushing in the next as if he had to experience her from every angle. With a single wet fingertip he widened her tight entrance with spiraling circles. She was so wet she could hear herself.

Again he pressed two fingers into her. She arched her hips into his hand. He probed along the front wall of her eager body. She gasped when he suddenly pushed hard into her g-spot, her inner muscles clamping down on him.

She heard his soft laughter and she blushed again, this time at her own blatant need for him.

“Responsive little thing, aren’t you?” Daniel teased as he pulled out of her once more and leaned forward to set the candle back on the table. “I wonder how you’ll respond to this….”

Now it was his mouth on her, his tongue inside her. She balked in shock from the sheer ferocity of it. He took her clitoris between his lips and sucked. She dug her hands into the bed, desperate to hold onto something, anything to steady herself as a current of pleasure—so strong it felt as if it would drag her under—washed over her again and again. Daniel brought her once more to the sharp edge of orgasm and stopped. He crawled up her body and pressed his lips, wet with her desire, to her mouth. She tasted herself first, then him. As he kissed her with desperate hungry lips, she felt him reach for her knees. He brought her legs up, positioning them over his shoulders. He leaned in to kiss her again, a move that pushed her knees nearly to her chest.

Now it was Daniel who reached between her legs and spread her wide. She felt the wet tip of his cock against her. She barely had time to brace herself before he thrust into her so hard, so incredibly deep that she nearly cried.

Eleanor tried to breathe as Daniel rode her with long driving thrusts. He was big but she was well-accustomed to a large size. She was shocked instead by his insistence; every thrust going deeper and deeper until it seemed he pounded into the pit of her stomach. It quickly left the realm of sex and devolved into pure fucking. And he fucked her like a starving man ate. Three years of celibacy and sorrow had turned his body into a vessel of pure hunger. He gripped her wrists as he took her, holding her down hard. If she wanted to escape him she couldn’t. No part of her wanted to escape. Still some lingering defiant spark in her fought off the climax that was threatening to erupt from within her. He was so suddenly possessive of her and she so aware that no matter how he took her, she was not his, that she refused to give him the satisfaction of giving her satisfaction. But no amount of slow steady breathing could stop her. She came and when she came it felt as if her orgasm was wrenched from her. He took it from her body rather than giving it to her. His pace grew faster, harsher, and she held onto the bars of the headboard as he spent his pleasure in her, filling her stomach with his liquid heat.

Eleanor’s heart still raced even as her ragged breathing settled. She looked at Daniel who still lay embedded in her. His eyes were closed and his brow was furrowed in concentration as if he were trying to imprint in his memory this one moment inside her. Eleanor stared at his face. Long blond eyelashes lay on pale cheeks like sunlight on snow, and she felt an unexpected stab of tenderness toward him.

Daniel opened his eyes slowly. Eleanor tried to smile at him but the look he gave her was one of shock. He seemed to be seeing a stranger, and Eleanor realized with a sick churning in her stomach that he was.

“It was her you were fucking, wasn’t it?” she asked, her voice soft and without accusation. “Your wife, right? Lucky lady.”

Daniel’s only answer was to slip out of her. He left the bed and threw on his clothes.

“Keep the bed,” he said without looking at her. “Tonight this is the warmest room in the house.”

“But where will you—” Eleanor started to ask, but he was already gone.

She groaned in frustration and collapsed back on the bed. She blew out the candles and yanked the covers to her chin. After a few minutes in the dark, she felt the presence of ghosts in the room—the ghost of Daniel’s late wife and the more fearsome ghost of the man Daniel had been before her death. Eleanor knew she lay with them in the ghost of their marriage bed. She tossed the covers aside, found her nightgown, and returned to her own bedroom. She crawled back into her freezing bed where at least she knew that the only cold body between the sheets would be her own.

Eleanor awoke the next morning and heard the faint but reassuring hum that indicated the power had been restored to the house. She showered and dressed and scrounged for breakfast in the grand but near-empty kitchen. Still … although the kitchen felt abandoned, something told her she wasn’t alone in the house. Last night’s snow had been far too thick and heavy for the roads to be safely passable yet. Once her stomach was comfortably full, she began a cursory exploration. Ears attuned to the slightest sound, she paused outside a closed door near the backside of the house and heard the unmistakable sound of books sliding across a shelf.

She let loose a wolf whistle as she entered. The library was far larger inside than the unobtrusive door had presaged and was stocked with row after row, case after case of books. Enough books to start her own bookstore.

“I knew I heard books,” she said to no one in particular.

“You hear books?” Daniel’s lightly sarcastic voice came from the far left corner of the library. “Interesting. Most people actually have to read them.”

“It’s a gift,” she said, shrugging. “What are you doing?”

Daniel stood behind a desk stacked shoulder high with books.

“I am draining all the alphabet soup out of my library.” She raised an eyebrow at him as she walked to the desk. “I thought you were a bibliophile,” Daniel taunted in response to her puzzled look.

“I am a bibliophile. A bibliophiend even. But I still have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Well, as your book knowledge comes from the retail side of the industry then I’ll pardon your ignorance.” He winked at her and she fairly flushed as a sensory memory from last night hit her lower stomach with soft but insistent force. And the light, that certain white light created only by the morning sun reflecting off new-fallen snow rendered Daniel’s handsome features almost luminous. She almost forgot what they’d been talking about. “Let’s see, at your bookstore your books are divided by subject and then alphabetized by author’s last name, yes?”

“Right. With a few exceptions.”

“Well, libraries aren’t allowed any exceptions. The books have to be in perfect order at all times. You can’t do that with just sorting by genre and then alphabetizing.”

“Yeah, that’s what the Dewey Decimal system is for, right?”

“But there isn’t just Dewey. There’s the Library of Congress classification system. Dewey is a clean, efficient system, ten main classes divided by ten and so on. The Library of Congress is alpha-numeric and based on 26 classes, one for each letter of the alphabet. Compared to Dewey it is crude and confusing, and I only had the library that way because of Maggie. It’s what she was used to.”

“Alpha-numeric—so that’s your alphabet soup.”

“Yes, and this library has been disorganized soup for far too long.” Daniel shook his head as he wrote out a series of numbers on an index card and slipped it inside the front cover of a book.

“Oh my God,” Eleanor said, sounding utterly shocked.

“What?”

“You’re a nerd.”

Daniel only looked at her a moment before laughing.

“I am not a nerd. I’m a librarian.”

“No way,” she said, recalling again the ferocious passion and the skill he’d demonstrated last night. “Guess they were right.”

“Who?”

“You know, whoever said ‘it’s always the quiet ones.’”

Daniel’s mouth twitched to a wicked half grin. “I’m the quiet ones,” he said, flashing a look at Eleanor that nearly dropped her to her knees.

She coughed and shook herself out of the erotic reverie she’d fallen into.

“Okay,” she said, walking toward him with more gusto than guts. “I can accept that you’re a librarian and a sex god—”

“Well, considering your lover is a pr—”

“Nope. Nyet. Halt. I told you last night—”

“Oh, yes. I had forgotten. Our mutual acquaintance is off-limits to discussion.”

“If you want me to survive this week with what passes for my mental health intact, then yes.”

“Which I do. So I apologize. But as we barely know each other, finding a topic of conversation apart from our mutual friend might be difficult.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” she said, sitting on the table next to a stack of books. “We’ve got books in common, sex …” She ticked them off on her fingers.

“All of two,” Daniel said skeptically.

“Well …” She stuck out her foot and tapped his leg lightly. “We’ve got you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. I’m curious. You’re a curiosity. As long as you don’t mind answering personal questions—”

“How personal?” Daniel interrupted.

“Unapologetically intrusive, knowing me. Unconscionably so.”

“You have a large vocabulary, Eleanor.”

“And you have a large …” She paused as he gave her a warning look. “House.”

“I do.”

“How does a librarian afford a house like this? That was the first unapologetically personal question, for those of you keeping count.”

Daniel smiled but Eleanor saw the pale ghost of pain pass across his eyes.

“Librarians can’t afford houses like this. But a partner in a Manhattan law firm can.”

“Your wife? She was a lawyer?”

“She was. A very powerful attorney.”

“You married a shark?” Eleanor asked, laughing.

“A corporate shark, in fact.”

“Wow,” Eleanor said, duly impressed. “How did you meet her?”

“At the library, of course.”

“She read?”

“She gave,” Daniel said with great emphasis on the last word. “She gave balls, galas, parties, charity events, fund-raisers of every stripe. She actually had a heart and a conscience. She was the human face of an otherwise very imposing old firm. She held a gala one year to raise money for a literary charity at the NYPL—”

“Holy shit, you worked at the NYPL?”

“Fifth Avenue, Main Branch,” he said with barely concealed pride.

“With Lenox and Astor?” she asked, naming the two famous lions that guarded the legendary library.

“On warm days I ate my lunch outside with Astor.”

“Why not Lenox?”

“He asked too many personal questions.”

“I like him already. So you were both guests at the party?”

“Oh no. She was the hostess. I happened to be working late that night in the Map Room. Lowly archivist. Not important enough for an invitation.”

“So you were tucked away in a dusty corner alphabetizing 18^th century maps of Tierra del Fuego …”

“Something to that effect—”

“And she slips away from the suffocating crowd of the geriatrically wealthy—”

“Has anyone ever told you that you should be a writer?”

“No one who’s ever tried it themselves. But back to you and her. So you’re up to your elbows in Fuego and she rushes in all disheveled elegance, out of breath, desperate for just one moment of solitude …”

“Actually I was examining a map of Eurasia for signs of wear; she strolled in quite calmly, apologized very politely when she saw me and said she simply wanted to see the library by night.”

“I like my version better. But still that is romantic. You gave her a tour? It was love at first sight?”

“Intrigue at first sight. I assumed she was just a guest at the gala. She was lovely, intelligent, a very young-looking thirty-nine.”

“Ohh … an older woman. I love it.”

“Her age or mine was never a factor. Or perhaps it was. She was older than me, powerful, wealthy … but at night when we were alone …”

“She was your slave,” Eleanor said, finishing his sentence.

“My slave. My property. My possession.”

“Your possession … I know how she must have felt. Pressure to be in charge of the world. So much responsibility. The whole world on her … to let go and just give herself to you, to give up to you …”

“I’m glad you understand,” Daniel said as he started sifting through another stack of books. “Few women do.”

“Oh, they do. They’re just afraid to admit it. Yeah, equal pay for equal work and our bodies our selves and Gloria Steinem and all that jazz … but in that dusty dark little corner of every woman’s heart where we keep our maps of Tierra del Fuego lives the hunger to fetch a powerful man his slippers on her hands and knees.”

Eleanor was pleased to see her words had a similar effect on Daniel as his did on her. His breath quickened just slightly as his hands deliberately stroked the leather binding of the book in his hand.

“So you,” she said, meeting his eyes, “are a librarian. What does that make me then? A seven-day loan?”

Daniel laughed as he set his book aside. He moved toward her and lightly gripped her knees.

“Seven-day loan … I’m not sure I like the thought of giving you back.” He slid his hands up her thighs and took her by the hips.

“But what about the overdue fines?” she asked, playfully flashing her eyes at him.

“I think I can afford them,” he said. Eleanor tried to voice another protest but his mouth was already on hers.

He kissed her with an urgency she hadn’t felt last night. Last night he’d discovered, taken for his own. This morning she felt the need to have her. It wasn’t about her body as a stand-in for his wife. Eleanor had made him laugh, given him a break, if only momentary, from three years of pain. This time he wasn’t conquering. This time he was just grateful.

Daniel pulled her from her seat on the desk. She wondered if he would take her on the floor or take her back to his bedroom. Instead he turned her so she stood with her back to his chest. He laid one slow, possessive kiss along the length of her neck before pushing her forward onto the desk.

Eleanor forced a deep calming breath as Daniel stripped her naked from the waist down. She braced for his entrance, expecting it to be as sudden and fierce as last night’s. But he waited, running his hands over her thighs, across her lower back, slipping a hand between her legs to caress her outer lips until she was so eager for him she stood on her tiptoes in readiness. When he finally penetrated her it was slow and methodical. He gripped the back of her neck as he began thrusting. He didn’t go as deep today as last night either but moved in spirals in and out of her, reaching every corner inside her.

She moaned quietly, her hot breath steaming a patch of the cool mahogany of the desk under her cheek.

“You like it from behind,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“God, yes,” she confessed without shame.

“There’s more than one way to enter from behind.”

“If you think that’s a threat, then you don’t know me very well,” she said, smug even while squirming underneath him.

“I don’t,” he admitted, slightly breathless, but still in control. “But that will change.”

As if to prove his point, he pushed down and deep into her, eliciting both a muscle spasm and a sharp gasp.

She closed her eyes. He increased his pace. When she came she came as quietly as she could but still loud enough for Daniel to hear and laugh just before he let himself come with three final thrusts and a muffled grunt at the back of his throat.

Eleanor’s breathing slowly settled. She blinked and raised her head. All she saw were thousands of books stacked and shelved and neatly scattered. Daniel was still inside her.

“God I love a man who reads,” she breathed and laid her head on the desk, spent.

The sex out of their system—for the moment, at least—Eleanor and Daniel made diligent progress on his library. Daniel sorted, reclassified while Eleanor dusted the bookcases in question and reshelved the newly Deweyed books in proper order.

Sometimes they talked as they worked: Eleanor learned about Daniel’s childhood in Canada, the source of his imperviousness to New England winters, and Eleanor confessed her frustration with her lack of ambition. She wanted, in theory, to do more than work in a bookstore but was so happy, most of the time, with him that she couldn’t bring herself to make any sort of profound change.

“Contentment can be the enemy,” Daniel agreed and he sounded like he knew what he was talking about. “But don’t worry. Life, death, or an act of God will eventually intervene. Enjoy the contentment while it lasts. It won’t last forever.”

Eleanor shivered at the bitter truth of his words.

“You’ve been content to be alone for three years. So am I the life, death, or act of God sent to shake things up?”

“You,” he said, “are a force of nature.” He slapped her bottom and ordered her back to work.

They worked mostly in silence, companionable silence after that, speaking only about the books and how they should best be arranged. During a back-stretching break, Eleanor wandered into the corner of a windowless alcove. Two dozen or more cardboard boxes were neatly stacked.

“What are these?” she called out to Daniel.

“Discards,” he said, coming to her corner. “Maggie’s old law books. There’s a business college with a paralegal program in town. I was going to donate the books to their little law library.”

“Going to?”

“Well, I still am. I just haven’t quite …”

Eleanor gave him a flat, steady stare.

“How long have these been sitting here in those boxes?”

“A year, I suppose.”

Eleanor continued to gaze blankly at him.

“You do recall I am the dominant in this particular relationship, yes?”

Eleanor wasn’t intimidated. “Then act like it.”

“I will.” At that, Daniel scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder, carrying her squirming self back to the case they’d been working on. “Back. To. Work,” he ordered as he put her down, gently but firmly, on her feet.

“Yes, sir.” She turned and climbed nimbly up the library ladder.

“Eleanor,” Daniel said, after a few minutes of actual work had passed.

“Yes, sir?”

“I’ll call the college tomorrow.”

Eleanor smiled a smile only the shelves could see.

“Yes, sir.”

Eleanor groaned in unconcealed ecstasy.

“My god … this is so good…. “

“I know,” Daniel replied, taking another bite for good measure. “I have a neighbor, an older lady on the property adjacent mine. She made this.”

Eleanor licked her fork and dove into the lasagna yet again. “God bless her. Did you go get this while I was in the shower?”

Daniel’s eyes flashed at her innocent question. After an entire day of dusty library work, Eleanor had spent a solid hour showering and changing into her nightclothes, and when she emerged Daniel had dinner waiting for them.

“No.” His voice was even. Whatever she’d seen had come and gone. “Her husband brought it by. He does some of my property maintenance. And he brought more firewood.” He took another log and threw it on the warm orange fire. The wood crackled and sizzled; Eleanor breathed in the raw smoke with pleasure. She was silent for a long moment. When she was sure Daniel was watching her she said, “I was thinking.”

“Always a dangerous pursuit.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What were you thinking about?” Daniel asked, a wary note in his voice.

“Why am I here? Really? I mean, you seem okay. Sad still. Very sad. But hardly a desperate case. What am I doing here?”

“You don’t know?”

“No. I mean he,” she still wouldn’t say the name of her love who’d abandoned her here, even if she was enjoying herself far more than she wanted to admit. “He said I’d be good company for you, that I’d help you get back out into the world. But like I said, you don’t seem like you need that much help.”

“Back out into the world? Quite a way with words that one has. Only he could tell the absolute truth and still keep everything a secret.”

“So what’s the truth? And what’s the secret?”

“Back out in the world …” Daniel said again. “It’s a cliché. Somebody gets divorced or dumped, widowed. And after awhile it’s time to get back out there. Date again, make new friends, find someone new. It’s figurative, not literal. But me …”

She knew the secret before he could tell her.

“Daniel? How long has it been since you left the house?”

“Oh, I leave the house all the time. But I have eight acres and—”

“When?”

“My wife died three years, five months, and eleven days ago. So it’s been …”

“Three years, five months and eleven—”

“Nine days. I made it to the funeral. I was on the human equivalent of a horse tranquilizer but I made it.”

Eleanor shook her head. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. But how? Over three years?”

“Maggie left me a wealthy man. Money, good neighbors, and the internet is all you really need. They’ve been my wardens, my guards on the tower. A pleasant prison,” he said, glancing around at the exquisitely furnished living room they lounged in. “No bars necessary. I suppose our mutual friend was hoping a week with you would give me a taste of what I was missing.”

Eleanor snorted in derision. “He’s not that altruistic. Not when it comes to me. He thinks you’ll fuck me until you fall for me. Hook, line and sinker and then when I go, you’ll follow.”

“I’ve grieved in this jailhouse every day for three years and he thinks I’ll be in love with you in a week?”

Eleanor shrugged and looked away from his face and into the fire. She started when she felt Daniel’s fingers slide under her hair and touch the nape of her neck.

“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “Maybe he’s right.”

He bent in and kissed the sensitive spot below her ear, misdirecting her attention as he took her plate of lasagna from her and set it aside.

“But I wasn’t done,” she pouted, no longer hungry for anything but him.

“Yes, you were.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lay down on your back.”

“Very yes, sir.”

Daniel smiled down at her once she’d positioned herself on the plush rug by the fireplace.

“You could at least pretend to be intimidated.”

“No offense but I’ve had scarier gym teachers than you. And remember who I belong to,” she said, not really wanting to remember at just that moment. “He makes you look like a floppy-eared fluffy baby bunny.”

“Ouch. Not even an adult rabbit but a baby bunny.”

“Yup.” She reached up and grazed his cheek. He really was unnecessarily handsome.

“That bad, is he?”

Eleanor shook her head. “That good.”

Daniel laughed. “I keep forgetting who I’m dealing with. The Queen of Kink.”

“I’m a trained submissive. More like King’s Consort. I’m not worthy to hold actual rank,” she said with a wink.

“Well, I’m honored to consort with you.”

Eleanor gave him her best wicked grin. “Then consort with me already.”

Daniel grinned back. “Yes, ma’am.” He looked her up and down and something changed in his eyes like he suddenly had a very good idea.

“Where are you going?” Eleanor asked when Daniel stood and moved to leave.

“To get supplies. Stay.”

Eleanor stayed flat on her back in front of the fireplace. She closed her eyes and wondered what sordid things Daniel did to his wife on this rug. She opened her eyes and saw Daniel standing over her. He sat a tube of lubricant and a towel on the floor by her hip. Deliberately he began to roll up the right sleeve of his shirt.

Eleanor didn’t have to wonder anymore.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said, her heart racing.

“Does it look like I’m kidding?” Daniel dropped to his knees. He eased her pajama pants down her legs and tossed them aside. With a flourish he unfurled the towel and slid it under her hips.

“Surely he’s done this to you before,” Daniel said.

“He has … on special occasions.”

Daniel pried her knees apart. “Consider this a special occasion. Now are you intimidated?”

Eleanor took a deep breath. “Yeah. Happy?”

“Very.”

She took another breath and stared blankly at the ceiling. She flinched at Daniel’s first touch. “Sorry. That stuff is cold.”

“I know. But it’s necessary. Just relax.”

“The guy always says relax. Would you be relaxed if someone were about to stick their whole hand in you?”

“I can’t say I would be relaxed, but I’m quite certain I wouldn’t be argumentative.”

“Point taken.”

Daniel stopped touching her. “Close your eyes,” he ordered softly. “Just breathe in and out. Tell me if anything hurts.”

She nodded but didn’t answer. She began to breathe slowly—in … then out, in … then out. She could do this, had done this. If she was being honest she’d even admit that she loved this.

Daniel’s fingers returned to her. He pressed her outer lips apart with his left hand while he pushed two fingers from his right hand deep inside her. Eleanor kept breathing. She’d learned the secret. She knew she couldn’t allow herself to become too aroused. The vaginal muscles tightened when aroused. She had to stay calm, empty herself, let him completely in, push nothing but fear out. The perfect passive act for a true submissive.

Inside her Daniel made slow spirals with his hand … spiraling outward pressing against her inner walls, opening her until three then four fingers were inside her.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asked, gentle concern in his voice.

“Very okay.”

“Are you ready?” She didn’t have to ask him ready for what….

“Yes.”

If the four fingers filled her, it was nothing compared to the sensation of his whole hand, his whole fist inside her. Her calm broke for a moment and she gasped at how he now filled her. She spread her thighs wider, pressed hard into his hand. She felt her own fluid cool and slick on her thighs.

Daniel barely moved. He didn’t need to. Eleanor writhed around his hand, her body torn between the twin needs to push him out or pull him in deeper and deeper.

She leaned up and gripped her own knees. For the first time she looked down and saw Daniel’s wrist deep inside her. She collapsed on her back, lifted her hips and orgasmed so fiercely even Daniel gasped.

As she panted, he pulled gingerly out of her. He used the corner of the towel underneath her to dry his hand. He rolled her onto her stomach, Eleanor limp as a rag doll. She felt the cold liquid on her again, this time inside her ass. Then it was Daniel inside her thrusting hungrily. She was too tired to enjoy it. She merely waited patiently underneath him as he used her for his own pleasure and spent himself inside her once and then again when once proved inadequate to sate his appetite for her.

Finally they lay naked, near each other, sore and tired and smiling.

“I was thinking,” Eleanor said turning to drape herself over Daniel’s chest.

“Always a dangerous pursuit … what were you thinking?”

“Your wife. I know she died of cancer but still—”

“Still what?”

“I kind of envy her.”

Eleanor spent the next three days in a haze of sex and books and happiness. There was no room of the house they did not christen; there was nothing they were afraid or unwilling to do to each other. The fog grew so thick that Eleanor had to keep reminding herself what day it was and how long she’d been there. Arrived on Saturday, today was Wednesday, leave on Friday … leave on Friday.

Wednesday night Daniel came for her and brought her back to his bedroom. He stripped her naked and left her standing by the bedpost. She relaxed and breathed knowing exactly what was coming.

“Tell me your safe word, Eleanor,” Daniel commanded as he yanked her arms behind her back, bent her over the bed, and put bondage cuffs on each wrist.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Do your worst. You won’t hear it.”

“Arrogant, aren’t we?”

“Not arrogant at all,” she countered. “Just very well-trained, sir.”

He pulled her up to her feet and chained her arms high over her head to the bedpost. The first blows of the flogger landed on her back softly. Daniel was well-trained too. A long hard beating was always prefaced by a gentle one to desensitize the skin. Breathing in and out slowly, she let the pain wash over her as she’d been trained to do. The pressure intensified, the pain grew. Daniel paused only long enough to penetrate her from behind with short hard thrusts. He came on her thighs, pulled roughly out of her, picked up the flogger, and beat her again.

An hour later he finally released her and let her fall to the floor. He was everywhere with vicious hands and probing fingers. He bit at her neck and breasts and thrust until she nearly cried from the mix of pleasure and pain. She felt Daniel coming more and more back to life every time he took her. Pushing her onto her stomach, he forced himself into her again. Her thighs were wet as his fluid mingled with hers. Her back burned with welts. Underneath him, pinned to the floor, a part of her wanted to stay there forever.

An hour … three hours later … she lost track of time. She forgot her name, forgot where she was … and most dangerously forgot momentarily who she belonged to. Bucking her hips hard into Daniel’s, Eleanor came so hard he gasped from the intensity of the muscle contractions that gripped him like a hand. When Daniel came, it was with a force that tore into her stomach and sent her calling out his name. For a long time after they lay tangled together, Daniel still inside her.

She lay in his arms and tried not to say what she knew needed said.

“I leave Friday morning.” It wasn’t a reminder or a taunt. She just had to say it to remember it was true.

“Friday,” Daniel said, leaning over her to blow out the two candles that burned on the bedside table. A clear signal that it was time for sleep. “Still time.”

Daniel eased into the covers and pulled Eleanor close to him.

“Time for what?” she asked, already half asleep.

“Time to change your mind.”

Daniel and Eleanor spent the next morning finishing his library. All the books had been recoded and properly shelved. The work progressed quickly as, for once, Eleanor toiled in silence. She couldn’t get Daniel’s words out of her mind. He wanted her to stay with him … here in his exquisite prison. It was unthinkable. She belonged to someone else, belonged to him like her heart belonged to her chest. She would no more leave him than she would amputate her own arm. Unthinkable … and yet, she was thinking about it.

“Want to break for lunch?” Daniel asked shortly after one.

Eleanor didn’t answer.

“Elle? Eleanor?”

She exhaled slowly. “Seven-day loan, remember?”

“What was that?”

Eleanor turned to face him. “Seven-day loan. That was the deal.”

Daniel nodded, but it was clear he wasn’t quite nodding in agreement.

“That was the deal. The deal can change.”

“No. It can’t,” Eleanor said, suddenly angry. “It’s not a joke. I’m not a library book. I’m not a part of the permanent collection.”

Daniel said nothing for a long time. “You could be.”

Eleanor just shook her head. “I can’t believe this. You’re his friend and I’m his everything and you’re doing this.” She left the library and kept going down the hallway, stopping only to grab her coat. She was out the door and in the snow. She headed down the long winding driveway. Soon she heard footsteps behind her.

“Eleanor, get back in the house.”

“You get back in the house. It’s your goddamn prison. Not mine.” She kept walking. It was cold out but she was too upset to notice or care.

“You’re in a jacket and jeans and it’s twenty-five degrees out.”

“Well, you should have thought of that before you asked me to stay.”

“That makes no sense whatsoever.” They were nearly to the edge of the long driveway. “I’m not the one running away.”

Eleanor turned around and stopped. She was at the end of the drive. Two steps back and she would be off his property and in the road.

“No. You’re not running away. You’re not running or walking or strolling or going anywhere. You’re staying and rotting and hiding. And there’s not much you and I haven’t done together this week, but I will not do that with you.”

Daniel took a step toward her. Just one but she took another step back.

“Eleanor.” Daniel’s voice was calm, controlled. He sounded like a jockey trying to gentle a spooked horse. “We can talk about this. Nothing has to be decided today. Just come in out of the cold. I’m cold, too, and I’m never cold. I know you have to be freezing. Come inside.”

Eleanor only looked at him. Even so angry at him, and cold and scared, she couldn’t deny he was breathtakingly handsome. Grief had left its mark on him. His eyes were haunted and his body lean and cold … like granite. She knew about granite, how you could build on it or be broken on it.

Still without a word she took the last steps back off his property.

“If you want me back in the house, come and get me.” She wasn’t mocking him. All she wanted was to help him.

“Don’t do this to me.” Daniel looked at her so gently that she was instantly ashamed of herself. But still she didn’t budge.

“You’re doing this to me,” she countered. “I love him with all that I am and you’re asking me to let that go, to leave him. I won’t do it. I can’t do it. I love him as much as you loved her. More maybe because if he died I would live like he would have wanted me to and not like some hermit in a cave.”

“Then just say ‘no’ to me. Let me ask you to stay and just tell me ‘no.’ No frostbite or theatrics required.”

“I can’t let you ask me,” she said.

Daniel took a half step toward her.

“Why not?”

“Because,” she said looking down at the snow that caked her shoes like white icing. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to say ‘no.’”

“Why not?” Daniel asked again as he inched another minuscule step forward.

“Who he is and what he is …” she paused and tears flooded her eyes. “Every single second I spend with him I have to steal. I sleep in his bed and know there’s no place in the world I’d rather be but it’s the last place in the world I should be. I get Saturday nights with him, sometimes a Thursday night if I’m lucky. But never the mornings. What I wouldn’t give for a Wednesday or a Sunday morning …”

“You’re in love with a priest, Eleanor. What did you expect?”

“Not to be in love with a priest for starters,” Eleanor said, half laughing, half crying. “Every morning this week you’ve made love to me. You’re all mornings and afternoons and evenings and I didn’t have to steal a single second of it. You just have them all to give. So if you ask me to stay … Please, Daniel, don’t ask me to stay.”

When Daniel nodded, it was in agreement this time.

“The only thing I’ll ask is that you come back inside with me.” He was still on his property but when he reached out his hand it crossed over to her side. She took it and hated how good her small cold fingers felt wrapped up in his warm large hand. She hated it but didn’t let go until they were back inside.

Daniel let go of her hand but only so he could take her by the shoulders and pull her to him. He kissed her and undressed her at the same time. She was pinned to the front door before she knew it.

“I’ll let you leave,” he said into her ear as he lifted her by her thighs and pushed his cock into her. “But I’ll make sure you miss me.”

He was relentless. Eleanor gripped his shoulders. He was still dressed. Only she was naked and spread out against the unforgiving front door. Only she was taking and taking as he was giving more and more of himself each time he pushed into her: she took his need, his sorrow, his determination to keep her, his anger that he couldn’t, his fingers on her clitoris, and finally his cum that poured into her as she shuddered from the orgasm that he’d also given her.

Eleanor wrapped her arms around Daniel’s neck as he lowered her feet to the cold floor. She leaned into him and inhaled his scent—warm and clean with the slightest hint of fireplace smoke—and committed it to memory.

“Don’t worry,” she said, finally letting him go. “I miss you already.”

Eleanor and Daniel lay in bed Thursday night, their last night, with their arms and legs wrapped around each other so that it was nearly impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. Tomorrow morning the car would come for Eleanor and take her back to the outside world and to him who she missed with every other breath and cursed with every breath in between.

“What will you do after I’m gone?” Eleanor asked, not knowing how else to keep avoiding the topic.

“What do you think I should do?” Daniel asked as he pulled Eleanor even closer than she already was.

“I don’t know. You’ve got money, no job, and it’s fucking freezing outside. Go to Tierra del Fuego or something. I hear it’s nice this time of year.”

Daniel laughed and the movement of his chest from the laugh against her back nearly sent her reeling again. Could he stop being sexy for one moment? “Tierra del Fuego is nearly the southernmost tip of South America, a stone’s throw from Antarctica. It snows there in summer.”

“Wow. Anyway, you should be used to all that cold. I bet it’s pretty there.”

“Yes, I imagine it is. The natives burned fires constantly to ward off the cold—hence the name Land of Fire.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“Librarian, remember?”

“I keep forgetting.” She reached between his legs and stroked him. “I’m really going to have to renew my library card when I get back.”

“You should,” Daniel said pressing her onto her back and sliding into her. “Watch out for those overdue fines.”

Eleanor laughed softly as she wrapped a leg over Daniel’s back to coax him in even further. “Oh, I think I can afford them.”

Morning came too early for both of them. Eleanor awoke with her stomach pressed to the mattress and Daniel inside her, gently thrusting. He was too desperate for her to even wait for her to wake up on her own. They made love in silence, mute from the pain of having to part too soon.

Daniel pulled out of her at last with a reluctance they both felt. He ran a hot bath for her and with soap and his bare hands washed all traces of himself off and out of her. Eleanor shivered in the water despite its near scalding temperature. She would have preferred to have gone home dirty from him, stained and marked by him. She was grateful for the few black bruises he’d left on her back and inner thighs and the bite marks on her neck and breasts. She knew in a day or two this strange week with him would fade like a morning dream. She needed the marks to remind her it had happened—Daniel was real and she was more than just a seven-day loan. She had belonged to him. She had.

Daniel packed her things while she dried her hair and dressed. She felt odd letting Daniel pack up her stuff but she let him without any protest. She knew that he needed to feel in control of the situation, that her departure this morning was as much his doing as hers.

Eleanor had just finished taming her hair when Daniel came for her. His voice was low and steady, his eyes quiet. “The car’s here.”

She nodded, not trusting her voice, and gathered her coat and gloves. Side by side they walked in silence down the hallway, down the steps and to the front door. Eleanor reached for the door handle but Daniel stopped her with a hand on tops of hers.

“Daniel, I have—”

“Call me ‘sir.’ One more time at least.”

Eleanor met his eyes and saw them stricken. She felt something hard in the back of her throat. She tried to swallow it but couldn’t.

“Yes, sir,” she whispered.

Daniel closed his eyes and opened them again slowly.

“I won’t ask you to stay,” he said. Eleanor could barely look at him although there was nothing more she wanted to do than memorize every line and angle of his face. “But I want to.”

She inhaled sharply and forced a smile.

“I won’t say ‘yes’ if you do ask … but I want to.”

Daniel smiled back and that smile broke her heart more than any tears ever could.

“Go. Go back to him before I change my mind and keep you here forever.”

“He’d come for me, you know.”

“I do know. That’s the only reason I won’t try.”

Daniel took his hand away from hers and let her open the door. The driver got out and put her bags in the trunk. He held the door open for her and she slipped inside. The driver got behind the wheel as Eleanor rolled the tinted window down.

“I won’t ever see you again, will I?” she asked.

“Not unless you leave him.”

“I won’t,” she said with merciless certainty. “But maybe,” she glanced up at the great house looming behind him, “maybe someday you’ll leave her.”

Daniel nodded. “Maybe … Goodbye, Eleanor. Be good.”

She gave him her most wicked grin.

“Yes, sir.”

The car pulled away and headed slowly down the drive. Eleanor closed her eyes and leaned her head against the cold glass of the window. She would not look back at him. She knew he would still be there on the steps of the house watching her leave him, watching despite the cold, watching until every sign of her had shrunk into the distance and disappeared. That’s where he was. She didn’t have to look back. She just knew it.

Eyes still closed, she felt the car turn left out of the driveway and slam to a sudden stop.

“What the—” Eleanor threw open her eyes and leaned forward. Standing in front of the car in the middle of the road and completely off his property was Daniel. She wrenched the car door open and ran to him.

“Daniel … oh my god … you’re—”

“I lied,” he said reaching for her. “I will ask you to stay. I will and I am. I’m begging you to stay. I need you.”

He kissed and she kissed back, too startled to move, too moved to speak.

She finally pulled away from him.

“Daniel, you did it. You left your house, the property. I can’t believe it.”

Daniel looked at the house in the near distance and laughed as if just now realizing what he’d done.

“This just shows how much I need you. I haven’t stepped foot off the property in over three years but for you … here I am.”

Eleanor held him just a moment longer, pressed her face to his neck and inhaled that scent that was him and only him. And in that one moment longer she saw their life together—the days among books, the nights wrapped around each other, the mornings for anything they wanted … and they would never have to be apart and there would never be another second of waiting for a door to open just enough for her to slip inside without anyone knowing … she could be Daniel’s and Daniel could be hers and all she had to do was say ‘yes.’

“No,” she said and let him go.

“What? No what?” Daniel looked utterly stricken.

“If you were still in there, in your fortress, then I would know how much you needed me. That you’re here, you’re free … it’s proof that you don’t need me at all.”

“Eleanor. Please.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said backing away to return to the car. “I know it won’t help anything but you should know … only leaving him would ever hurt more than this.”

She looked at him one last time before slipping back into the car and saying one terrible word—”Drive.”

The car started forward again and this time nothing and no one tried to stop it.

Three months later …

She was seeing him tonight, all night. The knowledge of twelve uninterrupted hours with him left her dancing through her day. She danced home from work at eight and dropped her bag full of library books on her kitchen table. She would shower and change and in one hour, nine on the dot, she would be his, completely his all night long.

“Ellie?” her mother’s voice called out from behind a closed bedroom door. “You’ve got mail. On your bed.”

“Thanks!” she called back and danced to her room, not curious in the least what bit of junk mail was waiting for her. She glanced at the bed and saw a postcard on the corner of her quilt. She picked it up. On the front was a photo of mountains, snow-tipped and verdant. Now curious enough to care she flipped the card over and read …

Tierra del Fuego is actually quite lovely this time of year. Say hello to Astor and Lenox for me. Love.

It wasn’t signed. Only “Love” and nothing else. But it didn’t need a signature. Daniel … she couldn’t believe he’d actually gone and left his home—gone even to the ends of the earth. The lingering guilt at leaving him so abruptly disappeared at last. He was fine and even more he was free.

Eleanor slid the postcard into a book she’d just finished reading and danced to her shower.

She knew what love was. And it was expecting her at nine.