Nora stood with her back to her front door stamping her feet and waiting for the pins in her feet sensation to fade.
She raised her hand to her face and wiped away an unwelcome tear with her fingertips. She hated fighting with S?ren. Play-fighting was one thing. Saying “I hate you, you big blond asshole” was one thing. Acting like they were archenemies for the amusement of The 8th Circle’s denizens was one thing.
This was another thing entirely. And it hurt.
She looked at the two beer bottles on her coffee table. The first time she’d gone to Europe she’d been with S?ren. The trip was a gift from Kingsley to them both. S?ren was a wine drinker, not a beer drinker. Except, he’d said to her, the Trappist monks in Belgium made the most perfect beer in the world. If Christ had turned water into beer instead of wine it would taste like Achel Blonde. He’d taken her to Denmark to meet his family, Belgium to drink their beer, Germany to visit her ancestral stomping grounds, and Paris because Kingsley had grown up there and she’d wanted to see his old house, his old neighborhood, his old life he’d left behind. Those were the two most perfect weeks of her life. And then they’d come back to America, back to Connecticut, back to S?ren being a Catholic priest, back to her being his dirty little secret.
She never forgot that trip, never stopped drinking that perfect Belgian beer, and never forgotten how hard it was to come home. In Europe when he was off-duty, they’d walked in the sunlight together. Back in America, she could see him only at night, only in secret, only in the shadows.
Pain no longer needled her feed. She picked up the bottles off the coffee table, poured the contents down her kitchen drain and threw the empties into the recycling bin. She’d yelled at S?ren for living in the past.
Maybe she should take her own advice. Right now.
She walked back to her bedroom and found Lance still sleeping. He looked pretty damn comfortable in her bed. Too comfortable. She woke him up with a few bites on his shoulders, a few bites on his chest.
His eyelashes fluttered open and Nora raised a finger to her lips, bidding him to remain quiet. As she bit him and nibbled on him, he managed to stay silent but for a few tight intakes of air.
She bit a path up to his ear and kissed it before whispering, “Two nights ago you made me come using just your mouth and no hands. Now you get to use your hands...but nothing else. Understand?”
Lance didn’t take the bait. He didn’t reply in words; he merely nodded a yes. Nora slipped out of her robe and straddled his naked hips. Pleased with his ability to follow orders, she gave him a kiss on the mouth before rolling onto her back. Lance took two pillows and put one under her head and the other under her hips. Her legs fell wide open and she relaxed into the warmth of the setting sunlight streaming through the windows and the comfort of being with a man who she trusted, a man who wanted nothing but to give her pleasure again and again. More women should really try the Domme lifestyle. A man genetically programmed to want to sexually service a woman and be her willing slave? She had yet to find the downside.
Settling between her open thighs, Lance stroked her legs, massaged her stomach and hips.
“Toys are in the drawer,” Nora said. “And lube. Anything you want. You don’t have to use them, but in case you were wondering...”
Lance raised his eyebrow and tentatively opened the drawer of her nightstand. He looked in the drawer and his eyes widened hugely before looking back at her. He stuck his hand in the drawer, winced, and blew on his fingers as if something had burned him. Nora covered her face and laughed again. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so hard in bed with a man. Usually it was get in, get kinky, get laid and get out. Or with S?ren it was get in, cry, get beaten, cry, get laid, try not to cry when she remembered how much she missed him, and get out.
With his hand playing the part of a creeping spider, Lance slowly and carefully dipped his hand once more into the drawer.
“Lube and a vibrator?” she asked. “You take this orgasm stuff seriously, don’t you?”
Lance nodded. He held three fingers up.
“Is that what you’re putting in me?” she asked, pointing at his hand.
He shook his head in a “no.”
“Is that how many times you’re going to get me off?”
This time he nodded.
“Groovy,” she said and fluffed her pillow behind her head. “Go for it.”
He went for it. First he did nothing but touch her with his bare hands. He slid two fingers into her and she sighed as he pushed deep, probing her. He widened her with his fingertips, and found the most secret places inside her, even going far enough in to lightly touch her cervix.