She panted from pleasure, shivered from need. Everything from her toes to her teeth seemed to clench and tighten. All she had to do was say "stop" and this incredibly gorgeous Australian guy would stop. And she wanted him to stop.

"Don't stop," she gasped as she felt a hard muscle contraction inside her.

"Never ever." He laughed against her skin.

His finger made tight circles against her. Tight ... tighter ... until finally Eleanor went stiff in his arms as an o.r.g.a.s.m stronger than she'd ever experienced before shook her to the very core of her being.

"That's my girl," he said and kissed her again.

Lockie pulled his hand out of her panties.

"Take your clothes off. Get on the bed. I want to see all of you." Those words sounded like an order, an order she desperately wanted to obey.

He pulled away from her and yanked off the towel. She stared at the sight of him completely naked and fully erect. She'd never seen a naked man this close-up before. She almost started to obey his orders when she remembered that she'd come here to see S0ren, not have s.e.x with a total stranger. She was a virgin. She wasn't on birth control. And she was in love with someone else.

"Um ... c.o.c.kie. Lockie, whatever. I have to go to the bathroom."

"Diaphragm?" He nodded sagely. "Bathroom's over there, bite-size. Don't be too long."

"My, um, stuff's downstairs." She pulled her jeans up and zipped them. "I'll be right back. Hold that c.o.c.k. I mean, hold that thought."

She unlocked the door and slipped out into the hall. She allowed herself all of three seconds to hook her bra and silently freak out before taking off toward the steps. In that three seconds she almost considered turning around and walking back in that room. If S0ren wasn't going to f.u.c.k her, maybe she should find someone who would.

A door opened next to her and a woman stepped into the hallway. She was easily the most beautiful woman in the house-luxurious red-black hair, brilliant blue eyes. She wore an elegant black c.o.c.ktail dress and everything about her screamed money and privilege. And yet for all of that she wore a subdued expression, almost submissive, even as her flushed faced seemed alight with some secret sort of pleasure.

The woman nearly b.u.mped into Eleanor. She said a hurried "So sorry" and neatly skipped down the stairs. Eleanor saw movement and turned her head. And there stood S0ren in the same room the woman had emerged from.

He noticed her the second after she noticed him. They stared at each other in silence. S0ren held something in his hands, a black cloth that looked like nothing more than a silk handkerchief. And yet somehow she knew it was something so much more than that.

From the bedroom she'd escaped came Lachlan wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, only halfway b.u.t.toned.

"Bite-size?" Lachlan asked.

Lachlan looked at S0ren. S0ren glanced at Lachlan before looking at her.

"Eleanor?" S0ren asked.

"f.u.c.k you ..." she breathed. And before S0ren or Lachlan could say another word, she ran from them. She flew down the stairs and stopped abruptly when a man appeared in front of her. He blocked her path and for a moment she could only stare at him. He had dark eyes, olive skin and shoulder-length black hair with a roguish wave. In another time and place she would have stared at him for an hour he was that handsome.

He gave her a smile, but not a friendly one. A slow, cold, dangerous smile.

He raised one finger and shook it in a cla.s.sic tsk-tsk motion.

"No children allowed." He practically purred the words, but she heard the underlying threat. For one brief moment she envisioned clawing his beautiful face off. Instead she pushed past him, fleeing the house like it was burning to ashes behind her. She was awash with grief and shame and embarra.s.sment and fury-utter aching, biting fury. She'd never felt like a bigger idiot in her life. All this time she'd worshipped the ground S0ren walked on. She'd offered him her body and he'd turned her down because of that collar around his neck. And it was all a lie. He wasn't some sort of saint. He was another sinner like everybody else. And he'd f.u.c.ked that beautiful woman because why not? Who wouldn't? Eleanor felt so stupid she could almost believe her father had been right about her.

Although she didn't know what to do or where to go, Eleanor kept walking. She might freeze to death between here and Wakefield but what did it matter? She almost didn't care if she froze. Her father had hit her, slapped her right in the face. And then she'd seen the one man on earth she trusted with her life in a bedroom with a beautiful woman in a house that hosted an orgy.

She wanted to cry, needed to cry, but she was too cold. Her body shook so hard she thought she'd chip a tooth from how brutally hard her teeth chattered. Maybe she could find a police station and some cop would take pity on her and help her get home. She almost laughed at the thought. Nine months ago she hated the very sight of cops. Now she'd hug one if he so much as stopped and asked her if she was okay. The temperature had dropped in the past hour sending everyone fleeing indoors. She had the street to herself.

"Eleanor?" She heard her name but ignored it. Then she heard it again and didn't. She stopped and turned around. A silver Rolls-Royce had pulled to the curb, and next to it stood S0ren.

"What do you want?" she demanded from fifteen feet away. She refused to take a step toward him, was too cold and too scared to take a step back.

"Get in the car. We'll talk about this."

"Go away."

"I'll take you home. You don't even have a coat on and it's twenty degrees out."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine, Eleanor. You're risking hypothermia and whatever you think of me right now, I'm not worth hurting yourself over."

He opened the back door and waited. She took a step toward him and stopped. Her pride and anger wouldn't allow her to take another step forward.

S0ren came to her, shedding his coat as he walked. When he wrapped it around her, she didn't even acknowledge him. With his arm around her shoulders, he guided her to the car.

"Hypothermia?" she said. "You're not worth getting a tan over."

She got in the car and refused to look at him, even when he sat opposite her on the bench seat.

He leaned forward and dug through the folds of his coat until he found her hands. He took them into his and chafed them, warming her skin with his own.

"Stop," she said. "I don't want you to touch me."

"I'll stop when you're warm. Your teeth are still chattering."

He pulled the coat tighter. All she wanted to do was close her eyes, fall asleep and never wake up again.

"Can you tell me what you were doing at Kingsley's house tonight?" S0ren asked.

"I went to see Dad," she confessed. "He called me and said he was going to be sentenced and he'd be in prison for years. This was my last chance to see him."

"I see," S0ren said.

She took a shuddering breath. Her whole body hurt.

"But he was lying," she said. "He doesn't love me, and he's not going to miss me. He was trying to get me to recant what I said. He said he might get a new trial and if I lied for him ..."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him he was an a.s.shole. We fought and I ran for it," she said, leaving out the part about the slap for some reason. It was too embarra.s.sing to admit her own father had hit her like they were some family on Jerry Springer. "But I left my coat in his apartment and it had my money in it."

"I'm sorry your father did this to you. I ordered you not to see him or speak to him."

"I tried to call you." Eleanor felt her body warming and relaxing. She pulled her hands away from S0ren's and tucked them against her stomach. "I called the church. You were supposed to answer my questions tonight. But Diane said you were gone until Sunday. You forgot about me."

"I did not and will not ever forget about you. I was coming back to Wakefield tonight and leaving to visit my sister tomorrow morning. I know your mother works late on Friday nights. I thought we'd have more than enough time to talk."

"I don't want to talk to you anymore."

S0ren sighed and sat back on the bench seat. He turned his head and stared at the frozen city that surrounded them.

"What you saw tonight-" he began.

"Stop," she said. "I told you I'd be p.i.s.sed if you ever talked to me like I was a child. If you're going to pull that 'ignore the man behind the curtain' bulls.h.i.t, let me out of the car right now."

"I would never speak to you like a child. Even when you're acting like one."

Eleanor couldn't meet his eyes when she asked the question she didn't want to ask.

"Did you have s.e.x with her?"

"Did you have s.e.x with Lachlan?"

"That's none of your business. I'm not your daughter, and I'm not your girlfriend."

"But it's your concern what I did tonight?"

"You're a priest. You have vows-"

"Vows you've been trying to get me to break with you for months."

"That's different."

"How so?"

"Because it's me," she said, anguished. "Because you promised."

Tears ran down her face, tears of jealousy and shame and fury.

She wanted to argue with him, but couldn't. So instead she pulled off his coat, threw it at him and curled up in the seat, her arms around her legs for warmth. S0ren sighed as he folded his coat and placed it on the seat next to him.

They left the city and she recognized they were on the road back to Wakefield. She wanted to ask him why they were in a Rolls-Royce, who was driving, what would happen to his Ducati back at that house and a million other questions. But instead she punished him with her silence. Half an hour pa.s.sed without them saying a word to each other. She could tell he waited for her to speak. Fine. He could wait all d.a.m.n night if he wanted. She wasn't going to say another word to him.

S0ren reached out and took her hand again. She felt her resolve to hate him melting.

"Little One, I didn't have s.e.x with her," he said softly. "And you have a very large bite mark on your neck. If he hurt you in a way you didn't like, I need you to tell me."

"No," she whispered and met his eyes for one second. "I liked it."

"I see," he said and she thought she heard something strange his voice. Something like pain.

"Jealous?" she asked.

"Yes."

She hadn't expected that answer and her astonishment must have shown.

"Don't look so surprised," S0ren said. "I wish I could give you everything you wanted. But even a good gift is a bad gift if given at the wrong time."

"What does that even mean?"

"It means one wouldn't buy a new car for an eight-year-old."

"Nice," she said, and nodded. "Now I'm an eight-year-old. What's the car? s.e.x with you? You're saying I'm too young to drive your ride?"

"Age is only a number. Maturity-or a striking lack thereof-is your issue," S0ren added, seemingly oblivious to how much his words hurt her. "You're not ready to have an adult relationship. No amount of wishing on either of our parts will make it so. And I care about you too much to take you anywhere you're not yet ready to go."

"Do you have any idea how condescending that sounds? I want you. You promised-"

"I will not f.u.c.k a teenage girl in my congregation, Eleanor."

Eleanor gaped at him.

"Did you say f.u.c.k? You never swear."

"I needed your attention. I'm pleased to see I have it now."

"You were supposed to answer my questions tonight," she finally said.

"Do you have your list?"

"Never leave home without it," she said, and pulled the folded sheet of paper from her back pocket.

S0ren tilted the list toward the light. As he read, she heard nothing but the sound of her own breathing.

"We need to work on your question-asking skills," S0ren finally said.

"What do you mean?"

"You're hamstringing yourself with some of the wording. Never ask a yes or no question when you can asked an open-ended one. Your question 'why will your friend help me?' is a good question-it will lead to a long answer. Your question 'are you a virgin?' can be answered with a simple yes or no. I'm a.s.suming you want a more thorough answer than that."

"What should I ask?"

"You could ask 'when was the last time you had s.e.x?' which would reveal not only whether or not I've had it, but also when the last occasion of it took place. A far better question than that would be 'what is your s.e.xual history?' A bit clinical, but it would do the trick."

"I can rewrite my list."

"Too late. It's in my hands now. Did you water the stick today?"

"No. I was going to do it when I got home."

"Look at your watch."

She pulled back her sleeve. It was 12:07 a.m. She'd missed the last day of watering.

"f.u.c.k," she breathed, and buried her head in her arms.