The Priest: An Original Sinners Novel Read online

  Cyrus knocked softly on the front door. He waited, ready to knock again, louder, when he heard the rattle of keys and locks, and the door opened to reveal a small round woman in a gray habit and a tired smile on her face.

  “Mr. Tremont, thank you for coming,” she said. When he gave her his hand to shake, she took it in both her hands and held it a moment. She seemed to be on the verge of a breakdown.

  “Of course, Sister,” Cyrus said as she ushered him into the house. The staircase in the foyer was carpeted red, with a dark wooden bannister. “You and Father Ike were good friends?”

  “I run the house here,” she said. “He’s been living here ever since he came to the city, almost fifteen years. He was very kind to me. Never took me for granted.” She lowered her voice. “I can’t say the same about some of the others who’ve graced these halls with their holy and anointed selves.” A sarcastic sister. He liked that.

  “Was he close with any of the other priests in the house?”

  “No. There are only two other men living here now, both new arrivals. Father Adamu arrived from Kenya only three weeks ago. The other, Danilo Lucas, is a twenty-one-year-old seminarian from Brazil. He’s in his first semester at Notre Dame, at school from dawn ‘til dusk. I don’t believe he’s even met Isaac yet.”

  “Did Father Ike have any close friends?”

  She looked up, almost an eye roll. “The Archbishop.”

  “Shit. Sorry.” So much for that line of questioning. No way was he going to the Archbishop. Katherine would lose her job in a minute.

  “I understand.” She smiled kindly. “They’re old friends from seminary. They went hunting together every November. Frankly, I don’t know anyone who knew him better than I did.”

  “I believe that.”

  “You saw him on television tonight?” she asked. Cyrus nodded. “He wants everyone to think Isaac was depressed. Isaac was not depressed. He loved his work, his life. At least I thought he did.”

  “You said you found something?” he gently prompted.

  “Yes. This way.”

  Cyrus followed her up the steps. She had a nun’s way of walking—head bowed low, clinging to the side-wall so people could pass her coming down the stairs with ease. A humble walk for a humble servant.

  As they neared a door at the end of the hallway, Sister Margaret pulled her keys from a pocket in her voluminous skirt he hadn’t noticed until her hand was deep inside it. That took him back to Catholic school—the sisters with their habits and all their hidden treasures. Hidden rosary beads, hidden keys. Hidden candy for students who impressed them. Hidden apples and packages of crackers for students who’d come to school hungry.

  “This is his apartment?”

  “It is. Was,” she said, correcting herself. She paused outside the door and briefly rested her forehead against the frame in a moment of quiet grief.

  She stood up again and opened the door. Inside Cyrus found a neat little living room, not much bigger than the sort he’d seen in your average three-star hotel suite. Green love seat, green and brown rug, coffee table, side table, a few books on a wooden bookcase with a bottle of Scotch and a shot glass on top. Either a brand-new bottle or Father Ike wasn’t much of a drinker.

  “The bedroom’s through this door.”

  She led him to another room with little in it but a full-size bed covered in a red and white quilt, a closet, a floor lamp, a cross hanging on the wall and a nightstand.

  “I found it in the nightstand when I went to look for an address book, phone numbers. I suppose no one has those anymore.”

  “You never know,” Cyrus said. He pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and snapped them on. Sister Margaret went into the living room and closed the door. He had no idea what he was looking for, no idea what he would find, but whatever it was, Sister Margaret clearly didn’t want to see it again.

  Bracing himself, Cyrus eased the top drawer of the nightstand open and saw something that would have jarred anyone, religious or not. It was metal with a round section connected to a curved tube of sorts only a couple inches long with a little padlock holding it together. Gingerly, Cyrus removed it from inside the drawer and found it surprisingly heavy. He turned it this way and that, examining it in the lamp light. If he’d been forced to guess, he’d say it was possibly some sort of metal codpiece, but who the hell wore codpieces in this century? And even if someone did wear a codpiece, it probably wouldn’t have little metal spikes on the inside.

  Metal spikes. Cyrus shuddered looking at the thing. Surely there was more to this thing than he understood. He looked around, saw an empty waste basket with a fresh plastic bag inside. He took the bag out, and carefully wrapped the metal object in it.

  When he returned to the sitting room, he found Sister Margaret on the sofa, her head bowed in prayer.

  “Well?” she asked when she finally looked up at him.

  “I don’t know what it is, either. I don’t think I want to guess.”

  “Whatever it is, I think it’s…well, it’s not good.”

  “I’d guess you’re right. I’ll take this and ask someone who might know what it is.”

  “Who?”

  He looked at the sister in her habit, her veil, with her rosary beads clutched in her small pale hand.

  “Trust me,” he said. “Nobody you know.”

  Chapter Nine

  Nora took Gmork back to Kingsley’s, where she put him in his outdoor doghouse with food and water. She petted his head and told him she’d see him tomorrow. He started to whine as she walked away. “Sorry, buddy,” she whispered. “Mamma needs get to laid.”

  Before Nora left the house, she ran upstairs to her bedroom, threw open the closet door, and pulled down a rosewood box on the top shelf. From it, she took out her white leather collar, wrapped in velvet, and slipped it in her bag.

  She drove to the French Quarter and parked on a side street near the Hotel Richelieu. Of course Søren would get them a room at a hotel named for the most infamous cardinal in all of Catholic history.

  Søren had left her a key at the front desk. As she made her way to the room, her excitement built to a fever pitch. Once, she’d seen a cat on a windowsill vibrating with excitement over the sight of a fluttering moth on the other side of the glass. That was her.

  Her hand shook so hard she could barely get the key into the lock. But then it was in, and the knob was turning and she was inside the darkened room.

  She locked the door behind her, dropped the key on the floor. She’d find it later when keys mattered again. Maybe tomorrow morning. Maybe never.

  Her eyes adjusted quickly. The room wasn’t completely pitch black—this was the French Quarter. The lights outside never went out. She slipped out of her red heels and stepped deeper into the room. No sign of Søren.

  She walked barefoot to the dormer window that overlooked Chartres Street. Pedestrians passed by, some sober, some not. Some laughing, some not. Two lovers kissed in the glow of a streetlamp before stumbling off to darker corners for deeper kisses.

  The floor creaked under the carpet behind her. Nora smiled.

  Although she desperately wanted to turn to him, look at him, drink him in, she kept her eyes forward and down. She removed her collar from her bag, and dropped the bag onto the floor. She held her collar up in the palm of her hand.

  He took it from her without a word and locked it around her neck.

  When he lifted her hair and kissed her neck, Nora tensed. Instinct told her to panic, to pull the curtains closed and to step back into the dark where no one could see them together. Habits die hard, especially the habit of hiding that she was the mistress of a Catholic priest.

  But now…Nora let go.

  Søren brought his hands to her head and tied a sash around her eyes. Two cool fingers slipped under the straps of her black dress. He slowly brought the straps down her arms, down her body, down her legs, down to the floor. Black panties came next. In seconds, she was naked but for the blindfold.
She felt the scrape of soft fabric on her bare back. He was still dressed.

  She felt a hand between their bodies—her lower back and his waist—and the brief touch of cold metal. A belt buckle. Then the rush of sliding leather on bare skin as he pulled his belt out of the loops. It grazed her skin as he brought it around her.

  She didn’t need to see to know that he held the ends of the leather belt in both hands in front of her. First, he pulled it taut against her hips, forcing her back against him so that she couldn’t run or flee if she wanted to, and no, no, no she did not want to, especially not when he kissed her naked shoulder. The kiss felt different. Off, somehow…like it wasn’t him. She stiffened in fear and confusion. Had someone tricked her into coming here?

  “Shh…” he whispered into her ear as he caressed the side of her face with two fingers. She turned her head toward him, into his hand, into his palm and it was like breathing in a gust of winter wind. Oh yes, this was him.

  She relaxed and started to say something like, “You scared me, you monster,” when he brushed his fingers over her lips, silencing her. She didn’t need his words to tell her none were allowed. Not until he gave her permission to speak.

  He kissed her shoulder again. A chill as delicious as a cool breeze on a steaming New Orleans night passed through her, down to her toes. Twenty-three years together, and he could still make her toes curl and give her goosebumps and scare her down to the bone. Especially when he lifted the belt to her neck and pulled her back against him again. The pressure on her throat wasn’t painful—the collar protected her vocal cords—but it did change her breathing. Her breathing and his.

  Søren held the belt steady, keeping the pressure constant, and she felt his chest panting and heard his breaths coming as quick as her own. It was a sacred thing to be loved by a sadist like Søren. Sacred like a sacrifice, like a vestal virgin offered to a god. What was a god, anyway, but one who held the power of life and death in his hands? By that measure, surely Søren qualified, if only when they made love.

  A long minute—maybe two or three—passed before he lowered the belt from her throat. Nothing would happen quickly tonight. She understood this, and accepted it. Other men who’d gone a month without sex would rush to the deed quickly, no delay. Other men would have had her in bed already. Ah, but Søren wasn’t other men. He wasn’t other men and that’s why after, twenty-three years, she was as alive to his touch as she’d been at seventeen. She tried to touch him with her hands and he caught her wrists in his iron grasp. She gasped, the sound loud enough to echo off the ceiling and drop to the floor.

  “Shh…” he said again, not to silence but to soothe her. He brought her arms down to her sides and then pulled them behind her back, the fearsome grip unrelenting as he held her still in that spot, her back arching. They still stood by the window. Although she was blindfolded, there was a chance anyone passing by could see them. He knew this as well as she did. There was only one explanation for why he hadn’t moved her from the window—Søren wanted them to be seen.

  He pulled harder on her wrists and her back arched even more. He pressed his body to hers but didn’t kiss her. Ten minutes or more had passed since she’d stepped foot into the room…yet he hadn’t once kissed her on the mouth.

  The cruelest thing he could deny her was himself.

  In the blackness behind her blindfold, she’d lost track of what he’d done with his belt. But now she felt it as he pushed even closer to her. He’d slung it over his shoulder, and the cold metal buckle tickled her back. That he still had it with him, hadn’t dropped on the floor meant he wasn’t done with it yet.

  Søren released her wrists, but only long enough to wrap the belt around them. Using the belt as a leash, he pulled her backward into the room, taking her slowly, very slowly, a step at a time to where-she-didn’t-know. Likely the bed. She wondered if anyone out on the street had seen the sight of the naked, blindfolded woman and the statuesque blond man behind her? Let the whole world watch if it wanted. What did they have to be ashamed of, now?

  He brought her to the bed. The heavy fabric of the duvet brushed the back of her thighs. He took the belt off her wrists, and blood rushed back into her grateful fingers. When he took her wrist in hand again, it was gently this time, though his purposes were no less nefarious than before. He brought her hand to his crotch and pressed her palm into his erection. She felt the hardness, the thickness, the long length of it even though the thick denim of the jeans he almost always wore when riding his Ducati.

  With her palm still against him, he opened his pants and she took him in hand, nearly moaning from the sheer pleasure of his skin on her skin. He pushed his hips into her grasp and she stroked him from base to tip, tip to base, back again and again. A month apart, choking her with the belt…it was a miracle he wasn’t inside her already, a miracle she hadn’t begged for it either.

  His hands came to her shoulders, and he pressed her down to the rug on the floor. She knelt there, trapped between him and the bed. When he nudged her mouth with the tip of his cock, she opened wide to take it into her throat. In the small space between his hips and the bed, she could barely move her head an inch. No matter. She didn’t have to. He slipped his hands into her hair and held her while he moved in and out of her mouth.

  Nora moaned in pleasure. She had missed this…the taste of him, the scent of him, the sheer force of him. While sucking him, she slid her hands up his thighs and to his stomach where she caressed him under his shirt. Caressed and then scratched him with her fingernails, digging in, not afraid to hurt him. Taking such a liberty was a risk and one sure to be punished. But the punishment was even sweeter than the crime. He grabbed her wrists once more and held them locked together behind her head. This was brutal mouth fucking. He even lifted his knee and rested it on the mattress by her head, imprisoning her in that tiny space between him and the bed.

  Søren was a man of uncommon desires. Nothing aroused him more than inflicting pain on a willing victim. The chronology was usually linear—pain first, arousal after, sex as the finale. But in his more sadistic moods he managed to combine the three into one. If the sex was rough enough to cause her pain, it would fuel his arousal. She might be trapped while he fucked her mouth all night.

  Nora heard him inhale sharply and while it was a small sound, to her it was more erotic than another man’s loud moaning, and she would have smiled if her mouth weren’t otherwise occupied. There was nothing like the triumph of making a man like Søren lose control, if only for the space of one gasp, one groan.

  He pulled out of her mouth so quickly she nearly fell forward on the floor. She caught herself with her hands and sat there, waiting and obedient, her hair falling into her face. He stood at her side and twined one hand into her hair again, lifting her gently by the long locks and bringing her to rest her cheek against his thigh.

  This was bliss. She was his again, his slave and his servant and his slut. Her lips were already swollen, her throat raw, her knees aching.

  His grip on her hair tightened. He pulled—not hard but firmly—and she knew he wanted her to stand. She moved into a kneeling position again, tucking her toes under and rising straight up off the floor, a skill she’d learned at his knee when she was young and had never forgotten.

  When she came to her feet, he turned her toward the bed. With the tips of his fingers alone, he pushed her forward until her face rested against the duvet. She placed her hands on the bed by her head as he used his bare feet to spread her legs apart.

  A snap. She flinched. He hadn’t struck with the belt. Not yet. For now, he was merely using it to get her attention.

  He had it.

  “Thirty-four,” he said, and that was all he said. Thirty-four…that was how many nights he’d been gone. It was also how many times he would belt her. She’d belted enough of her clients to know he would double it in his hand to shorten the length and make it easier to control. And with the first strike right on her upper right thigh, she knew she was right. W
hen it came to a sustained beating, precision was far more important than power.

  The second strike was far harder than the first, and she buried her mouth against the bed to silence her cries of pain. They were in the middle of a bustling neighborhood in a hotel with dozens of guests in the rooms around and under them. Screaming was discouraged…but not forbidden. This was the French Quarter. These things happened.

  The blows built and built upon her ass and thighs. She breathed harder, moaned softer. She’d lost count at twenty. The impact barely registered anymore, only the fire, only the burning. Leather on flesh creates friction. Friction creates heat. The room was cold when she’d arrived. Now it felt like a hundred degrees.

  Nora flinched as something landed next to her on the bed. She waited, but nothing happened. It was over. The beating done and the belt discarded. With her eyes hidden behind the sash, her sense of hearing heightened. She heard the sounds she wanted to hear—the rustle of fabric as Søren took off his clothes. When he came back to her, she felt his bare thighs against hers. He touched the welts he’d left on her body, probing them lightly with his fingers, tracing the raised edges, feeling the heat of them against his palm. Admiring his work, of course.

  Nora let herself go limp as Søren pulled and turned her this way and that, until she lay on the bed on her back, hips at the edge of the mattress. He spread her thighs wide as he moved between them and pushed his fingers into her. He stroked upward, rubbing the front wall where she was so wet and tender and aching. He wetted his fingers inside her and massaged the wetness over her throbbing clitoris. Nora’s shoulders nearly came off the bed as he touched every part of her that needed touching.

  She heard his low mocking laugh and fought off the urge to “accidentally” kick him. It was his fault she was this desperate. A whole month? Was the man trying to kill her? He pressed the tip of his cock at the entrance of her body, and pushed in slow, deep, and hard and she groaned in relief.