The Prince
“What? I read in the bathtub. What were you referring to?”
Wesley laughed and rested his chin on top of her head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
He sighed so heavily Nora felt his chest heave against hers.
“Now what’s your problem, kid?” Pulling back, she looked up at Wesley and started to peel off the rest of her clothes.
“You. You’re my problem. I’m crazy about you and you’re going to leave me. Aren’t you?”
“Wes, I just got here a few days ago. And now it seems like your dad doesn’t hate the very sight of me. So that’s progress.”
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
“Ask it again.”
Wesley met her eyes as Nora removed her underwear and stood before him wet and naked.
“Are you going to leave me…again?”
Nora’s stomach clenched even worse than it had back in the stable when she’d realized what she had to do.
“I didn’t leave you the first time, Wes. I went back to Søren. And I made you leave me. I couldn’t have left you. That’s why I kicked you out. I wasn’t strong enough to leave you. I was only strong enough to order you to go away.”
“Will you order me to go away again?”
“No. I thought it would kill me the first time I did it. I could barely speak for a week after you were gone. I cried constantly.”
“Søren must have loved that.”
“He loved me. And forgave me every tear. And not once did he tell me not to miss you, not to talk about you, not to love you.”
“I hate when you tell me nice things he’s done. Makes it harder to hate him.”
“Don’t ever hate Søren.” Nora unzipped Wesley’s jeans and started to tug the wet denim down over his hips as he finally pulled off his wet and snot-covered shirt. “Hate me, but never hate him.”
“I have to hate him.”
“Why? Hate does not become you, my Wesley.”
“Nora…he put you in the hospital. I was there, remember? I drove you to the hospital after he—”
“He didn’t,” she said in a hollow voice and hated herself the second the words came out. She’d promised herself she’d never tell Wesley about that night.“Didn’t what?”
“He didn’t put me in the hospital that night I went back to him. That’s not what happened.”
Wesley’s eyes widened. Nora turned off the shower, stepped out and grabbed a towel. Naked but for a towel, Nora sunk down on the floor. Still dripping wet, Wesley sat opposite from her, his back to the bathtub.
“The night I went back to Søren, it was rough. We played rough. He started with a hard slap. A good one. My favorite kind.”
“I should have broken his face for that.”
“Wesley—Søren slaps because I like slapping. I do it to clients all the time. It’s part of my kink. He knows that. He slapped me.”
“I don’t want to hear this.”
“I can’t let you hate him. I thought I could but only because I thought it would make you hate me, too. I have to tell you the truth. You have to know what you’re asking me to do every time you ask me to stay.” Nora stared deep into his dark brown eyes.
“Nora…”
She heard the plea in Wesley’s voice, a plea she couldn’t heed.
“One slap and then he flogged me. A good thorough back flogging. I’d had one like that a thousand times before. Loved it. Then we were both so turned on and desperate for each other, he took me upstairs and we—”
“I know. You f**ked, right?”
She shook her head.
“No. He made love to me. As gently as you have. He couldn’t stop telling me how much he loved me.”
“I saw you the next day, Nora. I know what he did to you.”
Nora narrowed her eyes at him and let him see that side of her she so often had to hide. “You don’t know anything about what he did to me. After we made love, I begged for more. He laughed and called me insatiable. He tied me to the bedpost and flogged me again, a bit harder this time. Then a little caning action. Just enough to leave some bruises. And I waited. Waited for my chance.”
“Chance for what?”
Nora’s mind went back to that night, the night she’d gone back to Søren after five years apart. She knew she had to do something, something ugly, something that scared even her. She had to do it so Wesley would want to leave her.
“Søren untied my hands and stepped away to get something—cuffs, another flogger, I don’t even know. As soon as he turned his back on me, I fell.”
“You fell? Like fainted?”
“No. I fell on purpose. Hard against the hardwood. I landed on the side of my face and on my ribs. It was like cutting down a tree. Timber…” she said, and with her hands feigned the falling of a heavy tree to the ground. “I hit the floor full body with my whole weight behind it. That’s how I bruised my ribs. That’s how I busted my lip...we didn’t do it. I did it to myself.”
She knew Wesley believed her when all he could ask was, “Why?”
“Why?” she repeated. “For you. I thought if you thought Søren had really beat the shit out of me in a really ugly way, then you’d think I was…I don’t know…a hopeless cause. I thought it would scare you enough you’d want to leave. If I made you think he was a monster and you knew I loved him, then you would think…”