“Um … Cockie. 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 cock. 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 Søren wasn’t going to fuck 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 cocktail 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 bumped into Eleanor. She said a hurried “So sorry” and neatly skipped down the stairs. Eleanor saw movement and turned her head. And there stood Søren 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. Søren 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 buttoned.
“Bite-size?” Lachlan asked.
Lachlan looked at Søren. Søren glanced at Lachlan before looking at her.
“Eleanor?” Søren asked.
“Fuck you …” she breathed. And before Søren 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 classic 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 embarrassment 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 Søren 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 fucked 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 Søren.
“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.”