Daniel paused only long enough to penetrate her from behind with short hard thrusts. He came on her thighs, pulled roughly out of her, picked up the flogger, and beat her again.
An hour later he finally released her and let her fall to the floor. He was everywhere with vicious hands and probing fingers. He bit at her neck and breasts and thrust until she nearly cried from the mix of pleasure and pain. She felt Daniel coming more and more back to life every time he took her. Pushing her onto her stomach, he forced himself into her again. Her thighs were wet as his fluid mingled with hers. Her back burned with welts. Underneath him, pinned to the floor, a part of her wanted to stay there forever.
An hour … three hours later … she lost track of time. She forgot her name, forgot where she was … and most dangerously forgot momentarily who she belonged to. Bucking her hips hard into Daniel’s, Eleanor came so hard he gasped from the intensity of the muscle contractions that gripped him like a hand. When Daniel came, it was with a force that tore into her stomach and sent her calling out his name. For a long time after they lay tangled together, Daniel still inside her.
She lay in his arms and tried not to say what she knew needed said.
“I leave Friday morning.” It wasn’t a reminder or a taunt. She just had to say it to remember it was true.
“Friday,” Daniel said, leaning over her to blow out the two candles that burned on the bedside table. A clear signal that it was time for sleep. “Still time.”
Daniel eased into the covers and pulled Eleanor close to him.
“Time for what?” she asked, already half asleep.
“Time to change your mind.”
Daniel and Eleanor spent the next morning finishing his library. All the books had been recoded and properly shelved. The work progressed quickly as, for once, Eleanor toiled in silence. She couldn’t get Daniel’s words out of her mind. He wanted her to stay with him … here in his exquisite prison. It was unthinkable. She belonged to someone else, belonged to him like her heart belonged to her chest. She would no more leave him than she would amputate her own arm. Unthinkable … and yet, she was thinking about it.
“Want to break for lunch?” Daniel asked shortly after one.
Eleanor didn’t answer.
“Elle? Eleanor?”
She exhaled slowly. “Seven-day loan, remember?”
“What was that?”
Eleanor turned to face him. “Seven-day loan. That was the deal.”
Daniel nodded, but it was clear he wasn’t quite nodding in agreement.
“That was the deal. The deal can change.”
“No. It can’t,” Eleanor said, suddenly angry. “It’s not a joke. I’m not a library book. I’m not a part of the permanent collection.”
Daniel said nothing for a long time. “You could be.”
Eleanor just shook her head. “I can’t believe this. You’re his friend and I’m his everything and you’re doing this.” She left the library and kept going down the hallway, stopping only to grab her coat. She was out the door and in the snow. She headed down the long winding driveway. Soon she heard footsteps behind her.
“Eleanor, get back in the house.”
“You get back in the house. It’s your goddamn prison. Not mine.” She kept walking. It was cold out but she was too upset to notice or care.
“You’re in a jacket and jeans and it’s twenty-five degrees out.”
“Well, you should have thought of that before you asked me to stay.”
“That makes no sense whatsoever.” They were nearly to the edge of the long driveway. “I’m not the one running away.”
Eleanor turned around and stopped. She was at the end of the drive. Two steps back and she would be off his property and in the road.
“No. You’re not running away. You’re not running or walking or strolling or going anywhere. You’re staying and rotting and hiding. And there’s not much you and I haven’t done together this week, but I will not do that with you.”
Daniel took a step toward her. Just one but she took another step back.
“Eleanor.” Daniel’s voice was calm, controlled. He sounded like a jockey trying to gentle a spooked horse. “We can talk about this. Nothing has to be decided today. Just come in out of the cold. I’m cold, too, and I’m never cold. I know you have to be freezing. Come inside.”
Eleanor only looked at him. Even so angry at him, and cold and scared, she couldn’t deny he was breathtakingly handsome. Grief had left its mark on him. His eyes were haunted and his body lean and cold … like granite. She knew about granite, how you could build on it or be broken on it.
Still without a word she took the last steps back off his property.
“If you want me back in the house, come and get me.” She wasn’t mocking him. All she wanted was to help him.
“Don’t do this to me.” Daniel looked at her so gently that she was instantly ashamed of herself. But still she didn’t budge.
“You’re doing this to me,” she countered. “I love him with all that I am and you’re asking me to let that go, to leave him. I won’t do it. I can’t do it. I love him as much as you loved her. More maybe because if he died I would live like he would have wanted me to and not like some hermit in a cave.”
“Then just say ‘no’ to me. Let me ask you to stay and just tell me ‘no.’ No frostbite or theatrics required.”
“I can’t let you ask me,” she said.
Daniel took a half step toward her.
“Why not?”
“Because,” she said looking down at the snow that caked her shoes like white icing. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to say ‘no.’”
“Why not?” Daniel asked again as he inched another minuscule step forward.
“Who he is and what he is …” she paused and tears flooded her eyes. “Every single second I spend with him I have to steal. I sleep in his bed and know there’s no place in the world I’d rather be but it’s the last place in the world I should be. I get Saturday nights with him, sometimes a Thursday night if I’m lucky. But never the mornings. What I wouldn’t give for a Wednesday or a Sunday morning …”
“You’re in love with a priest, Eleanor. What did you expect?”
“Not to be in love with a priest for starters,” Eleanor said, half laughing, half crying. “Every morning this week you’ve made love to me. You’re all mornings and afternoons and evenings and I didn’t have to steal a single second of it. You just have them all to give. So if you ask me to stay … Please, Daniel, don’t ask me to stay.”
When Daniel nodded, it was in agreement this time.
