Søren straddled her thighs and gripped the back of her neck. Scalding candle wax landed on the center of her spine. Another drop hit a few inches higher. With Søren on top of her and holding her down, she couldn’t flinch. She reached out for something, anything to grasp, and wrapped her fingers around the sustain pedal. She focused on the metal in her hand, its coolness and smoothness. The burning wax coated her spine and sent pain shooting through her entire body. It ended, finally it ended, and Søren pushed her onto her back. Her inflamed skin slapped the hardwood and she cried out in agony.
The agony was short-lived as Søren kissed her again, kissed her mouth, her neck, and spent as much time kissing her breasts as he had brutalizing her back. The moans that came from her were borne of pleasure, the deepest pleasure, the sort of pleasure that came only after suffering pain. The pain threw the pleasure into such sharp relief that sex without pain seemed illogical to her. Why even bother with someone so muted? So dampened?
So boring.
When Søren pushed her thighs wide open and brought his head between her legs, she felt anything but bored. His fingers dug deep into her and ground against her most sensitive spots while his tongue and lips against her clitoris brought her to the edge of orgasm and left her hanging there with knots of need coiling in her stomach and her hand still gripping the sustain pedal to steady herself.
Søren rose up and covered her with his body. He entered her hard and fast, and she came after the first few thrusts. After her climax, she relaxed and simply let him have her. She loved the pressure of him inside her, filling her up, moving within her, and the ragged but controlled tenor of his breathing.
After he came inside her, he slowly pulled out and dragged her into his arms. She panted against his chest as he stroked her hair and kissed her forehead.
“Did you enjoy that?” he asked as she lay across his lap.
“So fucking much. Only...”
“What?”
She eyed the piano and saw the sustain pedal hanging at a somewhat off-angle. “I think I broke your piano.”
The song ended, and the final notes of “O Holy Night” played by young Isaiah shivered up Nora’s spine.
“Thank you,” she said to the boy. “You’re very talented. I hope you never quit playing.”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. I’m on the basketball team at school. My dad, he wants me to quit piano and only play basketball. He thinks my sister should take the piano lessons. She doesn’t like it, though. Just me.”
“Why does he think your sister should take piano lessons and not you?”
“Says music is for girls. Mom tells him he’s crazy and that it’s good for me to know music so I can play in church.”
“Music’s for girls?” She looked up at the store owner and winked at him. “I’ll have you know the strongest, smartest, toughest, and most intimidating man I know also plays piano. What do you think of that?”
“That true?”
“Very true. And when he plays piano every woman in the room falls in love with him. Girls love musicians.”
“That’s true,” said the store owner. “My wife said she didn’t even notice I existed until she heard me playing saxophone.”
Isaiah seemed to think it over. “Maybe I’ll keep playing,” he said. “Maybe I’ll keep playing basketball, too. You know, double my chances with the ladies, right?”
“I like the way you think, kid.” Nora chucked him under the chin. He scrambled off the piano bench and headed back to the other room of the store. “It’s an amazing piano,” she told the owner. “I love the sound. Richer than a Steinway.”
“It’s got beautiful bass notes. Holds the sound better. There’s no piano like the Bösendorfer. They call them the Rolls Royce of pianos. If you change your mind, let me know. Like I said, price includes delivery.”
The store owner left her alone with the piano. Nora touched the top and felt the ghost of a thousand concertos lurking in the polished wood.
Nora fished her phone out of her pocket.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Kingsley asked when he answered.
“Call Moretti back. Tell him I’ll do it.”
Kingsley said nothing and Nora rolled her eyes. Typical dominant trick—stop speaking to force the other to fill the silence.
“I’m at a music store,” she explained.
Silence.
“It’s December.”
Silence.
“Did you know they call Bösendorfer pianos the Rolls Royce of pianos?”
Silence.
“It’s almost Christmas. And it’s almost his birthday, King.”
Silence. And then...
“I’ll tell him fifty or nothing,” Kingsley said. “And I know him. He’ll pay fifty. You can keep my cut this time.”
“I knew you still loved him.”
“I could say the same to you,” Kingsley said.
The past year had been a cold war between her and Søren, between Kingsley and Søren. She didn’t know what had started the war, but she knew she wanted to finish it. Maybe this would help. Even if it didn’t, she had to give Søren the piano. She didn’t know why, except for the reason Kingsley had named: She still loved Søren.
“I’ll front you the money. Buy him the piano,” Kingsley said.
“Joyeux Noël, King,” Nora whispered.
“Merry Christmas, Elle.”
She hung up the phone and called out for the store owner. “You said you deliver?”
“We deliver,” he said, stepping back into the room with a broad smile crossing his wizened face.
“Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Wakefield. It goes to the rectory, not the church. You’ll have to drive up to it around the block. It’s tucked back in a little wooded area. You should be writing all this down. And it’ll need to be delivered on December 21st. Do it after six, otherwise he’ll be at the church working.”
“Quite a Christmas gift you’re giving,” he said as he wrote down the details.
“Well...” She kissed her fingertips and touched the top of the piano in a benediction. “It’s really for Christmas and his birthday.”
That Friday, Nora boarded a plane for Vegas. A limo picked her up at the airport and took her to a sprawling mansion in Summerlin outside the Vegas city limits. Some sort of servant attempted to take her toy bag from her, but she waved him away as she entered the home. A man of about forty with a dark tan, a face that had once been handsome, and desperate eyes met her in the sunroom.
“Mistress Nora.” He took her hand and kissed it. “It’s an honor to have you in my home.”
“Fuck your honor. You can do better than that,” she said without a smile. “Floor.”
He dropped to his feet and kissed the toe of her dirty boot.
“You know, Vic,” she said as she pulled a riding crop out of her toy bag, “I really hate you mob guys. Bunch of fucking rich bullies. You act like royalty and you’re all just lowlife thugs in expensive suits.” Victor didn’t disagree with her. He was too busy worshipping her feet with his tongue. “I hate the mob so much that I’m probably going to do some shit to you this week that you’re not going to like. It’ll be immoral, indecent, and very likely illegal. And you won’t even get to fuck me. Not once. And then you know what I’m going to do?”