The Priest (The Original Sinners #9) - Tiffany Reisz Page 0,9
door, a large dog at her heels, and pink pigtail ribbons flying.
“Tata, I taught Gmork a new trick!” the girl yelled. She ran over to the paint-splattered woman.
“Show me, baby,” the woman said.
The girl faced the enormous black dog and pointed her finger at it. “Couche!”
The dog lay on the ground.
The woman applauded. “Very good,” she said. “But he already knows how to lay down.”
“I know,” the girl said. “But now he knows how to do it in French.”
“You’re teaching my German Shepherd French? You’re going to give him an identity crisis.”
Cyrus watched the whole show with a smile on his face. In three or four years, he and Paulina might have a little girl of their own running around in a pink tutu, a little girl who looked just like this one. And surely this lady was not a dominatrix. She was a nanny or an auntie.
“Princess?” A woman’s voice called to the girl. “You know you’re not supposed to interrupt grown-ups talking. Come back in the house.”
“Sorry, Maman.” The little girl ran to the woman standing at the top of the steps and wrapped her arms around the woman’s leg.
If he’d been wearing a hat, he would have taken it off out of sheer respect for the woman’s otherworldly beauty. Her elegant dark skin shimmered in the morning sun, and her black hair was braided into a crown—a fitting style for a woman so statuesque and regal. Her white dress stretched across a very pregnant stomach. She glowed like she’d swallowed the moon and carried it inside her.
The pregnant goddess said something to the woman he’d been talking to, the woman who Cyrus had briefly forgotten existed. She replied in French. This elicited a smirk from the goddess, who took her little girl back into the house.
“Mr. Tremont?” the woman who was not Nora Sutherlin said. “You dropped something.”
“I did?”
“Yes. Your jaw.”
He looked at her with pursed lips.
“Don’t sweat it,” the woman said. “Juliette’s the reason the phrase ‘jaw-dropping’ was coined.”
“That’s Edge’s missus?”
The woman nodded.
“My respect for the man has gone up a notch or two.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll go down again any minute.”
“You don’t like Mr. Edge?”
“Love him. But I also know him. You want to come in and continue our conversation? It’s hot out.”
“That dog don’t look too friendly.” The dog in question stood looking right at him, the lines of his body tense as a soldier at attention.
“He doesn’t like men very much, but he’s well-trained,” the woman said. “Watch. Gmork.” She snapped her fingers and the dog snapped to attention. “Gib laut.”
The dog barked once.
“Gmork. Sitz.”
The dog sat.
“Gmork, verehre mich.”
The dog dropped his head and licked the woman’s toes.
“What command is that?” Cyrus asked.
The woman smiled. For a second—only a second—something about that smile made him think he might be in the presence of another goddess. But not the sort of goddess one put on a pedestal and admired. No, she was the sort of goddess one sacrificed doves and cattle and virgins to, in the vain hope of not inciting her wrath.
“Worship me,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“The command I gave my dog was ‘worship me.’ This is called foot worship.” She snapped her fingers and the dog stopped his licking. He lay at her feet, gazing up at her with adoring dark doggy eyes.
“Okay. So maybe you are Nora Sutherlin.”
Chapter Five
Kingsley Edge might yet live up to his reputation—mercenary, perverted, and dangerous—but Cyrus couldn’t fault him his taste in women or his taste in home decor. If Juliette was a goddess, her home was a worthy temple.
Nora Sutherlin—if this really was Nora Sutherlin—led him up the steps to the large arched front door, her giant dog following at her heels. Cold air blasted him right in the face, and he basked in it. Although only ten in the morning, the city was already starting to steam.
“Very nice,” Cyrus said. “Mr. Edge has a beautiful home.”
She took him down a hallway to a parlor room filled with furniture the likes he’d never seen outside a Chartres Street antique store.
“A king needs his castle. Do you mind very much if I change clothes before we talk?” she asked. “I shouldn’t get paint on anything. King would tan my hide.”
“Literally?”
She smiled. “So you have heard of him.”
“His reputation precedes him.”
Her smiled widened. “Make yourself at home. Wet bar’s there if you’re thirsty. I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared with her dog, and Cyrus helped himself to a bottle of water from the mini-fridge. He wandered the room, taking it