Cardinal's Rule (12 page)

The raw honesty in that simple kiss.

She squeezed his hand and nudged him forward as another couple finished at the clerk’s

window. They were next.

He didn’t deserve her.

How the fuck had Cris walked away from her?

In their time together the night before, Landry realized how much they had in common. He

could see why Cris loved her.

He’d never admit to feeling a little nervous about performing as required on their wedding

night. The thought of having Cris there strung up and helpless, ironically, would be a helpful boost for him.

It’s good to be a sadist.

Their turn. He produced his information, she produced hers, and they filled out the forms.

Fifteen minutes later they were one step closer to being married.

It felt natural to hold her hand on the walk to the car.

“How do we get to the beach from here?” he asked.

“Why?”

“I’d like to see it. Am I not allowed to go for a walk along the beach with my fiancée?”

He liked that he could make her smile. “Okay. Turn here.”

They drove across the John Ringling Causeway, through St. Armands Circle again, and twenty

minutes later, they were on Lido Key at a public park. She left her jacket in the car, kicked off her shoes and locked her purse in his trunk. He removed his shoes too, and together they walked across the white sugar sand to the Gulf of Mexico.

Beautiful. Even prettier than California, and he’d thought those to be some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

She let him hold her hand and they walked for nearly an hour in one direction as they talked. At one point they stopped to rest, sitting in dry sand away from the water so they didn’t get wet.

“Do you still love him?” she quietly asked.

“Absolutely. Part of me wishes I didn’t. It’d make life a lot easier for me in some ways. I could be a cold-hearted bastard and kick him out.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders. It felt natural, comfortable to cuddle her close. He’d been lacking in affection since the revelation, missed that contact with Cris. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, noting the sweet scent of her shampoo. “Do you still love him? Honestly?”

She let her head rest against his shoulder, relaxing into him. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I wish I didn’t. What kind of pitiful freak does that make me? That after what he did, I do still love him.”

“It doesn’t make us pitiful. It makes us human.” He nuzzled his chin against the top of her head.

“Thank you, Tilly. I know I said it before, but I mean it. I guess I should have warned you I’m a really crappy patient.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’m a pretty bossy bitch.” She looked up at him with a smile on her face.

He wanted to kiss her again, so he did.

* * * *

She didn’t want to stop kissing him. He was a damn good kisser.

Why the fuck’s he got to be gay? Just my luck.

Why’s he got to be Cris’ Master?

She didn’t want him to leave. Despite the weird, whacked-out situation, she wanted to spend

more time with him.

The thought of spending her evening alone after such a nice day with Landry made her heart

throb in a bad way. Back in the car, she turned in her seat to watch him while he drove. “What do you have planned for tonight?”

He shrugged. “Back to the room, eat dinner, torture slave. The usual.”

Tilly smiled. “We going to keep him in the dark until it happens?”

He nodded. “I want to. He knows something’s going on but he doesn’t dare ask. Not when he

knows how upset I am.”

She took a leap of faith. “Why don’t you spend the night with me?”

“I thought you wanted to do that on our wedding night.”

“I meant to talk.” She picked at her fingernails. “I mean, unless you don’t want to.”

He reached over and patted her thigh. “I’d love it. We need to make a quick stop first.”

They pulled into the hotel parking lot a little after four. She nervously looked around for any sign of Cris but didn’t see him. Landry parked several doors down from their room. “I’ll be right back.

I need to leave him money for dinner. He didn’t have lunch and not much for breakfast.”

She stifled another sympathetic pang for Cris as Landry climbed out, walked down to his room and disappeared inside. Yes, she’d been Cris’ slave, but he never controlled her like that. She’d never felt restricted, could spend money as she needed without asking first.

A few moments later Landry returned, smiling and carrying both a rolling carry-on bag and a

laptop case. He put them in the back seat before climbing behind the wheel.

“Was he there?”

“Oh, absolutely. If he wasn’t he knew he’d better not come back at all.”

“What’s so funny?”

“The look on his face when I handed him the twenty and told him he’d better answer the room

phone whenever I called. He’s dying of curiosity and knows damn well he can’t ask what’s going on.”

He waited until they reached U.S. 41 and headed south before he pulled out his phone and

dialed. “Good. I was just checking. Eat between six and seven.” He hung up and dropped the phone into the center console before looking at her. “He despises mindfucks almost as much as he hates 

humiliation.” An evil grin curled his lips. “That’s why they’re so damn fun.”

“How often will you call tonight?”

“Every so often.”

“Did you tell him where you’re going?”

“Nope. None of his business.” He caught her hand and laced his fingers through hers. When he gently squeezed, her heart raced. “If I want to spend the night with my fiancée, I will.”

* * * *

She offered to cook him dinner. “If you’re going to live with me you might want to sample the

wares first.”

He laughed as he pulled into her driveway. “I could take that more than one way.”

Her pulsed throbbed a counterpoint to her clit. “Maybe I meant it more than one way.”

He leaned in and stroked her cheek. “How about we spend the night getting to know each other with our clothes on? So when we do have our wild night, we can both be more relaxed about it.”

“Why wouldn’t you be relaxed?”

He shrugged. “Lot of pressure. I want you to enjoy yourself.”

She felt a stab of conscience. “If you don’t want to do that, we don’t have to. I know I said it was a condition, but I don’t want to force you.”

He shook his head. “Oh, no you don’t. You don’t get to back out on me like that,” he teased. He leaned in and kissed her. Sensual and tender, his lips and tongue gently exploring hers, not trying to take over or maul her. “I don’t know about you, but even if it wasn’t for the cuckolding and humiliation aspects, I’d still be looking forward to it.”

“Really?”

“I’m gay, not dead. I got over the ‘girls have cooties’ stage of my life before I hit puberty.

You’re beautiful. It’s a great bonus that you’ll be my wife.”

“Let’s see if you still feel that way after I cook you dinner.”

He offered to help with preparations. She started him making them a salad. Being with him felt different than it felt with Bob. Before they sat down to eat, she pegged it.

It felt a lot like it had with Cris. Landry was very similar, including his physical mannerisms.

They moved around in the kitchen together, weaving between the cabinets without bumping into each other, as if already synchronized.

In a way that terrified her. How easy it could be to live with him. To lose her heart to him. “Did you say you were Cris’ first serious relationship?”

He leaned back against the counter. “How much are you comfortable knowing?”

“I want to know everything.”

“Did he ever tell you about his family?”

“No. Only that his father died. He didn’t talk about them. Especially once he found out about my family…issues.”

“He probably didn’t wish to burden you. Why don’t we talk about this while we eat?”

They settled on the sofa, in front of the TV. She liked the familiar feel, less formal than staring at each other over a table.

Once they were comfortable, he told the story while they ate. “His father kicked Cris out when he was only sixteen, after he caught Cris watching gay porn on the internet. Very conservative Spanish Catholic family. Cris’ father was the second youngest of eight children, and the first of the siblings born in the States after their parents moved to California from Barcelona.

“Cris’ mom wouldn’t stand up to his father about it. Cris went to live with one of his uncles on his father’s side, who believed beating him straight was the answer.” He chewed his food, then paused, looking thoughtful. “The irony, of course, is that Cris isn’t gay, he’s bi. But a teenage boy at that stage of life, with a less than supportive family, I don’t need to tell you how destructive that can be. Not just that they were strict Catholics, but the whole male machismo dynamic.

“I also don’t have to tell you how smart Cris is. Despite what he went through, he still managed an academic scholarship to college. That’s where I met him, at a dinner party thrown by one of my friends, Cris’ professor. He hadn’t had time for any kind of dating because between classes and working three part-time jobs to pay his bills, he had a full schedule. I offered to take him in, in exchange for working for me, although I hinted I would enjoy a chance to get to know him better.

Within a week he was also in my bed.

“I suppose in hindsight I acted in a predatory manner, taking advantage of his desperation like that. I truly did like, then come to love him. He was more than willing to explore boundaries and take a submissive role to me. I was older, I had money and provided security. I gave him understanding and 

affection. I accepted him. For the first time in his life he didn’t have to hide who or what he was.”

She let the silence lay between them while he contemplated his next words. “We’d been

together a couple of years when his father had a massive heart attack. His mother contacted him, and we hurried to the hospital. Mind you, he had no contact with his father since he left home. I had never met them, although his mother knew he lived with me even though she didn’t approve of our

relationship.

“The man grew enraged to see Cris there, and that was with me standing outside the room

where he couldn’t see me. He screamed at him that he didn’t have a son, especially a ‘fag’ son, and threw him out of the room. He died later that night.”

“What about his mother?”

“She blamed Cris for his death. Convinced herself that if he hadn’t shown up at the hospital, his father wouldn’t have died.”

“But she called him!”

“Exactly. Rather convenient for her to forget that fact. I think Cris wanted to blame himself too, for a while. The only blame was on his father, a two-pack-a-day smoker and heavy drinker with a fondness for junk food.” He sighed. “Then a few years later I had to go and ruin it all by thinking he wasn’t enough for me. I didn’t put it together in my egotistical brain that no matter how much I reassured Cris I wanted to be poly because of me, not because of any shortcomings on his part, he saw that as one more rejection in his life. It wasn’t until he left me that I realized how stupidly I’d acted.”

“How did that happen? Your ‘come to Jesus’ moment?”

He sat back. “One of our friends came to me and told me I acted like a selfish asshole for doing that to Cris. Asked me if I was supposed to be his Master, why the hell didn’t I see how badly that hurt him? That was never my intention, obviously. I just thought it was my right, as Master, to seek what I wanted. I thought Cris was being a poor slave by being jealous. I lost sight of the fact that I failed as his Master by forcing that decision on him. When we first got together, we’d agreed to be monogamous and not seek others outside our relationship. I had promised him he was the only one I wanted. When I tried to locate him and tell him I’d reconsidered, he’d already left the area. The friends he remained in contact with, he’d asked them not to give me his information or pass any messages from me to him.

Said he’d cut them out of his life if they tried it.”

“So why did you try to kill yourself?”

He shrugged. “I became angry at myself, then wrongly focused it on Cris. I convinced myself I could find someone as good as or better than him. That it was his loss, not mine. I had a string of meaningless relationships. None of them lived up to him. I had failed to see how selflessly Cris served me in any way I asked of him. All he wanted was to be the only one in my life. That was all he ever asked of me, to not share me. He would have, literally, done anything else I asked of him, no matter how mundane or how kinky. If I had sent him out to serve another Master or be the center of a gang bang, he would have done it. Wouldn’t have liked it, but he would have done it.”

She felt a little ill. “You didn’t do that, did you?”

“No. Used it as a threat a few times in scenes to mindfuck him, but never did it. My point is, he could go to work, be there ten or twelve hours, then come home and clean house or whatever until two or three in the morning and get up and do it all over again for me. He helped me build my business. He never complained. He never questioned me on anything, until I threw it all away. I took him for granted, how his love for me permeated everything he did, no matter what the service. I never had to lift a finger at home. After I lost him, I could find someone who wanted to play slave for a week or two, but eventually they would whine and complain that they wanted free time, or that they were bored, or that they wanted to do something else.

“Cris never did that. Ever.”

She tried to process that. She couldn’t reconcile Landry’s Cris with her strong Master. “Why do you think he became a Dom?”

He shrugged. “Why did you?”

“Honestly? I did it for the money.”

“Not just. For the control. The independence. The ‘fuck you’ to the world, no?”

She thought about it. “Maybe. Mostly it was twice the money for a fraction of the work.”

“How was he as a Master?”