Cardinal's Rule

Chapter Four

Naked except for his leather collar, the slave knelt on the hotel room floor all morning while his Master took care of business. He listened as Landry talked on the phone and coordinated with others while referring to his laptop. When housekeeping knocked, Landry invited them in. The maids apparently fought for the right to clean their room now. Landry handed them each a twenty without bothering to pause his phone conversation.

The women grinned as they stared at slave kneeling on the floor.

He felt his face heat but he didn’t move, didn’t speak.

Master knew he despised humiliation, but slave wouldn’t fight back. He’d take it.

When Master went out the day before, he didn’t say where he was heading. When he returned from his lunch appointment, he wore a smile but didn’t reveal any details. Since then, the slave had the distinct impression Master had a plan of some sort that he wasn’t privy to.

Landry stepped outside to continue his phone conversation while the maids vacuumed the room.

Slave remained in position, on the floor around the far side of the bed so he wasn’t visible through the open room door.

What seemed like hours later, they finally finished and left and Master returned. He sat at the table and called slave to him.

He stood and walked over to the table.

Landry pointed at the other chair, which surprised slave.

He sat.

In the month since his discovery of the information, Landry hadn’t shown slave the slightest bit of affection. Normally his sadism was tempered with equal or greater amounts of tenderness.

None of that since then. Not even a “good boy.” No kiss goodnight.

No sleeping in the same bed.

No “I love you.”

His Master had mercilessly used him for his own pleasure, blow jobs or fucking his ass, without allowing the slave any release. Even in public his Master treated him without any respect whatsoever, going so far as to refer to him as “slave” in front of others they didn’t work with.

This was the first time since the revelation, other than in professional situations where he had to maintain appearances, that Master had treated him remotely as an equal.

“You have an appointment today, slave,” he said. “Apparently in all these years, nothing I’ve done has made a dent in that thick damn skull of yours. Maybe seeing a different point of view will help you understand.”

His heart seized, already knowing where this was heading, horrified by the prospect.

“No, Master, please! No!”

Landry smiled, without mirth. “Oh, yes. You have two options. You go to this appointment, or you can pack what little things you have, leave me right this second and I’ll buy you a one-way ticket home, where you’d better not be when I return from this trip. Those are your only two options. No negotiations.”

The slave closed his eyes and swallowed hard, but didn’t reply.

“Since you’re not packing I take it that means you’re going to obey?”

“Yes, Master,” he softly replied.

“You brought this on yourself. On all of us. You’ve disgraced me by your actions. If you’d told me the truth at the start, we wouldn’t be here.” He stared at his slave. “Open your fucking eyes and look at me when I’m talking to you.”

The slave did. He hated the disgust on his Master’s face.

He leaned forward. “I never would have abandoned you, slave. I wasn’t perfect. I admitted my short-comings and owned up to them. But you left me the first time, not the other way around. I always made sure I took care of you as best I could. For you to abandon someone like that, especially someone emotionally fragile and dependent upon you…” He shook his head as he sat back. “You’re lucky I didn’t kick you out, naked, the second I found out. It’s inexcusable. It doesn’t matter how honorable your intentions.”

Master said nothing the slave hadn’t said to himself countless times over the years. But once he’d done it, it had been too late to take it back even though he knew as he flew from Florida to California that final time that he’d probably made the worst mistake of his life.

It couldn’t be undone.

He’d severed his ties, left her set up financially, and prayed Ross and Loren would help her emotionally pick up the pieces.

Prayed she was strong enough to make it through her grief, as he suspected she was.

He’d scoured the local papers online for weeks after, the obituaries, praying he didn’t find her name. He didn’t dare risk contacting her, afraid it would only make things worse for her…or make him turn around and abandon his Master to return to her. A long, drawn-out good-bye would have been worse for her. Not to mention Ross and Loren would likely want to kill him, and he didn’t need their anger at him to detract from them caring for Tilly.

So he kept his focus on his Master’s recovery, rounds of surgery and treatment and doctors visits, and focused on fighting to save his life and not think about her. After a while, the only time he allowed himself to take his focus off his Master was looking at her pictures on occasion. That, and praying she healed and lived a good life without him.

Praying every day she would one day forgive him, even if she despised him.

He never stopped loving her, or missing her.

“And how do you think it made me feel, hmm?” he continued. “Just some charity case. You didn’t respect me enough as a person, much less as your Master, to let me know the truth. Were you expecting me to die and hoping to inherit it all?”

“No, Master. I just wanted to take care of you.”

“You felt sorry for me, though, didn’t you?”

“They said you might be dying. I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“But it was okay to abandon her and leave her alone? What gave you the right to decide that for her, Master or not? How does it feel being relegated to nothing more than a piece of meat? Do you like it? Because I want you to feel what you’ve done to the people in your life, slave. I want you to walk a mile in their shoes. I want you to totally comprehend how badly you fucked up by making assumptions and decisions for people without their input. Every action has a consequence.” He stared at him. “Go get dressed. Jeans, button-up shirt. Keep your collar on.”

Before the revelation, Master never made him wear his formal collar in public in vanilla settings. Now, it remained on him all the time except in the shower or when they went to the office.

Before, they tended to have a give-and-take relationship, even as Master and slave. Landry was always fair and consistent.

Before.

Now, Master treated him in a way he’d never treated him before, either during their first time together or since their reunion. Now the slave was little more than a piece of fuckable meat, there solely for his Master’s service and pleasure.

The slave felt he deserved it.

Tilly hung up with Loren. Her friend assured her she hadn’t had a fight with Ross, but still, there was something going on that Tilly couldn’t put her finger on. Ever since the other night at the club, her friends had acted on edge.

Loren was always her safe call for new clients. Clients she’d had for a while, she trusted. Just in case, Loren had access to her private online Google calendar with full contact details and descriptions of her clients.

All clients were told this up front.

Just in case.

Landry would arrive with his slave in twenty minutes. She’d already had two other sessions that morning, regulars, nothing tiring for her. The first, a middle-aged, overweight sissy who enjoyed being made to walk around in high heels and a French maid uniform while he cleaned her house with a butt plug up his ass. The other enjoyed being pelted with humiliating comments about his small cock, which in reality was fairly average, while she used him as a human footrest or coffee table.

Booooring.

She staggered her pain slut clients throughout the week after she’d once tried to do three in one day and nearly threw out her shoulder using a riding crop on the last one.

Landry told her he wanted her to go full-out, assured her that slave’s pain tolerance was high even though not a pain pig. “He’s trained to take it,” Landry said. “I would not call him a no-limits slave, because I do have limits. I don’t wish to damage my property. He’ll take whatever you see fit within the confines of our agreed-upon boundaries.”

That could be interesting. Her evening before with Bob had been a nice change of pace, especially since it hadn’t ended with her using a riding crop on his ass just to make him take it.

Some of her clients wanted the pain. Some of them despised pain but wanted the obedience.

Bob was the latter.

And tonight…

She smiled. She felt like laughing. It’d been too damn long since she’d looked forward to anything.

The last thing she’d looked forward to…

She ended that thought.

It would be nice to have vanilla interactions with someone other than Loren and Ross.

There came that pesky hope again. God, she hated that.

For today’s initial evaluation she’d opted for a mix of comfort versus form. Jeans, because she could move in them and they offered her a greater layer of protection than a skirt in case something went bad. Four-inch ankle boots. Comfortable, yet adding to her height, and the heels were sturdy enough she could kick with them and use them as a weapon of self-defense. She could also run in them, if needed. Push-up bra, tank top, topped by an oversized, long-sleeved, black button-up shirt, open, with the cuffs rolled to her elbows. The shirt’s hem hung past her ass and concealed the stun gun she kept clipped to her waistband in the small of her back.

Another precaution with new clients. So far, she’d never needed it. Well, not defensively, at least. She had two clients that begged her to use it on them on a regular basis.

No jewelry today, especially no dangly earrings that could get caught or pulled.

She checked herself in the mirror one last time as she heard a car in the drive. Landry rang her doorbell one minute before five.

Maybe he figured he’d better not push the being really early thing.

She opened the door and studied Landry. His slave stood behind him, head hung, brown, shoulder-length hair obscuring his face. She led them into the foyer.

“Glad to see you didn’t change your mind, Mr. LaCroux. One thousand cash. Payable now.”

He smiled, never taking his green eyes off her, and handed her a bank envelope. She opened it and counted it in front of him, ten one hundred dollar bills that appeared to be genuine, then returned it to the envelope, folded it in half, and tucked it in her back pocket. “Thank you, Mr. LaCroux.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Mistress Cardinal. You haven’t worked with slave yet. And please, call me Landry.”

She ignored that last part. “Does slave have a name?”

“Slave.” He smiled. “It’s the only name he deserves.”

She led them inside and pointed to the couch. Then she turned, walked around the coffee table, and sat in a chair on the other side. As she did, slave had already dropped to his knees on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, forehead touching the carpet, facing his Master.

Landry looked down at him with unmistakable disgust on his face. “I never said you could touch me,” he told the other man.

Slave scooted back a few inches.

She had yet to glimpse his face.

Ooookay. She almost felt sorry for the guy, but she knew darn well that sometimes what looked bad to outsiders was part of a beloved kink for the individual players.

She returned her attention to Landry. “I know you made the dog training analogy, but you and I both know there’s a lot more to it. I need to know exactly what you expect to get out of this and what he expects to get out of this. Remember, if he doesn’t want to make changes, nothing I teach him will matter.”

“I know. Perhaps it will help if I give you a little background. I first met slave when he was nineteen. I was twenty-eight and his first serious relationship.” He paused, staring at his hands. “I was also very young, stupid, and egotistical. I told you, I attended college here in the States. I felt very full of myself. I’d embraced my sexuality, as clichéd as that might sound, and enjoyed discovering the BDSM scene. I wanted it all.

“I met slave through a professor friend of mine. Slave was one of his students. I saw an opportunity to have my very own slave. I’m afraid at the time that I truly didn’t take the time to get to know him perhaps as well and in the ways I should have.”

“Vanilla ways?” she asked.

He nodded. “Exactly. Not to blame slave, because he was young and impressionable and eager to please. He came from a dysfunctional family. Because I was older, he saw me in many roles I not only failed to recognize, but failed to live up to.” He sighed. “We were together nearly six years when I decided in my egotistical Dominant mind that I needed more. I thought slave wasn’t enough for me. I informed him I wanted to be poly, and he would accept it or leave.”

“He left?” During Landry’s entire soliloquy, slave never moved, never made a single noise. He could have been a piece of furniture.

He nodded. “Rightfully so. I spent the next several years angry at myself for letting him go. I realized I loved him, that he truly was my soul mate, and I had let my ego get in the way.” His face softened. “I swore if I ever had a second chance with him, I would do anything, whatever it took, to try to talk him back and I wouldn’t repeat my mistake. I felt empty without him. He had loved me, truly loved me, and I was too foolish to see it until after I lost him.”

Tilly didn’t interrupt. She felt Landry’s sincerity, his regret.

He cast a contemptible glance at the man on the floor. “Five years ago, Fate played a rather nasty trick on me. Except for my employees and a few old friends I had managed not to run off with my anger, I was alone. Then I nearly died in a car accident. When they performed emergency surgery, they discovered my cancer. Only two people showed up at the hospital to stand vigil for me, my oldest friends. One of them tracked slave down and sent him an email about my condition. The doctors had told them I would likely die without cancer treatment.”

He looked at slave again, this time his contempt tempered with love. “Imagine my shock when I awoke in the ICU. I couldn’t speak, I had a tube in my throat. The doctors told me about my condition, that I might not make it. I needed to continue treatment for the cancer to have any hope of beating it.

There, standing by my bed and holding my hand, was my angel. I thought I dreamed him until he squeezed my hand and started talking to the doctors about our next steps.”

He closed his eyes. “Our. I wanted to cry. I might have cried. I don’t remember. I later learned that when slave showed up and found out I was alone, he immediately stepped in and took over. As poorly as I had treated him before he still forgave me and insisted on coming back. He quit his job, returned to L.A. to be with me, took over my business. He had worked for me before we broke up, had been my second in command, had helped build my company. My success was due, in no small part, to his hard work.

“When they finally took the breathing tube out, my first words were, ‘I’m so sorry.’ My second words were, ‘I love you.’ He smiled his beautiful smile and told me he still loved me, too. Eventually, as you know, I beat the cancer. I’ll be honest with you, if it hadn’t been for him I wouldn’t have tried.

But then I had something, someone to fight for. He wanted me, and I wanted him. I suddenly wanted to live again. I didn’t want to get him back just to lose him because of my death.”

He glanced away for a moment, staring out her sliding glass doors, which looked upon her backyard garden. When he next spoke, his voice sounded soft and sad. “I asked him about his life. I couldn’t believe he was single. His job, all of it. He told me he would not leave me again as long as he would be the only one in my life. Of course in my condition I was more than willing to agree to that.

He asked we not talk about his life since he’d left me, told me all he wanted to do was focus on my healing.” He turned back to her. “And that’s what I did.”

“So what changed?” She didn’t like the sudden chill creeping over her that had nothing to do with the A/C kicking on.

“I’d sensed a deep sadness in him since his return, but I had agreed not to talk about his life. I did ask if he had children, and he assured me he didn’t. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I took him away from children. Still, I knew there was something. Jump forward five years to nearly a month ago, while I worked from home and my laptop died. Slave had gone to work at our office and left his laptop at home, so I used it. I have our company VPN portal bookmarked on my computer and couldn’t remember the exact web address off the top of my head. I knew it was in the history in his computer and so I looked there. That’s when I discovered he made regular visits to an online photo storage site.

Out of curiosity, I followed the link. His login was the same as for everything else he uses, per my instructions.

“Imagine my surprise when I found pictures of him with a woman. I knew slave was bisexual when we first met. That wasn’t shocking. What shocked me was the time-date stamp on the pictures.

Taken during the years we were apart, the last several taken mere weeks before he returned to me.

“When he returned home from work that night, I asked him about the pictures out of curiosity. I wasn’t particularly concerned about them because he had returned to me. As I said, none of the pictures were recent. I assumed a break-up and more perfect timing on the part of Fate to reunite us. Imagine my shock when he refused to talk about her.”

He stood, circled the couch, then walked to the sliding glass doors where he stood, staring out them. “The first time in our relationship he ever balked at one of my commands—besides when he left me, of course. I ordered him to tell me about her and he finally did.” His voice softened. “Confessed what he’d done.”

Tilly’s heart pounded in her chest. She didn’t want to hear this. She did not want to hear this!

“Do you know what he did, Mistress Cardinal?” Landry softly asked.

Her voice escaping her, she shook her head.

He faced her. “I will be the first to admit I made mistakes. But in the years we lived apart, I learned from them. I changed, matured. Even while slave and I were together the first time my priority was him, even if I screwed it up in the end. I took very seriously my role as his Master, protector, Owner. I never abandoned him. I never capriciously threatened to throw him out. I gave him the choice to leave when I issued my ultimatum about me wanting to see others outside our relationship. Even then, I did not let him leave without support. I made sure he was cared for, could take care of himself.

Gave him money so he could build his life without me. Treated him equitably.”

Her gaze fell upon slave, who still crouched on the floor behind her coffee table. His brown hair. The tattoo she’d seen on his ass at the club the other night.

No!

“When I asked him why he returned to me,” Landry continued, “he told me he wanted to take care of me, didn’t want me to be alone. Still loved me. Yes, we thought there was a better than good chance I might die, but he took it upon himself to leave another to come back to me. He lied to me when he told me he was single. Well, not technically lied, because I lay unconscious in the ICU for nearly two weeks and he’d been there most of that time. Except when he made a trip back home to take care of business. So when he told me he was single it was mostly true because by then he’d severed ties with her.”

She stood. “I don’t want to hear this.” She heard the tremor in her voice.

“You have to. I want slave to face the consequences of his actions.”

“No, really. I don’t want to hear any more.”

Undeterred, he continued. “I told him he had no right to make the decision for myself or the one he left. To not tell either about the other. His rationale, while well-intentioned, was of course seriously flawed. He thought he knew what was best, just as I thought I knew what was best all those years ago when I insisted on a lifestyle he couldn’t live with.”

She shook her head. “We’re done here, Mr. LaCroux. I’ve changed my mind, and I’m not going to do this. I want you both to leave. Right now.” She didn’t want to see slave’s face. If she never saw his face, it meant it didn’t happen. With trembling fingers, she dug the envelope out of her back pocket and tossed it on the coffee table. “I don’t want your money. I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.”

“Please,” he said. “I need to make amends.”

She angrily jabbed a finger at him. “I don’t know what kind of mindfuck you’re into, but I’m not playing into it!”

He stepped forward, until he stood in front of her. “I feel responsible. Because I should have questioned him further. I should not have turned a blind eye. Because of my shortcomings as his Master the first time around, apparently I failed to instill in him the ethic that a Master never abandons a slave, especially without explanation. Ever.”

Her knees gave out and she heavily sat in the chair as Landry stood there. He leaned in, his face inches from hers. “I told you about my cancer returning,” he said, barely more than a whisper, so softly she knew slave couldn’t hear him.

“I have a business proposition for you, Mistress Cardinal. I am worth a helluva lot of money. I have no wife or children. If you will marry me, and stay married to me for at least three years, I will pay you two hundred thousand dollars for every year you stay with me for those three years. If I die before then, you get everything I own, including my business. If you wish to stay married longer we will, and I will at that point sign over everything to you.

“Please consider my offer. I owe you more than I can ever repay you, for more than one reason.

I need to start that restitution now. I will be back for slave at the end of the hour. Be vicious. Take your pound of flesh and then some, literally. He will take whatever you dish out.”

With that he turned and walked out the front door.

Leaving the money on her table and slave kneeling on the floor.

She’d never fainted in her life, but she felt close to it. She leaned forward and put her head between her knees and took deep breaths like she’d learned in nursing school. When she realized she gasped for air, she knew she was close to hyperventilating and tried to slow her breathing.

Fuck!

After what felt like forever, she sat up and looked at the man kneeling on her floor. Her feet felt numb, her legs shaky as she stood and slowly walked around the coffee table.

He didn’t look up, didn’t move.

She stood over him, her breath ragged. “Look at me, goddammit,” she finally said.

He slowly tilted his face, familiar brown eyes staring into hers.

Over the years she had imagined many things. At first, that if he ever darkened her door again she would take him back even though she’d been hurt and pissed. As the months, followed by years, rolled by, that fantasy changed. She imagined running into him and spitting in his face. Laughing at him. Pretending she didn’t recognize him. Acting friendly but cool, as if his leaving hadn’t ripped her sanity from her soul.

Prayed he’d grow ugly and fat and bald.

He still looked like her Cris, although his brown hair was much longer, down to his shoulders.

He’d always kept it short and neatly styled when they were together.

Her handsome Master was Landry’s slave.

She stared for long, countless minutes as blood throbbed through her temples, her pulse pounding.

Then she turned on her heel, walked to her bedroom, and slammed the door behind her. After a second, she locked it.

She screamed.

After ten minutes her body shook and her throat felt raw and hoarse. She snatched a riding crop from her closet. When she almost tripped on her heels, she ripped her boots off and then unlocked her door and threw it open so hard it bounced off the bedroom wall.

Landry’s slave still knelt on the floor, where she’d left him.

Barefoot, she ran over to him and with ragged, wordless screams, she began beating his shoulders, his back.

He never cried out, never moved, made no effort to protect himself.

After five minutes she stood there, staring at him as her chest heaved. It felt like she couldn’t breathe. She felt like she was choking, then she realized she was crying again. She dropped the riding crop.

“You fucking son of a bitch!” She circled the living room and came up behind him, kicked him in the ribs. As large as he was, it probably didn’t hurt him nearly as much as it hurt the fuck out of her toes. She dropped to her knees next to him and beat her fists against his back, screaming, raging.

“Why? Why did you leave me? Why wasn’t I good enough for you? Why did you break your promise to protect me!”

Beyond sanity, she knew she still sobbed but she felt drained, weak. He’d never moved even though he breathed heavily.

She shoved him as hard as she could and he rolled onto his side. He wouldn’t look at her.

“You fucking asshole!” she sobbed. “Why won’t you fucking say anything! What the fuck is wrong with you!”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“That’s not good enough!” When she lost her balance and fell back onto her ass she kicked at him, caught him in the thigh. “That’s not fucking good enough, you bastard!” She kicked him again, recognizing it probably didn’t hurt him in the slightest.

She fell back onto the carpet and sobbed, screamed, cried, tried to hold on to her sanity.

He didn’t move.

“You fucking asshole,” she raggedly gasped as she rolled over and pressed her face to the carpet. This couldn’t be happening. This had to be a really bad nightmare.

After she caught her breath she sat up. He lay where he’d fallen when she shoved him. She started pounding on him again with her fists. “I want him back!” she screamed. “I want my fucking Master back! You took him from me and I want him!” She fell back again, panting for breath. “Sit up!”

she screamed. “Fucking face me like a man!”

He rolled onto his knees. “I’m sorry,” he whispered again. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Another wordless, strangled cry broke free as she launched herself at him. She tried to claw his eyes. This time he did react. He caught her arms and spun her around, pinned her to him, her back against his chest and her wrists caught in his as he held his arms crossed around her.

She shrieked, cried, kicked, and finally went limp as she sobbed. “You took him from me, you fucking bastard! I want him back. You fucking son of a bitch, I want him back!”

He knew he deserved every bit of it and more. He held her as she cried in his arms, trying to ignore how painfully thin she felt compared to the last time he held her. He never would have let her get this skinny if he’d been with her. “I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered through his own tears. “I’m so sorry.”

She cried long and hard, not struggling against his grip. Finally, she broke free and away from him, turning to sit and look at him.

He forced himself not to drop his gaze to the carpet again. Her hair had been so beautiful. He remembered how it felt to run his hands through it, the natural color perfect for her. She’d chopped it short and dyed it a harsh color that added years to her looks and didn’t suit her at all. Small lines that hadn’t been there before etched her face, around her eyes and across her forehead.

She looked gaunt. Haunted.

She scooted even further away from him. “No.” She jabbed her finger at him. “You don’t fucking get to call me baby. Not after you fucking abandoned me!” She scrabbled to her feet and backed away from him. “Get out!”

He nodded and slowly climbed to his feet. Damn, he would be black and blue tomorrow. He started for the door.

“I just want to know one thing,” she said before he reached the hallway. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you abandon me?”

He took a deep breath and finally forced himself to meet her gaze again. “Because I didn’t think you would want me,” he said. “If I’d told you about my past.”

She looked shocked. “What? Why would you think that?”

Well, this was progress. She hadn’t ordered him out again and she wasn’t attacking him anymore. “Because I heard you and Loren talking one day. About a FetLife posting you guys saw. You were discussing if Ross or I ever wanted to switch, what you’d think. You told her you couldn’t handle that. That you needed a strong Master. That it would freak you out if I ever did that.” He shrugged.

“I’m sorry. Master’s right. I should have talked to you and told you the truth from the start.”

She stared at him. “Did the thought of asking me what I would think ever occur to you?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Quit fucking saying that!” she screamed, her voice cracking. “It doesn’t help! There are not enough ‘I’m sorries’ in the goddamn world to make up for what you did to me!” She stomped across the room and shoved him again. “Do you have any idea how long I spent in the fucking hospital, drugged out of my mind after you left? Ross and Loren carried me into the ER.” She punched him, hard, in the shoulder. That one did hurt. “I had to go to the fucking parole hearing alone, you son of a bitch!”

She started crying again. “Did it ever cross your mind that if you had told me the truth about him that maybe, just maybe I would have offered to go with you? To help you? To serve him with you?”

That rocked him harder than any of her blows. No, he hadn’t thought it. It never crossed his mind. “I just assumed—”

She threw up her arms in disgust. “Fuck. Me. Thanks a lot, asshole, for not having faith in me and my goddamned love for you!” She turned her back on him and walked over to the sliding glass doors. “They let the fucker out,” she quietly said. “They let him out on parole.”

His gut tightened even more but he didn’t say anything. Nothing he said could be right and he knew it.

“I begged them not to let him out,” she continued, “but they looked at me like I was some freaking pitiful, hysterical little douchebag. Then they let the fucker out, said he was rehabilitated. I could barely talk I was so fucking frightened, but I went there by myself and I talked to them even if it didn’t do any goddamned good. Then the son of a bitch raped a thirteen year-old girl six months later.”

She turned to him. “You know, maybe if you’d been there, maybe if I hadn’t been pissing my pants scared to be there alone, maybe I could have talked like an intelligent person. Maybe they would have listened to me. I’ve never stopped blaming you for that.”

The fun house of horrors just kept getting bigger.

She drew herself up to her full height, still nearly a foot shorter than him in her bare feet. “I do have you to thank for one thing. I kept thinking to myself, ‘Fuck him.’ You were right that I could do anything I put my mind to.” She held up her arms and spun around. “This house, my car, everything. I took the mindfuck you put me through and turned it into a profitable living.

“Oh, I spent the first several months in Ross’ collar because he and Loren both felt terrified I’d kill myself. Maybe I would have if it hadn’t been for them. He made me promise not to and just let me be myself. He told me I could take his collar off when I felt strong enough to go on with my life. I finally could.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “Then I finally decided fuck you! I don’t want any goddamned collars in my life. Not on me.” She advanced on him again. “I collar people. They pay me to mindfuck them. They pay me to beat them. They pay me pretty damn well, too.”

She shook her head as she looked him up and down. “There’s part of me tempted to take him up on his offer just so I can kick you in the balls every fucking morning first thing when I get out of bed.”

Offer?

She looked near tears again. “I would have done anything you asked of me. Would it have shocked me? Yes. Under the circumstances, had you told me about him, I would have helped you. I would have loved you for feeling responsible for him. I was your fucking slave! I was willing to be your wife! Don’t you think I knew how strong that bond can be? Too bad you didn’t appreciate my gift of submission.” Her eyes widened. “Wait. Stay right there, asshole.”

She turned and raced from the room. He heard her rummaging around, then she returned a few minutes later with something in her hand. She grabbed his left hand and jammed the item into his palm and closed his fingers around it.

“There. You can have that back. I almost threw it away. Once I realized you weren’t coming back and gave up that little illusion, I took it off. Probably the third worst night of my fucking life, I cried myself to sleep that night because I knew it meant you really weren’t there for me anymore. I finally had to admit it to myself. I couldn’t hold on to my pathetic dream that maybe you’d come back.

You’re not my fucking Master anymore. A little late to say it, but I want to make it official just in case there’s any doubt in that pea-brain of yours: I withdraw my submission to you. Now get. The fuck. Out of my house.”

He fought his own tears as he felt the fluorite pendant dig into his palm. He’d spent weeks looking for something for her to wear as a day collar. The colors were perfect, purple and green and blue, her favorites. She’d never willingly taken it off while they were together. One time the clasp broke and she was in tears when he made her leave it at the jeweler’s overnight so they could fix it.

He turned to go.

“You can’t even say anything to me?”

“I wish I’d made a different choice,” he softly said. “I love you. You deserved to be treated better than I treated you.”

“Fuckin’ A I did.”

She slammed and locked the door behind him.

He didn’t know what else to do, so he sat on the step at the end of the walkway and waited for Landry’s return. He held up the pendant. He could still conjure her happy squeals when she opened the box and saw it. How she’d cried, happy tears that time, when he draped it around her neck and hooked the clasp for her.

How he’d kissed the back of her neck and said, “Always and forever, Redbird. My promise to you.”

He closed his eyes and didn’t bother fighting his tears.

When he heard a car pull into the driveway, he opened his eyes and flexed his body to stand, but it wasn’t Landry.

The Mercedes wasn’t new, but the driver kept it spotless. When the man stepped out, jealousy rolled through slave’s belly.

The man glanced at him, then proceeded to walk around to the trunk and unload several bags of groceries. He locked the car, then cast another curious glance at slave as he walked past but didn’t speak to him.

He recognized him as the man she’d been with at the club the other night.

Before the man even reached the door it opened and slave heard her voice. “Hi!” She sounded happy to see him.

The slave closed his eyes and felt the pendant digging into his palm.

“Tilly, did you know there’s a guy sitting on your walk?”

“Yeah. He’s waiting for his ride. Come on in.”

Tilly barely kept it together as she let Bob in. Her hands violently trembled as she shot the deadbolt once she closed the door behind him. He walked over to the counter and set the bags down.

When he started to speak, she didn’t understand what he said as the shakes hit her.

Suddenly, a strong pair of arms held her as she sobbed against his shoulder. He picked her up and carried her to the couch, his voice full of worry.

“Tilly, are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“No, I’m not okay, but no he didn’t hurt me.” She angrily laughed. “At least not recently.”

When the stun gun dug into her back, she carefully fished it out from under her shirt and put it on the table. Finally mustering the courage to look into his face, the strength of the protective anger there took her breath away.

“Who is he? Do you want me to call the cops?”

“He’s a skeleton from my closet.” Sitting up, she wiped her face with her hands. “A blast from the past.”

“Is he an old client?”

She snorted. “No. I wish. He’s my old Master. Former boyfriend. He was the topic of our conversation last night, surprise, surprise. Right out of the clear blue sky, speak of the Devil, and there he is.”

She’d never seen literal homicidal rage in real life until that moment. As Bob jumped up from the couch, sending her tumbling out of his lap, she realized he’d been deadly serious about getting violent with Cristo. He had the deadbolt open and flew out the door before she even managed to untangle her own legs and climb off the couch.

By the time she reached the front door, Bob was down the walk and standing behind Cris, who still sat waiting for Landry.

“Hey, asshole. Stand up.”

She swore as she raced down the walk.

Cris turned to look up at him with…

Resignation?

That’s when her worry changed from hoping Bob didn’t get his ass kicked to praying Bob didn’t kill Cris. Where the fuck was Landry? He was late.

“I said stand up, asshole.”

She watched Cris look at the pendant before he slipped it inside the pocket of his jeans. Then he slowly climbed to his feet. He looked like he was already in pain from the beating she’d given him.

She grabbed Bob’s arm. “Bob, please, it’s okay. Let’s go inside.”

“No, it’s not okay, Tilly. I finally get a chance to make you happy and this fucker walks back into your life the next goddamned day?” He gently shook her off. “I don’t know what the fuck you did to her, and frankly, it’s none of my business unless she wants to tell me, but you fucking hurt her.”

She grabbed his arm again. “Please, Bob, let’s go inside. He’s not worth it.”

He started to argue with her when Landry’s car pulled in. Oh thank you, Christ!

“Who’s that?” Bob asked.

“That’s his Master. Come on, let’s go inside.”

Landry shut the car off and took his sweet time getting out. “How did our training session go? I hope he’s got a lot more bruises than I left him with.” He looked at Bob. “Are you by any chance about to kick his ass?”

“Yeah, actually, I was just about to do that.”

Tilly wouldn’t let go of Bob. “Landry, please! Take him and get the fuck out of here!”

Landry laughed and leaned against the hood of his car. He crossed his arms in front of him.

“Actually, if slave has another ass-kicking coming to him, I’d really like to watch. I’ll even hold him down for you, if you’d like.”

“Landry!”

“I don’t need him held down,” Bob assured him.

Tilly wished she’d kept the damn stun gun on her belt. She forced herself in front of Bob and scruffed the back of his neck, pulling his head down so she could look into his eyes, the way she often did when he wore her collar.

“Please,” she whispered, “don’t do this. He’s not worth it and someone will call the police. I could be in a lot of trouble if that happens.”

As she’d hoped, that took the fight out of him. He still glared at Cris. “If I ever run into you again, I will kick your fucking ass,” he growled.

Landry slapped the hood of his car. “Goddammit! I really wanted a show. I can give you our hotel address if you want, and you can come kick his ass later.”

Bob looked startled. “What?”

“Seriously.” He grabbed a pen out of the car and jotted information on a business card, then started to hand it to Bob.

Tilly snatched it from Landry’s hand and jammed it in her pocket. “Get out of here before I do call the cops.”

He sighed. “Party pooper. I’ll be calling you to discuss my offer, Mistress Cardinal. I was serious.” He looked at Cris. “Well, what are you waiting for, slave? Get in the fucking car unless you want to walk back to the hotel.”

During the whole incident, Cris stood there without speaking or making any attempt to protect himself or run away. Tilly watched Cris bow his head and silently walk to the car and get in.

She despised that a tiny part of her deep inside her heart didn’t want to see him to go and hated to see him looking like a beat dog.

It took her nearly twenty minutes to calm Bob. He vacillated between apologetic for blowing his cool and enraged that he didn’t take a swing at Cris anyway.

She thanked God it had been Bob who’d been there and not Ross or Loren. They would have killed him.

Aw, shit.

She sent Bob to the kitchen to start dinner while she made her safe call.

“I was about to come over,” Loren said. “You’re never late with a safe call.”

“I know, I’m sorry. Things got hectic.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Bob came over for dinner after my client and I lost track of time.” She decided omitting the details about Cris would be the wisest move.

“Bob… Bob? From the club? Your boy, Bob?”

“Yeah, we went out for dinner yesterday and—”

“What? Wait, you and Bob went out for dinner? When?”

“I thought I told you that?”

“No you didn’t freaking tell me that! That’s…that’s good, right?”

Okay, this she did not need tonight. She had no patience for Momma Loren’s twenty questions.

“Yes, it’s good. He’s here tonight making me dinner.”

“Oh.”

“Not like that. Bob and Tilly dinner, not Mistress and boy dinner.”

“Oh!”

“Yeah, oh. Now can I get back to my date, Momma Loren?”

Her friend laughed. “I want all the delicious details! Call me tomorrow.”

Tilly got off the phone, then washed her face and returned to the kitchen. Bob’s expression softened when he saw her. He pulled her to him for a hug.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. Just in shock. I wasn’t expecting to see him.”

He looked down into her face. “How about you go take a shower and get into sweats or whatever you like to chill out in and let me handle making you dinner.” He stroked her cheek. “You look like you’re wiped out. Go relax.”

“I hope you don’t want me to be Domme-y tonight.”

He smiled. “I want to spend the evening with Tilly. Despite my jokes about boy cooking and cleaning, I had kind of hoped Mistress Cardinal would decide to take the night off.”

She stared into his blue eyes. “Yeah?”

He nodded. “I want to get to know Tilly. I want to get to know her very well.”

Tilly didn’t have to force her smile.

Tilly wished she could pull her mind from the memory of Cris looking up at her from the floor, but she couldn’t. Especially not when after dinner she sat curled up on the couch with Bob, watching TV and talking with him.

Her gaze repeatedly went to where Cris had knelt behind the coffee table.

“I’m sorry this isn’t the evening I had in mind,” Bob softly said.

Distracted again. She looked at him. “What?”

He stroked her cheek. “It’s okay. That had to be a really bad shock earlier.”

She’d taken a shower and changed into an oversized T-shirt and comfortable shorts while he cooked dinner. No make-up, and her hair wonky from air drying. He had such sweet, blue eyes, but now all she could think about was Cris.

Not to mention Landry’s offer.

She snuggled against him. His body felt very comfortable holding hers. “I’m sorry I’m not good company tonight.”

“It’s okay. I understand. Want to try again next Thursday? I’ll bring dinner and cook for you.”

She snuggled closer and closed her eyes. “I’d like that. That’d be nice.”

“Is it really just me and Tilly tonight?”

Cracking open one eye, she caught his playful smirk. “Yeah. Why?”

“Because I don’t want Mistress Cardinal beating me for this.” He placed a long, slow, sensual kiss on her lips. With a mind of their own, her hands slipped around his neck, relaxing into his embrace and for once driving all other thoughts out of her mind for a few blissful moments.

When he broke their kiss his playful smirk remained. “Was that okay?”

She smiled. “Way more than okay.”

He glanced at the time. “I hate to say this, but I need to head home.”

“It’s only ten-thirty.”

“I have a Sunrise Rotary meeting in the morning. I don’t feel like getting my balls busted by them two weeks in a row for being late.”

“Rotary, Hallmark ornaments, and as big a bookworm as I am. Explain to me why we didn’t hook up sooner?”

He nuzzled her nose with his. “Because I’m a good boy. I follow orders.”

She reluctantly walked him to the door, still wondering if she shouldn’t try to talk him into staying. Before he left he turned to her and gave her one last hug and kiss.

“Believe me, it’s not that I don’t want to stay later. If I do, I’ll be too tempted to take you to bed.”

“Who says that’s a bad thing?”

He stroked her cheek again. She loved that. “It’s not a bad thing, but after the shock you’ve had today, I’d feel like I was taking advantage of you. I’d rather take things a little slower. I’ve waited nearly three years to ask you out. It won’t kill me to wait a little longer to take things to the next level.”

After one last lingering hug, he left. She waved to him from the open doorway until his taillights disappeared down her quiet street. Then she stepped inside, closed and locked the door behind her.

Her living room lay empty before her except for the ghostly memory of kicking Cris and screaming at him.

The wonderful feelings her evening with Bob had brought her evaporated.

She closed her eyes and groaned. Did I really say that? Did I really tell him I wanted my Master back?

She hoped it was a figment of her shattered composure, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that’s probably exactly what she’d said.

Another round of tears threatened and she held them back. Despite all her claims, deep in her heart it was the truth. As much as she hated Cris for what he did to her, and as much as she never wanted to make herself that vulnerable again, deep down inside part of her missed and craved that connection, that love.

The service.

Sleep wouldn’t be possible, no doubt about it. She spotted Landry’s business card on her dresser, where she’d laid it after undressing before her shower. Picking it up, she saw he’d scribbled their hotel and room number on it. On U.S. 41, near where Fruitville ended.

She could be there in twenty minutes. Just to talk.

Just to hear his nutty deal. If she took him up on it, she could pay off her house and maybe take some time off, catch up on credits to renew her nursing license.

Quit being Mistress Cardinal forever.

Closing her eyes, she tried to think about Bob’s blue gaze and all she could see now was Cris’ brown eyes.

Or Landry’s intense green stare.

There was no way she’d be able to put this evening behind her, one way or the other, until she got some of her many questions answered.

Swearing, she pulled on a pair of jeans and grabbed her keys.