Cardinal's Rule (23 page)

She nodded against him, gladly letting him hold her close. He didn’t ask why she cried, didn’t speak, just lay there with her in his arms and his lips pressed against the top of her head.

After a few minutes she rubbed her face against his chest, his hair softly scratchy against her lips. When she felt the subtle, firm bump of a nipple, she flicked it with her tongue and enjoyed his soft kiss of pleasure.

“You’re risking another fucking if you keep that up,” he teased.

She nipped him.

Laughter mixed with his startled protest. When he rolled her onto her back, his cock was

already stiffening inside her. She raised her arms over her head again in a gesture of submission she knew he wouldn’t miss. “I’m
your
very good girl,” she said, in English that time.

His brief look of pleasant surprise was worth it.

She hoped they were ripping Cris’ heart out.

He slid his hands up her arms and laced his fingers through hers. When he pulled her arms

down, she pushed them back up and met his gaze with determination. She wanted him to fuck the pain and hurt and loneliness out of her. She wanted every thrust of his cock to drive the memories that much farther away from the woman she was today. This woman wanted this man—her husband—to fuck her so hard and fast that she wouldn’t ever think of herself as anything but his wife, because that’s all she would remember. It would form the sum of her existence and she could forget her past.

The good as well as the bad.

“I need you,” she said. “Please. Take me.”

He untangled his hands from hers and withdrew from her. Before she could protest, he sat up, flipped her over, and pulled her to her knees. His hands stroked her back and ass before he aligned his cock with her pussy. The coarse hair of his thighs rubbed against the backs of hers as he used his legs to nudge hers farther apart.

“Are you my good girl?”

Shivers of anticipation flowed through her. Her eyes briefly locked with Cris’ and she felt

another shiver. “Yes!” She wiggled her hips, trying to get him to fuck her.

Landry’s voice turned amused, playful. “Does my good girl want another hard fucking?”

“Please!” She tried to rock back and impale herself, but his strong hands held her hips still.

Cris’ eyes never left hers.

Landry’s hands massaged her ass. “How did you enjoy the first time I fucked you, baby?”

“I loved having your cock inside me!”

Cris blinked, but his eyes never wavered.

“Well, I loved fucking you. You have such a sweet, tight pussy. Any man would love to fuck

you, and yet I’m the lucky bastard married to you.” His hands tightened on her. “I’m the
only
man who gets to do this to you.” He thrust, hard and fast, sinking all the way into her.

Her hands fisted the sheet as she cried out.

It felt so.

Fucking.

Good.

* * * *

Cris watched them, the look of satisfaction on Landry’s face, the look of passionate pleasure on hers. He had the dubious distinction of knowing neither was faking it.

The bed shook as Landry fucked her hard and fast. Her spine rounded as she threw her head

back and moaned, “Don’t stop!”

“I’m not going to stop. I’m going to make love to you all night long.”

Cris wished he could fall through the floor, that it would open and swallow him. He’d been

painfully wrong earlier. His imagination and wondering what Landry had in store paled in comparison to the reality.

Landry sat back, holding her tightly to him, and made her sit up. She threw her head onto his shoulder as she rode his cock. His hands roamed her body, then settled over her breasts where he cupped them in his palms and rubbed the pads of his thumbs over her nipples. She reached back, stretching her body, and hooked an arm around his neck as she rocked against him.

Their lips connected and Cris was once again relegated to silent witness instead of forced

voyeuristic participant. He tried to tune out, to imagine himself in Tilly’s place, impaled on Landry’s cock and lost in the moment, and he couldn’t.

All he could think about was the last time he made love to Tilly, not knowing at the time it was the last time he’d ever make love to her.

The night before he flew out to L.A. for the job where, almost three weeks later, he read an email only two hours old from an old friend of his. On an email account he rarely checked anymore, and hadn’t checked in nearly six months. While he sat in a hotel room less than five miles from the hospital.

A perfect storm of coincidences.

Landry fucked Tilly as Cris thought about walking into the ICU and finding Jaimie and Gentry sitting in the waiting area, remembered seeing the shocked surprise on the men’s faces.

Gentry had stood and warmly embraced him. “Fuck! I didn’t know you lived here.”

He’d kept his face schooled to an expression of dispassionate concern. “I don’t. What

happened?”

Gentry and Jaimie, who’d taken the condo next door to Landry’s, had received a knock on their door from the CHP officer doing a next of kin search early that morning.

He listened to Gentry run down Landry’s injuries. “Is he going to make it?” he’d hoarsely asked his old friend.

Gentry hesitated, wetting his lips before answering. “They don’t know.”

“Who else is here for him?” He looked around.

Jaimie shook his head. “We’re it, bro. He’s got nobody unless he’s still got family in France.”

Gentry and Jaimie lied for Cris and told the nursing staff Cris was Landry’s partner. They left out the little factoid that Cris hadn’t had any contact with Landry in over six years, since the day he moved out.

The nursing staff paged one of the on call physicians, who explained to Cris about the

seriousness of Landry’s condition. Not the accident injuries, for while serious, he would heal from those. But the cancer they’d discovered during the surgery.

“What has to be done?” Cris felt numb, hadn’t yet been able to bring himself to touch his

former lover, the man he still loved.

His Master.

“He must have immediate treatment. I need a signature on the forms though.”

Cris felt himself nod. “Whatever you need.”

When the doctor left to get the forms, Cris barely noticed him leave. All he could see were

Landry’s closed eyes, both blackened and swollen, his broken nose, the ventilator tube taped in place, the IVs in his arms, and the bandage around his head.

Wake up
, he thought.
Look at me you son of a bitch.

The man who had haunted his dreams all these years, even while he loved Tilly, didn’t move, a machine breathing for him, monitors logging every heartbeat.

The man he once thought had a heart of stone.

The man he hated because he couldn’t stop loving him no matter how hard he’d tried to forget him.

The doctor returned, handed Cris a clipboard, and indicated where he should sign.

Cris didn’t read the paperwork, but he didn’t sign at first, pretended he was looking it over.

Considering.

“Is he going to make it?” Cris asked, hating how choked his voice sounded.

The doctor looked grave. “I can’t make any promises, Mr. Guerrero. His condition is very

serious. If we start cancer treatments immediately, we have a chance of saving his life. We can do more surgery tomorrow. He’ll need radiation and chemotherapy in addition to surgery. I won’t lie and say it’ll be easy, but the oncologist said he’s seen people survive who are in much worse shape.”

He’d signed the paperwork and walked to the waiting room to talk to his old friends again.

Tilly’s moan brought Cris fully back to the present as Landry slowly fucked her. He’d dropped one hand between her legs and spread his own farther apart, forcing her to open wider.

Cris watched Landry’s cock as it repeatedly disappeared inside her, his balls bouncing at the bottom of every stroke. Landry extended his middle finger, flipping Cris an upside-down bird before he used two fingers to rub her clit. That drew more happy moans from her.

* * * *

His cock felt
damn
good inside her. She felt the restrained strength in his hands, enjoyed knowing he could be so gentle and tender with her while the dark master within could beat Cris to a pulp. Hands that could torture and inflict pain, yet for her alone brought so much pleasure.

Safety.

“I want another one from you,” he said. “I want to feel you squeeze my cock again.”

The sound of his voice stripped every ounce of will from her soul. All she wanted was to be part of him, to let him take her however he wanted.

“Please make me come.” She kept one arm hooked around his neck as her fingers burrowed into

his hair. Along her back she felt the fine hair on his chest rubbing her flesh, his skin warm against hers.

Her
husband.

“I’ll make you come all night long if you want, sweetheart. Anything to make you happy.”

Her heart fluttered.

Sweetheart.

He was the first man to call her that in a romantic way since…

Resisting the urge to open her eyes, she ground her hips against him even as his fingers

skillfully strummed her clit and drew her closer to climax.

The part of her that didn’t ever want to want or need another human being in her life tried to resist despite how good it felt. That part of her knew she grew dangerously close to loving this almost-stranger.

Right now, for the first time in years, she let the notion of spending the rest of her life with someone take root in her heart.

“Baby, please, give it to me,” Landry coaxed.

The tone of his voice more than his actual words set her off. Her grip on him tightened as she held on, riding her orgasm out as he slammed his cock into her. His hands moved to her hips and she felt his fingers clamp down, holding on as he fucked her to his own completion.

Instead of lowering her to the bed, he leaned back on his heels, holding her, cradling her body against him, his breath rasping in her ear.

“Jesus, I can’t get enough of you,” he said.

Her heart surged again. If it was part of his revenge act, he was a damn good actor. He sure sounded sincere.

“You’ll be sick of me in three years,” she assured him.

His arms tightened around her. “Now
you
stop talking like that.” He bit her shoulder, not painfully, just enough nip to make her pleasantly squirm and send pulses of need back to her clit.

He chuckled. “Ooh, you
like
being bitten. Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?” He repeated it across her shoulders for several long minutes, back and forth until she writhed on his cock, which had grown hard again. “Had I known you enjoyed it so much I would have done more of it sooner.”

“You never asked me if I liked it. You only warned me that you do it.”

“So, do you like it?”

“Like that, yes.”

He licked the mark he’d left on her neck earlier. It was already in the process of turning a slightly darker shade. “How about that? Did you like that?”

“Just don’t leave me looking like I lost a fight with an octopus.”

He grazed his teeth across the nape of her neck before biting her there. Not even close to hard enough to break the skin. Her heart raced as her body responded to him.

“What else do you enjoy?” he asked.

“Wouldn’t that be spoiling the fun of trying to figure it out for yourself?”

His lips brushed against her ear. He whispered so quietly she knew Cris couldn’t hear. “Can I make a new rule?” he asked.

“Okay.” She could barely think, much less speak.

He kissed the back of her neck again. “I’d like to keep my wife as happy as possible. If you don’t mind us making love, I damn sure don’t mind. I just don’t know how up to it I’ll feel over the next few months.”

She laid her hands over his. “I don’t mind. I want to. I kind of worried you’d cut me off after tonight.”

“Not on your life.” Another nip. He changed position, laying with her on their sides across the bed, their backs to Cris. “I told you, I want to keep you happy.”

“I’ve got a rule, too.”

He laughed, his breath warm against her neck. “Yes, love?”

“No bugging me about if I’ve made up my mind to stay yet or not, okay?”

She heard the hesitation in his voice. “All right.”

She craned her head around to look at him. This time, she dropped her voice. “You can work on the assumption, unless I say otherwise, that I’ll be here for a long, long time. As long as you can put up with me. Okay?”

He smiled widely and stroked her cheek. “Thank you.” When he kissed her she wanted to forget about the rest of the world.

After a few minutes he carefully untangled his body from hers and leaned in for another kiss.

“Ready for some more slave torture?”

She was actually ready for another round of fucking, but wasn’t sure he was. “If you are.”

He stood and walked over to Cris. She rolled over to watch, propped on one elbow.

Landry grabbed Cris’ hair and yanked his head back so he could look down into his face. “Did
.

you enjoy watching that, slave?” He leaned in closer. “I can truthfully tell you I loved every second of it. I hope you did too, because you’ll be seeing a lot of it. Not just tonight, either. I’d forgotten how sweet it feels to make love to a beautiful woman.”

He reached around the back of Cris’ head and unfastened the ball gag harness. Then he ripped it off Cris and stepped closer. “In fact, I want to make love to her again. Open your mouth and suck me.

Get me nice and hard for my wife.”

She realized she’d been holding her breath. She breathlessly watched as Cris obediently opened his mouth and sucked Landry’s cock between his lips.

“Just think, slave,” Landry continued. “This is the closest you’ll ever get to fucking her, sucking her sweet juices off my cock.” Then he looked at her and winked. “Unless, of course, I let you eat my come out of her pussy.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.