The Last Good Knight (13 page)

“Math,” she suggested. “I’m really bad at math.”

“Here’s some math even you can do then,” the judge said, giving her a kind but hopeless smile. “You plus Lance equals no custody for his daughter.”

Nora swallowed a hard lump in her throat.

“I fucking hate math.”

Nora and Lance thanked the judge for his honesty and his time, and they left the house with nothing but heavy hearts and another bag of Mrs. B.’s chocolate chip cookies.

“What do you want to do?” Nora asked once inside the car. “I can take you home.”

“I don’t want to go home.” Lance leaned his head against the window. “I want to go to your house, spend the night with you and never leave your bed again.”

“I want that, too.” Nora put her hand on his knee and squeezed. “But you heard what Judge B. said.”

“I heard.”

“Lance...Listen to me. This is your Mistress talking.”

“Fine, I’m listening.”

“I’m crazy about you. But we just met a few days ago. The sex is amazing and you’re amazing, but this is something bigger than both of us.”

Lance fell silent again and Nora decided to simply drive around until he made a decision. She always felt better when driving. A car felt more at home to her than her house did. So she hits the streets and let whim dictate her directions.

And for some reason, the direction whim took her was Wakefield, Connecticut.

“Are you kidnapping me?” Lance asked when they left the city.

“Don’t tempt me. I just might. I’ll knock you out and when you wake up we’ll be in the middle of nowhere France in a beautiful little cottage with all the bondage and S&M equipment we could ever need.”

“Sounds like heaven.”

“It is heaven. Except it’s a No Children Allowed sort of Heaven. Is that your version of heaven?”

Lance didn’t answer and she didn’t expect him to. Once they entered Wakefield, Nora had to consciously force herself to drive in the opposite direction of Sacred Heart, Søren’s church...her church. Instead she steered her car a mile away into a small residential neighborhood on the outskirts of town.

“Where are we?” Lance asked as she parked in a cul-de-sac in front of a shabby pre-fab duplex with sickly pale green aluminum siding and a dead lawn. Behind the cul-de-sac stood a wall of trees, windblown and tired.

“It doesn’t look any better now than when I lived here.” Nora got out of the car and leaned back against the door.

“You used to live here?”

“Yup. Grew up in this house.” She pointed at the left side of the duplex.

“It’s...” Lance paused and Nora laughed.

“Shitville, USA?”

“I didn’t say that,” Lance raised his hand.

“You didn’t have to. Admittedly, it’s not like I grew up in the projects or anything. Just on the wrong the side of the tracks. Anyway, it’s not pretty. It’s worse on the inside.”

“Worse?”

“It’s probably the one bad neighborhood in this entire town. But no one lives here anymore. Not in the house or the neighborhood.”

She looked up and down the street and saw only a car or two parked and no signs of life.

“Why not?”

Nora started to answer but closed her mouth when the sound of an oncoming train started up in the distance. She smiled at Lance and put her hands in her jacket pockets.

“One...” she said, counting the seconds, “two...three...Brace yourself.”

At the end of the three, the train barreled past with ear-splitting loudness. Lance covered his ears but Nora only waited it out.

“What the fuck?” Lance lowered his hands from his ears.

“The railroad tracks are right behind the trees here. I grew up with that sound—every day and every night. I can still sleep through a hail storm because I grew up with that in my backyard.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Nora shook her head.

“Nope. A decade ago a train derailed about fifty yards that way.” She pointed east. “It was carrying some nasty chemicals on it. This entire neighborhood was evacuated. Lots of people moved out then and never moved back.”

“Is it safe to be here?”

“It’s clean now. But no one wants to live near the tracks.”

“I can’t blame them.” Lance kicked a rock in the front lawn.

“Me neither. It was nothing but plastic plates and plastic cups growing up. We literally could not have nice things in our house. They’d fall off the table and break into a thousand pieces. When I bought my house, the one you’ve been in, the first thing I did was buy a whole set of crystal glasses and vases and everything I could get my hands on, the more breakable the better. I like having things I can break, knowing they’ll only break when I want them to.”

“Not because you live right on the train tracks.”

“Exactly.”

“Were you happy here?” Lance stepped onto the sidewalk and Nora followed. So weird to be back in this neighborhood. So many memories came rushing over her that she felt she could drown in their murky depths.

“I did okay here,” she said. “I never learned how to ride a bike. I got one, a pink Schwinn, but it got stolen before I could learn to ride it. We couldn’t afford a new one. I cared more about motorcycles than bicycles by that point, anyway.”

“You lived here with your parents?”

“My mom.” Nora walked up to the front door. She peered in a window and saw the emptiness inside—no furniture, no people, no life.

“Where was your dad?”

“The Iron Triangle in Queens. That’s where his chop shop was. Or he was in jail. I was a baby when my mom realized her mechanic husband actually ran a chop shop. She left him. They got divorced and Mom refused any child support. She didn’t want my father anywhere near me. She was so pissed at him that even after he died she got their marriage annulled.”

“I don’t blame her. God, I can’t imagine growing up like this.” He pointed at the decrepit house, the abandoned neighborhood. “I can’t imagine growing up with my father in prison. Dad...he and I are buddies. He was a sub commander, not that you’d ever know it. Very humble man.”

“Sub commander? Sounds like me. Different sort of subs, obviously.”

“Submarines,” Lance said, laughing. “He was on his last deployment right before the Gulf War broke out. Instead of coming home, he stayed in. I think that’s the one time I remember my mom breaking down while Dad was away. She was already planning his welcome home party.”

“God damn, that must have been hard.” Nora took his hand in hers.

“It was. I asked him about it, asked him if he was angry he had to stay in. He said he wasn’t. He knew Mom had things under control, that my sister and I were doing fine. He said...”

Lance paused and swallowed. A smile flitted across his face.

“My dad said that there comes a time when what you want to do is the opposite of what you need to do. And the boys do what they want to do, but the men...” Lance stood up a little straighter. “The men do what they need to do.”

“I see where you get all your annoying nobility from.”

“No, Dad’s one of a kind. He says I’m his hero. I say the same about him.”

“You’re lucky to have a great father, such great parents. Mom and I butted heads from day one. I was a Daddy’s girl. Not in the kinky way.”

“There’s a kinky way to be a Daddy’s girl?” Lance sounded horrified.

“Don’t judge.”

“Sorry.”

“When I was thirteen, fourteen, I’d run off to Queens any chance I could to see him. I’d take a bus, take the subway, surprise him at his shop. He’d treat me like his little princess, take me to lunch with his friends, then drive me home. He wasn’t a real parent, never disciplined me or anything. Mom did all the work so I hated her and loved him.”

“What happened? I mean, to him and you.”

Nora turned away from the window, the empty house, the memories.

“I got in trouble. Big, bad trouble. My father ran for the hills and left me hanging, even though it was his fault I was in all that trouble. Søren stepped in and took care of me as best as he could. But I wasn’t my father’s little girl anymore. And then Dad was dead, and I didn’t miss him.”

Lance stood in silence and stared at the house.

“I have no regrets about how my life turned out,” Nora said, coming to stand next to him. “But if I could wave a magic wand and grow up with a father as loving and caring and protective as you, I’d wave the hell out of it.”

“You would?”

“In a heartbeat. There are two types of teenage rebellion—the normal kind and the kind that gets you in juvenile detention. Mine was of the latter variety. And I know if I’d had a normal father, a good father, that wouldn’t have been the case.”

“I want to be a good father to my daughter. You know I do.” Lance squeezed her hand before letting it go again.

“When a girl feels abandoned by her dad, she might latch onto any older man who takes an interest in her. Luckily for me, this other man I latched on to took great care of me. He got me out of trouble and kept me out of trouble. It could have just as easily been a sleaze I fell for who knocked me up and left me stranded again. I know a few girls who went down that path.”

Lance rubbed his chin, that half a day’s stubble she found so enticing. But she kept her hands to herself, knowing the next time she touched him would be the last time she touched him.

“I could get my daughter back,” Lance finally said.

“You could. Judge B. sounded pretty optimistic. He knows everyone in family court, has lots of pull. He’ll be able to help you.”

“I’m grateful to him. It’s just...” Lance turned and looked at her and in his dark blue eyes she saw the road they’d never take, not together anyway. And it would have been a lovely stroll down that road. The entire Underground would have turned out for the party when their infamous Mistress Nora finally settled down and put a collar on a sub. The women would swoon over handsome, noble, chivalrous Lance and the men would admire him for being man enough to take her on. She could see the mornings ahead of them: the breakfasts Lance would serve to her in bed, the tea he’d bring to her office while she worked on a book, the neck rubs he’d give her when she spent too much time sitting at her desk or too long flogging a client. She could imagine how devastatingly debonair Lance would look in a tuxedo when they attended a formal party at Kingsley’s or a special event her publisher hosted. And the nights...all those nights in bed with Lance serving her every sexual whim and Nora treating him to his every desire... They could live a lifetime of good nights together. He could give her everything she wanted. She could give him everything he needed. And no one could take that away from them.

“I have to do what I need to do,” Lance said at last. “Even if it’s not what I want to do.”

“One last good night?” Nora offered. It was all she had to give.

Lance nodded instead of speaking. They drove in silence to her house and in silence they entered it. In silence they kissed and in silence she led him to the bedroom.

All night long he lavished attention on her body. He spent an hour kissing and teasing her breasts. She spent another hour beating him black and blue with her floggers, single-tails and canes. For his sake she wanted to leave him with bruises that would last for weeks. For her sake she wanted to know that he would carry the imprint of their time together on his body. She tied him down and rode him until she’d exhausted herself and him with orgasms. Then they slept but only for a while.

Nora awoke in the hour before dawn. She stared at Lance’s sleeping form. Of all the men she’d let in this bed none looked more right in it than Lance. A mix of moonlight and streetlight snuck into the room and revealed the welts and bruises that decorated Lance’s broad, muscled back.

Willpower alone kept her from kissing one beautiful and blackening bruise under his shoulder blade. Instead of touching him or kissing him, she pulled away and tiptoed to her closet. She slipped into a sheer black negligee she’d bought months ago but hadn’t worn yet. Why not? No better time than now. Now was all they had. But she wasn’t finished digging yet. Somewhere in this mess of a walk-in closet...she knew it was here...yes. She found it. The black velvet bag she’d hidden away.

From the top of her closet she pulled down a candle box and a lighter. As Lance slept she lit six of the candles and set them about the room. She had no plans for wax-play unless he asked her for it. She merely wanted to see his body by candlelight for the first and last time.

At last she had the room ready. Sunrise was still an hour away.

Standing at the side of the bed Nora paused, picked up a candle and bent forward. Her lips touched Lance’s shoulder the second the hot wax landed on his back.

Lance twitched and came awake in an instant and sat up. Panting from the shock of the painful awakening, he stared at Nora and said nothing, waiting like a well-trained soldier for the next command.

Nora only stared at him for a moment, at the veins in his forearms, the lines of lean muscle in his stomach and chest, the scattering of scars that only added to his allure. She set the candle back on the table. She picked up the black velvet bag, opened the silver drawstring and pulled out a heavy leather collar.

Lance looked down at the collar and then back at her with a question in his eyes. Nora turned it in her hand, tilting it toward the light.

“There’s this Israeli leatherworker that Kingsley knows. He makes all of Kingsley’s whips and floggers. Old guy. Probably knew Moses. Anyway...” Nora traced the ornate silver buckle on the back of the collar. “He had this with him last time he was at Kingsley’s. I bought it. One of those love-at-first-sight, impulse buys.” She smiled at Lance who seemed to be barely breathing now. Nora’s words, although whispered, seemed to echo off the walls. “The craftsmanship is incredible. See the grooves on it? It’s engraved. He said it’s the Hebrew words for
Protector.
Provider.
Slave.
He’s a romantic old soul. I didn’t have anyone in mind when I bought it. I just wanted it.”

“Why?” Lance asked, still staring at the collar but not touching it.

“I don’t know. Why do girls who don’t have boyfriends buy bridal magazines? They buy them to dream, I guess. Even Dominatrixes have dreams.”