That spoke volumes about his character.
She also felt sorry for him. Obviously, Cris had loved him very much to do what he did, right or wrong. It wasn’t hard for her to see why Cris loved him.
A damn good guaranteed paycheck, a chance to use her nursing skills, and a break from being a Domme. She could hang Mistress Cardinal in the closet with her corsets and stiletto heels and just be Tilly again.
She would have someone to take care of, in a way she hadn’t since Cris left. Despite what she did, she had her own needs that had gone unmet for far too long.
Wanting to serve.
Not wanting to be alone, even if it meant being tied to the man who had broke her heart and crushed her soul.
The man Landry claimed still loved her.
What did she have to lose? Well, other than her sanity. Hell, if she could survive what she went through, this should be a cakewalk. And it would mean getting her life back, not having to be a pro-Domme anymore.
“If I’m marrying you,” she said, “I need a few concessions.”
“Of course.”
“You’re not my Master, my Dom, or my Top. If you try to pull any bullshit like that, you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
“Of course not.”
“For now you’ll move in with me. I’d rather have you at my house than have to schlep somewhere else to take care of you. You can contribute to household expenses.”
Even in the dark car she saw his eyebrows lift. “What? What about Cris?”
She gritted her teeth. “He can move in too.”
“I can’t ask you to do that. I’m not asking you to take care of me, just to marry me and assure Cris has access to me in the hospital. Why would you want me living with you?”
“Did Cris mention I went to nursing school?”
“No.”
“Yeah. I graduated, worked at it for nearly a year. After I got into doing this I quit doing it and my license lapsed.” She tapped her head. “Knowledge is still there. So if I’m earning that money, I might as well earn it.”
“He’ll still be my slave, though. I’ll be using him when and where I see fit. Is that going to bother you?”
“Nope. Have at him. I don’t want him as a slave but he can clean my damn house and do chores when I tell him.”
“Absolutely. He’s yours to use and abuse however you need him.”
She didn’t miss how he accented that word, however. “I won’t interfere with what you do with him if you don’t interfere with what I do with him,” she said.
He nodded, smiling. “That’ll humiliate him. Good.”
An idea struck her. It would be a particularly painful revenge for Cris. “You ever sleep with a woman before?”
He looked confused. “Tilly, I’m not asking you to do that. I don’t expect anything like that from you.”
“Answer my question.”
He looked even more puzzled as he studied her face for a moment. “I’ve slept with women before, years ago. Before I finally admitted I was gay.”
“How long ago?”
“Before I met Cris.”
“Think you can still get it up for me?”
“Tilly, I said—”
“Answer the damn question, Landry.”
He took a while to mull it over. “I’m sure I could oblige you, but while I’m undergoing cancer treatment you could shoot me full of Viagra and have Adam Lambert go down on me and it wouldn’t raise the dead.”
She smiled. He had a good sense of humor. “I only need you one time. One really good, hard, long time. If I’m going to marry you, you’re going to fuck me on our wedding night.”
That dropped his jaw. Finally, something to shatter that annoyingly unshakable composure of his. “What?”
She turned in her seat to face him. “Yeah. That’s one of my conditions. I want one really big
‘fuck you’ in his face before we get down to the business of taking care of you. I want my pound of flesh. Otherwise, all I’m going to do is hate him more every day. You want to know something? I haven’t slept with a guy since he left. I didn’t have the heart at first, then I finally got to the point where I considered it and Bob comes into my life. Then you bring Cris back the next fucking day. Super sucky timing, dude.”
She took a deep breath. “So here’s what I want. I want a good, long, hard fucking on my wedding night. I want you to make me come so hard the top of my head blows off. Not Master/slave stuff either, just good ole vanilla sex. I want you to spend the night making love to me, and Cris has to sit there and watch and listen to every second of it while he’s tied up and can’t move. Who knows, maybe I’ll make him suck you off after you’ve been inside me. Cuckolding and humiliation aren’t my personal kinks, but I’m willing to get into it for one night if it means I can hurt him. I want my revenge so I can move on with my life once and for all. Otherwise, it’s going to eat me alive and I don’t want to live like that anymore. I want to hurt him as badly as he hurt me. If you’re telling the truth how he feels about me, I can’t think of a better way to do it.”
Landry stared at her for a moment in shock, then he laughed. It rolled out of him, long and hard, until he finally composed himself a minute later. “You haven’t slept with anyone since he left?”
“That’s all you got from what I just said?”
He laughed again. “No, I like that, it’s perfect. Yeah, it’ll humiliate him, all right.” He shook his head. “Jesus, it’s perfect. You’re as big a sadist as I am. I never would have thought of that. I never assumed you’d want to—”
“That’s another thing. No more goddamned assumptions. Ever. You ask me what I want or don’t want. Got it?”
His face turned solemn. “Yeah. I think we’re both in firm agreement on that one.”
“Another rule I have, if I’m your wife and helping with your care, you will listen to me and do what the doctors say you should. Right?”
“Okay.”
This was insane. Why was she even agreeing to this? She took a long, deep breath. “We’ll go get the marriage license tomorrow, you can get the pre-nup drawn up, and we’ll get married at the courthouse on Monday.”
“Why Monday?”
“Florida has a wait period. They won’t let us do it tomorrow. My friend Loren is a Notary and does marriages, that’s how I know.”
“You want her to perform the ceremony?”
“Hell no, she’ll end up in jail when she kills Cris. We’ll do it at the clerk’s office.” She couldn’t believe she was agreeing to this crazy scheme. “If you’re getting a biopsy on Wednesday, we should spend Tuesday night resting. Monday it is.”
He eventually nodded. “Monday it is then,” he softly agreed. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a ring. He motioned for her left hand.
At first she didn’t realize what he was doing until he slipped a huge, gorgeous diamond solitaire onto her ring finger. “Matilda Cardinal, will you marry me?”
This isn’t how she pictured her engagement. Frankly, after Cris left, she thought she’d likely never get married. “Yes, but if you ever call me Matilda again, I’ll punch you in the nuts.”
He smiled. “Yes, dear.”
She returned his smile. “And who says Doms can’t be taught to obey?”
She loved the sound of his laugh.
She dropped him back at his hotel. Before he climbed out of the car, he turned to her again.
“Thank you, Tilly. I really appreciate this.”
“Assuaging your guilt?”
He thought about it for a moment. “That’s part of it. I can’t give you back what you lost. I can’t make up for it. You don’t have to move us in with you. I’ve got appointments tomorrow with real estate brokers. We’ll get our own place.”