Things Made Right (13 page)

The scream one of the men let out from inside the car as he came to just as it was going over the edge of the embankment. Ross had left an open pack of cigarettes and a book of matches in the car, just in case. The open gas can in the trunk would look like it spilled in the wreck.

An unfortunate coincidence.

Blinking the memory away, he returned to his living room, studying his beautiful wife, his perfect slave.

The love of his life.

His soul mate.

The woman he’d die for.

The woman he’d killed for.

He couldn’t fix what had happened to her. All he could do was make it right. And, for years, he’d thought he had.

Until today.

Although, fortunately, it looked like there wouldn’t be any other questions.

“So,” he continued, “if you only told her the story I told you to tell, and you didn’t mention it to me when I’d told you not to, how, exactly, did you earn fifty strokes when you didn’t disobey me in any way?”

Her shoulders slumped. “Because I sought advice from someone else before I talked to her, Master,” she quietly admitted.

The chill returned. “Who?”

“Sully.”

Aaand an immediate wellspring of relief filled him.

If there was anyone he trusted to hold a confidence, it was that man. Sully wasn’t just a friend, he was adopted family. They’d been friends for over a decade.

“What, exactly, did you tell Sully?” Ross asked.

Her head bowed. “I told him what those fucking monsters did to me, Master.”

Whew.
She’d finally dropped out of slashy speak and was showing some emotion. “Anything else?”

“I told him about Melody Axlerod contacting me. Showed him an old article about the accident, and about the memorial. I asked him what he thought I should do.”

“What did he say?”

“That I should talk to You.”

Aaaaand, we’re back.

He knew he wouldn’t get out of this without giving her a caning. But now he could issue her a far more appropriate punishment, one that would satisfy her, and be enough to rev his sadistic motor without taking it too far or making him sick to his stomach.

He was a sadist, not an abusive asshole.

“What’s my rule about punishment strokes?” he asked after letting her sweat it out for a moment.

“You always have the final say.”

“That’s right. Ass over the chair.”

She rose in one fluid movement and walked over to the large chair that sat at the end of the coffee table, the match to the sofa. One of the reasons they’d picked the set in the first place, because when she knelt over it or the sofa, it put her in the perfect position to be fucked or spanked.

Or, in this case, caned.

He wavered, trying to decide. “Ten strokes,” he said. “Count.” He sliced the first one, hard, across her ass before she’d even finished settling into position. He wanted her off-guard and unable to even think about arguing with him over it.

“One, Sir…”

He didn’t make them easy on her, either. One almost drew blood, but all of them raised welts across her pale flesh and would leave marks. He was careful to place them so every stripe would be visible, none of them hidden by the others.

And by the time he laid the tenth one across her ass, she was sobbing.

He put the cane on the coffee table, his cock now painfully hard. He gently turned her around and she started fumbling at his slacks to get his belt unfastened.

He cradled her head in his hands as she went down on him. It took every ounce of will he had not to fuck her mouth. Tonight he wanted to be inside her when he came. This was part of their routine, whether he beat her for play, or she asked for punishment. At the end, when they were home alone if the strokes were laid on her at a party or the club, she was always ready to be fucked, hard. Or used. She didn’t care.

And since it was a formula that worked, he wasn’t about to mess with it.

He let her suck his cock for a moment before he turned her around again, bent over the chair as he slid his cock inside her. She let out a groan that was part pain from her freshly caned ass, but mostly of pleasure. He met no resistance, his cock bottoming out immediately in her slick pussy.

Grabbing a handful of her gorgeous long hair, he yanked her head back. “Such a good girl,” he said. “All better. And with a nice sore ass for me to fuck, too.” He reached around her with his other hand and found her clit. “Now you’re going to give me a nice, hard orgasm from this sweet pussy. Aren’t you?”

She moaned as she rocked her hips against his. “Yes, Sir!”

“Then give it to me.” He bit down on the top of her shoulder, hard.

She exploded. Their years together had conditioned her to respond in some deliciously predictable ways. Pain was always followed immediately by pleasure.

The more pain, the stronger the pleasure.

Just threatening her with a spanking made her wet and horny.

Ah, operant conditioning, thou art a wonderfully heartless and predictable bitch.

Ross had to hold back as Loren rode his cock through the first and second waves of pleasure, the walls of her pussy clamping down on his cock, squeezing it as she surfed her orgasms.

While he loved it rough and raw, taking her, owning her, deep inside his heart ached. He knew he could never change what had happened to her. Nothing could do that.

What he had hoped was his love and devotion through the years might have somehow helped lessen the ache.

Short-sightedness on his part, and he admitted it.

He held back a little longer before starting to fuck her harder, faster. “Come for me, baby. Give it to me. I own it.”

She did. It took him seconds to catch up, his balls emptying inside her, his arms around her, tightly holding her.

And then the tears. Her body shook, silent sobs wracking her.

He turned her around and held her, curling up with her right there on the carpet. Once she got her wits about her, they’d go take a nice, long bath together, cuddled together, before he carefully washed every inch of her flesh.

Another cherished ritual they had.

Then he’d take her to bed and they might nap, they might make love again.

Talking would be on the agenda.

Finally, she let out a deep sigh. “Thank you, Master,” she whispered.

He kissed the top of her head. “You’re my good girl. I’ll always take care of my good girl. Just like I promised.”

She snuggled even more tightly against him as he closed his eyes and wished he could have done more so many years ago.

Wished he could get over his guilt that his indecision back then had forever changed the course of their future.

Sully sat across the table from Ross—the same table, ironically, that Sully had sat at with Loren a few days earlier. Once the waitress took their drink orders, he patiently waited for Ross to get to his point.

Deja vu didn’t begin to describe it. While Sully had no problem keeping the confidences of his friends, the trick would be making sure to act like he’d never heard any part of the story he was pretty sure Ross was about to confess to him.

“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Ross said.

“We have.”

“I need to talk to you about something. There was…an incident. It happened years ago, when Loren and I were in college. I need to talk to someone about it, but…” He trailed off, and it was the first time Sully could ever remember seeing his friend so indecisive.

“Whatever it is, it’s between us,” Sully assured him.

“Loren told me she talked to you.”

Sully breathed out. “Okay.”

“I’m not upset with her or you.” Ross clasped his hands on the table in front of him. “I’m kind of relieved. No one but her has even known a hint of what happened. Even she doesn’t know all the details.”

“Like I told her, had you and I been friends back then, you would have had my help with it.”

Ross smirked but didn’t meet his gaze. “I wish I could have helped you with that thing with Mac.”

Sully froze.

Then Ross met his gaze, evenly, levelly. “I suspect you and I have far more in common than most everyone else knows.”

Sully slowly nodded. “You’d probably be right,” he finally said after pondering several possible answers.

Even though he trusted Ross, he didn’t want to put Clarisse in jeopardy of any kind. The truth of that night was locked inside them, and Mac, who’d learned about it after his recovery. Not even Jason, his friend and former partner, who helped cover up the events, knew the full story.

And he wasn’t about to tell Clarisse’s secrets for her. Not unless she wanted to tell them.

Not unless she ever felt the need to unburden herself.

Ross leaned back in his chair and stared out the windows at the water for a moment. “It’s been a heavy burden to bear. I’m not proud of myself. I’d like to think that, looking back, I would have handled it differently had it happened now. Yet, honestly? I don’t think I would.”

He looked at Sully. “I befriended the assholes. It wasn’t difficult. Bought them liquor and nodded my head a lot. What Loren doesn’t know is not only were there more than her, there were a lot more. At least fifteen others, the best I can figure, based on what they told me themselves. The four of them were their own little private rapey sex club.

“The fraternity honestly didn’t know what was going on. That much was true. But those four assholes were legacy members. Their parents all had money. And at least one of them, their father had told him it was okay as long as he didn’t get caught and the girl didn’t come from a rich family who would cause trouble. That any girl who allowed herself to be caught like that really did want it.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it.” Ross returned his focus to the window. “Made me sick to my stomach to listen to them.” He let out a soft laugh. “They took pride in what they did. That they could get away with it. That they came from the kind of money that meant they didn’t have to worry about what they did in life. They’d always get bailed out.”

Ross stared at his hands. “And you know what? I hated them. At that point, I hated the fact that my family had money, too. Because I could see a lot of my old man in how they were acting. Made me wonder if he pulled shit like that when he was in college. I’d already been pissed off at my old man for planning my life for me, assuming I’d get my law degree and run for office the way he had. He didn’t know I’d already applied to law schools all over the country. Anywhere to get away from him. And wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, because the trust my grandfather set up for me didn’t specify where I went to school, it just said it’d pay all the expenses. Including living expenses.”

“And that’s how you afforded to move Loren down to Florida.”

“Yep. She didn’t know I had money when we first got together. And it was a moot point, because my father cut me off anyway when I married her. But it was okay, because between working, and with the trust from my grandfather, I could make it on my own without my father’s money. Was
determined
to make it on my own, if for no other reason than to piss off my old man even more. But especially to take care of Loren. Loren fell in love with me because she loved me, not because of my money. She didn’t know anything about that until after we were engaged. And then I made my own money.”

“I thought you reconciled with your father?”

“I did. Just before he died a few years back. He was terminal. So I don’t know if it was an honest effort on his part or if he was just trying to stack the deck in his favor for the hereafter. And I hate that I feel like that, but it’s the truth. I’ll never respect the man, and not even sure if I loved him at the end. Damn sure didn’t like him. I reconciled with him more for my mother’s sake than my own.”

Ross studied his hands for a moment. “Those little rich assholes took away not just Loren’s dreams, but mine, too. I’d wanted kids. Loren wanted kids. When the doctors finally said it definitely wasn’t going to happen, I asked her if she wanted to adopt and she said no. That she was afraid if she did, if she didn’t bond with a child that they might be a daily reminder of why she couldn’t have kids. And I wasn’t about to force the issue.”

“I can’t fault her for the self-awareness there.”

“Neither could I. Tilly’s the same way. I guess that’s not my story to tell. But it is a reason why Tilly and Loren are so close. Like sisters. Closer. All Loren told Tilly about her…issue, was that a guy in college raped her.” He sighed. “On the way back from the lunch a couple of months ago, when Clarisse told the girls about the twins, Tilly had a breakdown on the way home. They had to pull over so she could cry it out of her system. It really triggered Loren. Then on top of that, the anniversary, one of the assholes’ sisters contacting her…”

When he didn’t continue, Sully asked, “How’s Loren doing?”

“Coping. Would you believe she asked me for fifty goddamned cane strokes that night when I got home and she confessed she’d talked to the guy’s sister? I couldn’t do it.
Wouldn’t
do it. I gave her ten so she wouldn’t feel bad.”

“Yeah, been there, done that. Once they get it into their head that they think they deserve a punishment, they get pissed off if they don’t get it. Catch-22. It’s easier to beat them, sometimes. I’ll never understand it, but I’ve quit questioning it. Logic doesn’t apply.”

“Amen.” Ross sipped his iced tea.

“So how did you do it? Just out of curiosity.” Sully knew he didn’t need to clarify.

Ross laughed, but it held no humor. “Got them drunk and spiked the booze with their own drugs. I’d already scoped out the road. Two of them smoked, so I made sure I had matches and an open pack of cigarettes. They picked me up, I got them drunk, waited until they passed out, and set it all up. I knew that stretch of road was usually empty that time of night. I wore gloves. Drove out there, poured a couple of liquor bottles all over their clothes and left the partially empty bottles in the car with them. Dumped half of a five-gallon can of gas inside the trunk and left it sitting in there with the cap off. I’d hidden a bike in the brush nearby, along with a scissor jack. I jacked up the car’s rear axle after I put Kessling in the driver’s seat, made sure all their seat belts were fastened, and started the car. Shifted it into drive, put the cruise control on.”