The Hunter (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (17 page)

The Hunter
: Past
-Chapter Sixteen-

I remember taunting Marcus over his arranged marriage
to Diane, how he was stuck for life. What if he found a woman he fell in love with? Marcus was throwing true love away for dollar signs. Marcus would snarl at me,
I did it for pure love, not money
.
I do love you and Ezra, you fucking idiot
, and then he’d skulk away.

Before the game, I didn’t understand. After the game, I still didn’t understand, not really. I was irresponsible
. Our ordeal with Ray taught me to take care of Aaron and Divina, but I hadn’t realized that Marcus hadn’t given up his happily ever after for monetary gain, he’d fallen for the children. After losing all of his family except for his cousin Dexter, Marcus yearned for another, and that was what we were to him- family. Marcus married Diane so he could have Ezra and me, and even Aaron and Divina.

Standing at the altar, Marcus winks at me, taunting me because I’m making the same damn mistake he did. The game and Ezra influenced my decision. The game, because it was either do what the Elders voted on or take a severe punishment. And since Madam
e Game Master has a hate-on for me, I never stepped out of line during a play. Faith would have my balls as her mantel piece, impaled with her fireplace poker weapon.

Ultimately, it was a lesson in
responsibility that had me marrying Divina Hastings. I did it for the love of my family, for Ezra. Ezra didn’t see it as I saw it. The night Ezra found out, he nearly beat me to death during a meeting, and then disappeared for a week. No one could find him. But the decision was truly for Ezra, for Ezra’s monetary gain. I have no legacy, so I’m more sensitive to it- I don’t take it for granted. Holden businesses, money, and ShadowHaven needed to be protected, and that is why I’m standing beside Divina, listening to a priest ramble on.

I blink tears away, but they betray me by running down my cheeks. I love Divina. I cherish Divina. I honor Divina. For sickness and health, for I’ve held Divina while she was sick,
since she was diagnosed with Lupus at fifteen. For richer and poor, for I’m marrying Divina to keep her rich. For death do we part, I hope is just a saying…

This beautiful, intelligent, carin
g, loving, sweet, and funny woman is becoming my wife. This woman who is the only sister I’ve ever had. No one can replace Ezra. But this is about as close as it comes, because I love Divina with all of my heart. I do this for Divina as much as for Ezra.

The tears are of regret, crushed hope. Never, ever, will I stand in our cathedral before the priest that christened me and repeat those vows to my best man. Ezra stands beside me, as a brother would. In the eyes of the church, Ezra is m
y blooded cousin. We will never, ever be joined for all of eternity, and that is why the tears flow and my heart breaks.

Divina is pronounced my wife, and I her husband. The girl who I see as my sister is now my wife. The undying, unflinching love I feel for Ezra is wrong, but not for Divina? I start to panic. The church has its head up its ass…

“Cort,” Divina whispers my name when I don’t follow through with the command from my priest. I lean forward and place a chaste kiss to Divina’s cupid bow mouth. It’s fleeting, fast, barely a brush of a touch. I’ve kissed hundreds of women, and not once was it as important as this kiss- it is a promise, a seal of our union as husband and wife… and I hate this kiss more than any kiss I’ve ever had before. As I pull away, I whimper, holding back a sob. Ezra’s hand grips the back of my tuxedo jacket, supporting me as always.

More money is spent on this travesty than should be allowed. Over seven hundred guests fill ShadowHaven’s lawn. It’s the wedding of a lifetime, and I haven’t noticed one
single detail. It’s Divina’s dream wedding, minus her dream man. A question reforms in my mind, the question I first asked Marcus: what if you find your soul mate and it’s too late? I don’t ask this of myself, because Ezra is ghosting beside me as I go through the motions. I ask this of Divina. Shouldn’t the incredible girl get her own happily ever after? Divina’s illness should give her an express pass to happy, bypassing all of this madness.

Pictures: flashes blinding me as I smile, praying I don’t look insane. Immortalization of this horrific day. 

Toasts: I don’t hear a word until Ezra clears his throat and bleeds in the form of words. I stumble and have to grip the back of a chair just to stay upright as my heart implodes. I cry an endless stream of tears that refuses to abate. Divina smiles, all the while handing me tissue after tissue. Thank God my wife loves me or she’d kill me by now.

Food: tasteless as sand
paper. I drink water just to swallow the solids. The food drops to my stomach and sets up residence until I can get to a bathroom to vomit.

Conversation: fall
s on deaf ears. I tease and joke and taunt and laugh and smile as the game players check on the progress of their play. It’s an extra twist to the blade that is firmly lodged into my back.

Cake: I charmingly smile as I act through the cutting ceremony, smashing a tiny piece on Divina’s face
and licking it from her cheek, playacting the happy couple.

Dancing: Divina and I have our first dance as
husband and wife, followed by the dance with your opposite sexed parent. As an orphan, I dance with Diane as Divina dances with her father, Richard. We switch up, dancing with our in-laws. Yet again, I’ve short-changed my wife. While I dance with my mother-in-law, Pearl, Marcus has to step in as my pretend father to dance with Divina. After that, it’s a stream of women, because it’s unseemly to dance with the same sex- even if you long to hold a male in your arms. I want to kill Adelaide Whittenhower as she dances song after song with
my
Ezra. Woman after woman demands my attention on the dance floor, the majority of the women I’ve fucked at least once before Ray gave me his tender loving care. Young and old, my body didn’t take their roaming hands as an insult until my wedding night. I’d wished I’d found the toilet sooner. I pull away and sneak off to puke until my sins flow upon the earth.

Strong hands rub my back, fingers massaging the tight muscles
as I kneel on the edge of the lawn, retching my organs up. “I’m mad at you,” I growl as I wipe my mouth clean on a hanky. Ezra hands me a bottle of water that I use to clear my mouth of the foul taste.

“And your anger is any different opposed to any other day, how?” Ezra smoothly murmurs as he strokes my back.

“I did this for you,” I mumble. “I knew that we could never do this, you and I. We can’t get married in our church. We can’t have kids. We can’t be husband and husband. We can’t even dance together for Christ’s sake. Plus, I’m not so sure you want what I want.
Mr. I’m engaged to Adelaide Whittenhower
… oh, excuse me, I mean doctor… Dr. Betrayer.”

“Ah… I see,” Ezra softly murmurs. “So this isn’t any different than any other day.”

“Bastard,” I snarl.

“Undoubtedly,” Ezra ruefully admits, but sound
s amused. “It’s almost showtime. Are you going to be okay, or are you going to fall apart?”

“It’s not the first virgin I’ve deflowered, or the fiftieth. I do have a reputation to uphold, as you know,” I arrogantly say, hiding my terror.

“Ah, but they were meaningless, and this is Divina.” Ezra leans over my back, curling around me. A tender kiss lands on the nape of my neck. I tremble into his touch.

“Why?” I cry. “Why does life keep kicking our asses? Why can’t we just be what we need to be?”

“It’s a learning curve of a journey. If everything was… pleasant, what would you learn? Would you appreciate those you love, or take them for granted?”

“Oh wise one, it’s me we’re talking about
here,” I grumble. “I’d take them for granted. Oh… oh… I should be appreciating the hell out of everyone at this point. I’ve taken enough kicks to the nuts to last a lifetime.” 

I quickly rotate and cling to Ezra, tears streaming down my cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I whimper while holding his pained gaze, and I have no idea what I’m apologizing for. “Saying yes didn’t feel real. The ceremony didn’t feel real. The reception didn’t feel real. All I felt was a huge divide between you and me- a divide I
’d created. This… you and me… saying goodbye… now it feels real, all too real.”

Ezra
quickly looks away, hastily wiping his eyes with a fingertip. He clears his throat and says, “This isn’t goodbye, not really. You’ll go away and get a fierce tan. You’ll come home and regale us with stories of your tropical honeymoon.”

“There’s no going back, Ezra. There is no way to take back our innocence, the lies, and the betrayals. This is the future I saw when I was a kid, but it was
our
future, not Divina’s and mine. After… we acted as brothers, friends, no longer lovers and partners. Lately… we’ve been enemies. I can’t come home to an enemy after all of this. I won’t survive it,” I hopelessly admit.

“I…” Ezra’s eyes flick away as he chokes on whatever words are stuck in his throat. “I know we can’t be lovers, not with all that is between us. But I can promise you this, when you return, you will return to your friend, your brother. I promise that I will never make myself your enemy again- ever,” he vows with conviction.

“But…” Ezra’s eyes flick back to mine, searing me with their intensity. I gasp at what I see reflected in the pools of molten metal. His cruel lips twist up into a smirk. “A simple kiss before we part.”

A heartbeat passes, neither of us blinks, let alone moves. Gray eyes challenge gray eyes. I inhale a breath, and before I exhale, I launch myself at Ezra, and he catches me
, as he always does. Lips fused to lips, chest pressed to chest, perfectly aligned hips, our arms pull and squeeze and grip, never wanting to let go. We deeply kiss, crying out in pleasurable pain and real tears.

Ezra abruptly pushes me away, pushes me to the ground. Tears are streaming down his cheeks, sobs hitching his breath. He looks at me one last time, and
then swiftly bolts for the woods. I rise to charge after Ezra when a hand latches onto my bicep and bruisingly squeezes.

“No,” Marcus commands. “Your wife is waiting for your dramatic exit to the airport, and you
will not
disappoint Divina,” Marcus stresses.

“I… have to go after him,” I whine.

“No, you don’t. Ezra is my son, and I will comfort him. I promise that he will be fine when you return.” Marcus promises, but his tortured expression screams he doesn’t see it as a possible outcome. Marc’s fingers tighten around the back of my neck, he pulls me to my feet and steers me in the direction of the entrance of ShadowHaven for our dramatic exit by limo.

“I’m not responsible,” I admit as my feet numbly carry me in the direction Marcus pushes me.

“I believe that you are very responsible, caring, loving, faithful, and good. You are the most emotional of all of us, and you will do what is right… eventually. But since I fear the
eventually
in my statement, I’m shoving your ass to where you need to go. Divina may not be your future, your destiny. But she is your present.”

“What if I can’t do it?” My feet draw me to an abrupt stop when we round the front of the house. The scene makes me want to piss my pants. A black stretch limo decorated in
just married
, seven hundred guests, the game players, my family, and Ezra being flanked by his enforcers. Aaron and Roarke hold Ezra upright. A blank mask covers Ezra’s handsome face, but the red-rimmed eyes tell another tale.

I hold Ezra’
s gaze and pretend I’m walking towards him, where I would clasp his hand and eagerly yank him into the limo. I’d ravish him on our way to the airport, and again when we joined the mile high club, and constantly on our honeymoon. That is how a husband should feel about their spouse… elated… proud… not dread… never fear.

Sensing my thoughts, as he always does, Ezra mouths
I love you
, and I mouth it back. I blink, changing from lovelorn fool to the happy husband. I charmingly smile while chuckling and laughing with my guests. I make my way to my bride, pulling Divina to my side. I whisper naughtiness into her ear, making her blush and giggle for the cameras. I pull her to the car, where we will sit in companionable silence. I shut the door, but not before one last look at the splendor of ShadowHaven, my home, which I now own. I catch a glimpse of tormented gunmetal gray eyes just as Ezra loses his shit.

Door locks engaged,
my heart beats into hyper-drive, pumping panic throughout my veins… and I finally lose my shit, too. I keen in agony. The car speeds away before I can jump out, either to my death or to Ezra’s embrace, either one would suit me just fine.

The Hunter
: Past
-Chapter Seventeen-

I’m not at all freaking out. I sleep nude, always have…
always will
… I used to sleep nude. I don’t wish for my bride to feel uncomfortable, or so I lie to myself. Not that I wish Divina discomfort. It’s a lie that I’m wearing pajamas for her benefit. Pajamas weren’t good enough of a barrier, either. I have on boxers, a t-shirt, pajama pants and long-sleeved shirt, and a robe for good measure.

I’m as nervous as a virginal bride on her wedding night.

I’m not at all sweating in the ninety-five degree humid heat in the height of summer. Ninety-five in the shade, the shade of the moon. It’s nighttime and sweltering. Divina’s dream vacation: Jamaica… and no hotel. We’re in a cabin on our own private beach- a cabin without air conditioning… without electricity. We’re trust fund babies… seriously? Divina picked primitive beach camping as her ideal honeymoon. I’ve never even made toast in my life. What are we going to eat while we’re here… what are we going to do?

Did I ever mention my bride has a wicked sense of humor? Which
I love when we’re picking on someone else. Not so much when it’s directed at me, and without a doubt, I am the brunt of Divina’s private joke.

I lunge to the side
, batting around my head, when a buzzing flies by my ear. The mosquitoes here are the size of hummingbirds, and they ain’t looking for nectar, unless you call my blood sweet. Which I’m sure it is.

“Oh, Cort,” Divina sadly says, shaking her head at me, trying her damnedest not to laugh.

“You do realize I can hear your silent
spoiled
hanging in the air,” I snidely say, glaring her ass down. “What are we going to eat? I don’t have any idea how to catch a fish, or scale a fish, or cook a fish. Hell, I don’t even know how to start the fire to cook a fish. Still breathing Sushi?”

“Oh, Cort,” Divina repeats, covering her m
outh with the back of her hand. Her blue-gray eyes are glittering with barely suppressed delight. Divina is reveling in my discomfort.

“I didn’t sign up for
Survivor
,” I mutter, turning my back on my wife to stare out at the beautiful rolling waves. It’s gorgeous.

“Ah,
Survivor- Rich Bitch Edition. Out-bitch. Out-moan. Out-groan
. Six days and five nights on a tropical island, in your own personal cabin, with your wife as your constant companion. The prize is a pre-nuptial agreement giving you half a billion dollars, deeded as the owner of ShadowHaven with Ezra, and my undying love. Oh, poor Cort,” Divina whimpers, pouting out her lower lip. 

“Shut it,” I growl, palming Divina’s forehead and shoving her away. “Like you’re any better. What do you suggest?”

Divina’s eyes gleam wickedness and I get worried. She’s Ezra’s cousin for a reason. Diane is reserved, but Pearl is a wildcat. Never trust a woman who smirks like that. Beautiful, petite, glossy chestnut hair, and gray eyes that hold a tint of blue from her father, Divina can be a brat. So sweet and innocent until she makes you her private joke. Right now, I’m Divina’s joke.

“Rum,” Divina sings holding up a liter of
golden liquor, “and marshmallows.”

“Um… I have no idea how to cook that,” I grumble, trying to figure out what concoction that
could possibly create. “I’m not even sure that’s food.”

“Cort,” Divina bursts out laughing. “
Relax. Take off your jammie snowsuit and put on some shorts. Come outside and sit with me on the beach. I’m going to start a fire. We’ll toast marshmallows and get drunk. Husband and wife or not, it’s still you and me. I’ve known you every day of your life. Let’s just go hang out on a beach in Jamaica- forget it’s a honeymoon. Let’s… just be us.”

“How do we get fire? How do you know how to start a fire to toast the marshmallows,” I mumble, feeling about as manly as a princess.

“Boy, your head has been up your ass since birth, I guess. First, it’s called a lighter. You flick it, and as if by magic, flame appears. And in case you are lost on what flame is, it means fire. So you hold the magic flame to the paper until it catches on fire, and then the kindling lights. Second, I was a girl scout. Which you’d know if you’d paid attention to anything other than Ezra.”

“What’s a girl scout gotta do with it,” I mumble in confusion. I swipe my hand over my forehead, getting the back of my hand sticky from sweat.
“I only remember eating cases of cookies all year long. I blame you for making me pudgy.”

“Oh, Cort,” Divina moans again, and again, and again. “I learned how to start a fire with only two twigs and some tinder.” She shakes her head at me, silently laughing. “I’ll meet you out there… it’s up to you if you want to sweat to death with your style choices.”

Feeling more comfortable because there isn’t a bed in sight, I stride out to the beach in my swim trunks. I breathe a sigh of relief not to find romantic anything. Not that I’m not a romantic kind of guy. Actually, I’m the most romantic bastard I’ve ever met.

After the
fake intimacy and romance of the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, and the reception. Then I was subjected to the misery of seeing Ezra fracture… I just wasn’t in the mood to woo or to be wooed. Seeing Divina act like the girl I’ve always known is refreshing. I don’t know why I expected Divina to change with an
I do
. I was scared Divina would turn into a bridezilla meets nagging wife.

“Wow,” I praise. “You really do know how to start a fire. Will you teach me?” I settle next to Divina
on a log that looks mysteriously fake and staged- plastic even. I chuckle at how the proprietors probably thought us rich assholes would hate real bark rubbing against our tender behinds.

Divina looks at me sideways, smiling to herself because I’ve finally lightened up. In her defense, I did cry during the entire limo ride, while checking in at the airport, during the flight, and then the
boat ride here. So yeah… in Divina’s defense.

“We have almost a week, I can teach you a lot of stuff in that time frame, especially how to fish. You might need it to feed Ezra sometime. He’s even prissier than you are,” Divina snarkily teases.

“I am not prissy,” I grumble. “Much.”

“No, not at all.” I’m pretty sure Divina rolled her eyes at me. “I think that Ezra and you are the only people on the planet that have a tent just for sex, that camp out and demand the maids bring you your order from the chef. I just don’t see anyone else doing that kind of shit.” Divina hands me a stick and a handful of marshmallows. I watch her because I haven’t a clue what the hell I’m supposed to do with it. “You doing okay?”

“I’ve been better,” I mumble as I intently watch Divina shove a marshmallow on a stick and catch it on fire. I squint my eyes, wondering how the hell you eat it while it’s aflame. Divina blows on it until it no longer glows, and then gobbles the black briquette looking object like it’s divine. Divina moans as she licks sticky white fluff from her lips.

“So good,” Divina groans.

“If you say so,” I mumble in disbelief, refusing to eat anything that is charred and burnt. Carcinogens cause cancer. I grab the rum and twist the top off. I don’t drink, either. But tonight’s the night I start. I pop a few raw marshmallows into my mouth and get to chewing. Blech… I’m going to starve to death in the next six days- I’ll be positively skeletal. Next thing you know, I’ll be naming a coconut Wilson, and then I’ll bash it in, pretending it’s Leviticus Wilson’s head.

“Is this your way of torturing me for the next few days…
the next sixty, seventy years, Wife?” I take a slug of rum and choke as it scorches my throat. “Jesus,” I hiss.

“We don’t have to have sex, ya know.” Divina smirks at me, trying not to laugh. She has burnt marshmallow stuck to her cheek. I snicker at her because she’s so cute, and then shake my head.

“Are you still a virgin?” I quickly ask before I get skeeved out.

“Cort, I was raised Catholic. I went to Catholic school. What do you think?” Divina stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “You wait until marriage.

“No pressure there,” I barely breathe the words. I guzzle a huge mouthful of rum to deaden my mind. “I was raised right alongside you, and I lost my virginity at twelve. I can’t even count how many women I’ve been with,” I admit. My eyes scrunch together in pain. I don’t like how that sounds, but it’s true… and disgusting. “And most were Catholic school girls, just like yourself.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a guy…” Divina grumbles. “Different rules. And you know exactly how many guys you’ve been with, so… What’s it matter if I’m still a virgin or not?”

“Divina,” I groan. “Antiquated and ridiculous, our faith and our government requires consummation. This isn’t a regular marriage. We are talking a billion dollars, business holdings, and a seven hundred acre estate with a sprawling mansion. Do the math.” I close my eyes, knowing those game playing bastards will require proof. My mother-in-law will fawn concern and take her daughter to the clinic for a female checkup… and fuck. “If you’d already done it, this wouldn’t be an issue,” I mumble, being a selfish prick.

“Cortez Julian Abernathy,” Divina shouts, hitting me in the chest. “You… you wished I would’ve given my virtue to some piece of shit at Hillbrook instead of my husband?”

“Um… you do realize that I’m the piece of shit at Hillbrook, right? I was the one stealing all that virtue and moving on to the next, and the next, and the next. So you’re pretty much doing it anyway.” 

Angry at me, just like a real wife, Divina gazes out over the ocean. We sit in silence, passing the rum back and forth, coughing with every chug. I feel the urge to cry. It’s beautiful
, glorious. There is nothing on this earth that is that shade of blue, and the moon looks immense as it illuminates the waving water. The roar of the ocean is lulling and peaceful. These are the sights and sounds that poetry describe. Mix my roiling emotions with the scenery and it’s what inspires novels of greatness. It’s a writer’s nirvana. A thinker’s haven. God shaped this paradise for those who create- artists, musicians, and writers.

The quiet is also the
enemy of the morose. It causes you to think, to see your life clearly, to doubt and regret and wish and hope. The immense ocean of water and the wide expanse of sky make you contemplate the meaning of life, and you realize how very inconsequential you are in the grand scheme of things. You are but one in several billion, and you think yourself special. How arrogant and selfish. How humbling it is to realize just how replaceable you really are. If you don’t take, the person behind you will.

Survival of the smartest, the ruthless.

“What happens when you find the love of your life?” I murmur to Divina, hours since we last spoke.

“We divorce, and I go for him,” Divina says, making it sound so simple.

“What if I do?” I ask out of curiosity.

“I’m not worried,” Divina
replies, privately smirking to herself. “If you try for another guy, Ezra will kill him, and no girl will ever satisfy you. I’m pretty secure in my role as your wife. The only person other than me that has the power to end our married is Ezra.”

“Wouldn’t you rather give your… virginity,” I stumble over the word, “to the man you love?”

“There are no guarantees in life. I may never find him. I could be a virginal eighty year old biddy or a beautiful corpse at twenty-one. I’d rather not die a virgin, and unless a cruise ship capsizes on shore or a shark grows legs, that’s not gonna happen tonight. We’re doing it, Cort.” Divina turns to me, a look of challenge in her eyes. “Or will your being gay be an issue for you?” 

“I’m not gay,” I defend, offended.
I scrunch my face up in confusion and Divina reads the expression wrong.

“You’re an idiot,” Divina growls.

“I’m not lying,” I whine. “I… I wish I could say I was. I’m not denying because I think being gay is wrong. I really don’t know if I’m gay or not. I don’t have the ability to figure it out. Look,” I point at my crotch, at my everlasting-erection. “Not that you aren’t gorgeous and funny and snarky and naughty and wicked and hotter than fuck, but this… thing… isn’t because of you. The only time I’m not hard is just after I pop.”

“I… I guess there will be no issue, then,” Divina mumbles in a husky voice, eyes glued to my crotch. That dumb fucker in my pants flexes for my wife and her eyes widen in shock. “No,” I groan, not wanting Divina to ever want me like that. “I can’t.”

“Looks like you can,” Divina purrs, shifting on the log until she’s straddling my hips and sitting on
it
… while wearing a string bikini. 

“I’ve been ruled by my arousal for eight years. No more. I can’t, Divina. I married you because I love you- I truly do. And I’m not lying, you are spectacular, inside and out- personality and beauty, and you’re fun. But I can’t, and I never will, and I refuse. I love you too much. Find a man who will treat you well. I suck at sex… with a girl. No girl should lose their virginity to someone as big as me, either. Faith was broke in and I still hurt her, for months.”

“Cort,” Divina doesn’t pout, because she knows I’m being serious. I push her off of me and stand. I pace around the fire, thoughts whirling out of control: responsibility, the game, Ezra, our family, ShadowHaven and the Holden assets. Who is entrusted with keeping us safe in the game? Wil is my partner, my protector, but our Elder would love to take my fortune to stick it to The Holden.