by Gemma James
And that’s why I knew he planned to use it.
Fingers curling around the hem of the thigh-length tee I’d slept in, I pulled it up my body and tossed it on the floor before facing him, hands at my back and head lowered in respectful capitulation.
No amount of trauma or distance could break that dynamic between us.
He strode across the room, hand going to the key around his neck, and returned with two bundles of soft-looking rope. “I know trusting me again won’t be easy, but I want you to try.”
“I never stopped trusting you, Rafe.”
“Maybe not up here,” he said, tapping his head, “but in your heart where it matters most, I think you’ve lost faith in me. And hell, baby, I don’t blame you. I left you here—” He cut off with a hard swallow.
“I understand why you did it.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that I left you to face Zach alone.”
The mention of his name wrenched a reaction from me, making me flinch, and I couldn’t hide it as I wrapped my arms around myself. Rafe tried wiping the pain from his face, but I still saw it as he moved toward me with that rope.
“Being patient with you isn’t working. You need more, so I’m going to give you more.” He pushed me to the end of the bed and directed me to stand there, my back facing the mattress. One strong, tattooed hand wrapped the rope around my right wrist, and I followed his movement as he tethered the other end to the bedpost. He did the same with my left hand, then a boot nudged my feet apart.
Our eyes met and held.
“I want your tears.”
“No.” It felt good to say no. Maybe if I’d said no sooner, had found a fucking backbone years ago, I wouldn’t have lost my child.
Except…I didn’t really believe that, because if I’d said yes to Zach when he first brought me up to this very place—if I’d let him fuck me without a fight—he wouldn’t have sent an electrical current through my body that put my baby at risk.
And maybe if Rafe hadn’t brought the shock collar into our marriage in the first place, a bitter voice in my head pointed out, things would be different now. Maybe I’d still be pregnant.
That was a lot of fucking maybes.
“You know the rules,” he reminded me. “I won’t let you hold back your pain.”
“Where in the rulebook does it say you get to buy sadistic shock collars as a means of punishment?” The force of my anger surprised me. I hadn’t realized I held so much resentment toward him.
But he’d known, had sensed it, and surprise was the furthest thing registering on his face. More like resignation as he reached for his belt buckle.
“This isn’t about punishment, babe. This is about you letting it all out.”
I watched him with a familiar sense of wariness as he yanked the belt from the loops of his jeans. He didn’t waste time. Raising his arm, he swung with more strength than I expected, and the thick strap came down on my breasts hard.
I yelped upon the impact, straining against the rope holding me prisoner to the bedposts. Pressing my legs together, I tried making myself smaller, more protected, but he only blasted my thighs in response.
“Spread them.”
Spreading them meant standing up straight, meant being more vulnerable to the coming strikes. The next few burned across my belly and the tattoo of his name there, and just when I thought I had my emotions in check, safe from escaping the box I’d forced them into, the top of that box fractured. Tears hung on my lashes, begging to take the dive onto my cheeks.
Instead of wanting the strikes to stop, I wanted more. Craved it to the point of shame. Sensing the precipice, he shuffled back a foot, arm lowering to his side.
With a single blink, I sent those wayward tears splashing onto my cheeks, marking the end of my emotional standoff. “Don’t stop,” I choked, bracing myself for the next set of lashes but needing them all the same. He delivered each one where I craved the pain the most.
Fire across my nipples.
A sting on my belly.
Streaking agony over my thighs.
“We need to talk about your pregnancy,” he said, following the statement with a lash to my right breast.
My thighs quaked from assuming the position for so long, and I gripped the taut rope keeping me upright and at his mercy. “What’s there to talk about? The baby is dead.” The statement echoed, like a demented symphony of reality that only sharpened more each day. An ache exploded in my gut—the type of grief that was impossible to escape.
There wasn’t a fix for this. A million strikes of his belt wouldn’t staunch the bleeding of my heart. Wouldn’t turn the time back to when I was fifteen and had unknowingly set it all into motion. I shuttered my eyes, salty agony leaking down my face, and felt Rafe untying the binds.
“It kills me to see you like this.” He reached for me, but I warded him off, one palm against his chest.
“Don’t touch me.” Buckling over, I held my stomach and bawled. “How much do I have to lose before I’m forgiven?”
“Baby…forgiven for what?” Defeat tainted his tone, words broken by the pain in his throat.
He was the last person I wanted to hurt, but I couldn’t help it. And I couldn’t hold it back anymore. “For everything…everything since you went to prison. Since I sent you there.”
“Is that what you think? That this is all some grand scheme of payback? That you deserve this?”
“What am I supposed to think when everything is taken from me over and over again?”
“You still have me.”
“And I love you so much, Rafe. So fucking much. But I wanted this—” Another sob fractured my voice. “And I know you didn’t.”
“Jesus, Alex. How can you think I wouldn’t want a child with you?”
“Because you walked away from Will.”
“I had good reason to.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything.” Weak in the knees, I propped myself against the mattress and forced myself to meet his gaze. “I’m saying I understood why you walked away.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
A breath rushed out, carrying a hint of doubt. Honesty was paramount in our relationship, and though I didn’t always tell him everything as quickly as he demanded, I wasn’t in the habit of outright lying to him.
But the truth was a painful pill to swallow. “I was scared you’d make me have an abortion.”
He blinked, disappointment deepening the green hue of his eyes. “I’m not Abbott Fucking De Luca, or Zach. I would’ve stood by you no matter what.” Cursing under his breath, he ran a hand down his face. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so angry, but you should have told me.”
“I know,” I whispered, studying my feet.
He drew in a deep breath, let it out. Then he lifted my chin. “We can try again.”
I studied his expression, searching for the truth, because surely it couldn’t be this easy. “Do you really mean that?”
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.”
I shook my head. “No, there’s more. Where’s the but, Rafe?”
“I’m not bringing a child into this world with Zach in the cellar. He has to go.”
“So you don’t really want a baby,” I said, gritting my teeth. “You’re only agreeing to get rid of Zach.”
“You’re wrong about the first part, partially right on the second. I love you enough to lay the goddamn world at your feet, Alex. I’ll love our child just as much.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“To make you happy.” He slid his palm along my cheek. “To keep you safe. Zach deserves a prison cell for the rest of his life, but we don’t, and keeping him alive would be the same as imprisoning us.”
I blinked the last of my tears down my cheeks, drenching his hand in the process. “If I get pregnant again, you can have his death, but I want him to know about it first.” Stubborn resolve gathered inside me, and I met his eyes. “I want to conceive this baby in fron
t of him.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yes. He doesn’t get it, Rafe, and he needs to get it.”
“What doesn’t he get?”
“That I’m yours.”
“You are mine, and nothing can change that, babe.”
“Then let’s prove it to him.”
23. Something To Prove
Rafe
I felt his eyes on me, shooting daggers from the confines of the prison—Zach’s home for the rest of his life if Alex had her way.
If I didn’t give her the baby she wanted.
Part of me was still bitter over her choice to keep Zach alive, still questioning it. I also questioned what we were about to do down here, but the truth was I’d do anything to make her happy. To help her heal.
As I dragged a set of shackles into the middle of the cellar, I sensed his hatred following my every move. Ignoring the sight of his bruised face, I got to work installing the restraints.
“What the fuck is that for?” Curling his fingers around the bars, Zach watched me with a furrow between his brows.
“Nothing that concerns you.”
His answering laugh echoed through the cellar. “You must love this, having me locked up like a fucking pet.”
“My first choice was to put you in the ground.”
“Then why don’t you just get it over with already?”
I didn’t answer, and that dragged a laugh from him. “She doesn’t want me dead, does she?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” I returned his smug smile with a lethal glare, infusing every ounce of hatred I felt for the bastard. “She thinks death is too good for you.”
“Keep telling yourself that, but you know the truth as well as I do. There’s a part of her that loves me—that will always love me—and you hate it.”
I hated him for even thinking it. As if Alex could love him. What a ridiculous idea.
No wonder she felt the need to prove to him otherwise, and God, though it was sick and demented and a hundred levels of fucked up, the idea of fucking her brains out while forcing him to watch heated my blood. My dick came to life at the thought of all the things I planned to do to her down here, now that her body had healed.
She’d made a full recovery physically. Now it was time to work on her heart.
Testing the chains, I arched a brow in his direction. “I used to think you had a good head on your shoulders.” I wandered to the bars standing between us, remaining just out of reach. “But you really believe these delusions, don’t you?”
“You’re the one buying into delusions, man.”
I couldn’t hold back a bitter laugh. “She wants to make a baby with me, and she wants you alive long enough to watch it happen.” Another step brought us face-to-face. “And as soon as she gets that positive pregnancy test, she doesn’t care if you live or die.”
“You’re a fucking liar,” he shouted.
“It’s the truth. Even she has a limit, and you reached it when you caused her to miscarry our child.”
We weren’t positive of the actual cause, but she believed it was the shock collar, and she’d never forgive him for it.
Hell, she’d never forgive me.
He scoffed. “I’m glad she lost your fucking spawn.”
Hands clenching at my sides, I fought the temptation to unlock the cell and strangle him to death. “I’m going to enjoy this.”
His eyes widened the slightest bit, but the bastard wiped the alarm from his face as fast as it had appeared. I made my way up the stairs, ignoring Zach’s running commentary, and found Alex in the kitchen where I’d left her.
She was wiping down an already clean counter, keeping herself busy with mindless work. She’d been doing that a lot since I’d plowed through the wall she’d built between us with nothing more than determination and the sting of my belt.
Halting behind her, I set my hands on her warm shoulders and leaned down to inhale her scent. “You ready for this?”
“Yes.” Conviction laced her tone, but I still detected the tiny tremor stringing that word together.
“Tell me the rules again.”
“Don’t look at him. Don’t talk to him. Don’t acknowledge his existence.”
“And what happens if you break one of those rules?”
Her breath hitched. “You won’t let me come.”
And she wanted to. We were both aching for each other after two weeks of celibacy.
“That’s right,” I said, nuzzling her ear as I parted her legs with my knee. I drew the hem of her dress up and slipped my fingers beneath her panties. “But you’re not going to break those rules, are you, sweetheart?”
“No.”
“Good girl.” Fuck, how I ached to taste the sensitive spot on her neck.
Soon.
Her agreement of those three rules was the only way I’d go through with this. “You forgot one other thing.”
She glanced at me from over her shoulder. “I’ve always trusted you, Rafe. That hasn’t changed.”
And yet so much had. The knowledge seared me to my soul, and I closed my eyes for several seconds, breathing deep until the ache in my chest subsided. “You should have a safe word.”
“I don’t need one.”
“Then promise you’ll tell me if it becomes too much.” It was one thing to make her bend when it was just the two of us, but doing so in front of Zach…
“Promise me, Alex.”
“I promise.”
Lacing our fingers together, I urged her to follow me out of the kitchen. Her breathing picked up as soon as we reached the door to the cellar, and I wondered if she was reliving that morning when Zach forced her to flee down the staircase.
God, how fucking terrified she’d been. How smart. If she hadn’t locked herself in that prison, there’s no telling how much worse it could have been. He’d fucking violated her, which was horrific enough all on its own, but he could have taken her off the island if she hadn’t taken action. That prison had saved her from a life sentence more horrible than death. It had saved me from a lifetime of searching the ends of the earth for her, because I would have never given up.
Sometimes the stars did align. Even in the blackness, those pinpricks shone through, like little symmetrical signs of hope.
As I reached for the doorknob, her breathing stalled altogether.
Five seconds.
It was her thing, some technique she used in order to cope. I’d never called her on it, but I was aware.
“Are you sure about this? I’ll make you do all kinds of shit, Alex, but not this.”
She nodded. “Don’t baby me. I need you to be…you. I need you to do it in front of him.”
The desperation in her eyes, the submission begging to be unleashed…Jesus. I grabbed her by the chin as my cock throbbed in my jeans. “The asshole in me wants to use ginger on you.”
“So you want to punish me.”
Not a question, but a fucking statement her mind had tricked her into believing. As if I would ever hold her responsible for any of this.
“God, baby. No.” I lowered my head, an inch away from touching my lips to hers. “There’s nothing to punish.”
“Then why the ginger?”
“Why do I do anything, Alex?”
That earned me a glimmer of a smile. “Because you’re fucked up?”
“Yeah, baby. I’m fucked up over you. Let me show you the pleasurable side of ginger. If you don’t like it, we never have to use it again, punishments excluded, of course.”
She swallowed hard. “Of course.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s not a no.”
We locked eyes for several seconds, exchanging excited breaths. Without severing the connection, I pulled the cellar door open. “Go down and undress. I’ll grab the ginger and be down in a second.”
“No, Rafe, I—”
I placed a finger against her lips. “He can’t hurt you anymore. Never again.” I darted a glance int
o that black space where she’d gone through so much. “You’re going to go down there, ignore the bastard, and wait for me. It’s your turn to take his power. Understand?”
With a quick, nervous nod, she flicked on the light and disappeared down the staircase.
24. The Gift of Ginger
Alex
I didn’t dare glance in Zach’s direction, even though I was tempted to. Averting my eyes had nothing to do with the fear he’d instilled in me over the years. Instead, it had everything to do with Rafe. His cellar, his rules, his way, and I would honor him. Obey him.
I would trust him.
“Lex.”
Ignoring the plea in Zach’s tone, I stopped in the middle of the room, keeping my back to him, and pulled off my white tank.
“C’mon, talk to me.”
Next went the bra, falling onto the concrete floor beside my shirt.
“What are you doing?”
I never imagined that stripping in front of him, all the while ignoring his pleading questions, would be this satisfying, but it was.
Because he was powerless.
As I slid my jeans down my legs, followed by my panties, I thought of all the times he’d rendered me helpless.
Just a fuck hole.
Now he was going to rot in this hole, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
“Talk to me, Lex!”
God, he was desperate. Incessantly so.
The cellar door opened, announcing Rafe’s arrival, and Zach fell silent as my husband reached the last step. He set a bowl of water on the floor containing two fingers off a ginger root, and words weren’t needed as he neared me, hand outstretched. I let him pull me a few feet to the right, where a set of shackles dangled from the ceiling.
Those hadn’t been there before.
I shot Rafe a questioning glance. “So this is what you were doing down here?”
Zach snickered. “He thinks stringing you up is going to upset me. What he doesn’t get is that I enjoy the view.”
Ignoring our audience, Rafe positioned me beneath the shackles so the prison sat to the left of me. From the corner of my eye, I saw Zach’s form standing near the door of the cell.
