by Gemma James
I returned to him, avoiding eye contact, and folded my arms to hide my breasts. Not fighting him seemed wrong. I had nothing left to lose and everything to gain with my freedom.
“Bend over the bed.”
I gave a swift shake of my head.
In three strides, he grabbed my arms before hauling me across the room. I dug in my heels, pulled against his strength, but in the end he shoved me against the bed. “This is happening, Lex. Bend the fuck over and hold still, or I’ll beat the fight out of you.”
I went limp under the threat. My breasts flamed with the memory of his strikes, as if the wounds were hours old instead of a few days. Even now, each sharp bite of his switch ghosted through me. It hadn’t been a paddle to my ass, a punch to my gut or face, or a slap or bite. He’d lost his mind when he’d wailed on my body with that stick. I bent over the mattress, gripped the bedding, and waited, hoping he’d fuck me instead of beat me.
No warning. He pushed a finger in my ass, and I shrieked from the scorching burn of dry skin forcing entry into my rectum. He splayed one hand on my back, holding me in place while his finger stilled in my hole. “Don’t move.”
“Ow! What are you doing?”
“In a few minutes, you won’t give a shit what I’m doing.” He burrowed his finger in deeper, intensifying the sting. I let out a wail, terrified he was about to rape me anally.
“Please don’t do this!” My voice trembled so badly, the words came out wobbled and unrecognizable. Every spark of my being told me to flee, yet my body wouldn’t jump into motion. He didn’t have to threaten bodily harm—he’d already beaten the fight out of me the other night, when he’d drawn blood with his switch.
“Zach?” His name fell from my lips with uncertainty, an inquiry that sounded far off. A strange heat wave flushed my skin, and my pulse thumped at my throat. A flood of…something washed over me, making my head swim. I couldn’t explain or describe it, but my surroundings held new meaning. Fear evaporated, and things that were previously hidden, like the gold strands in the pattern of the bedspread or the knots in the walls, sprouted in a burst of vibrancy. Like a rosebud unfurling its petals in slow motion. I licked my lips and tasted the air. God. Nothing had ever fired up my taste buds so good.
The pressure in my ass subsided, but I remained sprawled on the bed, held captive by the details burgeoning around me.
Zach helped me stand, and the ground wobbled, the room warping in a blur…it was the most amazing feeling in the world. I didn’t care if I tipped. I was one with the floor, the hardwood incredibly smooth against the soles of my feet. He brushed me from behind, and I moaned at the velvety texture of his skin. Silk covered my eyes, so fluid it could have been milk, and cast me into a pit of sinfully dark bliss.
“Zach?” The name was wrong, and it rang through my ears, causing a hint of fear, but mostly a question, one I couldn’t formulate verbally.
What had he done to me?
“Shhh, it’s okay. Just feel me. Feel how much I want you. How much you want me.”
A whirl of air caressed my nakedness, and his breath feathered over my parted mouth. I inhaled his heady scent, like decadent chocolate, and darted my tongue out to lick the richness of his lips. Mmm…lips. I reached forward and thrust my tongue between them.
A groan rumbled from his throat. He commanded my tongue, sucked me in so far I fell into the cavity of his mouth. I pictured my body curled in a ball, as precious as a pearl and enclosed in slick heat, buoyed by his tongue.
“Baby, I need you.” His hands fell on my shoulders, two heavy weights I welcomed. I buckled to his demand, and my knees kissed the floor. His fingers crept up my neck, slid into my hair. Every inch of my skin came alive from the follicles of my scalp to the rough pads of my heels.
I purred under his caress. “Do that again.”
“This?” He repeated the motion, his fingertips dancing over my skin like a ballerina. I hummed the music that matched the steps, imagining my fingers flying over piano keys. The dance peaked at my chin and tilted me upward to greet the soft, wet mushroom seeking entrance to my mouth. My hum vibrated against the silky tip, and I envisioned the notes as colors, spirals of reds that glowed incandescent.
His moan mixed with the symphony. Rafe and I, we were creating a masterpiece.
Rafe…Rafe…Rafe…
His name echoed though my head, a tick, a glimmer of truth, as if that single thought was trying to tell me something.
“Love my cock.”
Rainbows of color swirled behind my eyes. In the darkness, I found freedom. Found the most unbelievable ecstasy possible. I parted my mouth, and when he pushed in, my pussy tingled, letting loose liquid fire between my thighs. I fastened my lips around his shaft, never tasting anything so sweet, and continued humming my notes, vibrating my masterpiece around the hardened silk filling my mouth.
What was that sound coming from him? Guttural, painful, sexy. I felt that low groaning in the flutter of my racing heart, the sweat on my back, deep in my belly where the ballerinas practiced pirouettes. My tongue lapped and lapped. I couldn’t get enough of his taste, his texture.
This was madness. I’d never be able to stop. I sucked harder, pulled his tip into my throat, and gagged.
Holy hell. I drew him further down and gagged again.
“Shit, Lex!”
I choked on his cum, thrown off by the nickname, but it was so flavorful, like nothing I’d ever sampled before. I didn’t want to miss a drop. He withdrew, and I whimpered, following with my tongue, still lapping. Lapping, lapping, lapping. Still tasting, still needing.
“Enough.” He picked me up and tossed me onto the bed where my body sank into heaven. Fluidity surrounded me, enfolding my skin in cool satin. I fisted my hands in it, suddenly discovering their existence. Why had it taken me so long? Fingers curled, smooth texture clenched in palms—everything exquisite, especially the inflexible expanse of his chest brushing the tips of my breasts.
His breaths whispered across my face, rustling my hair like a summer-laced breeze. My jaw slackened, tongue relaxed against my teeth, and a finger pressed inside. I closed my lips and sucked the salt from his skin. “Mmm.”
“God, I love you so much,” he said.
Soaring at his declaration, my mouth pulled on his finger, drawing him deeper. Tasting. I never wanted to stop tasting.
“No, baby.” He withdrew his finger. With a frown of displeasure, I chased it with my mouth. “Say what I want to hear.”
“Mmm, you taste so good.”
His laughter rumbled like a trombone. “I like you this way.”
“What way?” I almost told him to stop talking and let me taste again, but his voice was a drug I couldn’t resist.
“Higher than Mt. Fucking Everest.”
The curve of my lips felt alluring. “That’s pretty high.”
“Tell me you love me,” he demanded.
I loved everything about him. His taste, his touch, his voice. The way he made me feel, how he openly wore his vulnerability. The way he still loved me, protected me, even after all I’d done to him. Somewhere in the darkest corner of my mind, a siren sounded. A warning. Feeling this way was wrong…but I couldn’t recall why.
“I love you.” My chest squeezed as I uttered the words, and I imagined not only the love in Rafe’s green eyes, but the promise of forgiveness.
The promise of forever.
He smothered my grin with his mouth, and I was pretty sure Mt. Fucking Everest was a speck of dust in my brilliant world.
“I was sixteen the last time I set foot in this cabin.” The door shut behind me with a soft thud of finality, and I turned and faced the stranger who, apparently, knew me better than my own brother. After the things he’d told me about the elusive years my psyche refused to acknowledge, I was beginning to think he just might.
“As far as your memory goes, yeah, but before the shooting, you were living here.”
“Right,” I said with a sigh, dragging a hand thro
ugh my unruly hair. A sling trapped my left arm, rendering it useless. I wandered into the living room, cursing the huge gaping hole in my life, and studied my dad’s cabin with new perspective. In so many ways it appeared unchanged. Same sturdy furniture, crafted by my grandfather’s hands and worn from many summers of use.
Standing in this place was akin to setting one foot in the present while the other planted firmly in the past. So much remained as I remembered, yet the subtle changes—the uncluttered space, free of Dad’s disorganized, spread-out existence—made my head swim with the evidence of what Jax had told me.
I’d been in prison.
My dad died while I was in there.
And I had no chance at ever fighting again—not in the way I’d dreamed of since I was old enough to throw a punch. Irritatingly, both Jax and Adam remained tight-lipped about why I’d been locked up, but Adam had made that last point abundantly clear; I’d left the world of fighting and had joined him in the family business. I was still trying to wrap my head around that piece of information.
“After your dad passed,” Jax said, halting beside me, “you offered me a place to stay. I’ve been doing the upkeep since.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Things look…different but the same. It’s strange.” I swerved my head toward him and he shrugged.
I moved toward the kitchen and sensed him following my slow steps. The room where Dad, Adam, and I had shared dirty jokes as we ate the day’s catch appeared the same too, though impeccably clean compared to what I remembered. The disorderly array of tackle boxes, fishing poles, and Dad’s overflowing ashtrays and beer bottles were absent. So was the musky scent of smoke. The paddle hanging by the back door was the only notable evidence of him.
An eerie chill drifted over my skin, almost as if someone had opened the door to the dead cold of winter, though the weather was mild for early June. I studied the kitchen table, drawn to it like a magnet, and the feeling I should recall something hit me with such significance, I froze, my feet stuck in place.
Drops of water pooling on the table, tangled hair, wet and wild, rioting down creamy skin. A perfectly round ass, reddened from the slap of wood. I blinked but the weird vision tingled down my spine in an odd way, making my dick stir.
I glanced out the windows and almost expected to see rain pummeling the ground, but the morning was just as clear and bright as it’d been when they released me from the hospital an hour ago. With a shake of my head, I lowered into a chair, being careful not to knock my sling into the table, and smoothed my palm across the course red oak surface, hoping to bring back that niggle of…something.
Jax pulled two beers from the fridge, popped the caps off both, and slid one over to me.
“Isn't it a little early for that?” I asked, gesturing toward the dark ale. It was barely 10 a.m.
“For this conversation?” He raised a brow. “Doubt it.” He turned the chair around and straddled it, and again I willed my mind to reach out and catch a memory.
“Did something happen here?” I gestured to the table spanning the distance between us.
“Lots of stuff happened here.” His mouth quirked into a half smile, half smirk as he tipped the bottle back and took a swig. He set the beer back on the table with a loud clunk. “Look, I said we’d talk once you got out. I know you have questions, so let’s get to it. What do you wanna know?”
That was a fucking loaded question. “Let’s start with why I was locked up.”
“The sheriff didn’t tell you?”
I shook my head, remembering how he’d questioned me in the hospital, as if I were guilty of shooting myself or something. Lyle Lewis hadn’t changed a bit, from what I could tell. His contemptuous attitude really dug under my skin. Fucking ridiculous that the town bully would become sheriff. “He didn’t tell me shit, and he didn’t give a rat’s ass about finding the fucker who shot me either.”
“I’m not surprised. Nikki told me about the uproar he’s stirred in town. He’s the reason half of Dante’s Pass hates your guts, man.” Jax winced. “Sorry, probably too brutal. Never been good with tact.”
“When did you talk to Nik? Do you guys know each other?”
He took a long drink of his beer before answering. “We talked at the hospital.”
The idea of Jax getting close to her bothered me, but I couldn’t say why. Maybe because I still thought of her as mine, even though Lyle the-fucking-sheriff Lewis had made it a point to tell me they were engaged to be married in a few weeks.
“What’d you talk about?”
“You, mostly. She was pissed you wouldn’t see her.”
Shame fissured me. I hadn’t wanted her to see me like that. I still didn’t, but too much history existed between us to avoid seeing her forever, and refusing her visit had been a low, cowardly move.
Jax cleared his throat, the sound shattering more than just the unspoken stuff between us; it obliterated the facade. The sheriff, Nikki, and even Jax’s involvement with her—none of it mattered as much as filling in the blanks of the last eight years.
“So we met in prison?” I asked, finally tiptoeing toward the core of the matter.
He nodded. “We were cellmates. We’ve had each other's back since the day you saved my life.”
My eyes widened. “What happened?”
Jax wouldn’t look at me. “Prison was tough on both of us. I think we should leave it in the past. What’s done is done. All that matters is I owe you my life.”
I wanted to push for an explanation, details of my time in there, but I left it for now. “How long was I in for? What was I in for?”
Jax lifted his brown eyes to mine, and his stare never wavered. “You sure you’re ready to hear this? I’m thinking your brother might be right. Losing your memory is heavy shit.”
“I didn’t take advice from Adam back then and I’m sure as hell not gonna start now. Tell me what happened.”
He drew in a breath, let it out. “You were in eight years for rape.”
What the…?
His words lingered, an echo that wouldn’t stop bouncing between my ears. “There’s…no. I couldn’t have done it. That’s just…”
“You didn’t do it.”
He sounded so matter-of-fact. I narrowed my brows, gripping the table to keep from springing to my feet. “How do you know? You said we met in there. Everyone in prison says they’re innocent.”
“Trust me. I know. You don’t have an iota of rapist gene in you. Well, you didn’t until she had you locked up for it. Her accusation tore your life apart. Dude, I’m being straight with you about this. You’ve done some fucked up shit, but you didn’t do that.”
“Who accused me?”
He took another draw from his beer, and the ensuing silence made me want to scream at him to spit it out.
“I’m not sure we should get into that shitstorm yet. Maybe you should give it some time. Wait for the memories to resurface on their own.”
“Who was it, Jax?”
He lowered his head with a sigh, as if he regretted the words before he said them. “Alex De Luca.”
I pushed back from the table so suddenly, the chair toppled over in my haste to get away. But there was no getting away from this. I might not remember the last eight years, but I remembered her. I recalled the delicate features of her face—high cheekbones, a kissable mouth I still ached to taste, and the sensual tones of her voice. Her image burned in my brain, as if I’d seen her just yesterday, and in a way, I had. My last memory of Alex wasn’t from eight years ago; it was from a few weeks ago.
Turning my back to Jax, I propped my good arm against the counter and hung my head. Closed my eyes. Focused so intently, I gave myself a headache that rivaled the throb in my shoulder.
Nothing.
Just an empty vault where eight years of memories should reside. No matter what Jax said, I doubted my innocence. I couldn’t believe I’d force myself on her, but she was…she’d been underage, and I wanted her with an uncontrollable urge so sh
arp, it sliced me up every time I got within ten feet of her.
I held that secret close. No one knew, except for maybe Alex herself. I gave a slight jerk of my head. I still hadn’t reconciled the shift in time. Then. Now. It confused the heck out of me.
“You okay?” Jax asked.
I clenched my jaw. “Yeah.”
She had to have known how I felt, especially considering the way we’d gravitated toward each other, orbiting with a forbidden vibe. How we’d pounced on every chance to banter and tease. Those intense glances she’d sent my way were too familiar. They’d imparted the same need I’d kept hidden since the day I noticed her as more than a child…more than the kid sister of my best friend.
No. Impossible. I wouldn’t have done that, no matter how much I’d wanted to.
“You don’t seem okay.”
Was I okay? I had no fucking clue. I turned around. “What kind of ‘fucked up shit’ did I do?”
Jax hesitated, only for a moment, but it was long enough to make me squirm. “Maybe you should take a peek in the cellar.”
“What the fuck does that have to do with any of this?”
He rose, scooting the chair back in a grating manner, and chugged the rest of his beer. He glanced at mine, still untouched on the table, and lifted a brow. But he didn't say anything about my aversion to drinking the day away. “Come see for yourself.”
It felt odd to follow someone else in Dad’s cabin, but I didn't complain as he led the way to the cellar door. He pulled it open and switched on the light. We descended the stairs, and upon first sight of a cage that closely resembled a prison cell, my mouth dropped open.
