by Gemma James
“Them?”
“Ian and his father.”
“I can’t believe you just said his name while you’re straddling me, flicking your damn clit.”
I imagined Gage’s hands and mouth on my breasts and moaned.
“If you’re thinking of him—”
“I’m thinking of you,” I interrupted, glancing at his stiff cock. Not even our conversation turned him off. “Answer my question. Do you hate them less?”
“No.”
“So it was for nothing, then?”
“I got you, didn’t I?”
I sighed as the pressure at my core built. “You got me, so let it go. Hating him does nothing.” I squeezed my eyes shut and focused because my next question wasn’t going to be easy for either of us. “How bad did his father hurt you?”
“We’re not going there. Ever.”
“Yes, we are. I want your trust, Gage. Trust me enough to talk about it.”
“Not while your cunt is leaking all over my thighs.”
I laughed. “After the messed up shit you’ve put me through, I think you can handle it.”
He exhaled. “He beat me. Belts, paddles, sticks—anything he could get his hands on. But my mom…for years I was too young to stop it. So you see, I know exactly how much it hurts.”
“Why do you do it, then?”
“Before Liz, I didn’t. I hurt myself instead.”
His confession broke my composure. My hand fell away, and my eyes burned as I looked down at him.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” he snapped. “I’ve never touched a woman who didn’t want it—until you. I knew exactly what I was doing when I forced you into that contract. I’m beyond salvation, so don’t think you can fix me.”
“You don’t need to be fixed. You just need to be loved.”
“Kayla, I need to be fucked. Stop toying with me.”
“You don’t give the orders tonight.” I reclaimed the wet, throbbing place between my legs. Later, I’d torture myself with what he’d revealed, but for now I concentrated on the touch of my hand, the heat of his thighs, and remembered the exquisite sensation of his mouth on me. My hoarse cries worked him into a crazed beast. He yanked on the cuffs and drew his knees up before I could stop him. His powerful thighs wrapped around me, and he locked his ankles, holding me prisoner while I worked myself toward another orgasm. His cock nestled against his abdomen, solid and dripping his need all over his skin in wax-like art.
My climax washed over me, a shuddering wave of intensity that gave him the upper hand. He tightened his legs and lifted, and I’d barely caught my breath when he pushed into me. I kicked from his grasp and crawled up his chest. “You’re horrible at obeying. I didn’t say you could fuck me.”
“Free my hands,” he said with a growl. “I need to touch you.”
I smiled. “Don’t like submitting? You make me do it all the time.”
He smirked. “Enjoy this while you can. I assure you—you’ll never get me here again.”
I didn’t doubt it for a second. I lowered my lips to his, and he forced them apart and sucked my tongue into his mouth. He might be helpless beneath me, but he made me submit in that kiss.
“You want me to beg?” he said, breathless as he wrenched his mouth from mine. “Fine. I’ll beg. Please, let me go so I can punish your fine little ass and fuck you until you scream.”
“Hmm, that does sound tempting,” I said, “especially when you talk dirty.” I brought my lips to his ear. “But I’m not about to waste this night. Now shush—you’re balls aren’t blue enough yet.”
22. Infinity
I kept him awake most of the night, his hands fisted and body rigid in a constant state of arousal. Considering what he’d done to me a few weeks ago, I couldn’t say I felt bad about it. But the instant I released him, he pinned me to the mattress, and a slew of filth left his mouth as he fucked me like a hungry, uncaged tiger. He was saving the red ass for later, he’d promised.
Now we sat at the breakfast table with Eve, and I didn’t miss the curve of his mouth every time he looked at me. Obviously, he had diabolical ideas running through his head, though if his preoccupation with punishing me kept him from pressing for a wedding date, I’d let him have his fun.
He’d done what I asked. He’d given me his body for one night, but I still wasn’t ready to marry him. A large part of me was getting there, but he failed to understand the small part that still bled from his actions and words. I couldn’t just turn those feelings off, no matter how far he went to prove himself.
I waved to Eve as the bus pulled away, and for longest time I stood in the driveway, oblivious to the rain.
“Come inside,” Gage said. “You’re going to get sick.”
“That’s a myth, you know. Rain doesn’t make you sick. Viruses and bacteria do.”
“Okay smart ass, inside now. We have three hours before she returns, and I’m not going to waste them. Go to the basement and prepare for me.”
“Gage, I—”
“Don’t argue with me,” he interrupted. “I’ve gone soft on you, but no more. You need to be reminded of who’s submitting here, Kayla.”
I gazed up at him, taking in the water dripping from his hair and into the collar of his jacket. He’d never looked sexier. I stepped passed him and headed toward the house. “Yes, Master.”
“What did you say?”
“You heard me.” I hurried through the door and left a trail of water and clothing in my wake. I didn’t waste time in the bathroom, and when his feet thumped down the staircase, I not only knelt on the floor, but I had my nose to the hardwood. He was going to hurt me—I knew it with certainty—yet I couldn’t contain the flutter of excitement in my stomach. It had been so long since he’d truly wielded his authority over me. His dominance and sadism had taken a backseat to my recovery.
But I knew he was hungry for it, and I was ashamed to admit I was too. I wanted him to take me.
He didn’t speak as he neared me, though I sensed him removing his shirt. The heat of his body warmed my skin as he pulled my arms behind my back. He’d never tied them this way before—at the elbows and wrists. His fingers curled around my shoulders.
“Get up.” He helped me to my feet. “Spread your legs.”
I did as told. He knelt down and fastened a spreader bar between my ankles, and then he disappeared from sight. He wrenched my arms straight out behind me, raising them painfully high and attaching the binding to a hook in the ceiling. The position forced me down, bent at the waist. I dropped my head, and my hair nearly brushed the floor.
“How does that feel?” he asked.
“It hurts.” Blood rushed to my brain, making me dizzy, so I lifted my head.
“Good. It’s supposed to.” He pulled out a set of nipple clamps.
“Please, no.”
“No safe words during punishment.”
“What am I being punished for?”
“I’m punishing you,” he said as he clamped one nipple before moving to the other, “for getting yourself off so many times last night while leaving me in agony. For making me talk about things I had no plans of ever discussing with you.”
I winced. These clamps were the worst yet; they had weights dangling from them. I sucked in a breath. “You’re a hypocrite.”
“No, I simply know my place. You do too, or you wouldn’t have had your nose to the floor. You knew this was coming.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
“Whatever I please.”
I closed my eyes long enough to catch my breath, which was a mistake because I never saw the gag coming. This one was different; it forced my mouth open in a perfect “O” big enough for his cock to fit through. He stepped back, and I peeked up through my hair, my legs shaking under the pressure of keeping balance.
“I do love the sight of you like this. You’re so vulnerable right now.”
Reaching for his belt, he unbuckled it and lowered the zipper of his pants. He fi
sted my hair, urging my head up, and slipped his cock through the opening in the gag.
“You have the sweetest mouth,” he said, breathless. His hips rocked slowly at first before he jackhammered in and out of my mouth.
The taste of him turned me on, and if not for the gag, I would have closed my lips around him and worked him hard. Would have made his knees tremble the way mine did. His release hit me in a gush, but I had trouble swallowing with my jaw locked wide open. He let go of my hair, and I dropped my head, watching as his cum dribbled from my mouth onto the floor. He wiped my chin with a washcloth, and then he stepped back and pulled the belt from his pants.
I suddenly feared that belt. I couldn’t say why, as I’d grown used to it during the few weeks we’d had together before I’d found out I was pregnant, but now, the thought of him using it made me cry. I squeezed my eyes shut, and my tears were lost in my hair. The first strike was soft, a warm up. As the second one landed, harder, on the back of my thighs, I realized why this lashing reduced me to a blubbering mess.
All I could think about was the baby I’d lost, and how he’d said he hated it. I trembled from the force of my sobs as drool dripped down my chin. The sounds coming from me were gut wrenching and deep, and I couldn’t hide them.
He removed the clamps and gag, pushed the hair from my eyes, and cradled my face, his thumbs brushing away the tears. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I…I can’t…can’t do this now. All I can think about is…”
“The baby,” he said, regret strangling his tone, “and the way I treated you that night.”
Another sob hitched, and as he moved behind me and freed my arms, a wave of guilt overcame me, swift and dark and suffocating. I hadn’t cried enough over the loss; I’d locked the grief away instead. Now it choked me. He removed the spreader bar and then carried me to bed. His body spooned mine, both arms wrapping me in his embrace, and I thought about how he’d stopped. He could have ignored my tears and kept going—it’s what he would have done in the past.
But this wasn’t the Gage I’d known back then.
“Do you think about the baby?”
“All the time,” he said, voice rough and deep. “But I try not to. That night…it was one of the darkest moments of my life, and I hate to think I contributed to what you went through.”
“You’ve changed.”
“Or maybe you didn’t know me before.”
I shook my head. “No, something’s changed.”
“I had too much time to think in prison.”
“About?” I laced my fingers with his.
“Eleven months, twenty-five days, four hours, and thirty-nine minutes—that’s how long it took to realize what you mean to me. You make me want to be a better person, Kayla. No one’s done that in a very long time.”
“Did you consider that while you were kidnapping me?”
“I wasn’t considering much of anything. I couldn’t get the image of you and him out of my fucking head. So yes, I went crazy. Haven’t you figured out by now that crazy is what I do best?”
I let out a breath. “You could say that.”
“I won’t apologize for who I am, for loving you this way.”
I found his words eerily similar to Ian’s in the hospital. “I don’t expect an apology from you, Gage. I know better.”
“But I am sorry.”
I stiffened. “But you just said…”
“I know what I said, and I meant it. But I’m sorry I said those things to you, sorry I took back the ring. It belongs on your finger, and you belong to me, so let’s set a date already.”
“I’m not ready.”
“Kayla…” He paused, taking a deep breath. “Pick a date, or I’ll pick one for us, but this isn’t negotiable. We’re getting married.”
“You’re not being fair!” I pushed against his arms, but he only held on tighter.
“I’m rarely fair, but I am your Master and you will obey me. Now pick a damn date—any date in the next few weeks.”
“You pick it, since you’re in such a hurry.”
“Baby, I submitted to you last night. That was the deal. Now pick a date, or I will take my belt to your ass, and I won’t stop this time, no matter how much you cry.”
“Why do have to be such a bastard?”
“It’s in my nature.” He fell silent for a beat. “Do you still love me?”
“Define love.”
He rolled us over and pinned me, but his deep blue eyes did the job just as effectively. “It’s all-consuming, leaves me unable to breath when I look at you, and when you submit, truly submit your very being to me, there’s no better feeling in the world. That’s when I know you love me—when you lie in wait of my every whim and desire. I don’t give a fuck what the world thinks of us, Kayla, but we need each other. Tell me when you’ll marry me.”
“As soon as you want,” I whispered.
His lips claimed mine, and we became a tangle of tongues and limbs as our bodies came together.
“You overwhelm me,” I gasped. “Gage…I’m gonna come.”
“Not yet,” he moaned. “Not until I give you permission.” He held my wrists in one hand above my head as he sank into me, again and again with slow madness.
“Oh God…you’re killing me.”
“That’s the idea.” His mouth curved into his devil’s grin before he sucked a nipple between his teeth.
“What will you do…if I come anyway?” I was about to, if he didn’t stop teasing my breasts with his mouth and fingers.
“I’ll deny you for a week.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“I do,” I said, arching as my toes curled.
“Then come for me.”
Thank God he gave me permission because I was a goner anyway.
A long while later, he still lingered inside me, and his lips and hands never stopped exploring my body. He left a wet path down my neck.
“Eve will be back soon,” I said with a sigh.
“I know.” He placed one last kiss on my lips before sliding from bed. We showered and dressed in under ten minutes, and I was just about to climb the stairs when he stopped me.
“Wait. I have something for you.” He opened a drawer, pulled out a box, and came toward me. Removing a necklace from the black velvet encasing, he said, “It’s an infinity collar.” The choker appeared to be made of stainless steel and minimalist in design, save for the diamonds sparkling in the symbol at the front.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful.”
He inserted a key into the discreet lock on the backside and opened the collar. “Get on your knees.”
I dropped to my knees and clasped my hands at the small of my back.
He swept my hair aside and fastened the choker around my throat. “You make the collar beautiful, Kayla. You’ll always be mine, and this piece of jewelry, to which only I hold the key, signifies that. We’ll exchange rings during the ceremony, but this is the true token of our relationship. Our love never ends, and neither does my possession of you.” He tilted my chin up. “So if you want to back out, do it now.”
“Leaving would be the sane thing to do, but you’re under my skin, Gage Channing. You’ve shown me there’s a good man hiding somewhere inside your rotten soul.”
He grinned. “Don’t tell anyone.”
23. Over the Rose Petals
“Are you sure about this?”
“I’m sure,” I said as Stacey adjusted my veil. She’d flown in yesterday, and besides Gage and Eve, she was the only person I knew at my own wedding. The rest of the guests, acquaintances and business associates of Gage’s, were only there to bear witness to the wedding of the year.
That’s what the local media called it, anyway.
“Okay, then,” she said. “Let's get this show on the road.” She knelt and straightened the hem of Eve’s dress that matched my own. “You know what to do, right, hon?
My daughter nod
ded, a wide grin on her face.
The music filtered into the back where Stacey had fawned over me as I’d gotten ready. She left the room and walked down the aisle, followed by Eve. I waited, wringing my fingers and shuffling my feet. The first strains of Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” began, and I stepped outside the sanctuary of my hiding place.
Everyone stood and faced me, their eyes widening as I came into view. Amongst a chorus of “oohhs and aahhs,” I scanned the audience and gave a sigh of relief that Ian was nowhere to be found. Deep down, I feared he’d make an appearance and try to stop the wedding, but he really had given up. The realization caused a pang of sadness in me; I hated how things had ended between us. Mostly, I hated the way I’d hurt him.
I walked over the rose petals Eve sprinkled in her wake, bringing me one, two, three steps closer to him. I sensed the heat of his gaze and finally lifted my eyes to his. Oh God…I’d forgotten how well Gage Channing wore a tux. A shiver ran through me at his expression; it encompassed so many things—smoldering desire, lethal resolve, but above all else, ownership. I was his, and this ceremony was only a technicality to make sure the world realized it too.
That walk was the longest of my life, but when I joined him and we laced our fingers together, the significance of the moment left me in awe. I was being reborn from the ashes he'd created.
The wedding officiator recited his introduction and then the vows began.
“Gage Channing, do you take Kayla Sutton to be your wife, to love, honor, and cherish now and forever more?”
“I do,” he said, his gaze never leaving mine.
He would push me beyond my limits, always demand more than I wanted to give, but damn if he didn't make me feel alive. I needed him to breathe, and my humiliation and submission were small prices to pay. My body would endure him, because without him it would petrify.
“Kayla Sutton, do you take Gage Channing to be your husband, to love, honor, and obey…”
Obey.
Gage's mouth curved into a satisfied smile. The man performing the ceremony had no idea the weight that word carried in our relationship. Above all else, I would obey him.
