by Gemma James
Don’t move.
And don’t fucking drop the stick this time.
I took it between my teeth and bit down hard, knowing I’d need the makeshift implement to grind on for what was coming next.
Punishment for dropping the switch in the first place.
More pain delivered as a reminder why my pain belonged to him and only him. I wasn’t allowed to take it, not even a little.
Not a single scratch on my skin by my own hand.
And my emotional state…that was his, too. My fears, my joy, my anger—he wanted it all. No, he demanded it all.
Rafe tested several branches before finding one he liked. He broke it off, and the sound tore through the serenity of our surroundings. He came back to stand in front of me.
“You ready for this, sweetheart?”
No, but I nodded anyway, my nipples tingling, and tried not to flinch as he brought the switch down on them.
4. NO MORE BANDAGES
Rafe
I was ready to fuck her again. I cursed my hyperactive dick and took a deep breath, letting the switch dangle at my side for a few moments. She was fucking amazing, standing before me of her own free will, no restraints keeping her there as she offered her budded nipples up for my sadistic pleasure.
My cock jumped at the thought of striking her again. I willed my junk to settle the fuck down, determined to give her a short reprieve. Her nipples were large and red from the lashing, and though it was negligible, Alex’s shoulders hunched forward, her body instinctively protecting the sensitive tips of her breasts.
“Stand up straight, baby. We’re not done yet.”
She corrected her posture, her tits pointing at me in temptation. I struck her hard peaks, one then the other with rapid licks of the branch, and she jerked each time the switch connected with her sore nipples.
“I’ve told you a thousand times. If you want pain, you come to me for it.” I shot her a pointed glance. “Otherwise, you’ll just get the pain and no orgasms. Is that what you want?”
“Mmnoo,” she mumbled, shaking her head, teeth clamped down on the branch gagging her.
Stepping closer, I teased her slit with the end of the switch, and her protest turned to an unbridled moan. I caught her gaze and held, my breath stalling in my lungs. Her backside was a work of art—a canvas of red welted lines—and I’d stretched her tight hole, causing a burn she probably still felt the remnants of. And her tits. Hell, I loved how those nipples were a painful red. They called to my mouth to bite and inflict more pain.
But what really got to me was Alex. Despite everything I’d put her through today, she was bursting with the need to come.
Not just get off, her body reaping the physical rewards, but on a fundamental level, she needed to reach that high with me and only me.
No one else’s soul could speak to hers the way mine did, especially when I filled her with my cock.
Lowering my gaze, I trailed the stick along the path of her pussy. She whimpered, her legs trembling as she shuttered her eyes.
I pulled the branch from her mouth and tossed it to the ground. “You have no idea how much I want to make you come.”
“Then do it. I fucking need you, Rafe.” She sobbed the declaration, her eyes full of torment, and I knew her well enough to know she was talking about more than just the joining of our bodies.
“What we have now,” I began, “why is it not enough?”
Her lips parted, closed, then parted again. For a few telling seconds, she looked everywhere but at me. “Because…it’s just…not.”
“You need to be straight with me, Alex. Let it go. Let me carry it for you.”
She held her breath for what seemed like forever before letting it out in a long whoosh. “I’m scared you’re gonna leave me again.”
I’d known it, based off what little she’d told me about her nightmare. But to hear her voice it…fuck, it was harder to hear than I thought it would be.
I hung my head, and my chest constricted from the anguish I’d caused her. “Leaving you was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I’ll spend my entire life trying to make it up to you, but I still won’t succeed.” I risked another glance at her, and I would have done anything to take the pain out of her jade eyes. “All I can do is show you every damn day that I’m not going anywhere.”
“Then marry me.”
Shit. We were at an impasse. I wanted her trust, and she wanted me to prove she could give it. But putting a bandages over the problem in the form of a piece of paper wouldn’t solve anything.
I’d marry her in a heartbeat, but not like this.
We needed to work on us first. Fix the cracks in the foundation holding us up. Go back to the past in order to find our future. I’d known it for a while.
I was going to have to break her down, take her back to the one place she never wanted to see again, to the cabin where I set this monster in motion by leaving her chained to my bed, never to return.
That’s where the already crumbling foundation of our relationship had split wide open. By running away from my fears, I’d placed a huge obstacle in our path.
I’d be damned if I allowed her to make the same mistake. We were going back.
To face the chains.
The fiery destruction.
The bittersweet memory of the first time we said we loved each other.
By the time the sun set, she’d hate me.
5. HOME SWEET MISERY
Alex
Rafe steered the black Rubicon down a dirt road, back end packed full of what had consisted of our lives for the last few months. He’d traded in the red truck after we escaped Shelton and his thugs, opting for the SUV for its off-road capabilities, along with the tinted windows that were a shade above legal.
I gazed out the passenger side window and took in the tall pine and Douglas firs lining the backwoods road we were traveling. The last light of the sun cast the trees in a golden hue. Another day, another journey off the beaten path.
“You really won’t tell me where we’re going?” I couldn’t help the irritation in my tone. Getting cross with him was dangerous, especially after what he put me through today, not to mention the ever present ache between my thighs that he still hadn’t done anything about.
He treated me like a fucking queen. I needed for nothing, wanted for nothing, but he had rules. To the outside world, our relationship would look like a distorted, fucked up disaster.
To us it was just natural.
Naturally twisted, but it felt right.
“You’ll find out when we get there,” he said, shooting me a heated look.
We got there twenty-five minutes later. As he pulled up to a cabin, I leaned forward and squinted against the sun dipping toward the A-frame roof. Something in my chest tightened, and I darted my gaze to Rafe.
“Why are we here?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he shut off the engine and pushed the driver’s side door open. A few seconds later he stood at the passenger side, one hand curled around the edge of the door as he waited for me to get out.
Noting his resolute expression, I scurried into motion and unfolded from the vehicle before following him to the covered porch. Keys jingled, a door creaked open, and Rafe forced me past the threshold of the one place I hoped to never set foot in again.
Funny, how so much had changed since the last time I’d been here, yet the cabin looked exactly the same.
Same tiny kitchen with the breakfast bar separating the space from the living room.
Same futon and chair that had seen better days.
Same musty smell that hinted at the cabin’s infrequent use.
Rafe shut the door and locked it. We stood in the emerging shadows of dusk, neither bothering to switch on a light. Despite growing accustomed to the silence of the woods, the quiet that fell over us now unsettled me, and I couldn’t handle it a second longer.
“Is someone after us? Is that why we’re here?”
He stepped forward
and took my hand in his. “We’re safe. Nothing’s wrong.”
“Then why are we here, Rafe?” My voice rose, the same as my heart rate.
“We’re here because this is the last place you want to be.”
I tried yanking my hand from his, but the vise of his fingers wouldn’t allow it. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand.” He gripped my chin in his free hand, his fingers gentle and commanding all at once. “You just need to trust me.”
“I do trust you.”
“Not enough, babe.”
Before I could respond, he led me down the dark hall toward the bedroom on the right. The chain on the floor, ankle shackle left abandoned at the end of the bed, sat there like a snake about to strike. I couldn’t help but retreat into myself, shoulders hunching, arms crossing over the tightness in my chest.
I didn’t want to remember, but every detail of the morning Jax returned without Rafe flooded back. The sunlight streaming through the curtains, the chirp of birds outside the window, the utter devastation squeezing the air from my lungs after Jax told me Rafe was dead.
The phantom of that pain stabbed my heart now. I flicked watery eyes toward Rafe. “I told you I never wanted to see this place again.” I didn’t care if I came off as petulant. I thought I’d put his deception past me, but walking through the front door of this cabin was like crossing into another time.
A time when Rafe wasn’t mine, and I wasn’t his, because he’d wanted it that way. Helplessness was the theme of my life whether by my own weakness or as a result of someone else’s obsession.
But nothing had ever left me feeling as helpless as that morning.
Rafe closed the distance between us and tilted my chin up. “I know it hurts, but that’s why we’re here. We’re gonna put this behind us and make new memories.”
“It’s not that simple. How would you feel if I disappeared and let you think I was dead?”
“It would gut me.”
“That’s how you left me—fucking gutted. For six months, Rafe.” I turned my head, veering away from his touch, and my gaze landed on that shackle again. “I wanted to die with you that day. Nothing has ever hurt so much.”
“Don’t say that.” Rafe dropped to his knees and lifted the hem of my tank top, exposing the tattoo of his name on my belly. He brushed a string of kisses across the flowing letters. “The earth isn’t whole without you on it.” He raised his green eyes, and the brightness of his gaze reeled me in, softened my heart. “I’ve fucked up so many times with you. I’ve gotta make it right.”
“Rafe,” I said, nibbling on my lower lip. “How is being here going to fix anything?”
Slowly, he kissed his way up my navel, his knuckles grazing my skin as he pulled the material up my ribcage. “It will,” he whispered, removing my tank before cradling my face in his hands. “It has to.” He paused, brows narrowing over thoughtful eyes. “The nightmares won’t go away on their own.”
“I’m not the only one having nightmares.”
But I was the only one expected to deal with them. It might be okay for Rafe to ignore his demons, but the same rules didn’t apply to me. He was unfair like that. Even worse, he never denied it.
“It’s my job to protect you.” The past washed over his face, as bleak as the shadows invading the bedroom. His eyes darkened, forehead creasing. “I won’t expose you to the shit that goes on in my head. We’ve been over this, and I swear, if I have to say it one more time, I’ll—”
“You’ll punish me?” I interrupted with a hint of sarcasm. I held his scruffy cheeks. “You’re already punishing me every fucking time you shut me out.” I glanced around the room, from the bed where he told me he loved me for the first time to that fucking chain on the floor that served as a reminder of that awful morning.
The day he walked away without a second thought.
When the heart bled, there wasn’t an easy fix. You couldn’t just patch it up with a bandage and move on. And maybe that was our problem. Heartache, even when purposefully ignored, had a way of catching up.
“I need all of you, Rafe. But you won’t budge. You carry the burden of the past by yourself. You won’t let me share it with you.” I dropped my gaze as a lump formed. “And you say I’m yours, but you won’t even make it legal.”
“What if we did make it legal?”
I studied his face, my breath catching in my throat. He seemed sincere, but I couldn’t help but question his motive, because he’d made it clear he didn’t want a wedding.
No ceremony.
No piece of paper he deemed worthless.
His no had been absolute, refusing to change to the yes I longed to hear.
“You don’t want to marry me, so why the 180 now?”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He brought his body flush with mine and tangled his fingers in my hair. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re already mine. You’ve been mine since the day I took you. I don’t need a fucking piece of paper for that to be true.”
“You’ve already told me this a hundred—”
“But you do,” he interrupted. “Need it, I mean. If getting married will prove to you that I’m here to stay, then I’ll do it.”
“No,” I said, wresting free of his embrace. “I want you to marry me because you want it, too. Not because you’re placating me.”
He gripped me by the shoulders and forced me over the end of the mattress. “Stop jerking away from me,” he said with a low growl, inching his fingers up the backs of my thighs. A shiver went through me as he dragged up my skirt. He exposed my bare ass, and his palm came down hard, sending a satisfying smack roaring through my ears.
“I’m not placating you, Alex. It’s true I’ve got hangups about marriage. My mom walked, regardless of that fucking ring on her finger. But if making it official will make you happy, I’m in.”
I closed my eyes as shallow breaths puffed onto the comforter, backside tingling from his tease of a spanking. And God…I needed more. “You won’t resent me for it?”
“Fuck no, baby. As long as the important stuff doesn’t change. But if you let marriage change shit between us, I have a piece of ginger with your name on it.”
I flexed the muscles in my ass at the thought. “The only thing that will change is my last name.”
His breath hitched. A second later, I heard the unmistakable sound of his belt buckle, followed by his zipper. “There’s no way I can hold off fucking you now.” He thrust into me, filling me in a single plunge, and I muffled a groan into the bedding.
“Give me your hands.”
We both knew he could take them. But he craved my submission as much as I needed to give it. I brought my hands to my back, and his large fist clamped around my wrists, holding them in place at the bottom of my spine.
“Rafe,” I said with a gasp, angling my hips to bring him deeper. “Can I come?”
“No.”
“Please!”
“I said no.” A smack to my ass punctuated his final answer. The rhythm of his thrusts increased, and as night chased away the last of daylight, he came before I could find the release I so desperately needed.
With a groan, I sank deeper into the mattress, fighting tears of frustration and anger. “Why are you torturing me like this?”
Tugging on my hair, he yanked my head up, and his immovable hand wrapped around my throat. He didn’t even give me time to beg for air. One minute, I was a boneless mass of want and need on the bed, and the next I found myself emerging from blackness.
Then he was gone from where I lay, the door quietly shutting upon his exit, and there was no mistaking the cold metal that shackled my ankle.
6. BAD NEWS
Rafe
Something crashed on the other side of the wall, followed by a full minute of pounding on the door. I dragged a hand through my hair as Alex screamed for me from the bedroom. This was beyond cruel, but my gut told me she needed to face the pain haunting us in that room.
But fuck, she was going to tear me to shreds after it was all said and done. Unable to take any more, I dashed out the front door, screen slamming the outside wall in my haste, and headed for the Jeep to begin unloading.
If her hysterics were any indication, we were going to be here a while, so we might as well settle in. After hefting two duffle bags onto my shoulder, I headed inside and prepared myself for the verbal barrage coming at me through the walls. If I didn’t know better, I’d think a stampede of bulls were going at it in the bedroom.
“Rafe!” she screamed as I set our bags on the floor. “Let me go, you fucking ass!”
I couldn’t help but smile a little. Christ, she was pissed. I glanced down the hallway, and part of me longed to go to her and gather her in my arms. Put her fears to rest.
Fucking hell, I wanted to give in.
Don’t do it, man.
The voice in my head was right. Alex didn’t need to be coddled. She needed to be challenged, and I didn’t have the fucking patience to let her play the poor me card. I’d made mistakes, but so had she. It was time to stare the consequences dead in the eye and come out on top anyway. Her inner strength would carry her through if she took the initiative to find it.
I returned outside to grab another load, and halfway to the Jeep, my back pocket shrilled. I pulled out my cell and swiped my thumb to the right.
“Are you still camping?” Jax asked, bypassing a hello. I hadn’t talked to him in a couple of weeks since the last time Alex and I went to the nearest town to re-up on essentials. Our reclusive spot in the woods hadn’t had a cell signal.
I kind of missed that now.
“Hello to you too.” Tucking the phone between my shoulder and ear, I hauled the cooler from the Jeep’s cargo space and set it on the ground. “We packed up camp,” I answered. “Figured it was time to move on. Why?”
