by Gemma James
“That was my initial reaction too.”
“What are her reasons for wanting to do this?”
“She thinks it’ll hurt him.” Considering the level of his obsession, she was probably right. I still didn’t like the idea of inviting the sick fuck into our marriage.
Jax seemed to mull it over. “I don’t know, man. Everyone handles grief in different ways. This could be her way of dealing with the trauma, of taking the power back from him.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “It’s not conventional, but nothing about your relationship falls into that category. This might be what she needs to start the healing process.”
His words hit me like a cold, physical blow. I’d never thought of it from that angle. Until now, I hadn’t been able to get past the elephant of Zach standing between Alex and me.
But maybe Jax was right. Maybe this was more about her moving on and less about the bastard who’d taken her to hell and back.
“Thanks, man.”
“For what?”
“For being my brother.”
“Anytime,” he said, voice thick. He forked up a bite of macaroni. “Speaking of brothers, what are we doing about the parasite in the cellar?”
“Alex wants him to rot down there.”
“Can’t blame her, though I figured she’d rather see him dead.”
“Me too.” Pushing my plate away, I frowned.
“It sounds like she’s just really messed up right now. Give her some time.”
“I’m trying, but I don’t like his presence under our feet. He’s gotten away too many times, and it always comes back to bite us in the ass.”
“Dude, he’s not going anywhere. I helped you design that prison.”
“That’s the only reason he’s still breathing.”
Jax raised a brow. “Sounds to me like Alex is the reason.”
I let out a derisive laugh. “I can’t believe this is our life.”
“It’s fucking stranger than fiction.” Jax shoveled in a bite, and I watched him chew, mind spinning.
“You think I should fuck her in front of him?”
“If it means that much to her, why the fuck not? Asshole’s got it coming.”
For the first time since she brought up this crazy idea, I envisioned it; saw Zach watching from the shadows, gnashing his teeth as I made her scream my name.
Maybe this idea wasn’t so horrible after all.
22. TENDER STING
Alex
A cool breeze stirred my tangles. A wayward curl blew into my eyes. I pushed off the planks with my toes, sending the swing into another easy glide. For the past three hours, I’d let the gentle lull of the rocking motion calm me. A train’s horn blared from the Oregon side of the Columbia River.
I couldn’t see it, but I heard it.
Just like one wouldn’t see the shattered pieces of my heart by looking at me. My baby was gone, just a traumatic memory down the toilet.
Six days had passed since that morning—the same amount of time I’d spent at Zach’s mercy. One day shy of a whole week.
Those days had changed everything…they’d changed nothing.
The front door opened, and I spied the heavy thump of Rafe’s boots on the deck. Rather than offer comfort, his presence sent my heartbeat into a dangerous spiral. Maybe it was the way I’d caught him studying me since he found me in the cellar unleashing my wrath on Zach, as if he were waiting for me to break apart and hurt myself.
With a start, I realized too late how my nails dug into my arm, gouging deep enough to draw blood. It wasn’t the first time I’d regressed into the habit since miscarrying, and it wouldn’t be the last. The fact that he hadn’t punished me for it said a lot. Too much, really. His inaction, so far removed from the norm for us, told me he was just as shaken by our loss.
The guilt splintered another crack in my armor, because I should have told him about the pregnancy before the wedding. He hadn’t thrown my duplicity in my face, but he had every right to.
Coming to a stop in front of the porch swing where I sat, he folded his arms. I risked a peek at his face and found his deep green gaze alight with resolve.
“Come inside,” he said, holding out a hand.
“Why?” Something about him was different today, and I swallowed past the lump of apprehension in my throat.
He was surer.
Harder.
Determined.
“Last time I checked I was still your husband.”
I lifted my chin. “And?”
“And that means you’ll put your hand in mine and follow my lead.”
“What if I don’t?” He still hadn’t made a decision on the Zach issue, and my irritation bled through the words.
He bent until we were face-to-face, taking me by the chin. “Unless you plan on swimming off the island to get away from me, you don’t have a choice.”
I’d known this moment was coming, the day of reckoning when he’d enable me no longer. Allow me to withdraw no more.
Rafe rose to his full height and waited for me to slide my hand into his. The instant his warm palm welcomed mine, I felt my breath hitch. Anxiety rose in my throat, and the burning tingle behind my eyelids threatened to ignite. I didn’t want to give him my tears. I never wanted to cry again. Crying meant feeling.
I never wanted to feel again.
The birds seemed to fall silent as he led me inside the cabin, and maybe it was an omen because he halted at the bottom of the stairs.
“It’s time to face it, sweetheart.”
I shook my head, yanking on my hand that refused to budge from his grip. “I don’t want to go up there.”
“We can’t sleep on the couch forever.”
“Please, Rafe. Don’t ask me to do this.”
“I’m not asking, babe.” Tugging on my arm, he all but dragged me up the stairs.
Light shone through the skylights, bathing the loft bedroom in natural light. The comforter had been changed, and so had the sheets. There was no evidence of Zach in this room anymore—no spilled clothing from the drawers, or his untied boots taking up space on the floor. My gaze settled on the gown hanging on the back of the bathroom door.
My wedding dress.
I failed to breathe. “Where did you find it?”
“In the bottom of the armoire.”
I blinked.
One, two, three…four times.
As many times as it took to ward off the burn of pain behind my eyeballs.
“Let it out,” Rafe said, squeezing my hand.
“I can’t.”
“You can.” Letting my fingers slip from his, he pulled his shirt over his head. As the muscled contours of his bare chest confronted me, the world fell away. The rest of the island faded, leaving him and me and the intimate space between us.
I lowered my attention to the outline of his cock behind the zipper of those stonewashed jeans I loved so much. When it came to me, it didn’t take much to turn him on.
“It’s too soon,” I whispered. “I just stopped spotting yesterday.”
“This isn’t about sex.” He stepped forward an inch, bringing us that much closer. “But you are going to take off your clothes.” The demand in his voice was unmistakable, but underneath it I detected an edge of gentleness reserved for the tender moments between us. It certainly wasn’t a tone he used for punishments. Even so, I was certain a punishment of some sort was coming. If not a punishment, then a snap-out-of-it session with his belt.
My attention lowered to his waist again, and I was dismayed to find the thick strap of leather I hated most sitting on his hips. That belt stung something fierce, and in my present state of mind, it would be the perfect amount of brutal to make me crack.
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 o
f 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 front 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.”
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?”
