by James, Gemma
“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 into 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.
He could see me, but as long as I kept my eyes straight ahead, I could block him out. And I did as Rafe settled in front of me, taking the stance that was as familiar as my own face in the mirror.
Back straight, jaw determined, his feet planted shoulder-width apart on the concrete.
He pulled his T-shirt off and tossed it on the f
loor. “Raise your arms.”
I did as told, and he fit the shackles around my wrists, locking them with ominous clicks that echoed through the space. These weren’t flimsy leather from which I could potentially squirm free.
This shit was real—cold, hard metal keeping me right where he wanted me. I was as helpless as Zach, standing several feet away, watching the dynamic between Rafe and me unfold.
And yet I felt empowered just the same.
“Remember what I told you,” he murmured, palms framing my cheeks. “It’s just you and me.” He pulled a blindfold from his pocket and took my sight.
My breathing escalated, and I licked my dry lips as my nipples hardened. He caressed the sensitive buds, and I pressed my thighs together to alleviate the steady throb at my center.
Until he increased the pinch, refusing to let up even after I gasped a plea.
“Ow!”
“Remember the promise you made, babe.”
If it becomes too much, say so.
Voicing my pain wasn’t the same as telling him to stop, and he wouldn’t under normal circumstances. On a normal day, I could cry “stop” all day long, but he’d still keep my nipples in the vise of his fingers. Today wasn’t a normal day, and he wanted me to know it.
“Alex, tell me you remember.” His fingers tightened, eliciting a flinch.
“I remember!” I said with a breathless cry.
This was a test, a way he could gauge how far he could push before I crumbled. And despite his reluctance in putting on this show for Zach, I knew there was a part of him that would consider it a fail on his part if I put on the brakes.
He let go of my nipples, and the air stirred as he settled behind me. His foot slid between mine, urging my legs further apart, and his mouth opened over my neck as he thrust two fingers inside me.
With a moan, I shot to my toes. Zach made some noise—some indiscernible sound that didn’t matter because he no longer mattered. Nothing else mattered as long as Rafe surrounded me with his consuming fire.
With his strength and love and addictive madness. His touch that ignited an inferno no fire distinguisher could put out.
He increased the pace of his plundering touch, and I shifted, needing more. “Please, Rafe.”
“Shhh.” Removing his fingers, he shoved them between my lips. “I decide when you come.”
Biting down on his digits, tasting a hint of myself on my tongue, I groaned.
He moved away, and I detected the sound of his steps on the floor. After the telltale sloshing of water reached my ears, he returned and knelt behind me, one hand palming my ass cheek.
“What the hell are you doing to her?” Zach’s voice made me jump, as I’d gotten lost inside the bubble Rafe and I had created.
I sensed Rafe tensing, his fingers digging into my flesh. “If you say another goddamn word while she’s down here with me, I’ll shock the shit out of you.” Rafe issued the threat with such ferocity that Zach would be stupid to test him.
He must have heard the threat as clearly as I had, because he shut up after that.
Rafe slid his fingers down my ass crack, spreading my cheeks, and I felt the first touch of cool ginger at my backdoor. Equal amounts of fear and anticipation flooded my pussy, and I didn’t know whether to beg him to stop, or beg him to keep going.
This didn’t feel like a punishment.
This was something else. Something new and exciting and so…hot.
He teased me with the ginger plug for a while, pushing it in just enough to induce a burning sensation that wouldn’t compare to what came next. I tensed at the thought, already changing my mind about letting him do this.
What had I been thinking?
It hadn’t been that long ago that he’d used the evil stuff on me at the safe house. I remembered in painful detail how he’d rammed me from behind as my ass burned. God, how it had scorched. And yet…part of me had still been turned on, my body strung tight with the need to orgasm.
An orgasm he hadn’t allowed. Perhaps, that had been the true punishment.
He broke my bitter reverie by inching the plug in a bit more, preparing to slide home, and I let out a whimper.
“Rafe…wait.” That word felt foreign on my tongue. Somehow wrong. Rafe didn’t wait—he played my body to his own dark and sadistic tune.
A tune my body couldn’t help but dance to.
I wanted to take back that moment of weakness, swallow the word and the implied distrust in it. But his fingers halted at my backside.
Across the cellar, Zach shuffled irritated feet, an unwilling voyeur at this depraved show. I swallowed my fear and relaxed my muscles, mentally preparing for the excruciating burn I knew would come.
I couldn’t fathom allowing this to continue.
I couldn’t find the words to stop it. When it came to Rafe, I didn’t know how not to bend.
“Go ahead,” I choked out, biting my lip.
With a quick and confident thrust of his hand, he lodged the ginger in my ass. I clenched my teeth, waiting for the fire.
Waiting…waiting…waiting…
“Oh God!”
He returned to my front and kneeled at my feet. My head spun as he spread me open to his hungry, greedy mouth, and my cry of pain turned to a moan. He flicked his tongue against my clit in a way he knew would shove me right to the edge. I fisted my hands in the shackles and moaned his name, pushing my pelvis into his face and silently begging for more.
He grabbed my ass, fingers digging into my flesh, bringing the burn to the forefront of my mind again—a reminder that with the pleasure came the pain, because that’s what he lived for.
I unwittingly clenched my muscles, and the ginger amped in intensity, bringing about a keening cry. “Rafe, it hurts!”
His answering growl vibrated against my pussy, and I realized I was in deep shit. Now that I’d given the go-ahead, there was no turning back. My submission was Rafe’s elixir, and he’d fallen into his beautiful obsidian zone, feeding off my pain as much as his mouth fed off the over-sensitized flesh between my thighs.
“Please,” I begged in a hoarse whisper, struggling to tolerate the fire in my ass. Struggling not to come.
He unlocked my wrists from the shackles. “Get on your knees,” he said, voice a rugged gruff in my ear. I dropped to them, more eager than was logical, and clasped my hands behind my back. A warm palm slid along my cheek, taking the blindfold with it, and the heat in his eyes matched the burn in my rectum. He unbuttoned his jeans and yanked down the zipper, telling me without words what he wanted.
As Rafe’s cock sprang free, Zach expressed an outraged growl. But he didn’t say a word, and neither did my husband as he pushed into my mouth like he belonged there.
Because he did.
Slipping his fingers into my hair, he clutched my locks and controlled the angle of my throat, opening it up so he could claim it. I expected him to ram his way home, but as his hot and solid flesh slipped between my lips, taking shallow thrusts, I realized he was in one of his moods.
The kind of mood that would prolong this for the both of us.
“Never seen a more beautiful sight. Clench your ass for me, babe.”
I blinked, and he withdrew long enough to dick-slap a warning into me, making me clench with a pained whine. He pushed in again and hit my tonsils.
“Jesus, Alex.”
Another drive of his cock made me gag. His inner monster had come out to play, and I reveled in the way he watched me. The way I sensed Zach watching both of us, with hatred and agony searing his black soul. I seized the power in this moment, wrapped myself in the adrenaline from it, because Zach was as helpless as I’d been for years.
Something powerful passed between Rafe and me. We were in sync, two halves of a whole, united against Zach and anyone else who would dare challenge us. We were one, and it was so much more than a ring on my finger, or a piece of paper that gave me his last name.
It felt a lot like destiny.
Rafe i
ncreased the pace with a shudder, and he couldn’t help but lose his shit when he fucked my mouth life this. Closing his eyes, he tilted his head back, lips flattening against his teeth as he groaned.
My pussy throbbed with warmth, and I whimpered around him, pleading for relief. I was pretty damn sure he needed it too, but he held back, abruptly pulling away as his chest heaved. Before I regained my bearings, he lifted me and impaled me on his cock.
Wrapping my legs around him, I cried out his name.
And I couldn’t help it.
I fucking came without permission.
“I’m sorry,” I said, still clinging to him as I crashed from the high.
“It’s okay. You’ll make up for it with the other piece of ginger.” Inching back, he searched my face. “Besides, we’ve got a baby to make, so we’re gonna be down here for a while.”
EPILOGUE
Rafe
Three months later…
White fluff trickled onto the skylights in the bedroom. I watched the flakes come down through bleary eyes, not yet fully awake as Alex gripped my thighs. Her lips closed over the tip of my cock, and I stopped seeing the snow fall.
Fuck a white Christmas.
This was the true gift—waking up like this to her going down on me. She moaned, making me grit my teeth at the teasing vibration, and flicked her tongue over the slit.
“If you keep that up, I’m gonna fuck your backdoor.”
She raised her head, letting me slip from her mouth, and my pissed-off dick twitched in the direction of those damp lips. “Will you let me come?”
“Maybe,” I said, shooting her a devious grin. “Maybe not. Keep teasing and find out.”
“Well, since it is Christmas…” She gathered her hair back from her face as she worked my cock deep into her mouth, though not fucking deep enough.
“Jesus Christ, Alex.” I batted her hand away from her hair, taking over the task of controlling those luscious locks. “Use your hands.” I shouldn’t have to instruct her, which told me she was still holding back.
Her fingernails scraped up the underside as her mouth returned to the head.
Scrape, suck. Lick. Nip.