by Gemma James
He jumped to his feet and knocked over the chair. “Have I not made you suffer enough? Fuck, Alex…” His voice cracked, with guilt and regret. I didn’t deserve either.
With a growl, I hurtled a dish through the air and jumped when glass rained to the floor in a grating symphony of fury. “We already went over this. I got off on it! While you were in prison, being raped”—I choked on the word—“he was fucking me.” I sank to the hardwood, knees to my chest, and hid my face behind my palms. “You should hate me. I hate me.”
His footsteps thundered across the hardwood, and he yanked me up by the hair. “You don’t get it,” he snarled. “I want you off this damn island, far away from me, because I don’t hate you.” His fist clenched my strands, and he lifted until I stood on my toes. “Seeing your mouth twisted in pain, watching you battle the need to fight me, it fucking turns me on.”
My lips parted, breaths coming in soft pants. I widened my stance, wincing again when the pull of his grip became unbearable. I slid a hand beneath the waistband of my sweats and dipped into slick heat. “All you have to do is glance at me, and it makes me wet.” I lifted my fingers and pressed them to the hard line of his mouth, bathing his lips with the evidence of my arousal. “But when you’re rough like this”—I gasped as he jerked my head back and sucked my fingers into his mouth—“I swear I’m gonna break if you don’t fuck me.”
His eyes met mine, holding me prisoner as his tongue darted between middle and forefinger. He bit down, watched my reaction, and when I didn’t recoil, he let my fingers slip from his mouth.
“I’m giving you one chance to walk away.” He let go of my hair and retreated. “You’ll never hear from me again, never see me again.”
I followed his backward motion. “How can you think I want that? I want you, Rafe.” To make my point, I cupped his erection though his jeans.
He clamped his fingers around my wrist. “You’re pushing it.”
“What are you gonna do? Strip me naked? Lock me in the cellar again? Paddle me?”
“No,” he said with a scowl, “but I can choke you, or better yet, I can drag your ass into the tub and make you suck me off.”
I fought against his hold and stumbled, my heart pounding an erratic tune. “You wouldn’t.”
He tugged me close until our chests smashed together. “You know I would. No delusions, sweetheart. It’s decision time. Stay or go?”
“Stay.” The alternative of never seeing him again, of never experiencing his kiss or the possessive way his body claimed mine, that was something I wasn’t willing to give up. If taking the pain he needed to inflict would grant me freedom from the burden of my guilt, would grant him relief from his own pain, then I’d take whatever he dished out.
He hefted me into his arms and strode to the stepladder. I slid to my feet, shuffling them with impatience as he brought the stairs down. As soon as we reached the loft, he pulled me against him, my back to his front.
“I’m gonna make you beg for it, gonna make you cry until you can’t breathe for wanting me.”
“Too late.”
“Do you understand why you reached orgasm with him?”
I bit my lip, nodding, my lips trembling as the memories surfaced. “Because I'm fucked up.”
“So am I, and we’re gonna be fucked up together, but I want you to answer something first.”
I peeked at him over my shoulder. “What is it?”
“Did you crave him the way you crave me?” He grabbed my thigh and lifted, urging my foot around his calf. “Did your body ache and throb for him”—he slid a hand inside my sweats, fingers dipping into the inferno raging inside me—“the way it does for me?
“Never,” I groaned, pushing into his palm.
“Then drop the guilt and shame. He exploited the way you're wired, used it against you. I'm gonna make you fucking embrace it.”
He moved around and jerked my pants down my legs. My panties went next, ripped to shreds by his fingers. He fisted the collar of my tee in both hands and pulled until it split in two, right down to my navel. I stared at him in wonder, mouth hanging open.
“Rafe—”
“Don’t talk. Just feel.”
I felt, all right. He pushed the tattered shirt from my shoulders and slid my bra straps down my arms. He lowered the satin cups until my breasts tumbled out, and somehow, leaving the garment on made the act more forbidden. I felt the weight of his gaze on me, his tongue darting between lips I craved, and I would have given anything to have his tongue on my skin, but he didn’t taste, didn’t touch. He only looked, and looked some more until I thought I’d explode from his stare alone.
“Get on the bed.”
I stumbled back, legs too shaky to do anything else, and fell onto the mattress. I reached behind me to unclasp the bra, but his growl stilled my hands.
“Don’t do anything unless I tell you to, understand?”
I nodded.
“Stand on your knees, hands behind your back.”
I obeyed without hesitation, barely containing the excitement bubbling in my stomach. He closed the distance slowly, a predator with prey in his sights, and peeled the clothing from his body as he went. Jeans, gone, on the floor. A step later, boxers flew into parts unknown. He climbed onto the bed behind me, and I gasped when he splayed a tattooed hand on my abdomen, fingers reaching past my navel toward the crevice of pulsing arousal. He yanked my head back, until my eyes aligned with his chin, and lowered his head. His lips opened over my collarbone, feverish and hungry, teeth scraping tender skin. My nipples hardened into two tight buds, and my skin broke out in goose bumps from head to toe. I’d never been so worked up, so ready to fly apart from touch alone.
He teased upward, across my cheek to the edge of my mouth, his stubble leaving a rough path in his wake. His fingers slid inside me. I moaned, a second away from begging for his kiss.
“You’re so wet. Drenched and hot.” He let go of my hair and gripped my throat, holding me prisoner against his body. His gaze fell on my mouth, and he couldn’t hide it—the need to kiss me.
This man brought out so many emotions, but above all else, intense yearning. I’d rip myself apart to get to him. “I need you, Rafe,” I whispered, eyes threatening to spill so much more than tears. He saw everything, laid bare before him just as my body was. I gave him my submission, opening my thighs wider to his touch, arching into his possession of my throat, my breasts jutting forward, unabashedly on display. “I need you so much.”
“Tell me something,” he said, his fingers sliding in and out of my pussy in slow ecstasy.
“Anything.”
“Have you been with anyone else?”
“Just you.” I wouldn’t mention Zach. He didn’t count, and from the hard glint in Rafe’s eyes, I’d said the right thing.
“Good.” He groaned, then his mouth was on mine, parting my lips with desperate urgency, tongue thrusting inside as his fingers fucked me. His mouth tasted of the strawberries he’d eaten earlier.
I couldn’t be contained. I had to touch him, or I’d combust. I shoved my fingers into his hair and clutched him as if I’d never let go, urging his tongue deeper into my mouth. Kissing him from this upside down angle unraveled me, destroyed me, and I never wanted to be whole again. Not if coming unglued in his arms meant feeling this way for even a second longer. I was his, every frayed thread of my aching soul.
“Fuck, Alex,” he said, wrenching his mouth from mine. His erection jabbed my ass.
“I need you. Please.”
“I’ll fuck you when I’m ready. Put your hands behind your back.”
“Ahhh!” I screamed, fists tightening in his hair.
He flipped me to my back and forced my hands to the mattress. His body towered above, trapped me with his dangerous masculinity, and I was a willing prisoner. I freely turned over the key to the metaphorical chains that bound me to him.
Rafe’s dark head dipped to my breasts, and he tugged the bra cups down with his teeth. I cr
ied out, unprepared for the hard bite on my nipple. Sharp pain radiated through me, gathering strength until it coiled low in my belly. I arched my spine, muscles taut when he moved to my other breast and clamped his teeth into tender flesh.
I hissed in a breath to keep from howling, writhed beneath the punishing attention of his mouth, but he didn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop. Mercy was his to give, his to withhold. I’d given up my one and only chance at freedom.
His fingers became painful vises around my wrists, holding me down and rendering my struggle useless. He wedged my legs apart and settled his cock at my entrance, pushed in the tiniest bit, then withdrew.
“Please…” I was going to die. If it was possible to drop dead from being teased and tortured so excruciatingly, to be in a constant state of arousal, only heightened by the pain he kept unleashing on my body, then I was a goner. “Rafe, for God’s sake, fuck me.”
“You’re gonna give me everything.” He raised his head and looked at me. “I’m gonna choke you. Still wanna stay?”
I bit my lip to keep it from quivering. “Do I have a choice?” I only asked to test him, to see how far I could push. If he was still willing to let me go, then I’d know some part of him still battled with his former self. That guy would always give a choice, always do the right thing, even when he was being fucked in the process.
He let go of my wrists and wrapped his hands around my neck. “Your chance for freedom has passed. Hold onto the bars. If you let go, I won’t let you come.”
I grasped cold, hard metal and held on tight. “Why do you need this?” I asked, the question guttural because my airway felt so narrow under the weight of his hands.
“Choking your beautiful neck gets me harder than fuck.” He leaned down with a barely contained groan, and our faces lingered inches from each other. “Nothing else gets me off so good.” He paused for a beat, tilting his head. “But it’s about trust too, about you knowing your place. Your pleasure comes with a price. I want every piece of you, every time.”
He pushed his cock in slowly and trembled. “I mean it. Let go of those bars, and I’ll make you suffer for a week.”
I gripped them with all I had, determined to obey him, to prove I could be what he wanted, what he needed, but my heart drummed too loudly. If not for the sensual rhythm he set, shallow thrusts that teased, barely pushing into the wetness dripping onto the sheets, I would have panicked as the pressure on my throat increased.
His sensuality came as a surprise, and I surrendered to it. Through the haze, I saw his face tighten in a mixture of pain and pleasure, and I realized being face-to-face like this, with our bodies coming together in tender agony—something about it hurt him on a deep level. I saw it in the way his hooded eyes drew me in and demanded I bear some of the anguish. Mine drifted shut, because watching him watch me, specks of the past shining in his gaze, tore me to shreds.
“Don’t hide from me. I want your eyes.”
“It hurts to see you like this.” It was easier to face what I’d done when he was angry, righteous, contemptuous. Not while he bared the part of himself he kept hidden. My heart grieved because he was loving my body while showing how I’d destroyed every facet of his being.
“Open your fucking eyes.”
I lifted my lids and the connection between us was unbreakable. Neither of us looked away as he pushed to the hilt. He slid in and out, his movements still tender, yet his hands were unrelenting. They tightened further, constricting my airway as an orgasm built, as his neared the brimming point.
“Let me come,” I begged.
“Not until you’re screaming for it.” He drove his cock in with renewed fervor, and we both cried out. “Not until you can’t breathe,” he said with a groan. “Fuck, I want you waking up on fire.” His hands squeezed, and I resisted fighting him, holding so tightly to the bars, my knuckles cramped.
Our gazes remained locked together as he choked the air from me. The moment was surreal, his eyes sparkling like emeralds for those few seconds when I turned my life over to him. Everything around him narrowed to black, and there was only him in my vision, in my world, in my heart. I opened my mouth, needing to say his name, but it wouldn’t come out.
“Don’t fight it. Just a couple more seconds—”
When I came to, his name a sigh on my lips, I felt his head disappear between my legs. He flattened his tongue on my clit and pressed hard. I squirmed and bucked, limbs quaking high on his shoulders, and gasped for breath. I wanted to claw at my neck, but my fingers remained one with the headboard. I wouldn’t let go, no matter what.
“Rafe!” I rasped. “I need to come. Let me come.” I repeated the plea until it became a continuous prayer. I didn’t know how he did it, but he was skilled at keeping me on edge. His tongue and fingers brought me higher, and my cries tore through the loft. Nothing on Earth felt as good as him between my thighs, licking and sucking, entering a finger and curling it just the right way.
Holy fuck.
He entered another finger, moved his mouth to my inner thigh, and bit down. His fingers worked me as I arched above the bed with a shriek. His teeth sank in deeper and that bite spread through me until I was out of control and lost in helplessness. He brought a hand up and twisted my nipple, eliciting a full-on scream.
Don’t let go of the bars…whatever you do, don’t let go.
“Please…please…give it to me.”
He pulled away and sat on his haunches, and I cussed at him, out of my mind as blood pumped to my core and begged for release. My foul-mouthed rant seemed to amuse him. “You’re an instrument I like to play. I can strum you for hours. I like you this way—wild, desperate, and fucking insane with lust.”
“Will you ever forgive me?” I squirmed as salty frustration drenched my cheeks. “I’ll do anything. Please, I need you.”
“Forgiving you won’t erase the last eight years. I can’t just wipe that shit from my head.”
I flushed with shame, acutely aware of how I was spread before him, wet between my thighs while his mind dwelled in past horrors. “I’d do anything to go back, Rafe.”
His brows furrowed over contemplative eyes. “What am I to you? Some fantasy you held on to all these years? What do I mean to you?”
I groaned. “You’re my beginning, my end. You’re my everything.”
Slowly, his face relaxing in something close to tenderness, he slid up my body and folded me in his arms. “You sure know how to twist the knife, sweetheart.” With a heavy sigh, he pushed into me again. His strokes were just right. His hand on my nape, holding me in place as he nibbled at my neck, was just right. His body enveloped mine, like a cherished present he was carefully unwrapping.
He gripped my neck, sank his teeth in, and I screamed when the tsunami began. I pulsed and clenched around him, ached long and deep, and I couldn’t stem the howl erupting from my being. I clutched his hair, no longer able to hold on to metal when I could hold on to him, not with the way I was coming. And just as the tide ebbed, another wave crested. He never stopped thrusting, didn’t slow or quicken his pace. He worked my body as if I were made for him.
“Do it again,” he said with a gruff quality that was sexy as hell. “Howl for me. Come undone. I’ll put you back together.”
I screamed again, my face a mess of sweat and tears, and grasped his shoulders, my fingernails biting into hot, damp skin. “I fucking love you,” I choked as the last ounce of strength fled. I was gelatinous skin and bones in his embrace.
“No, stay with me.” He still moved inside me, and his lips mashed against his teeth as he neared orgasm. He dropped his head into the crook of my shoulder, smothered a deep groan, and emptied into me.
Time stilled, seconds ticking in an endless loop while we held each other, and eventually our breathing slowed. Twined together in sweat, twisted in each other and in the sheets, the charged air blanketed us. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but his face took up space only inches from mine. I breathed in when he exhaled, our
chests dancing together to the same beat. My skin tingled and sparked from head to toe, and I shivered because he was still nestled inside me, his erection growing by the second.
“I’m still fucking hard. I can’t get enough of you.” He pressed me into the mattress and pinned my arms above my head. His need to control no longer scared me. If anything, it made me feel more connected to him, more alive. By giving him this, I felt I was giving him back a small piece of himself. I'd never be able to atone for my sins, for the years of torment I'd put him through, but I could do this, could give him every broken piece of me.
“I've never felt this way before,” I whispered.
“What way?”
“Like you. Like I can’t get enough.”
“My insatiable little slut.” His lips curved against mine, taking the sting out of the insult. Unlike when Zach said it, the word held different connotations when coming from Rafe's lips. Pride, possessiveness. His fingers tightened around my wrists. “My sexy little slut. I’ve waited so fucking long to be inside you.” His free hand circled my jaw, and his lips and tongue battled with mine endlessly. We came up for air, and he bit into my shoulder.
I drew in a breath between clenched teeth.
“Does my need to hurt you scare you?” he asked.
“No.”
“This is nothing, Alex. I have some really fucked up fantasies, things I’ve never tried with anyone.”
I should have felt at least marginally afraid by his admission, but I could only grasp a single detail—he’d never done the things he wanted to do with me.
“Like what?”
“That’s a conversation for another day.”
“Rafe,” I groaned.
“I’ll need to make you cry. Often. I love the taste of your tears.”
“My heart's already bleeding them. Do what you need. I'm yours.”
“You're gonna regret being mine.”
A tremor of fear speared through me. The way he said it, with unmitigated certainty, took my breath. He didn’t need to use his hands to steal my lifeblood.
He pulled out of me and crawled to his hands and knees. “Turn over.”