Chapter 19 The Present
To be insensitive is merely to place yourself above someone else. Interesting, because selfishness is the same thing, and cruelty, if you think about it.
The only difference is flavor.
I want to be cruel. I want to be selfish. I want to witness Mark break. I want to revel in his shock and devastation, and drink the moment like blood-warm wine.
Cassian’s fingers circle my nipple, coaxing the truth out of me with obscene precision. Mark’s pupils flare, his lips parting, twisting at the edges in revulsion.
His torment is radiant to me.
“Talon,” Cassian rumbles beside my ear. “Bring the chains.”
I bite down on my lip.
Chains.
Gods, there is so much one can do with chains to someone they hate. My mind obliges me with imagery. Tight around his chest until he can’t pull a full breath… the metallic drag of them scraping the floor as his body is hauled, helpless, across concrete… restraint, leverage, submission, ruin.
Talon answers with a wolfish grin, tossing the crowbar aside as he drags a heavy length of chain from the corner like he’s been waiting for this exact command. The sound alone spikes my pleasure, but then Cassian pinches, and I gasp, the sound ricocheting off the concrete.
Mark jolts. His eyes go wide, then wider, when Talon drags the chain across the floor.
We both see it, Mark and I: his torment. My release after all these years. A symmetry of consequence for what he’s done.
“Give me your wrists, Skye,” Nathaniel says suddenly from my right.
He’s holding two cuffs—sturdy, industrial things meant for a heavy chain, the same kind Talon’s threading through the ceiling hooks.
“Me?” I whisper. Cassian presses a slow, wet kiss to my neck, teeth grazing. He sucks, then growls.
“You.” Nathaniel’s voice is patient.
I trust him. I offer my arms; my pulse thuds under my skin. The metal is cold when it clamps around my wrists. The cuffs click shut. Talon threads the chain through the hooks, lets it fall with a low hiss of steel, then walks over.
“Gotta give our spectator a good view, baby,” he purrs, looping one end of the chain through my cuffs. “Juicy angles and all that.”
He tugs. My hands rise; I gasp—half shock, half a raw, searing pleasure—and Mark flinches as if I’d split him open.
My arms stretch high; my breasts lift, ribs flare, my back presses harder against Cassian.
His free hand palms my waist and he lifts me higher.
Nathaniel slides to my front, and I wind my legs around his hips, locking us together.
They press into me from both sides, Cassian and him.
“See everything well, Mark?” Talon taunts. “Get comfy, won’t you?”
Mark’s face twists, trying to fold itself into contempt, but his breath betrays him.
He’s scared. Envious. Shocked to the bone.
For years I wanted to know what he dreams about.
I wanted to catalogue every twitch and shadow until I had it down to the exact minute, because whatever lived in his head would terrify him as much as I wanted to terrify him.
What a pleasure it would be to deliver revenge perfectly, start to finish, matching the cruelty his psyche rehearses, but real.
Maybe it was me choking on the kitchen tiles.
Maybe it was me clawing out of the dirt, eyes white with death, dragging him down.
Or maybe it was this—me alive, breathing, moaning—while he’s forced to sit and watch.
Whatever it was, this is not a dream.
This is his reality now.
“Look at me, Skye,” Nathaniel murmurs.
I do.
“This is what powerless means,” he says, pointing at Mark.
And he’s right. We’re stripping this man of the last thing he ever held over me.
“Yes,” I breathe.
Talon loops the loose end of the chain around my ankle. He leans down, tongue in his cheek, and grins wide enough to bare teeth. “There. Now you’re art, baby.”
It’s mockery more than anything. Just salt to Mark’s wound. And it works.
“You’re… sick,” Mark spits.
I laugh. I can’t help it. It bubbles out of me, high and sharp. Maybe I’m sick with whatever he infected me with, but guess what? All I’m doing now is proving exactly how alive I am. Unlike how he left me.
Nathaniel slides a hand up my back, angling me until there’s more space between him and Cassian. My spine bows to its limit. He leans close, breath warm along my ear.
“Mm, Skye,” he rumbles. “Can’t wait to fuck you like this.”
He rolls his hips, grinding his hardening cock against me. I gasp, head tipping back.
Mark watches. He cannot stop. Disgust tries to wear his face; terror steals the fit.
“Count,” Talon says, lazy and lethal. “Every breath she takes.”
“One,” Mark rasps.
Nathaniel’s nose skims my cheek.
“Eyes on me,” he murmurs. I look, and the world narrows to a single bright wire. He rolls his hips with obscene patience—pressure, retreat, pressure—feeding me a slow burn that makes my knees try to lock, even bound as I am.
“Two,” Mark grinds out.
Cassian hooks his huge palms over my hoodie. He drags the material up, up, up, until my underboobs show. Then slower still, he unveils my nipples, letting the hem brush across them.
I moan.
“T–Three…” Mark stammers.
Talon laughs, delighted. “He’s keeping up. Good.”
“He’s attentive,” Cassian notes.
“How could he not be?” Talon says. “Those tits are to die for.”
“I’ll be happy to kill him for seeing them,” Nathaniel groans. More pressure, angled just right. He’s driving me insane.
“Hear that, man?” Talon says, a short, strained laugh threaded with cruelty. His attention isn’t where it started; it’s glued to my breasts. “We’ll kill you after it’s all over.”
“She’s my fucking wife,” Mark spits.
The room laughs at him.
“Correction: she’s your ex-wife,” Talon says, giving the chain the faintest nudge so it sings. “Death did you part.”
Cassian slides my hoodie up until it reaches my face, then peels it off and lets it hang behind my head over my bound hands. My hair frizzes around the knot of fabric; I’m panting, arms high, belly tight.
“Forgetting something?” Talon growls. “Count, Mark.”
“Four,” Mark forces.
“That’s right.”
Cassian’s palm returns to my breast, circling, claiming, teasing. He plays me like a man who has the rest of the night and my next life, rolling truth out of me in quiet sounds I never gave Mark.
Nathaniel tilts my hips a fraction, then does something I don’t expect. He drops to his knees and hooks my thighs over his shoulders. The angle steals my breath.
“These will go off,” he muses, grabbing my pants.
Mark’s eyes go wide when Nathaniel drags them down over my hips. His stare can’t find a place to land.
“Don’t forget to breathe,” Cassian murmurs, pinching my nipple hard enough to draw a cry.
“Five,” Mark chokes, voice cracking on the number.
Talon laughs. “That’s it, buddy. Keep counting. Soon we will fuck her right in front of you.”
He hooks a finger through the chain at my ankle and tugs just enough to make my body arch, my back bow, my breasts straining into Cassian’s hands.
“Fuck, look at her. Look what you buried.”
Nathaniel looks up from between my thighs, eyes pale and steady, breath hot against my skin.
“Make the best of it, Skye,” he says softly. “Enjoy it.”
He slides my panties down and lets them fall. Now all I’m wearing are chains and the hoodie hanging behind my head like a mock veil.
Cassian’s hand play with my breast again as Nathaniel takes the first lick against my clit.
I cry out.
Mark jerks against the straps. His face twists through disgust, through rage, through something he’ll never name out loud, and lands in terror.
It only makes me wetter.
Nathaniel drinks it up. His precision is unbearable, gorgeous. I can’t stop the sounds he pulls from me. They are high, sharp, and breaking open.
“Six… Skye,” Mark gasps, trembling now.
He’s saying my name. Why? I don’t know. But I know I’d never call his.
No… There are only three names I can call, and his isn’t one of them.
“Nathaniel…” I moan. His lip ring is cool against my clit, his tongue hot when he slides it in, his fingers rough where they join the rhythm.
Cassian’s grip tightens on my breast, his thumb circling mercilessly.
“Call Nathaniel’s name again,” he whispers. “Let Mark hear how much you like screaming it.”
“Nathaniel,” I cry, louder this time.
Nathaniel hums against me, and the vibration tears another sound from my throat.
“Eight,” Mark groans, eyes wet now, chest heaving. He reaches fifteen with his first real sob. Twenty-three before I come.
By the time Nathaniel stands, cock fisted in his hand, a dirty sheen glistening on his lips, it’s thirty-one. We don’t even make him count by then. Cruelty and selfishness have done their job, and the man I once thought made of steel is already breaking.
His face is ruined, slick with sweat, lips trembling around words he doesn’t dare say.
Nathaniel wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist, and his eyes stay locked on me like he’s a dark god come down to earth to grant my deepest wish. He doesn’t even glance at Mark. Because this was never about him.
“This was nothing yet,” he murmurs. “Come. Wrap around me, baby.”
Cassian hands me over, careful not to let my wrists take the weight. Talon loosens the chains, and I wrap my legs and arms around Nathaniel, just as I’m told.
Aftershocks still spark low in my pussy when Cassian unzips his pants and lets them fall. The sound of fabric hitting the floor, layered with Mark’s ragged cries, might be the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.
My pussy clenches hard.
Cassian steps in close, his scarred chest brushing my bound arms as he drags his cock free.
The sound Mark makes is an aria. His face goes crimson, veins standing out at his temples.
Seeing his ex-wife reduced to a possession was one thing.
Watching her enjoy being fucked by two dangerous-looking men, by her own choice, cuts deeper.
“Feeling like dying already, sweetheart?” I ask, using Duvall’s nickname for me on purpose, wanting him to choke on it.
“F-fuck,” Mark rasps.