Chapter 19
ALEX
“What’d you do to him?” Jax asked. He sat across the table from me, working on his second beer, his plate from dinner empty in front of him.
Rafe had inhaled his food before returning outside to work in the yard some more.
He’d found “things” to do all day, the type of mundane tasks that kept him away from me.
“Nothing,” I said, my shoulders slumping.
“So you sitting here, fully clothed, I might add, while he’s out there attacking the shrubbery is a normal everyday occurrence? I won’t even go into how no one said a word over dinner. I know him, and I know when something’s off.”
My gaze fell to the sweatpants and T-shirt I’d slept in.
Rafe had taken the couch, leaving his bed to me.
I glanced through the window. The late afternoon sun beat down on him, and his naked torso glistened in the heat.
I wiped sweat from my brow. Today had been a hot one.
I followed the lines of his tattoos with my gaze, and he caught me staring.
His mere glance made my panties damp. I’d brought myself to orgasm last night, surrounded by his sheets and smell, but the release had been empty and anti-climatic, only serving to make me want him more.
I’d ached to have him next to me, inside me, his body indiscernible from mine.
I wanted him to make me come, craved it, because as long as he withheld that gift, he withheld his forgiveness.
Jax rose with a sigh. He exited through the back door, leaving it open, and hopped down the stairs of the patio to where Rafe was indeed abusing the shrubbery.
He dropped the clippers as Jax approached, and though I couldn’t hear what they said, it looked as if they were arguing.
Jax gestured toward me, his lips tight, and Rafe shook his head.
They exchanged words for a few minutes, then Jax stomped into the kitchen with Rafe on his heels.
“This is gonna blow up in our faces and you know it,” Jax said. “She’ll go straight to the cops, man. Never trust a woman, especially that one. I thought you’d figured that out by now, or did she castrate you?”
“You think I want him to go back to jail?” I interrupted, clenching my teeth and matching his glare.
“Why not? You sent him there once, didn’t you? What’s to stop you from doing it again?”
“Fuck,” Rafe said. “I’m just trying to do the right thing. She doesn’t belong here.”
I sat up straight, my mouth dropping open, and I was about to protest when Jax spoke.
“What changed? Is she a rotten lay?”
Rafe’s fist shot out and caught Jax in the nose. “Watch your fucking mouth.”
“What the hell, man! We’re really doing this over a chick?” Jax grabbed a paper towel from the counter and staunched the blood.
“We’re doing this because you’re not listening! Things have changed. She’s gotta go.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, and they both stopped and stared. I stood, gathered the dishes, and moved to the sink with as much calm as I could manage. “I’ve got nowhere to go, Rafe.” What I didn’t say was how I’d rather eat glass than leave him.
Jax sighed heavily, blowing his shaggy hair from his eyes.
“I’m not sticking around to argue about it.
If it’s gonna blow, it’s gonna blow. I’m not staying around for the explosion.
” He pointed a finger at Rafe. “Just think about it. If you let her go, we can kiss our freedom goodbye. I don’t give a shit what she says otherwise.
” He tossed the soiled towel into the trash, spit out a mouthful of blood, and grabbed another paper towel on his way to the door.
“Besides, you’re never getting her outta your system.
You took her, so deal with it. She’s yours. ”
“Jax, wait—”
The door slammed on his exit, and the echo made the silence between Rafe and me that much louder.
I was frozen, afraid to turn around and look at him.
A chair scraped across the hardwood, and I heard him settle into it.
Not knowing what else to do, I loaded the dishwasher as questions roared in my head, feuding with each other until one finally broke free.
“Did you tell him about Zach?”
“No, but I should have. He has a right to be pissed. His ass is on the line too. If I let you go—”
I spun around. “I don’t want you to let me go!”
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 through 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 mouth 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. 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, 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.”