Chapter 24
ALEX
Ididn’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 floor. “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 extinguisher 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 increased the pace with a shudder, and he couldn’t help but lose his shit when he fucked my mouth like 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.”