Chapter 17
Gage found me naked and kneeling in the basement, the bullwhip coiled in front of me, waiting to strike me like a snake. The thing ticked, ticked, ticked like a rattler in my mind. Or maybe that was time ticking by, bringing me a second closer to the annihilation of my marriage.
To the sharp sting of leather that, for the first time, I’d gladly welcome. I wanted the strikes to take away my pain—pound to dust Ian’s illness and my shame over what I’d done.
He halted in front of me, his shiny black shoes coming into view. I tilted my head and wanted to sink through the floor as his suspicious gaze flickered between the bullwhip and my face.
“Where’s Eve?” he asked.
“Gone for the night.”
He knelt before me and held my chin between two harsh fingers. “I called you hours ago. Where were you?”
No words or explanation could express the chaos inside me. I thought I was void of tears, but I was wrong. I’d been so, so wrong for betraying him like this.
“I’m sorry,” I said, a sob squeezing from my throat. This was going to hurt him so much, and the knowledge rose like acid.
“Baby…” He broke me to pieces by brushing the tears from my cheeks. Doubt colored his features, and in that moment, I read him so easily, had an idea of what he was thinking.
Maybe he was wrong. Maybe the dread in his gut was lying to him.
“What’s wrong? Is Eve okay?”
“S-she’s fine.” I swallowed hard. “I did something you’re going to hate me for.” I lifted the whip and pressed it against his thighs. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I…God…” Shaking my head, I let the tears drop.
“Just tell me.” A familiar tick went off in his jaw.
“I saw Ian.”
“What do you mean you saw him?” He furrowed his brows. “Because I know my wife, the woman I love more than anything in this world, would never see my brother.”
“More than saw him,” I said, my voice a croak that echoed my shame. He pushed away, and the whip crashed to the floor.
I grasped it by the handle, scrambled to my feet, and offered him the implement I feared the most. The one I deserved the most.
“Please, Gage—” Everything inside me fractured. “Strike me with it. I deserve nothing less.” I couldn’t bear the devastation my words drilled into his eyes. Every emotion he rotated through came off him in a tangible blast.
I hadn’t voiced my sin, but he heard it anyway. He stumbled back, hands clenched at his sides, shaking with the need to punish. To maim the way I’d maimed him.
“Gage, please.”
“What did you do?” he asked between tight lips.
“I…” I’d never felt so broken, so helpless. He’d taken me to hell and back, but it turned out my actions were the final accomplice in my destruction. “It just…happened.”
“You fucked him.” No question, only harsh certainty.
“No.” The denial felt like a lie. “Let me explain.”
“God, Kayla—” His voice broke, and that anguished sound alone brought tears to my eyes. He buried both hands in his hair and paced the room like a lost man. “I don’t want to hear it. The reasons don’t fucking matter.”
“Please—”
“Nothing you say will justify you cheating on me with him!” He propped his back against the wall and slid to his haunches.
I couldn’t fix this. I’d done the unforgivable, and I absolutely could not fix this. After everything we’d been through, I’d hit him in the one place capable of destroying him.
“I’ll do anything,” I said, forcing the words out beyond my constricted throat. “It was a mistake.”
“A mistake? We’re fucking married. This isn’t like Texas when you had a choice to make.”
“You didn’t give me a choice!” Probably the wrong time to point that out, but I couldn’t help it.
“I gave you a choice!” his voice bellowed through the basement, making my muscles lock and tense. My legs threatened to go out on me. He jumped to his feet and stormed to where I stood with the bullwhip gripped in my nervous hands.
“On your fucking knees. Now.”
And just like that, I dropped. Groveled at his feet. Let my tears bathe the floor.
“I gave you a choice,” he repeated, calmer this time. “I dragged your stubborn ass back home, but right here in this spot, I gave you the option to walk.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
He let out a cruel, bitter laugh. “You claim you love me but—”
“I do love you.”
“Then why? Make me understand how you could almost fuck my brother after I gave you what you wanted on our anniversary? I gave you everything, Kayla. Everything!”
My mouth trembled as the truth stalled, frozen on my tongue. I didn’t want to say it, but not voicing Ian’s illness wouldn’t make it go away. “He has a brain tumor.”
He blinked. “A…what?” That hadn’t been the answer he was expecting.
“When I found out…” I hiccuped, holding back another sob. “I was blindsided. Simone called me, otherwise, I wouldn’t have known. I wouldn’t have gone to see him.”
He shook his head, disbelieving, and I rushed to explain.
“He’s refusing treatment.” My limbs quaked in defeat, and only my willpower to obey him kept me on my knees instead of sprawled on the floor. “He’s got a few weeks left.”
His jaw worked in a frightful way, and his eyes brightened with the threat of tears. No matter the decrepit bridge between him and his brother, this news affected him.
But my betrayal was the real clincher.
I slumped, and as I dragged the memory of what I’d done to the forefront of my mind, my ashamed gaze fell to the floor. I didn’t understand how I’d ended up on that couch with Ian, my hand in his pants, my lips pressed to his.
“Get into position and look at me.” His tone left no room for argument.
Letting the bullwhip slip from my grasp, I forced my body to fucking work. I dredged the last of my strength and straightened my spine. Hands behind my back, breasts thrust out. Eyes on him.
“How far did it go?” he asked…no, demanded.
“Please don’t make me tell you.” My cheeks flamed under his scrutiny.
“How far, Kayla?”
“We kissed.”
“What else? You’re going to tell me every detail.”
He was going to make me drown in my guilt. “I took my shirt off, and I…I…”
“You what?”
“I touched him. I made him—” The word hitched in my throat. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t describe Ian coming. And no matter how long I analyzed my behavior, I couldn’t explain what had been going through my mind while I’d had my cheating hand around his brother’s cock.
“Spell it out for me, and address me properly when you do.”
“I jerked him off, Master.”
“Look at me.”
I lifted my gaze, realizing after the fact that I’d been staring at his shoes. “I’m sorry, Master.”
“Do not lower your eyes again.” He took a step closer. “Did his cock fill your hand the way mine does? Did you want to take him in your mouth?”
His caustic tone made me nauseous—so fucking sick to my stomach that I couldn’t speak.
“Answer me!”
“I don’t know! I don’t know what I was thinking.” I held my chest, as if to keep my heart from spilling to the ground. “Whip me, Master. I’m begging you.”
He kicked the bullwhip out of reach. “I’m not taking this away for you. You did it, now you get to deal with the consequences.”
I bent at the waist, nearly falling sideways. I’d never regretted something so much in my life. If I could take it back…
But would I? Knowing that I might never see Ian again? Never touch him or hear his voice?
He was dying.
But the reasons didn’t matter to Gage. There were no ands, ifs, or buts with him. Only obedience and my unconditional loyalty.
“Please, Gage. I need you so much right now.” I was a selfish bitch for needing him to comfort me in my time of grief when I’d broken his heart.
“Don’t move,” he said through clenched teeth. “When I get back, your knees better be redder than your damn cheeks.”
“Where are you going?” I crawled after him, reaching with desperate fingers, hysteria rising and careening through me, pushing me to the edge of deranged.
“I said don’t move!” His contempt rained down on me as I kneeled at his feet.
“Yes, Master,” I choked out, closing my eyes and letting my tears burn my face.
I listened to his unsteady breathing, his fight to hold it together. “I love you so damn much, Kayla.” A pause…a beat of irreparable damage passing us by. “But right now I need to clear my fucking head.”
My eyes flew open, and through my misery, I watched him climb the stairs. His feet raged war with each stomp. He wrenched the door open, and an instant later the light went out. A ricocheting bang signaled his exit. My stomach heaved and erupted, and I spewed my fear all over the floor.
The interesting thing about darkness was how it amplified everything—silence, the pungent smell of puke, even the unfaithful heart beating a furious tempo behind my breastbone. I pushed to my knees and clasped my hands at my back.
And I waited.