Chapter 21
Eve didn’t have school on Monday, so I got a break from the cage. While Gage worked in his office, I spent most of the day playing with her. We battled each other in the game of Life, made up our own rules for Monopoly, and played Go Fish for hours.
It was freeing to have so much time to myself.
A whole day with my daughter. A whole day of not having to set foot inside that cage.
Things were looking up. Gage hadn’t sent me to the basement since he’d allowed me back into our bed, and he’d held me every single night, though he still refused to make love to me.
He wouldn’t even fuck me, nor did he use my mouth for his pleasure.
I’d heard him groaning his release in the shower over the weekend, more than once, finding satisfaction by his own hand.
I wasn’t worthy enough for him to fuck, and that stung.
The spooning at night, however…that I couldn’t complain about.
It was all he could offer me now, and I’d eat it up like a starved animal.
But Tuesdays came around like they always did.
I’d never despised a Tuesday with such intensity, but with Eve back in school, Gage didn’t hesitate in returning me to the cage.
As he held the gag in front of my lips, I thanked him for his discipline and accepted the rubber ball.
I behaved like a model prisoner for fear that he’d send me back to the basement if I lost my shit again.
The days came and went, most of them spent within the confines of those bars.
My bars of shame. My bars of penance. In the back of my mind, I knew to be grateful for each day in that contraption because it meant Ian was still fighting.
The day when the cage became no more…I couldn’t allow my thoughts to go there.
But two months, three weeks, and five days later, that day crashed through my world like a wrecking ball.
“Why are you taking me down here?” I asked as Gage ushered me through the door of the basement.
“Your time in the cage is over.”
I froze on the bottom step, my heart in my throat. Looking over my shoulder, I opened my mouth to ask the one thing he wouldn’t want to hear.
“Don’t even think about it, Kayla. It doesn’t matter if he lived or died. All you need to know is that you’re free of your prison now.”
“Master, I’m beggin—”
“I suggest you don’t, unless you’d like an additional two months in that prison.”
I clamped my mouth shut, shaking my head, but in the back of my mind, resolve formed. Some way, some how, I’d learn of Ian’s fate.
“Let’s get on with this,” Gage said, pulling me back to the current moment.
“Get on with what?”
“The last phase of your punishment.” He grabbed my arm and led me into the middle of the basement. I expected him to order me to strip. Instead, he pulled me into his arms. “We need to be able to trust each other. That’s going to take some time.”
“I know,” I whispered, my face hidden in the fabric of his shirt. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing away the burn in them.
“I’m going to make love to you for hours.”
I held onto him with more strength, unashamed of the moan that rumbled from my throat. His words hit me right between the thighs. His erection grew, pressing against my stomach, and his chest rose and fell too quickly.
“It’s been too fucking long, baby. Punishing you was torture.”
“I’ve missed you so much.”
“Me too,” he said, nuzzling the crown of my head. He held on for a few seconds longer before letting go. “Strip.”
Anxiety stormed through my veins as I removed the T-shirt and sleep shorts I’d worn that morning while seeing Eve off to school. As I stood motionless, my skin erupting in goose bumps while my nipples puckered, he sorted through his toys.
“Get into position at the cross,” he said, his back to me.
The air in the basement seemed chillier than usual. Or maybe the tremor in my limbs stemmed from fear because I had no idea what he had in store for me.
The last phase of my punishment…that could mean anything.
I moved the few feet to the St. Andrew’s cross and aligned my body with it. He joined me, holding the cuffs that would hold me at his mercy, along with the gag that would silence my ability to beg for any.
But I was eager to end this torturous sentence. Frantic to have my husband back. My grief over Ian’s illness had caused me to stumble, but Gage had scraped it out with his psychological confines. Now I brimmed with his will.
A small piece of my heart still hurt when I thought of Ian, but my husband, my Master had crashed through any remaining barriers by locking me inside that cage.
He’d conditioned me back to a state of total obedience.
I didn’t put up a smidgen of fight when he anchored me to the cross.
Didn’t protest when he pushed the gag into my mouth.
He stepped back and perused his possession, and as his gaze wandered over my exposed and vulnerable body, something dark flashed in his eyes.
I didn’t like that look. That indigo glint was an omen of bad things to come.
He reached into his pocket and drew out his cell, brought it to his ear with calculation. “You can come down now.”
Silence screamed between us as the minutes ticked by. He said nothing, and I couldn’t say anything. Then the door at the top of the stairs creaked open, and time seemed to screech to a violent halt as Katherine descended, tainting our space with her rancid presence.
Reality was a fragile thing, too easily shattered by the figments of our imaginations. Because what I was seeing couldn’t be real. No way was Katherine standing beside Gage while I was naked and chained to the cross.
The old Gage would have done something this wicked—this fucked-up and wrong—but not the Gage I’d married. His brutal side had owned my punishment, but we’d moved past Katherine.
Hadn’t we?
So why the hell was she standing there, her mouth curled in a triumphant smirk?
Memories of the last time the three of us had occupied this room blew through my head like a category five hurricane. Ian and Katherine on the couch. Gage forcing me over the bed and fucking me hard so he could torture his brother. So he could exact revenge.
Was this his grand finale of revenge on me? Was he going to make me watch him fuck Katherine, bent over the bed, slamming into her with the force of his anger? I almost retched at the thought, and only the knowledge that I’d choke on my vomit held it at bay.
The severity of his mouth scared the hell out of me. I could tolerate him fucking me in front of her, using my body for his sadistic pleasure. I could even tolerate him subjecting me to degradation.
I could not handle watching him touch that bitch.
God, had he experienced this same all-consuming jealousy at the thought of me with Ian? Roiling and ravishing the spirit like a monstrous storm? No wonder he’d locked me in a cage.
He pulled his shirt over his head, and my thought processes crashed into a cement wall. His shirt lay discarded on the floor at his feet.
Pound, pound, pound.
My heart became its own entity behind my ribcage, taking on a rhythm of unnatural origin. No one’s heart should beat this hard and fast—not without sending them into cardiac arrest.
He turned to Katherine. “On your knees,” he said, setting his hands on her shoulders and applying pressure until she kneeled before him.
“Unbutton my pants.”
Undiluted rage coursed through me. I lurched forward, wrenching my wrists as far as the restraints allowed. She brought her fingers to his pants and followed his command.
“Unzip me.”
Ziiiip.
She curled her fingers at the waistband of his boxer briefs, ready to expose his hard-on, but he batted her hands away.
“I didn’t say you could touch me. Hands at your back.
” He cast a meaningful look in my direction, one Katherine didn’t miss, and it became clear that this had nothing to do with her.
This was all about me.
He pulled his cock out and aimed the tip at her willing mouth. “Do you want to suck me off?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, Mr. Channing.”
“Do you want me to fuck you?”
“Please, Mr. Channing.”
He leaned forward and almost brushed her lips with his cock, but his words were for me. “Capture this picture, Kayla. Keep it at the forefront of your mind. If you ever touch another man again, I’ll not only fuck her, but I’ll do it in front of you.”
Katherine studied him, a brewing storm shadowing her features as realization dawned. But he was too busy watching for my reaction to notice. Too busy shooting a promise of dark truth from his eyes.
“I’ll fuck her for hours. She’ll take my cock in her cunt, in her ass, in her damn mouth. I’ll make her scream my name for as long as it takes until the thought of looking at another man makes you sick.”
I detected no bullshit in his tone. No bluffing. The warning was real. Set in stone. He’d laid down the law. For the rest of my life, if I stepped out of line again, he held the power to hit me where it would hurt the most…just like I’d hit his bullseye.
Silence descended upon the three of us. Gage drew in a breath as he zipped his pants.
“You’re free to go,” he told Katherine.
“But—”
“That will be all. You know where the door is.”
Hell, if that bitch didn’t look disappointed as she left us alone in the basement.