Chapter 24 #2
I watch as he processes the fact that his wife isn’t a victim but a willing participant in his torture. His face contorts with the information and lands on a vicious sneer that’ll be burned into my mind for the rest of time. But I keep calm and follow Levi’s instructions.
“Could you undo his pants for me, sweetheart? Pull them and his underwear down to his ankles. He won’t be needing them. In fact, I’d guess he’s about to piss them, so you’d be helping him avoid the embarrassment,” Levi explains.
Even as he speaks to me in a tone laced with sweetness, he looks up at Corey, their eyes meeting as Levi gives him the most diabolical look I’ve ever seen cross a man’s face.
I almost, almost, feel sorry for Corey. For all of nearly half a second before flashbacks of how he treated me in the past come flooding back.
The punishing blows across my cheekbones for daring to ask to leave the house.
The back of my head tearing through the stucco as he launched me across the hall for forgetting my place at a dinner with his men.
The bloody lip and black eye from him ruthlessly backhanding me for telling him no when he tried to crawl into bed with me.
Independence was a cardinal sin in his world.
One that always deserved corporal punishment.
The memories keep my fingers working his button and zipper open even as he viciously orders me to stop, cursing the day he met me.
They keep me going even as the orders turn to pleading, and he begs me to have mercy when I start to pull the fabric down.
His dick springs free from his boxers out of the corner of my eye, and it garners another round of low chuckles from Levi.
Corey’s face blanches in the wake of it.
“Which part’s got your dick at attention? The part where I fuck your wife or the part where she humiliates you in front of another man?” A low whistle comes next. “Or is it both? Fuck, I bet it’s both.”
“I will fucking kill you.” Corey swings his weight forward, and his dick pokes me in the chest as his body contacts mine. I grab it, squeezing tight, letting my nails dig into his skin and draw blood.
“You won’t touch him, you witless little dipstick,” I snipe at him.
“You fucking bitch!” He lashes out at me, his eyes wide with horror at the idea I might actually be siding with this man. They go wider still when Levi presses a blade to the base of his dick.
“Say it again,” Levi threatens. “Call her a name one more fucking time.”
Corey’s teeth grind together as he glares at Levi, but he stays silent.
I have no doubt Levi will make good on the threat, and Corey must finally believe him too.
After a long minute, Levi retracts the blade and looks at me, a softness returning to his face.
His eyes search over me as if he’s trying to make sure I’m visibly unscathed.
I offer him the briefest half smile to reassure him, and he nods.
“Good girl,” he praises before he offers up his next instruction. “Go back and wait for me at the stand.”
And God help me because I do exactly as the man asks. The priestly version would probably tell me to add rosaries to the count if he knew my thoughts. Hell, I think I need to tell myself to add them, given the situation we’re in. Even my darkest dreams didn’t touch it.
“Now, I want you to tell me where the governor is keeping the other relics,” Levi says casually as he runs his fingers over the implements in the kit that’s sprawled out in front of him on the table.
He looks like he does in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, surveying the drawer for whatever tool he needs next.
“Do I look fucking stupid? I give you that, and he’ll kill me.” Corey’s sardonic tone grates on Levi, and his eyes narrow as he looks him over.
“Well then, you’re in a bit of sticky fucking situation because if you don’t tell me, I’ll fuck your wife while you watch, and then once I’ve made her come a few times, and I’ve got my energy back, I’ll start dismantling your limbs piece by piece until you start saying words I want to hear.”
“You wouldn’t fucking dare. You do that, and he’ll have every head in your family.”
“He tried that once. Didn’t work out for him.”
“You don’t have the fucking men. The gear. The fucking guts to take him on.” Corey shakes his head.
“Watch me.”
“I’m not fucking telling you shit. Anything you could do, he would be worse. No fucking way.” He spits at Levi’s feet, nailing the tip of his cowboy boot. Levi looks down, grinning like it’s the funniest thing he’s seen all day, before his eyes meet Corey’s again.
“Is that a challenge?” Levi looks up bright-eyed at him, like he’s just gotten the little push he needed to set the ball in motion. Levi pulls out a device and holds it up for Corey to see. “You know what this is, or are you too much of a city boy for that?”
“No fucking idea,” Corey sneers at him.
“Ah well. This is an elastrator. You put this band here…” Levi grabs something out of the kit in front of him and attaches it to the device in his hand, admiring his handiwork for a moment.
“Then you just slide it under here.” He moves the device underneath Corey’s scrotum, working it back and forth until the band he attached snaps tight around the narrower stretch of skin at the top.
Corey howls at first, so high-pitched that I wonder if he’s scared the bats out of the rafters when a spray of dust rains down.
He bellows out in pain as Levi pulls the device away from him, leaving the band in place, and tosses it back into the kit.
I watch as his face goes beet red and tears stream down his cheeks, fat ones that roll slowly and remind me of the kind he made me cry in the past. The ones he told me were obnoxious and beneath me, reminding him of a pathetic little child.
“And that right there lets you castrate a bull. Slowly but surely, if you leave it on like that, it starts to constrict the blood vessels until they wither and the whole fucking thing sloughs off. Keeps the weak bulls from breeding.” Levi continues his explanation.
“You’ll know when it starts to work its magic.
The pain will ease up, and everything will start to go numb down there from the lack of blood.
Then again, if you take it off soon enough, everything can still be in functioning—if not a little painful—order.
So the clock’s on, Corey. You let me know when you’re ready.
” Levi slaps the side of his leg hard enough that it jostles him and makes him whimper.
“I’ve got better things to do while I wait. ”
Levi crosses the room after he tosses his gloves to the table, his boots hitting the floor one slow step at a time in my direction.
It feels like slow motion, like all of this is a dream I’ve invented in my imagination.
The other side of the coin from the priest I met at the convent.
I have no idea what he really intends to do.
He told me to trust him, and so far, I have no reason to stop.
He leans down when he reaches me, his cowboy hat shielding my face from the view of Corey.
“You good?” he asks, raising a brow that tells me he wants an honest answer.
“I’m good.” I do my best to show him, without words, that I can handle this.
I might have spent the last handful of years sheltered away, but I can hold my own with men like him and Corey. I’m not a flower that’s about to wilt.
“Good,” he echoes.
His fingers trace down the back of my neck, following my spine.
It sends shivers through my whole body, highlighting the contrast of the way he exacts the worst kind of violence on my husband and then treats me like I’m priceless vintage glass.
His hand follows the curve of my ass, and he gives the other cheek a soft squeeze and a swift pat like he’s telling me I’ve done a good job so far.
It’s another jolt of awareness, a reminder of exactly how long it’s been since a man has really touched me.
He lifts my dress again, pulling it up higher this time and running his palm in small circles.
It’s like he can read my mind. I glance up at Corey.
He’s writhing against the restraints, willing his toes to reach the ground to gain some sort of leverage and failing.
His dick hangs limply, swinging left to right as he attempts to move.
He looks pathetic, but not enough for me to feel sorry for him.
Not when I remember how hard I tried to make him happy despite everything, when I held out hope in the beginning.
Wishing there was some way to make our marriage bearable and then crying myself to sleep night after night.
I’m just hoping Levi doesn’t cut the band and give him a chance to make another woman as miserable as he made me.
“You’re doing good,” Levi whispers more words of reassurance to me as he comes around and crouches down in front of me.
I use the back of my knuckle to touch his as he reaches out.
He wraps his middle finger around mine, giving me a squeeze of reassurance, and his eyes say everything he can’t right now.
That I’m strong and capable. That I’m brave.
That he’s proud of me. It’s enough to steel my spine and remind me of my worth.
I blink slowly in recognition, and he nods before he forges on with taunting Corey.
“Fucking hell.” He paces slowly back, his fingers trailing over my spine and down my ass as he walks. “You should see how much this is turning her on. Soaked her panties all the way through already,” Levi explains loudly for Corey’s benefit as his hand slides back down my thigh.
Corey’s eyes fall to me, the disgust at my disloyalty on his face apparent. It doesn’t feel like betrayal though. It feels like justice—just like Levi promised it would. “You want to start talking about the relics, or you want me to see how much wetter I can get her with my dick?”