Page 18

“Then prove it.” He plucked a clothespin from my nipple, making me yelp, and used it to clamp my nostrils closed. “Suck me off under the water.”

This was the side of him that terrified me—the unchecked darkness that ruled his actions. The part of him that bulldozed over my defenses, annihilating my limits as if they never existed in the first place.

Between parted lips, I breathed fast and shallow. “I’m scared,” I said, cringing at the nasally tone of my voice due to the clothespin on my nose.

He placed a finger against my lips. “This mouth isn’t made for talking right now. It’s made for sucking. Turn around.”

I pivoted as he opened and shut a drawer, then the sensation of cool metal circled my wrists. Other means of restraints gave the illusion of the possibility for escape, but not handcuffs.

He removed the remaining makeshift clamp from my nipple, and the rush of blood radiated pain. I ground my teeth together as he switched on the faucet in the tub.

I wanted to run.

This was too much like the time on the island, when Ihadrun, but he’d forced me into the tub anyway. He’d tortured the truth out of me.

Now he was forcing me to face my fears using the same method, as if submerging me in water would wash away my lack of trust in him. Because it was there, burrowing underneath all the things I did trust him with.

My body, my well-being, my safety.

But not my heart.

I’d given it to him freely, but my nightmares proved I was scared he’d disappear with it, leaving the type of gaping hole in my soul he’d carved out the first time he left.

Not just left…pretended to be dead.

My anger over that never ceased to fester. It was a beast inside me I couldn’t dispel.

The water shut off, and Rafe dropped his shorts. “Get in. We’ll start slow, I promise.”

I lifted a leg and set one foot in the tub. Seconds ticked by as our eyes met. I found madness and lust and determination in his green orbs.

Rafe had beautiful eyes. For all the darkness that corrupted him, he was beautiful through and through. As I stepped fully into the tub, I lowered my gaze to his ink.

How many times had I traced those black tribal lines with my fingers? Explored them with nothing more than the tip of my tongue, the salt of his skin a treat on my tastebuds? And Jesus, his cock. It stood proud, the tip jutting toward me, as if already seeking the warmth of my mouth.

Rafe nodded toward the slanted end of the tub. “Lie down.”

I dipped into the warm water, and only after I reclined did I realize how vulnerable the position left me. The tub was enormous, my toes barely touching the other end, and with my hands restrained at the small of my back, mobility was limited. I squirmed, shimmied, even balanced my spine on my fists, but one wrong move would send me under the water.

He reached over the rim and filled my pussy with two thick fingers. A deep moan rumbled from my throat, ushering me into surrender as I bowed my spine.

“Don’t stop,” I whimpered.

“I’m going to fuck you with my fingers, and you’re going to stop yourself from coming. You can do that for me, right baby?”

Unable to find my voice, I nodded, though I would have agreed to anything he said in that moment. He thrust his fingers in and out several times, pushing me to the edge of orgasm.

“Oh God. I can’t!”

“Yes, you can.” His voice was calm. Assuring. As he kept up the steady cadence of his finger-fucking, I thrashed my head back and forth, breathing noisily through my mouth.

Concentrating onnotcoming.

Impossible. He was trying to kill me, and he hadn’t even shoved me under the water yet.

He reached for a bar of soap and slid it down the valley of my breasts, maddeningly slow. Next, he circled my aching nipples, leaving a trail of suds that he washed away with warm water only seconds later.

“I’m gonna come,” I panted.