Page 25 of Jack Rabbit (Dark Trails #1)

25

ADAIR

I hadn’t noticed the eye bolts tucked along the back side of the living room ceiling beams, but they’re definitely there, because five minutes later, I’m naked, my wrists bound together and above my head, attached to a heavy chain Jack hopped onto a chair to clip to the bolt.

He stalks up to me. He’s shirtless now, just wearing the jeans he put on after he changed out of his work uniform, hair pulled back into a ponytail. Everything about him smolders. I’m torn between looking into his dark eyes or looking down at the implements in his hands: Something flat and black, along with a long whip coiled like a snake.

I swallow hard. He puts a finger under my chin and tips my face up without any gentleness. “I know you crave pain. I know you need it. I can’t break you of that and I wouldn’t want to. That is who you are. But I’m going to break you of me , because I’m no good for you. Before this night is over, you’re going to understand why.” He pauses. “And you’re going to stay the fuck away from me from now on.”

“Yeah, OK.” I nod.

He spins me around and lays into my ass with the palm of his hand. I suck in a gasp of air and Jack pauses.

“You remember your safeword?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Tell me.”

“Maple.”

“You call it, the scene stops immediately.”

“OK, uh, thanks, I guess.”

“Shut the fuck up, you dumb bunny,” he mutters as he lays a second smack to the other side of my ass.

He uses his hand until I’m whining before he switches to the paddle. When he does, he grabs me by the hair. “Shut up and save your crying for when you’ll really need it,” he snarls, twisting his hand in my hair hard enough that my whole body shakes with the effort of holding in my next scream as tears stream down my face.

The paddle feels a lot like his belt. I try to count in my head but I lose track, and I’m sobbing before long, pulling in long, keening gasps and wailing with each exhale.

Jack grabs me, his eyes bright with a sort of gleeful ferocity. “Had enough yet?”

“No, please — please break me.”

He takes a couple more swings with the paddle and then walks around me. I blink through my tears to see him pick up the coiled snake, and a spike of fear adds to the haze of pain running through me. He abruptly kicks my legs apart. As I try to regain my balance, he gives each of my ass cheeks a single crack.

Jack clucks his tongue and shakes his head while I gasp, open-mouthed, my lungs desperate for air as I scream out all the breath in me, writhing and twisting on the chain as if my body could wiggle away from the pain radiating through it.

“I warned you, Bunny. I told you I was going to break you.” When he switches positions, I cringe and try to back away as best I can, trapped by the chain suspending me. He narrows his eyes and taps a finger to his lips. “You sure you still want it?”

“Please, please —” I’m trying to beg but the words feel blurry in my mouth all of a sudden. I break out into a sweat. The air in the room seems too thin, too insubstantial to fill my lungs as I gasp.

Abruptly, I feel Jack loosening my restraints and lowering my arms. I try telling him I’m fine and that I didn’t safeword, but he ignores me, sitting me down on a blanket on the sofa and sort of holding me up as he unfastens the restraints on my wrists and wraps a second blanket around me.

“Why didn’t you safeword?” he demands.

I don’t understand why it matters. I didn’t tap out, but he stopped anyway, and now I feel both pathetic and dumb as shit. I choke back a sob, but there’s another one right behind it so I just give up. I hang my head, feeling like an idiot for crying when he’s not even working me over anymore.

“Why didn’t you safeword?” he asks me again.

I’m too wrung out to give him anything but the truth. “You said you didn’t want to do this anymore. I didn’t know if I’d be able to talk you into it again.” I have to stop to take a few gulps of air, but Jack doesn’t snap at me to hurry up or berate me.

“I can’t help it. I should’ve known better. I guess I’m just a dumb bunny like you always say because I wound up falling for you. I knew tonight would probably be the last time I’d ever have with you. I didn’t want it to end. Even if it was just you hurting me.”

Jack looks strangely upset. When he runs roughened fingertips softly down my tear-stained cheek, the unexpectedly gentle touch makes me shudder. “Oh God, please don’t,” I mumble, my voice raspy from screaming.

“Don’t what?”

Jack is nearly nose-to-nose with me. There’s a pensive, almost sorrowful look in his eyes I’ve never seen before. His voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it, frighteningly close to kind. I’m shaking like I’m cold and my tongue feels thick in my mouth as I mumble my answer to him.

“Don’t start being nice to me now. I don’t want to know that you always had a soft side and just never let me see it.”

He looks like I slapped him, his eyes widening as he inhales sharply. I don’t care. I have to get this thought out of my system.

“If I leave here just thinking you’re a dick through and through, that’s one thing. I’ll get over you. But knowing you could have been kind and just never were — that’s gonna make it a lot harder.”

I feel myself shaking even though I don’t feel cold. Jack brings his face close to mine. I flinch when he brushes my cheek with his fingers again.

“Don’t worry. I’ll always put you back together after I break you,” he murmurs. He’s close enough that I can feel the breath of his words, and his eyes are glowing with an unfamiliar warmth.

“If I didn’t, how could I break you again the next time? I just want to keep shattering you into pieces, over and over and over.” I’m too stunned to react when he tips his face up and presses his lips to my forehead. “I’ll put you back together every time, Bunny. I promise,” he says against my skin.

I take a long, shuddering breath as I close my eyes. This can’t be real, but right now I’m suddenly so tired I can’t even think.