Rampant (18 page)

We probably should have gone to Portland, but Portland was where my brother was…unless he was here in Dante’s Pass, stalking me. I pictured him camped out somewhere near the island where he could watch the cabin with his relentless hazel gaze, noting when the lights shut off every night.

I cranked my head and peeked through the windows in the living room with single-minded focus, wondering if he was ogling me now through a pair of binoculars.

Fucking paranoid, Alex.

Zach would have to be high up in the hills on the other side of the river to even spot the cabin, much less see inside it.

“What’s on your mind?” Rafe spooned me, one hand smoothing over my stomach underneath the T-shirt I wore, as if he could wipe away Zach’s carving with his touch. The TV cast a dim glow in the room, though the volume had been turned so low, I strained to catch the real life horrors broadcasting through the screen. We’d been cuddling like this on the couch for the past hour after dinner.

Rafe wouldn’t kiss me, and he never touched me like he used to—with demanding hands that didn’t seek permission, with fiery passion that scorched me. I craved that side of him like a starved junkie, but I didn’t know how to tell him, and he didn’t remember the days we’d spent together, so I settled for what I could get. Stolen hours with him on the sofa each night before we went our separate ways to sleep. He cooked for me, worried about me, but always kept a distance that seemed insurmountable.

“You keep looking out the windows,” he said at my continued silence. “Wanna talk about it?”

“I’m worried he’s watching.”

“He can’t see in here, Alex.”

“Logically, I know that.” I untangled from his arms and walked right up to the glass. Peering into the blackness, I willed my heartbeat to slow. He
wasn’t
out there. If I kept telling myself that, maybe I’d believe it. “You think the police are looking for him?” I asked.

“Yeah. I called the detective in Portland today.” His footsteps vibrated the hardwood beneath my bare feet, and his body warmed my back. “They’re on it, Alex. Lyle might be an ass wipe, but he did his job.”

“Do you think Zach got spooked? Maybe that’s why he hasn’t shown up.” I was scared to hope for it.

“Or maybe he knows better. I won’t let him hurt you again.”

I turned around. “Have you remembered anything yet?”

“No.” He settled his hands on my shoulders, dipped his head, and his lips lingered near mine. “Nothing’s coming back.”

“You’re so different this way,” I whispered. He was more like…the guy I remembered from eight years ago.

“Am I really?” He pulled away. “Because when I think of you down in that cellar, I’m ashamed of myself.”

The memory of that place called, like a siren’s seductive song. Did he feel it too? The allure of the cellar had been silently summoning me since I’d first arrived on the island. So far, I’d been too much of a wuss to go down there, to soak up the place where Rafe first showed me his darkness…the place where he helped me embrace mine. Our twisted romance began down there.

A shiver went through me. On one hand, I’d been through hell in that dank, cold space, but on the other, experiencing his touch for the first time as a woman had been intoxicating.

“You’ve thought of me down there?”

“I’ve tried to remember,” he said, though he avoided my eyes.

The uncertainty in his mannerisms unnerved me. He seemed so lost, as if a huge part of him had gone missing, and in a way it had. “Do you want to remember?”

“Of course I want to remember.” He rubbed a hand down his face, but he didn’t wipe the fear from his expression. His mask had cracked, leaving behind a fissure where the broken man peeked through.

I tugged on his hand, impulse driving me. “Come down there with me.”

His feet didn’t budge. “Absolutely not.”

God, he looked terrified. We both had demons to face in that cellar. Slowly, I slid my fingers from his. “Fine. I’ll go down by myself, and I’ll wait for you as long as it takes.”

“Alex—”

The loud thud of my steps on hardwood drowned out the rest of his words. I yanked the door open, entered the dark space, and jumped when it slammed shut behind me. I felt along the concrete, heart pounding, and searched for the light switch in the blackness. My palm brushed it, and a moment later dim light flooded the room. With a sigh of relief, I descended the stairs. The cold penetrated first, then the scent of dirt, musty dampness, and concrete—a combination my mind equated with captivity. Instinct alone made me wander to the cage.

Everything crashed back with the strength of a tsunami. Naked, cowering in the corner, trembling from the cold, terrified because I hadn’t known what Rafe was capable of. I folded my arms around myself, as if to ward off the memories and the chill in the air.

But I was safe. On the most fundamental level, my body knew that. It also responded in a way that used to make me loathe myself.

Not anymore. Not when it came to Rafe.

My gaze zeroed in on the cuffs dangling from the ceiling and warmth flooded between my thighs. He’d left the door to the prison open. I entered, this time of my own free will, and stripped the clothes from my body. Goose bumps broke out on my flesh, and my nipples tightened into aching buds. I lifted my head and eyed the cuffs again, noting how he’d left them unlocked. They spoke to me, whispering to slip my wrists inside and close the metal on my free will.

He’d probably think I was insane, and maybe I was, but something told me this would bring him back to me. I stood on tiptoes and worked one wrist into the circular restraint. The lock clicked in place, making my pulse speed up. After some maneuvering, I managed to secure my other wrist too.

There was no going back. I’d effectively trapped myself, leaving the decision of freeing me up to him. Suddenly, my stomach dropped. What if he didn’t remember where he kept the key? I didn’t have time to agonize over that too-late realization. The door creaked open and his footfalls announced his arrival. The instant he saw me, he froze.

I hung before him, naked, exposed, wrists bound as effectively as my heart was to him.

“Please tell me you know where the key is?”

“If I had to guess,” he said, taking a step closer, “it’s on my keyring.” He gestured toward me. “Why are you doing this?”

“You know all my secrets, all my shame.” I glanced at the cement floor, remembering how I’d awakened, naked and cold, with my hands restrained to the bars. “This is where you first brought me. You wanted to make me suffer the way you did. But we shared something, Rafe, and I want that back so badly.” I shut my eyes, disturbed by the utter shock in his.

“I don’t remember.” I heard him come closer.

“I have faith you will.” A tear slipped from beneath my closed lids, and the brush of his thumb caught it. I sucked in a breath. “I crave your touch so much. Please…make his disappear.”

He grazed his fingers across my breasts. “He hurt you.” His words came out strangled. He inched lower, hands drifting over the evidence of my brother’s brutality, and smoothed a palm along my stomach, where Zach had branded me with his name. “And though I don’t remember it,
I
hurt you too.”

“Rafe—”

“Look at me,” he interrupted.

I opened my eyes, and my insides melted from the heat in his. His palms cradled my cheeks with a tenderness that masked his need to conquer. He might not recognize the hunger in himself, but I did. That need colored the command in his tone, was evident in the wide stance of his feet and the bulge behind his zipper.

My heartbeat rocketed. What if he remembered and went back to hating me? “Please don’t hate—”

He silenced me with his mouth, his unyielding hands holding my head in place as his lips forced mine open, tongue thrusting in gentle possession that claimed, commanded, owned. My lids shuttered, and I lost myself to his taste. His kiss infused me with a raging, burning need. An explosion went off at my core, spreading from my belly down to my thighs, all the way to the soles of my feet. I spread them and gained better traction on the ground. Cool air drifted between my legs, where I ached for him—for his touch, for his hot mouth kissing so intimately, for the girth of his cock.

He inched away, breaths puffing across my swollen lips. “Open your eyes, sweetheart.”

My heart jumped at the endearment, and my lashes fluttered open. “You remember,” I whispered, both fear and hope warring in my soul.

“No.” His thumbs caressed my damp cheeks. “I don’t need to remember to know that I want you.” His brows narrowed, and he frowned. “It’s the way I want you that worries me.”

“Tell me.”

He hesitated. “I’ve had fantasies for a long time.” His gaze lifted to my restrained hands. “Dark fantasies I never thought I’d act on. I don’t know what I did to you, or what that place did to me, but it scares the fuck out of me.”

“You don’t have to be afraid.”

He stepped back and took in my nakedness with a single glance. “We’ve always orbited each other,” he said, pausing with a shake of his head, “but I never imagined it would lead to…this.”

“Never imagined we’d be so right for each other? Rafe, you already know how I feel about you.”

“You had a crush on me.”

“Is that how you saw me back then? Just an annoying kid?”

“At first, maybe.” His green eyes flickered to my face again. “I felt it too. I won’t deny it, but I’ve got eight years of memory missing, and you’ve been…so fucking scarred by Zach and me, I don’t understand how you’re standing on two feet right now.”

“Technically, I’m on my toes.”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “You surprise me. Your strength inspires me, Alex.”

“Don’t mistake me for being strong.” Nighttime always hit hard, when the dark wee hours of morning choked me with loneliness. The scars on my body didn’t compare to the ones no one could see, though I felt them each night, pressing on my chest until I couldn’t breathe. “I’m here in shackles because I’m
not
strong.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I need you. I’m sick with needing you.” I cursed my trembling lips. “No matter what you do, no matter what you remember or don’t, I’m yours.”

He groaned. “Even if I keep you strung up like that?”

“You’ve done it before, for hours in the dark. Naked, just like I am now.”

“Why did I do that?” he asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Punishment.”

“What the hell did you do to deserve that?”

Hurt pinged through me at the thought of him making me eat off the floor. But that happened before he’d known the truth. I regretted not telling him sooner. “I threw a tantrum.” More like a plate of food.

“A tantrum?”

“Yes.” I shifted my weight to the other foot and pulled at the restraints, though I knew I’d find no escape from the burn in my shoulders or the ache in my feet.

My restless movements caught his attention, and he adjusted his jeans. “Shit, seeing you like this…you have no idea what it’s doing to me. I might not remember, but my body does. I want to hoist those legs up and fuck you raw. My cock is insisting you’re mine.”

“Your cock is right. You should listen to it.”

He cursed under his breath. “Not tonight.” Pulling a bundle of keys from his pocket, he tried two before the lock on my left wrist unlatched.

“You don’t want me?”

“Of course I fucking want you.” He freed my other hand, and my arms dropped to my sides. He bent to gather my clothing before thrusting it all into my arms. “But not like this. Get dressed,” he said, turning his back to me.

My hands shook as I pulled the shirt over my head. Hurt welled in my throat, making my voice wobble when I spoke. “Then why are you pushing me away?”

“Are you dressed yet?”

Tugging on my pants, I shot daggers at his back. “You’ve seen it all, so why the illusion of decency now?”

He whirled around. “Because I’m not the same person from a month ago.” He grabbed the back of my head and pulled me close. “I don’t even remember that person.”

I licked my lips. A couple more inches and they’d connect with his. “He’s still inside you.”

“You want the guy who paddled your ass, is that it?”

My heartbeat skipped. “You know about that?”

“Jax told me.”

A shudder of hot desire tore through me. “Did he tell you how it turns me on?”

“Holy fuck, Alex.” He let go of me abruptly. “He failed to mention that part.”

“I’m guessing he failed to mention a lot of things.” I maneuvered around him and headed for the staircase.

“What are you doing?”

I lifted a foot onto the bottom step and glanced over my shoulder. “I’m going to bed. Don’t worry about me, I know how to use my fingers.” A thrilling sense of power stormed through me. I wasn’t used to being so bold. Part of me wanted him to reclaim his dominance, to pull me over his knee and spank the attitude from me. But I kind of liked this side of him too—a mixture of the man he used to be with the dark guy hiding just beneath the surface. “If you need help with your hard-on, you know where to find me.”

I knew I was dreaming again, but like every other time, it seemed vividly real. The gritty floor under my cheek. The rage firing through my veins at not being able to defend myself. Their hands banding around my wrists and ankles, keeping me immobile while their leader shoved his cock up my ass.