Rampant (9 page)

Two things beckoned me: a bottle of vodka I’d found stashed away in the back of a cupboard, and the smoking gun in the cellar—the cage. Landing on the bottom step, I glanced around the empty living room.

Jax hadn’t been back since I’d caught him with Nikki, and I hadn’t stuck around to hear their explanations.

Absently, I grabbed the stashed vodka, unscrewed the lid, and took a drink straight from the bottle. Darkness blanketed the cabin, as not a single bulb highlighted the shadows. I didn’t feel inclined to turn on a lamp. The darkness called to me, the unassuming companionship it offered. Quiet solitude didn’t pester me about my state of mind like my brother’s phone calls did. It didn’t ask if I remembered anything. But it also didn’t tell me shit. That damn cage in the cellar might, if I could only force my brain to cooperate.

I swayed for an instant and did a double take at the bottle. Who knew vodka could go down so well. As I stumbled a path to the cellar door, I kicked myself for turning to alcohol. Booze only numbed the problem temporarily, and it turned smart people into fucked up stupid people. I pulled the door open and took an unsteady jaunt down the stairs, then came to a stop in front of the evidence I wanted so badly to deny.

Maybe you should take a peek in the cellar.

Jax’s words from last week echoed through the space between my ears. I stared at the cage, my mind trapped inside, a prisoner to the unknown as I willed it to impart the things my brain refused to remember.

When Jax told me about my eight-year prison sentence, I’d had a difficult time believing him. When he’d told me about Alex’s accusation, that had been even harder to accept. But the bigger part of myself, the part that was still stuck in the past by eight years, was horrified by what he claimed I’d done. To Alex.

I still remembered her as this too-tempting not-so-innocent girl that liked to play with my head. Alex and her jade come-hither gaze that never failed to burrow beneath my skin like a first degree burn. Constantly flirting, teasing, driving me fucked up crazy.

It might have been nothing more than a schoolgirl’s crush, but underneath the flirting, I sensed she’d cared about me. I had no idea why. I was a ticking time bomb with too much pent up anger. Fighting was the only thing that gave me relief. If I psychoanalyzed myself long enough, I’d probably find an insecure little boy with abandonment issues. Just another statistic who’s mommy left when he was too young. And the deviant sexual appetite…well fuck, I was shot to hell once I added that into the mix. If I was this fucked up now…back then…shit this was confusing, then how badly had eight years of prison messed me up?

I glared at the cage, but it continued to engage me in a silent standoff. I lifted the vodka and took another swig. Maybe the alcohol would facilitate my traitorous psyche. Those bars would tell me the secrets they held, tell me how I could have turned into the kind of man who would kidnap a woman and lock her inside.

Not just any woman. Alex…who still hadn’t emerged. If I’d let her go, as Jax speculated, then where was she? Had I tortured her so badly that she’d put a bullet in me and left me for dead? Was she hiding somewhere, terrified I’d find her and bring her back to the island?

And finally, it clicked. The island, water…fuck. I really had tormented her.

“Tell me why I did it,” I said, raising a hand menacingly, finger pointing in accusation at the prison. I tipped the bottle back and chugged. Jax said I’d wanted revenge. I didn’t buy it. If I’d truly wanted retribution or comeuppance, there were other ways. I could have dug until I proved my innocence. I could have unleashed public humiliation on her.

Or maybe I’d been guilty all along.

I might not remember taking and locking her inside that homemade prison, but deep down I knew why I’d done it. I’d taken her because I’d wanted to. My hand fell, no longer accusing metal and concrete of unspoken sins, and drifted to the front of my tented boxers.

Closing my eyes, I imagined her helpless behind those bars, her arms pulled above her head tightly, painfully, feet arching as she tried to balance on her toes. Creamy, round breasts, perfect nipples erect, waiting to be punished. Her mouth spread wide with a gag, and my belt secure around her throat. Tight and inescapable.

Her body, her will, her freedom, trapped to my every whim.

I’d force her legs apart, rub my cock between them, taunting, taking power and leaving her with none, all the while pulling her head back by the strap of leather imprisoning her delicate neck.

With a groan, I freed my dick and slid a palm over the wet tip before closing frantic fingers around the base. I tightened my hold, pretended her fingers stroked me. More pre-cum escaped, and I swiped my thumb over the soft head, envisioning Alex on her knees, lips surrendering to my cock, her tongue lapping while her small hands encased my shaft in warm ecstasy as she sucked and bobbed. Shit, what I wouldn’t give to yank at her curls right now.

“Fuuuuck…Alex…”

I shot my load all over the ground, wishing like hell my dick was shoved down her throat for real. After my breathing settled and I’d adjusted my boxers, I returned to the bottle of vodka. A few long swigs later, I eyed the mind-numbing liquid with narrowed eyes. I didn’t know what prompted me to launch it across the room. Maybe the crushing shame of my fantasy and the equally shameful desire of wishing it was real.

The vodka collided with several wine bottles on the rack, and the shattering glass echoed in my ears with a haunting omen. For a split second, I saw an older version of Alex, naked, body shaking as she aimed the jagged edge of a broken bottleneck at me. The flash left just as suddenly, and I wished I had something else to throw. I fell into the wall, eyes squeezed shut as my fist pounded concrete. Why couldn’t I remember? Some part of me was desperate to remember, as if my life depended on it.

“Remember anything?”

I jumped at the sound of his voice. Squinting through my drunkenness and the shadowed space, I saw Jax leaning against the wall near the stairs, stocky figure hidden in darkness.

I let my hands fall to my sides. “How long have you been standing there?”

He pulled a cigarette from behind his ear and stuck it between his lips. A second later, a lighter sparked. “Long enough,” he mumbled around the butt. He took a drag then exhaled with the ease of a practiced smoker. “Thought I’d come back for some stuff, but I heard a noise down here.”

“I didn’t know you smoked.”

“I quit months ago. Guess I’m taking up the habit again.” He lifted a finger toward me. “Guess you are too.”

“Whaddya mean?” I glanced toward the broken glass. The heavy scent of tobacco mingled with the vodka tainting my floor. “Did I hit the bottle a lot?
Do
I drink a lot?” I found that hard to believe. I never drank, as alcohol interfered with training. Except I wasn’t training anymore and I’d just finished off a good portion like it was nothing.

“No, beyond the occasional beer or two, you’re not a drinker.” His lips curled. “I was referring to your private moment with the ole Alex De Luca fantasy.”

I rubbed both hands down my face. “What am I doing?”

“Hopefully remembering something.”

“Not even close.” My attention swerved to the broken glass again. “Except…”

He stood up straighter. “What is it?”

“A flash of something…no. Never mind. It’s nothing.”

“Spit it out, Mason.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. I saw Alex threatening me with a wine bottle, and she was”—I summoned the image, and my fucking cock came to life again—“naked.”

Jax laughed, an unexpected reaction. “I’d say that’s a memory. You didn’t let that piece of ass wear a thing up until the day you decided to let her go.”

“Did I fuck her?” As soon as the words tumbled from my mouth, I wanted to yank them back.

Jax lifted an incredulous brow, and the wicked grin that spread across his face sent a gob of dread to my gut. “Damn right you fucked her.” He pointed upward. “You fucked her right on the kitchen table while I watched. That was after you paddled her ass for trying to escape.”

I gaped at him, shaking my head. “I can’t believe I did that.” I lowered to the floor and parked my ass on the cold cement.

“You did that and a lot more.” He wandered to where I sat and took the space next to me. “Are we gonna talk about Nikki?”

“You mean are you gonna tell me why you’re sneaking around with her?”

He took one last drag of his smoke before grounding it into the concrete. “It just happened.”

“I didn’t figure you for the cliché type.”

“Look,” he said with a sigh, “I know she used to be your girl, but not long ago, Alex was your girl.”

“No, Alex was my prisoner.” My attention stalled on the cage, eyes narrowed. “You and Nik…that just doesn’t make sense. You can’t stand to be touched, for one.”

“What’d you say?”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“No, the last part.”

I turned back to him, head tilted. “You can’t stand to be touched?” The words hung between us, but Jax didn’t say anything. I opened my mouth, my mind struggling to comprehend what I’d just said. “How do I know that?”

“You tell me.”

“I don’t know, I just…do.”

“Anything else you suddenly just know?”

I reached inward, poking at the blank spots in my past, and came up empty. “I guess not.”

“It’ll come back. Maybe you’re trying too hard.”

“Maybe.” I dangled my hands between my bent knees. “Do you care about her?”

Slowly, he nodded. “Yeah, I do. She’s the first person since…”

“Since what?” I asked, not about to let him toss out that tidbit of information just to pull it back.

“Since I had to let go of someone else.”

“What happened?” I probably already knew the details, somewhere in the locked area of my brain.

Jax returned my gaze, and something about the intense longing there made me shiver. I missed the warmth of my buzz. The booze still corrupted my veins, but the shield of not-giving-a-fuck was long gone.

“Wasn’t meant to be,” he said. “I’ve accepted it.”

“And you think sneaking around with Nikki is smart? She’s engaged.” Fucking hypocrite. Hadn’t I stuck my tongue down her throat a few days ago? If not for the unnerving sense that being with her was wrong, I would have done a lot more than that.

Jax’s mouth formed an angry line. “Lyle Lewis is scum. All the shit-talk he’s done about you. He had half the town believing you were involved in Alex’s death.”

“From what you told me, I
was
involved in her ‘death.’” I added air quotes on the last word.

Jax waved off my logic. “Yeah, but he didn’t know shit, Rafe. We covered our tracks. He wasn’t pointing the finger at you because he thought you were guilty. He used what happened to tear what little reputation you had left to shreds. He was trying to run you out of town.”

“Why would he do that? It’s not like I’m causing him any problems living here on the island.”

“You’re a threat to him.”

“Because of
Nikki
?”

Jax raised a brow.

I shook my head, laughing. “Yet you’re the one seeing her. How fucking ironic is that?”

Jax wasn’t laughing. “Does it bother you?” He shifted, hunching over his knees, and tilted his head. “Because if it does, I won’t see her again.”

“But you’re in to her.”

He smiled, the first genuine, care-free grin I’d seen him wear. “I still can’t handle her touch, but yeah. I like her. Fucking crazy that she seems to feel the same way.” The smile bled from his face, and he pierced me with his deep stare. “But I’m not burying my head in the sand. She’ll run if you snap your fingers. I know it, and Lyle knows it.”

“His ring is on her fucking finger, so maybe he should get over it.”

Jax sighed. “I have no idea why she’s wearing that asshole’s ring. I doubt we know the whole story. She talks about the jerk like she’s scared of him.”

That made me sit up straighter. “You think he’s hurting her?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head, gaze on the ground between his feet. “How did everything go to hell so fast?”

“Fuck if I know,” I said, glancing at the broken glass on my floor. “But I can’t sit around and do nothing.” Missing so many years was dangerous. Even though we sat in a cellar full of incriminating evidence, talking about women and the screwed up shit we’d done together, Jax still felt like a stranger to me.

And Alex…

Her disappearance wasn’t going away on its own. “I have to find out what happened to her, Jax. Maybe I should talk to Abbott.”

“Are you insane? You were convicted of raping his daughter. You can’t just knock on his door and say, ‘Hey, how’s it going? By the way, have you seen your dead daughter lately?’”

“No shit.” With a sigh, I sank both hands into my hair and pulled. “But I’ve gotta do something. I’m responsible for her.”

“No,” Jax said. “I’ll do something. I’ve already been looking into it. You stay away from this.”

I studied his profile. Shaggy blond hair brushed his brows, and the scruff on his face, combined with a crooked nose, gave him an unkempt look. He managed to pull it off. How could I have shared a cell with this guy and not remember him? “You’d do that for me?”

He swept his hair back from his eyes. “I’d be dead if it weren’t for you. I’ll always have your back.”