Descent (Condemned Book 6) Read online

  “Look at me when I’m fucking you.” His fingers gouged my chin as he forced me to meet his eyes. “You’re not hiding from how this feels, Lex.”

  “It feels like you’re raping me!” The words launched from my tongue, rage rocketing out with unexpected power, and I spit in his face.

  I expected him to backhand me. To beat or cut me.

  I didn’t expect him to wipe the spittle off with a cruel smile. “You and I are one. Your spit doesn’t bother me.” He pushed in with a grunt. “Your body is my home.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Maybe so, but if insanity feels this fucking good, I’ll take it.” Three more thrusts brought him even deeper. “I know it feels good for you too.”

  “It feels vile. You make me fucking sick.”

  “Your wet cunt tells a different story, Lex.”

  “Just because you’re able to get a reaction from my body doesn’t mean you get my heart.” My lip curled in a sneer, and while Zach pummeled my insides until they became tender, I infused my stare with all the hatred boiling in my soul. “My heart belongs to Rafe. It always will, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.”

  Letting out an irate roar, he backhanded me.

  And I laughed in his face. “The connection I have with him kills you, doesn’t it? You can’t stand it. You can’t make me love you, Zach. You. Are. Powerless.”

  He roared again, only this time his hand circled my throat, the pressure of the collar cutting off my air. I gasped as his strength increased, my surroundings fading fast as the heels of my feet dug into the mattress.

  Terror held me in its grip.

  When Rafe choked me into blackness, he did it with precision, with just enough strength to send me under without harming me. He did it slowly, carefully, my safety always at the forefront of his mind.

  Zach was so out of his mind he might choke me to death.

  Tears leaked from my eyes, and I ached for my unborn child, soul bleeding for everything that could have been.

  If only I hadn’t prodded the beast in Zach.

  “Stop…” I managed to choke out. The press of his fingers crushed and bruised, and I couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment I passed out, but I awoke disoriented and gasping for breath as I clutched my neck, free of the restraints that had held me down just minutes before.

  And Zach was gone, leaving behind his sticky, hot cum pooling between my thighs.

  8. Crazy

  Alex

  Too shaken and scared to leave the bed at first, I waited in suspended horror, analyzing every ache and pain in the vicinity of my belly, part of me terrified the rape would trigger a miscarriage. By the time I rolled off the mattress, I almost expected Zach to catch me in transit to the bathroom.

  The first step jolted through me, initiating the fight-or-flight response, except I could do neither. My spirit was torn open, spilling metaphorical blood as his cum dripped down my thighs. I stumbled into the shower stall and took the longest shower of my life. Squeezing my eyes shut, I leaned my head against the tile and let the hot water rain over my body, washing the stickiness of Zach’s forceful culmination off of my skin.

  Washing him away.

  Except I knew better. I would never be able to get him off my soul permanently. How many showers had I sobbed through, just as I was doing now, during all the years he’d fucked me and made me come?

  Too many to count.

  The more I thought of him pounding into me, his manic eyes cataloging every nuance of shame and humiliation crossing my face, the more hysteria gripped me by the throat. I buckled into the fetal position, my fingernails like razor blades on my skin, slicing me open and digging in…digging in a little deeper.

  I lay there on the shower floor, salty tears mixing with blood and the water going down the drain long after the temperature turned icy, and my skin turned wrinkly. It still wasn’t long enough. I didn’t want to leave the steamed-up sanctuary of this shower. Didn’t want to face him. But I didn’t want him to find me like this either.

  Vulnerable.

  Terrified.

  Broken.

  After wrapping myself in a bath sheet, I entered the bedroom and froze. This room no longer felt like it belonged to Rafe and me. From the second Zach took me by force in our own bed, this room stopped being ours.

  It belonged to Zach now.

  Another sob bubbled up, almost breaking free, and I swallowed it down, because I’d cried enough. Tears wouldn’t erase what Zach had done. They wouldn’t protect me from what he’d do again.

  Again and again if I didn’t find a way out of here. Escape was the only thing on my mind when I tiptoed down the stairs, naked as the day I was born and trying not to tremble. Trying to make as little noise as possible. Because catching Zach unaware was the only way to get the upper hand, the same way he’d caught Rafe and me. We’d lowered our defenses at the most inopportune time, foolishly believing in the fairy tale.

  Believing in Happily Ever After.

  I heard movement coming from the kitchen—the same place I first discovered Zach the morning after my wedding. Creeping through the dining room, I poked my head around the corner and found him at the oven. Something sizzled, and my eyes immediately zeroed in on the cast-iron skillet on the stovetop.

  I didn’t see a pan; I saw a weapon. Suddenly, every item in view became a potential ally against Zach.

  A potential way out.

  Zach turned and spotted me from his periphery. As his hazel eyes took a lascivious journey from my breasts to the space between my thighs, I resisted the urge to cover myself, because fighting him got me nowhere. I needed him to relax around me, to buy into his ridiculous belief that I cared about him. That I loved him even.

  The thought made me sick.

  “Are you hungry?” His lips quirked at the corners. “That’s probably a stupid question. You must be famished.”

  “It smells good,” I said lightly, taking a seat at the small eat-in table for two. As I slid onto the bench, I realized that this was the first time I’d set eyes on the room—really seeing the space as I took in the rustic decor and stainless steel appliances.

  The ceramic bowl of apples on the counter.

  The memory of Rafe gagging me with the fruit played behind my eyelids, and I blinked the bittersweet recollection away. I wouldn’t make it through the next fifteen seconds without breaking down if I kept thinking of him.

  Zach placed two plates onto the table before sliding onto the other bench seat. My stomach let out a painful growl at the sight of the steaming chicken, rice, and vegetables in front of me. Zach nodded for me to dig in, so I did. Famished didn’t begin to describe my level of hunger. Since becoming pregnant, I’d had a healthy appetite for the first time in a long time, so eating once in several days had been unbearable.

  After I’d swallowed the last bite, I set my fork down and met Zach’s unsettling gaze from across the table.

  Always watching.

  Yet he never thought to question me about the fresh gouges in my skin. For years, he’d turned a blind eye to the scars, never caring enough to ask about them. He’d definitely never cared enough to punish me for them. His sole focus had always been to get between my legs.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you pack away food with that much enthusiasm. I’m glad to see the anorexia isn’t a problem anymore. I’m not into fucking a skeleton.”

  Of course, that’s all he cared about—how useful I was to him.

  “Anorexia was never a problem to begin with,” I said. “Dad admitted he pushed the eating disorder angle so he could lock me away from you.” I didn’t have to glance at him to sense the anger washing over his features, tightening his lips and locking his jaw.

  Five laborious seconds passed. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fuck him. If he hadn’t interfered, maybe we wouldn’t be in this place. Did you ever think of that?”

  I could tell him how I’d cried myself to sleep
every night reliving the rapes, or how the guilt of sending Rafe to prison had eaten me alive. I could tell him that those few weeks locked away in an eating disorder clinic had been the closest I’d had to happiness while living under the same roof as him.

  But that would only prod the beast, and it was time to try a new method.

  “You really think things would have turned out differently?”

  “Damn right, they would have. We would’ve grown closer, if he’d just left us alone. You would have never gotten distracted by Lucas, or Rafe’s release from prison. I could have made you happy, Lex.”

  A shiver went through me. Lucas Perrone would have found another way to enact revenge for Rafe killing his brother on the inside. Besides, I’d go through the horror in those tunnels a thousand times if it led to the day Rafe and I said “I do.”

  I wanted it back—the utter joy and contentedness that getting to that place with him brought me. I wanted Rafe back.

  “Admit it,” Zach persisted. “We would have had a chance without Dad’s meddling.”

  I shrugged, feigning nonchalance, hiding the bitter anger coiling inside me. Pointing out how crazy he was wouldn’t get him to see the truth—the insane didn’t recognize their own crazy. “Maybe you’re right, but it’s too late to go back. So where does that leave us now?” I studied him closely, watching for any signs of suspicion.

  Was he figuring out my angle yet? Or would he turn a blind eye to the lie, only seeing what he wanted to? Just like the scars marring my arms.

  “We have the chance at a fresh start, Lex. As soon as you unlearn all of your bad behaviors, all the shit Dad put into your head, you and I will be able to start over.”

  He had no idea, no fucking clue how crazy he was. He believed his fantasy of Happily Ever After. But I’d believed in it, too. I thought I’d finally found it with Rafe, only to have it ripped away the very next morning.

  Sometime during my twenty-four-years on this earth, I’d heard the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.

  Maybe we were both crazy.

  9. No Ecstacy

  Alex

  After dinner, I felt Zach’s gaze on my naked backside. His undivided attention burned my skin from where he still sat at the eat-in nook. I reached for the skillet and squeezed the sponge over the cast-iron until suds foamed in the bottom.

  The wheels in my mind turned with ideas. With hope.

  Almost in a trance, I followed the motion of my hand as it scrubbed the pan in unhurried design. In my mind’s eye, I hefted the skillet, whirled around, and brought it down on Zach’s skull. The vision was so real I could actually hear it—the resulting crack blasting through my head, echoing with satisfaction.

  Swallowing my nervousness, I finished rinsing and drying the pan, but when I turned around, I found Zach standing behind me, just a few inches away. I froze, gripping the handle as I eyed his height. There was no way I’d be able to whack him over the head from this vantage point.

  “Let me,” he said, reaching for the skillet. I gave him the pan, and a sense of loss hit me as he hung it on the rack above the butcher block. Those pans were within reach, but just barely. I’d have to stand on my tiptoes to unhook one, then hope like hell I’d use enough strength to whack him over the head so he’d go down the first time.

  Because I wouldn’t get a second chance.

  “Lex,” he said, voice going husky as he closed the inches between us. “I’m in the mood for dessert.”

  I feared what he wanted didn’t involve bakeware. “I can make something…if you want.”

  His fingers clamped around my bicep, confirming my suspicion. “I want you.” He ushered me out of the kitchen, and I stumbled along behind him, heartbeat accelerating as he stalled in the living room. He pointed to the floorboards in front of the sofa. “Knees.”

  When I didn’t immediately bow to his order, he ground his molars, and the look in his cold hazel eyes was enough to make me bend. I lowered to my knees as he reached for the button of his jeans. Exposing his hard-on, he shuffled forward, fisting his cock, and then his flesh pushed between my lips.

  As I watched the dazed expression on his face—a cocktail of lust and madness while he thrusted in and out of my mouth—a new kind of terror held me in its grip. The kind of terror that made breathing impossible, because the life he had in mind for me was no longer a nebulous nightmare. It crystalized, and my new reality became as real as the warm flesh pounding between my tonsils.

  He would keep me locked away forever—like a prized classic car—only taking me out when he wanted to use me. I’d never see other people, never have any type of freedom again. I would fail to exist.

  There would only be Zach and his cock to live for.

  And what happened when I started showing? Would he force an abortion? Possibly even cause one himself? I shuddered at the thought.

  And that was a mistake, because his eyes narrowed into a glare as he yanked his cock out of my mouth. “Your attitude needs a major adjustment, Lex.” Jaw set in determination, Zach withdrew something from the pocket of his jeans.

  A tiny plastic baggie.

  “What is that?” I whispered, though I feared I did know what it was.

  “Just a little E to loosen you up.”

  I shrank back, but he stepped forward, eliminating the space between us as he grabbed me by the hair.

  “So here’s what’s gonna happen,” he said, tone a conversational lie on his tongue. “You’re going to fuck me and enjoy every moment of it, because if you don’t, I’ll stick this shit up your ass. The result is the same either way, though I’d rather have your eager and sober participation.”

  A cold sweat broke out on my skin, and my heart pounded painfully in my chest as I recognized the resolution in his expression.

  And the corner he’d backed me into.

  I couldn’t let him drug me. But could I fuck him and get off on it? Because that’s what he wanted. He wanted the ultimate betrayal to Rafe.

  Zach settled onto the couch. “You can ride me willingly, or I can dose you. Your choice.”

  I gulped in shallow breaths, the hopelessness of his ultimatum strangling me. There was no choice. I couldn’t let him fill me with ecstasy again—not now that I was pregnant. And I couldn’t fight him off.

  Run, Alex.

  The voice of instinct and survival prodded my limbs, stiffening them in preparation to flee. Zach didn’t know that I’d learned how to swim. It was my only advantage, the only thing I held in my arsenal. But I had to be strategic about it because he was bigger, faster, and stronger, and he’d have his hands on me by the time I reached the front door.

  Why else would he be sitting on that couch like he belonged there, not a care in the world, complacent in the belief that he had the winning hand? He knew the odds and how they were stacked against me.

  “You’ve got five seconds, baby.” His voice vibrated with a low growl. A warning. I saw myself sprinting across the room and yanking the door open.

  Then my fingers brushed the collar circling my throat.

  Zach had thought of everything. With Rafe gone, and Jax and Adam out of town, I was on my own to defend myself. But he’d thought of that too, because the threat of drugs ensured my cooperation, and the collar ensured my entrapment.

  Before he could take this latest choice from me, I crawled onto the couch and straddled him. He took me by the chin, forcing me to lock my gaze with his, and I was incapable of hiding the tears burning my eyeballs.

  “Please let me close my eyes,” I begged in a whisper. “It’s the only way I’ll be able to do this.”

  “I know of another way, Lex.”

  The ecstasy.

  I blinked a tear down my cheek, and he swiped it away as if the sight of my despair burned a hole through his tar-black soul.

  “Rub your cunt against me.” Voice softening with a hint of tenderness, he lowered his hands to my waist and waited for me to
surrender. To give him the illusion he so craved.

  The fantasy that I loved him back.

  Inch by torturous inch, I lowered to his lap, and his cock slid between my folds. The start of a tingle went off in my nerve endings. A prick of shame. Another tear escaped down my face.

  “C’mon, Lex. Work those hips.”

  I drew in a breath and held. The seconds throbbed at my temples, like little hammers pounding in the reminder of how he wasn’t holding me down this time. There were no restraints, no fingers pressing my wrists to the mattress, no hand circling my throat.

  Only the threat to my unborn child, and that was enough.

  Moving into a steady rhythm, I dragged my pussy over his cock, cheeks flaming with unwanted arousal. His shallow breaths drifted across my face, spreading down the column of my neck. The friction between our bodies grew warm and slick and fucking wrong. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want this—that I had no other choice that didn’t involve him drugging me—the self-disgust still consumed, causing rancid nausea to burn in my throat.

  Back in that cabin, when he’d taken me the first time, he’d launched a campaign of psychological warfare against me. This wasn’t much different, and I wanted to rail my rage at him. I wanted to gouge out his pale hazel eyes and all the smug triumph in them. I didn’t want to return his silent acknowledgement of how wet I was…of how exposed and open sitting astride his lap made me as the head of his cock teased with every thrust of my hips.

  The fact remained there was nothing he could do to make my heart accept the joining of our bodies.

  Hissing a breath between clenched teeth, Zach gripped my hips and pushed inside me. I gasped as his massive girth stretched me wide. Pummeling deeper, he wound a hand in my hair and pulled me forward until our lips came near enough to touch.

  “Kiss me.”

  I couldn’t stomach the idea. His mouth on mine, intimate and personal. Romantic.

  Like everything else, he didn’t give me a choice. His lips claimed what didn’t belong to him, same as his cock, and his tongue darted along the seam of my mouth before plunging inside. And for those few seconds, when I let my lids drift shut and imagined it was Rafe sitting between my thighs, that it was Rafe’s tongue tangling with my own, I found a glimmer of freedom.