Tragic Beauty (Beauty & The Darkness #1)(33)
Shayne steps back and swipes at the cut on his cheek, then smiles. “Don’t worry, Ava. I like it rough too, you know.”
He takes a step towards me and I kick out with my legs, causing him to jump back and shake his head. He walks through one of the doors, that I know must be the closet, because he returns with a black tie. Then he’s on me before I can blink, gathering my ankles together and tying them so tight I know my feet will be numb soon. When my legs are bound he steps back and watches me flail, uselessly.
I can’t give up.
I won’t give up.
He steps in close and stills my body with his large hands. A sob stumbles out of me and I squeeze my eyes shut.
“What’s wrong, Ava?” he asks. “I thought this was how you liked it?”
Tears begin sliding down my cheek while Shayne sighs and runs his fingertips over some cuts on my stomach and along my waist, causing me to flinch. “Tell you what, wife,” he says, his voice quiet now. “I’ll give you a choice. If you tell me he forced you, that he took you and hurt you against your will, I’ll let you wait until you’re ready, however long that takes. I give you my word, which unlike you, I know how to keep. I’ll kill him of course, for what he’s done to you, but that will buy you some time. Which again, I think’s pretty decent of me, considering how long I’ve already had to wait. But, if you tell me you were willing—that you liked it rough, liked it when he hurt you—then I’ll let him live. Not his fault, after all. I’m sure you didn’t tell him about our little deal here. But then you take what I give you. I think that’s pretty fair, don’t you?”
I look at him now, wondering how anyone can be so cruel. He’s standing with his head cocked, his black eyes studying me.
Shayne steps back and I can’t help but watch as he slowly undoes his belt, slides it through the loops, and lets it hang from his fingers. “So what’s it going to be, Ava, hmm?” He dips his head, catching my gaze and bringing it up to his. He moves back close to me. “Come on,” he whispers, caressing my jaw. “I want to hear you say it.”
I swallow when he wraps his hand around my throat, his mouth inches from mine. “Were you willing…or not willing?”
When I don’t answer, his grip tightens. “I won’t ask again.”
I close my eyes and give him the only answer I can. “Willing.”
His fingers loosen but I keep my eyes closed. “And when he hurt you…did you like it, or not like it?”
His grip tightens on me again. “I—liked it.”
Shayne’s hand softens around my neck, and he leans his forehead against mine, just resting it there.
When he steps back, I open my eyes to see him gathering the belt in his hands. “Then consider this foreplay.”
His eyes gleam when he hauls back and brings the belt down with a loud smack across my left breast. I shriek when my nipple explodes in such pain that fresh tears burst through my eyes. I throw my head back and cry and squirm against the rope that takes more flesh from my wrists, only to hear the hiss of the belt again. It lands across my other nipple, and I scream. Then it’s my stomach, my legs, all the cuts and sores I know he’s aiming for. I’m sobbing, shaking my head, watching him crane his arm back and grunt as he delivers blow after blow. A burn spreads out across my front like a raging wildfire, then his rough hands spin me around, away from him. I hear the hiss again, feel the burn spread as he begins belting my back, my bottom, still aiming for all the cuts. The loud smack of the belt against my skin ricochets off the stone walls, but it’s when he tags the fresh brand on my hip, that my scream shatters the room. I keep screaming, because I can’t stop. Raw, raspy cries that tear at my throat, until at some point, he stops, and I’m left hanging from the rope, limp, panting, tears streaming down my cheeks while my body burns like it’s on fire.
Shayne turns me around and lifts my chin, eyeing my tears. I yank away and hurl a mouth full of spit at his face, lashing out with any weapon I can think of. He jerks back, surprised, but then the beast just smiles and wipes it off. I squirm when he closes in and reaches for my jaw, crushing his fingertips between my teeth and forcing my mouth open. Then he spits inside.
“Anything you can play at, I can play harder,” he says, clamping my mouth shut and waiting until I have no choice but to swallow.
When he lets me go, he steps back and begins taking off his clothes. That’s when I start crying again, because I know what’s coming next. Through the blur, I watch Shayne drop his shirt to the floor. I know there’s an enormous torso of hard muscle before me, but my eyes rest on the mounds of his chest—on the large tattoo over his heart. A tattoo that I can’t take my eyes off of. Because in the middle of a thick patch of red roses and thorns, all tangled up in barb wire, is…Ava.
I stare at my name, written in script.
“You seem surprised,” he says, undoing the top button of this jeans and looking down at the tattoo, then back to me. He moves in, wanting me to see it up close. I don’t want to look at it, but I do. All the different reds of the rose petals, the hundreds of thorns, the silver steel of the barbed wire, all weaved together so intricately. “I got this after we made our deal,” he says, rubbing his fingers over the top of it. “I got it so every woman I was with, every woman I fucked—every single one of them blonde with blue eyes by the way—would know who I was really fucking.” He smiles and gently tucks my hair back while I stare at it. “Can’t say most of them liked it once they saw it…or liked that I called them Ava while I fucked their brains out either.”