Chapter 12: Suspended and Strangled
The silence after Jace’s words stretched, thick and heavy. Sadie kept her eyes shut, listening to the steady drum of Rhett’s heart under her ear. His thumb traced unconscious circles on her shoulder, a gesture so at odds with the violence implied. A different kind of shiver worked through her.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Rhett rumbled, his voice a bedrock beneath her.
Jace’s shadow fell over them as he returned to the arm of the chair. “She’s always thinking. That’s her problem.” He tapped her hip. “Let’s go. We’re not done.”
A feeble protest died in her throat. Rhett lifted her, setting her on her feet. Her legs trembled, barely supporting her. He stood in one fluid motion, his own jeans visibly strained at the front. He didn’t touch her there. Instead, he retied the flannel shirt snugly around her, his knuckles brushing her nipples, before taking her hand.
“Back downstairs,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
The return to the garage felt like a descent into a cooler, sharper reality. The fire’s warmth vanished, replaced by the concrete’s chill through her soles. The scent of oil and metal was a bracing slap. The rope still hung from the beam, a stark reminder.
Jace walked to the workbench, picking up the length of jute. He ran it through his fists. “You came once for the rope. You came once upstairs.” He came to stand behind her, his breath on her neck. “You’re going to come for it a third time. You’re going to fucking worship it.”
Rhett guided her to the center of the space, beneath the hook. His eyes were black in the fluorescent glare. He took her wrists, raising them above her head. His touch was not gentle. It was purposeful. He began winding the rope, each wrap snug and precise.
“Please,” she whispered, the word barely audible.
“Please what?” Rhett didn’t look at her face, focusing on his knots.
She didn’t know. Please stop. Please don’t stop. The contradiction strangled her.
Jace stepped in front of her, his fingers going to the buttons of the flannel. He undid them slowly, letting the shirt fall open. He looked at her body, his gaze clinical. “Still so pretty.” He dropped to his haunches. His hands slid up the insides of her thighs, pushing them apart. “Wide open. Perfect.”
He took the free end of the rope from Rhett. Sadie flinched, a full-body recoil, as he threaded it between her legs. He didn’t rush. He pulled it flush against her swollen cunt, the fibers scraping her sensitized clit. He wrapped it around her thigh, then brought it back through her soaked folds, creating a cruel, grinding harness.
“Fuck,” she gasped, her hips twisting instinctively.
“Yeah,” Jace agreed, his voice tight. He tied it off with a brutal yank that pulled a cry from her lungs.
Rhett attached her bound wrists to the overhead carabiner. It took up the slack, pulling her onto the balls of her feet. The rope bit into her sex. Then he produced the wide leather collar. He buckled it around her throat, not choking, but present. The final connection.
“Different rules this time,” Rhett said, stepping back to admire their work. “You want friction, you pull down. You pull down, that collar tightens.” He moved close, his lips a hair’s breadth from hers. “You want to come, you’ll have to choke yourself on it.”
Her breath came in shallow pants. The duality was maddening. To seek the pleasure, she had to invite the pain. To breathe, she had to be still. Jace circled her, a shark.
“Let’s see it, princess,” he taunted. “Show us how bad you need it.”
She hesitated, suspended. The ache in her cunt was a deep, throbbing demand. She rocked her hips minutely, a tiny sawing motion. The rope moved, a rough, delicious drag. The collar pressed.
“More,” Rhett commanded, his voice low and hard.
She pulled down, a true effort. The noose constricted, a firm, terrifying pressure on her trachea. At the same time, the rope ground hard against her clit. A broken sound, part sob, part moan, rattled in her clamped throat. Sparks danced at the edges of her vision.
“That’s it,” Jace murmured, right beside her ear. “Choke on it. Choke on that good feeling.”
She did it again, a harder, more desperate yank. Air became precious. The pleasure sharpened, crystallizing into something piercing and bright. She was a pendulum swinging between suffocation and climax. Her body burned. Her lungs screamed.
“Look at her,” Jace said to Rhett, awe and lust cracking his voice. “Look at her fucking face.”
Rhett moved in. He didn’t touch the rope. He put his hands on her waist, holding her still as she struggled. “Finish it,” he growled at her. “Take it.”
With a final, agonized pull, she threw her weight down. The world narrowed to a tunnel. The collar crushed her windpipe. Darkness crowded in. And in that silencing darkness, an atomic blast of pleasure detonated at her core.
It ripped through her, violent and total. Her cunt clenched around nothing, gushing, a hot flood of release that slicked the rope and dripped in a steady patter onto the oil-stained concrete beneath her. Her body convulsed, suspended, strangling. A desperate, guttural gagging was the only sound she could make.
Just as the blackness threatened to swallow her whole, Rhett snapped the carabiner free.
She dropped, but he caught her, the collar going suddenly loose. She dragged in a raw, searing gasp, then another, coughing violently as agony and ecstasy warred in her nervous system. The orgasm was still ricocheting through her, relentless waves making her twitch in his arms.
Jace was there. He didn’t wait. He unfastened his jeans, freeing his hard, thick cock. He was on his knees, pushing her limp legs apart. “Open,” he snarled, and this was not care, this was claiming.
He shoved into her with one brutal thrust, hilting himself in her soaked, trembling cunt. She cried out, oversensitive and ravaged. “You drown me,” he groaned, pounding into her with a frantic, driving rhythm. “This greedy little pussy is fucking drowning me.”
Rhett held her upright, his hands vise-like on her hips, helping Jace seat himself deeper with every drive. Sadie could only take it, her head lolling back against Rhett’s chest, each slam jolting through her wrecked body. Jace’s pace was punishing, selfish, chasing his own end.
“Gonna fill this used-up cunt,” Jace choked out, his fingers digging bruises into her thighs. “Mark it. Fuck!”
His rhythm shattered. He drove in one last time, burying himself to the root, and she felt the hot, pulsing spill of his release inside her. He groaned, long and low, collapsing forward over her, his breath heaving.
For a moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing. Then Rhett’s hands tightened. He pulled Jace out of her, a wet, obscene sound in the quiet. He turned her in his arms to face him. His own need was a rigid, daunting line against her belly.
His eyes held hers, and in them was something far more frightening than anger. It was absolute, unwavering ownership. He didn’t speak. He leaned down and captured her mouth in a searing, possessive kiss. It tasted of salt and him.
When he broke away, his voice was ragged. “Mine.”