Chapter 7: Lake House Confrontation
The quiet in Rhett’s garage had been a cocoon. Lily’s lake house was the opposite—a blistering aneurysm of noise. Bass thumped through the floorboards, shaking the framed photos on the log walls. The air was thick with weed smoke and the sugary stench of cheap vodka punch. Sadie stood just inside the sliding glass door, the night air cool on her skin, feeling like a ghost haunting her own life.
She’d come alone, needing the chaos to drown out the echo of her own screams from the night before. She wore a high-necked sweater, but the material chafed the tender marks Rhett’s collar had left. Each brush of fabric was a secret kiss, a guilty reminder.
“Sadie fucking Brooks!” Lily’s shriek cut through the din. Her best friend bulldozed through a cluster of freshmen, a hurricane in a sequined mini-dress. “You’ve been MIA for days. Spill.”
Lily’s eyes, sharp and vodka-bright, scanned her. They didn’t miss the way Sadie flinched when Lily’s playful grab for her arm tugged the sweater neck. Lily stilled. Her smile didn’t fade, it just changed, turning predatory. “Oh,” she drawled. “What’s under there, you little slut?”
“Nothing,” Sadie said, too quickly.
“Bullshit.” Lily’s fingers hooked into the sweater’s collar and yanked it down before Sadie could stop her.
The purpling bruise, a perfect band of discoloration, was laid bare in the neon light of the beer sign.
Lily’s eyes went huge. She dragged Sadie by the wrist, ignoring her protests, shoving past laughing bodies and spilling cups, down a hallway and into a back bedroom heaped with coats. She slammed the door.
“Who?” Lily demanded, cornering her. “Some random from the bar? Was he rough? Tell me everything.”
Before Sadie could form a lie, the door opened again.
They filled the frame. Rhett, in a black henley, his tattoos crawling over his corded forearms. Jace, leaning casually beside him, a faint, knowing smirk on his lips. The party sounds faded to a dull roar.
Lily’s jaw went slack. Her gaze darted from the men to Sadie’s exposed neck, then back. Understanding, slow and salacious, dawned on her face.
Rhett crossed the room in three strides. The air turned cold. He ignored Lily completely, his focus a physical weight on Sadie. His calloused fingers gripped her chin, tilting her head to expose the mark to the harsh overhead light. His thumb stroked the bruise, a possessiveness that made her knees weak.
“You left without us,” he said. His voice was low, a vibration in the quiet room. It wasn’t a question. It was an indictment.
Jace pushed the door shut, leaning against it. “Drove all the way out here,” he said, clicking his tongue. “Found our girl showing off our work to the whole party. Guess we gotta remind her who she belongs to.”
Lily found her voice, a whisper of pure glee. “Holy. Fucking. Shit.” She looked at Sadie, then at Rhett’s hand on her face, at Jace’s dominating posture. Her grin was wicked. “Take her. But I want every detail tomorrow. And I mean every. Detail.”
Rhett didn’t acknowledge her. In one swift motion, he bent and hoisted Sadie over his shoulder. The world inverted. She gasped, pounding a fist against his back. “Rhett! Put me down, you asshole!”
He carried her out, Jace clearing a path through the stunned, parting crowd. She saw flashes of wide eyes, dropped cups, whispered exclamations. Humiliation and a dark, thrilling pride warred in her gut. He marched past the bonfire, past the parked cars, to his black truck. He opened the passenger door and deposited her inside like a sack of tools.
Jace slid into the driver’s seat. Rhett got in the back with her.
“Where are we going?” she demanded, her heart a wild drum.
“Somewhere quiet,” Jace said, firing up the engine. “Where your screams won’t bother the tourists.”
He drove past the last string of party lights, down a rutted dirt road swallowed by pines. They emerged into a clearing where an old timber-framed barn sagged against the moonlit sky. It was a skeletal thing, gaps in the walls showing stars.
Rhett pulled her from the truck. The night air was cold and clean. Inside, the barn was a cathedral of decay. Dust motes danced in the moonlight spearing through the roof. The smell was of dry rot, old hay, and earth.
“Clothes. Off,” Rhett said. His voice brooked no argument.
Her hands trembled as she pulled the sweater over her head, shucked her jeans. She stood naked in the silvery light, goosebumps rising on her skin.
Jace produced a coil of soft hemp rope from a duffel bag he’d grabbed from the truck. Rhett directed her toward a massive, compact hay bale near the center of the space. He pushed her down onto it, the hay prickling her bare back.
“Arms out. Legs wide.”
She obeyed. Jace worked with efficient grace, tying her wrists to stout wooden stakes driven into the ground, then her ankles to two more. She was spread open, utterly vulnerable, the cool air touching every part of her. The positioning arched her back, pushing her cunt into the air.
Rhett stood over her, a dark silhouette against the moon. He unbuckled his belt, the leather sliding through the loops with a deadly whisper. He doubled it in his hand. Not a belt. A riding crop, retrieved from the duffel. He tapped the stiff leather against his palm.
“You showed them what was mine,” he said. “Now you get the consequence.”
The first strike landed on her inner thigh. A sharp, burning kiss. She yelped.
“Count,” Jace said, kneeling beside her head. He stroked her hair.
“One,” she breathed.
The next hit the other thigh. “Two!”
A third, higher, closer to her dripping core. She cried out, the pain lancing into heat. “Three!”
Rhett alternated, painting lines of fire across her sensitive flesh. With each strike, she jerked against her bonds, her cunt swelling, growing wetter. The shame was gone, burned away by the stark simplicity of the punishment. She was his. She’d transgressed. This was the price.
“Seven!… Eight!… Nine!”
On ten, he laid the crop against her clit, pressing just enough to make her hips buck. “Good girl,” he rumbled, and the praise was more devastating than the strikes.
Jace’s hand replaced the crop. His fingers slid through her folds, gathering her wetness. “So fucking soaked for us,” he murmured. “Always such a greedy little cunt.” He pushed two fingers inside her, curling them. She moaned, her back lifting off the hay.
Rhett undid his jeans, freeing his cock, thick and heavy in the gloom. He pressed the head against her, not entering, just rubbing through her slickness. The teasing was exquisite torture.
Then Jace moved. He took something else from the bag—a sleek black vibrator. He clicked it on. A low, intense buzz filled the quiet barn. He didn’t press it to her clit. He ran it along her lips, over her thighs, everywhere but where she needed it.
“Please,” she begged, her voice ragged. “Please, Jace.”
“Please what?”
“Please fuck me with it. Make me come.”
He glanced at Rhett, who gave a single, curt nod.
Jace pressed the buzzing head directly onto her clit.
Sadie screamed. The sensation was immediate and overwhelming, a direct line to the knot of tension in her belly. He held it there, his other hand pinning her hip down as she thrashed.
Rhett chose that moment to shove into her.
He filled her in one deep, brutal stroke, seating himself to the hilt. The dual invasion—the relentless buzz on her clit and the hard, stretching fullness inside—stole her breath. He set a punishing rhythm, each thrust jolting her body up the hay bale.
“This cunt is mine,” Rhett gritted out, his control fraying. “This come is mine. You don’t show it. You don’t share it. You keep it for us.”
“Yes! Yes, god, yes!” she babbled. The orgasm built like a tsunami, undeniable.
“Let her go,” Rhett ordered Jace.
Jace removed the vibrator. The sudden absence was its own agony. Rhett fucked her harder, his hips snapping, the sound of skin on skin echoing in the hollow barn. He was hitting a spot deep inside that made her see white.
“Come for me, Sadie,” he commanded, his voice raw. “Now.”
It broke her. The climax ripped through her with violent, shuddering waves, tearing a ragged scream from her throat. Her channel clamped around his cock, milking him, and with a guttural groan, he followed her over, pumping his release deep inside her, marking her in the most primal way.
He collapsed over her, his weight a comforting anchor. Slowly, he softened and slid out.
She was trembling, utterly spent, tears drying on her cheeks. Jace untied her ankles, then her wrists, rubbing feeling back into her limbs. He produced a bottle of water, held it to her lips. She drank, spilling some down her chin.
Rhett tucked himself away and then gathered her into his lap on the hay, wrapping his henley around her. He held her silently, his chin resting on top of her head. Jace sat beside them, lighting a cigarette, the flare of the match briefly illuminating his satisfied face.
No one spoke. The barn was silent save for their slowing breath and the distant cry of a night bird.
Sadie buried her face in Rhett’s neck. The party, Lily, the world outside—it all seemed like a faint, irrelevant dream. This was her reality. The pain, the possession, the two men whose silence held her together more tightly than any rope ever could. She was theirs. And in the deep, secret recess of her soul, she knew she’d never truly belonged to anything else.