Chapter 19 Replacemet
RORY POV
I pushed into the bathroom and locked the door behind me.
Then I let my back slide down the door until I was sitting on the floor with my knees pulled up and my head back against the wood.
My entire existence had not been this chaotic in twenty seven years of life. Not even close.
Everything that could unravel had unraveled in the space of one week and I had the distinct feeling it was nowhere near finished.
I felt like I was drowning.
And the water was still rising.
I stayed there until my breathing evened out. Then I stood up, ran cold water over my wrists, splashed my face, looked at my reflection for a moment , my brunette hair, smudged lip gloss, eyes that had seen too much tonight. I unlocked the door.
I had no choice but to go back out there and act like everything was fine.
I turned toward the party.
And stopped.
From the room at the far corner of the corridor came sounds that had no business being at a birthday party. A sharp moan. A rhythmic thud against what I could only assume was a wall.
The sounds grew more prominent as I moved closer to the room at the end of the corridor. The door was slightly ajar, a thin strip of dim light spilling out into the hallway.
I should have kept walking.
I didn’t keep walking.
I moved closer until I could see through the gap and what I saw made my breath catch completely in my throat.
Steve had Katherine strapped to a table.
She was naked from head to toe except for her heels, her face pressed flat against the surface, each wrist strapped to opposite edges of the table. Her ass was already red, angry lines crisscrossing the skin like she’d been hit repeatedly. I told myself it was a rash. Or maybe she’d fallen. Anything but the truth screaming in the back of my mind.
Steve stood behind her. He spread her legs wider with one hand. With the other, he pulled something small and round from his pocket, it black, shiny, like a thick rubber ball.
I didn’t understand what it was until he pressed it against her entrance and pushed it inside her pussy.
Katherine moaned as the ball disappeared inside her. Her hips jerked.
“That feels so fucking good,” she breathed.
I stood frozen in the corridor.
What the hell did he just put in her?
Steve stepped back, admiring her bound body like it was art. He picked up his belt, folded it in half, snapped it once in the air. The sound made my stomach lurch.
“I want you to whip me,” Katherine said, testing the straps around her wrists, pulling against them to check the tension. “Whip me so hard I forget what happened with your bitch ex girlfriend out there.”
“Don’t worry,” Steve said, unhooking his belt slowly. “I won’t be taking it easy on you tonight.”
Is this what they call kinky? My stomach flipped. A sick, twisted part of me stood there, unable to look away. I was watching the life they'd been living behind my back-the passion and the darkness I was never "cool" enough or "thin" enough to share. I felt a disgusting surge of envy. I wanted to know what that felt like. To be wanted that desperately, even if it was through pain.
Steve swung the belt through the air. The crack against her skin made me gasp, but before the sound could leave my lips, a hand clamped over my mouth.
A gloved hand.
The hair on the back of my neck rose all at once.
He was pressed flush against my back, his heavy coat barely masking the heat radiating from his body. I couldn't breathe.
I instinctively tried to pull away, but the arm around my waist tightened just slightly-not painfully, not aggressively, just enough to make it clear I wasn't going anywhere. The strength behind the gesture made my pulse jump harder than if he had forced me.
Inside the room Katherine's voice rose again, breathless and eager, but the sounds felt strangely distant now because all I could focus on was the man standing behind me.
“Shhh…” His hot breath fanned my ear. “You don’t want to interrupt them now, do you?”