I grabbed a knife from the table, and then cut the ties attaching his legs to the chair. I dragged him up, pulling him toward the area of the cabin that had a counter and cabinets. I made sure to push him forcefully into the counter, using myhands to smash his head into the cabinets. After all, he was never gentle with Josh. Or with anyone.
I grabbed him by the throat and squeezed, pressing him against the cabinets. He was taller than me, but that was okay. I didn’t need to make eye contact. I leaned in and whispered up to him as he gasped for breath.
“You tell yourself they like to be choked. They like to be slapped. They like it rough. But they never like itthatrough. You take whatever boundaries someone has and you push, and push, and push some more. You talk at them, whisper like a devil in their ear, and make them doubt themselves. You make them think you know what’s best, that you care about them. But you don’t care about them, Ricky. You don’t care about anyone at all, do you?”
He made a garbled sound, and I let him go. He fell to the floor in a heap, his legs collapsing beneath him. Bruises were already forming on his face from the slaps, and I knew his chest, throat, and back would be bruised as well. Still, it was barely a fraction of what he’d done.
I leaned down and lifted his face to look at me.
“Do you remember Jake? Do you, Rick? Hmmm? He liked a little CBT, didn’t he? But you always have to take things too far, don’t you?”
He started crying then, tears and snot running down his face. He tried to look at the guys at the back of the room, but I just pulled him up, dragging him back into the center of the room as he pleaded with me. The “please, please, please,” didn’t bother me, but when he said, “he liked it,” I might have lost my temper a bit.
I’d seen what Jake had liked. I’d also seen how Rick had, as always, pushed at those boundaries, taken things too far, and shattered Jake’s pleasure.
Rick took someone’s trust and broke it. I hated the fact that he turned people’s kinks against them. It made me really fucking mad.
I stood Rick up, holding onto his shoulders. He was still sobbing, trying to hunch in on himself and pulling his shoulders like he could get his arms around to protect himself. I took all the force I could and jerked my knee up while simultaneously jerking his shoulders down, kneeing him as hard as I possibly could in the nuts.
It felt kinda squishy and gross, to be honest. I wondered if I broke something. Could you break a dick or balls? Was that a thing? Rupture, maybe?
Rick fell to the ground, retching and throwing up onto the floor, gasping for air and whimpering. The sounds were pretty pathetic, but I didn’t feel bad. After all, somehow I knew that Jake had needed an ER visit after their time together. I’m not even sure he had told Rick that. The man had very wisely never spoken to Rick again after their last time together.
I pulled myself out of his slimy, awful memories, and I turned around, not worried about Rick doing anything like running away. He would be out of commission for a bit.
Jude and Dexter were both gaping at me.
“What?” I asked.
They looked like they both wanted to cover their junk. Men. So sensitive about their manly bits. I sighed and stared at them, waiting for them to get over themselves.
“I amnotexamining the damage to tell Toby about it for his next novel,” Dexter finally said.
I snorted, rolling my eyes.
“You know, if I wasn’t already sworn to my Walrus, and if you and I weren’t practically siblings, I’d probably be in love with you,” Jude said.
“Ewww,” I said, scrunching up my nose.
Dexter laughed, then Jude joined in, and pretty soon we were all chuckling. It was kind of a cool family moment, even if there was a retching, groaning guy on the floor behind us. I mean, hey, maybe that’s what family was about—finding the humor even when dealing with life’s unpleasant and gross moments.
We eventually all turned and looked back at Rick, who was rocking back and forth on the floor, groaning and sobbing. I sighed. As much as I’d like to be done with him, I was a little worried about the cutie he’d been with at the bar. Probably should’ve thought about that and asked some questions before I incapacitated him. Oops.
“Let’s get him back in the chair. I don’t think his creepy friend has good intentions toward the cutie he was with,” I told the guys.
They grunted in agreement, moving to manhandle Rick back into the chair. I supposed we’d have to wait a bit for him to calm down enough to talk.
I guess there were always snacks in the meantime.
What?
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Plus, I was hungry. Revenge was hard work. I was sure they had an unopened package of something that would be safe to eat.
I wondered if there was any chocolate?
Chapter 4
Thea
