Condemned by Gemma James Read Free Book Online Page A

woman he’d kidnapped, she didn’t want him. That’s what I told myself, anyway.
    “You wanted it back then too.” With a growl, he pushed me away. “I don’t want you like this.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” I turned to face him, the broom handle keeping me upright.
    “It means I don’t want you willing.” He knocked the broom to the floor and gripped my wrists. In the rays of the sun peeking through the skylight, my scars stood out as lines of abstract art on my forearms, sketched in blood by my inability to cope with stress. He pulled out my arms and put the marred skin on display.
    “What the hell happened to you?”
    “Nothing,” I said, trying to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me.
    “Who did this?”
    “No one.”
    He jerked me close, and his immovable hands framed my cheeks. “Who. Did. This?”
    “I did.”
    For the first time since he’d re-entered my life, he appeared speechless. His gaze scoured my face, as if looking for answers.
    “Why?”
    I shook my head, unable to speak, scared he’d see too much. But I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to look away. I wanted to bathe in the gentleness breaking through in that instant when I glimpsed the old Rafe.
    He blinked and the moment shattered, his emotions going into lockdown. Without another word, he dragged me toward the cellar.
    “Don’t put me back down there,” I pleaded.
    He flung open the door and herded me down the stairs. I was shaking too much to fight. Back in the cage, he fastened shackles around my wrists and jerked my arms high, attaching the chain to a hook in the ceiling. “This should keep you out of trouble for a while.” He held my chin, fingers bruising my jaw. “Every time you rebel, this is where you’ll end up. Learn to obey me, and we’ll get along fine.”
    And that’s how he left me. Alone, cold, and in the dark, with my arms suspended above my head.

Dante’s Pass, population 893, and half of them thought I was guilty as fuck. The place still felt like home, in spite of the busybodies who wanted to see me rot in jail until I was nothing but bones for what I’d done to that “poor girl.” They were the ones who sneered at my reputation as Rafe “The Choker” Mason from my fighting days. They were the ones who sensed something was off about me.
    But others, mostly people who’d had connections to my family for decades, or people who’d known me in high school, they believed I was innocent. Unlike the crowd that condemned me, they saw past Alex’s lie. They knew me, or so they believed.
    Either way, it was too much drama, so I avoided town as much as possible, save for the weekly trip to the post office and my work at the vineyard. Despite the town gossip, people mostly left me alone. I imagined it was difficult to harass a guy on an island.
    As I sorted through a stack of mail, mostly bills and advertisements, someone uttered my name. Locking the P.O. Box, I swiveled my head in time to see a blonde whirl around and push the door open. She grabbed the hand of the kid at her side and ushered him outdoors, as if the place were about to burn to the ground.
    I folded my mail inside an advertisement for local businesses and glanced through the front window, catching the woman’s profile as she walked away. My heart almost stopped. I’d recognize that stubborn jaw anywhere. I rushed after her, the door closing with a thud upon my exit, and spotted her a few feet down the sidewalk. She opened the back door of a white BMW, and in hushed tones, hurried the kid to get inside and buckle up.
    “Nikki!”
    She lurched upright, and her deep, brown eyes met mine. Yeah, I remembered those eyes, especially how they bored into mine during sex. Nikki had never been the shy closed-eyes-during-sex kind of girl, and that had been the biggest turn-on.
    She slammed the door and rounded the hood to the driver’s side. “I heard you were back,” she said. “Seeing you caught me off guard. I shouldn’t have