Page 54 of R for Rough

Confess, little one.

In my periphery, I caught Colt slapping a hand over Kit’s mouth. Jameson was making sure Justin couldn’t get a word out either, muffled by the gag or not.

Nothing to derail the path Tracy was on.

“Why would I stop?” I asked. “Abel’s the one taking the torture. Are you so weak you can’t even hear about?—”

“He’s innocent!” he shouted.

I eased back and cocked a brow.

He swallowed hard and coughed, eyes wild—like they’d been before, when I’d sensed he was lost in the game. “Abel doesn’t know anything.”

Kit tried to yell something behind Colt’s hand, but the muffled noise didn’t pierce Tracy’s guilt.

Thank God.I needed this to end now.

“I got the note,” my boy croaked. “Okay? It’s me. The key is hidden on the pier in the Downtown marina. I’m the guilty one. Punishme.”

Fuck, I felt my whole body unclench and push away countless moments of tension. The entire damn day—hell, the week leading up to tonight.

It was finally over.

I let the knife drop to the ground, and I cupped Tracy’s face in my hands.

“You’re not getting punished, baby,” I murmured. “Nobody is.”

His breaths came out choppy, and he looked like he couldn’t process what I was saying, which made me worried.

“What’s your color, Tracy?”

He cocked his head a little, tears spilling over. “G-green—but…but I got the note. I’m guilty.”

I shook my head and kissed his cheek, and I started untying him from the tree. The fact that he’d been so quick to say green offered me relief; it meant the kink of the evening remained at the forefront of his mind, but it was still clear as day that his mind had been sufficiently fucked with.

“Guilty of being called sticky fingers in a joking manner, maybe,” I agreed. “Otherwise, the only thing you’re guilty of is being a good boy. You did so fucking well tonight.”

He sniffled. “Oh,” he whimpered. “It’s over?”

“It’s over,” I confirmed.

I vaguely registered the other Tops releasing their prey as well, including Ryan, who’d returned with Greg.

The moment Tracy was free of his restraints, he fell against me and locked his arms around my neck.

CHAPTER 12

Tracy Judd

Icouldn’t stop crying.

It was the most bizarre thing. It was a quiet and calm cryfest, but I couldn’t stop to save my life. I just sat there in Daddy’s truck and wept silently, sniffled a whole lot, and processed the night. And every now and then, a memory struck, causing the next round of tears.

Daddy was my anchor. He kept me close, drove fairly slowly, and kissed the top of my head a lot.

“It’s like…” I stifled a sob and screwed my eyes shut for a moment. “Getting whipped fifty times, but you register each strike much later.”

“Because it’s actually more than fifty strikes,” Daddy explained patiently. “It’s been an evening with constant movement, discomfort, tripping, mindfucking—you can’t process everything when it happens, so it comes out afterward.”

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