Dangerous Desires

by Tia Siren

  She turned away from him and Dante reached out for her, taking her by her wrist so that he could turn her back to face him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, starting at her directly in her eyes so that she could see the honesty there. “Really. I’m sorry. I’m a little on edge.”

  “I can imagine,” she said.

  “I don’t want you to be in any danger.”

  “I think that we’ve already passed that.”

  Dante let his hand fall away from hers though in truth he wanted nothing more than to feel her skin against his for as long as possible. He had longed for that touch from the first time that he saw her. Whisper was nothing like any of the other guards that he had ever encountered. It wasn’t just that she was stunningly beautiful, a sweet, curvy body concealed beneath her uniform, wide, sparkling eyes, and glossy hair that had always been trapped in a severe bun but was now tumbling around her shoulders where it had fallen from the pins. The pull that he felt toward her went beyond that. When he looked at her, he didn’t see the disdain that he saw in the other guards. They looked at him as though they knew everything about him, even if he knew for a fact that they didn’t even know his name. His uniform set him apart from them and put him in a station below them. The very fact that he was in the prison and that they had the power to lock him into the tiny cell made them feel superior to him, and they never hesitated to show that superiority. They took it as their personal mission to grind the inmates into the ground, feeling as though they were justified in whatever they did to them because they had gotten themselves into these walls. They didn’t care about the truth or who each of these people actually were. The guards only saw the khaki and the number that defined them.

  Whisper was different. She followed the rules and regulations, and ensured that each of the men stayed in step and did what they were supposed to do, but he never felt disrespected when she was there. She looked through the uniform, through the wristband, through the labels, and saw people. Rather than treating them as though they were there for punishment and that they had to go above and beyond to deserve decent treatment, she treated them as though she believed they deserved decency until they proved that they didn’t. It was a distinction that might seem subtle and even arbitrary to some, but to those whose lives were restricted to the pod and subjected day in and day out to the treatment of the guards, it was everything.

  Now that he was alone with her he could feel what had begun as an understanding and respect had become a simmering attraction building at a fiery pace. He let his fingers wrap around her wrist again and gently pulled her toward him to close the space between them. Their breath lingered there, moving between them, seeming to share what they were feeling without words. Dante reached forward and wrapped his arm around her, resting his hand on Whisper’s back so that he could press her against him and hold her close as he ducked his head down and touched his lips to hers.

  Whisper seemed surprised by the kiss at first, becoming still beneath his touch, and Dante drew back enough that their lips parted, but the tip of his nose still brushed hers. He paused there briefly, giving both of them the time to process what was happening. They had already crossed a line as soon as she helped him escape, but this was something different. This was more than just her understanding his innocence and agreeing to help him defend it and the others who relied on him. He was asking something more of her in this moment than she might be prepared to offer, and possibly more than he was willing to accept.

  Whisper’s eyes opened slowly and she stared at him, the color deeper now as she seemed to respond to his kiss. He wanted to say the words that were forming on his tongue, but he couldn’t. Instead, he brought his mouth down to hers again, wrapping his arm more tightly around her. He couldn’t deny what he was feeling. He needed her.

  6

  Dante tucked his other arm around her to cradle her closer and Whisper didn't protest as he started away from the doorway and moved the rest of the way into the room with her. He carried her the short way across the room and lowered Whisper onto the worn quilt spread across the bed. Dante came down with her, stretching his body over hers so that she could feel the full weight of him pressing her into the softness of the bed. Having him there with her only emphasized the difference between this space and the prison. It was as if everything that both of them had faced within the foreboding spires of the towers and twisted razor wire of the fences had happened on some other plane of existence. This was another space, another time, and she craved everything that it was offering her. Dante’s body felt warm and fulfilling surrounding hers, and Whisper indulged herself by lifting her head to run her tongue along his collarbone. When she lowered her head back to her pillow, he rested his mouth to hers again and kissed her languidly for a few long seconds before bringing his hands to the hem of her shirt and nudging it up.

  Whisper submitted to him, allowing his hands to move patiently over her body. He removed her clothing carefully, almost reverently until she lay bare in front of him. She felt herself trembling with a blend of nearly uncontrollable desire and anticipation. Dante gazed down at her admiringly, seeming to drink her in as he climbed off of the end of the bed so that he could stand and look over her. Whisper watched him step out of his black boots and bring his hands to the front of his sweatpants.

  Whisper bit down on her bottom lip, pressing her hips against the bed as she sought relief from the intense pressure building between her thighs. For so long she had had to fight these feelings. She couldn’t admit them to herself or allow anyone at the prison to see the attraction shimmering in her eyes when she looked at Dante. Now there was nothing holding her back from him and she didn’t want to fight any longer. His power over her was intense and undeniable, and she relished the feeling of relinquishing herself fully to him. She didn’t want to hold herself back from him or to keep up the wall of authority that had divided them. She belonged to him in mind and body and wanted him to take what was rightfully his.

  Dante continued undressing, and as soon as he let his pants fall away, Whisper gasped at the sight of his engorged cock. Her mouth watered as she let her eyes trail along the dark ink embedded deeply in his skin, down the ridges of his muscles, and then back to his powerful erection. Rather than intimidated by the incredible length and thickness, she was even more aroused. Her body prepared itself for him with a flow of hot, slick fluid and she opened her arms to Dante as he crawled onto the bed with her.

  He eased close to her and Whisper gathered him in her arms. Dante used his knee to part her thighs and grasped her hips to tilt her pelvis up so that the tip of his erection massaged against her clit. The delicious feeling shot through her, tingling into her fingers and toes, and her head dropped back against the pillows as if she could no longer hold it up. Dante tightened his grip on her hips, pressing his fingertips into her flesh as he continued to swirl the smooth, swollen head of his cock against her taut pearl, nurturing her and bringing her closer to what felt like the edge of oblivion.

  Dante ran his hand along the tender inside of her thigh, causing it to tremble as the desire that she had been withholding was now allowed to rush free, and down the juncture between her hip and leg so that he could dip the pad of his thumb into her. As soon as it traced through her folds, Whisper heard him groan.

  "You are so wet," he murmured.

  Whisper's body clenched at the pure eroticism of the words as if it was seeking him, aching for him to fill the void within her. She heard a whimper escape from her lips.

  "Are you ready for me?" Dante whispered. “Do you want to feel me inside you?”

  Whisper nodded, feeling breathless with her need. She parted her thighs further, opening herself to him.

  "Yes."

  Dante pulled back away from her and Whisper felt a slight sense of panic rush through her as she worried for a moment that this had all been some kind of cruel joke, a particularly vicious way for him to control her. An instant later, however, she watched as he crossed the room to a small
table. He pulled the drawer open and withdrew a packet. Tearing it open with his teeth, Dante pulled out the condom and tossed the packet aside. Whisper watched as he settled it onto the tip of his cock and unrolled it, drawing it down the delicious length of his erection until it rested firmly at the base. Her stomach tightened at the sight and she let her knees fall slightly further open in invitation. He returned to her, coming down over her again but propping himself up with one hand so that he could bring his other down between her thighs.

  After a few intoxicating moments, the tip of his erection replaced his fingers where they were softly, slowly tracing her opening and she felt him gradually sink into her. Dante exerted his absolute control as he eased forward slowly and cautiously, and she gasped as her body stretched to hold him. The feeling was intense and unfamiliar, but incredible and enriching as he filled her. She could feel the tightness of her walls gripping him strongly and knew that they were stopping him from going as deep as she wanted him to be.

  "Relax," Dante encouraged as she willed her muscles to soften and accept even more of him.

  As her body finally eased and he slid deeper into her, Whisper felt Dante starting to move his hips, rolling them so that he massaged more of her with every stroke. His hands gripped her ass and she felt him hold her tightly as he thrust, putting himself at an angle that caused the tip of his erection to hit a deeply pleasurable spot inside her so that she cried out with each intense shock of sensation.

  Whisper buried her fingers into Dante’s hair and stared into his eyes as he increased his pace. She could feel the sweat making his skin slick and smell the heady, musky scent of their arousal filling the space around them, creating an almost dizzying experience. They had gone from slow, gradual, and cautious to something more intense and urgent, and his sounds began to build around her. She felt the pressure that had grown in her hips when he touched her tightening throughout her body until suddenly it crashed and she felt her hot, desperate walls contract around him. After an intense, almost painfully tight moment, the tension dissolved into a series of tremors that took Whisper’s breath away. As her body milked him and she let the sounds filling her chest pour from her lips, she felt Dante’s cock swell and harden even further until he threw his head back and let out a roar as he began to shake and spasm like she had.

  Gasping for breath, Dante lowered himself beside her and tucked his head onto her shoulder so that he could rest a kiss to her neck. Whisper could feel his breath trailing down her body, cooling her skin with the sweat that had beaded there. He reached across her and ran his fingers up the inside of her arm until it reached her hand so that he could intertwine their fingers. She had never experienced a connection like this. It went beyond their bodies, beyond any logic that could have controlled them. This was something more and she knew that she had made a choice that she would never be able to change, and that she never wanted to.

  7

  “They said that he raped a little girl.”

  Whisper was nearly asleep when she heard Dante’s voice.

  “Hmmm?” she murmured, rolling back toward him.

  “Evan’s brother. They said that he raped a little girl. When he was murdered, the police found a note on him. It accused him of a robbery that had happened a few weeks before and hadn’t been solved. A house had been raided, a bunch of stuff stolen, and the girl who was home was raped and nearly killed. There was no signature, but the implication was that the murder was in retaliation for that.”

  Whisper felt her heart sink at the explanation that he had kept from her earlier but was ready to share with her now.

  “Wouldn’t they have been able to link the note to the girl’s parents, though?”

  Dante shook his head.

  “That’s the thing,” he said. “Her father was in jail. Her mother was at work. On video. They had nothing to do with the murder.”

  “It was a cover up.”

  Dante nodded.

  “I know that he didn’t do it. He would never do something like that.”

  “Did the man who killed him?”

  “Someone he associates with,” Dante said. “But nobody would listen. They were all too willing to say that Johnny did it, and they didn’t bother to look for who killed him.”

  “They thought that he deserved it.”

  “Something like that.”

  Whisper let a sigh slip out of her lungs. She remembered the two inmates tossing Mullins over the top railing. He never should have been in general population. He should have stayed in protective custody where the guards would have been able to regulate his movements and keep him from getting hurt. The reality was he was the most hated of inmates: a child molester. Even she knew that no matter what the guards did, there was truly nothing that they could do to protect him. The moment that he decided to cause trouble in P.C. and got sent back to general population, it was only a matter of time. She knew that she should have felt the same compassion for him that she did for Evan’s brother, but the truth was, she didn’t. There was a fundamental difference between the two men. Johnny had done nothing wrong and was the victim of heinous slander. Mullins not only acknowledged what he had done, but flaunted it, inking the names of his victims and the dates that he had attacked them on his arm. Her thoughts went to those tattoos and the last time that she had seen them, streaked with blood on the slice of flesh cast into the cell by the man who had come in after her and Dante.

  “You said that the guy who killed him is the same guy who killed the guy who you are accused of murdering,” she said.

  “Six months before he killed Johnny, there was a fight. Afterwards, a man named Syth was found in the middle of the street in front of my house, stabbed. Vince had already put out a hit on him, but I knew that he had handled it himself. He made sure that I took the fall for it.”

  “Why would you kill someone and then leave the body in the street in front of your house?” Whisper asked.

  It didn’t make any sense. She couldn’t understand why anyone would honestly believe that Dante could be responsible for a murder that was so blatantly not him.

  “Logic rarely matters when it comes to people from my neighborhood,” he said. “I wasn’t really put down because of the murder. That’s what they said and it’s what’s on paper, but I’ve always known that they were just warehousing me. Putting me behind bars was a way to make it so that they didn’t have to deal with me. The fact that I’m from the neighborhood that I was am means that I’m automatically worthless. Putting me away was just a preemptive move.”

  Dante shifted so that he could look down at her and Whisper met his eyes.

  “You are worth so much more than that,” she said, saying each word carefully to ensure that he could hear them.

  “I don’t know about that,” Dante said, “but I know that Johnny was, and I know that Evan is. They deserve much more than this, and the longer that Vince is on the street, the more danger that they are in, and that the more danger that the people in my old neighborhood are in. Vince is ruthless. Our beef goes back a long way and I know that he has a long list of people, including me, that he is intent on eliminating. I know things about him that he is very motivated to keep secret and unless I can prove that he is the one who killed both Johnny and Syth, and knocked over that house, people are just going to keep dying.”

  “I need to go back to the prison.”

  Whisper felt Dante tense beside her and his arm disappeared from beneath her head as he sat up, his eyes burning as he glared at her.

  “What?” he demanded. “You came this far with me and I tell you all of that, and now you decide that you need to go back?”

  Whisper nodded, pulling the blanket up around her to combat the cold on her skin now that the warmth of his body close to hers was gone.

  “You can’t do this by yourself. You need Evan. You can’t get into the prison to get him out. But I can.”

  Whisper could see thoughts churning through Dante’s mind.

  “How?”
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  “With the way that that riot was going, it’s not going to be under control yet.”

  “Alright.”

  “So, what if someone horrible was holding me hostage?”

  “Vince.”

  Whisper nodded.

  “But now he’s decided to let me go because I led him to you. I make a miraculous return to the prison, desperate for the sanctuary.”

  “And then I’m in.”

  “We’ll be gone again in a couple of hours.”

  Whisper pulled down the mirror in the sun visor and checked her reflection. Her hair looked knotted and tousled, her face streaked with dirt, and her clothing torn. She hoped that it was enough and that she would be able to convince the people standing guard at the prison that she had gone through hell. Even more, she hoped that she looked desperate and frightened enough that they would usher her inside the fences of the prison without doing much investigating into the strange vehicle that she was now driving. They would recognize that it wasn’t her car, and she could only hope that they didn’t want to search it before letting her inside.

  Twenty minutes later she had made it through the gates and was being escorted toward the one small lot to the side of the prison that was securely back under control. This wasn’t what they had planned. This wasn’t the way that it was going to work.

  “What do I do?” she muttered, hoping that Dante would hear her from where he was hiding in the floorboards of the backseat.

  “Park,” he said back. “Get out and do your best to convince them that they all need to go inside with you and hear what you have to tell them.”

  “What do I have to tell them?”

  “Tell them about how you were held hostage and heard some of the threats that Vince was making. Tell them that you know that you are in danger because he said that if you talked to anyone, he would come back and kill you.”