Lying back, I closed my eyes and pushed away the memories. It was getting close to lights out, and I knew if I kept up that way of thinking, I’d wake up drenched and gasping from nightmares. Instead, I thought of Lyla and smiled. Drifting off, I dreamt of her sweet kisses and soft sighs. I couldn’t wait to see her again.
“It’s my first time,” Sarah said, her lips open in pleasure.
“Mine, too.”
I moved my body into hers, the feeling so extreme I could barely hold back the raw, lustful noises that spilled from my lips.
“I love you so much, Christopher,” she panted.
“I love you, too.”
And then the room around me shifted, and I wasn’t having sex with Sarah anymore. Instead, I was sitting in a chair across from her father, Mr. Rizzuto. He was sitting on the plush white couching and looking back at me with a smile. He held out an envelope and pushed it into my chest. I took it.
“Look inside,” he said, taking a drag from his cigar.
I opened the envelope, and my jaw hit the floor. It was full of money. I pulled it out and counted a thousand dollars.
“This is too much,” I said, confused.
He stood and came to me, patting me on the back like a proud father. “You deserve it. You’ve been doing an amazing job around here. Christmas is right around the corner. Go buy your mother something nice.”
I looked down at the money in my hand, and when I looked up again, the room was different. I stood, my eyes taking in the blood-covered scene around me. My heartbeat quickened and panic filled my gut.
My eyes shifted around the room, landing on a dark figure. He carried Sarah’s lifeless body in his arms. Rage consumed me and I tackled him to the ground, my stomach spinning when one of Sarah’s arms fell to the floor before the rest of her.
I clawed at his dark face, kicking and punching with everything I had. Suddenly, the room began to spin and blur, and my arms felt too heavy to move. I felt drunk, but I never drank.
The faceless man fought back, and then he spun me, his heavy frame pushing me into the hardwood floor. I reached desperately for his face once more, but I only reached his neck. I dug my claws in, ripping at his skin and making him yell out.
I’d gotten a piece of that son of bitch.
The blur thickened, and the sounds around me became muffled. Darkness moved over me, but before I passed out, the last thing I saw was Sarah’s decapitated head and her lifeless eyes staring back at me.
I sat up with a jolt, shaking, my body covered with beads of sweat. Cold seeped into my veins, and I glanced around, terrified. The dark prison walls stared back at me, bringing me back to reality. I grabbed my chest, expecting my heart to pound a hole right through it. As I breathed, I could hear Scoop from my cell door.
“X? You okay?” he asked, leaning against the bars.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Why didn’t you wake me up?”
Once again, I’d missed the call for chow line up and the sounds of my cell opening. It was breakfast time, and I never slept past it. Officer Reeves was going to have my ass if I didn’t quit fucking up.
“I’ve been calling your name since they started to run the line, man. Are you sure you’re okay?”
I wasn’t okay. I’d had nightmares about that night for the past ten years, but never had there been another person, never had there been a faceless man that I had to fight. I was almost positive it was more than a nightmare. It was a memory.
After ten years, things were coming to light. I hadn’t done it. Someone else was there. He’d killed them, my girlfriend and her friend.
The shocking reality hit me like an anvil and I sat back, straining to remember more, but nothing else came to me. One thing was for sure, I’d been drugged. It was the reason I couldn’t’ remember much about the night of the murders. I was framed.
The pieces were slowly falling into place. Things I’d never thought about before moved into my brain. Things like the fact I would’ve never been able to cut someone into pieces with a dull knife. Lyla was right. I used to be so weak. Why hadn’t I realized that before?
Excitement rushed through me. For the first time in ten long years, I wasn’t being choked by guilt. It was sad that Sarah and her friend were dead. It was a sadness I was sure to carry around for the rest of my life, but I hadn’t done it. Lyla was right. I was innocent.
CHAPTER 16
x
THE NEXT DAY, I went looking for a fight every chance I had. Shouldering past the men on the block, I hoped to piss them off enough for them to swing at me. I practically seethed at the inmates during chow time, wishing a motherfucker would come at me. I was a like a rabid racehorse, foaming at the mouth and chomping at the bit.
I knew Lyla was back at work, and I wanted to see her. If things had changed since our kiss, I wanted to know before I let myself get too involved. Hell, I was already fucking involved. Maybe she would come in and act completely different toward me. If she were a smart girl, that was exactly what she’d do. I knew having anything to do with me was a bad idea; she should know it, too. Even if I was innocent.
The dynamics of being in prison had changed for me, though. No matter how much I pushed, no one would fight me. Also, I wasn’t being watching constantly, and it seemed as though people were going out of their way to avoid me. I meant to the point where they were walking on the other side of the hall in avoidance. It was just my luck. The moment I needed the inmates out for my blood, they wanted nothing to do with me. Maybe my beating the hell out of the COs was enough to deter them.
After a few days, however, I realized it had been a rare, short-lived fluke. Rumors about me murdering Carlos moved around the block like hot lava, pouring from the mouths of those who had no fucking clue. Because of that, it became obvious Jose was out for revenge. He sat staring at me every chance he got, his thought processes above him like grey clouds of contempt. I was sure he was mulling it over, trying to figure out how and when he wanted to go about killing me. After all, I’d supposedly killed his brother.
His gang knew the situation and they were his constant surveillance, waiting for the perfect moment to catch me off guard. For three days, they watched and waited, expecting at any moment to be able to take me down. Finally, they got their chance.
I was working laundry when I felt the similar chill pass down my spine. Ten years of paranoia had honed my sixth sense. I knew when someone was behind me. Turning quickly, I found six of his guys surrounding me, all brandishing a weapon. Two of them had socks full of paint balls. They slung them around like David about to take on Goliath. The others had paper blades lodged in their fists.
As I waited impatiently for them to attack, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on edge. A paintball sock was swung at my head, while the two with blades moved in. I deflected the blades instinctively and tried to duck at the same time, but the paintballs caught me in the side of the head, sending an ache so extreme through my brain that I thought I’d pass out on the first hit.
My teeth rattled and then the familiar ache worked its way through my cerebrum and the headache started again. It was the same old twinge that sent me to the hospital. There was no healing from a head injury in prison when you had a big target on your back.
I ripped the sock out of his grasp and used it against him, catching him across the jaw. He fell to the ground in agony, spitting out blood and a tooth. Five moved in at once, and one sliced my arm with the blade. I wrestled another one away, but then their fists began to fly at me and I could only block so much.
I took down four of them, leaving the last two standing and ready to strike. Their blades caught the light coming into a barred window, and it reflected in my eyes. They were dangerous and tenacious, like bulldogs waiting to take down a bull.
The alarms began to ring out, alerting the staff of the fight. Within a few seconds, COs moved in to diffuse the situation. They hauled off the ones who weren’t bleeding and took them straight to the hole. The others, and myself, were
taken to medical, which was a good thing considering I was already starting to feel dizzy.
The moment I entered the infirmary, I looked around for Lyla. I knew she would be angry with me for another fight, but I didn’t care. I’d learned to love the heat she displayed in a moment of anger. It was sexy, a raw reaction that made the blood pump straight to my cock and my brain swim with need.
My head throbbed in the bright lights, and I closed my eyes for a moment. Head pain was no fucking joke.
Opening them, I looked around for Lyla, but she was nowhere to be seen. I sat on the bed, waiting for Ginger or Giles to come in and see me. When the curtain came back, Giles stepped in. A familiar redhead followed him, and her eyes lit up with raw anger and excitement when they landed on me.
She was there. I’d never been happier to see her face.
Her cheeks were flushed as she gazed at me from behind him. Her features were soft, begging me to touch them, as she helped Giles get some vitals and check my pupils.
“Damn it, X, you just got out of the hospital with a head injury. Why do you keep doing this to yourself?” he asked.
But I didn’t answer him. I wasn’t paying him any attention. All I could hear was the soft slide of her scrubs as she moved around the room. I tensed when she pressed a finger to my wrist to check my pulse. I could see her counting in her head, trying not to look me in the eye for fear of losing her place.
“Douglas, I need some room. Could you back up to the curtain for a moment?” Dr. Giles asked.
Officer Douglas nodded before leaving. I saw him through the slit in the curtain as he walked around checking on other inmates before he returned to the desk. From that moment, his eyes never left my face as he stared me down through the tiny slit.
“What happened this time?” Lyla whispered when Giles left the curtained space for his suture kit.
Thankfully, he closed the curtain all the way, making it impossible for Douglas to see us.
“I needed to see you. “I didn’t bother blaming Jose and his boys. They did me a favor as far as I was concerned. My eyes penetrated hers, making her blush and look away.
“Are you okay?” Worry tugged at the corner of her sweet lips. “They could’ve killed you.”
Reaching out, I ran a single finger over her cheek and down the side of her mouth. “I’m fine now.” I dropped my hand to my side when Giles pulled the curtain back and reentered.
“If I had a dollar for every stitch I’ve put in your body, I’m be a rich man,” he joked, his gravel-filled laugh filling the space around me.
I’d always pictured Giles as a father figure. Sure, I was a hardened inmate and he was a doctor, but if I’d had a different life, he would’ve been an amazing dad. It made me wonder if he had children of his own. The staff in medical was smart, they knew better than to talk about their personal lives. I knew a ton about the COs, but next to nothing about the nurses and Giles. I supposed that was the point.
The side of my mouth lifted at him with his words and the sound of his happy laughter, and if I wasn’t mistaken, a gleam reached his eyes that portrayed a level of comfort that wasn’t allowed in our respective positions. It made me long for a family and a life I no longer had.
Quickly, I looked away and kept my eyes on Lyla as Giles worked to stitch up my arm. As if she couldn’t handle the heat between us, she left the space and went to the desk to work on paperwork.
Tossing his bloody needle onto the metal tray, Dr. Giles pulled off his latex gloves and smiled at me. “Your arm’s all done, but because of that noggin of yours, I’m going to have to keep you here for a few days. I can’t send you back to your cell with a busted-up brain, now can I?”
I shook my head.
He didn’t know it, but he was actually doing me a huge favor. I wanted to be around Lyla and if I had to use my head injury to do it, so be it.
When Giles left my side and went to her to tell her I was staying for a while, her eyes flittered my way and a tiny smile spread across her lips. She wanted me there just as bad as I wanted to be there, and it was time I took full advantage of our situation.
FOR TWO DAYS, I watched Lyla flitter around the room like a little dragonfly. She took care of patients and blushed every time she felt my eyes on her. My cock grew hard every time I imagined her without her oversized scrubs. And every time she let her hair down before pulling it back up, I imagined what those strands would feel like against my chest as she rode me.
I was a sick man, but I was a sick man who was about to explode from wanting Lyla so much. Everything about her was turning me on, and it had nothing to do with the fact that it had been ten years since I’d had sex. It was her smile, her smell, and the curves of her body, which I could see through her clothes when she leaned certain ways or reached for supplies.
On the second day, I’d reached my limit. When she came in to check on me, I took advantage of the closed curtain. The infirmary was quiet, no new inmates in the room. Actually, I was the only patient that day. Douglas had taken the silence of the room as an invitation to nap, and Dr. Giles was going over patient files in his office.
She checked my blood pressure, her latex-covered fingers grazing my arms and sending chills down into my stomach and deep into my balls. They grew heavy as my cock grew hard, and the urge to reach down and relieve myself was almost more than I could stand.
The skin of her fingertips was blocked by a barrier of latex, and I longed to feel her skin against mine. Reaching out, I took her hand in mine and slowly peeled the gloves from her fingers. She swallowed, her eyes meeting mine, but she didn’t stop me.
“Christopher.” My name rushed from her lips in a whisper.
Lifting her hand to my chest, I sighed when her fingers grazed my chest hairs. “Say it again.”
She closed her eyes and ran her fingers over my hot skin, leaving me panting for more breath. Leaning in, her eyes a swirl of hypnotized greens, she whispered my name again.
I lost it.
Standing, I pulled her to me and her small frame molded against mine. Without regard for the sleeping officer outside the curtain or Dr. Giles, who could walk in at any moment, I crushed my lips to her and took everything I’d been dreaming of from the moment she joined the block.
I tasted her, fed on the sweetness of her mouth like the greedy criminal I was. She moaned into me, swiping the air from my lungs and making my cock strain against the zipper of my khakis painfully. My balls ached between my thighs, heavy and ready to be unloaded.
Fuck the rules. Fuck solitary, which I was sure to get when we were caught. Fuck it all. I wanted to crawl inside of her. Explode into her depths. And it was more than obvious by the way she began to climb me, lifting her leg on my thigh and rubbing herself against my hard dick, that she wanted it, too.
I was a murderer, at least allegedly. A filthy criminal who had no right to touch her sweetness or taste her thick desire, but fuck it. People took things they didn’t deserve all the time. Why should I deny myself when no one else ever did?
Plus, from her flushed face and the glittering gaze full of lust and need, she needed me just as badly as I needed her, and I was all about giving her exactly what she desired.
CHAPTER 17
LYLA
HE WAS THERE. I was angry that he’d gotten himself hurt, but at the same time, I was so ecstatic to see his face. I’d spent some time digging into his case, and it was looking good. It wouldn’t be long before his case reopened and people saw what I instinctively knew. Christopher Jacobs was innocent, at least innocent of his crimes.
When it came to everything else, he oozed sin. He was dark and dirty minded. I could practically see his unclean thoughts when he looked at me, and my body responded in a way that was unfamiliar. My thighs clenched on their own accord, and the tiny pearl nestled where no man dared go throbbed with just the thought of his touch. It was pure, raw, amazing torture.
He looked good, tall and lean, and everywhere I went, I could feel his eyes on me. Pen
etrating me, filling me with something unnamed. I found myself biting into my bottom lip to keep from growling with need. I wasn’t sure how much longer I go without feeling his touch.
I wanted him more than my next breath. More than anything I’d ever wanted before. So when he pulled me into a heated kiss, I threw myself into him and let him take over. I knew in the back of my mind that what I was doing was so wrong. Getting caught with my hands all over an inmate was a sure way to get terminated, but in that moment, I didn’t care. All I cared about was alleviating the ache that was clawing at my pelvis like a rabid beast.
“This is wrong,” he said, arching his neck so I could taste the saltiness of his skin. “I’m a monster, and you’re…”
I took his words away from him when I sucked his bottom lip into my mouth. I didn’t want to hear about how wrong it was… I just wanted him to take control. Wanted him to throw me onto the bed he was laying in seconds before, rip my scrubs off, and slam his hard cock into me. I wanted him to be the monster he claimed to be.
“Yes. You’re so bad,” I hissed against his mouth. “Show me how rotten you are. Be the bad guy, X. Be the monster.”
We were whispering, taking in each moment before someone came in and stopped us.
Ripping his mouth from mine, he turned us and lifted me onto the bed. Cool air touched my hips as he tugged my scrubs down. Plucking my shoe off, he ripped one leg off, opening me to the room around us. My panties clung to my center, soaked with the desire he was pulling from me.
His eyes raked over me, and his teeth dug into his bottom lip. “Fuck, you smell amazing,” he said, leaning down and running his nose along my inner thigh.
I gasped. The sensation of his face being so close to my opening and the tiny bundle of nerves that throbbed for his touch was enough to drive me mad.
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