“Then don’t.”
Christ.
I drag the knife up her spine again, slow enough to make her whimper.But I pull away last second, standing abruptly, breath ragged, heart pounding hard enough to hurt.
“No,” I rasp.“Not here.Not yet.”If I take her, claim her, I’m betraying the club.
She turns, breasts bouncing, pupils big, hair wild, lips swollen.
“You almost came,” she whispers.
“So did you.”
We stare at each other like sinners at confession.
Then I shove the knife back in my pocket and step away before I break every rule I ever made.
Her mouth opens.Closes.Opens again.“Why?”
“Because if I stay in this room with you one more minute…” I swallow hard.“I’m gonna fuck my initials into your skin.”
She shivers.
And smiles.
Like she knows I will.
Chapter 22
Becki
The vent tastes like rust.
I shove my elbow through first, teeth clenched as jagged metal slices a kiss across my skin.A shiver rides up my spine, part cold, part adrenaline, part the memory of Royal’s hands pinning me earlier, his breath shaking like a man who’d seen a ghost and then come home to punish mine.
He left the door unlocked tonight.
A mistake.
A challenge.
A dare.
Whatever.Stupid Krystal came in wanting all the gossip.I gave it to her, so she’d let me loose.Sophie sent her.Thinks since we fought, we ain’t close like sisters.
Told Krystal where to find the master key to this chain.Behind the bar.Not much I don’t know about the Kings of Anarchy MC.
Montgomery might be the princess of Paradise Falls, Legend’s Horse Princess, but I’m the Princess of Hell.Or I was until Legend put me out to pasture.
The crawlspace above Royal’s room smells like dust, mildew, and secrets, old ones, buried ones, the kind my daddy collects, and the Kings pretend not to know they’re standing on.
I slide forward on my stomach.The metal groans under me.The master key is warm where it’s tucked inside my shorts.A second heartbeat.
People claim prison makes you patient.They’re wrong.It makes you sharper, hungrier.Counting steps, picking screws loose with a hairpin, remembering sounds coming down the hall.
Tonight, I need out.Need silence.Need something that doesn’t sound like Royal breathing my name into the wall when he thinks I’m asleep.
The night hits my face when I slip out of the vent behind the old jailhouse.The Kentucky dark is thick, a velvet curtain stretching over Hell.Somewhere to my left, a dog howls like it’s warning someone too stubborn to listen.
