“Sorry for dragging you from bed then.” She winks, teasing, and her playfulness after such a short time in my presence makes my jumper get tight around my groin area. It didn’t take her long to lose the nerves, which is appreciated.
My hand slides across the table, getting as close to her as the cuffs allow for. “Apology not accepted. Seeing you will keep me going for a while. Your letters make the days pass easier.”Glancing at the clock pulls a bitter sigh from me. “Fifteen minutes left. I want to hear more about you. Tell me what a day at work is like.”
And so she does, losing herself to her story. The sun seeps in from the grated window to our right, hitting the blonde streaks of her hair in a way that makes me long to see her bathed fully in the sunlight. Maybe now that we’ve met, she’ll send me that picture. Maybe it’ll be of her in the summertime.
The longer she’s in front of me, the more the hunger in my gutdemandsI learn everything about Aspen. Every. Thing. Not all the shit she’s put in her letters, but the rest. The way her heart quickens with desire, the stilted way she breathes after an orgasm, and the way she looks with her head thrown back. How pink her skin would be afterwards, flushed from coming, and the way it’ll so easily bruise beneath my teeth. The lines on her wrists after untying her from the ropes that’ll keep her down and still for my tongue and how a simple compliment will send her right over the edge.
Eventually, a guard announces visitation has come to an end, and my stomach lurches when she moves to stand. Hair falls, blocking her face in the remaining dredges of time I have with her. An instinctual snap of my wrists as I reach for her reminds me of the cruelty cuffed to my skin.
All around us, duos are saying their goodbyes, and the visitors are making their way to the door—some reluctantly. Aspen stands, revealing what the metal table blocked from view.
Her shirt isn’t a shirt at all, but a dress. One that’s tight against her waist before flaring into a skirt shorter than the prison typically permits visitors to wear. The sleeves are long, and the neckline modest, but the peek of her legs, even covered in black tights, undoes me. Late nights just got a whole lot better, even if I have no right to be fantasizing about a woman as young as she is.
Jesus fucking Christ.
This girl walks into a room full of hungry men—men who haven’t fucked in years—wearing a goddamndress. I take back every comment about her being smart. She’s fucking stupid, dressed up in a death wish.
“Bye, Cade. It was nice to formally meet you.”
Before she makes it a full step away, I move, driven by the early stages of my craving. Stuck to the table, I can only go so far but manage to stretch a leg to block her path.
In my peripheral vision, Bennett moves closer, but Aspen’s wave stops him. She should have taken his protection—maybe then I would have let her go. She didn’t. She agreed to stay, staring down with eyes as big as the fucking planet, and seals her fate by not immediately running.
“Come back another time.”
She glances from me to the door, where the others are still exiting, and back again. Her tongue swipes over her bottom lip, adding another fantasy to the many she’s granted me today. “I’ll try,” she whispers.
I reluctantly slide my leg backward so she can run off.
I may have frightened my new obsession away forever, but not saying anything wasn’t happening. Her floral scent lingers, her face swimming in my vision even as she’s leaving. Those fucking thighs, her hips, her goddamn angelic face mixed with the menace of a demon. And of course, those lips. Full and kissable. A voice that’ll soon be crying in pleasure within my dreams.
She once asked me if I dream. I said no. That’s about to change.
As she disappears out the door, I’m not the only one who watches her go. My veins ice, and I slap the table to draw his attention to me rather than Aspen.
Asshole’s been a pain in my ass both here and out on the streets. His crew still roams, and with his connections, my request for Aspen to return could become a possible mistake.
She may be mine, but he can’t know that.
The sun bounces off the skin of his receding hairline as he swipes a thumb over his bottom lip and turns to face me directly. “Pretty little thing, isn’t she? Wherever did you find her?”
“Erase her from your fuckin’ mind, Gunnar, or I’ll do it for you.”
Bennett heaves down on my shoulder, ending my fruitless attempt to get across the room to the asshole and shove my fist in his face. Thankfully, Gunnar’s in a different cell block, so I won’t have to listen to him, but the fact that I stupidly walked Aspen into visitation—where he almost always has someone come—means I’ve put a target on the girl’s head.
As Bennett undoes my cuffs to line me up to be returned, I slide Aspen’s card beneath my jumper for safekeeping. The scent of lilies lingers.
She brings cards to convicted felons she’s never met before. Writes friendly letters and taunts them in person.
She’s fucking perfect.
Now, to figure out a way to prove that to her.
FOUR
ASPEN
“If you picked up,it means he didn’t kill you, which is great ’cause I didn’t feel like calling your parents and telling them how desperate you are for research that you walked yourself into a murderer’s playhouse.”
