“Can you find your way through to the overnight room?”
“Yeah.” I carefully crept along, gasping as I stretched muscles that hadn’t been used in quite this way for a few days. The warm shower had done wonders for my back, but I didn’t want to get cocky about it. I was slow and it was tedious as I made my way through the dorms for the inmates with serious medical needs. The beds weren’t very big, and all of them were full of old men. There was so much white fuzz, for a brief moment it felt like wading through a field of dandelion puffs. Some men had equipment hooked up to them. Others were sitting and reading, or talking together in deep, raspy voices colored with age.
Humiliation burned hot in my face because, really, no one would blink an eye if I was in here with these old geezers. I sighed and didn’t make eye contact as I kept moving. When I opened the door from the dorm and went out into the emergency area, there was a nurse who went across the way and opened the door to an overnight room for me. I crossed the small space—like an ER, but with far fewer beds crammed in, and no curtains. No one gave a shit about the privacy of injured criminals. I kept my eyes on that door as sweat began to bead on my freshly washed skin.
“How are you tonight?” she asked, cheerful as ever. I couldn’t focus on her. I was too honed-in on moving my legs, one at a time, and making my body work for me.
“Using a walker. What do you think?”
She made an affirmative sound at me, which was a musical lilt, and I knew her type. They posted motivational messages on walls and asked me to walkjust a few steps more. “I think you’re cranky.”
“You got me.” I wanted to be angry at her candor, but she wasn’t scared of me, didn’t cringe away… it was nice. How fucking stupid was it that parts ofprisonwere turning out to be better than being home alone in my house? I mean, the bars and Tatum Black fucking sucked. I’d missed people more than I’d realized, and I’d always done my fucking best to chase off Angel. I’d both constantly wanted my son around and at the same time wanted him gone.
Wonder how Angel Blake is doing?My heart skipped a beat, and sadness tugged at me. I shoved the thought from my mind. The nurse made another one of those happy chirping noises as I went in and fought my way toward the bed.
“Good job.”
Fuck offwas on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t let it fly. Instead I eased myself down onto the bed in relief. I slid the walker aside, next to the wall, and rubbed at my wrists. They weren’t sore, exactly, but I’d been leaning a lot of my weight on my arms.
For a minute I closed my eyes and rested, recovering my energy from the hard work of showering. Normally I had a smoke and a drink afterward to soothe the pains I’d aggravated. But not today. I sighed and blinked my eyes open, staring at the clean floor. The nurse came in and handed me a cup of pills that I downed, and then she gave me a bottle of water. I stared as she sat a simple royal-blue hardback book beside me on the bed with a pure whiteNAin the left-hand corner.
“Brandon left it for you,” she said with a smile.
I frowned at the book. “Do I gotta read it?”
She laughed. “No. Would you like your light on or off?” She retreated to the door and rested her hand on the switch. I sighed and could feel the exhaustion of the last few days down to my core. I was too burned out by being fucking terrified earlier to be as twitchy as I normally was when I wasn’t holed up in my house. The worst had fucking happened, and I’d survived, thanks to Drew.
“Off, I guess.”
She flipped the switch down, and I kicked the slippers from my feet. I stood enough to drag the covers out from under my ass, then turned and started the process of getting my legs onto the bed and under the warm blankets. My back hurt like fuck; however, in spite of the way I’d been thrown around earlier, I felt better today than yesterday. Maybe just moving more had helped? Who the fuck knew? Not me. My body had a mind of its own. I leaned against the wall with the pillows at my back and stared into the darkness on the other side of the room. I touched my fingers to my lips and was scared for a second at how I felt. The inside of my belly tickled, and my cock tingled. Drew had kissed me, but it hadn’t been too hard. Not too soft, either. Just goddamned right. I sucked in a deep, shaky breath, and my eyes watered.
I’d also had my pants yanked down.
I’d also been underneath Tatum Black again today. I’d had his greedy, hurtful hands on my body again.
But I focused on those good feelings from Drew and tried to lock away the bad ones—the way I always did. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes I drank myself into a fucking coma. But my cock taking an interest in the sweet things Drew had done helped right now, and gave me something to focus on that wasn’t pain.
Nothing bad had ever happened in this room. And yeah, maybe I would be murdered tomorrow, but that was even more reason to enjoy every second of the few good things I had. I spread my thighs to give my cock some more room. I closed my eyes and slid my hand down my chest, over my stomach, and between my legs to rub over the plumped ridge trapped in my boxers. My cockhead throbbed, and I tried to remember every second of Drew’s mouth on mine. He’d tasted good, and his stubble had scraped a lush burn on my lips.
My breath caught and I rubbed myself harder. The heat and pleasure spread through my belly. I slid my hand to the waistband of my shorts and thought about pushing them down, but I wanted to savor this for another few minutes. Who knew if I’d be alone in here again?
There was a knock on the door and I jerked my hand out from under the blankets.
“Yeah?”
The door cracked open and bright light cut the darkness, but it didn’t move any farther. “Can I come in?” Drew’s low voice sizzled along my nerve endings, especially considering what I’d just been doing.
Inhaling sharply, I tugged my blankets up higher around my waist. For a second, humiliation burned hot in my gut. I wished for something nicer, some clothes he might like to see me in—hell, even deodorant. Just anything to improve myself for him. I chuckled at how outlandish I was being. Me smelling better was fucking pointless. I was still a waste of life. “Yeah.”
The door opened and he stepped in, his strong body cutting a long shadow across the floor. I couldn’t see his face well as he closed the door and rested his back against it. He flipped on the light, and I blinked away my blindness to stare at him. His mouth kicked up on one corner and I swore his expression lit up. I glanced down, then back up at him.
“You look good,” he murmured.
Glancing away, I struggled to say anything, and ended up rubbing my hands along the top of the blankets in a silly way I couldn’t stop.
“You know what?” He flipped the light back off, and I hated that my gasp was audible in the dark. A light shone and he held up his phone. “I don’t know. This seems friendlier. Homier.” He walked closer to me and set the phone down on the little table beside the bed with the light facing up, almost like a candle. The shadows in the room loomed large, but he was close enough it seemed safe instead of scary.
“Yeah, that’s nice,” I murmured.
