The scary one. The beautiful one.
When I walked past a few moments ago, they didn’t look worried, but they do now.
Night paces behind Day, his mouth moving with words I cannot hear.
There is a smile on Day’s face, but his brow is pinched, his long fingers drumming on the bars of their cell. Without taking his attention off of me, he says something to his cellmate over his shoulder and the man nods, shoulders firming with purpose.
A deafening buzz rents the air, followed by a sequence of loud clicks.
And that’s when the cell doors—all of them—spring open.
A sea of orange jumpsuits floods the concourse. Men overturning the picnic tables, fights breaking out, shouts echoing off the high ceiling. It all happens so fast, I barely have a chance to piece together what’s taking place. This is a jailbreak. An actual jailbreak. We’re in the midst of hundreds of violent offenders. I turn toward my escort with wide eyes and his helpless fear unleashes my own. His gun can’t protect us from this many prisoners.
This is a death sentence.
As soon as those words settle in my mind, an inmate comes up behind the guard and buries a sharp object in the side of his neck. With a choked sound, my escort goes down, thick, red blood burbling from the fresh wound and soaking his uniform top.
It’s only seconds before the light goes out of his eyes.
Dead. He’s dead.
With my heart slamming into my ear drums, I go into survival mode. I turn in a circle, looking for somewhere to hide. But there’s nowhere. Nowhere. And now the man with the shank is stalking toward me with an insidious smile curving his lips. Oh God. Oh God. Is this a bad dream or am I actually at the mercy of hundreds of incarcerated men? I won’t live to see this evening, let alone tomorrow’s sunrise.
A voice comes over a loud speaker ordering the prisoners back into their cells. But I don’t have to turn around to know they’re ignoring the warning, continuing to wreak havoc behind me. The man with the sharp, bloody object has almost reached me when I’m picked up and tossed over a large shoulder—and carted off into the fray.
Chapter 2
I close my eyes and inhale through my nose, repeating the mantra that got me through a youth of poverty and violence and instability. You can survive anything. You can survive anything. Unfortunately, those four words don’t seem to ring as true today, since I’m currently being ferried away by a prisoner, hands ripping at my clothing, fists closing around my ankles and attempting to pull me away from whoever has taken me.
With a whimper into my captor’s shoulder, I realize the best I can hope for is to live through this day, because there is no doubt I will be assaulted.
Prepare for it now. Be prepared.
There is a series of shouts around me and then a loud metal slam.
Everything goes still, except for my pulse, which sprints a thousand miles an hour.
Slowly, I open my eyes and look down at the ground. Two pairs of feet. One belonging to the man holding me over his shoulder, one belonging to someone else. Who?
I might as well face them and attempt to personalize myself. If I can do that, maybe they won’t kill me before all of this is over.
Before I can lift my head, I’m being manhandled again. Pulled from the mountainous shoulder underneath me, my feet settled onto the ground. And there, standing on either side of me, is Night and Day.
My first reaction is relief. Which is ridiculous.
The only thing I know about these men is that they’re violent offenders.
That’s more than enough to know I shouldn’t be relieved.
“Please don’t kill me,” I whisper, an annoying tremble in my voice. “My name is Wendy. I’m a scent branding specialist. Like, hotels hire me to scent their rooms and lobbies? Sometimes casinos, too. I don’t…I don’t have any family, but I want one someday. Very badly. I have a hamster named George and he’s my family for now. I love old reruns of Gilligan’s Island and I’m very indecisive about the color of my living room accent wall. I’ve tried nine shades of green now and none of them are right—”
“Fuck me,” mutters Day, a hint of England in his tone. “She’s downright adorable. And quite reckless, apparently, marching into this den of vipers in that…” His gaze ticks lower, his voice dropping along with it. “Obscenely form-fitting skirt.”
Behind me, there is a long, anguished groan from Night.
I turn to find him pacing. Right. Left. Then he stops abruptly and grinds his forehead against the cinderblock of the cell wall.
“You’ve got Ruger very worked up, sweet cheeks,” continues Day, his warm hand coming up to cup my jaw, tilting my face one way and the other, his thumb pressing into the middle of my bottom lip. “Shall we have pity on the poor chap and set him loose?”
A guttural sound comes from behind me, Night’s fist slamming into the wall.
Loud enough to be heard over the pandemonium in the concourse.
“No,” I whimper, forcing my voice to firm. “Please.”
“No pity for poor Ruger, eh?” The insanely handsome prisoner chuckles, and God help me, the low rasping intimacy of the sound causes my nipples to bead. “You don’t seem to realize the predicament you’re in. See, in here there is only one of us to satisfy.” He tips his head toward the bars separating us from the violent prison riot. “Out there? Well. I’d hazard a guess there are hundreds, if not a thousand men dying to tear this skirt from your tight little arse. You’re safer in here with us.” He turns me around to face Ruger, his fingertips trailing down my spine and unzipping my skirt. “Show a little appreciation for the protection we’re providing.”
Only one of us to satisfy, he said.
“What about you?” I don’t know why I ask this. Maybe I’m an idiot. Or I’m too curious for my own good. But it strikes me as odd that Day is brokering sex for his friend, while asking for no relief of his own. “Don’t you want…”
“Yes. I want,” Day hisses into my ear, ripping my skirt down over my hips, pooling the wool at my feet. “Oh, I fucking want, but I’m far too arrogant to fuck an unwilling girl-child who looks terrified half to death. Ruger can’t help being a beast.”
“Please stop, Klay,” Ruger growls, still facing the wall.
Klay.
Klay is Day. Ruger is Night.
The handsome prisoner laughs, his big hands cradling my hips, giving them a rough squeeze—and there…I can feel his erection against the curve of my buttocks. Klay is aroused. Very much so. In fact, he seems to be breathing faster by the moment, his hands growing more and more restless on my hips. My waist. “Nothing to be ashamed about, Ruger,” he rasps, twisting the sides of my panties around his fingers. “Any man who reached the age of thirty without sampling pussy would be a beast. Now you’ve got this tasty little thing at your mercy and you want your first ride. Badly. No one blames you.”
Ruger’s massive back heaves, heaves, then he turns to peer at me over his shoulder through the fall of black hair. And his blatant hunger spears me in the middle, making my bare thighs quiver. A virgin. Ruger is a virgin, like me? It doesn’t seem possible in this place. Or that a hardened criminal could be inexperienced. But…I believe he is. I can see it in the depth of his brown eyes how badly he’s been in pain without physical touch.