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  My lack of self-control might just have blown the whole fucking plan.

  The sound of the ocean mixed with the quiet twang of the radio. I’d gotten in the habit of leaving it on all night. I’d found that after sleeping in a noisy prison for two years, I needed sound to sleep. The quiet made me think too much.

  I closed my eyes. The music in the room had blocked out the sound of the door. I hadn’t noticed that it’d opened until a rush of ocean scented air swept over me. The dim lights from the clock and radio lit her small figure as she walked toward the mattress.

  I lay there, my heart pounding in my chest, as she stood over the bed. “You should get that door fixed. You never know who might just walk inside.”

  Her blue eyes gazed at me as she pushed her sweatshirt off her shoulders. No words passed between us as I watched her pull off her shirt. As she reached up to the clasp on her bra, I saw that her hands were trembling. The sight of her shaky fingers made my throat tighten. I wanted to pull her into my arms but I waited. Her dark pink nipples hardened beneath my steady gaze. She kicked off her shoes. She slid down her pants, this time pulling her eyes from me to hide the blush in her cheeks. Her panties dropped to the floor. She stood naked for a few seconds, allowing me the pleasure of looking at her, before kneeling down on the bed. Without a word, I lifted the edge of my blanket, and she slid in next to me. The heat coming off her naked body was like a fucking tonic, an elixir that could soothe any pain or need.

  She stayed on her back, and I rolled onto my side. I smoothed my hand over her breasts. She closed her eyes, at the feel of me touching her. I stared at her doll-like face with the pouty lips, button nose and long, curly lashes. She was almost just a fantasy, like a painting that could be hung in a gallery. My cock pressed against her hip. I wanted more than anything to pull her beneath me, but I wasn’t going to blow it again.

  Her head rolled on the pillow as she looked at me. Her eyes were a glossy blue as her lips parted in invitation. I lowered my mouth over hers and kissed her as my hand moved over her belly to her pussy. A soft mewling sound came from her throat as I slid my finger between the folds. It was slick and warm with moisture. I groaned at the feel of her wetness coating my finger. Without me asking, she parted her thighs just enough that my hand could fit between her legs.

  My mouth was still on hers as my thumb massaged her clit, and I slid my finger inside of her. She gasped from behind the kiss and reached up to hold my arm in place, letting me know she wanted me there, touching her, fucking her softly with my finger. As I impaled her with two fingers, she lifted her hips to meet my hand, rocking gently at first and then holding my arm against her as she writhed in rhythm with my strokes.

  She pushed her head back against the pillow, pulling her mouth free from mine as she moaned in pleasure at my touch.

  “God, you are beautiful, Jacy. You feel like fucking heaven, your pussy, the sweet nectar warming it and those breasts. Those fucking amazing breasts.” I leaned over her breasts and suckled each one as my hand continued to invade her. She lifted her ass off the mattress, taking in more of my fingers and rubbing her clit firmly against my thumb.

  “Oh, Ledger,” she said breathlessly as she clung to me. Her thighs tightened around my hand, and hot pulses went through her pussy as she came. Her whispery whimpers made my entire body tight with wanting to fuck her. I was practically senseless, like an unmatchable high, with the idea of having her, of lowering myself between her silky thighs and taking her again and again. But it was not part of my plan tonight. I needed her to feel safe with me. I needed her to know how much she meant to me.

  Her body relaxed. Slowly, I moved my hand from between her thighs. She wiped quickly at her cheek and I noticed then, the tears at the corners of her eyes.

  I kissed her shoulder as I placed my head down on the pillow. “Are you all right?”

  The tiny glimmer of a smile followed, and a rush of relief went through me.

  “I am.” She turned to face me and placed her palm on my cheek. “I’m more than all right. It’s just been a long time since—” Her hand moved down to my chest. She trailed her fingers over the lines of my tattoos. “I didn’t really think this through. Do you have any condoms?”

  I took hold of her wrist and kissed the fingertips that had just been touching me. “Guess neither of us thought ahead about that. But we don’t need it tonight.” I pulled her into my arms, and she melted against me.

  All I could think was that I wasn’t just holding any girl. I was holding the girl. For the last few weeks I’d been working hard at defining that fine line between overwhelming love for someone and obsession. Obsession always fell on the dark side of things. When I thought about it, I worried that I’d fallen onto that dark side. But I realized now that there was nothing dark about the way I felt for Jacy. I loved her pure and simple, and I would do anything to keep her safe and happy. But if she didn’t want me, if there was any point in time when it seemed she didn’t want me in her life, I would walk away. I’d be brokenhearted, but I would walk away. She didn’t need anything like she’d had in the past. She’d already survived that hell, and I wasn’t here to make her relive it. I was here if she wanted me. And if she didn’t, I would live with that.

  Her body relaxed. She’d fallen asleep in my arms. It was still almost too hard to believe that I was holding her. But I knew, it was always there in the back of my mind, how easily this could all shatter. If Jacy knew how this had started, how this hadn’t just been chance or fate, if she knew how I’d loved her long before I met her, I was sure she’d walk away and never look back.

  Chapter 14

  -Ledger-

  Orson State Penn, 12 months till release

  Straight lines and right angles. I managed to create an imaginary oval running track inside the exercise yard even though it was all straight lines and right angles. With the exception of the razor-edged curlicues surrounding the perimeter, the entire prison, buildings, outbuildings and exercise yard, was a puzzle of cement squares and rectangles. Bleak and harsh were two of the words that came to mind as I looked around the yard. But I preferred the hours outside over the hours inside. If it had been allowed, I’d have just stayed outside in the exercise yard twenty-four seven. Snow, blistering heat, no matter what the weather, I’d have preferred to stay outside. There was no ceiling on the outside. And I didn’t have to listen to the other prisoners with their bullshitting and bragging and forced badassery. Dozens of convicts competing day and night to prove who deserved the crown for king of the assholes.

  My cellmate spotted me and made his way across the yard. Tank, a high school football hero nickname, apparently, stayed out of the fray for the most part. Not that he didn’t have the look of someone who could drive your head into the asphalt with one good push, but according to him, he was waiting for his dad’s high power lawyers to get his sentence reduced so he could be relocated to a better facility, a facility more fitting of a man with a hefty bank account. I had no complaints about him. Sharing a twelve by twelve with Tank was like winning the cellmate lotto, especially with some of the creepy fuckers doing time with us.

  Aside from being built like a linebacker, Tank was a normal guy. Like so many guys inside, he insisted that he’d never done anything to warrant jail time and that the judge just didn’t like him because, ironically enough, he came from a privileged background. But that was as detailed as he ever got about his crime. Even though he was mostly a rich, entitled sounding dick, I felt bad for the guy. He had a wife at home, a wife whom he loved like fucking Romeo loved Juliet. He spent a lot of his time talking about her, and I found myself listening whenever he told stories about his wife. Not just because there wasn’t that much else to keep my mind occupied but because every story he told painted a picture of a woman who I was almost certain couldn’t exist. I had begun to think that she was only a dream woman and that Tank was just making her
up as he went along.

  “Hey, roomie.” Tank sat on the edge of concrete wall next to me. “Are you going to join in that basketball game or what?”

  “Nah, think I’ll just work out on the bars.”

  He leaned back and rested his elbows on the top edge of the wall. “Yep, think I’ll skip it today. That big fuckface, Nate, is really generous with those elbow swings. Almost broke my nose last time. Don’t need any more twists and turns in this beak.” He reached up and tapped his nose. “Broke it twice playing football in high school.”

  It seemed I was about to hear another football story. With any luck, it would morph into a story about her, about Jacy.

  “One time I took a direct hit at practice, not even sure how it happened. I was wearing my helmet, but boom, heard the thing break and blood just gushed into my mouth and down my chin. The homecoming game was that night, but I still played a pretty fucking good game even with black eyes and a pounding headache.”

  “What about you, Ledge? You look like the kind of guy who played football.”

  I shook my head. “They didn’t have much of a team at the continuation high school I got transferred to. Got caught smoking pot . . . twice. So they shipped me to the school of misfits.”

  He laughed. “Is that sort of like the Island of Misfit Toys?”

  “Yep, that’s exactly what it was. Have to admit, the teachers there were far less preachy than the teachers at the regular high school. Guess they didn’t want to waste their energy telling us how to behave because we were already doomed to failure.”

  The basketball came rolling toward us. I stopped it with my foot, picked it up and heaved it back toward the game.

  “Shit, that’s rough. Doesn’t sound like you had it too bad at home, not like a lot of the guys in here. What made you decide to stray off the path of righteousness, as they say?”

  I thought about his question. It was a good one that had a lot of answers, but if I had to pinpoint a day that would be easy. But I never talked about that day. There was no way to go back in time and change the outcome of that shitty day, so there was no sense talking about it. And it had been so long ago, I’d washed what I could of it from my memory. But that day had changed the way everyone looked at me, including my parents. That day had been the catalyst.

  “Guess I was just born with the penchant for trouble.” Topic change needed. “You mentioned that you and Jacy were high school sweethearts.”

  His face always changed when he heard her name. It was sort of a lost, dark expression that washed over his face. I’d concluded it was a result of the heartache of loving someone and not being able to be with them. Tank nodded, and I figured this was going to be one of those days when he didn’t want to talk about her. Some days he was free with the stories, and other days, he kept it all bound tightly in his chest as if it hurt too much to think about her.

  “Jacy was a cheerleader,” he said quietly.

  “Guess that makes sense if you were a football player. It’s kind of a high school requirement, isn’t it?”

  Tank had that all-American quality about him, the good looks and confident personality that surely would have made him a big man on campus.

  He smiled at my comment. “Guess it sort of is a requirement. We were a popular couple on campus. But Jacy, she was never like the other girls. She talked to everyone, you know? She’d sit at the table with the geeks and cast-offs to eat lunch without a second thought. Sometimes I’d get pissed at her for hanging out with people other than, you know, the popular crowd, our group of friends.” He laughed. “She’d tell me she was in need of talking to people who had more thoughts and ideas in their heads than how to throw a football or how to make the perfect French braid. We all thought we were too good for everyone else, but Jacy never thought that.” Another laugh but this one was edged with something that almost seemed like regret.

  He leaned forward and rested his arms on his legs. He’d drifted off, possibly to his glory days of high school. They certainly must have been fucking glorious with a girl like Jacy on his arm.

  “There was this kid,” he started, his voice low, “everyone teased him because he had this big head, and he had these—” He stopped and shook his head. “Shit.” He paused again, and I thought the story was over.

  Rickley, the prison’s most disliked guard walked over with his beer belly tucked up in his black gun belt. We both looked up at him. He had one of those permanent snarls, as if his mouth had frozen that way. “Why aren’t you two cackling hens in the game?”

  “Not in the mood today, Officer Rickley,” I said with a sugary smile added at the end.

  “Always the smart-ass, Cain, eh? How about both of you pansies get up and walk the perimeter or something. A tired animal is always easier to tame than a rested one.”

  I didn’t have to look to know that Tank’s fist had balled into iron just like my own. But we both kept our cool. Rickley was known to tease, to rile. He took pleasure in seeing someone lose their cool. The real reward came when his victim added months to his sentence. But I had no intention of staying longer than I was given.

  “You are very right,” I stood up. “Come on, Tank. Let’s take a stroll around the grounds.” I grinned at Rickley, but Tank sneered at him as we headed off on our walk.

  I was sure Tank was done with his story but then he started it again.

  “Tumors or something,” he said.

  I glanced over at him in confusion.

  “The kid,” he shook his head. “I think his real name was Charles. Guess I never took the time to find out. He had these big protrusions on his cheek and ear and forehead. Poor sap, he was hard to look at. Sometimes we called him Quasimodo, you know, after the Hunchback.”

  “Yeah, got that. They left us alone a lot at the misfit high school, so I did a lot of reading.”

  He laughed. “Never pictured you as the bookish type, but hey, it takes all kinds. Anyhow, no one would ever hang with the guy cuz, well, you can imagine. You know how you are in high school.”

  “Nah, I was a misfit. I didn’t have that much capacity for meanness because I was already on the receiving end of it.”

  “As much as everyone else avoided him, Jacy went out of her way to be friends with the guy. She even used to bring him cookies and stuff. She said he was brilliant and knew all kinds of science and shit. Then one day the kid, get this, the kid climbed the church steeple and jumped off, Quasimodo style. Boom. Dead.”

  “Shit. Wasn’t expecting that ending. And Jacy?”

  “She wouldn’t talk to any of her friends anymore. Hell, it even took her a month before she talked to me again. She quit the cheer squad. It hit her hard. Couldn’t blame her. Truth was, she was just way too damn good for the rest of us.” He dropped his gaze to the ground and his shoulders sank as if some dark hole was sucking him down into the ground. “Too good for me, that’s for damn sure.” The words were spoken out loud, but it seemed he was talking to himself when he said them.

  Chapter 15

  -Jacy-

  I was like a teenager again. Ledger’s knock on my door sent a nervous thrill through me. I’d had the same response when my phone rang at work, and I saw his name on the screen. I’d fallen back in time and I was a bubble headed, starry eyed teenage girl and my biggest crush had finally taken notice of me. I’d even put on a flirty dress, something I hadn’t done in a long time. Of course, there was one big difference between now and my teen years—I’d never had this big a crush on anyone. Not even on the man who I’d stupidly rushed to marry right after high school.

  I placed Rex’s bowl of food on his placemat and went to the door. I tried not to look too ridiculously excited when I opened it. Ledger had smoothed and tied back the long portion of his hair. He’d trimmed up his beard and pulled on a black t-shirt and jeans.

  His eyes droppe
d immediately to my dress. The way he looked at it assured me I’d made the right wardrobe choice. Even if the breeze coming off the beach was glacial.

  I waved him in. “Hurry, it’s Arctic cold out there tonight.”

  He slipped past me. “Never been to the Arctic, but I imagine it’s a tad bit colder than this.”

  “Oh. Then if it’s not that cold, I guess I won’t need a kiss to warm me up.”

  He grabbed my hand as I turned to go to the kitchen. With a little more strength, it seemed, than he’d planned for, he pulled me into his arms. “Maybe I spoke too soon. I mean what the hell do I know about the Arctic?” His mouth covered mine in the kiss I’d been thinking about all day. More than once, I’d caught myself standing in the coffee-scented cloud of the brewing pots daydreaming about Ledger.

  He lifted his mouth from mine. “Warm enough yet?”

  “Yes, but I think I’ll need fortification throughout the night. Especially because I dressed for summer.” I stepped back and swirled around once in my dress. When I faced him again, that same hungry look I’d seen at the door had returned.

  “Yeah, about that dress—” His arms were around me again. His mouth covered mine as his hands slid down my back to the skirt on my dress. He bunched it up in his fists until the cool air in the room brushed against my panties. He pushed his hand under my panties and cupped my ass. “I’ve been thinking about you all day, Jacy. About touching you and kissing you and fucking you.”

  His words sent heat through my belly and moisture pooled in my pussy.

  “Then you opened the door in this dress . . .” he growled in a deep gritty tone I’d never heard before. “Please, Jacy.”