The next day begins like any other. I wake and shower, taking extra care with my appearance. I even use the sugar scrub one of the other nurses had re-gifted me last Christmas. I wrap myself in one of Vic’s big luxurious towels and slather on lavender scented lotion and apply makeup with a heavier hand to cover the shadows under my eyes and the gauntness in my cheeks.
After hopping into the requisite pair of scrubs, I skirt around the mess left over from dinner in the kitchen and throw together a quick smoothie for breakfast. Out of habit, I retrieve the newspaper from the front stoop and place it on the kitchen table. I don’t think about why I do it as I grab my keys and purse and hop into my car.
Not thinking has apparently become my default setting to deal with all my problems. But everything is so phenomenally fucked, to deal with them would mean facing all the horrible decisions I’ve made lately, which I’m just not ready to do.
Nope.
So, I drive to work and pretend it’s like any other day.
I pretend as if my marriage isn’t a sham. That I didn’t fuck up my life the day I married the first man who’d ever made me feel special. That I didn’t stay in the marriage because I had nowhere else to go. My thoughts stutter to a stop there because I very nearly thought the name of the person who has probably screwed me up even worse than my sucktastic husband.
Ernie doesn’t even faze me as he tries looking down my shirt when I hand him my badge. He’s a small fish on my list of shit to worry about. I even flash him a slightly deranged smile that has his leer freezing on his face as I retake my badge and speed away.
My car skids on the gray slush in the parking lot as I come to a haphazard stop, the nose of my car kissing a snowdrift. But I don’t think about that, either. My back end is six inches into the neighboring parking space, but I don’t haul my butt back to fix it.
I make it to the infirmary without incident and plan to spend the next eight hours focused one hundred percent on paperwork and patients, minus one, who has the day off after his scuffle to recuperate and relax.
One of the nameless, faceless men sits on the hospital bed trying not to grimace as I search, fruitlessly, for a vein to tap for a blood sample. It’s something I’ve done a thousand times, but for the life of me, my stubborn fingers won’t cooperate.
“I’m sorry,” I say, again. “Let’s try your other arm.”
He grumbles underneath his breath as I round the bed to his other side. I doubt he wants me to prick him five more times and still end up without the goods, but I’m determined to keep the cheerful smile on my face and pretend like I’m focused. Two more stabs and I hit pay dirt. Relief floods the inmate’s expression, and I take his blood sample, record his information, and send him on his way. He shoots daggers at me and grumbles about suing the prison as he shuffles away and I slide into my desk chair.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a blurry outline of an inmate’s blue jumpsuit, and even though I’d been telling myself all day not to think about him, not to remember the horrible thing I’d done, I can’t help it.
The more I try not to think about him, the more my brain focuses on him. Like an itch that I can’t reach but am dying to scratch.
I squirm in my seat as I try to refocus on paperwork, but it’s useless. For two hours, the words swim and dance in front of my eyes. I’ve read the same line at least ten times and still don’t understand it. When the other nurse on duty sends me a dirty look because I keep letting out deep sighs, I give up.
I would say sorry. Normally, I’m a very solicitous co-worker. I come in, do my job with very little fanfare, and go home. Perfect little girl, that’s me. Vic has trained me well.
Frustration and rage bubble underneath my skin and I roll my shoulders as I stride to my locker to retrieve my lunch. Even thinking Vic's name makes me want to tear into something with my bare hands. I have to lean my forehead against my locker to cool my heated flesh.
“Nurse Emerson,” says a voice from behind me, causing me to knock my head against the metal locker.
I turn, holding a hand to the offending spot, and glower at the officer who’s smiling apologetically.
“Sorry about that,” he says. “I thought you heard me calling.”
I give a little shake. “No harm done, I have a hard head. What can I do for you?”
He ambles over, his eyes a little too assessing for comfort and hands me a clipboard. “Got some paperwork here for you about the inmate you worked on yesterday. Confidential, you understand?”
My heart beats double-time in my chest. “Paperwork.”
He nods to the clipboard that I didn’t realize I’d taken and heads for the door. “It’s all there. You take care now.”
I know before I even look at the page what it’ll be and who it’s from. There’s a possibility the guard will inform Vic, but Gracin would have paid him to keep quiet. I entertain the thought of throwing it straight in the trash, but I can’t make myself do it. My ears ring as I focus on the version of me he drew this time. It’s how I must have looked right after he brought me to the brutal edge of a powerful orgasm. My eyes are still closed, and my mouth is full and soft and a little bruised. For the first time, he’s included himself in the drawing. Just his hand on the side of my throat, his thumb on the edge of my jaw. It wouldn’t seem significant to anyone else, but it’s everything to me. He signed it with his full name, and under the signature are three words: Come to me.
I’m on my break, but I don’t care. Eating is now the last thing on my mind. The impatience, irritation, and rage that’s been building beneath my skin all day like a geyser churns and churns with each step I take. I clutch the clipboard in my hand like a shield, and I haven’t decided if I want to throw it at his head the moment I see him or not.
The part of me that didn’t scoff at his audacity to beckon me luxuriates in his attention. It’s a low, mean facet of my personality I didn’t even know I possessed. I glut myself on the knowledge that a man like Gracin—a powerful, dangerous man—wants me. I may be his only option, but it doesn’t seem to register when all his attention is on me. Even though I know I’m walking a treacherous path with fatal consequences at either end, I can’t seem to make myself stop.
The officers at the entrance to his cellblock must have been bribed as well, because they turn a blind eye when I appear. Loud cranks and clangs of the door opening, which are followed by an accompanying shout, are the only sign they’re aware of my presence at all. I linger just outside the gaping maw of the prison block, and the chilling realization that the next step I take will be a defining moment overwhelms me with indecisiveness.
I take an unsure step forward, pulled by the inexplicable connection that’s spurred so many of my rash decisions. The dark parts of me find solace in the blackness inside him. Like finding like and set ablaze.
I approach the cell I know is his, unaware or even conscious of any inmates in the surrounding cells. I can hear them catcalling and banging on their doors, but it doesn’t faze me. The bars on his cell are in desperate need of repainting. Flakes of gray slough off onto my palms as I grip the iron with both hands.
“Why did you summon me here?” I say. “We had a deal.” My words are saying no, but my voice is all wrong. Breathy. Like a little virgin who isn’t quite sure she wants to go all the way despite how good she knows it may feel.
His abs contract as he lifts to a sitting position. Try as I might, I can’t look away. Surely, I deserve a place in hell for the long seconds I spend staring at his bare abdomen.
He doesn’t notice or doesn’t comment as he gets up from his bunk to cross to the bars. His posture is deceptively relaxed with one shoulder against the metal. I have a feeling all the things he doesn’t say are only stored up for another time, but only because they don’t serve him in this moment.
His reaches through the enclosure, his expression contemplative as he twines a lock of my hair around his fingers. Like a cat toying with his prey. “I think the more important question, Mrs. Emerson, is why you came?”
Words knot in my throat and horror leeches all the blood from my face. “Because we crossed a line and you need to know we can’t do it again.”
He abandons my hair for my jaw, his finger tracing from the point of my chin to the curve of my ear. I start to step away, then realize his other hand wraps around my wrist. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. When had he taken hold of me?
“So you’re saying you came to see me because you don’t want to see me again?” His voice is so smooth, so guileless and entrancing, I find myself leaning toward him, wanting to taste his words right from the source. When the fingers investigating my chin scrape up and over my lips and I do taste him . . . the earthy flavor of his skin bursting over my tongue like an aphrodisiac, I shake my head to clear it.
“Stop twisting my words.” I try to yank my arm out of his grip but to no avail. His hold is more effective than handcuffs. “Let me go.”
He cocks his head like he knows how badly I want him to keep touching me. “I don’t think I will. We’re not finished.”
“Finished with what?”
I’m horrified and ashamed to find the back and forth has gotten me wet. It’s all fun and games until the realization dawns that I like this. Not just the forbidden aspect, or the danger, but the wrongness.
There must be something wicked inside me. Those parts Vic broke pieced themselves back together, but the jagged edges don’t quite fit anymore. Panic spurts through me hot and vital—instinctual. He doesn’t hold me hard enough to bruise, and somehow that only intensifies his draw, but he doesn’t let me go, either.
“Our conversation,” he says in a low voice. “Now answer the question.”
“Gracin, please.”
He sucks a deep breath through his teeth, and it causes the hair on my arms and the back of my neck to stand on end. He shifts closer, pressing his body against the bars between us. He’s so close I can feel the heat of him through the metal. If I moved, even the slightest bit, we’d be chest to chest. The temptation makes me shiver.
His groan causes the bars to vibrate, and my blood hums in response. “Say that again.”
I tug at my arm, but his grip tightens, and he pulls me forward so that we’re almost touching. I’m so far over the line that I don’t even know if it was intentional or not. “Stop,” I say, without an ounce of conviction.
With his forehead against the bars, he closes his eyes. “Say it, little mouse.”
“I will if you’ll let me go.”
“Say my name.”
I wish I weren’t trembling. Showing him any vulnerability is only asking for him to exploit it. “Please.”
He growls.
“I—”
“Say it.”
“G-Gracin.”
“Excellent, little mouse. Now tell me why you came. Tell me why you look like you’re about to fly out of your skin.”
Knowing that silence is my only safe option, I shake my head.
His hold on my wrist gentles and I can feel his breath on my jaw. “Tell me.”
“You were right.”
“Good girl.” He nearly groans it. The blatant sexuality in the sound is almost too much to bear. “How was I right?”
I should be worried about the officers, about my job, about my sanity, but there is no room for anything but Gracin.
“I stood up to him.”
“To your husband?” he asks, though, from the smug expression on his face, he knows who I’m talking about.
I try, and fail, to stop the shivers that wrack my body because of his proximity. Focusing with him near is futile. “He tried to . . . he tried to hurt me again.”
His sneer is as sharp and lethal as a blade to the throat. “I bet he did.” There is a beat of silence before he asks, “What did you do? Did you hurt him? Hmm, little mouse?” The last word is soft, nearly purred in my ear.
“I tried to.” My voice is barely even a croak, but my words light him up. “I was making dinner, and he came at me. I didn’t mean to cut him, but I was holding a knife, and he wouldn’t stop.”
“Don’t be ashamed,” he says when my gaze drops from his. “He’s the one who should be ashamed. No man should put his hands on a woman.”
I look pointedly at him and raise an eyebrow even though his record never indicated anything of the sort. “I would never hurt you, little mouse. That’s why you came to me.”
“I came because I’m an idiot.” I try to put energy into my voice, but there is none left. “What do you want from me? What game are you playing?”
“I’m playing a most dangerous game, and you’re the prize. Our deal is off, Tessa. I want you, and I’ll take you any way I can get you.”
Breath strangles in my throat. “I won’t—I can’t do that again.”
“Liar,” he croons as the fingers not wrapped around my wrist trace the fading bruise on my lip. “You're not upset because you didn't like it. You're angry because you loved it.”
Protests stick in my throat, and I’m about to answer when the alarms sound. Someone must have reported us after all. My response is drowned out by shrill screams from the sirens. Time’s up. I glance back at him, and his smile is slow and predatory. He's scented blood and is preparing for the kill.
“Tell me,” he yells from his cage. “You come back and tell me, little mouse, if he doesn't look at you differently. If he doesn't have a gleam of respect in his eyes the next time he attempts to hurt you.”
“I won't do that.”
His grin gains a razor-sharp edge, eyes glinting with the red alarm lights as they flash. Officers finally burst through the doors and race down the hallway, but I can't hear the shouts over my panicked thoughts and thundering heartbeat. They rush by me to unlock the door to his cell, and he releases me, backing away with his hands held over his head in a supplicating gesture that we all know is only for show. Even though he’s the one behind bars, somehow he still holds all the power.
He keeps my gaze locked with his, and I take an automatic step in retreat. No matter how much distance I put between us, I can still feel his hands on me.
"I'll talk to you tomorrow, little mouse. They cleared me for work detail. ”