out on himself. Fuck. “Fine. But just so your friends don’t get any ideas, we’ve set up several failsafes, just in case my friends and I start mysteriously disappearing. Don’t test us.”
“You’re not a very trusting person, Mr. Webster.”
Webster scoffed. “Not anymore.”
Cy returned to the prison in the early evening, his right arm in a waterproof cast that went all the way to his mid-forearm. He’d fractured several bones in his hand and would be wearing the cast for at least the next three months, but the doctor said he would be lucky if he didn’t require surgery at a later date to fix any lingering damage.
When the guards came to transport him from intake, he was surprised to find himself taken to the pods instead of back to the SHU. Part of him wanted to question it, but the other part told him to keep his mouth shut in case it was a mistake. He needed to see Nicky, needed to know he was okay. If he could just get a look at him, see he was healing, then, if they took him back to the SHU, he’d have a little bit of peace.
The other inmates eyeballed his cast as he entered but said nothing. He nodded at Tig, Jay, and Iggy, who sat at a table playing dominos. They acknowledged his greeting before returning to their game. The walk to his cell seemed to take hours, but the moment he found Nicky, the tightness in his chest loosened. Nicky sat on Cy’s bed, enveloped in Cy’s hoodie. Even bruised, battered, and scruffy, glasses askew, he was the sexiest thing Cy had ever seen.
“I haven’t even been gone twenty-four hours and you’ve helped yourself to my stuff. That’s cold, Nicky,” he said with a soft smile.
Nicky hopped off the bed and into his arms, clearly trusting Cy not to let him fall. He caught Nicky around the waist with his good arm, letting him wrap his arms around his neck, even though others could see. Cy really didn’t give a fuck what others thought anymore.
He set Nicky on his feet. He immediately started fussing over Cy’s cast and the scabs that had formed on his knuckles. “What did you do to yourself?” he asked, his voice distressed.
Cy batted his hands away gently. Nicky was the one who looked like death. His bruises were an ugly yellow green, and his split lip was sealed shut but still swollen. Cy removed Nicky’s glasses so he could look at the bruises under his eyes, cupping his face. “It doesn’t matter now. Are you okay?”
Nicky looked confused by the question, like he hadn’t been jumped within the last seventy-two hours. “What? I’m fine. You’re the one in a cast.” Cy let Nicky pull him behind the open door and drag him down for a kiss that lingered. “I was so worried about you,” he whispered against Cy’s lips. “I was so afraid they were going to hurt you.”
The idea of a bunch of guards hurting Cy hadn’t actually even occurred to him. In all the time he’d been there, he’d stayed out of trouble, kept his nose clean, did his job. Even after they’d tased him to get him off Thor, he really hadn’t worried about himself, only Nicky.
“Don’t worry about me, baby. I can take care of myself,” Cy promised, pressing their foreheads together.
Nicky dropped his gaze, staring pointedly at the cast. “Doesn’t look like it to me.”
“It was just an accident,” Cy lied.
“Liar,” Nicky whispered, nestling deeper into Cy’s arms.
Cy buried his face in Nicky’s wild hair, absorbing the scent of his soap and the warmth of his body. Even after twenty years, Nicky still fit perfectly in Cy’s arms, though his body’s reaction to that fact was a much different one now.
As much as Cy wanted to stand there and just hold Nicky, it really wasn’t safe. Now that it was clear to the powers that be that Cy wouldn’t be killing Nicky, they’d use any excuse to separate them, to get Nicky alone. Cy couldn’t risk that. He just couldn’t.
Cy stepped back, tugging Nicky down to sit beside him on the bottom bunk. Nicky leaned in, letting his tongue trace the shell of Cy’s ear, murmuring, “Fuck, I want you so bad right now.”
“It’ll be lights out in, like, twenty minutes,” Cy reminded him, even as Nicky’s hand groped his cock through the thin layer of fabric, eliciting a reaction fast enough to make Cy a little dizzy.
“But I