fight or die kind of world in here, but there’s a line. And you won’t get early release if you keep being one of those problem prisoners.”
She had a point.
I wasn’t what they would consider a ‘model’ prisoner in here.
Too many people tried to pull too many damn tricks.
I don’t know if it was because I looked like a challenge or not, but every goddamn person that walked through the doors thought it would be a great idea to challenge the unchallengeable.
“Don’t know if that’s something that’s any of your business,” I admitted.
Her eyes narrowed and she stared at me with so much anger right then that I almost took a step back.
“You could’ve left me,” she hissed. “You could’ve just called off the dogs. You could’ve stopped him and went on about your business. Yet you didn’t. Why didn’t you?”
Because I want to fuck the hell out of you. Because you’re mine. Because when I close my eyes, you’re all that I see.
Yet did I say any of those things? Hell no.
“Maybe I should have,” I lied.
I didn’t even know her.
Not really.
She was an acquaintance at most.
Yet, from the moment I first laid eyes on her, I had trouble keeping my eyes from wandering. From finding her in a crowd of hundreds. From wanting to touch and stroke her body. A body that I hadn’t seen in anything but bulky clothing since I first met her.
But oh, the hint of what I could see.
The small curves hinted at even bigger ones unclothed.
The swell of a breast behind a bulky jacket or a bulletproof vest.
The soft, feminine curve of a hip behind a utility belt or an unshapely set of fatigue pants.
God.
Oh, how I wanted her.
It was wrong.
I was years older than her. She was in her mid-twenties now. I was in my almost-forties.
Fifteen years easily separated us, and about a lifetime of experience.
Yet, that didn’t change what I felt. How much I fucking wanted her.
The glimpses of her in this hellhole were what was getting me through the goddamn day, and she didn’t even realize it. Didn’t realize that she was saving me with each stolen glance.
“Mackenzie,” the guard watching her barked. “Let’s go already. I don’t have all day.”
Blaise sighed, her shoulders slumping slightly in defeat.
“We both know that I mean more to you, and you mean more to me, than we’re both willing to admit.” She rolled her eyes. “I left you something by your books.”
And with that she was gone, leaving me staring at her retreating back.
It was only as the door was closed to my cell, and there wasn’t a guard or prisoner in sight, that I went to the books along the wall.
When I separated them, my heart skipped a beat at what I saw.
It was a small thing. No bigger than my fist.
But it was enough to make me remember a conversation I’d had with another prisoner not too long ago.
What I wouldn’t do for a goddamn Snickers.
I’d told that to the man in front of me, all the while I’d been very much aware of the guard at my back.
Blaise.
Goddamn, but she was surprising.
I picked up the snack size Snickers bar and ate it whole.
CHAPTER 3
Whatever. I’m getting cheese fries.
-Blaise’s secret thoughts
BLAISE
Six months later
My heart was hammering as I made my way on shift.
Today I would be in the same unit as Sin.
It didn’t happen all that often.
In fact, it happened so rarely—once a month—that I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was going to have butterflies until I saw him.
The moment I did thirty minutes later, I felt my heart rate go from controllable levels to you might die if you allow this to keep up levels.
Licking my lips, I tried not to let either my attraction to the man, or my need to see him, show on my face.
And I went to work, patrolling the yard while I surreptitiously watched the man of my dreams work out.
When I’d first gotten into the yard, he’d been running around the fence.
Now he was using the weight bench to lift an unseemly amount of weight.
He had every single plate that could fit onto the bar on it, and he was squatting it like it was featherlight, and not who knew how many hundreds of pounds.
He would squat down, and the unshapely orange pants would finally hug him around his ass, showing off his perfectly formed backside.
I stopped when I realized that in my daydreaming, I’d gotten too close to another