Prisoned - Marni Mann Page 0,26

enough situations to know.”

“But what if—”

He was so fast that I barely felt myself move. I only felt the landing, which had me straddling his lap, his arms fully wrapped around me.

“Wow,” I gasped.

I couldn’t move my gaze from his. I was frozen. There was so much intensity between us.

“You were starting to panic again. I needed to stop you.”

What a strange thing it was to be looking at his face again, a face I’d known since I was a child. But, now, it had hard lines and small imperfections, the evidence of age on both of us.

The eyes that stared back weren’t childlike. They were the eyes of a man.

A hungry man.

“You did,” I finally said.

He glanced down, and I felt my skin flush, my nipples slowly hardening and poking through the thin fabric. He noticed and gradually looked up at my face. His erection was pressing into my ass, my mouth opening from the size of it.

“If you need a minute, take it,” he said. “Now.”

“I…”

His gaze was so strong; it felt like it was stroking me the same way his fingers were. Fingers that shouldn’t have been touching me because I didn’t deserve it. Fingers that should have been locked far away from me because I had been such a coward.

Before I could process my next thought, he was moving me once more. This time, he placed me on the floor, a little farther away from where I had been before.

“When I kiss you again, there isn’t going to be any uncertainty in your voice. I’m going to feel the answer in you and know it’s what you want.”

I couldn’t tell him that what he felt in me was the guilt.

He had his own emotions and his own demons and his own reasoning for why we might be in here. It didn’t stop him from wanting me.

And I wanted him. More than anything.

I always had.

But I also wanted to tell him what I had been holding in. I just couldn’t do that. I couldn’t tell anyone. Where I was from, spilling a secret like that could get you killed.

It was no different inside this cell.

I tucked myself into the corner and rested my forehead against the cold cement. My knees pressed into my chest, and my arms crossed over them. My smile grew as I thought about the way he had looked into my eyes, the feeling that had come through his fingertips, how his dick had hardened beneath me.

I needed a minute, just a minute to get this ridiculous smile off my face and to cool my body down to the right temperature. And I definitely needed more than a minute to get my chest to stop beating so hard.

I hid the grin under my arm and closed my eyes.

It took less than a minute to remember the reason we were in here and the fear that I would never be getting out.

Sleep now, Kyle.

Eight

Kyle

Light had been seeping in through the top of the window for hours, but I barely had the strength to lift my arms. Whatever they had drugged me with had to still be in my system. I had never been this exhausted from doing nothing.

At some point during the morning, Beard had delivered more food. This tray had a heaping pile of meat in a red sauce that was extra plastic-tasting, overcooked carrots, and a roll. Still no silverware. No napkin. Nothing to drink besides water from the sink. I’d been drinking the rusty liquid though. Garin said I had to. I needed to stay hydrated, or I’d get extremely sick. Sicker than I’d been the night before when I threw up my entire dinner.

When Beard dropped off the trays, he’d also given us a blanket. No pillows or cot or even a blow-up mattress. All we had for comfort was the cold concrete floor and a single gray wool blanket that stared at me from the corner of the room.

I was surprised Beard had been so giving after the confrontation he’d had with Garin. In his profession, maybe he was considered a forgiving man, or maybe he just wanted to give us one last luxury before he pulled the trigger.

Whatever the case was, we needed to get out of here.

And I told Garin that at least once an hour.

“I would kill for a popsicle and a fluffy pillow right now,” I said.

“That’s an odd craving.”

“My throat is on fire.”

It didn’t just hurt when I swallowed; it hurt constantly. I was sure