in his arms. It was not something he could ever take for granted, and it left him crazed.
His cock was rock hard and pressed against her back. He pulled away before she woke up to feel it. He didn’t trust himself not to be too punishing, especially in the dark place he was in.
To be frank, every time she touched him it spurred him closer to the edge. Just the soft caress of her lips and he might tear her clothes apart and fuck her without mercy.
It was why he needed to be careful.
He slipped out of bed and followed the sunlight to the window. One of these days some poor soul was going to look up from the street and find a naked dude in the window of an innocent suburban home. Thames wondered if that would be the scandal of the decade in this cute fucking street where everyone owned a dog and stopped to talk to one another, lattes in hand.
Thames thought of himself becoming one with the locals. He pictured himself mowing the lawn and talking golf with Paul across the street and stifled the laugh bubbling up his throat.
That was so fucked.
He heard the sheets rustle and turned to look at Charlotte. The blanket was down to her waist, and she was on her back, and the swell of her breasts from under her gown looked goddamn spectacular.
Thames groaned deep in his throat.
There would never be another woman for him. He was ruined for good. This woman had waited for him – the fuck-up, the bully, the town asshole. He almost didn’t believe it.
He wanted to crawl into bed and bury his head between her legs. He wanted to taste her, cup her tits while she came in his mouth. He wanted her to look down at him when she did. He wanted his name to rip from her mouth as she pulsed around his tongue.
The desire was there, and he didn’t even need her touch to push him off the edge.
He ran a ragged hand down his face and disappeared into the bathroom before she opened her eyes to look at him.
One look from those brown eyes and he would not be able to hold back.
Retreating inside the room, he washed his face with ice cold water and told himself to breathe through the urges.
He would not be gentle.
Charlotte deserved gentle.
His touch was filthy.
She didn’t know how filthy it was.
But Holden knew, and the crew too. And Dominic’s eyes had followed him in passing, lingering long and hard at Thames. Damning him.
Dominic had always been the best of them, and for that reason, he’d suffered the worst. Thames wished he could go back there and hold him. To tell him he was there for him, and he would be waiting for him when he got out.
All he kept thinking about was the day he learned his parole had been stripped from him. That was the day Dominic said, “You fucked up. You’re going to come right back here when you’re out, Thames, unless you change the gears in your brain.”
Later, when Thames bloodied his knuckles after he’d punched the cement wall thirty times in his cell, he went to bed shivering. He dug his nails into his arms and he scratched so hard at them, he felt the blood oozing from his skin. He attacked his stomach next, then his chest, and finally his neck. He clawed into the flesh, feeling the searing sting, and then he dug deeper. He dug so hard he wanted to feel his soul so he could rip it out of him.
That was the moment he enjoyed the idea of dying.
It was the moment he began to let his old life go.
He said goodbye to Charlotte.
He said sorry to Locke for not finding him.
Sorry to Jem for disappointing him.
Sorry to Dominic for leaving him to rot in this hellhole.
He smeared blood along his neck, tracing the perfect line.
He wasn’t going to survive prison. Not at this rate. Not when Holden was making him do the most unbearable things. There would be consequences. It was only a matter of time someone was going to jump him in some dark corner, like the way he’d done.
So, if he was going to die, he would rather die by his own hands. He wasn’t going to die pleading at the mercy of some scum fuck.
He was going to die remembering the love he once had – from his brothers, from his woman –