Auctioned to the Prisoners (Auctioned #4)

17

HYDE

A STORM IS COMING

When the security keypad to the door begins beeping, I come awake so fast that my head spins. A quick glance reveals we’re all still where we were last night, crashed out on mattresses. Lory’s sleeping in between Rock and Kinkaid with her shirt tucked up around her waist and her bare ass pressed into Kinkaid. He has his dick buried inside her while they sleep, something he craves as much as I hunger for her sweet nipple in my mouth. They stir, and as I scramble to the door, they lurch awake.

We’re hungry, and the warden has been absent for too long.

I’m praying I’m going to be faced by the warden and not Wilson or one of the other asshole guards. When the door opens, it’s Grady on the other side carrying two bags. His usually beefy face is hollowed, with dark circles ringing his eyes. His skin is grayer and rougher.

“Where have you been?” I snap, grabbing the bags from his outstretched hands. The absence of food has made me grouchy. I lower them to the floor while he scans the place.

“My sister’s in the hospital. She tried to—” He drops his eyes to the floor and runs his hand over his face. “She took too many pills.”

His sister. The one whose daughter was kidnapped and abused by Whitaker.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, remembering the spill of blood over my fingers as I shanked the fucker. Death by a thousand cuts. That’s what we decided. Except it didn’t take a thousand. Just a few from each of us to be certain he was too sliced up to stitch back together, to be certain he’d bleed out all his evil and never be able to inflict it on anyone else. And we’d never know for sure whose cut was the one that ended him. Grady thinks it was for his niece. He’ll never know that Whitaker was my demon first or that there’s technically no debt for him to pay. Getting revenge was a gift I took for myself, and the only way for me to swab the filth out of the wound he caused me. When my friends supported me, it bonded us forever.

“Wilson was supposed to bring you supplies.”

That shocks me. When did Wilson become part of this arrangement? I wouldn’t trust that cocksucker to walk a dog, let alone play a part in keeping a risky secret. “Well, he didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re trusting him now?”

“I don’t have a choice. He knows. He’s the only one who knows.”

“Maybe,” Kinkaid says. “Or maybe he’s already told all his buddies. Maybe, all the screws in this place know. Maybe he’s shooting his mouth off it in the pub after work.”

“She can’t stay the full month,” Grady says suddenly. Lory, who approaches with Kinkaid and Rock, inhales a shocked breath.

“She’s staying,” I growl. “You trying to back out of our arrangement?”

“What choice do I have? This is too risky. For all of us.”

“I want to stay,” Lory says quickly. “Please?”

She shifts, tugging the hem of the shirt lower to protect her modesty, and I stare at her with disbelief. She wants to get out of this place. How could she not? Her sister is on the outside, and she has no reason to stay incarcerated. Freedom is everything.

My heart pounds at the thought of her being taken away and sweat trickles down my back. I’ve been counting the days, dreaming about all the moments we’ll have together over the time we have left. Now, it’s going to be taken away. Tension pushes like darkness from the edges of my mind, tightening my jaw and bunching my shoulders. I’ve been so balanced with Lory around I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to plummet.

“Lory, you must understand that if you’re discovered here, everything will go to shit. I’ll lose my job, these men will have black marks added to their records, more time, and you could be charged with any number of offenses.”

Those are all reasons Grady shouldn’t have risked this in the first place, but he was high on the relief of Whitaker’s death and desperate to find a way to repay us. So desperate, he was blinded to all the ways this could go wrong.

“No,” Kinkaid says. “Nothing is going to touch Lory. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.”

“I need to speak to Wilson. Get a measure of where his head is at. He failed to carry out my explicit instructions about meeting your basic needs. It can’t be good.”

“We want more time,” Rock says. “We need more time.”

There’s a roughness to his voice that sounds a lot like emotion catching in his throat. My fists ball at my sides, violence brewing. My hands tremble, but Lory’s soft hand wraps itself around mine, holding it still and tight, and the rising tension leaches out of me. If I let her experience the violence in me, maybe she won’t want to stay. If I let out the side that earned me my nickname, she’ll beg Grady to pull her out of here.

“Send Wilson down,” I say. “We’ll deal with him.”

At my side, Lory flinches, and I bite my tongue, frustrated that I that my mouth has a mind of its own. On the outside, violence isn’t a part of life for most people. Here, it’s a daily threat. It comes too easy. It’s expected. But Lory doesn’t expect it from me. She helps me be better.

“I’m sorry about your sister,” Kinkaid says, folding his arms across his chest and straightening his posture. “But we need some certainty about what’s going to happen, especially to Lory. She needs to get paid, even if she’s not here for as long as initially agreed.”

“She will be.”

“And we’ll want you to check in on her on the outside to make sure there isn’t any carryover from her visit here.”

“I can do that.”

Kinkaid loses some of the RoboCop about his stance, obviously relieved, and I feel the same. I throw my arm around Lory’s petite shoulder, pulling her close and pressing a hard kiss to her head. Kinkaid is right. He’s looking out for our girl.

Our girl.

My mind stumbles. Lory isn’t ours. She can’t be. But damn, I want her to be. I can’t think about her leaving, about the world outside these walls where other men will want her as much as we do. She’s sweeter than honey and so beautiful it makes my chest ache just to look at her. Sometimes, I stay awake to watch her sleep, wondering what she dreams about.

The thought of her being gone... it’s going to tear me up inside. And when I hurt, I spiral. I can’t go back to that darkness—not again. I don’t know what I’ll do if I’m left here, empty-handed, with nothing but memories of her. Something stupid, probably. Something that’ll add more years to my sentence when all I want is to get out of this place and taste freedom again.

“I’ll be back,” the warden says, breaking the moment as he turns to leave. “Sorry about what happened to your sister.”

Rocks the one to follow Grady to the door like he’s showing the man out after a cookout. That illusion shatters when the door locks us in again. But all I can think about is Lory slipping away, taking a piece of me with her when she goes.

“Time to eat.” Kinkaid bends to pick up a bag from the floor. He won’t open a conversation about what’s going to happen next until Lory’s in the bathroom. It’s the only time we get to have a three-way discussion without dragging our sweet girl into topics she’s better off not knowing about. I heft the other bag to the kitchen, and we work together to unpack our rations.

I’m grateful for the food, but something about it rankles me today. Lory’s talk about cooking for us last night has made me crave going to the store to pick out what I want to eat. I’m sick of being forced to eat whatever’s on my plate like a child. This food isn’t designed to nourish. It’s designed to fill a hole.

Maybe I would be good at baking if I was given the chance to find out. Maybe I could use these hands for something other than theft and violence. I like the idea of pounding big balls of dough to work out my anger. Maybe it would keep me level.

More prepackaged meals and basics like bread and butter, milk, and coffee are lifted from the bags. Grady has packed us some donuts, which smell sweet and oily, and some chocolate muffins. I bet Lory bakes better than this shop-bought crap but the only way I’d get to find out is as a free man.

Kinkaid’s quick to smear some bread with peanut butter and make coffee.

“Should we ration this, too?” I ask. There’s no way I want to worry about Lory not having enough to eat again.

“I think we’re good.” Kinkaid devours half the roughly formed sandwich, closely followed by Rock.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, but I’m really hungry and want to know I’m not overstepping by filling my belly.

Kinkaid and Rock keep mostly quiet through breakfast. Lory is conscious of everything that we’re not discussing in the open. Her eyes dart between us like she’s waiting, and I hate the buzzing anticipation. It reminds me of when I used to watch my mom’s boyfriend cracking open can after can of cheap beer, knowing he was going to do something terrible when he was drunk enough. I can’t take it like the others, so I head to the bathroom and shower off the stench of desperation that’s clinging to my skin. On my thigh, the devil’s eyes glow through the soapsuds, and I shudder, reminded of how I felt when I walked into the tattoo parlor. When I put it on me, it was an act of rebellion. I was dark and getting darker and labeling myself with what I thought fitted. It’s hard to place the way I am now with how I felt then. That man had the potential to do anything. He had a hair-trigger temper and was always too close to the edge. Now, I want to be more like Kinkaid, with his careful responses and deeply controlled temper, and Rock, who’s thoughtful and gentle despite his size. I want Lory to want me in the same way she wants them. She wouldn’t want Hyde. Not on outside these walls. But maybe I could be better. Maybe I could be James again.

As I dry off, still naked and half-hard, Lory steps inside, closing the door behind her. In her plain shirt with sleep-mussed hair and puffy eyes, she’s the picture of everything I need in my life. I keep my back to the wall, so she doesn’t see the evidence of my past marked in stripes all over my back. She comes close, touching my face and urging me to kiss her. My cock pokes her in the stomach, and she laughs, wrapping her hand around it. “I’ll deal with him later,” she says, biting her lip. “But first, I need to get clean.”

If it was any other day, I’d back her into the stall and fuck her brains out. Shower sex with Lory is hot as fuck. But I need to get out there so important conversations don’t happen without me.

When Lory’s behind the curtain, I leave the bathroom in just a towel and find Kinkaid and Rock leaning over the table, speaking in a hushed tone. I slump down next to Rock and look at both men expectantly. “Fill me in on what you talked about so far.”

“We agree that if Grady wants Lory to leave, we won’t fight him.”

“What?” I run my hand through my wet hair, craving to grip it for the bite of pain that keeps my anger at bay but resisting.

“If he doesn’t think she’s safe from risk, we shouldn’t hold on to her. It isn’t fair.”

“What about us getting what we deserve? It’s up to Grady to do what it takes to make it happen.”

“Some things are out of his control.” So Rock’s supporting Kinkaid on this. How can I fight when it’s two against one?

“He’s the warden of this fucking place. Who else is in control?”

“Wilson might not be controllable.”

“So, let Grady bring him down here, and we’ll get him under control.”

“In front of Lory? You think she’ll want that? She won’t look at us the same after, so what would be the point?”

I close my eyes, breathing roughly through flared nostrils. I can’t lose her. Not like this.

“We haven’t had enough time,” I say.

“For what?” Rock asks his question slowly and deliberately.

I open my mouth to speak but then snap it shut because I get what he’s doing. He knows this isn’t just about sex anymore. This is about spending time in Lory’s company. Getting to know her. Developing feelings for her. He wants me to admit what I’m feeling, even though it was never part of the arrangement and pointless under the circumstances.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Kinkaid says. His jaw tics as his troubled eyes move from me to a point in the corner. “I know you’re thinking about her as more than someone to use for a month.” He sighs, and it’s a helpless sound, so unlike the Kinkaid I’m so familiar with. “She has a way of getting close and making me want things I have no business wanting.”

“We’re going to get out of here one day,” I say, then I’m swamped with guilt. My release date is closer than Kinkaid’s. If our roles were reversed, I’d resent the fuck out of him for getting out before me, especially if there’s a chance to be with Lory.

“No time soon,” he says. His finger picks at a dent in the table. “And anyway, she’s going to get out of this place and go help her sister. She won’t wait around for our criminal asses to get out.”

“You don’t know that.” Am I an idiot for hoping for something Kinkaid dismisses so easily? “She doesn’t have a man out there. She’s got no one to look out for her. Maybe she’d want us if there was a chance.”

“She’s doing what she needs to do to stay safe with us.” Rock rubs his bearded jaw, his expression dark and defeated. “You’ve gotta realize that the Lory in here isn’t necessarily the Lory you’ll find on the outside.”

“Nah.” I slump against the chair and realize I haven’t worn a shirt. I don’t want the first thing Lory sees when she’s finished showering to be my mess of a back. “Nah, Lory’s straight down the line. I’ve never met a woman like her.” I push the chair back with my knees and loom over them.

Kinkaid and Rock remain silent, but I don’t care. I won’t hear another word on this subject. Lory is the best woman I’ve met in my life, and if there’s a chance she’d consider keeping this thing going between us while I serve out my time, then I’m going to try. I’m not letting her go without telling her how I feel. What the others do is up to them.