11
KINKAID
HEAVEN IN HELL
The quiet has me on edge.
I lean back against the wall, the cigarette between my fingers burning down to the filter as I stare at the door. It’s been too long since I heard anything from Hyde and Lory. Too long since the tension in the air subsided, leaving me with this gnawing sense of unease.
Hyde’s never been one for silence, especially when he’s battling his demons. He’s either pacing, muttering under his breath, or on the verge of snapping. The quiet is unnatural, like the calm before a storm. And Lory… she’s strong, stronger than I expected, but the worry that she’s out of her depth with him grates at my nerves.
I toss the cigarette aside, crushing it under my boot as I push off the wall. Rock is sprawled out on the bed across the room, his massive frame taking up most of the space. He’s reading a battered paperback, but he’s not paying attention to it. He’s on edge too, his eyes flicking toward the door every few minutes, like he’s waiting for something to happen.
When our eyes meet, I raise my shoulders in an unspoken question that he understands immediately. Should we go look?
He nods, but I hesitate. We battle hell together daily, and I trust Hyde more than most men. But Lory’s different. She’s not part of this place, and Hyde… he’s different with her. More vulnerable, more on edge. A greater risk potentially. I don’t know.
“Yeah,” I finally say, pushing the door open just enough to slip out. It’s dark and quiet; the only sound is the faint hum of the surrounding building. I move silently toward the door to the room that’s now become Lory’s, the tension in my chest tightening with every step.
When I reach the door, I pause, my hand hovering over the handle. I don’t know what I expect to find—maybe Hyde spiraling out or Lory trying to calm him down. Hyde with his hands around her throat. Fuck. I don’t think he’ll go that far, but I’ve learned to never underestimate a man on the edge. The silence on the other side of the door is thick, almost oppressive.
Taking a deep breath, I slowly push it open just enough to peek inside. The room is bathed in long shadows, but my eyes adjust quickly, revealing Hyde and Lory lying on the bed together. Hyde’s face is buried in her chest, his body curled up like a child seeking comfort. Lory’s fingers are tangled in his hair. They’re both asleep, their breathing slow and even, and for the first time in a long time, Hyde looks… peaceful.
The sight hits me harder than I expected. Me and Rock try to help him but we’re not always successful, especially surrounded by so many triggers. But Lory has this way about her, this quiet strength that anchors him in a way nothing else has.
Rock makes a low hum in his throat as I close the door, and we return to the other room, shuffling as quietly as two men our size can achieve.
“She’s worked him out,” I say, shaking my head.
“She’s not what I expected.” Rock rubs his thick beard. “She’s going to get under our skins, Kinkaid.”
“She already has, by the looks of it.”
Rock nods. “Hyde needs this, but what the fuck is going to happen when she has to leave?”
I don’t even want to think about returning to the main prison block and dealing with the rest of the assholes in this place, but most of all, I don’t want to think about letting Lory go. In a few brief hours, she reminded me of everything I’m missing outside these walls. “Maybe we need to keep reminding him that this shit is only temporary.” And ourselves. I don’t say that part, though.
Rock shrugs. “What’s better? Reminding him so he can’t enjoy her while she’s here or letting him forget and have him crash after?”
There’s no right answer to that question.
I sit down on the edge of the bed, running a hand through my hair. The room is suffocating, the weight of the situation pressing down on me from all sides. I keep it to myself that I’m just as worried for me. How will we go back to our cells and our shitty lives after having this time with Lory? I need another cigarette but rationing them is the only way.
Eventually, I lay on the cot beside Rock’s bed, staring at the ceiling. Rock’s quiet, lost in his thoughts, just as uneasy as I am.
Sleep doesn’t come quickly, but eventually, exhaustion pulls me under.
***
When I wake, the early morning light filters through the small window, casting a pale glow across the room. I rise, still carrying the tension in my muscles, and find Rock is already up, pacing by the door with a restless energy that mirrors mine. There’s a knock and then a series of beeps as someone enters the code from outside the unit. The door creaks open, revealing Warden Grady, carrying a box of supplies.
“Morning,” he says gruffly, setting the box on the table. “Brought you some things to keep you going.”
I nod in acknowledgment, my mind still clouded from sleep. Rock moves to inspect the box, pulling out some food, clothes, a deck of cards, and some more cigarettes. It’s not much, but it’s enough to get by.
“Lory?” Grady asks, glancing toward the door.
“Sleeping,” I reply. “With Hyde.”
Grady’s expression flickers, but he quickly masks it. “Good?”
I don’t respond, my thoughts still tangled up in the image of them together. He’s not asking about the sex. He’s not that kind of man. He’s asking if she’s settled in and if this plan will work. I nod curtly, and the warden lingers for a moment as if he wants to say something more but doesn’t.
“Trouble last night?” I ask. It’s weird to not be wired into the gossip mill in this place.
“The usual suspects. Solitary is full today.”
I nod, relieved to have missed getting dragged into something that’s none of my business.
He eyes the closed bedroom door, hesitates, then nods and leaves, the door clicking shut behind him.
Rock and I go about the morning routine, each of us lost in our own thoughts. It’s not until Lory emerges from her room, looking slightly disheveled, that the atmosphere lightens.
Hyde is quiet as he follows her into the common area, his usual energy replaced by a wary calm. He looks at me, then at Rock, as if searching for some kind of reassurance that everything is okay between us. I’m not mad about how he behaved last night. It’s impossible to be mad at him when I know where he’s coming from. If he’d hurt Lory, it’d be a different story.
“There’s cereal for breakfast,” I tell them. “And coffee.”
“Sounds good.”
Lorry folds her arms over her chest. “I could do with a change of clothes.”
I lift the small bundle that Grady provided for her to look at. There’s a pair of black leggings and a woman’s shirt that looks like it might be too big for her. There’s also some underwear. “I’m going to shower,” she says, heaping the bundle into her arms, then eyeing each of us.
“We’ll be out here,” I say, so she understands she'll have some privacy. We need time to talk without her around.
When she disappears into the bathroom, I fix four mugs of coffee, and Rock and Hyde sit at the table, cradling the steaming mugs in their oversized hands.
“You sleep well?” I ask Hyde.
“Yeah,” he answers gruffly. “Fuck yeah.”
He’s bleary-eyed but not tired like his sleep was too long and too deep, and he’s struggling to return to the land of the living. I like the idea of wrapping myself around Lory and burying my face in her sweet-smelling hair. I love the idea of burying my dick deep inside her and holding it there for hours, just warming it. Maybe I’ll get the chance tonight.
“She good with what you did?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says again. “She’s cool.”
“So, you think she’ll be okay with taking things further?”
Rock lowers his coffee and licks his lips. They both know what I’m asking. Is fucking on the agenda? My dick is impatiently stiffening between my legs.
“She’ll be okay.” Hyde rubs his scorpion tattoo so hard it’s as though he wants to erase it from his skin.
“And you?”
“Yeah.” His eye twitches, and he rubs it, licking his tongue over his teeth. He’s still a murky green, but his eyes have a brighter edge like the rim of the sun peeking around the moon during an eclipse. “Yeah. I’ll be good.”
Maybe I was right about Lory’s ability to bring him back.
When Lory appears, the atmosphere shifts again. She smells like regulation shampoo and soap, but in her Grady-donated clothes, she looks more like the girl every man wishes lived next door. She tugs at the hem of her blue shirt like it doesn’t fit her how she’d like. My mind fills with thoughts of stripping off those clothes and making her filthy again. My cock is like a frigging homing pigeon for her cunt, but I don’t want to spook her. Our patience is paying off.
We eat cereal together and talk about our ideal breakfasts. Mine involves sausage, bacon, eggs, fried tomatoes, and mushrooms. Rock likes an omelet with everything in it.
“Buttermilk pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup,” Hyde says, almost dreamily. “What about you, Sunshine?”
The nickname is new, so maybe they did bond. Maybe she really is okay.
Lory considers, pursing her pretty lips and staring up at the ceiling. “It’s got to be yogurt and berries. I just love the really thick stuff. Full fat.”
For all of us, it’s basically anything that isn’t what we’re being forced to stomach.
I watch as Lory laughs at Rock’s attempts at humor and listens intently to Hyde’s childhood story. She has a way of focusing her dark eyes on a person and giving them her entire attention.
We pass the time the best way we can. I teach Lory a card game I learned from another inmate years ago to distract her from where we are and what she’s here to do for us. Rock takes it upon himself to keep things light, cracking jokes. Hyde stays close to her, but he’s different today—quieter, more introspective. I catch him watching her when he thinks no one is looking, his expression softening in a way that makes my chest tighten with a mix of hope and fear. At one point, he tugs her into his lap and feeds her little bites of bread slathered with peanut butter. It’s hardly gourmet, but she opens her pretty lips for each offered bite and smiles softly when he wipes a fleck of peanut butter from her lips and licks it from his finger. They remind me of high school kids fooling around in the cafeteria.
We’re walking a tightrope, all of us trapped together, but Hyde is doing better than I could have hoped.
When I check the clock on the wall and find it’s eleven am, I can’t wait any longer.
Lory’s sitting across from me, and she must sense the increased intensity of my gaze because she shifts in her seat, and then her eyes dart to the open door of the room she shared with Hyde last night.
She knows what’s coming.
And she licks her lips.
“Lory, want to come with me?” I make it a question, but I’m sure she hears it as an order. She could say no, sure. But she won’t get paid for that.
I wish it wasn’t resting like a wedge between us. In another world, in another lifetime, I wish I could have met this girl in a bar or at a supermarket, taken her home, and shown her a good time. We could have dated, and maybe more. It’s easy to imagine how a man could fall in love with a sweet girl like Lory, and I’m not a man who’s ever been in love. I don’t remember what loving or being loved is like. Respect, I understand. Friendship, I get. But love? It’s something that exists in books and movies and for people with fewer boulders weighing them down.
It’s for people who are free enough to let go of their hearts.
I hold on to every single protection mechanism I’ve developed. I sleep with one eye open and the rattling of suspicion in my ears.
With Lory, all I can do is focus on the physical. I can be a good lover if I can’t be a good human.
She rises, and Hyde and Rock watch as she walks slowly and purposefully to the room. I nod at my friends once, letting them know their turn is coming before I follow the mesmerizing sway of Lory’s hips and close the door behind us.
“You did well with Hyde,” I tell her as I strip my shirt over my head. “Kept him even.”
“He’s just like everyone else,” she says. “He just wears all his emotions where everyone can see them.”
“Was he gentle with you?”
She nods. “He was fine.”
“Good.” It’s a relief to know I won’t have to manage their interactions, although the idea of watching Hyde lose control between Lory’s legs sends hot blood to my dick.
I might want to be a good man, doesn’t mean I’m not a sick fuck in the privacy of my mind.
Lory eyes my body, lingering on the tattoos that pattern my skin and the muscles that boredom has honed. It feels good to be desired and appreciated. I missed being wanted.
“You got the condoms?” I ask. “I mean, I’m clean. There’s been no one else for… years.”
She grimaces. “I’m on contraception, but it’s better to be safe.”
“Don’t want to leave here with a crim baby in your belly.”
“I barely keep my head above water as it is,” she admits. “No way I could manage life as a single mom.”
I think about my mom, who had a revolving door of boyfriends who made my life a misery. They didn’t beat me like Hyde, but they kept mom’s attention elsewhere, and kids without attention don’t thrive. No kid of mine is ever going to go through that kind of hell.
“I don’t mind wrapping it up.” In truth, I’m happy it’ll make me last longer.
She nods, then slips her shirt from her body. Warden didn’t bring her a bra, but in truth, she doesn’t need one, and I love the fact that there’s no barrier between her sweet tits and the thin fabric of her shirt. Later, when she’s dressed, I’m going to pull her into my lap and run my palm up her flat belly and over her tits. I’m going to play with her in front of Hyde and Rock, maybe pinch her nipples hard enough to hurt so they hear her gasp. I could slide my hand into her leggings and rub her little clit until she’s squirming and wet.
Once she’s fucked us all, any inhibitions she might have can be pushed until they break. Little Lory’s going to leave here a changed woman. She’ll lie alone in bed at night and dream about all the ways we made her scream. Thirty days of nonstop fucking. She’ll never have another month like it.
Touching her is like second nature now. All the uncertainty has left the room, and we slide into a kiss that is fluid and intuitive. My rough fingers explore her soft, smooth skin, trailing her nipples until they’re tight whirls just waiting for my tongue. As I suck, she grips my head, and I slide my hands inside her leggings, cupping her perfect ass and tugging her against my cock. She’s light as a feather, and when I lift her, her legs clasp my hips like a vice.
There are so many ways I could fuck her. Like a kid in a candy store, my mind swims with all the options. Against the wall, on the bed with her on her back, bent over, in my lap reverse cowgirl style. I’m greedy to watch my cock disappearing inside her. The visuals are as important as the physical act. I want to witness her expression as she takes my dick, watch it stretch her open until I’m coated with her arousal, and everything between her legs is swollen and engorged. I want full control of her body, to take what I need, confident that I can give her an orgasm unlike anything she's ever felt before. Decision made, I lower her onto the bed so she’s lying across, and I’m standing between her thighs. She’s panting already, staring at my cock, which is tenting my stupid orange pants. I peel her leggings and panties down her legs slowly, enjoying unwrapping her. When I’m done, she allows her legs to drop open, resting her feet on the mattress's edge. She’s glistening already, and I duck down to lap at her entrance, relishing the taste of her sweet pink pussy.
The box of condoms rests on the metal nightstand, and I tear it open, finding a foil packet. My fingers vibrate as I tear it open and shove my pants down, sheathing my cock and cupping my balls. Her pussy squeezes, closing up her little hole, and I nearly nut in my fist. She was tight around my fingers. She’s going to be a vice around my thick cock.
“We’re going to take this slow,” I tell her. “I’m going to spread you open and get you ready for my friends.”
Lory makes a soft whimpering sound that’s like a tongue on my balls as I stroke the fat round head of my dick over her clit, tapping it a few times to get her good and hot. In no time, it swells and peeks out, ready for friction. When I slide lower through her wetness, notching at her entrance, her eyes widen. Still standing, I grasp her hands in mine and pin them to the bed next to her head. Her pussy pulses again, tickling my dick with its hungry grasp. I count backward from ten, trying to calm my frantically beating heart.
Fuck.
I’ve never been so amped up for sex in my life. “You ready?”
The idea of having to stop now is impossible. My hips are primed to thrust, my abs clenching with restraint. I lean over little Lory, licking just inside her top lip, swallowing her sigh. “Yes,” she whispers, and I push.
The resistance is intense, tighter than I’ve ever felt—like she’s a virgin, clenched around me like a fist. I press my weight forward, and my senses blur as her pussy finally gives, just enough to take the head of my dick. She cries out, her head tipping back, exposing her throat. I run my tongue along her skin until my mouth is at her ear. “You’re a tight little thing,” I whisper. “Tight and hot.”
She shivers as I suck on her earlobe and sink a little deeper before pulling back to spread her wetness. “Oh yeah… fuck,” I groan, staring between us as her little pussy opens around me, the petals of her labia stretch tight. Where she’s pink and sweet, I’m dark, hard, and engorged. An invading force plundering.
Pushing deeper, I groan long and low. Lory's tight, but she’s taking me with a determination that has hardened her expression, her lip clutched between her teeth. Our eyes meet, and the intensity of the connection between us doesn’t make sense. We don’t know each other outside of easy chatter and some sexual contact. But my heart pounds and clenches, at the untamed beauty of her hair spread around her pretty face and her eyelids fluttering as I bottom out. I press my forehead to hers, forcing myself to take deep, controlled breaths while she adjusts to the invasion. Her muscles flutter, and she pants.
“You okay, princess?” I ask.
“You’re so…” She licks her lips. “Big.”
“All the better to fuck you with.” I grin wolfishly, grateful for the chance to bring this back to something lighthearted.
“I want to touch you,” she says, glancing at her wrists beneath my palms. I release one hand, and she roams my heated flesh, tickling my shoulder and pec, and lower over my abs. I move, testing her response and finding only the pleasure that lowers her eyelids. Her mouth opens in a sigh, and I’m in heaven.
“You good?”
She nods, and I move again, pulling out slowly until I’m almost all the way, then driving back in. Her legs clasp around me, thighs opening wide enough to take my big body. It shouldn’t be possible, but tiny little Lory takes me without a problem. She’s built deep enough to handle my full length and is agile enough to accommodate my muscular bulk. She’s perfect.
I close my eyes, lost in the sensation, the intensity wiping away all the distant memories of women who’ve come before.
Lory’s the only one I want to fuck.
It’s foolish to let her through my cracked exterior, but I’m powerless to stop it from happening. Her sweetness is such a contrast to the harshness of this prison. It wraps around me like a balm, soothing my ragged soul.
I’ve never done drugs except for nicotine—the first rule of dealing is never get high on your own supply—but this must be what it’s like to get high. This unbelievable feeling of climbing until my head is spinning, my body jerking, and everything is out of control.
Her hips undulate, chasing my thrusts, and the little huffs of breath that leave her lips make me want to curl around her and never let her go.
Warmth encircles my heart as she touches me gently. I stare down at her beauty, and the reality of our situation is unfathomable.
We don’t know this woman, but she feels like home. I get a strange urge to take care of her, anticipate her needs and make sure none of them are unmet.
I don’t want to let her go.
“Don’t stop,” she gasps, cutting through my dazed thoughts.
“Hold the headboard,” I bark, and she obeys immediately, wrapping her fingers tightly around the metal bars. With her slender arms stretched over her head, I nuzzle her breasts and tease her high, tight nipples with my tongue before biting hard. She gasps as I keep the same rhythm, pounding into her with a little more weight, and in no time, she’s clenching around my dick, arching her back as I chase her release with my own.
My balls draw up, and heat spreads in an uncontrollable pulse from my lower back into my belly and through my dick. I hold deep, my eyes squeezed tightly shut, yelling some garbled mix of expletives and grunts that sound more deranged animal than human as I spill inside her.
I wish the condom wasn’t between us, and her slickness could coat my cock. I wish I could watch my cum leak from inside her and I could stake my claim and mark her as mine, but we’re just passing through in this weird time warp, trapped between two halves of my never-ending sentence. Twenty-nine more days pretending that life can be this sweet before I’m dragged back to my cell to serve out the rest of my time, and I lose Lory for good.
The thought already almost brings me to my knees.