Twenty-One
Simone
Rubin stood and watched me do my inventory. I’d wanted more than anything to tell him to fuck off, but I’d held my tongue. He wouldn’t have left, and getting under my skin was a victory I wasn’t in the mood to give him.
“The numbers haven’t changed,” I said.
“Good. Have you eaten?”
“No, I’m fine,” I said.
“Come on.”
I rolled my eyes but followed him into the rec room and back to the cafeteria.
I was surprised to see Veronica Shaw there, standing over the stove.
“Ms. Shaw, what are you doing?” Rubin asked.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she asked without looking at him.
Arben, who’d been slouched in a corner, glared at her. “Show some respect.”
She thinned her lips, and took three deep breaths and then looked at Arben, her expression unwavering. I wasn’t surprised. I had seen her on the news countless times disrupting—they liked to call it—city council meetings, demanding that she be heard.
She’d tangled with Rubin, too, though I wasn’t sure she knew it.
Part of his business included land acquisition and she had fought fiercely to oppose rezoning of portions of her neighborhood.
The Oaks was a century-old community that had been a pillar in Atlanta through many, many downs and a few ups, so of course the county thought it was a perfect place for a convention center.
But not on Veronica’s watch. Arben had been directly involved in trying to persuade her to stand down. I didn’t know the details, but it hadn’t gone well. And then Rubin had gone to prison and that had all gone on the back burner. But from the way Veronica looked at Arben, she still remembered.
And she didn’t like it one bit. “How many times do I need to remind you you don’t tell me what to do?”
Veronica’s voice was ice-cold, and she turned to fully face Arben, clearly ready to take him on. He just smiled at her, which seemed to make her angrier. “Keep telling yourself that, Ms. Shaw.” Arben turned to Rubin. “Apparently, Veronica’s a great cook.”
I couldn’t stop myself from interjecting. “Not sure even a great cook can do much with canned okra and collards,” I said.
Veronica chuckled, and then looked at me. “I won’t even pretend to be offended because you’re not lying, but I did what I could.”
She handed me a bowl, and I looked at Rubin. He shook his head. “You eat.”
I kept my features neutral, and then took a bite.
Veronica stared at me. “Well?”
“It’s…not terrible?” I said.
She laughed, the sound rich and hearty. “I guess I’ll take that.”
She turned back to the stove and I finished the concoction. It wasn’t satisfying, but it warmed me and took the edge off the hunger. It also wasn’t a honey bun, so I’d call this meal a win.
“Thank you, Veronica,” I said.
She just nodded, and Rubin and I left again.
I walked the entire floor with him and he stopped by all of the pods.
Whenever he approached, the men would get quiet, but Rubin would nod and they’d go back to whatever amusement they were using to distract themselves.
Dominoes, cards, chess, and I didn’t even hazard a guess at what was happening in the cell with a sheet hung over the window.
Rubin had laid out the rules, no predation chief among them, and left the men to their own devices.
So circumstances notwithstanding, I hoped they were having a grand time.
“Another light bulb is out,” I said as we made our way back to the warden’s office.
“Make note of the location, but it may have to stay out. There’s only a few left,” he said as he opened the door to the warden’s office.
He took a moment to glance around the room and I followed his gaze. The men had been busy. The warden’s slightly fancy but mostly functional office had been completely revitalized.
“Where did all this stuff come from?” I asked, momentarily distracted. The desk was still there—which, of course it was—but there was a surprisingly nice couch that I was sure had a fold-out bed, a rack with clothes that undoubtedly belonged to Rubin, and other accoutrements.
“Damian thought it would be useful if I had my things here. I didn’t want to get too comfortable, so I made the warden keep them in storage near his office.
Given current circumstances, it seemed wasteful not to use it.
I just wish I’d had enough foresight to bring a year’s supply of food,” he said.
I chose not to respond to that. I knew the aching pain of hunger. We weren’t there. Not yet. “That’s a near-exact replica of the couch you had in your old office.”
“Creature comforts, right? If I was going to be denied my freedom for however long, I—or Damian—thought it would be a good idea to have these things.”
“But you never used them.” Aaron definitely would have mentioned that.
“No. Putting this stuff in a cell doesn’t change it from a cell. And besides, every night on the metal rack with the half-inch foam pad reminded me of what you had done to me.”
I refused to flinch. The inside of my cheek stung from me biting it, fighting to hold back the words.
That wasn’t something that was usually difficult for me, but something about Rubin, the intensity of his gaze, being in his presence, made words bubble up and worse made me want to let them spill out.
I resented that. I didn’t owe him an explanation. But knowing that didn’t change the inclination.
“What about the guards? The chatter?” I said, turning to try to refocus us. “You don’t seem concerned.”
“They are plotting something,” Rubin said. “And I would expect no less. Would be disappointed if they weren’t, especially Merrick.”
“And you’re not worried?”
He shrugged. “A useless emotion. And besides, an animal behaves in accordance with its nature. That’s something I can handle. When they’re unpredictable…that is the concern.”
He had been stepping closer to me, and I stayed still, trying to pretend like I didn’t notice.
“You disobeyed me, Simone.”
“Yeah,” I said, not bothering to deny it. “You told me to stay. I left.”
The so what hung in the air. Foolish. Ridiculously stupid, in fact.
As much of a challenge as I had ever given Rubin, at least directly.
He’d have to do something with it. The question was what.
A secondary question—one I would have to figure out—was why I had done it.
I didn’t disagree with him about the nature of animals. And I knew Rubin’s nature well.
That unspoken challenge hung there. Chum in the ocean, a red flag in front of a bull, all the cliches I could think of to describe what I had done.
His eyes didn’t change, and save the almost imperceptible stiffening of his jaw, there was nothing to give him away. But I knew. Wouldn’t be able to say why, but I saw the exact moment something in him snapped.
I should have stepped back.
I didn’t.
I’d run from everything, hid my entire life. The one time I hadn’t had landed me here. Not the best proof of concept, but just like something in Rubin snapped, something in me did too.
He waited, expectant, certain I would fold. For only the second time, I didn’t. His lips thinned into a cruel sneer and he stared at me, his anger a living thing between us.
And then he wasn’t angry. He was cold.
That was worse.
He walked to the couch, ornate, expensive, and as out of place here as I was, and turned to face me. Casually, he opened his pants and let his cock hang, hard and heavy, his sac full underneath it.
It was difficult to believe that had been inside me, that I craved it now, but it had and I did.
He sat on the couch, his arms spread wide, then locked his eyes on me.
“Take off your shirt, Simone.”
He could have been asking for last month’s take or how the investments were doing for as interested as he seemed. But those black eyes burned fire.
I opened my shirt one button at a time. It would never be white again, probably wouldn’t ever be clean again either. But still I held onto it, refusing to wear the jail uniform, that pride rearing its head again.
I folded my shirt neatly and laid it on the floor beside me.
“Bra,” he said, his voice so disinterested, he may as well have yawned.
But those eyes still burned.
I complied and laid the folded bra on top of my shirt. Did the same with my shoes and socks, then pants.
Then I stood there, nipples pebbling under his glare, and watched him watch me.
I’d swallowed his cum before he ever saw me fully naked. Maybe I wasn’t as boring as I thought.
He looked at me with a disinterest that would have shattered me a few days ago, made me wonder if my dimpled thighs, my belly, the breasts that had never been perky, the body I’d learned to love was wanting.
But when I looked at his cock, the crown slick with precum, I knew it wasn’t. He might hate the person who lived inside this body, but he desired the body itself.
“Come sit on my cock, Simone.”
I blinked, the boredom in his voice so at odds with his filthy words.
But I didn’t let him say them again.
I went to him and started to brace myself on the couch.
“Other way. I don’t need to see your face.”
“How?” I asked, my mind skipping over the insult and straight to logistics.
“Figure it out.”
Dickhead.
I kept that thought to myself and turned around, too pissed to be mortified by Rubin looking at my ass.
Then touching it, kneading my cheeks in his hands before he pulled me open and looked down. The rush of cool air made me shiver, but the heat of Rubin’s gaze killed that.
He kept me open as I awkwardly settled over him, my clit trapped against his shaft.
“I didn’t say sit near it, Simone. I said sit on it.”
I huffed, but then shifted, realizing I hadn’t worried once if Rubin could hold me. He’d proven that more than once.
I reached between us and wrapped my fingers around his shaft, angled my hips awkwardly and pushed up on the arm of the couch.
I lined Rubin’s cock up with my opening and lowered my hips, stuffing my pussy inch by inch until I settled at the base, so full of Rubin, I felt like he would split me in half and I’d love every second of it.
His breath was warm against my neck, his lips barely grazing my flesh.
Then he gripped my hips tight, lifted me a few inches, then slammed me down hard.
My body quivered from the force of it, and I hissed when Rubin held me tighter and stilled my movements.
Once I was still, he tightened his grip even more and set a punishing rhythm, lift, drop, lift, drop, until the smack of my thighs against his and the dull thud of my ass hitting his stomach filled the room.
He leaned forward, shifting the angle and burying his cock even deeper, and his lips grazed my ear as he whispered, “This is what you’re here for.”
He pushed me down again and rocked his hips up, his cock jabbing me with sharp, searing thrusts.
He locked an arm around my waist, holding me tight against the solid wall of his chest. The smattering of hair on his chest tickled my back, the coarse softness heightening every sensation and making the delicious burn of his cock stretching me that much more intense.
Rubin pulled me down farther until not even a millimeter separated our bodies. He harshed out a rough breath against my ear, his cock jerking inside me, impossibly hard.
Then I was empty, his low grunt and the splash of his cum on my ass the only sounds in the room.
I went to stand, but Rubin held me in place, licking the shell of my ear before he leaned in and whispered, “Don’t disobey me again.”