Chapter Twenty
Everest
Jett is standing outside of the cell, leaning against the rail to watch the common area. The main guards just finished roll call, so it’s relatively quiet down there. Everyone else will start to come back out of their cells before long.
Jett and Lance have had a little more freedom now that I’m in the cell.
They’re allowed to move around without me as long as I’m locked into my little cubby.
Since it’s pretty tight in here, they frequently take breaks and stretch their legs out on the cat-walk.
I’m pacing back and forth in front of the cell door, because I don’t really know what I feel like doing right now.
My brain is a chaotic jumble of thoughts and desires, but nothing is piquing my interest. I want to do something; I just don’t know what.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor.” Jett says without tearing his eyes away from the main floor.
“Jett… it’s too dark up here. I can’t draw like this. Or do… anything.“ I announce as I halt my movements and cling to the iron bars. I’m sick of it. So damn sick of the dark.
“And what do you want me to do about that, Everest?” He turns around and leans against the banister as he stares at me.
My eyes trail along his body as he folds his arms across his chest playfully.
He chuckles at me for blatantly checking him out, but I’m not the least bit ashamed.
The water wicking fabric of his shirt clings to his flesh and shows off his tattoos.
The muscles in his chest and arms flex as he laughs, and I run my tongue over my bottom lip instinctually.
When my eyes finally meet his, his pupils are blown out with desire the same way mine probably are.
He quirks a brow at me, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
“Tell me, E. What do you want me to do about that?” He asks again.
“Get me a lantern that uses batteries.” I packed enough batteries to last me a damn year, so I should be able to make that work until I leave.
“Mmmm,“ he hums in contemplation.
“Do I need to beg?” I ask as I bat my eyelashes at him.
His lips raise up on one side as he gestures to the floor with a wave of his hand. “It might help your argument.”
I glance down at the filthy cement floor with regret before I slide my hands down the iron bars until my knees hit the ground. I look back up at him, the cold floor already long forgotten. The way his eyes flare to life as he strolls closer to me ignites every inch of my body.
“Pretty please?“ I stick my lip out to pout extra hard for him. His responding chuckle causes me to break my groveling for a smirk instead.
“What will I get in return?” He asks as he stares down at me.
We both know what he’s going to get, but we’re going to do this little dance, anyway.
I don’t have anything but my body to offer him, and there isn’t a single piece of it that I wouldn’t give him.
Taunting each other has become its own kind of foreplay though and knowing that Jett is flirting with me is intoxicating.
“Whatever way you want me, Jett.” I offer as I scoot closer to the bars, my knees hitting the frame.
He reaches a hand through the bars and caresses my cheek with his thumb. I chase his touch, leaning into it like a starving cat.
“What if it’s not that I want? What if there’s something I want?”
I furrow my brow in confusion as he stares down at me.
It takes me a second to realize that his eyes have softened as he continues to touch me reverently, and then it hits me all at once what he’s implying.
I nearly jerk away from his touch. Barely managing not to look completely appalled, but only by the grace of God.
Thankfully, he doesn’t seem the least bit discouraged by my immediate refusal.
“No,” I reply as I shake my head in denial. “Hell no.”
He trails his hand down my throat until it reaches my chest and then taps his finger right above where my heart is thundering in my chest.
“I’ll earn this eventually, Everest.”
I swallow thickly, trying to choke down all the feelings I’m having.
The fact that Jett has the balls to even ask something so forward is hot as fuck, and normally I would bend to his will.
I’d beg him to take it, to do whatever he wants with it.
If we were back home at a bar, I’d ask him to take me home and make me his.
I would rip the beating organ right out of my chest and serve it to him on a silver platter at his feet.
He’s just that kind of guy, you know? He serves those he cares about endlessly. He goes out of his way to do whatever he can for them. He puts their desires ahead of his own, and that makes him happy. Genuinely happy.
We aren’t at a bar back home, though. We aren’t two people that had a meet cute at a library, or coffee shop.
We aren’t people with our fucking heads screwed on right.
This isn’t some magical happily ever after.
That’s not where we are. That’s not who we are.
That will never be what this is between us.
We’re two people in a fucking prison.
One of us belongs here, and the other… is me. It doesn’t matter if I want to give myself over to him completely, because it’d do me absolutely no good. In a couple of weeks, they’re going to shove me out the doors and bid me farewell. I’ll never see this place again. I’ll never see him again. Ever.
I’ll have no choice but to leave everything I’ve come to love behind.
The scene plays out in my mind, how I’m going to feel on that day as I’m forced to walk away from this place.
From him. I know I’ll be a zombie as I make my way back home.
Lost. Stuck in an unfeeling haze. I’ll walk up my porch to my cold and empty house.
Axel and I will eventually return to work, write the stupid fucking article we were chasing, and then everything will go back to how it was.
Except… it won’t.
Nothing will ever be the same. It can’t be, because we won’t be the same.
If I thought that I was an empty shell of a human before, I know I’ve got another thing coming.
I can already feel the despair and longing that’s going to plague me for the rest of my life simmering below the surface.
This place is going to leave scars so deep that I’ll never stop feeling the ache of its absence.
I’ll return to the memories of my time here like they’re a ghost that haunts my every waking moment.
It’ll be all I can think about until it eats me alive from the inside out. It’ll consume me.
It honestly doesn’t matter if I give in to Jett or not, because when I leave here, I’ll be leaving parts of myself behind.
The one thing that JP is chasing, it won’t exist anymore when I return.
It’s going to slowly crumble and wither to dust as time goes on.
I’m going to die without it anyway, so why not let him have it?
Why not give him this little sliver of happiness that he deserves?
That we both deserve.
I keep my face low as I whisper to him. “If you want it, then you’ll have to take it, Jett.”
He raises his hand up and grasps my jaw, forcing my chin up so that I’m looking directly at him.
I can’t run from him now, and I can’t hide everything my eyes are probably screaming.
The truth of how badly I want to give not only this piece, but every piece of me to him.
How deeply in my chest that I know he’s it for me.
That he’s the other piece of my soul I’ve been wandering around aimlessly searching for, and now that I’ve found him, I have to face the fact that I can’t keep him.
A gentle smirk takes over his lips as he tilts his head to the side slightly.
“Ich kann nicht nehmen, was mir bereits gehort.” His husky voice replies in an affectionate tone. I don’t know what it means, but I can feel the tenderness behind his words. They wrap around me like a warm blanket, offering me hope that only I’m aware will be wasted.
His thumb rubs across my cheek as tears start to blur my vision. “Don’t cry, schon. I’ll do whatever I have to. You’ll be mine, E. I promise.”
But I am. I think to myself as I give him a weak nod. I already am.