Chapter 17
Seventeen
Penny
He looked up at me with fear, delicious, real fear.
I let it settle into my gut, shifted to get comfortable as I straddled the man who’d hurt me, held a blade to his throat and leaned down, getting eye to eye with him.
His fear was palpable, leaking from his eyeballs in rushes of wet.
It’s what I needed, why I was doing this at all.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, spluttering his words. “I didn’t—”
“Ah,” I said, shutting him up with the press of the blade, anger twitching through me, fear roiling inside my aching stomach. “But you did. You did hurt me, rape me, abuse me. And men like you don’t deserve a life.”
He groaned, the drugs I’d given him making him sleepier and sleepier. He was already sliced up, almost naked with streaks of blood across his body, and now he was unable to move, unable to fight me back at all.
“What are you going to do?”
“Cheer myself up.”
It wasn’t the biggest change of scenery. We were still in the same prison, the same building, just a different part of it. But there were new people, other guards with kinder faces and nurses with stronger medication I didn’t like taking.
A place where all the crazies would go to live out their days, fucked on drugs and padded cells.
It had a whole different vibe, with bright walls, open spaces and mind-numbing activities rather than metal tables and one ratty pack of cards.
My arrival here had been somewhat of a blur, after a day or so in the infirmary with Nurse Sally’s questioning looks and gentle questions, but I had settled into the soothing routine of it. Kinda enjoying myself.
I’d been here a little over a week now, the wound on my scalp patched up and almost healed.
No one questioned the state of my body to me when they saw my head, thinking I’d done it all to myself somehow.
It was ridiculous, and I had to think Adrian had something to do with it, manipulating the system to keep himself safe.
As far as I was aware, no doctor or nurse had even glanced between my legs.
They made me speak to a psychiatrist every day, but then all I had to do was plant myself in front of the TV they had here, and most of the other inmates were too dosed out to mind what I put on. The nurses changed the channel whenever I wanted, which was a dream come true.
For the first time in ages, I had a little control over my entertainment. And the drugs they were giving me were mild, a sedative to stop me hurting myself again. So my days passed much the same.
Myself and Dora, an inmate around the same age as me who had never said a word or even a grunt of acknowledgment, were watching a medical drama when a nurse summoned me to the front with a shout of my name and a beckoning hand.
Maybe this was it, my time to return to the place I despised more and more with each passing day.
I had to get out of there; I just had to. I’d had thoughts of playing up the crazy even more to stay here, but decided against it. Here would be harder to escape. Drugs made me dozier, dulled my senses. Sedatives were not conducive to a good escape plan.
“Ah, Dora,” I said, not actually knowing if that was her name, just deciding it suited her, with her blunt brunette fridge and big brown eyes.
“Looks like you’ll have to let me know what happens next.
Does she make it out of the freezing cold water?
” I patted Dora on the head as I stood. “You’ll have to let me know with telepathy, I reckon. ”
I strode over to the nurse, who I think was called Dean, and gave him a smile.
He rankled, looked as though he wanted to flee.
Probably watched the news and saw what I did.
He was in the wrong dang job if he got scared of the inmates.
I reached out to touch him, to test his boundaries, and got a lovely warning glare.
If I worked in a place like this, I would be googling the shit out of every single inmate. Couldn’t blame the man for the deep dive. Maybe he was desperate for the money. Or perhaps he was as bad as the rest of them.
I stepped back from him and narrowed my eyes — what kind of man was he?
“You have a visitor,” he told me, shoulders all square, fingers twitching as if he wanted to reach for a gun he didn’t have.
I wasn’t that scary.
“Who?” I asked, tipping my head.
“Corporal,” he said. “He’s waiting for you in the meeting room.”
I followed, curious. It could only be Adrian there, come to gloat or give me more cum in a bottle of something that used to be sweet.
I missed the smell of him, so I would take it.
But I wanted more. Being thrown in the crazy ward had scuppered those plans I had worked so hard for.
It was nice here, but I had to get free of it. Or I feared I’d be stuck forever.
My plans with Adrian were failing because of these padded walls.
Nurse Dean opened the door to the meeting room and hurried me inside, stepping in with us and going to shut the door behind him.
“No need.” Adrian’s voice came, confirming my suspicions about who my visitor was. He stood up from the table, handcuffs in his grasp, waving them with a jangle. “We’ll be fine.”
“Uh,” Dean said, darting his eyes between us. “If you’re sure?”
Adrian dragged me to the metal table by my wrists, forced me into the chair, and handcuffed me to the little loop sticking out of the tabletop with swift precision. I let him, no fight, watching his every move, each ripple of muscle and tension of jaw.
“I’ll let you know when we’re through. This is confidential,” Adrian said again, his voice authoritative and calm. It made me shudder, want to spread my legs and vomit all over him in equal measure.
Dean nodded and dipped out, the door swinging shut with a slam. In the same moment it slammed, Adrian’s eyes were back on me, burning, angry. Ah.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he asked, scowling, his gaze going to the gash running down my forehead. He strode over and settled into the chair opposite me. The wound was ugly, gnarled and swollen, bruised. Whenever I caught a glimpse of myself in a reflection, it surprised me.
“I wasn’t,” I explained. “That’s kind of the fucking point.”
“Did you do it on purpose?” His face was so accusatory, so vicious. It almost bothered me. But I didn’t show it. He couldn’t know.
“I was upset,” I told him, trying to keep the bite out of my words. “Someone messed me up, and I didn’t know what to do. Needed to come here and get my head fixed up.”
“Really?” he asked, that fucking eyebrow raised. The things I wanted to do to that eyebrow… like slice it off and chew it up.
“Really.”
We stared at each other for a few beats.
I chewed on my cheek, and he glared. But his finger twitched, and I could just imagine it was because he yearned to launch across the table and take me, ravish me in the most delicious way.
I lost myself for a moment, thinking of all the things he might be fantasizing about.
Me, in my ugly overalls, with a swollen, bruised head and tired, pallid skin.
“I don’t like it,” he admitted, yanking me from my fantasy. “I don’t have… access to you here.”
I leaned forward, not able to lift my hands to my chin like I wanted. “And why do you need access, Adrian?”
“Sir.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sir or CO Darling, remember.”
I laughed, sat back, and shook my head. “What are we doing here?” I asked.
“I’m happy to… to call you that, for you to be my sir, but I need clarity.
Please, I need to understand.” I ducked my head and looked up at him through my lashes.
“I think I need more.” Would this work? Vulnerability and softness?
“More?” he asked, bracing his arms on the desk and running his tongue along his bottom lip, his eyes dragging over all of me visible. “What more do you crave, little killer?”
I took a deep breath. This felt like the moment. It was now or never. “I want you to help me get out of here.” My voice cracked, real emotion leaking into my fakery. Shit.
If he could do it…
There was a nice long beat where what I said washed over him, and I didn’t know what to expect. I might have just screwed everything up forever. Or maybe–
“If I uncuff you, will you try to hurt me?” he asked, and I shook my head fast, my heart pounding. “Will you try to hurt yourself?”
“No.” I was over that for now. My skull throbbed too much to do it again.
He stood, paced around the edge of the table until he reached me, then without a word, unlocked the cuffs. I watched him as he returned to his chair, leaned back and spread his legs, cocky, cool. I pulled my hands free of the metal and flexed my fingers, even though it had only been a few minutes.
Why was he doing this? It was a show of strength again, of power, of seeing how far he could push me.
“Get under the table,” he told me, gesturing downward. I tilted my head, trying to parse out what the hell was going on here.
He hadn’t said no. He hadn’t sent me to the warden or thrown me in the hole again. Maybe there was hope after all. Maybe this was working.
I slid to my knees and crawled under the table, stopping between his spread legs. He looked down at me, his expression unreadable.
“Unbutton my pants,” he demanded, his voice soft but stony.
“The door isn’t locked,” I noted, my hands running up his thighs towards his growing bulge. I wanted this. Making him feel good and powerful was useful. That was all.
“Take my cock out and make me come fast, then.” That eyebrow went back up; his jaw tightened.
This felt like a test, but I couldn’t figure out what for. Did he want us caught? This to be over? Or was he enjoying how fucked up this all was? It was him that had the control in these situations, not me. He who instigated and took. I was along for the ride yet again.
But I did as he asked, pulling his hard, fat cock free of his pants and letting my saliva pool on my tongue before licking a long line from base to head.
I groaned, his musky flavor heating my body.
Fuck, I loved it. He’d conditioned me with the way he fed me it to crave him like this.
Every drop of pre-cum I lapped up, sucking deep on his tip to get as much as I could, wanting to suckle on him like a straw.
It was a complex thing, letting him try to switch off my brain.
When it worked, peace tickled at me. But peace was unnerving when I let it all the way in.
“Remember, quick, little killer,” he grunted when I grasped his balls and tugged them, snaking my finger underneath to find that spot between his sack and his ass I knew he loved having played with. He needed fast; that was a guaranteed way to achieve that. I’d learned his dirty predilections now.
I bobbed up and down on him, pressing on and teasing his asshole, and he spread his legs wider. It was still a tricky angle, with his pants on, my hand snaked inside them and twisted round to reach his happy spot, but we made it work.
“Fuck,” he grunted, and I moaned as he flooded my mouth with cum with no warning. “Hold it.”
I didn’t swallow, catching every drop on my tongue even though I was desperate to feel it flood down my throat. Hot and slick and savory.
“Show me,” he demanded, and I looked up, his softening cock still between my lips. I could stay here, suckling on him, licking up any drops he gave me over the course of hours.
This was giving him what he wanted. And in return…
I pulled free with reluctance and parted my lips, showing him the pool of cum on my tongue, waiting to be swallowed.
Adrian gathered spit in his mouth and dripped it into mine, mixing with the pooling cum. He looked so satisfied as he shoved himself back into his pants, and I remained on my knees, mouth open.
“Now you can swallow,” he told me, and I did.
I guzzled his cum down with a grateful gulp, moaning at the taste of him.
We stared at each other. It felt like hours but was probably just seconds.
A power balance rippled between us, passing back and forth like waves on the shore.
Who had it? Was it me, with the secrets I now kept?
Or was it him, with the cuffs and the keys?
“Get up, sit back down,” he said, trying to break the moment. Without a word, I slipped under the table and returned to my chair, cuffing myself back in without looking at him.
It was a struggle to meet his gaze after that, but I did, with wide eyes and bitten, cock-sucking bruised lips, I looked up.
There was warmth on his face, which surprised me.
He’d never shown me anything other than lust and hate before.
I thought he was growing to care, that whatever this was had been working in its own quiet way, but that look he gave me then, with the taste of his cum still on my tongue, affection.
Or maybe obsession. I’d take either one.
Excitement was hard to hide. So, I smiled at him.
His fondness evaporated, and my smile was only a moment behind. Shit.
Before either of us could say a word, Nurse Dean strode back in, picking up on none of the sexual tension in the room as he wiped his hands down the front of his shirt and yawned.
“Your time is almost up, CO Darling,” he said to Adrian, ignoring me. “Did you get everything you needed?”
“Yes,” Adrian replied, his eyes tearing from mine. “She’s fine to return to the main prison. We’ll give her two more days of recovery here, then I expect her returned.”
“Really?” Dean straightened, surprise across his pudgy face. “But the warden was quite clear—”
“The warden left it to me to make the judgment. And as Miss Karner is a very violent inmate, she’s safer back in her cell in Block A where I can keep an eye on her.”
Dean looked like he wished to say more, but held it in, nodded instead. He cared; that was clear, but not enough to rock the boat.
That bubble of excitement within me grew like butterflies in my stomach. Like spiders trying to claw their way out of my mouth, and I had to bite my cheek not to smile again.
It was working.
He wanted me back.
Couldn’t bear to have me away.
He was breaking protocols and rules to get me back under his thumb. I didn’t meet his eyes as Nurse Dean led me from the room, but I did make sure to run my fingers along the table as I walked past Adrian.
A small thing, but a moment to show my feelings lingered.
I wanted him too.