Chapter Seventeen
Katie
I don’t know what makes me do it. It’s nothing like the kiss downstairs, all teeth and tongue, vying for control as we tugged and pulled each other's hair and clothes. This was something else entirely. Soft, swollen lips pressing together in a sweet embrace after fucking hard and rough. Maybe I’m thanking him.
Maybe it’s my body taking over to keep him sweet so it can get more of what he just gave me.
More of what I’ve needed for the past year.
He breaks apart our kiss, the tip of his nose still pressed against mine.
He’s watching me, staring so intently into me, it’s like he’s trying to commit this moment to memory so he’ll never forget what we just gave each other.
There’s more to it than that. He’s searching for any sign that I’m hurt or upset, but I give him nothing to worry about.
There is nothing to worry about. I have a delicious ache between my legs for the first time since this madness started, and I feel the pinch in my shoulders loosening.
I stroke his damp hair back from his face, the ends starting to curl. “That was amazing.”
He nods, his boyish smile creeping through his severe expression. “Yeah, it was certainly something.”
“Would you . . . I mean, obviously, I wouldn’t expect anything. But maybe, if you liked it too—”
“Liked it?” he interrupts.
“Yeah, I mean, you liked it, right?”
Oh God. Had I read this completely wrong?
He pushed his cum back inside me.
He spoke absolute filth in my ear, perfectly in character.
Was that just to help me?
My lungs seem to shrink like a deflating balloon, sagging and wrinkled. I want to escape, but my body is stuck. After the absolute workout it just got, it’s refusing to move out of sheer exhaustion or maybe hope. I can’t confirm.
“Princess . . . that was the best time I’ve ever had. Ever. I actually can’t think of a single other time at all to make a comparison. They’ve all blurred into one endless boring fuck. But this . . . us. This is something good. We should have been doing this for years, Katie.”
My cheeks flush. He’s not wrong. That was hands down the best time of my entire life.
The fear, the adrenaline. Everything closing in on me as I hid under the bed and waited for him.
He wasn’t gentle at all. He didn’t treat me as if I were going to break at any moment.
He honored what I asked for and trusted that I knew what I wanted.
Despite Jonesy’s flaws, I like that about him.
He trusts me to know my own mind. It means so much, given how much I’ve been questioning my judgment lately.
“So you’d want to do it again?” I ask eagerly.
“Yeah, just give me time to grab a cigarette first.”
“You don’t smoke.” I laugh, pushing at his chest until he grabs my arm, dropping a kiss to the inside of my wrist.
“After that, I think I need to take it up. Only a cigarette could revive me now.” He winks before slipping out of the bed, zipping up his pants that never fully came off.
Why is that so hot?
He remains bare-chested, leaving his shirt on the floor where he dropped it. “I’ll be back in a minute. Get cozy, okay?”
I nod, lingering heat pooling in my lower belly as his eyes dip down my naked body. He slips out of the room, muttering something about being dead because this can’t be happening in real life.
Grabbing some clothes out of the closet, I stop as I see myself in the mirror.
Red marks litter my body, his fingers imprinting onto my skin in some kind of ownership that makes me feel giddy.
I run the tips of my fingers over my neck and across my breasts, watching them heave after being slapped and pulled.
I wonder if it will bruise. A sick part of me hopes it does.
I want to feel his touch long after he’s gone.
Whacks and clangs travel up the stairwell as I hear him rustling around downstairs and as the first step of his heavy tread hits the bottom stair; I slip into a fresh pair of panties, some sleep shorts, and a baggy T-shirt, sliding back under the covers before he strides through the door, a makeshift tray resting on top of both his laid flat palms.
“I might need some help,” he says as I sit up, ready to take the plates of food off what looks to be leftover MDF from the kitchen. There are grapes, some cheese and crackers, two bottles of water, and a sliced-up apple. I can’t believe he did all of this.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to.”
“Figured you’d be hungry.” He shrugs.
My stomach gurgles, and we both laugh. Jonesy slips back under the covers and pulls me toward him, tucking me under his arm as he reaches out to grab an apple slice, the crunch right by my ear.
It would normally annoy me for someone to be so close to me when we’re still sweaty from sex.
But at this moment, I don’t want to be far from him at all.
Even the few minutes he was in the kitchen were too long.
I just want to lie back, close my eyes, and let him hold me all night.
“Eat something, princess,” he commands.
I roll my eyes but do as he says, picking up the sliced grape and popping it on top of the cheddar, letting the juice mix with the sharp tang of cheese.
“I need to tell you something,” he says, gripping me a little tighter.
“If you try to tell me you were a virgin, then I won’t believe you. Mary Elizabeth at college gave me a graphic description of the hip-roll thing you do in freshman year.”
He smirks for a second before looking away and frowning. Okay, now I’m concerned.
“Your phone was buzzing in your bag downstairs. I was going to check it wasn’t anyone important and then bring it up to you, but it was an unknown number.”
“Okay. No problem.”
“Great.” He swallows. “It’s just that that wasn’t the only thing I found in your bag.”
It takes me a second to realize what he means. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the letter I received at the prison. The one I tried to hide from him when we left our interview with Connor Maddox. The one from Thomas Vale.
“You read it?” I ask tightly.
He winces before nodding, his eyes flitting between mine as if he’s trying to get a read on me.
“You can't just go through my personal shit, you’re not my boy—” I pause, clearly the sex hormones still haven’t dissipated. “You’re just not allowed.”
“Well, it sort of fell out of your bag.”
“And the letter just fell out of the envelope and into your hand?”
His jaw twitches before he answers, a grimace pulling at his eyes and mouth as I try to pull away from his death grip. “Yes?”
“Jonesy . . .” I rub the heels of my palms into the tops of my eye sockets near my brow, knowing I should book a massage soon.
I don’t think I’m even mad at him. I’m just annoyed that an explanation is now required.
Something that was being handled by me will now become a shared problem.
Because that’s just how Jonesy is. He’s a soldier, a protector.
There’s no way he’s going to let this go when he finds out that it wasn’t the first letter I’d received.
“Nah, don’t act like that. You know it’s not right that he’s sending you a letter. So spill. What’s the story? I’m going to assume you’ve taken the appropriate action and reported Thomas Vale and the prison guard who gave you the letter?”
His eyebrows lift comically higher with each second that passes, and I don’t answer.
“Katie . . . you can’t be serious? Not even Detective Biceps? He’s a douche canoe, but he’d have this fixed in no time.”
“It’s not that simple.”
He huffs, his arm slipping from behind me so he can cross them over his chest, holding up the letter.
“‘You looked so beautiful in that skirt. I could see your nipples through your blouse. Was that for me, my perfect specimen? I miss our chats, Dr. Murphy. Perhaps you can come for an off-the-record chat before my appeal.’” Jonesy’s face contorts as if he’s sucked on something sour, his whole face turning away from the slip of paper as if it shows him the foulest image you can imagine.
“He underlines the word ‘come,’ Katie. It’s disgusting that the guard would pass this to you.”
“Listen, I’ve got it under control, okay? Thomas Vale cannot hurt me in prison, no matter how many letters he sends me.”
His eyebrows shoot up, and he’s the one to draw back this time. “Excuse me? Explain what you just said.”
Shit. I just said letters, right? Like plural?
“He’s in prison. He can’t hurt me from there.”
“One, this isn’t the first letter he’s sent you? And two, Thomas Vale, as stated in his most recent letter, has an appeal coming up. What if they let him go? What will you do then?”
I take a deep breath, knowing that this is probably going to make no sense to him at all.
“If Thomas Vale wants to spend his time in prison writing me creepy messages, then that’s up to him.
It stops him from creeping on anyone else, and frankly, I’d rather be the one he did it to because I know that I can handle it.
He’s not going to hurt me because he’s guilty, and no one in their right mind would let him out of prison. ”
“You’re trying to be a martyr.” He scoffs.
“No . . . no. That’s not it. I’m being protective.”
“That’s bullshit, Katie, and you know it.
You’re being a martyr. You’re taking on all this shit because, I don’t know, you feel guilty, or responsible in some way.
I have no idea what’s going on inside that brain of yours.
But you say you can handle it? Then why hadn’t you slept in nearly a year?
Why couldn’t you have sex with anyone? That’s not coping; that’s avoidance.
And a seriously messed-up sleep pattern. ”
I rear back as if I’ve been slapped. “Screw you,” I hiss. “You think you can fuck me one time and then tell me how to live my life? I’m my own person, and I’ll make decisions based on what I think is best. Not you. Not anyone else.”
“And therein lies your problem. You’re too damn proud to ask for help when you so desperately need it.
” He spits the words at me like venom, and I can’t help but recoil.
I trust this man with my secrets, but it comes at a cost. It always does with him.
He always uses it to his advantage. To win an argument or to win a game.
How could I have thought this would be any different?
I suck in a deep breath, restoring the defenses I’d dropped for him.
“It’s time for you to leave. Thank you for your help with the kitchen.”
His cruel laugh sears down my spine as he slips out from under the blanket, pulling his T-shirt roughly over his head.
“Sure thing. Don’t wanna say thanks for the orgasms too?
Or was that one time all you needed? That’s your style, isn’t it, Katie?
Just use them until you’re done with them.
I’ll be sure to let Detective Biceps know you’re done with me and it’s his turn now. ”
My blood rushes between my ears, the food I’d just eaten sitting heavy in my stomach.
How dare he talk to me like that? How dare he suggest I use people when he’s been doing the same thing to get a rise out of me for years?
He’s no better than I am, and yet he’s the one acting all high and mighty because he feels like he’s done me a favor by giving me a few orgasms.
“Get. Out.” I spit.
“With pleasure. Sleep well.” He sneers, slamming every door he walks through before I hear his boots crunch into the gravel path outside.