Chapter 15
Jude
The day room smells like her coffee. Not the vending machine runoff—her brand, made the way she takes it at home.
Contraband, technically. She mentioned it once, in passing, while reviewing my medication compliance. Missed her own coffee, she said. The kind she makes at home.
I kept it. Kept everything. And when Rick's replacement proved equally susceptible to the right pressure in the right places, acquiring a proper cup was easy.
She stops in the doorway of the day room, clipboard already in hand, and stares at the ceramic mug waiting at her usual seat.
"That's not from the vending machine."
"No."
"How did you—" She catches herself. Shakes her head. "Actually, I don't want to know."
"Probably wise."
She sits and takes the mug in both hands and inhales before she drinks, and the small sound she makes, satisfaction, surprise, something she'd never let me hear on purpose, settles in my chest.
The day room is empty except for us. Mid-afternoon, most patients in their cells or shuffled to the yard for their prescribed hour of sunlight that's supposed to make us more manageable. I requested this time slot three weeks ago. Kennedy approved it without understanding why.
Gage is at his post by the door. Ten feet away, maybe twelve. From where he stands, he can see us from the chest up. Everything below the table is blind to him.
She told me last week she'd walk away if I kept acting like I owned her. I heard her.
"Okay." Hope sets down the mug and flips open her folder. "Week twelve check-in. How are you feeling?"
"Tired."
"The tremors?"
"Resolved."
She makes a note. Her handwriting is neat, precise, slanted slightly left. I've memorized the way she forms her letters. The small pause before she dots an I.
"Dr. Kennedy's notes say you've been more cooperative in sessions."
"I sit in the chair and let him talk. He counts that as cooperation."
A smile tugs at her mouth.
"Your medication compliance is at ninety-four percent this month. That's up from—" She checks the chart. "Eighty-seven last month."
"I'm a model patient."
"You're something, that's for sure." She writes another note. "The board is reviewing your case next week. I need to submit my behavioral assessment by Friday."
"What will it say?"
"That depends on the next forty minutes."
The words land between us. Professional, technically, but her voice dropped half a register when she said them, and she hasn't looked up from her clipboard since.
Twelve weeks. Her visits lengthened from the mandated thirty minutes to forty-five, then an hour. She stopped sitting across the table and started sitting at the corner, close enough that I could smell her shampoo if I leaned forward.
"Six hours this month," I say.
She blinks. "What?"
"Your chart time. Six hours logged across twelve sessions."
"That's—yes. Standard monitoring protocol."
"And the hours not logged?"
Her pen stops moving.
The silence stretches. I let it. Gage shifts his weight by the door, and I wonder if he knows. If he's counted the minutes too. If the total keeps him up at night.
"Four," Hope says finally. "Maybe four and a half. Does it matter?"
"It matters."
"Why?"
Because ten hours means something. Because a woman with her training and her files and her institutional power doesn't accidentally spend ten hours with a convicted murderer unless part of her has stopped seeing the killer. Because every minute she gives me is a minute she's choosing.
"The board reviews your reports," I say instead. "If your logged hours don't match your badge swipes, someone might ask questions."
"Let them ask." Her chin lifts. Defiant. My heart skips—actually skips—and I don't know what to do with that. "I'm conducting extended behavioral observation of a complex case. It's within protocol."
"Is that what we're doing? Extended observation?"
She meets my eyes. Holds them.
"What do you think we're doing?"
The question hangs there.
I could answer it a hundred ways. Could deflect, redirect, maintain the pretense we've both been hiding behind. Could be smart. Instead, I reach under the table.
My hand finds her knee. Bare—she's wearing a skirt today, professional length but soft fabric, and when my palm touches her skin she goes still.
"Jude." Her voice drops on my name. Warning and want in the same breath.
"Keep writing."
My hand slides up the inside of her thigh. Slow. Her skin is warm and alive under my palm, and her thighs press together. I pause, letting her feel the heat of my palm against her skin and make her own choice.
Three seconds. Four.
Her legs part.
I didn't make her. She chose to.
The victory of it spreads through my chest, hot and possessive. Above the table, nothing has changed. I'm leaning back in my chair, the picture of a compliant patient. Below the table, my fingers find the lace edge of her panties.
"Read me the next question."
"The camera—"
"Can't see. And Gage is at the wrong angle. Just keep your voice down."
My fingers trace the seam. The fabric is already fucking soaked. I can smell her, sweet and aroused, and my cock gives a hard jerk in my pants.
I hook my finger under the gusset and pull it aside, baring her completely. Her cunt is flushed pink, her folds slick and glistening.
"Oh fuck."
"The next question, Hope."
Her hand is shaking so badly the clipboard rattles. "I—medication side effects. Have you experienced any new… symptoms?"
"No."
I slide a finger through her wet folds, parting her. She's so slick, so ready for me. I find her clit on the first pass, swollen and sensitive, and circle it with just enough pressure to make her hips jerk.
"Sleep patterns," she chokes out, staring at the page without seeing a word of it. "Any… changes?"
I push one finger deep inside her pussy.
She drops the pen. It clatters on the linoleum, and Gage's head snaps up. His eyes sweep the table, find nothing, but his frown deepens.
"Pick it up."
She fumbles for it, her face burning. "Tell me," she whispers. "Tell me about the changes."
I add a second finger, fucking them into her tight, wet heat.
She lets out a choked-off sound, half-moan, half-whimper, and her thighs clamp down on my wrist. Her body is gripping me, pulling me deeper.
"I dream more," I say, my voice steady while my fingers work deeper inside her. "Vivid dreams."
"What… what are they about?"
I curl my fingers, find that sensitive spot inside her that makes her gasp and arch against my hand.
"You."
Her eyes flutter shut.
This is power. Her reports can get me sedated for a week, but right now I own her. My fingers are buried in her pussy and she is coming apart for me, piece by piece. She has a master's degree and the keys to this entire fucking wing, and she can't even keep her knees together.
"Good girl," I murmur, just to see what happens.
Her whole body convulses. It's not just a shudder; it's a full-body jolt, so violent her chair scrapes the floor.
Her eyes fly open, wide with shock, her thighs squeezing my hand.
I feel her clenching around my fingers, a frantic, desperate pulse that has nothing to do with my touch and everything to do with those two words.
"Again," she breathes. "Say it—fuck, please."
I've found it. My cock throbs so hard I have to lock my jaw. Two words—two fucking words—and she nearly came. This competent, professional woman is desperate for praise. Needs to be told she's good while doing something so bad.
And I'm going to use it to break her.
"Look at me." I start moving my fingers again, a slow, deep rhythm. My thumb finds her clit, slick with her own wetness, and I begin to circle it. "Eyes on me, Hope."
"I'm trying… the report…"
"Fuck the report." My voice drops lower, rougher. "You're taking my fingers so well. So wet for me. You're such a good girl."
"Jude—fuck—" Her hand grabs the edge of the table, knuckles white.
Gage hasn't moved from the door, but his breathing has changed.
His eyes are locked on Hope—her flushed neck, her parted lips, the way her body keeps shifting in the chair.
He knows. And when my gaze drops, I catch the outline straining against his uniform pants.
He's hard. Furious and hard, and he can't do a goddamn thing about either because her pleasure is more important to him.
"You're close. I can feel this pussy fluttering against my fingers," I breathe, speeding up the rhythm, pumping my fingers in and out of her slick pussy while my thumb works her clit into a frenzy. "So close. Let go for me, Hope. Come for me. Show me how good you can be."
"I can't—"
"Yes, you can. Fucking come, Hope."
She comes with her mouth open in a silent scream.
The orgasm rips through her, her pussy clenching and flooding around my fingers in wave after powerful wave. I feel every pulse, every frantic flutter as she shatters. Her eyes are glassy, her body trembling, and all she can do is cling to the table and ride it out.
I hold her through it, my fingers still buried deep inside her, coaching her down. When the last aftershock fades, I slide my fingers out and coat them in her come.
Then, holding Gage's gaze, I bring my hand to my mouth and lick my fingers clean. One by one. His nostrils flare. His hands ball at his sides, and the bulge in his pants hasn't gone down. He looks ready to kill me and he can't even shift his weight without giving himself away.
The pure, homicidal rage on his face is its own reward. I just made her come and you watched, the gesture says. I just tasted her on my tongue and you can't do a fucking thing about it.
He won't touch her. He's too decent. That's his weakness and I don't know whether I should be grateful or get rid of him.
"Jude." Hope's voice is stronger than I expect, thick and hazy. Come-drunk. "I still have to finish the assessment."
"Then finish it."
She looks down at the clipboard. Up at me. Back down. "What did the board table for the next review?"
She can't find her way back to the checklist.
"Extended recreation hours. You were supposed to note my opinion."
"What's your opinion?" she mutters, pen hovering.
"Write yes."
She writes it.
"I am helping, Hope."
"You're a menace," she corrects, but there's no heat in it. Only the lingering warmth of pleasure. She closes the folder and stands, her legs a little shaky, the clipboard clutched to her chest.
"This was..." She trails off. Shakes her head.
"Productive?"
"I was going to say unprofessional." But she's smiling, small and secret and meant only for me.
She turns and walks toward the door, toward Gage, who's going to have to unlock it and walk her down the corridor and pretend nothing is different.
I watch her go, and my eyes catch on the corridor past her shoulder.
The solitary block sits one hallway over.
The box where they broke me over and over, where the chemicals dragged me under and kept me there.
I can smell it if I breathe deep enough, can feel the walls pressing in from a corridor away.
If Hudson finds out—if the footage catches something I missed—if she says one wrong word to one wrong person—
The fear doesn't fit. It has no place in everything I've built. For seven years, I've been afraid of nothing because there's nothing they can do to me that hasn't already been done.
But I'm afraid of this.
Afraid of her walking out that door and never walking back through it. Afraid of the chemicals dragging me under before I can see her face again. Afraid that she knows too much now, and the building is full of people who will punish us both for it.
My gut is cold with fear.