Chapter 19
Jude
Gage knows my fingers have been inside her. He's known for a week, and he hasn't reported it, hasn't transferred off the rotation, hasn't done a single thing except keep standing at that door every time she walks through it. That's not duty.
The day room is empty, same hollow afternoon light through the reinforced windows, and the only sound is the fluorescent tubes buzzing overhead. I requested this window three weeks running.
Gage understands. He's at his post by the door, twelve feet away, and his shoulders are tighter than they were last week. His jaw harder. He's been different since. Quieter. More watchful, and more present than any guard who's clocked out should be.
Hope arrives at 2:47, three minutes early.
Her clipboard is tucked under her arm and her hair is up in that thick ponytail that makes me want to wrap it around my fist. She's wearing another skirt—softer fabric than last time, navy blue, knee-length.
I wonder if she chose it knowing what I'd do to her.
I wonder if she chose it hoping I would.
"Week thirteen," she says, settling into the chair across from me. "How are you feeling?"
"Better now that you're here."
Her cheeks flush. She pulls out her pen and clicks it twice—a nervous habit she doesn't know she has—and makes a show of reviewing her notes.
"Dr. Kennedy's behavioral assessment came in. He's recommending continued observation with reduced session frequency."
"Kennedy thinks talking about my childhood for fifty minutes a week constitutes treatment."
"He thinks a lot of things." She glances up. "I disagree with most of them."
"I know."
Gage shifts by the door, his boots scraping the floor, and I watch Hope's eyes flick toward the sound before returning to me.
She's aware of him. Has been for a while, but it's different this week.
Both of them are different—Gage stands closer to the door when she's in the room, and Hope's eyes find him half a second before they find me.
I don't know what changed between them on the outside and I'm not going to push it.
I can read it in the way she holds herself when he's nearby—not tense, just conscious of where he is in a room.
That should make me want to break things.
But it doesn't.
I've been watching them for weeks. The coffee she brings him, the questions she asks about his day, the way his entire body orients toward her whenever she enters a room. He wants her. Wants her in a way that's uncomplicated and clean and everything I can't offer her—normal instead of this.
And she wants him back. Not instead of me—she still comes to this room, still looks at me the way she always has—but she wants him too, and I don't think she knows what to do with that yet.
I worked that out around week ten and it hasn't gone anywhere.
My first instinct should have been to eliminate it, the way I eliminate anything that threatens what's mine.
I didn't. Because watching her want Gage doesn't feel like losing her.
It feels like watching her be more of herself, and I'm not built to fight that.
I don't understand it. I just want her.
"The assessment," Hope says, pulling me back. "I have to submit my portion by Friday. The board meets Monday."
"What will you write?"
"The truth, of course." Her pen taps against the clipboard. "That your behavioral metrics have improved. That your medication compliance is stable. That you've been cooperative during sessions."
"Stand up."
She freezes. The pen stops moving. Across the room, I see Gage's head turn—just enough to catch us in his peripheral vision without looking directly.
"Jude, I don't want to get caught and get you in trouble," Hope whispers. "Kennedy's already threatening to pull my access. Completely. If he finds a reason—"
The lights go out.
Not a flicker. A full cut. The fluorescent tubes die mid-hum and the day room drops into black. Hope's breath catches across the table. Gage's boots scrape the floor by the door. Deeper in the facility, an alarm trips—distant, muffled, someone else's problem.
The emergency generator kicks in three seconds later. Amber light from the backup strips along the baseboards, dim enough that I can see the outline of Hope's face across from me.
The cameras are dead. The indicator lights are dark—no power, no feed, no recording. The monitoring station is blind.
Gage's radio crackles. Voices layering over each other—staff calling positions, someone reporting the outage sector by sector, the control room confirming essential systems only. Locks and fire exits. Everything else is down.
I watch Gage in the amber half-light. His hand is on the radio. His body is half-turned toward the corridor. He knows what protocol says—power failure means secure the patient, escort civilian staff out, lock down the ward. He knows exactly what he's supposed to do.
He doesn't do it.
He steps back against the door and plants himself there. His radio is live and I can hear every voice, every set of boots moving through the building. Nobody is coming to check the day room feed because there is no feed. And Gage is making sure nobody comes through that door, either.
He's giving us a window.
I look at Hope across the table. The amber light catches the whites of her eyes, the flush still sitting on her cheeks from before the lights cut.
"The cameras are down," I say.
"I know." Her voice is barely above a whisper.
"Kennedy can't see what the cameras can't record."
She doesn't move. Doesn't stand up. But she doesn't look away from me either, and I can see her pulse jumping in her throat in the dim light.
"Come here."
She shouldn't. Every protocol she's sworn to uphold says she stays in her chair, finishes the assessment, walks out without touching me.
She stands up anyway.
She comes around the table to my side. Her clipboard stays behind on the surface, pen on top of it.
Her eyes dart once toward Gage at the door.
He's facing the room—not hiding it, not pretending to look anywhere else—and his whole body is rigid, every muscle locked into the choice he's made.
Hope stops in front of me. Close enough that I can smell her shampoo.
Close enough that I can see the pulse jumping in her throat.
"How long do we have?" she asks.
"Long enough."
Her breathing has changed. Faster, shallower. Her lips part and I want to taste them.
Instead I drop my hand to her thigh.
Her skirt is soft under my palm. I gather the fabric an inch at a time, watching her face as I expose her skin. She shivers when my fingers brush her knee. By the time I reach her hip, she's trembling.
"Jude." My name comes out broken. "If someone—"
"No one's coming. Gage has the door." I lean down, press my mouth to her ear. "I'd kill anyone who tried to take you from me."
She gasps and her hands come up to grip my shoulders. Her nails dig in through the thin fabric of my shirt and the pressure runs straight down my spine.
"Do you believe me?"
"Yes."
"Good girl."
Her whole body shudders. The same response as before—instant, uncontrollable.
I've spent months learning her tells, her triggers, the words that take her apart, and this is the one that matters most. Not dirty talk, not commands.
Praise. She needs someone to tell her she's good, and I'm going to tell her until she can't stand up.
My fingers find the edge of her panties, delicate and soaked through. I pull them aside and drag two fingers through her folds. She's so wet I nearly lose my mind. I push both fingers inside her and she grabs my shoulder, her mouth open, her breath gone.
"Already this ready for me." I curl them against the spot that made her shatter last time, and her hips jerk. "You came here wanting this. Dressed for it. Counted the minutes until you could have my hands on you again. You've been desperate for it, haven't you."
"Yes." The word is barely audible. "Yes, I—fuck—"
I pump my fingers in a rhythm that makes her hips rock against my hand. At the door, Gage is watching. His hands are fisted at his sides now and his whole body has gone rigid—every muscle locked between what he wants to do and what he's letting happen.
He can't stop watching.
"He's hard," I murmur against Hope's ear. "Your guard. He's standing over there pretending not to watch you, but his cock is straining against his uniform."
Hope's eyes fly open. She looks past me toward the door, and I feel her pussy clench around my fingers.
"You like that." I add a third finger, stretching her, filling her. "You like that he's watching."
"I don't—"
"Don't lie to me, Hope. Not about this." I curl my fingers and her whole body arches. "I can feel how wet you just got. The thought of him right there—watching what I do to you—it makes you dripping wet."
She shakes her head, but her hips are grinding against my hand now, desperate little circles that say otherwise. I bring my thumb to her clit and start working it in tight circles, and she bites down on her lip hard enough to leave a mark.
"Come for me." I press harder, faster. "He can hear every sound you make. Show him what he's missing."
"Jude—fuck—I can't—"
"You can. You're so close already, I can feel it. This pretty pussy is squeezing me so tight." I drop my voice lower, rougher. "You're being such a good girl, Hope. Taking my fingers so well. Let go for me. Come."
She shatters.
The orgasm rips through her hard enough that her knees buckle. I catch her with my free hand, holding her up while the waves roll through her on my fingers. Her mouth is open but no sound comes out—just silent, desperate gasps as her body convulses around me.
I don't look away from her face. Don't look toward the door to see Gage's reaction. This is mine.
When the aftershocks fade, I withdraw my fingers and bring them to my mouth. Her taste hits my tongue and I hold her gaze while I lick them clean, sucking each one until there's nothing left. Her eyes go wide and dark and her thighs press together.
"Bend over the table."