Chapter 19 #3
I thrust harder, and Hope's eyes flutter but don't close. She's still looking at him when I reach around to find her clit, still looking at him when I start rubbing circles that make her entire body shake.
"Come," I growl against her ear. "Let him see. Let him watch you fall apart on my cock."
"Jude—oh fuck—"
"Come, Hope. Now."
She screams.
The orgasm tears through her—her pussy clamping down on me hard enough that I see white, her whole body convulsing against me. Gage's name is on her lips alongside mine, tangled together, indistinguishable, and the sound of it pushes me over.
I come with my face buried in her neck, my hips slamming forward one final time as I empty myself inside her. The release blanks out everything, and somewhere in the middle of it I realize I've never come inside a woman before. Never trusted anyone enough for that.
But I trust her.
The thought hits me in the gut and I push it aside. Hold her instead, one arm wrapped around her waist, keeping her upright while we both shake.
The room goes quiet. No sounds except our ragged breathing and the low hum of the emergency strips and the distant crackle of Gage's radio. I pull out and she whimpers, her eyes glazed, her body still trembling. I turn her around to face me.
"Hey." I cup her face in my hands. "You're shaking."
"I know." Her laugh is breathless, unsteady. "I can't feel my legs."
"Good."
She smiles—that smile, the one that hasn't dimmed since week one—and reaches up to touch my chest.
The words I don't say sit in my chest. Not here. Not in a blackout in a day room where a guard just risked his career for us and tomorrow I might wake up sedated in a solitary cell. When I tell her, it'll be somewhere that matters.
"The power could come back any second," she says.
"I know."
I fix her skirt. She straightens her blouse. We move apart—her back to her chair, me back to mine. The clipboard is between us again. Her hands are still shaking when she picks up the pen.
"You knew. About the cameras."
"I know every system in this building. I know what the generator covers and what it doesn't." I lean back in my chair. "The cameras aren't on the priority list."
She looks at me—really looks, searching for a thing in my face she hasn't found yet. "You let me look at him. While we—you could have stopped me."
"I could have."
"Why didn't you?"
The question hangs. I don't have an answer that makes sense. Don't have the words for what bent inside me instead of breaking.
"Because you wanted to," I say. "And I'm learning that your wants matter more to me than they should."
Her eyes go bright with a thing I can't name. She rises on her toes and kisses me—soft, unhurried, nothing that matches the violence of what we just did—and when she pulls back her smile has steadied into a thing I haven't seen on her before. Certainty.
The fluorescent tubes flicker once, twice, then flood the room with white. The camera indicator lights blink red—one, then the other. Recording.
My breathing is too controlled, too even—anyone paying attention would notice. But no one is paying attention. The monitoring station is still catching up, still rebooting feeds.
Gage is at the door. He hasn't moved. His eyes are still on us, and he won't look away.
"Gage." Hope's voice is steady. Professional. Nothing in it that says a man just came inside her two minutes ago. "We're done here."
He drops his gaze. His face gives away nothing—not the choice he made, not what he watched, not the fact that he stood guard while a patient fucked his monitor on the table. But his hands aren't steady. His right hand has a tremor that wasn't there before.
That choice is going to cost him. I can see it already—the weight settling into his shoulders as he reaches for the door handle. He broke every protocol he swore to uphold. Not because I asked him to. Because she was in the room, and he couldn't make himself look away.
I catch Hope's wrist before she can step away and pull her back, press my forehead to hers.
"Be careful walking out of here. Gage will escort you. Let him."
"Jude—"
"Just trust me."
She nods. Kisses my cheek. Turns and walks toward the door.
I watch her go. Watch Gage hold the door open without meeting her eyes. I watch them disappear into the corridor together, and my chest tightens at the sight of them side by side. Not jealousy. Not anymore. A thing I don't have a word for yet.
I sit at the table for a long time after they're gone, her smell still on my skin, the memory of her hands on my chest still warm enough to feel. The day room is bright again, cameras rolling, everything back to normal except me. Quiet except for the distant sound of footsteps in the corridor.
I think about the words I didn't say.
I think about her eyes finding his across this table.
I think about what it means that my possessiveness bent instead of broke, and that I let her keep a piece of me.
She looked at him while I was inside her. And instead of tearing everything apart, I held her tighter and let it happen.
I don't share what's mine.
But she wants him. And if giving her that is what it costs to keep her, I'll pay it every time.