Chapter 13 - Lily On Guard
Lily’s POV
I hated this. Fucking jail. I hated Matt for not rescuing me. I only had my lawyer to call, and even she couldn’t stand to be in the same room with me. I refused to call my asshole father.
Most of all, I hated myself for getting so wrapped up in Matt Taylor. In truth, I loved him, and I knew he had felt something for me. The only problems we ever had while we were together were tied to Sarah. She lied when she told me she never fought for him. That scheming bitch.
I had been staring at the cell wall for what felt like days. The lights buzzed. They always buzzed. A thin, high whine baked into the walls, into the floor, into my teeth. It had become a part of my body. I hadn’t noticed it until I tried to think, and then I couldn’t notice anything else.
On the cot with one leg folded under me, I watched the crack in the ceiling breathe.
It opened a little wider every time the heat kicked in.
It reminded me of a vein about to burst. I swore it whispered at night, and I was lonely enough to listen.
Probably tales of the women who had rotted here before me, each stretching it open with her loneliness.
I wondered how many of them had thought someone would come for them. I wondered how many had believed they deserved it.
I told myself to stop thinking about Matt.
And Sarah.
But the moment I said his name in my head, she was right there like a fucking curse.
There was never a time when I remembered one without the other.
I lost track of time. How long had it been since that night?
I still felt the way the room had changed when he walked in, like the air had turned to poison vapors.
He had stood there in the doorway with his hands clenched at his sides, staring at me like I was already gone.
All that time we’d had, all the things we’d said, and he came just to tell me to leave him and his family alone. That I was a regret.
He had told me that before, but for some reason that night…it cut deep.
Like the pathetic other woman, I told him to get the fuck out. Screamed it, actually. I had wanted him to leave because if he’d stayed another second, I would have begged him to come closer.
And he left. He left me in here.
And now Sarah had him back. That empty, flax-haired nothing with her “mom blog” and her curated little pictures and her patient voice. She thought she was better than me.
In some ways, she was better; she handled the softer aspects. She filled the lunchboxes and smiled through PTA meetings. She was probably baking muffins in matching aprons with the kids right then, while I stared at a crack in the ceiling like it might break me out of this place.
But she was not better with him.
I was better for Matt in every way that mattered. I knew what he needed. She could take the kids and fuck off into her gentle little life, and I would take her husband and fuck him the way he was always meant to be fucked.
She thought she had rattled me the other day when she had sauntered into the visiting room like she was young and relevant. I could tell she had spent time in front of the mirror that morning. She had pushed her insecurities down, but I knew better.
The thud of boots on concrete snapped me out of my pity party.
Footsteps that didn’t belong to the impatient pacing of a guard bored with his post.
No, these were controlled. Steady. Clean strikes, spaced evenly, the way a man walked when he knew exactly where he was going, steps with purpose.
I sat up on my cot and smiled.
“Morning,” I said, soft and sweet and completely without sincerity.
He didn’t look at me. Didn’t slow or even flinch. He walked past my cell as though I was part of the furniture, and the echoes of his boots sounded long after he was out of sight.
The second morning, I tried again.
“Morning,” I said, not quite as soft.
His head didn’t turn, but his eyes flicked toward me. They were gray. Pale, flat, and so still, they felt like a surface you couldn’t see through. For the briefest moment, I felt them on me like hands that didn’t ask permission. Then they were gone, and he kept walking.
By the third morning, I was waiting.
I sat upright with my legs crossed and my shirt loosened just enough to show the line beneath my collarbone. It wasn’t subtle, but I wasn’t there to be subtle. I was there to see what he did with it.
When he appeared at the end of the corridor, I tilted my head slightly and spoke before he reached me.
“Good morning, Officer.”
This time, he stopped.
The lights caught the nameplate clipped to his chest.
Sean Macon.
He stood completely still, the kind of stance that told you his stillness was intentional. His presence didn’t fill the hallway; it commanded it. Nothing else moved while he was watching.
He was beautiful. Not in a polished, magazine-cover way. His beauty was dangerous, structured, built for something more important than admiration. One must first respect this man, then maybe worship him.
His face was all clean lines and unapologetic construction, like whoever had made him hadn’t cared about warmth. His jaw carried tension as if he always had something more important to do, and whatever had his current attention was slowing him down.
His mouth was a closed gate. His features were so precise they looked curated, not born.
If someone had printed him in a manual, it would have been under “deterrent.”
But his eyes were the problem.
They didn’t match the uniform. They didn’t scan. They settled. They measured. There was no curiosity in them, no flicker of desire or anger or amusement. Only assessment. He looked at me the way a surgeon might look at a chart, clinical.
And yet, somehow, I was sure he was undressing me with those eyes. All men did; he wouldn’t be any different.
“Back against the wall,” he said.
I smiled wider. “Good morning to you, too.”
“Back. Against. The wall.”
His voice didn’t change, but it pressed harder. I felt it in my spine before.
I stayed seated for another beat. “You’re very direct.”
“If you want this to stay simple, move. Otherwise, I’ll call in two others and let them do it for you.”
There wasn’t even a hint of doubt in his voice. I could have pushed him. I was good at pushing. But he wouldn’t take the bait. He’d skip the part where I got to play and go straight to consequences.
I sighed and slid backward until my shoulders met the wall. The cot creaked softly beneath me. His gaze didn’t drop to the skin I had shown him. It stayed fixed on my face like he was reading something written there that I hadn’t even thought of yet.
“You’ve been trying to get my attention,” he said. “That kind of behavior usually ends with isolation. Or worse.”
I laughed softly. “I’m already in isolation.”
“Yes. You are.” He didn’t blink. “And if you think I’m here to flirt, or play, or pretend I’m interested in your games, you’re wrong.”
Oof. He had already decided what I was and where I belonged. Oh boy, this would be a tough nut to crack.
“I would talk to a stuffed bunny at this point, Officer. I haven't been out of this cell in weeks. I barely know what day it was. May I have some yard time or library time or any time outside of these walls?”
He didn’t move. “Are you done breaking rules?”
“Most men don't mind when I break a few rules.”
“Most men aren't in charge of your next privilege review.”
I tilted my head. I wanted to see if there was anything behind his eyes that wasn’t work.
“I am willing to work for my privileges.”
The silence stretched too long. I loved the buzz of the lights in that moment. The way it wrapped around him and pulled his attention to where they hung, then his eyes moved to the crack in the ceiling.
He waited a second longer, then turned and walked away. Just left.
Still, I smiled. Now I knew he wasn’t there to just supervise. He was there to manage. To contain. To control.
And men like that always had something to hide.
The next day, the food tray came with gray beans and carrots that appeared to have been formed from rubber. I ate half and left the rest. When he passed later, he paused in the doorway.
“You eat?” he asked. God, this man was always so gruff.
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
Who was this guy, my father?
“Half.”
His gaze dropped to the tray and then lifted back to me. “Why not the rest?”
“Because the carrots bounced.”
“You don’t waste food.”
“I’m not wasting,” I told him. “I’m editing.”
The corner of his jaw tightened. “All of it. Next time.”
“Or what?”
He leaned just close enough for his voice to slip through the bars like smoke. “Or you’ll find out what happens when you waste what you’re given.”
Holy shit, why had that just turned me on? I dragged my nails along my thigh in slow arcs, deliberate enough for him to notice. “You make threats sound like foreplay, Officer.”
His stare didn’t waver. “Quiet.”
“Make me.”
For the briefest moment, his eyes darkened. Then he stepped back and walked away, boots echoing down the corridor, leaving me vibrating with a need I decided to take care of when it was light out.
By Thursday, I had turned it into a ritual. I waited for the rhythm of his boots. I breathed with them. When he arrived, I leaned forward on the cot, twirling a lock of hair around my finger.
“You always this unfriendly?”
He stopped. Folded his arms across his chest. “This is me being friendly. Back against the wall,” he barked.
I gave him a confused look and slowly complied.
He opened the cell and motioned for me to step out.
He didn’t cuff me. He led me to a room that smelled like old books and paint.
It was their poor excuse for a library. But it wasn’t my cell and I wasn’t cuffed.
I wouldn’t try to escape or break any rules. I needed this.
“No talking. You are being supervised.” He pointed to each camera in the corners.
I walked to the first bookshelf and dug in. I pretended not to notice him watching me. He didn’t hide it either. He took a seat on a nearby table, and his eyes never left me.
The next morning, I tried something new. When he paused at my cell, I leaned forward and whispered, “My safe word is lethal injection.”
His eyes sharpened, cutting straight through the joke. He didn’t even blink. “Your safe word is silence.”
The words were a sentence handed down in court. A verdict. A promise. And the worst part was that some part of me ached for him to mean it.