by Skye Warren
He gives me a wary look. “Are you mocking me?”
I roll my eyes. “I’m being serious. You made me so angry I couldn’t see straight. That project meant a lot to me. But what you wrote was really good.”
He looks away. He doesn’t seem to want to talk about it.
“I don’t understand—you guys were so young when you ended up in that basement. I saw the milk carton. You were five. And it sounds like you were all in there together. You were in there six years, and they weren’t sending you to school, so…”
“Perverts who keep boys in basements aren’t real likely to send them to school.”
“And then when you got out of there, you were eleven?”
He runs his finger over a leather-bound ledger. “And the other guys were fourteen or fifteen by then.”
“And you ended up at the Bradford.”
“Yup. Checked into the Bradford Hotel,” he says sarcastically. Because there’d be no checking in. I imagine them prying up the boards. Just kids. And that’s when they started their life of crime.
“So how did you learn to read?”
“Nate taught me,” he says. “Most of the guys were seven or eight when we went in. They mostly knew how to read by then. Nate is brilliant, though. He taught me, and he made the rest of us keep it up. It was a basement, you know? There were musty boxes of books down there. Some encyclopedias from 1920. That’s what I learned on.”
“Oh,” I say. It explains a lot. The holes in his understanding of things.
“Nate made up a lot of guessing games out of reading that stuff. Not exactly an education, but it felt like fighting back. Like saying, you can’t take everything from us. Not much of an education, but—”
“It’s amazing,” I say. “Because you fought for it and it’s yours. And it’s amazing how you guys got each other through.”
He slides his finger along a metal shelf.
“Why didn’t you go back to your foster family?”
“They never felt like mine the way the guys did. When you’re in something like that for so long, you can’t get a bond fiercer. It was us against them, against everyone in the world.”
His pain pierces me.
“That’s a gift that those perverts gave you. Brothers who are more than brothers. More than a family.”
“Don’t candy coat it. Those animals that took us, Abby…they took a lot.”
“No,” I say.
He looks away, and this image comes into my mind of a time I was up north with my mom. We were in this slummy neighborhood and all night the sirens were going—from a house burning down, we learned the next morning. We walked over to look and it was this massive blackened shell, hung with icicles like diamonds against the blue, blue sky. The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Grayson is like that house. Stunning in his destruction.
He studies me with haunted eyes. “Maybe they took too much, you know?”
I put my hand on his arm, over the battle-axe scar. “They didn’t, Grayson. Don’t say that.”
“Why shouldn’t I say that? Sometimes I look at other people, like the guys I met in prison, and they’re different. They have something I don’t have—I don’t know what it is; I just know…” He shakes his head.
Did they take what makes him human? What makes him civilized? That’s the question he’s trying to articulate.
The library twists in front of me like the mirrored walls of a fun house, reflecting fucked-up versions of Grayson back at me. Reflections of myself, because I’m here with him. Everybody would say we’re wrong in everything we’re doing. But we don’t feel wrong to me.
Did they take what makes him human? What makes him civilized?
Grayson looks at me with one part hope, one part dread. He wants my answer. He really wants to know. I pull him closer and shove my hand into his dark hair. “They didn’t take anything important, baby. They didn’t take what’s important.”
A strange expression passes over his face, one I haven’t seen before. “Let’s get those floor plans.”
Thirty-Three
~Grayson~
Abby leads me through the library. First we look behind the front desk to find out where things are stored. This is a large city library with enough desks and stations for an army of librarians. I try to imagine it bustling with people, but all I can see are orange jumpsuits shuffling in formation.
They didn’t take what’s important. I keep going over and over that in my head. Like what? I want to ask. What did they take? What did they leave?
Is it enough?
It’s times like these that I get how much distance is between us. A caveman—that’s how she sees me. Barely human, she said to me once. I guess that’s my answer right there. The answer of why she’s dangerous, why I should cut her loose.
I never felt like I wasn’t enough before Abby showed up. Pissed off, yeah. A fucked-up stranger in the world, yeah. But never like I wasn’t enough.
That’s part of why Stone wants her dead. If we get the blueprints, he said before we left. We don’t need her anymore.
But I need her. I won’t tell Stone that because he’ll see it as a weakness. And maybe it is, but I’m beyond caring. They don’t get that she’s the missing part of me.
The best part of me.
Nate doesn’t like her around either. It’s not about protecting me with him; it’s more about not bringing more people into the madness. And then there’s Calder. The Saint, which is a fucked-up name considering he’s more lethal than anyone. He got the name because he doesn’t fuck anyone. Or hasn’t, since our milk-carton-kid days. He definitely doesn’t like Abby around. None of the other guys do, either.
But I’m back in action, almost one-hundred percent, and anybody going for Abby goes through me. I’ll always come for her and I’ll always protect her and she knows it.
We bypass the elevator and go down the stairwell to the basement where she thinks the historical documents are kept. I angle my flashlight, helping her find her way through the stacks until she pulls out an old thick binder and holds it up to the beam. “Found it.”
I raise my eyebrows. “That was fast.”
“Well, it’s one of these sheets. I don’t know which one, and it will take time to find it. So I figured we can just take them all now and look for it back at the Bradford.”
“Take them all.” That makes me laugh. “I think I’ve had a bad influence on you.”
She shrugs. Maybe she thinks so too. That shouldn’t bother me. I grab the binder and study the numbers and letters.
She turns back, humor lighting her eyes. “They don’t use the Dewey decimal system to store these.”
She thinks it’s funny that I know what the Dewey decimal system is. Yeah, I never went to school. The first and last grade I took was kindergarten, but I used the prison library.
I play along. “What system do they use then?”
“The Library of Congress,” she says matter-of-factly. “It’s better for physical items of varying shapes and sizes. Things with artifacts—or even instruments. Music libraries often—”
“Hang on.” Shit, she’s so earnest about this. It makes me hot. I glance around, but of course we’re alone. Maybe I’m not good enough—not like one of her college boys. It doesn’t stop me.
I put down the binder and back her up against the wall. Her eyes widen.
She knows what’s coming.
She wasn’t expecting this, and her shock just feeds my lust. My dick is pressing against my jeans. My dick has a lot of ego. It thinks it can burst through denim and shove up into her skirt and thrust right into her slick, warm cunt. It has the right idea.
I run my finger along her cheek. “I like it when you talk classification,” I murmur.
She laughs, a little self-conscious. I like that too. I’m so fucking hard I’m hurting. I’ve always had a thing for smart chicks. Forbidden, somehow. But Abby is mine.
“Keep going,” I say. “What’s another ki
nd?”
And then I lick her neck, from the base of her jaw down to her collarbone. She tastes like salt and outdoors and arousal. She sucks in a breath and tries to talk. “The United Nations…”
I bite down on the curve where her neck meets her shoulder. “Keep going,” I murmur.
“The United Nations symbols are printed on the upper right-hand corner. Not the spine—” Her words cut off on a gasp. Probably because I cup her breast through her shirt. I love the weight of it, the feminine softness as I caress her. But it’s not enough.
So I unbutton her shirt, baring her breasts to the cool, dusty air. “Tell me more.”
She lets out a little sob, and even that turns me on. I want to hear her talk about systems and symbols. I want to hear her cry and moan and beg for me. I want to hear every sound she can make, and I’m going to help her get there.
Fuck it. I don’t need to be a better man. I don’t need to be more. I’m in charge here.
I find her nipple through the lace of her bra and pinch. A sharp noise this time. I rub my groin along her hip, needing friction.
“More.”
A breath shudders out of her, but she’s a good girl. She’s obedient. That’s why she works so well for me. She’s spent her whole life teaching herself to obey. “The first segment…and sometimes the second…identifies the issuing body.”
I laugh under my breath. “You’re making that up.”
“I’m not!” She sounds a little breathless. “I wouldn’t joke about—about—”
But then she shuts up because I’ve found her nipple with my tongue. There’s still lace between us, but it’s damp now with my saliva. I could just as easily push the fabric aside, or rip it apart, but I like this roughness. That’s the thing about lace. It looks so pretty and delicate—like Abby. But the way it feels? It’s rough. I use it like sandpaper, running it over her nipple, listening to her suck in a breath.
“I’ve got your issuing body right here,” I say, even though it’s cheesy. I’m too worked up to give a crap. Plus I still think she might have been fucking with me. Issuing body? It’s like she fucking wants to suck my dick. And she goes willingly enough when I grab her hair and shove her to the floor.
Her eyes are dark mysteries, staring up at me.
I let go and run my thumb along her lip. “You want this, baby?”
I tense up. Why did I ask that? It shouldn’t matter to me what she wants, but it does. I want her to need us the way I do.
She looks up at me, and I have no idea what her answer will be. The scary part is, I don’t know what I’ll do if she says no. Let her go? I can’t—she’s mine.
But there’s this new thing going on in my head where I’m not sure I can fuck her mouth if she doesn’t want it. I’m not sure I can use the soft palate of her mouth to jerk off. Not sure I can come all over her face unless she tells me it’s okay.
A little fucked up, but there it is.
She licks her lips, and I realize she’s not going to answer at all. Instead her hands go to my jeans, unzipping and pulling me out. I shudder at the feel of her soft, small hands. God, those hands. I could come just like this. A few solid strokes.
She leans forward, and I hold my breath. Her lips press together. She kisses the tip of my cock. Kisses it. Like she’s fucking courting it or something. I almost come.
“The issuing bodies can be the general assembly,” she says in her prim teacher tone. Then she licks the slit of my cock.
“Shit.” I jerk my hips forward. The only way I keep from coming is by grabbing her head. I fist her hair in my hands until she winces.
“Or the economic and social council.” She takes my cock in her mouth this time, pushing it deep before releasing me again. She thrusts on my dick a few times before I take over. I grab hold of her hair and fuck her face, going deeper than she let me on her own.
When she pulls away, I let her. It feels like my balls are about to explode, but I fucking let her back away.
“The trusteeship council.” Her voice wavers, and I know she’s nervous now. She should be.
I lift her by her hair, giving her enough time to support herself. I’m not trying to rip her hair out. But I do want to scare her. She should have that much, at least. A little warning for what’s about to come.
When she’s standing, I drag her over to the nearest desk and push her on it, facedown. Her skirt is up, panties down, in two seconds flat. The curve of her ass looks fucking gorgeous in the dim light, milky white against the dark.
“Is that all?” My voice has gone completely hoarse. I’m one second from snapping.
“There’s the…the secretariat.” She stumbles over the word. And I think it must be the first time she’s ever stumbled over the word, as big and awkward as it is. I did this to her, just like I made her thighs glisten. I push her ankles apart with my feet. My fingers slide home, and she’s so wet.
It’s an answer to the question I should never have asked. You want this, baby? And God, she does. She couldn’t tell me in regular words. Not like yes or please or fuck me. Not my Abby. She has to speak in library words as she gives me the hottest, dirtiest, smartest blowjob on the planet.
I shove two fingers inside her, then three. I need her good and soft for what I have planned.
It takes me a second to slip a condom on. I’m a motherfucking Boy Scout, prepared for this even on a break-in. Maybe I always knew I’d fuck her in a library. Ever since the prison I’ve been dying to do it like this, with the smell of old books and ink in the air. She said once she likes a book smell.
I angle my dick at her cunt. But before I can press inside, she stutters. “Wait.”
And for some reason, I do. For some reason that terrifies me. I think Stone may be right. I think I may have fallen for her.
“Security council,” she says on an exhale, and I thrust inside her at the same time, forcing the words out. And I don’t let up. I don’t give her any time to adjust. All I have for her are bruising thrusts as I ride her from behind. I hold on to her hips, those lovely hips, and force my dick through her swollen flesh.
Her muscles clench around me. She cries out. God, yes, she’s coming in a wet, messy gush. I want her to make a mess all over the library, all over the pages and pages. I want her to smear the ink.
“Again,” I demand, fucking her harder, faster.
She cries softly. “I can’t.”
“Don’t fucking tell me that. Don’t you fucking tell me that.” I reach under her body and find the wet folds. And the hard little nub at the top. I twist it between my thumb and forefinger until she goes rigid and screams something I think Stone and Calder can probably hear.
Pride fills me, but I can’t think about that for long. Because her inner muscles are squeezing me tighter than any fist. Her wetness is slicking and sliding over me wetter than any tongue. And all I can do is shout a useless denial before I’m coming too, spilling into her hot cunt, biting down on her neck so that neither of us can deny who owns who.
Thirty-Four
~Abigail~
Grayson’s weight pins me to the table, his heavy breaths pressing into me like an echo of his thrusts. His cock is still inside me, wet and hot. Without meaning to, my inner muscles squeeze. His cock flexes in response. There’s a conversation happening between our bodies. A communion.
Maybe there always has been.
Even before he captured me, when I was teaching the class in prison and he was my student, my body responded to him. I pretend to be more than my mother. More than a junkie. More than an animal in heat. But the truth is, whenever I’m around him, I’m ready for him to use me and mount me and fuck me. I’m done fighting it. I want to lose to him. I want him to make me lose.
“Abby?” His voice is husky. With just one word, my softly spoken name, he asks a hundred questions. Am I okay? Do I hate him now? He’s not just testing me—he’s testing himself. If I’m not okay, will he care?
The answer comes to me when I struggle to find ai
r, and he eases off. It comes to me when he sighs with resignation as his cock slips out of my damp body. Comes when I hear the snap of latex as he puts himself to rights. It comes to me when I turn back and find him watching me with something like softness.
It’s strange to see on his face. Strange enough that I have to return the question. “Grayson?”
A rakish smile lifts his lips. “This is what I thought about, when I sat in your class.”
My heart clenches. Because he didn’t only think of this. He thought of his time in a different prison. He’s still fighting to escape, but his chains aren’t made of metal.
He needs to be free. Maybe going after the governor will help. Or will it? This is a crazy dangerous move.
“Are you sure about all this? What if it makes everything worse?”
“This is what we have to do,” he says.
“You see him as the leader?” He nods grimly. “Why didn’t you guys go after him before now?”
“We never found him before. We never even knew his name—we called him Blue Jacket. Until suddenly, there he was. After a decade of searching, he shows up on the TV, like a cockroach running into the light. The fucking governor. A respected husband and father. A pillar of society.” His voice is mocking.
“He’s the one who kidnapped you?” It’s the obvious answer, but nothing about Grayson is obvious. He is all muscle and hardness—but I’ve peeled back the layers, and what I find inside is tender.
There is nothing tender in his expression when he answers. “No, that honor was reserved for a guy with a wad of cash and an ice cream truck. Did I want a Popsicle? Did I want some money too? I had fifty cents in my pocket, Abby. And I hadn’t eaten lunch that day.”
My stomach churns.
“The governor would never dirty his hands by doing actual work. There were men who kidnapped us and kept us. The governor just earned money from the films they made us do. And of course he visited us personally. Especially me.” Grayson’s laugh sends chills up my spine. “He can buy anything he wants. He can buy this whole state. He can buy little boys.”