Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

Ayen

Honestly, I couldn't even remember getting back to my cabin after our trip in the woods.

I think the sex had been so good that it'd melted my brain somehow, completely washing away any other memories outside of Jackson's touch.

How bad was it that I was already craving him again, a few hours after parting for dinner and now alone back in my cabin?

My body was sore, my hole even more so. But it was the good kind of sore; the kind you felt after a really good workout and that the resulting burn afterward felt satisfying instead of punishing.

I wondered how much trouble I'd get into if I snuck out of my cabin tonight and went over to his. With my luck, chances were it'd be a night of random check-ins and I'd get caught trying to sneak back over after Jackson and I had our fill again.

My stupid, addicted brain was already trying to reason with me that it was worth it.

What was a little danger in the face of getting off like that again?

He'd been so gentle afterward. Taking care to clean me up and kiss me every so often. He'd even dressed me and got me looking somewhat decent before quickly half-assing my kit and walking me back to where the rest of the group, and Roxy, were waiting for us.

She'd come trotting over happily when she'd spotted us, her nose zeroing in on me the second I got within range where she'd sniffed at me for a suspiciously long time.

How embarrassing was it to have a dog sniff out the cum still leaking out of your ass by said dog's owner?

Good thing no one else was paying attention or else Jackson and I would've been screwed.

We'd had to pretend to ignore each other while all of us inmates were dismissed for the evening. And even now, looking back on it, I could feel the heat of his stare following after me as I headed to the mess hall to try and force myself to eat something while my head was still up in the clouds.

And now here I was after lights out, laying alone in my bed and debating with myself on whether or not I should try and chance it.

Whining at my own indecision, I buried my face into my pillow which no longer had the faint scent of Jackson embedded into it. I missed him so fucking much that it was physically hurting me.

I needed him.

Reaching under my covers and back behind me, I snuck a hand under the waistband of my pants and traced my fingers along my sore hole. I couldn't believe he'd been able to fit himself inside of me with that monster cock.

It'd stretched me to the point where I thought I was going to black out, but the pleasure had been too incredible to let go of. He'd known exactly how to work me to get me falling over the edge.

Now I just felt empty, though.

I dipped my fingers into my hole, pretending for a second that they were much thicker and a little more calloused. This wasn't the same, fucking myself with my own fingers, but at least it was better than having nothing at all.

One time being under the man and I was apparently addicted.

Eventually though, my hole grew too sore to continue moving my fingers inside of it, forcing me to slip my hand out of my pants and clench around nothing. Life was unfair. I'd finally gotten to meet a man that I clicked with, both physically and mentally, and yet I couldn't have him.

At least, not in the way that I wanted.

We'd have to resort to sneaking around and hoping like hell we wouldn't get caught.

There was a soft scraping sound coming from over by the cabin door that pulled me out of my wallowing.

Sitting up slightly, I blinked a few times to adjust my eyes to the darkened room.

A figure slipped in through the door, tall and familiar, before closing the door and latching it softly behind him.

My heart leapt into my chest.

"Baby?" came a faint whisper.

My heart clenched at the nickname.

I kicked my sheets off of me and slid over across the bed, making room for him as he slowly shuffled over to me. "Come lay with me."

He let out a soft chuckle and made his way over slowly, patting along the bunks until he found mine and lowered himself slowly down onto the mattress.

I backed my body up into his the moment his arms came around me, pulling me back against his chest while he buried his face into my neck. I felt him breathe in deeply, his body slowly relaxing.

"I missed you," I whispered in the dark.

Jackson squeezed me. "I missed you more. You feeling okay?"

I nodded. "Better than okay."

He chuckled again and kissed a line from my neck up to my jaw. "I love the sound of that."

I traced my fingers along his hand tucked against my chest, feeling the way the tendons flexed under his skin and the pronounced veins that soon disappeared at his forearm. I had half a mind to tell him to pull down my pants but I knew I was still way too sore for that. After going years without sex, my pent up frustrations weren't letting me off that easily.

Jackson moved his hand from my waist to slip under the band of my pants, almost as if reading my mind. He fisted it around my half-hard cock and stroked lazily, breathing out slowly as he buried his face into my neck again.

"I can't get enough of you," he mumbled.

I swallowed, his words, coupled with the sparks of pleasure from his hand moving on me, created a pit of heat that settled low in my gut.

"Jax?"

He hummed softly.

"Do you care? About what I did?"

I hadn't meant for that to be the question that I wanted to ask him—in actuality, I'd wanted to ask him about his life, to get to know him better, but instead, my stupid mouth had let that one slip out instead.

His hand didn't pause at all in its movements. His lazy stroking continued as he said, "No."

My gut clenched. "Why not?"

Instead of answering me, he shifted us backward, pulling me along with him as he leaned until he was flat on his back. Tightening his hold around my waist, he scooted me closer, enough until I could comfortably rest the back of my head against his chest. This position gave me room to let my legs fall apart, the motion of his hands tenting my pants more prominent.

I groaned at the feeling of his hand moving on my cock, letting my eyes fall closed.

God damn, he know how to work his hand. It was hard to concentrate on anything outside of the rolling pleasure boiling inside of my veins.

"If he wasn't already dead, Ayen, I would've left tonight to go find him," came Jackson's easy response.

My eyes snapped open. "What?"

"You already took care of that though, so."

"No, I didn't."

His hand slowed until it stopped. "What do you mean?"

I shifted my head to the other side in order to glance up at him. "He's not dead. I was charged with attempted murder in the second degree."

"Second de—? It was self defense?"

I sighed and sat up, grabbing his arm and yanking it out of my pants. So much for just spending the night with him and relaxing. Of course I had to be the dumbass that brought this subject up.

Twisting around, I moved until I was hovering over him, surprised when he pulled me back down to lay on his chest while his arms came to wrap tightly around me again. His hand found its way into my hair, gently moving through the tangled strands.

"Tell me," he said.

"It's a long story."

"I want to hear it anyway."

"No…" I sighed again. "You really don't."

He grew quiet, his hand idly carding through my hair at slow enough pace that it had begun to make me feel drowsy. I blinked a few times, forcing myself to stay awake— needing to— while he was still here.

We had such precious little time together. I didn't want to miss any of it because my stupid body was running on fumes.

"My father," Jackson murmured. "He was a lot like your ex-husband. From the sounds of it, anyway."

His tone was even, but being so close to him like this, I could feel the sudden hitch in his voice as he said the words. I hadn't been expecting him to open up to me at all, not like this, anyway. I wanted him to keep talking but I didn't know how to ask.

"We always walked around on eggshells around him," he said after a while. "After my mom died, he changed into a different person. Things got worse."

"I'm sorry." My heart hurt for him. I'd never been close to my parents, but I knew the lost feeling as a child with having no one you could trust in the world. The love of a parent was something that could never be replaced.

"My brother and I were always trying to get him to be proud of us. We were military brats, so you can only imagine the kind of disciplinarian he was."

I winced.

While Alex had never been in the military himself, he'd run our household like the fucking barracks. Back when I was a teenager, if even a single thing was out of place or not to his liking, I got punished. I'd learned his habits quickly, making sure to keep from angering him or else I was sure he'd throw me out onto the streets to fend for myself.

It wasn't much different after we'd gotten married, but at least I had a little say in what went on under that roof. His expectations of me had been astronomical, though, which counteracted most of the privileges I'd been granted once I became his legal spouse.

"Alex was like that," I said softly. "He wasn't military, but…"

Jackson's thumb moved across my cheek. "I'm sorry he treated you that way, Ayen."

"I didn't know any better. He took me in off the streets when I was sixteen. I was a runaway so I thought he was this… I don't know. Messiah figure. I think that got to his head."

"That seems to be a running theme with abusers." He had a slightly ironic tone that was tinged with sadness. "They get a savior complex after a while."

I sighed. "Yeah. And then blame you for it when reality comes crashing down and they realize they're not shit."

He chuckled softly.

I tilted my head to the side and pressed my ear over his heart. It beat steadily under me, the thrumming sound of it comforting. I raised my hand to grip his bicep.

If anything were to happen to me, I knew Jackson would protect me. He'd done it plenty of times so far and that wasn't even life and death shit.

He was a noble man with a good moral compass. He saw injustice and he fought against it. That was the kind of man that deserved the world.

"At least you had your brother. I'm glad you were there for each other."

Jackson grew quiet again, his fingers pausing in my hair. My body tensed, realizing I'd said something I shouldn't have, though I didn't know what. I waited, with baited breath, for him to speak again.

I needed to stop assuming things like I knew what I was talking about. I was so desperate in wanting to know Jackson that it'd led me to putting my foot in my mouth. Despite us being this close physically, that wasn't my green light to believe I knew anything about him personally.

When he finally spoke, he said, "Used to. He's gone now."

Shit…

"I'm—"

"It's okay," he cut me off. "He was sad for a long, long time."

I squeezed my eyes shut. I could fill in the blanks there to know what had happened. What a damn shame. If he was even half the man that Jackson was, then the world had lost a light when he passed. I ached for Jackson and his loss. It was never fair to lose a loved one far sooner than you expected to.

That was the kind of shit you couldn't prepare for and the blow was always massive.

Thankfully, Jackson began to speak again. "I don't talk to my father anymore. He doesn't deserve to know what's going on in my life after the bullshit he pulled. I doubt he misses me, anyway. He was always disappointed in me."

That had me shaking my head.

Sitting up, I lifted myself just enough to press my lips against Jackson's. It was hard to see in the dim lighting of the cabin, but I felt him smile, though, and tilted his head to the side, catching my lips fully with his.

"He didn't deserve you," I said when he pulled away, repeating his own words back to him.

"Oh, my sweet, Ayen." He sighed. "Tell me your ex's last name. Was it Gonzalez?"

Oh lord.

"No."

"Tell me."

"Absolutely not."

He brushed the backs of his fingers along my jawline. "Why?"

"Because I'm not letting you go to jail, too."

His smile was practically shit-eating as he said, "What, you don't want to be bunk mates?"

I rolled my eyes and buried my face into his chest before he could see me smiling. I didn't need to be encouraging him into going out and finding my ex-husband and smothering him with a damn pillow while he stared blankly at the ceiling.

Would it be the hottest thing anyone had ever done for me?

Sure, absolutely. But I wasn't going to let this saint-of-a-man wind up behind bars because of me. I wasn't that good of a lay.

"Ayen."

I shook my head. "There's no point. He's in a vegetative state."

He huffed out a surprised laugh. "What?"

"That's why I was sentenced. The court felt that I'd purposefully aimed poorly. So, instead of me getting off with self defense, I'd gotten charged with attempted second degree."

"What kind of bullshit is that? Where would they have preferred you to aim?"

"The prosecutor argued that I had plenty of time to hit him in the chest. But I'd aimed for the head instead, resulting in the bullet getting lodged and rendering him pretty much brain dead. The evidence for my defense of him stalking me for four months beforehand was thrown out due to a technicality. So to the jury, it looked like he'd come over to sign the divorce papers and I'd shot him instead."

"Jesus, " he choked out.

Weirdly enough, it actually felt good to get all of this off my chest.

In prison, I couldn't exactly talk about what had happened leading up to my crime. Not because I wasn't allowed to or anything, but just because most inmates really didn't give a fuck. There was always someone worse off than you, so trying to gain any kind of sympathy was met with a fist to the face and someone stealing all your commissary.

"Yeah, so." I shrugged. "I got five years."

"You shouldn't have gotten any," he argued.

"Not according to the court."

"I swear to god." Jackson's hand grabbed at my pant leg and lifted my leg to swing over his hips. He then moved down to grab at my ass, lifting me up until I was practically lying completely on top of him. "Who was your lawyer?"

"A court appointed one."

I could tell he was just barely containing his rage. And while a man getting upset or aggravated around me normally had me wanting to run for the hills, with Jackson it was the complete opposite.

I felt safe. His anger was directed toward those who had hurt me, those he'd protect me against if it came down to it. He let his anger be the fuel that kept me shielded from the danger.

"It's okay," I said, nuzzling my cheek against his chest. "I only have another three years."

"That's three years too long, Ayen. You shouldn't have any at all."

While I agreed, the state had its own opinions. Once I was up in front of a parole board, I'd lament about how sorry I was until they agreed to let me go. I would say just about anything to them if they wanted me to, as long as it got me the fuck out of SAC.

"Have you tried appealing?" His fingers worked their way back through my hair.

"No. My lawyer didn't feel like there was a point with my sentence being less than a decade."

"I'm getting someone to see you. I know a lawyer."

"It's okay, Jax. I'm all right." Well, as good as I could get, I guess. I was on a unit with non-violent offenders, so most of the time, the worst things that were fought about were people being too noisy or inconsiderate while others were trying to sleep.

"I don't want you going back there, Ayen."

Unfortunately, I would have to.

Eventually, this program would end and I would be shipped on a bus back behind the tall, barbed wire walls of SAC until the rest of my three years were finally up.

Did I want that to happen?

Absolutely not, but that was the reality I was facing. Getting worked up about things I couldn't change would only waste precious energy I didn't have.

"I know it sucks."

He let out a slow breath, his chest deflating with the motion.

Guilt began to brew in me, fear that he was mad at me starting to take root. There was a point in time where I didn't want to care about other people's opinion of me, and had been determined to come here with that same mindset to practice.

How funny that I'd failed so spectacularly at it.

He didn't need to feel sorry for me, or like he had to do something in order to prove to me that he cared. Him simply being here and not treating me like I was a psychopath was enough of a heroic act for me. I didn't need him going out and avenging my honor or something equally as stupid that would land him in serious trouble.

"Jax?"

"Yes, sweetheart."

Ugh, I'd never get enough of the pet names and endearments. They sounded perfect falling from his mouth.

"Stay with me tonight? I usually wake up before the sun comes up. I'll help you leave before headcount starts."

"I'll do you one better." He lifted his hips up off the bed, just enough to retrieve his phone from his pocket. He quickly unlocked it and set an alarm, tossing it onto the bed near the wall. "Now, we can both sleep."

I smiled and relaxed into him, letting my eyes fall closed while the sound of his heart beating under my ear lulled me to sleep.