Page 42 of Blood We Steal

I pushed her to her knees and fisted my cock with one hand, the other braced against the door.

I was already close. Had been close since the first taste of her.

“Look,” I said, and she did. She watched me stroke my cock in rough, erratic pumps until I came, striping her tits with my cum.

She didn’t even blink. It was me who looked away first.

I sank against the door, and when my heart slowed, I pulled her to her feet.

We didn’t speak further. She cleaned up and folded into one of the chairs in the warden’s office and fell asleep.

I didn’t.

I just watched the door and listened to her breathe.

NINETEEN

Simone

“Don’t leave,” Rubin said as he stood in front of the warden’s office door the next morning.

I was only barely able to keep myself from rolling my eyes as I said, “I was gonna pop out to the store for milk, but I guess it can wait.”

“I mean it, Simone,” he said before he stepped out of the office.

He stared at me for a long moment, then closed the door.

I didn’t let three minutes pass before I was up and scurrying around the warden’s desk and running to the door. My hand hovered near the knob, but I didn’t turn it, wondering if this was a trick, or if Rubin had locked it.

Wondering why I felt so adrift without him.

My body hadn’t forgotten him, that much was sure. I still felt the ache of him all over, the tender throb where he’d bitten and sucked and fucked with his fingers. Remembered him when I’d caught a glimpse of my body in the medicine cabinet mirror, red-brown splotches that marked me as his. But what happened in the dark of night meant nothing now. Crave him as I might, the circumstances hadn’t changed.

I needed to remember what was important.

I dropped my arm and looked back at the office. It hadn’t been long, so I’d give him more time.

The warden had left a suit jacket in his closet, and I pulled it on. The warden was about my height, so the sleeves weren’t too long and the shoulders were loose. It was hot, as proven by the bead of sweat that rolled down my back, but it was clean, and that was enough.

I buttoned the three buttons and pulled up the sleeves, then looked around the office again. The only thing that could even pass for a weapon was the heavy metal stapler on the warden’s desk. Next to useless, but I took it anyway, along with the walkie-talkie Rubin had left on the blotter, its charge light blinking a slow green. Then I went back to the door.

When I twisted, the knob gave without so much as a hint of resistance. I huffed as I looked at it. Of course he hadn’t locked me in.

Rubin’s word was law, and I would obey it like I always did.

Well, except for that one time.

My ears burned as I remembered the way I felt as he had watched me for every second of the eight hours I had testified.

That didn’t matter, I told myself as I stepped into the hall.

I was greeted by a distant scream, and then eerie silence.

The lights were off and the hallway was lit by emergency lighting on the catwalk. Merrick and the COs playing games, no doubt. They’d turn them on sometime tonight. I wondered if they realized they made the jail a lighthouse.

Even the fires had started to fade, so at night, the city was blanketed in darkness. Rubin had said it meant the power grid had gone down. I forced the grimace off my face at that thought as I inched down the hallway.

My head was pounding, but the infirmary, which I still hadn’t managed to get to, was on the opposite side of the jail, which meant I’d only have to cross hostile COs and God knew how many zombies to get relief. I was sure the location was an intentional design choice, but it was freaking inconvenient.