Page 49 of Blood We Steal

“I didn’t say sit near it, Simone. I said sit on it.”

I huffed, but then shifted, realizing I hadn’t worried once if Rubin could hold me. He’d proven that more than once.

I reached between us and wrapped my fingers around his shaft, angled my hips awkwardly and pushed up on the arm of the couch.

I lined Rubin’s cock up with my opening and lowered my hips, stuffing my pussy inch by inch until I settled at the base, so full of Rubin, I felt like he would split me in half and I’d love every second of it.

His breath was warm against my neck, his lips barely grazing my flesh.

Then he gripped my hips tight, lifted me a few inches, then slammed me down hard.

My body quivered from the force of it, and I hissed when Rubin held me tighter and stilled my movements.

Once I was still, he tightened his grip even more and set a punishing rhythm, lift, drop, lift, drop, until the smack of my thighs against his and the dull thud of my ass hitting his stomach filled the room.

He leaned forward, shifting the angle and burying his cock even deeper, and his lips grazed my ear as he whispered, “This is what you’re here for.”

He pushed me down again and rocked his hips up, his cock jabbing me with sharp, searing thrusts.

He locked an arm around my waist, holding me tight against the solid wall of his chest. The smattering of hair on his chest tickled my back, the coarse softness heightening every sensation and making the delicious burn of his cock stretching me that much more intense.

Rubin pulled me down farther until not even a millimeter separated our bodies. He harshed out a rough breath against my ear, his cock jerking inside me, impossibly hard.

Then I was empty, his low grunt and the splash of his cum on my ass the only sounds in the room.

I went to stand, but Rubin held me in place, licking the shell of my ear before he leaned in and whispered, “Don’t disobey me again.”

TWENTY-TWO

Simone

“Shuffle, Moni,” Aaron said as he slid a pack of cards across the table.

I chuckled and grabbed the cards. “You got arthritis or something?”

Aaron laughed. “Nope. Got a tournament later today, and shuffling first is bad luck.”

“Why are we playing at all?” I asked as I shuffled the cards and then pushed them toward Aaron to cut.

“Wanna get all the crappy hands out of the way. There are two honey buns on the line,” he said.

I huffed but didn’t say anything as I dealt the cards. They’d been fresh a few days ago, but now had gone soft and gummy at the corners and the laminate had started to peel from being handled so much.

Two honey buns. Aaron usually played for thousands, though now, the honey buns were worth more. Still, even with the heat, the stink of barely washed men trapped in this enclosed space, Aaron still had the spark in his eye that only the cards could bring.

“It’s been almost a week, so I know you’re settling in. You know they say the first twenty-four are scary. But you want to know what the scariest is?” Aaron asked.

“Yeah, I guess I could use some prison wisdom,” I said.

“Last twenty-four. You gotta walk through those doors and see what’s on the other side,” he said. He had bags under his eyes, and he hadn’t slept a wink. He looked like I felt.

He’d never admit it. Even at his lowest, Nana’s funeral, the day he’d been sentenced, he’d kept his high spirits, kept me lifted. He was trying to now, but his body told the truth. The gray cast under his usually rich dark brown skin, the slump in shoulders that had never wavered, the way he’d shrunk and started to look every day of his sixty years when a month ago he could have passed for a man in his forties.

Aaron wasn’t okay, and I didn’t know if I could ever make him be okay again.

I reached over and squeezed his hand. “You didn’t have to protect me, Aaron. And you don’t have to worry about me.”

He squeezed back. “You’re all I have, Moni.”