“Okay,” she says, steeling herself.
“I don’t want you to come see me again.” I can’t help myself and I reach for her hands. I hold them in mine and they’re so soft and warm. “You can’t be in this place. Not for me, not for anything.”
“Rocco—”
“Promise me,” I say, cutting her off. “Promise me you won’t visit me again.”
“Hands!” I hear the guard behind me shout and I let her go. I don’t have much time but I don’t want it cut short.
“Promise me, Lizzy. Promise me you’ll keep yourself safe and you’ll stay as far away from here as you can.”
“And if you get out?” Her big blue eyes look up at me and I nod.
“I’m coming for you. But until then, write to me every day. It’s the only thing getting me through this.”
Her eyes water and she gives me a soft smile as she nods. It’s all I can give her for now, but maybe it will be enough.
“Time’s up,” the guard says and we stand.
This time I’m the one to pull her into me and for a moment the prison walls fall away and there are no bars. We’re alone and I’m holding her and it’s all I’ve ever wanted.
“Time to go, Lang,” the guard says, and it takes everything in me to let her go.
She stands there as I take a step back and he puts the shackles on me. I don’t want her to see this and to witness my shame, but my need to keep my eyes on her wins out.
“Be safe,” I say again, and she nods as she touches her fingers to her lips, then blows her kiss to me.
It might seem silly, but right now I can’t touch her and it’s all that I have. I close my eyes and I swear I can feel it hit me as the guard grabs my arms and pulls me away from the woman I’m so desperate to have.
Twelve
ROCCO
It’s later in the evening when I’m in the shower that I feel someone watching me. I’m on a block with about fifty guys so we have to shower in shifts. I glance over my shoulder and see someone I haven’t seen before and guess he’s a new inmate. I don’t know why he’s got his eyes on me but it doesn't feel right.
I shut off the water to my shower and go over to the wall and grab my towel. I wrap it around my waist as I try to keep him in the corner of my eye. I glance to where the officers are usually stationed at the opening of the shower, but they’re gone. Immediately the hair on the back of my neck rises and I turn around just in time to see the new guy coming at me, holding something metal and sharp.
It’s only half a second but it’s just enough time for me to spin around and grab his wrist to keep him from stabbing me with it. I hear his arm snap as I bend it backwards and he screams as he lets go of the makeshift knife. It clatters to the ground and the other inmates scatter as suddenly the guards appear and come rushing in.
The guards grab me and pull me back and I don’t fight them. The guy lies on the ground moaning about his arm and mumbling some other shit I don’t understand. By the time I’m carried out of the shower and thrown into solitary I realize that this was all just a setup.
My release will be contingent on good behavior and up until today I haven’t had a single incident while locked up. Whoever the fuck this guy was, he was obviously being paid by someone to keep me behind bars, or to shut me up. Either way, this screws my case, unless I can talk to my lawyer and convince him that this was all done for that reason.
The guards here aren’t listening, and though I’ve been alone in my cell this whole time, solitude is fucking hell. I don’t have any light or way to tell what time it is. But the worst part is that I don’t have Lizzy’s letters to keep me company. I wonder if they’re tossing my cell right now and reading them.
I clench my fists as I slide down to the floor and hope that I get out of here soon. This could ruin everything and my chances at getting to her.
Thoughts that I’ve been trying to avoid all day come back to me in a rush. I don’t want to think about how soft she looked or how sweet she smelled because I know I’m just torturing myself. But I knew I could only hold them back for so long. What would it be like to have her skin against mine? To have her spread her legs for me? Would she be eager to let me lick her where she’s wet, or would she be shy?
In my mind she’s bold with her want and begs me to taste her. My cock is hard and pointing straight up between my legs, but I can’t jack off in here. I need the photo of her and to see her dark blue eyes when I cum. That’s how I do it every time and I won’t let myself get off without that.
I’ve been fighting this for so long, but after today I’m ready to give in. I’m ready to get the fuck out of here and go get what’s mine. I might be locked up, but there’s nothing that will keep me from her. Not this prison, not some rich assholes who fixed my trial, and certainly not some piece of shit that was hired to get me thrown in solitude. As soon as I’m out of here, I’m on my way to her.
She just better be ready when I get there.
Thirteen
LIZZY
A tear falls from my cheek and hits one of the unopened envelopes. There’s a small stack of them on my kitchen counter and I stare at them unable to understand why he stopped taking them. I swipe at my face as more tears fall and I can’t make them stop. I was so sure when the first one came back that it was a mistake. But each day another shows up marked “return to sender.”
I didn’t believe it was happening the first few days. I’d gotten a crazy idea that maybe he was transferred or something. All I had to do was find the new address and hope it wasn’t too far away. I knew he might not want me visiting, but I didn’t care for the idea of him being farther away even if I wasn’t seeing him.
That could have happened, right? Prisoners get transferred all the time. I searched online, knowing there’s a list of inmates for each facility. You only need to know their inmate number and I did. It showed him there as of a week ago, but I haven’t searched since then. I keep sending letters and they keep getting returned.
I sniff as my heart aches. What I felt must have just been one sided, or not real. Otherwise why is he giving me the brush off after he’d asked me to keep writing? He told me not to come back and now none of this makes sense. I knew he was attracted to me because I could see it in the way he looked at me. When he’d pulled me in to hug him I felt his hard-on dig into me. I swear I can still feel it pressed into my stomach if I close my eyes. Every inch of him was hard and big. I knew that before I’d felt him against me but now every detail is real because I had it for a moment.
While I love that hard side to him, I adored seeing his soft side that he didn’t show to anyone else. He even smiled at me, which is something I’m guessing he hadn’t done in a long time. Thoughts of what his mouth would feel like against mine and in other places makes my body ache. All off him was hard, but for some reason I knew his lips would be so soft against mine.
I pick up the letters and pile them together, then I open the drawer where I keep the ones he’s written me and put them inside for safekeeping. I run my finger across one of the faded letters and it’s almost embarrassing how worn they all are for the short time I’ve had them. I read them every day, sometimes multiple times a day. I don’t care if it makes me obsessed, I like being consumed by his words.