Caught by the Convicts

by Jessa Kane

“I don’t want to wreck her, Ruger. I want to…I need to…” “You need to keep her,” Ruger says gruffly, meeting his cell mate’s eyes over my head. “Me too. It’s like there’s no choice. She’s…ours.”

The promise in his eyes makes me shiver. But in relief or trepidation? That’s the million-dollar question.

When I realize my hands are curled around the bars and I’m growling, with my teeth bared to the concourse, I swallow hard. Too much. She’s made me feel too much. I’m a tornado of emotions when I’ve always been calm as a lake. Find her.

Ruger is there, too. That’s what makes my hand pause mid-stroke. He’s in the fantasy. Behind Wendy. Taking his own pleasure—and somehow that heightens everything.

I used to try and limit the amount of time I spent making direct eye contact with him, too. Doing so always made my briefs feel extra tight. Made them chafe me in embarrassing places. But I’ve given up the battle now. My best friend is royalty in my eyes. Extraordinary.

Klay is my compass, even if he’d like to be rid of me.

I’m a downed power line, sparking and dancing on the sidewalk, in need of repair and they’re the only ones who can help me.

Klay’s face is in sleepy repose on the pillow, mere inches from my face. When awake, he’s obscenely gorgeous. Asleep, he’s a wicked angel that has been booted out of heaven. Probably for excessive vanity.

These men being in my life almost seems fated. There’s a sense of completion when they are touching me, talking to me, talking to each other about me. It’s like I’ve woken up in a new land with a unique language that somehow makes perfect sense to my ears. To my body.

When they take me, I become the glue holding everything together and there is nothing more satisfying for someone who craves the feeling of being anchored.

And I like that she is so quietly encouraging to him. He needs that. The fact that she gives him kindness so instinctively makes me love her more. Yes, love her. I can’t help it. The moment she walked past the cell, my heart became her lifelong prisoner.

Jesus, my heart is slamming in my ribcage. I’m so full of this…sense of homecoming, purpose, gratitude, I could burst wide open.

Relief pours through me. But I’ve only won the battle. There’s a war ahead—and the only prize I can live with, the only prize I can imagine is keeping these two people with me, just like this, forever.

Klay fixes what’s broken inside of everyone else so he can ignore his own grief and anger, inflicted by his father.

There’s only this sense of rightness between the three of us. It’s right. It’s permanent. She’s ours.

“Don’t remember this place as your prison. Remember it as a pile of ash. Burn it all down.”

“Is it crazy that I already love you…” I say quietly, my chest packed with emotion. “Both of you? I love…this. I love us. It feels like we are exactly what was supposed to happen.”