A Pound of Flesh (A Pound of Flesh #1) (21 page)

Beth moved closer to Kat on the sofa. She sighed and pressed her lips together. “No.” She cleared her throat. “No, nothing’s wrong, I— I just worry about you. You know, working at Kill and with Carter one-to-one outside of the prison. I wanted—I want—to make sure you’re all right.”

Kat stared at Beth for a beat, wondering what it was that she wasn’t being told. Too tired to figure it out, she searched for the right words. “It’s been a shitty day.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

Kat barked out a laugh and shook her head while making a mumbled noise of words that made no sense. “Not really,” she answered, her throat closing up again. “I’m just a stupid, stupid idiot.”

Beth sat back. “Kat, what happened?” She paused before asking, “Did he hurt you?”

Kat’s head snapped up. “What?” she asked incredulously. “Why would— Who?”

“Carter,” Beth answered. “Did Carter hurt you? That’s who you’re talking about, right?”

The tears Kat had tried like hell to keep back dropped down her face. Her face scrunched up with despair and a sob broke from her throat.

“Oh God.” Beth pulled Kat into her side. “I knew it. Shhh, it’s okay. If he hurt you, we can send his ass back to Kill. Adam and Austin can—”

“No, Beth!” Kat sobbed. “I fucked up. Me.” Beth stayed quiet. “He didn’t hurt me. He would never hurt me.”

Kat didn’t know why, but she’d always known Carter would never do anything to cause her physical pain. She felt safe with him, even when he’d thrown a table across her classroom. There was something in his eyes, something in the way he moved around her, that made Kat feel secure and impervious to any danger.

She knew—deep in her soul—that he would protect her if she needed him to.

“Kat, what the hell happened?”

Kat sniffed. “He kissed me. And I kissed him back.”

“Well, shave my ass and call me Priscilla! It’s a motherfucking Kill reunion up in here!”

Riley’s booming bass voice smacked Carter and Jack around the head like a baseball bat before his mammoth body launched from Carter’s apartment doorway at the two of them and pulled them into a death squeeze.

“Oh, I’m so happy,” Riley chimed sarcastically as Carter grumbled and pushed his oafish ass away.

“Dammit, dude,” he said, stretching his back out of the concertina Riley had made of it. “Calm the hell down.”

Riley smirked. “I see freedom hasn’t chilled your uptight ass out any. I, on the other hand, have been free for forty-eight hours and everything is awesome!” He turned to Jack before Carter could respond. “How’s it hanging, J?”

Jack chuckled and straightened his jacket. “I’m hanging fine, Riley. Good to see you. I’ll see you on Thursday for our meeting.” He slipped past him and waved. “We’ll talk soon, Wesley.”

Carter nodded and closed the door behind him while Riley sauntered into the apartment and looked around the place like a prospective buyer or some shit. Carter sighed.

“What can I do for you, Moore?”

Riley patted his enormous chest with his palms and smiled. “You got any beer? I’m about parched.”

With two beers in hand, Riley dropped himself onto the couch while Carter fiddled with his cell phone, feeling disgruntled. It’d been two days since the kiss in Central Park, and he still hadn’t heard from Peaches. Not that he’d expected to, but it didn’t stop him from being fidgety as all hell. He had no idea what he was going to say to her when they met for their session.

“Am I keeping you from something?” Riley asked nonchalantly, sipping his beer.

Carter shook his head, threw his cell to the side, and lit a cigarette. “So how’s it feel being out? Forty-eight hours? I’m surprised I’ve not seen your ass sooner.”

Riley smiled. “You know me, Carter: places to see, people to do.”

Carter laughed and raised his eyebrows in agreement.

“Not that you’re not important to me or anything,” Riley added with a wry wink. “But I had to get some shit organized.”

Carter paused. “You getting involved with hot parts again?”

Riley frowned. “No. No, man. That was a mistake I will not be reliving. I just had a few deals to settle. Jack here for the usual?”

“Yeah,” Carter replied. “Diane was here earlier. She’d have loved to have seen you.” The two men snorted.

Riley and Diane hadn’t always had the best relationship. To say that she didn’t understand his foul-mouthed humor was an understatement.

“She wants me,” Riley answered coolly as he sat back and kicked his feet up. “What can I say?”

“Of course she does.” Carter chuckled but stopped abruptly when his cell beeped with an incoming text. Max. Dammit.

“That your new … female plaything?” Riley winked.

“No. It’s not my new ‘plaything,’” he barked before looking back at the cell screen.

“Okay, okay,” Riley retorted before he lit his own smoke. “Chill yourself, asshole. It was only a question.”

Carter exhaled and rubbed his forehead with his fingers. “I know … just … It’s not like that.”

“Things are going well with Miss Lane, I assume,” Riley commented smoothly.

Carter extinguished his smoke and blew rings toward the ceiling. “Just swell” was his curt reply.

Riley hummed as though daydreaming. “Damn,” he said in a low voice that he saved for seduction and all things nasty. “I do miss her tight ass in those pencil skirts.” He licked his lips. “And those legs? I could have smooched on those bad boys for—”

“Shut the fuck up, Moore!” Carter bellowed. He snapped his arm up and pointed at Riley menacingly. “Watch your mouth about her.”

Riley lasted all of three seconds with Carter’s finger in his grill before his face creased into a smile the size of the Hoover Dam.

“Well, I’ll be goddamned.” He snickered with his hands up. “You and Miss L, huh? Nice.”

Carter’s arm dropped instantly and a groan of realization and frustration left him. He rubbed his palms down his face and mumbled into them.

“It’s not like that, okay? I mean, I want it— I want her to … fuck.” He snatched his beer from the table and fell back into his chair.

Riley chuckled and sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Look, man, I’m not interested in the hows, whys, or what-the-fuck-ever. I’m just glad that I won the bet I had with myself.”

Carter narrowed his eyes. “Bet?”

“Yeah, I bet myself how long it would take for you two to bone once you were out.” He smacked his huge chest with both of his fists. “Guess I won, huh?”

Carter blinked in shock. “For Christ’s sake, Moore. We haven’t even— Shit, it’s not about boning.”

“Oh yeah, I know, but you get my drift.” Riley smiled and put his smoke in the ashtray. “Hey, talking of fucking hot women, a few of us are going to hit a couple of bars tonight. You in?”

Carter shook his head. “Nah, man, I’ve got stuff to do.”

Riley waggled his eyebrows. “Or someone …”

Despite himself, Carter couldn’t help but laugh.

* * *

At the end of Kat’s class at Kill the following Tuesday afternoon, she found herself walking toward Jack’s office. Her feet and legs became sluggish, almost willing her not to keep going. But she had to. She needed answers and direction. And, truthfully, even with talking with Beth about her anguish from hurting Carter, there was no one else.

Gathering herself, she knocked lightly against the door.

“Come in.”

Jack smiled when he saw Kat peer around the doorframe. “Miss Lane,” he said, standing from his seat. “Good to see you. What can I do for you?”

Kat bit her lip and allowed her body to slide gradually into the room. She closed the door, grasping the handle as if her life depended on it.

Jack looked concerned. “Are you all right?”

Kat tried to smile back, to reassure him, but it fell flat. She cleared her throat and rubbed the back of her neck. “I need to ask you a hypothetical question,” she muttered.

Jack frowned. “Hypothetical.” Kat nodded. “Well,” Jack continued, “I’ll certainly do my best.”

He gestured for Kat to take a seat before he sat back down and placed the papers he’d been reading back into a folder. Kat slinked over to a chair and sat down. This was hell. She fisted her hands in her lap and averted her eyes. She never behaved like this. She was usually so sure and steadfast.

“Miss Lane,” Jack said, sitting forward. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes,” she rasped through a dry throat. “I was just— I was—”

“Did Carter do something wrong?”

Kat shook her head. No. Everything Carter had done had been oh so right.

“I saw him yesterday,” Jack continued. “He seemed anxious about something. Wouldn’t tell me what it was, of course—”

“Who do I speak to about quitting as his tutor?”

The words tumbled from her mouth with such speed, she was amazed they came out in the correct order. As the words settled around them, all she felt was pain. Not physically, but emotionally. She was angry at herself for asking the question she never thought she would. Her eyes became blurry, but she swallowed the tears. She’d done enough crying to last her a lifetime.

“Why would you want that?” Jack asked in a soft voice. “Are you sure he didn’t do something?”

The smile that tugged at Kat’s lips was weak but reassuring. “I’m sure,” she murmured. “Who do I speak to and what are the procedures?”

“Kat,” he said, “why do you want this?” He held his hand up when she started to jump in with an answer. “What I mean is if he hasn’t done anything wrong, or violated the conditions of his parole, how are you going to justify quitting as his tutor?”

Kat closed her mouth, defeat skating down her neck.

“The fact is,” Jack continued, “if you want to quit as his tutor—and you have every right to, if you so wish—you have to give just cause to the board.”

“Really?” she asked in a voice that was quiet and beaten.

Jack rested his elbows on the desk. “It will cause questions, and I’m not sure you’d want to answer them.”

Well. That was that.

“Kat, if I may?” Jack made to stand and gestured toward the chair at Kat’s side.

“Sure,” she replied, watching him come around his desk and sit down next to her.

“I don’t want to upset you with what I want to say.”

“It’s okay, Jack. I’m willing to listen to just about anything right now.”

Jack cleared his throat and fiddled with his tie clasp. “It’s clear that you two are … fond of each other. But if you and Carter are involved in a relationship that is more than simply teacher/student, then I have to warn you. I have to tell you that, even with Carter on parole, you’re still working for the prison, and, as such, you’re contravening the teacher code of the facility, including the non-fraternization policy you agreed to and signed, as well as placing yourself at risk of prosecution.”

Kat’s face crumpled. That all sounded horrifically scary. “Jack, Carter and I aren’t—”

“But,” Jack interrupted with a hand on Kat’s forearm, “if you aren’t together until the probationary period of his parole is over, then there would be no problem.”

Kat knew this already. She knew she’d have to wait until her contracted time with Carter was over before they could be together. If she wanted them to be together.

Was that what she wanted?

She wanted to see what was between them, of course; she couldn’t deny that. But it was useless. The odds were stacked against them both.

“And to be totally clear,” Jack said, “if you and Carter are together and nobody
knows
until the end of his probationary period, then there would be no problem.”

Kat lifted her head. Was he being serious? She narrowed her eyes in an attempt to see through his bullshit but came up wanting. He was being totally serious.

“Are you saying that—”

“All I’m saying is that what people don’t know can’t hurt ’em.”

Why was he willing to be discreet about her relationship with Carter? He had nothing to gain from it. “Why are you saying this?”

Jack squeezed her hand. “He needs you, Kat. Even if he hasn’t truly realized it yet, he needs you.”

She shook her head. “I can’t do this.”

Jack smiled. “Kat, you’re the only person who
can
. You put him in his place, you don’t take his bullshit, you’ve reached out to him in a way no one else ever has. Take your time, and try not to panic or worry. What more can you do?”

Kat thanked Jack for his time and understanding. She trusted him to keep what had been said between them. Despite the fears she had about her friends and family and their reactions toward her and Carter’s relationship, it made her heart feel less heavy, knowing there were people who saw it as something positive.

She decided that she’d start to do the same.

Kat shifted in her seat while Carter read Hemingway in the library that afternoon. He was sitting with his ankle resting on his knee. Black jeans, boots, gray AC/DC T-shirt, tattoos, rings, and a black beanie covering his buzz cut.

Their greetings at the beginning of the session had been torturous at best, with Kat wanting nothing more than to hightail it home and lose herself in a couple of stiff drinks. Never had she felt more chaotic, more off balance. Her mind whirred unrelentingly with question after question, punctuated with words from her conversation with Jack and her talk with Beth, before it would go back to the kiss.

Oh God, the kiss.

Throughout their session, her gaze landed unapologetically on Carter’s mouth. She cleared her throat when he glanced up at her, as if sensing her staring, and halted in his reading. Her cheeks warmed. She averted her eyes back to the page.

Carter frowned before he continued: “‘I had treated seeing Catherine very lightly, I had gotten somewhat drunk and had nearly forgotten to come, but when I could not see her there I was feeling lonely and hollow.’”

“Okay, stop there.” Kat laid her copy of the text facedown on the desk between them, alongside the Oreos and can of Coke Carter had brought. “In regard to the last few pages, what do you notice about the change in Henry’s attitude toward Catherine?”

Carter fidgeted and his fingers became wedged under the edge of his beanie while he scratched his head. His eyes flickered to hers nervously.