Protection (3 page)

“Will you now?” Gabriel felt himself grin. “You and what army?”

Rushing at Cooper, Gabriel collided with the younger man’s midsection, knocking him against the wet tiled wall. Cooper struck it with a
whuff
, yet still managed to punch Gabriel so hard he saw stars. With a low grunt Gabriel hit back, slamming Cooper in the gut. The young man made a choking noise as if he might vomit. Then he slid down the wall, head back, both hands clutched to his belly.

Cooper must have been dazed. His thighs were spread wide, pretty cock exposed. The curve of each buttock was plain, a trickle of shower water flowing between them to circle a steel-grated drain.

“Think I’ll fuck you like this.” Gabriel started to throw a leg over.

“No!” Cooper cried, as much animal denial as human speech. His pupils were dilated, eyes red and desperate. He threw another wild punch at Gabriel, barely grazing his jaw, then two more at Gabriel’s chest, clumsy, frantic. Gabriel, ever calculating, waited until he saw an opening, planting his fist exactly where he’d hit Cooper before. This time Cooper fell forward, retching helplessly.

“My third conviction,” Gabriel said in Cooper’s ear as the young man struggled to control himself, “was grievous bodily harm for biting a man’s cock clean off. Werth didn’t die, but it was a very near thing. You know how men are. Attached to their parts.”

“Leave me alone,” Cooper gasped, trying to scramble up. Gabriel dug hard fingers into the other man’s shoulders, holding him in place.

“Look at you. On your knees, ass in the wind, telling me what to do.” On one level, Cooper’s audacity amused Gabriel; on another, it stoked a terrifying anger. “I’ll have you, boy, conscious or no. Brace yourself, let me do my worst, and you’ll walk out intact. Keep fighting and they’ll carry you to the morgue. With my seed trickling out your dead ass all the same.”

“No!” Wrenching free of Gabriel’s grip, Cooper struck out blindly. His left hand smacked Gabriel harmlessly in the face. But his right fist slammed against Gabriel’s inner thigh, jolting his balls in the bargain.

Gabriel gasped. The pain was nauseating. To be so in need and suffer a blow there almost made his breakfast come up. Only his iron control, all the countless other pains he’d suffered, kept Gabriel from vomiting. And his brush with humiliation made him erupt.

“You fucking cunt!” Grabbing Cooper by the hair, Gabriel slammed his temple against the slick floor. “I’ll fuck your ass ’til you’re dead!”

Balls still throbbing, Gabriel forced Cooper’s legs apart. He wanted to believe the wildness possessing him was righteous anger – a need to punish the bad doctors of the world, to make them pay for their sins. But deep down he simply ached to fuck another human being, to be inside someone again. And not just anyone. Joseph Cooper. Gabriel wanted Cooper because he was beautiful, wanted him and hated him – hated that sublime male beauty that could make him deviate, could inspire such frenzy.

“Oh, God,” Gabriel choked, pushing himself between Cooper’s cheeks.

The young man groaned, face against the floor, semiconscious. “Please … no …”

“Shut it. Shut it or I’ll kill you first and fuck you after, I swear it.” Gabriel forced himself in deeper, groaning as an orifice tighter than any virgin pussy squeezed him like iron. Sweet Mary and all the Saints, no wonder men gave in to this. No wonder it was mortal sin, punishable by an eternity of hellfire. This made everyday fucking feel about as rare and special as fish and chips.

“Please, God,” Cooper sobbed, barely able to get the words out.

Gabriel dealt Cooper another blow. Then while the other man lay dazed, Gabriel pushed himself completely inside. The runoff water turned pink. Cooper’s moans changed to little hitching breaths of fear and pain. He was even more beautiful
in extremis
, like a martyr going back to God. Maybe Cooper was a good man. Maybe he’d simply lost his way. But he’d killed a mother and child, stolen a husband’s happiness, and he had to pay. Besides, Gabriel was too far gone to stop.

“God forgive me,” Gabriel said. His hips rocked faster, finding the rhythm, his manhood locked in that exquisite unyielding grip. Release came too fast, too violently, threatening to shake his flesh off the bones. Gabriel couldn’t remember ever coming so hard. For what seemed like a long time, he remained inside Cooper, hating to pull free, hating to let it end.

But practical concerns intruded on Gabriel, as they so often did. Even his favorite guards were only so biddable, and the G-block men would soon arrive, howling for hot water. Time to go.

Gabriel paused to wash his cock. He’d be sore from head to root. Cooper looked worse, curled up on his side like a babe cast too early from the womb. The runoff water had turned more red than pink. Probably he needed stitches. If so, Gabriel hoped Dr. Harper, not Dr. Royal, attended him.

He started toward the towel room. Cooper must have heard Gabriel’s footfalls and believed himself alone, because he began to weep. He did so almost silently, chest heaving, tears squeezed from behind closed eyes, hands pressed against his mouth to muffle the sound.

Gabriel watched Cooper sob, unable to pull his gaze away. But he must have decided to turn away because he found himself fully dressed and outside the showers. Hanging about was lunacy; Gabriel had to disappear before a hue and cry went up.

His hands were shaking. Clenching them into fists, Gabriel squared his shoulders and strode unhurriedly back to F-block.

* * *

I
t was three weeks before Joseph Cooper returned from his stay in Wentworth’s infirmary. He appeared in the cafeteria around noon just as dinner was served – one of those bland combinations the administrators thought the inmates should be so grateful for, tomato soup and chips.

Gabriel had already known of Cooper’s impending return, tipped off by Lonnie, who brought the news with transparent misery. Everyone knew Gabriel had a particular interest in Cooper. As Cooper joined the queue for soup, Gabriel studied him, that new hunger reigniting. Sighing, Lonnie pushed his tray aside.

“Something amiss?”

 
Lonnie shrugged, looking at the floor as Gabriel studied him. Gabriel was thirty-two. Lonnie, just ten years younger, often seemed as feckless and changeable as a child, so Gabriel frequently addressed him as such. “’Tis a sin to waste food.”

Taking a chip off his tray, Lonnie broke it in two and stared at the halves.

“Oi. Lonnie.”

Lonnie’s gaze came up, blinking away what looked like tears.

“Take note. I still have all my limbs,” Gabriel said. “Ten toes and all the fingers worth keeping. I can protect more than one man at a time if I put my mind to it. See if I can’t.”

Lonnie brightened, sitting up straighter.

“The light dawns, does it? Good. Now eat.” Gabriel pushed the tray back at Lonnie, who attacked his chips with fresh vigor. Gabriel watched for a while, amused, before turning to study Cooper again.

He looked good. He wore his prison uniform like a suit, filling it out perfectly. Every ginger-brown hair was in place. His cheeks were close-shaven, no nicks, just a neat sideburn beside each ear. As he moved down the serving line, accepting not only tomato soup and chips but also a helping of rhubarb pie, Cooper kept his chin up, a smile curving those lovely lips. Only the scab on his forehead, the fading bruise at his temple, hinted he hadn’t spent the last three weeks on holiday.

For all his quiet confidence, Cooper didn’t try to join this faction or that. Instead he carried his metal tray to a deserted table near the guard’s post, sitting down and beginning to eat with the single-mindedness of one who wishes to be left alone.

“Hallo.” Gabriel settled himself on the opposite bench.

Cooper glared at him, gray eyes hard. “You shouldn’t be here. I’ve given evidence against you.”

“Have you now. Poor me. ’Tis a wonder they haven’t clapped me in irons. Do you even know my name?”

Cooper’s gaze shifted to the top left breast of Gabriel’s uniform. “MacKenna.”

Gabriel struck a match. Lighting a Pall Mall, he pushed the pack across the table. “I’m Gabriel. And I know for a fact you said you never saw the man who had you. Whatever you are, Cooper, you’re no grass. Take a smoke.”

“I don’t—”

“Take it,” Gabriel repeated, voice barely audible yet filled with menace. “If you don’t, I’ll come across this table and dash your brains on the floor. You know I will.”

Cooper reached toward the pack. For a long time he stared at Gabriel, pupils dilated, upper lip curled. Then he lifted the box, tapped it and drew out a cigarette.

“Grand. Put it between your lips, darling.”

Cooper went rigid. Slowly, deliberately, he placed the Pall Mall on the table. Gabriel smiled, glancing around the cafeteria to make certain everyone saw he wasn’t insulted. Dozens of men looked back. It seemed not a soul had missed the exchange thus far, including the guards. Buckland looked curious; McCrory frowned. One of McCrory’s reasons for befriending Gabriel was his once-militant heterosexuality. Seeing Gabriel engage in Wentworth’s time-honored courtship ritual wasn’t easy for the guard, who looked up to Gabriel almost as an elder brother.

“They tell me you went to Oxford on scholarship,” Gabriel said. “Which says to me your mind’s ripe for educating. So mark me, Cooper. You are the sweetest piece of ass to walk into Wentworth since before Christ made crackers. I’ll bet men have made passes at you since you were – what? Twelve? Thirteen?”

The correct answer was thirteen. Gabriel, a good judge of character, recognized the truth in Cooper’s eyes. “Well, you can rest easy now. You’re no longer up for grabs. I fucked you in the showers—”

“You
forced
—”

“—and that’s debatable ownership. But just now I offered you a cigarette and you took it. Let me light it and you’re mine. Meaning you’re protected from all the bull-necked, ham-fisted motherfuckers who’d kill you trying to love you. No man in Wentworth will touch what’s mine.”

“I don’t want
you
to touch me.” Cooper’s voice shook with the force of his loathing. “Not ever again.”

Bringing his own cigarette to his lips, Gabriel took a deep draw, exhaling the smoke in the other man’s direction. “Sure and you don’t. But think on it, Cooper. I’m the devil you know. You’ve endured my worst. I’m only one man and easy to please. Care to let the G-block Lovelies gang-bang you? How bad will it hurt, taking eight men up that tender hole? Half of them have horse dicks and brains to match.”

With a swift intake of breath, Cooper shot a glance at the guards. Two stared straight ahead at nothing. The others – Buckland and McCrory – stood contemplating their shoes.

“They won’t help you,” Gabriel said softly. “You know I tell you true. I’ll help you, I’ll protect you, but I’ll have payment. Pick up the cigarette. Let me light it. Tell every man in Wentworth you’re my girl. I’ll go to my grave defending you and expect no more than a kiss before bed at night. Or thereabouts,” he added, grinning.

“I’m no girl,” Cooper said, lips curling back from even white teeth.

“My boy, then. Or just mine. But pick up the goddamn cigarette before the Lovelies decide to give it a go. Eight against one is hard odds, even for me. I don’t mind dying to protect your sweet ass, Cooper, but I’d rather not do it before supper tonight.”

With a trembling hand, Cooper seized the cigarette. He held it out, gaze fixed on some invisible point as Gabriel lit it.

“Good. Take a draw. Enjoy the goddamn thing. You a Catholic boy?”

“Anglican.”

“Close enough. Suck down the fumes and thank God Almighty you get so much pleasure in this vale of tears.” Beneath the table, Gabriel’s cock had stiffened the moment Cooper placed the lit cigarette between those perfect lips. It was like a watching an angel tempted into sin – delicious, painful and impossible to witness without suffering almost equally in the process. As Cooper smoked, Gabriel looked at the floor, silently reciting Mrs. Lavin’s multiplication tables until his crotch was decent again. Then Gabriel stood, gave Cooper a smile and said, “See you tonight. Remember – I’ll expect that kiss.”