Strokes Vol #3 (5 page)

“It’s me,” Danny said loudly, because now the sounds of an all-out brawl filled the upper deck.

A flashlight shone. The door was just in reach. Danny thrust in the key, turned the lock, and they darted through the door, leaving the battle raging among prisoners behind them.

Danny locked the
door then tossed down the flashlight and reached for Jenna. He slid to his ass on the floor, there in the stairwell, his back against the cell-block door. His hands roamed her body, seeking injuries. But he found none. She shivered inside his embrace.

“See why I don’t want you here?” he rasped.

“Goes both ways,” she whispered harshly, her breaths slowing as she wrapped herself around him. She straddled his hips, bracketed his face between her hands and kissed him hard. “I’m okay. We’re both okay. Draper and his buddies had my back.”

Danny cussed. “It just as easily could have gone another way. You’d have been at their mercy.”

Her feminine huff blew against the side of his neck. “I’m not a hug-a-thug. I know how bad it could have been, but I had to put my trust in someone.”

His arms tightened. “I should have been there.”

“You had a job, just like me. We’ve trained for this kind of event. It all worked out.”

Anger spiked inside him, heating his face. “Fuckin’ hell, Jenn. Fuck the job.” Why was she so damn stubborn? There were other jobs in the prison system for chrissake. He shook his head, biting his tongue to keep from railing at her. This was an old argument, one they had a couple of times a week. If being trapped in the dark with homicidal maniacs wasn’t enough to convince her she had no business working inside the prison, he didn’t know what would. His shoulders slumped. “I’ve never been so scared,” he whispered, tightening his arms around her.

Again, she snorted. “Scarier than two tours in Iraq?”

Scarier than any firefight he’d lived through when he’d been in the Marines. “Hell, yeah.”

Her lips stretched against his cheek.

“Think it’s funny?” he growled.

“No, I like that you were so worried.” She snuggled closer to his chest. “And I’m relieved as hell you got to me. But won’t the LT have your ass for leaving your post?”

“I put Grayson on rover. LT will just have to understand. A female on the floor is every male guard’s worst fear.”

She sighed. “Shouldn’t be that way. I’m just another officer.”

So she always said. And he’d never agree. A distant hum sounded. Lights flickered than brightened. Danny blinked against the harsh fluorescence filling the stairwell. “SRT will be suiting up.”

She nodded, sighing as she crawled off his lap. “Better go. You’ll be busy getting the prisoners back into their cells.”

“When shift’s over…”

She gave him a nod. “My place.”

Danny gave her a lopsided smile. “Don’t even think about entering the barracks again.”

She tilted her chin. “I’m not crazy.”

Reluctant to leave her, he turned her toward the corridor and the hub’s control booth. “Stick with McGee.”

He gave her ass a slap, and she aimed a glare over her shoulder, then walked with a sway that drew his gaze straight to her round, muscular bottom. Their conversation was far from over. Only talking wasn’t going to cut it. Maybe she needed a little dose of reality.

*

Even through the
rattle of the spray hitting her glass shower door, Jenna heard the front door slam. Rinsing the last of the suds from her hair, she turned off the water and tugged her towel from over the edge of the door, wrapping it quickly around her body. By the sound of the heavy thuds of his boots, he was a man on a mission. She had no doubts what was on his mind.

What had been on everyone’s mind during the debrief at shift’s end. She’d felt the glances, saw the condemnation simmering in the male officers’ eyes. Despite the fact females had been serving inside the prison for years, she was a problem. Too pretty. Too slim. A distraction for the prisoners and officers alike.

Things she’d faced down before. No matter how she’d tried to minimize her attraction—no makeup, loose uniforms, her hair pulled into an unflattering, tight bun—she still stuck out like a sore thumb. Danny had to come to her rescue, and that put him in unnecessary danger because guards caught in the dark were supposed to hit a wall and wait. He’d traversed the entire barracks to get her out. Yet no one pointed a finger at him for breaking protocol. They all understood the need.

More than once the LT and the major had offered her easier duty, inside the infirmary or permanently manning a hub’s control, but she’d refused, wanting to prove herself. Not because her sole ambition was to be the best corrections officer she could be, but because a successful stint there would make her application to the police academy stand out among the other candidates.

Danny knew this. But he didn’t support her. Even before they’d begun to see each other, he’d been after her to quit or transfer. When she’d been assigned to his shift, under his command, he’d kept silent about their relationship because he’d been hell-bent on protecting her. Maybe it was time she asked for a transfer to another shift.

The thought left her cold. Because even though things had gone sideways tonight, she’d known he would get to her. No matter what. And that thought had kept her from panic. Not something she would ever let him know.

Her bathroom door slammed open. Still dressed in his uniform, Danny’s shoulders spanned the door frame. His short black hair skimmed the upper edge. His dark blue shirt, spattered with raindrops, reflected the stormy color of his eyes as he raked her with a glance. Anger simmered in the glance he gave her.

Her chin shot up. “No, hello darlin’?”

His hand shot out, grabbed her arm and yanked her against his chest. “Fight me.”

Her eyes widened. “What’s this about?”

He gave a sharp shake of his head. “Shut up. Fight me.”

She inserted her free hand between them and shoved at his chest. “Danny?”

“Think you could have fought Draper off if he’d been after you?” he said, his voice a deep, graveled growl.

She swallowed hard against a burning lump at the back of her throat. So that was what this was going to be. A lesson. Proof she wasn’t strong enough, mean enough to be on that barracks floor. “Stop this, right now.” She pushed again, but he ducked down, shoved his shoulder against her abdomen, forcing her to crumple over him.

Then he was backing out the door, striding toward her bed. He shrugged his shoulder, and she tumbled to the mattress, her towel flying open.

Before she could roll over the side to escape, he was on her, his superior weight sinking her deep into the mattress. Covered shoulder to toe by his large body, she could barely breathe. “Danny.”

He shook his head again, a grim set to his tight square jaw. “This ends, Jenn. Tomorrow, you’re gonna accept that transfer. Work in the warden’s office, guard the nurse, whatever, but you won’t be on that goddamn floor.”

“You have no right to dictate to me.”

“Don’t I? Wasn’t my ass on the line tonight?”

“I didn’t ask—”

“You didn’t have to! Dammit, I love you!”

His shout reverberated in the room and had her jaw clamping shut. Bitter tears filled her eyes.

His eyes squeezed shut. Then before she could draw the next shattered breath, he rolled off her to sit at the edge of the bed, his back to her. His shoulders were slumped. “I can’t do this again.”

The softly spoken words cut through her more sharply than his shouts. Jenna sat up then crawled behind him. He jerked at the first tentative touch of her hand to his shoulder, but she moved closer, wrapping her other arm around his waist and leaning against him. “I’ll take the transfer to the infirmary,” she whispered.

His shoulders bunched. “I don’t want the job to come between us.”

“Neither do I. And since this isn’t my life’s goal, I’ll bend. I love you, too.”

A deep breath shuddered out. His hands cupped hers against his chest. “I went a little crazy, getting to you.”

“I knew you’d be there. Even though I knew you shouldn’t come.”

His chest billowed around another deep breath, and she relaxed, knowing they’d get past this. That his fear had been real. That he would have faced down eighty men to save her or die trying.

That thought alone made her shiver. “I won’t have you watching my back when I’m a cop.”

“I’ll learn to deal, Jenn. At least, you won’t be up against the worst every goddamn day.”

She nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder. “Maybe I’m not what you need.”

His head swung toward her. His dark-navy gaze caught hers and held. “You’re
everything
I need.”

The raw texture of his voice made her melt.

He turned and she slid over his spread thighs, straddling him again. His mouth found hers, rubbed once then opened.

She was ready, thrusting her tongue to greet his, suctioning gently to pull his into her mouth. They fed on each other’s lips, rubbing, sucking, licking, with more desperate force than finesse. When she leaned back, she glanced down at his chest. “Time to lose that uniform. You smell like pepper spray,” she drawled, wrinkling her nose.

“I should shower.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to wait. I need you inside me.”

With his jaw clamping tight, Danny stood with her in his arms then dumped her on the mattress again. She smiled and set her head on a bent arm to watch as he quickly stripped.

When he was nude, all six-foot-three of ripped muscle and tanned skin, she went to her knees and peeled back the coverlet, tossed away the pillows, and lay in the center of the bed.

He came at her from the end of the mattress, crawling on his hands and knees, a look of feral concentration on his face, something that set her nerves jangling. God, she loved his fierceness, even when he was angry with her. Maybe especially when he was looking this mean.

Danny Crispin was a primal male, tempered by combat, forged in tragic loss. That he loved her, thought her worthy of all that strength and dedication humbled her. She knew what he needed from her and spread her legs, giving him unspoken submission.

His head dipped between his shoulders, and he buried his face between her legs, breathing in her clean scent, shaking his head side to side as he rubbed his bristled cheeks and jaw between her folds.

The rasp of his beard chafed her delicate skin, but she bent her knees and raised her hips, offering more.

His large hands slipped beneath her and cupped her buttocks. A deep growling moan filled the room a moment before his open mouth sucked her labia inside where his tongue stroked, teasing the shaved lips, delving between to lap up the fluid oozing from inside her.

Jenna kept her hands folded beside her head. Held her body still as he licked up her folds to tease her clit, then back down, beneath her pussy. Her breath caught on a sharp gasp when he flicked the tip of his tongue against her small furled hole.

His gaze darted up; his mouth lifted to give her a wicked, tight smile.

She knew how she looked. Face flushed, her belly beginning to quiver and jump. Her eyes would be large and round, her lips swollen because she’d bitten them and hadn’t even known.

Swiping her tongue across her bottom lip, she watched his eyelids dip, his nostrils flare. He dropped her bottom and lunged forward, slipping a hand beneath her back to cradle her close, laying the other atop her breast to squeeze. His head descended, and his mouth took hers in a hard, grinding kiss.

Not that she minded one bit. She tasted herself on his lips. She thrust her hands into his hair, raked his scalp with her nails and bit his tongue, a goad he wouldn’t ignore.

Danny gave another growl. His cock slid between her vaginal lips, rocking forward and back, wetting his shaft. She wriggled beneath him, trying to dip lower to capture the tip, but he moved back, so quickly she’d barely blinked her eyes open before he flipped her to her belly.

So he was still in fight mode. Grinning, she scrambled to get her knees beneath her, faking an attempt to escape, but his hard hands gripped her buttocks, centered her, and his cock nudged once before plunging inside her pussy.

Jenna gave a muffled shout.

He chuckled. The sound was deep and dirty. With his hands, he forced her hips backward, fully sheathing his cock. But then he held still inside her for several long moments.

Jenna got her elbows beneath her and shot a glare over her shoulder. “Gonna move sometime?”

His eyes glittered in the lamplight. “I want to let the storm inside.”

Her eyes narrowed, not understanding until he slid from inside her, crawled off the bed and padded to the window. She reached quickly for the lamp and turned it off, just as he whipped back the curtains and flung up the bottom pane. Hot, wet wind blasted inside. Light gleaming from the bathroom wouldn’t be enough to let the neighbors see inside.

“The floor will get wet,” she muttered.

He glanced over her shoulder. “Do you really care?”

“Guess it depends on whether you’re planning to distract me.” She laid down the challenge, loved the hard curve of his mouth as he stomped back to the bed.