“I’m positive,” she broke in. “I want to make it easy for him to talk, if he chooses to do so. You understand.”
“Oh…” He nodded. “I get it.”
When he acquiesced, Virgil nearly grabbed him and told him that he should never, under any circumstances, leave her alone with any of the other cons, even if she insisted on it. In his view, having him do so today didn’t set a good precedent. Just because he was safe didn’t mean any of the other men in Pelican Bay could be trusted.
“I hope you don’t do this with regular cons,” Virgil said after the boy had left.
“I’m not dying to be alone with any of the other inmates.” She came around the desk to lock the door.
“Who’s Joseph Perry and why are we in his office?”
“He’s one of the associate wardens. My office is outside the fence, so this was my best option, unless I wanted to use a conference room.”
“What if he comes back?”
“He won’t. He’s gone for the day. Let’s get you out of those for a minute.” She removed a key for his handcuffs and belly chain from her briefcase, but she wouldn’t catch his eye while using it. She seemed nervous. For some reason, he was, too.
“Why am I here?” he asked, his voice a low murmur.
“I need to show you a note Weston sent me, see what you think we should do.”
The scent of her perfume clouded his ability to think. He could remember it so clearly from when he was running his lips over her skin last Saturday. Which led to the memory of her smooth flesh against his in the bed, her breasts bare beneath him in the moonlight….
“What’d you say?” His body had reacted to his thoughts, left him hard, every muscle rigid.
When she raised her eyes to his, she must’ve realized that he was too busy drowning in desire to comprehend anything else, because she didn’t try to talk to him about the note.
“God, it’s good to see you on your feet,” she said, and then the shackles dropped and his hands were free to touch her.
Peyton couldn’t stop kissing Virgil. He was safe, for the moment, and in her arms, and that was all that mattered. She knew there were concerns, dangers, and that they were very real, but they floated somewhere beyond them, beyond that locked door.
“I want you,” he said, his hands already pulling her skirt.
She caught them. “We can’t. There isn’t time.”
“But I may never see you again.”
She gazed into his troubled eyes. “Don’t say that.” She couldn’t bear the thought of it. “You’re going to be fine. We’ll get through this.”
“Just let me touch you.”
Closing her eyes, she threw back her head as his fingers slipped beneath her panties and his lips moved down her throat. She had to say no before this went too far, but she wasn’t sure she could. She’d never felt anything this exquisite before. Her whole body ached for him—
But then he stepped back. “Why?” he asked, those blue eyes of his as piercing as ever. “Why me?”
He couldn’t trust anything, couldn’t accept even positive attention without examining it for danger. He’d been forced to defend himself for so long he didn’t know how to stop. He reminded Peyton of a wounded animal that both wanted attention and snarled at anyone who tried to provide it.
Cupping his cheek, she ran her thumb over his bottom lip. “Because you’re so much more than you know.”
His hands found what he wanted as he rested his forehead on her shoulder. “I’ll clean up my life,” he promised. “I can make something of myself. I swear it. Then I’ll take care of you.”
“You don’t have to take care of me. And you don’t have to convince me of your potential. I believe in you already. Just worry about protecting yourself so I can sleep at night while you’re in here.”
He kissed her gently, moving his tongue so leisurely against hers she got the impression he was memorizing the taste of her, savoring every second. And then his fingers grew more intimate and slid inside her.
Clenching her hands in his hair, she moaned into his mouth and felt his muscles tense. This was crazy, foolhardy; they had to stop. But her skirt was already up around her waist and with his free hand he was doing his best to unbutton her blouse.
“Virgil, if we’re caught—”
“I just want to see it,” he whispered.
“See what?”
“My medallion hanging around your neck.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “It’s there.”
When he grinned back at her, she couldn’t help laughing. He had such an exultant expression on his face, as if he’d just won the greatest prize imaginable. But before he could kiss her again, a timid knock sounded at the door.
“Chief Deputy?”
“Oh, no,” she whispered. Dean hadn’t left.
“No one else has shown up yet,” he called. “And… I’m getting worried about you. Is everything okay in there?”
“Everything’s fine.” She brushed her lips across Virgil’s one last time before righting her clothes and scrambling to get the cuffs back on him.
“We need to talk about what to do with Weston,” she murmured as she dropped the key to those cuffs in her briefcase. “He’s acting as if he’s found out you’re a plant. He wants to make a deal with us. He says if we let him out of the SHU, he’ll get you inside the HF.”
“Can he know?”
“My gut tells me he can’t, that he’s bluffing….”
“Then don’t do it.”
She nodded in agreement. How she’d get around disobeying Rick’s orders, she wasn’t sure, but she didn’t have time to worry about that right now. There was another knock.
“Excuse me, um, Chief Deputy Warden?” the C.O. called out.
“Coming!” She hurried across the room, but before she could reach the lock, the handle jiggled.
Assuming it was Dean, she turned the button. But the voice that came from the anteroom didn’t belong to the guard. It was Wallace.
27
Rather than offer an immediate excuse, Peyton pretended the fact that the door was locked held no significance. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “I thought you were heading home.”
Wallace didn’t answer. His eyes moved to Virgil. Virgil looked as if the guard had just led him in, but Peyton doubted Wallace would be pleased to see them together in Perry’s office.
“You can go back to work now,” he told Dean, his voice clipped.
Obviously relieved, Pelican Bay’s newest C.O. responded with a dutiful, “Yes, sir,” and strode down the hall.
Silence settled, thick with disapproval, while Virgil and Rick glared at each other.
Peyton cleared her throat. “Would you like to come in?”
“Will you send him out and lock the door if I do?”
Ignoring the insinuation, she perched on the edge of the desk. “No one purposely locked the door, Rick. The button must’ve been accidentally pushed.”
“Right. I’m pretty sure it got pushed just before you took off your clothes.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Or maybe your hair’s mussed because there was a sudden windstorm in here?”
She tucked the fallen strands behind her ears and raised her chin. “It comes loose now and then.”
He walked in and kicked the door shut. “Why are you doing this? Why are you risking my investigation?”
“Your investigation?”
“It was my baby, my idea.”
And his glory if it worked. She’d understood that from the beginning. “This isn’t about professional success, Rick—getting a promotion or a raise or impressing our superiors. This is about lives. And not just Virgil’s. A lot of people could be hurt if this turns into some kind of war.”