Auctioned to the Prisoners Read Online Stephanie Brother

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Erotic Tags Authors: Stephanie Brother Advertisement1

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I’ve been barefoot and naked for most of my time in Blackstone Penitentiary, so it’s strange to be clothed differently, like a kid returning to school after summer break. My eyes dart to the corners of the room, taking it in for the last time.

“You ready?” the warden asks, fingering the side of his mustache. He looks grim today, and I respect that. He understands the gravity of this act to remove me early. He promised them thirty days, and now he’s whipping away the candy like the witch in Hansel and Gretal.

I wonder how many people have felt like me about leaving this jail behind. Are there men who’ve become so institutionalized that leaving the walls they’ve become accustomed to has felt like punishment? Being yanked away from these men is causing me physical pain, the ache around my heart an echo of sorrow. My stomach is woven into complex knots I fear I won’t ever be able to untie.

“No.” I want him to know that this isn’t what I want, or at least make him confident that I’m torn up about leaving. Being able to help Kennedy early will be a relief, but knowing it’s on the back of three men’s misery will cloud everything.

I stand halfway between them, not knowing what to do with myself. For a week, I’ve been a part of them. I’ve become so used to their hands on me that when I stand alone, there’s something missing and I’m unbalanced. The outside world is vast and lonely without their arms to hold me together.

I turn to face them, watching James’s throat move with an almighty swallow. Rock fights to keep his expression neutral, and Kinkaid looks anywhere but at me. My breath is trapped, stretching my lungs. Tears burn my throat, and one slides down my cheek. “Bye,” I whisper.

Will they hold their reserve?

I understand why they’re keeping their distance now. They don’t want to wear their pain or desperation. It’s a protection mechanism necessary for survival in a place like this. I won’t hold it against them because they’re practically vibrating with tension, their mouths tight and their eyes pleading. It’s killing them to let me go.

James is the one to break first. He reaches me in two determined strides and crushes me against him, lifting my feet from the ground.

Rock is next, stealing me away to hug and kiss away my tears. He pulls something from his pocket and presses it onto my hand. When I look down, I discover a small, folded origami rose made from the pages of a book. I blink and tears trickle a path down my hot cheeks.

Kinkaid is last, and he can’t look at me, but his hold is firm, his kiss to my forehead gentle and fleeting as though touching me is too much for him to bear. When I stare up, desperate to look into his sapphire eyes, he maintains his gaze on a point in the distance. I pull the hastily scribbled note from where it’s tucked into my waistband and stuff it into his hand. He glances down, then closes it tightly in his fist.

“You should go now,” he says in his cold, gruff voice, but he holds me just a little too long to be truly unaffected.

I pull away, inhaling a gulp of breath to push down the wave of sadness that would be big enough to knock me off my feet if I let it escape. The warden holds the door open for me, and I walk without awareness, like a windup toy crossing the floor, its attention focused on nothing. The click of the door behind me is so final, it makes me gasp. I don’t turn because looking back is pointless. They’re trapped in a world that isn’t mine. But I won’t be able to forget them. Not ever. I’ll write to them. I’ll tell them how I feel. I’ll make them understand that I want to wait for them, however long it’ll take.

Before I was sold at auction, my life was meaningless and empty. I got by but I wasn’t thriving. I was lonely, deep in my bones, giving away my heart for peanuts in return.

I want more than that now. I want to be the life they’re dreaming about having when they’re finally released. I want to be their hope and salvation.

I want all this love crowded inside me to find a home inside them.

I want redemption for us all, and I’ll get it.

I’ll fight and I’ll win because if I’ve survived my life until now , there’s nothing I can’t do.

21

KINKAID

TUESDAY AFTERNOONS

Dear Kinkaid,

It’s strange to write to you. There's a lot I want to say but can't. You know why. I just wanted to let you know that I'm okay. Well, as okay as it’s possible to be without you. Is it stupid that I wish I could be locked up with you and share a too-small bunk and eat terrible food just so we can whisper to each other in the dark? I dream of you, and it's like we're together, and everything is brightly colored. Then I wake, and it's gray again.


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