Her Prison Pen Pal (Love Behind Bars)

The slick heat between my legs is another issue altogether. My panties are as wrecked as my filthy thoughts.

Trixie, my ninety-pound sack of former chained dog sweetness, comes sauntering in and sidles up to me, leaning against my thigh. She’s built like a tank, but a gentle giant, and I reach out to scratch behind her ears as I think of all the dogs we’ve managed to get surrendered over the years.

Turning hopeless, tortured lives into something bright and new.

Is that what I want to do for Dutch? Is that even something I have any right to think about? Because he’s not a chained pit bull. He’s a grown man.

And what a man.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I met Dutch, but when I saw him standing there next to my Dad it felt like the floor was quaking under my feet. His flannel shirt was unbuttoned enough to show off thick ink that seems to cover his chest and down his arms.

His almost-black hair could use a trim, as well as his beard, but what held me in place was the way his riveting blue eyes pinned me where I stood. Heat flooded my veins as my throat tightened and all the fantasies I’ve had over the last year paled in comparison to the man than stood in front of me.

I already want to run back and throw my arms around him. To everyone else, we are strangers, but we know better. I think of all the letters. How we shared so much. Yet, do we really know each other at all?

My body says we do. The dramatic physical response leaves me trembling as I wander to the back entryway and scoop some food into a bowl for Trixie, looking out into the backyard where the rest of the pack is playing in the snow. I strip off my jacket and head down the hallway to my bedroom, trying to re-group.

Before I get there, I look through the crack in the door to the laundry room.

“Shit,” I curse as I push it open, feeling my heart beat triple time. Sitting there in the basket are the towels, sheets, and the cell phone my mom said she would put inside the little house for Dutch.

I’m just about to pick it up when muffled but tense voices from the home office that James and my Dad share stop me cold. I stand still, listening.

It’s about work. It’s always about work. I know the shop has been struggling. It always has, to tell the truth, but Dad always seemed to make it work somehow. I know lately James has been pushing for changes and it’s put them at odds more than usual.

Dad raises his voice a little, angry now. Someone broke in a few weeks ago and made off with around twenty-thousand dollars of tools and parts. I take care of the books and pay most of the bills, and I knew we were behind on our insurance premiums when it happened, so the loss wasn’t covered and the tension about keeping things afloat has been pricklier than ever.

I jump back as they both come storming out of the door, brows knitted, and James shoots me a hard look. “We have to go to the shop. Did you show Dutch to the house?” He doesn’t wait for my answer before finishing, “We should be back by dinner.”

They grab their coats and storm out the back door, leaving me speechless. It’s not like James to be so gruff, let alone so rude.

The laundry basket taunts me. I peek around the corner into the kitchen to see my mother elbows-deep in mixing up a bowl of her biscuit dough, singing to her Neil Diamond playlist.

My thoughts drift back to Dutch. I did say if he needed anything to call, but he can’t call because he doesn’t have the phone.

I’ll make it quick, I tell myself.

I lean down, scooping up the basket, my heart hammering against my chest wall and my palms start to sweat. At the door, I don’t bother with my jacket. All I’m going to do is leave the basket outside the front door for him, knock and high-tail it back to the house.

Jesus, why am I so dizzy?

He’s like a testosterone sex drip that’s being fed directly into my vena cava. How am I going to be able to live here with him? No one has mentioned if there’s a cap on the time that he’s going to stay, only that they are going to have him work at the shop, where I work as well when I’m not doing my outreach runs.

Which means I’m going to be dizzy here at home, and at work, and probably even worse when he’s far away.

I stomp down the shoveled path, the fog of my hot breath leading the way, horrified at the thought there could be another drift of steam trailing out from between my legs, because it feels like a churning steam engine down there right now.