Page 94 of Prohibited

“Make yourselves right at home,” he said in a thick drawl. Then he clipped the keyring back onto his belt and sauntered back down the hallway, chuckling at his little joke.

Impulsively, Ryan went to the bars and wrapped his hands around them, sweat slicking his flesh against the painted white metal. He fit his forehead between two of the bars and rested it there, eyes boring into the ground.

Caged. Caged like an animal.

“I wonder how long it would take for him to bleed out if I hung him like a pig and slit his throat.” Alex’s voice was soft, conversational.

Ryan closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.

Being incarcerated was bad enough. But he was stuck in here with Alex. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Just the two of them. The smell of Alex’s hair still in his nose, the deep, animal sound he’d made when Ryan penetrated him still ringing in his ears.

Ryan had succeeded in avoiding eye contact and speaking as little as possible outside of necessary conversation, but none of that could erase what crackled in the air between them.

And Alex, for his part, radiated satisfaction. Like a vicious white cat with a feather hanging out of the side of his mouth.

The fire inside of him burned with more heat, more ferocity. A primal and confused jumble of rage, shame, and beneath the shame, pleasure. Such pleasure at having done what he did.

And would he do it again if he could go back and make a difference?

God help, he probably would.

The thought made him miserable.

“As strong as you are,” Alex noted with a wry touch of humor, “I don’t think you’re strong enough to ripopen the cell.”

“I’m not trying to rip open the cell, you bastard, I’m trying to think,” Ryan said between gritted teeth. “And I can’t do that while you keep going on like a gossip.”

“Thinking? Of escape?” A shifting noise behind him, the sound of Alex rising. And then the slow, deliberate sound of his footsteps approaching, causing Ryan’s blood to turn cold, and then hot. “Maybe our Dolly will bake a file into a cake for us.”

“Yeah, right.” Ryan blew out a breath from his nostrils and closed his eyes. “She’ll be pleased to find out the tables have turned, I’m certain.”

But he wasn’t certain, not really. They’d started to regain ground. The old cable tugging them together, revived and growing tighter and tighter. The way their bodies had merged, the way she had looked at him. The way it felt to hold her in his arms again.

“Lindsay certainly won’t, he couldn’t bake clay.” The sound of his feet stopping and moving away. Then slowly, the sound of them coming back. Moving away again. He was pacing. Ryan let out a breath and risked a look over his shoulder at him. Alex had his hands clasped behind his back. Sleeves rolled up. White linen jacket discarded. The snug fit of his waist coat over the soft blue linen of his shirt was a boon to his fair beauty. Ryan swallowed and looked away. He turned so that his back was resting against the bars, folded his arms, and bit down on the corner of his lip while he racked his brain about what to do.

“I mean, we’re just going to have to work out a bribe.” That was the only thing to do, wasn’t it?

“We’ll try.” But there was a skeptical tone in Alex’s voice. “But considering that the pig who locked us in here wouldn’t even take a bribe to let me use the phone, I don’t have my hopes high. The fact that we’re even in here is proof that Stanley has gotten his hand into the PD.”

“I thought you had a contact in the Force,” Ryan said. His eyes were following Alex’s rhythm, back and forth, while he tried very hard not to think of the liquid grace of his movements.

Alex made a noise of disgust. “He got himself into one too many bad situations, red handed. Got caught up by the Feds.”

The Feds. A dark thought. Oklahoma was born a dry state. They’d always contended with bootlegging to get their liquor, and then to sell it, but the Feds didn’t get involved until recently when the whole goddamn nation went dry. And while there were corruptible cops in the Tulsa City Police Department, the Feds seemed untouchable. Self-righteous crusaders out for blood and glory.

“They’re going to wonder where we are.” The thought made his heart twinge. Lindsay worrying about what had become of them. And Saoirse, after everything she’d already been through. And Evelyn, would she also worry?

“Well, one way or another they’ll put it together,” Alex said, his tone dark.

Ryan reached into his breast pocket for his Lucky Strikes and managed to light one with steady hands, inspite of the fact that a deep and cold dread was blossoming in his belly. Thank God they hadn’t taken his cigarettes when they’d patted him down.

“For now, it’s checkmate.” Beneath the annoyance in Alex’s voice, Ryan detected something he didn’t think he’d ever heard from him before. Defeat.

Something about the fact that Alex was feeling beaten took even more of the heart out of him. Alex always had a scheme, a plan. But for all his illegal operations, he’d also never been caught.

Hours passed in tense silence between them, Ryan trying not to notice the feeling of Alex’s eyes boring into him and how it made his body feel hot and cold all at once. He chewed at his fingernails and tried to tell himself that there was an easy solution to all of this.

Then, at long last the sound of heavy footsteps and the rattling of keys broke the silence.

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