Page 63 of Whispers of the Dead

I reach out a tentative hand and brush his cheek with my fingertips. His skin is warm, his unshaven face rough beneath my touch, and I can feel the tension in his jaw that’s wound so tightly into him that it vibrates throughout his body. “You have an amazing heart, Damon. You care so deeply. That’s not a weakness. It’s your strength.”

He shakes his head, but I won’t let him pull away.

My hands move at a slow pace. My fingers trace the sharp lines of his face, his strong jaw, the corded muscles in his shoulders. I can feel the weight he carries, the guilt he allows to crush him, and I want nothing more than to take it from him. He doesn’t even realize that he doesn’t need to bear it alone.

“I have feelings for you,” I admit, my voice barely above a breath. “The same feelings I have for all of you, and they’re only getting stronger with each passing moment.”

Damon doesn’t move at first. His breathing turns heavy, his shoulders rising and falling with each exhale. Then he leans forward until his forehead rests against mine. His voice comes out broken. “Why me?”

My eyes close and I take in his scent, his presence, his warmth. “I couldn’t see you. For so long, I didn’t know if you were real, or more whispers of the dead.” I lift my hand and rest it against his bare chest, where his steady heart beats beneath my palm. “Then I saw your heart before I ever saw your face. I felt you, I heard you, and you saw me whenI felt invisible, despite the spotlight on me. You protected me when I couldn’t protect myself. I’ve never felt safer than I do locked away behind these bars with you.”

He still doesn’t say a word.

My arms tremble, but he remains still as a statue. “I’ve been locked away in this cell for I don’t even know how long, but somehow, it still feels like the safest place I’ve ever been, and that’s because of you. Because of you, Benji, and Cole. I no longer fear dying, because I finally feel like I get to live.”

My fingers trail down his chest, his abdomen, and around his waist. He lets me pull him closer until his body is pressing up against the bars, as close to me as we can get.

“You’re worthy, Damon, and I’ll keep proving that to you as often as I can.” I press a soft kiss to his bare chest, then another, and another, my lips trailing down downward.

His body shudders when I reach the waistband of his jeans. His breath hitches when I undo the button and my fingers dip beneath the fabric. I feel his gaze on me when I curl my fingers into the waistband and tug them down his legs, taking his boxers along with them. I sink to my knees and reach around his massive thighs before sinking my fingertips into his hamstrings. His body tenses with the urge to hold back, but his cock springs to life in front of me in a warm greeting. I lean forward and wrap my lips around the tip. Metal scrapes against the bars when his hands move against them in a vise-like grip.

“Zoey,” he breathes out. “Don’t do anything that you feel obligated to.”

I glance up at him. His face is still shrouded in shadows. “I never do anything I don’t absolutely want to do, Damon.”

Then I silence my own words my taking him in deep, swirling my tongue around his cock, sucking and licking him and cupping his balls. I give him the best blow job of my life—and his life, by the sounds he makes—until hisbody tightens, and he tries to pull away. I dig my nails into his legs and hold him in place while I swallow down every drop of him.

When I’m done, he reaches down and pulls me to my feet. He slams his mouth against mine before I have a chance to speak.

He licks himself off my lips with his strong arms banding around my body and crushing me against his chest as much as he can manage. “I imagined your lips around my cock when your mouth was slack open and Benji’s fingers were inside you. I didn’t think it would actually happen, though,” he says against my lips while barely pulling away enough to speak.

My fingernails lightly scrape down the sides of his biceps, but before I can respond, a metallic clang shatters the moment.

The door at the end of the corridor wrenches open and the sound echoes through the cell block like a gunshot. Damon growls low. His arms release me and he whirls toward the noise.

Footsteps.

I turn in time to see Eugene step into the light that splashes into the corridor with two dregs flanking him. I recognize them as the one with the bruised jaw and the one with the missing dick.

Eugene’s expression is pure hatred. His eyes burn and his jaw clenches so tight I think it might snap. His gaze locks onto me, then to Damon, who’s rushing to get his jeans back up. He takes in our close proximity with the heat still lingering between us. “What the hell is going on here?”

Damon stiffens behind me.

Eugene’s lip curls into a sneer. “You think you can do whatever you want?” His voice drips with venom and I take a step back. “This is my house. I finally have you, and you still choose these pathetic excuses for men over me? I couldmake you a queen. They can’t make you anything more than rat food.”

He reaches for something on his belt and pulls out a taser. Before I can react, he fires it at Damon.

The shock of electricity crackles through the air. Damon jerks with a violence that sends terror rolling through me. A strangled gasp tears from his throat before he collapses to the floor.

“Stop it!” I scream, gripping the bars so hard that my fingernails dig into my palm and puncture the skin. “Leave him alone.”

Eugene’s gaze snaps to me and his hand shoots forward to grab me through the bars. I cry out when cold metal snaps around my wrists. When he tightens the cuffs, his fingers dig into my skin and his breath is hot with fury. “You think you can defy me?”

“Let her go!” Benji roars while throwing himself against the bars while Cole rattles his, but the metal is unbreakable.

The other two dregs haul Damon out of his cell, his body limp, while Eugene unlocks mine and yanks me forward.

Panic claws through my chest, and I struggle against his hold with no use. My heart slams against my ribs.

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