Page 32

Mae

In the dim light of his bedroom, I rocked Cas in my arms, staring down at his sweet, chubby baby face. His dark lashes fluttered, fighting sleep, and his dimpled fingers twisted in the long lengths of my hair.

He looked so much like Heath, but we hadn’t had a paternity test done, the way we had with Jay, our older son. By the time Cas had come along, I think we’d all realized that it made no difference whose DNA created our children. I was Mommy to all of them, including Ripley, now legally adopted and mine forever.

And our three boys had three dads.

Which was handy because that many growing boys were a lot. Adding to the chaos was the fact Ripley was headed toward the preteen years and often had friends around, and that Jay was a whirlwind of energy, just like Liam. Not to mention we all had jobs and sports and hobbies and all the other things that made up a big, beautiful life I couldn’t get enough of.

But it did mean I treasured moments of quiet with our youngest, because I knew all too soon, he’d give up naps and would be creating just as much noise and destruction as his siblings.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But I did love rocking him to sleep, even though he was really too old for it and the mommy groups would have shamed me for it.

I didn’t care. For the longest time I’d thought I wouldn’t be able to have kids at all, and I’d somehow been blessed with three. So I wasn’t about to let anyone else tell me how much I could or could not cuddle them.

Cas’s eyes fluttered for the last time as sleep pulled him under. His fingers stopped moving in my hair, and I put him down in his cot, quietly pulling up the sides and locking them into place so he’d be safe.

I didn’t bother sneaking out. With two older brothers always tearing around, Cas had learned to sleep through anything. He’d be out for at least a couple of hours.

I closed his bedroom door behind me, turned around, and jumped a mile.

Liam and Heath stood eagerly on the opposite side of the hallway.

I put my hand over my heart. “Holy hell. You scared the crap out of me! What are you doing, lurking over there like stalkers?” I took some deep breaths, until my body remembered that I was here, safe in the home we’d built together, and not at work, where I constantly had to be on alert.

Heath stepped in silently, wrapping his arms around me and holding me tight. I loved my job, teaching at Saint View Prison. Had even missed it when I’d been on maternity leave after Jay and Cas were born. But there was no doubt in my mind that it sometimes kept me on edge. One I didn’t always quite come down from, even when I was at home.

“Sorry,” Heath murmured into my hair. “We didn’t mean to scare you.”

I inhaled his familiar scent. “It’s not you. Work has me all wound up. My class has been more disruptive than usual this week.”

Liam leaned back on the wall. “Any idea why?”

I pressed the side of my face against Heath’s chest so I could see Liam. “I think they’re bored, honestly. Some of those guys have been in my class for years now. I think I need to change it up. Try to reengage the long-term guys with something new while teaching the new guys the basics they need before they’re released.” I sighed heavily. It was hard with the limited resources and time the prison gave me. I couldn’t just run extra classes so the prisoners could be split into different ability levels. I had to try to do it all in one, and it was frustrating to know I wasn’t doing a good job of it.

Heath brushed his lips over my forehead. “I hate that it’s stressing you out, but I love the way you care about them. Nobody else would worry about it as much as you do.”

“They should,” I grumbled, even though I knew he was right. I’d taken the job as the prison teacher solely so I could be near Heath, when he’d been locked up, wrongly accused of murdering my sister. But somewhere along the way, the job had become one of the most important aspects of my life. And even though some of the guys in my classes were beyond help, a lot weren’t. A good number of them had just been dealt hard lives and needed someone to look past the rough exteriors, to the potential inside.

But I wasn’t due at the prison for a few more hours. And I really did try not to bring my work home with me, even though it was hard when helping those men was important to me. “I don’t want to talk about work anymore.”

Liam stepped in and touched his fingers beneath my chin, lifting my head. “Good. Because it’s Valentine’s Day.”

I widened my eyes. “It is?” Disappointment flooded me as my brain flicked through a mental calendar of days. “Oh my God, it is!” I groaned, cursing the job I loved because sometimes this was the payoff for a career that was important. Sometimes it took over everything else in my brain and left me feeling like a terrible mom and partner.

It was the curse of all working women, I knew that.

But it didn’t make me like myself any more when I screwed up and forgot things like Valentine’s Day. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even buy gifts for you…”

Liam pulled out an envelope from his back pocket. “We didn’t buy gifts either. Remember, we had that conversation in bed a few weeks ago that we’d write letters instead?”

I couldn’t even remember that. Ugh. “Was I half asleep when this conversation took place?”

Heath chuckled, pressing a sealed envelope of his own into my hand. “Actually, you were blissed out from coming three times in a row.”

I slapped his chest with my free hand, hiding a laugh. “Well, then this is really not my fault. You know I would have agreed to buying a pet elephant after three orgasms!”

I plucked the letter from Liam’s fingers and stared down at both the envelopes, a smile spreading across my mouth at how sweet they were. “You really wrote me love letters?”

“Yes.”

“Rowe did, too, but he’s already on shift so he said he’d give you his tonight when you get to work,” Heath added.

I glanced at my watch. “I’ve got two hours until my shift, Cas is down for the count, and Jay and Ripley are at the zoo with Tori and Perry.” I grinned at them cheekily. “I can write my letters for you guys before I need to leave. What a perfect way to spend the afternoon.”

I pressed their letters to my heart and smiled at them, walking backward down the hallway to the bedroom we all shared.

Both of them stared after me, fighting to keep smiles on their faces.

“You do that, babe,” Liam forced out. “Can’t wait to get my Valentine’s letter.” He cleared his throat. “Yep. Great idea of mine this was.” He elbowed Heath.

He coughed. “Uh, yeah. You writing letters is definitely exactly how we planned this afternoon would go.”

I smothered a laugh, twisting when I got to our bedroom door. I could already smell the rose petals they’d sprinkled all over the bed. “Or I could write you a letter tomorrow and we could have sex right now instead…”

The two of them sprinted down the hallway so fast I couldn’t help but laugh.

Heath picked me up, right off my feet, fusing his mouth to mine like he’d been waiting all day for a green light to go for it. I giggled against his lips while he carried me blindly to the huge, custom-made bed the four of us shared.

He dropped me onto it, instantly lifting my dress and ripping down my underwear, rose petals scattering everywhere.

He buried his face between my thighs, licking me in the expert way he’d perfected over years. I moaned, grabbing his head, and raking my nails across his scalp.

But my gaze was all for Liam. He undressed quietly, and my breath quickened, watching him slip out of the fitted shirt he’d worn to work that morning. His abs still made my mouth water, his biceps strong as he stripped his clothes.

His dick was hard just from watching Heath go down on me. Liam stroked himself, his gaze focused on Heath licking my pussy.

I caught Liam’s gaze. “Come here.”

He crawled across the bed and dragged up the dress that had settled around my middle. Heath paused so I could lift to let Liam get my bra off, but as soon as I lay back, he started up again, feasting between my folds.

Once upon a time, I’d been self-conscious about the rolls on my belly and the cellulite on my thighs. They’d only gotten worse with each pregnancy, my weight gain something we never talked about because I refused to let it rule my life. I had three men who were obsessed with my body just the way it was. I had three men who had touched and licked and worshipped every fat roll, every stretchmark, and every dimple.

Three men who loved me for what was on the inside, and for what was on the outside.

None of them had ever tried to change me.

And because of them, I gave myself the grace my body needed to recover from pregnancy without killing myself to try to lose weight

Liam tweaked my nipples, squeezing them hard, just the way I liked. I moaned and reached for his cock, taking it into my mouth and sucking him down deep, wanting him to know how badly his body turned me on.

Because it did. God, so much. And it wasn’t just his body. It was his heart. The way he loved our boys, never complaining when he, year after year, was asked to be their little league coach because none of the other parents wanted to. Or the way he let me sleep in on my days off, getting up with the boys and occupying them with breakfast and cartoons, before sneaking back into bed to join whatever Rowe and Heath might have started with me in his absence.

I sucked him into the back of my throat, as turned on by pleasuring him as I was by Heath biting the insides of my thighs and tonguing my clit until my hips were rolling.

My pussy fluttered, the beginnings of an orgasm threatened. But he backed off, standing to watch Liam thrust into my mouth. Heath stripped his clothes, his long, thick cock springing free.

I had my thighs spread wide, desperate for him to plunge inside me. But he took his time walking to the bedside table, opening it and pulling out a toy.

I lost track of where he was when Liam gathered up my long hair, wrapping it around his fist and angling my head so I could take him deeper. He demanded my attention, and my core wept at the press of his dick to the back of my throat. I wanted him so bad. Got wet at the taste of his precum coating my tongue.

Heath hooked my legs, bending my knees so I was completely open to him, his dick so close to my entrance it was practically criminal he wasn’t inside me.

Vibrations buzzed on my clit and then up inside me.

Heath fit my favorite toy, a C-shaped vibrator with one end that stimulated my clit. The other went up inside me, sitting right on my G-spot. It was small but mighty, and when combined with Heath’s thick cock sliding inside with it, my body threw itself into an orgasm I couldn’t have stopped if I’d wanted to. It was the exact sensation I’d been craving. I moved my hips, the toy deep, Heath groaning with his dick buried deep inside me. This toy was just as much for him as it was for me.

My orgasm had me moaning around Liam’s dick, but he didn’t let himself come. He pulled out, and Heath dropped down on top of me. He kissed me hard, our tongues meeting, Liam’s precum probably still on mine, but if Heath could taste him, he didn’t seem to care. He shifted us to our sides, fucking me slow, riding out my orgasm while he tried to keep his at bay so this could last longer.

But, God. That toy. It was heaven and hell all in one. So good at getting you to the edge. Then an absolute devil when your guys just kept using it to launch you into multiple orgasms.

A few times, I’d tried to remove it after I’d come, and they’d simply spanked my ass and used it to drive me into another mind-blowing finish.

Liam fit himself in behind me, his lubed-up cock sliding between my ass cheeks.

I ground back on him shamelessly, and he chuckled, knowing that I loved it just as much as he did.

And it was even better if I had one of the other guys inside me at the same time.

Liam pressed against my rear opening but then moved no more, letting Heath’s thrusts and my own need push me back onto his erection. It was inch by inch of deliciously slow entry, giving me time to adjust but also driving me wild. Both guys groaned when Liam bottomed out inside me, my pussy and ass so tight with both of them plus the small toy, I knew none of us could hold out much longer.

Heath was the first to come, slamming his hips with mine, fucking me hard and fast and sending me into another orgasm with him. My head spun, my nipples ached, and I shouted his name, knowing the baby wouldn’t wake up, no matter how loud we got.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he groaned on my lips, kissing me hard, messily, neither of us caring that we were all tongues and lips and desperate need.

My fingernails scratched up and down his back as I held him to me, drowning in the last of his thrusts.

“Don’t pull out,” I begged, even though my pussy could barely handle the continued stimulation.

“Not a fucking chance,” Heath whispered back. “Need to feel you come again, even if I can’t.”

I moaned at his dirty words, loving every one of them.

Liam rolled me onto Heath, and true to his word, Heath kept his dick inside me, even though he’d come. He was warm, and there was a mess seeping from inside me, but neither of us cared.

I arched my back and bent my knees, straddling Heath beneath me. Liam fucked my tight rear hole from behind. He slapped his palm across my ass cheek, leaving a stinging mark that only got me hotter. My breasts hung, soft and natural without any support from a bra. Heath raised his head, sucking one nipple into his mouth and drawing on it hard enough to spin my head.

His hand came up to massage my other breast, and he and Liam worked in unison, driving me into another orgasm that I was absolutely sure would be the death of me.

Except this was nothing new.

This wasn’t an everyday experience, but with three men in my bed each night, I was no stranger to threesomes. And I never got sick of them.

Liam came, kissing my neck from behind. He worked himself in and out of my body, while he and Heath both whispered how good I felt, how beautiful I was, how well I took them both. He shuddered out his release with a few final slow thrusts, just because each one had me in ecstasy.

Finally sated, the three of us fell in a heap, a mess of arms and legs and sweet sticky sweat from me being smushed between them.

“Do you want to read your letters now?” Liam asked lazily, once our breaths had evened out a little.

I twisted back to kiss him. “I do, but I don’t know that my eyes have regained focus after that last orgasm.”

Heath licked a trail up my neck, his fingers already reaching between us to find my clit again. “You can read the letters later. The only letter I want to hear from your mouth right now is Oh.”

“So, who can tell me the correct placement for an apostrophe in this sentence?”

I underlined the words on the chalkboard in my classroom and turned around to face my class.

Nobody paid me any attention. A group of new guys whose names I hadn’t memorized yet sat on the desks in the back corner, their feet on the chairs, one of them beatboxing while another kept time by tapping his fingers on the tabletop.

Two of my regulars, Jonathan and Andre, were deep in conversation about something that had happened in the prison yard that day. Ethan scrawled something across a pad of paper, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t notes on my class.

Even Levi, who had been my favorite student for years, sketched something on the back of the worksheet I’d handed out at the beginning of class.

I sighed heavily.

Levi was the only one who looked up.

He straightened when he realized I was waiting on the class, and then threw a pencil at the new guys. “Hey. Shut up. Show some respect.”

One of them opened his mouth, probably to run it.

But Levi glared at him.

The newcomer quickly shut it.

Levi nodded and then turned back around in his seat.

I started up the lesson again, but I wasn’t blind. I could see the disinterest in their eyes. Even Levi gradually sank lower and lower in his chair, and though I could see him fighting to maintain interest in my grammar class, I was getting nowhere.

I gave up and clapped my hands. “Class dismissed.”

The new guys were out the door like lightning, a chair knocking over in their rush to leave. I doubted any of them would come back. Which was disappointing. But also on me.

My classes had gotten stale. It was my fault they weren’t interested.

Levi glanced up at me, his forehead furrowed in confusion. “We still have twenty minutes left.”

I shook my head. “Not tonight. Go. Enjoy some free time.”

He didn’t look terribly impressed by the idea, but he gathered up his things slowly anyway while the rest of the room emptied out. He righted the knocked-over chair and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about tonight. About the last couple of classes, really. I’ve been distracted.”

I perched my behind on the edge of my desk and folded my arms across my chest. “Any reason why? Other than this work is clearly about as interesting as watching paint dry.” I smiled so he knew I was joking.

Except I kind of wasn’t. When had these classes gotten so stale?

Except I knew when. It was in between changing diapers, and running kids to baseball practice, and being a member of the PTA, and cooking dinner for six, and a million other everyday ‘mom and wife’ things that hadn’t been on my plate back when I’d first started this job.

I’d let this side of my life slip, and it wasn’t fair on these men. And it wasn’t fulfilling the desire I had to help them. Something had to change.

Levi paused with his books in his arms. “My parole hearing didn’t go well the other day. It’ll be another year before I get another shot.”

My shoulders slumped. “Oh, Levi. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

He shrugged. “It is what it is. Wasn’t my time, I guess.”

It should have been. Levi was one of the nicest guys in here. He’d been in the minimum security side of the prison for years and had a spotless record, as far as I knew. I suspected the reason he was still here had more to do with the fact he was a Slayer, one of the bikers from the club here in town. And that an example was being made of him. A warning to the other club members that if they got on the wrong side of the cops, the punishment, even for minor crimes like Levi’s, would be harsh and long.

It felt bitterly unfair. Especially if what I’d heard on the grapevine was true. And that Levi had taken the fall for the Slayers’ old prez, Army Maynard.

I breathed out slowly, hating the injustice of it all. Levi didn’t deserve to be in here. He’d done his time. Paid a price. And now he should be able to move on. The fact the system wouldn’t let him seemed unjust.

Even though I wasn’t supposed to touch the prisoners, I reached out and squeezed his arm, trying to reassure him. “Next year will be your time. I’m going to make sure of it.”

He smiled softly, slipping out of my grasp. “You can’t promise that, Miss. Donovan. But I appreciate the thought.”

He moved silently to the door, and I watched him go, not knowing how I could help but desperately wanting to. I was still staring at the door when Rowe walked past it a moment later.

I smiled instantly at his tousled brown hair and warm tanned skin. His guard’s uniform fit him so snuggly, pants tight across his ass, shirt clinging to his biceps and chest in a way that was all too appealing to me.

The sight of him walking into my room still had my stomach turning over with butterflies just as much as it had years ago when we’d first met inside this building.

He gazed around the empty classroom in confusion. “Where is everyone?”

“Gave them an early pass. I don’t think any of us were feeling it tonight.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the mostly closed door and the hallway outside before he slipped a hand around my waist and bent his head so his lips could press to mine.

I closed my eyes, sinking into his touch, kissing him back, needing him.

“Mmm.” His mouth vibrated against mine, and he deepened the touch, his tongue flicking at my lips, demanding entrance.

His fingers skated down my arms to my hands, and then he put something into one of them.

I pulled back, reluctantly breaking away from the kiss that was spinning my head, but curiosity got the better of me. I stared down at the piece of paper he’d given me and then grinned up at him. “Is this my Valentine’s Day letter or has the prison warden started sending memos in red envelopes with hearts on them?”

He shrugged. “Liam said we all had to do it.” But then he ducked his head to kiss his way up my neck, until he got to my ear. “But once I started writing, I realized how much I don’t tell you how amazing you are.”

I shook my head. “You do.”

His gaze caught mine, his tone turning serious. “But I don’t. Not like this. Read it.”

He had a funny expression on his face, one that looked a whole lot like a vulnerability that wasn’t typical from him.

As much as I wanted to just keep on kissing him, I opened the crumpled piece of paper and stared down at his messy handwriting.

There was no pleasantries. He just got straight into exactly what he wanted to say.

I met you at a time when I didn’t think I could love anyone ever again, for fear of how much that sort of love can hurt. But then you taught me that not loving someone when they’ve stolen your whole heart can hurt even more. You saved me, Mae. You gave me a life I could have never dreamed of. One for me, and one for Ripley. And then together, we made a home. One that I look forward to coming back to every day, because everyone I love is right there under one roof. I know I tell you you’re a great mom. And I know I tell you I love your cooking, and that I love your ass.

I giggled at that, because he did say that a lot.

But I don’t know how often I tell you that I love your heart. I love what you bring not only to our family but to our friends, to our community, and to your work. I don’t know if I tell you enough that you’re my soulmate. That you make me want to be a better man. And that I get up every day, because my world, as long as you’re in it, is the happiest place I could ever want to be.

I was surprised by the tear that dripped down my cheek.

He was wrong. He had said all of those things to me. A million times even.

But there was something powerful about reading it on paper. A strength in the fact he’d put it down in words I could read every day.

They felt like promises.

Like vows.

I snaked my fingers into his hair and pulled his head down to meet mine, kissing him as hard and deep and passionately as I could, telling him with my body that I felt everything he did just as strongly.

When I got home, I’d write letters to all three of my men. Vowing to love them just as much as they loved me.

Rowe groaned into my mouth, his hands finding the side of my hips and digging in there to sit me up on my desk. He pushed my knees apart, fitting himself in between and dragging my long dress up my legs. He tugged me closer, so my center pressed on the growing bulge behind his pants.

“I need you.” He kissed me hungrily, devouring my mouth.

My head spun. All sense of right and wrong had always disappeared when Rowe took me like this at work. My thighs clenched around his, an ache inside me too strong to ignore.

“The door,” I gasped.

But it was so far away. And I was sure that if he stopped grinding against me to shut it, the moment would pass.

I didn’t want to let it go. I wanted to remember what it felt like to have him take me hard and fast all over the prison. That’s how we’d been back when we’d first met, when everything was wild and new and exciting.

All of those feelings were still there, bubbling away under the surface layer of kid appointments and household chores.

I still felt it.

And clearly, so did he.

He reached a hand between us, rubbing my clit through the fabric of my dress.

My underwear got damp with my need for him. But I glanced at the slightly ajar door again.

“Nobody is over here.” Rowe undid his fly. “Fuck, Mae. I want you so fucking bad. Tell me to stop.”

But his lips were on my neck, and my core throbbed for him like I hadn’t had him inside me in years, even though it had actually only been a few days. This felt different. Wild. Dangerous. Reckless.

But all with a man who made me feel so safe, that if he said we could do this here and now, then I knew we could.

I stopped thinking about the outside world.

Stopped worrying about who might see us.

And just concentrated on the man I loved with every inch of my being.

I ripped my skirt up all the way and pulled aside my panties, knowing full well neither of us could wait until I got them off.

I moaned at the tiny glimpse of his thick cock I got before it drove inside me.

He muffled my cries with his mouth, kissing me deep, his cock stretching me out until I was gripping his shoulders and begging for more.

He slid out, only to push back in. His second slide was as heavenly as the first, the thickness of him so delicious I could barely hold on to my scream. He slammed himself in and out of my body, taking me hard and fast, fucking me until an orgasm roared inside me, taking full control and sending me into a spin of pleasure I wasn’t sure I could come back from. I came hard, clamping down around his cock with his fingers on my clit and his tongue in my mouth. He followed me over the edge a second later, coming inside me, kissing me hard.

He rode us both out, our clothes still mostly in place but the pleasure exploding across my skin like starbursts. My dress felt too tight on my breasts, my nipples overly stimulated even though he hadn’t touched them.

My entire body hummed with electricity, and he repeated the words from his letter, whispering them against my lips, reminding me he loved me and that I was his and that this thing between us, with Heath and Liam included, was endless.

More promises. The kind we’d never get to say in a wedding because a relationship like ours would never be recognized by the society we lived in.

But we had these moments. The ones where we knew that this was forever. That we promised it. Believed it. Knew there would be no other way.

We breathed together, clutching each other, him tucking his dick back into his underwear, me fitting my panties back into place. Instantly, they were soaked in his cum.

But I liked it. Liked knowing what we’d done together, and that a part of him would be inside me for the rest of the night.

Like he was thinking the same thing, he practically growled out my name. “Mae.”

I glanced up from straightening my clothes. “Yeah?”

Another kiss told me exactly what he needed. More of this would happen tonight when we got home. I already knew he’d be all over me, stripping my clothes, fucking me on every available surface as soon as we got through the doors.

And that Liam and Heath would join us.

Trembles of anticipation rolled down my spine.

Someone cleared their throat in the doorway, and Rowe and I spun around.

Levi stood in the doorway, pink staining his cheeks and trying to hide a grin.

Rowe jumped away from me awkwardly. “Uh. Right. Miss Donovan. Well, seems like you have a student, so I’ll leave you to deal with that. Good day.”

As embarrassing as it was to have been almost busted by a prisoner, Rowe’s formal choice of words was something I immediately planned to tell the others once we got home. Liam and Heath would have a field day.

I tipped an imaginary cap at him. “Good day to you, too, sir.”

He shot me a warning look as he slipped past Levi. One that promised I’d pay for my cheek with endless edging once we were home.

Levi winced in my direction. “Sorry about that.”

I slid down off the table, trying to discreetly straighten the skirt of my dress. “Nothing to be sorry for.”

“You and Pritchard, huh?” He smirked.

He might have been my favorite prisoner, but that didn’t mean I was going to tell him anything about my personal life. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mmm-hmm.” But he let the subject drop and crossed the room to the chalkboard that still had my lesson written across it.

Levi picked up the stick of chalk I’d been using earlier and studied the board. Then worked his way across it, perfectly punctuating each sentence.

I watched him with a smile. “You’ve been studying?”

He dropped the chalk back onto my desk. “I felt bad about how we ruined your lesson. I just wanted you to know that they are actually helping. And that someone here does appreciate the effort you make.”

He was a good guy. Incredibly sweet and kind. He didn’t deserve to still be in this place. He’d changed over the years. Grown up. It wasn’t fair that he was still paying a price for something he possibly hadn’t even done.

“I really am sorry about your parole hearing.”

He nodded. “Thank you.”

But he seemed so down that worry flickered inside me. I could see the hope in him had been shattered. And I knew what would happen from here if he let that little spark die completely.

He’d drift away from programs.

Get back in with the gangs that ruled the prison.

And all of his hard work over the last few years would be for nothing.

I couldn’t stand the thought of it. He reminded me too much of Heath, and the path Heath might have taken if he hadn’t had me and Rowe and Liam looking out for him.

My gaze drifted to the letter Rowe had written me, sitting on my desk. And I remembered how I’d felt reading it.

An idea sparked in the back of my mind. “Levi!”

He’d already been out the door on his way back to his cell, but he stuck his head back around at my shout. “Yeah?”

“I’m going to start a letter-writing program. Between prisoners and people on the outside.”

He cocked his head. “Like…pen pals?”

I nodded, the idea taking shape in my mind. “Yes! Exactly like that! I’ll put all the details together, but I want you to sign up.”

He scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “I dunno. I don’t think writing is really my thing… My handwriting is barely legible. I can’t spell for shit.”

I stared at him. “I already know that’s not actually true. Maybe it was when you first came here, but I’ve seen the stacks of books you take from the prison library. And you just punctuated a board full of text with zero mistakes. All the reading is paying off. That’s how spelling is learned. By reading and writing, not just in my class but for fun.” I grew more and more excited by the moment because this was how I was going to revamp my class and get the guys interested again. I’d find them people within the community to write to, so at least once a week, they’d be practicing their reading and writing skills in a way that didn’t feel like textbook study. I would vet each applicant to the program myself, making sure each prisoner was matched with someone who could inspire them and encourage them. Learning about people from other walks of life would be good for everyone. Some of the guys in here had never known anything but gang and prison life. I could match them with people who could introduce them to more than what they’d grown up with.

And vice versa. There were people in our community who would benefit from understanding what these men went through behind bars.

Ideas flooded in, until the whole scheme floated behind my eyes. “I think the parole board would look really favorably upon this. And if you get involved, I know the other guys will, too. They all look up to you.”

He scoffed at that, but it was true. Levi was a lone wolf in here, but that was only because he was respected enough for the others to let him be. He was a leader, even if he wasn’t mouthing off and making a big show of it like some of the others in here.

“Please?” I asked him.

Levi crossed his arms over his chest, considering it all. “You know the only way you’re going to get the guys to go for this is if you get women to write to them. If you can do that, they’ll be all over it. You really willing to subject innocent women to all the idiots in here?”

He was right. That would be the best way to entice them into doing what was essentially homework. His concerns were valid, and I already knew they were ones the warden would want answered before he approved a new program.

“We’d monitor it,” I explained, making up the details on the spot. “No emails. Snail mail only so all correspondence can be read first by me or one of the guards.” I eyed him. “But just so you know, not everyone thinks all prisoners are stupid. Some of us know that not everyone here is evil. And that some of you are just regular men, who got caught up in something bigger than them, and that all they need is a second chance.”

His lips pressed into a line.

But I was sure I was getting through to him.

He sighed, staring down at me. “I’ll do it as long as you promise to find me someone interesting. Not one of the prison groupies who is going to tell me I’m just misunderstood and she can fix me. No one who is going to think she’s in love with me just because she has a bad-boy complex and Daddy issues.”

I shook my head, crossing my finger over my chest. “I promise, no prison bunnies. I’ll find you a smart, beautiful woman who will have you craving each letter.”

“No need for her to be beautiful. I’m only writing her letters. Not marrying her.”

“Okay, cool. I’ll make sure she’s really ugly.” I winked at him.

He laughed under his breath as he walked away. “Fine. If she’s tall, blonde, and curvy, I guess that wouldn’t be so bad.”

I could work with that. It was Valentine’s Day… And some part of me apparently wanted to play matchmaker for the tall, brooding, handsome prisoner who didn’t belong here.

So that maybe next Valentine’s Day, he’d get to deliver his letters in person.

Levi’s story continues in book 1 of the Saint View Murder squad trilogy, X’s and O’s.