Read Online All Chained Up by Sophie Jordan - Free Book Online Page B

Anything and everything to make themselves formidable amid a cesspit of punks and killers and men that would jack up their own grandmothers for a C-­note.
    A stint in the hole changed nothing. If anything, he amped up his workout. He kept at it, pushing though his injuries, training his body to the point of exhaustion. Push-­ups. Lunges. Sit-­ups. Jogging in place. By Monday he added jumping jacks, ignoring the tenderness in his ribs. There was no room for tenderness in the Rock. He killed all softness from his body, using the wall for a punching bag, toughening up his fists.
    If, during the nights, the darkness ever got too much and pushed at his carefully constructed walls, he just closed his eyes and fell into the colors inside his mind. Peach skin and hair a dozen different shades. He imagined he was somewhere else, with someone else.
    Dipping into a pool of make-­believe, he dreamed up sunshine. Air that smelled after-­rain fresh. Grass all around him. And a woman beneath him.
    He stroked himself off, pulling hard at his cock, pretending it was a female’s heat, her softness milking him, her creamy thighs spreading wide in welcome. If, at the end, her face resembled the nurse from the HSU, if her mouth cried out sweet, dirty things as he fisted her hair, then so be it. It was just a fantasy to get him through. No harm.
    Someday he’d be out of this hellhole and then he could stop losing himself in impossible dreams and start living again. Someday, when he and his brother were free of this place, he could finally have a life worth living. He wouldn’t need to jack off to the image of a girl who thought he was a low-­life bastard.

 
    SEVEN
    â€œO H, THAT HEALED up nicely,” Briar announced, glad to hear that her voice was crisp and efficient as she hovered over Callaghan—­especially considering her pulse was hammering at the skin of her throat in a way that made her want to press her fingers there.
    Stop it, Briar. Get ahold of yourself and be professional. He was an inmate. Forget about his body and how big it was . . . how it could break anything. Forget about the way his skin smelled like man, and clean sweat and something else entirely. Probably pheromones. Seriously, he could bottle that stuff and sell it for a fortune.
    She’d been working with a surprising degree of productivity since she arrived this morning. Working side by side with Josiah and Dr. Walker, she fell into a rhythm treating patients, almost forgetting they were criminals. Until Callaghan arrived and she remembered everything that had made her uncomfortable about this place in the first place.
    She felt the warmth of Knox Callaghan’s breath near her chin and quickly stepped back, putting space between them as she resisted the urge to rub at her face.
    He hadn’t touched her. He had hardly spoken at all, but it was still there—that undercurrent of something dangerous and unpredictable radiating off him, curling around her and making her chest tight and uncomfortable.
    She turned for the tray of medical tools. “I’m sorry, but this may not be that comfortable.” She tugged on the requisite gloves and picked up the suture scissors.
    â€œIt’s all right,” he answered, the first words he’d spoken since he was escorted into the room.
    Nodding, she began snipping at the sutures, thinking that his way of life wasn’t one of comfort. She glanced only once at his stoic features. He hadn’t shaved in several days and stubble dusted his strong jaw. “You look a little pale,” she murmured. “Are you feeling well?”
    â€œNo sunlight in the hole.”
    She paused at this, imagining some dank little cell with no window. “You’ve been in there since last week?” For some reason, she hated thinking about that. Her mind conjured a dark, terrible dungeon right out of some horror movie. No one deserved being stuck in a place like