CHAPTER 1
Jo
His eyes reminded me of my worst and most beautiful mistake.
They made me as nervous as I was on the first afternoon I drove to teach here. Questions, self-doubt and self-preservation had kicked in. A men’s prison classroom wasn’t exactly the best or the safest place for a twenty-three-year-old female teacher to be. Would thestudentssee a teacher or prey? Would they respect me? Would they listen to what my mind had to offer or would I be reduced to a body, a form of entertainment, a fantasy to warm up their lonely nights?
After a couple of classes, I’d stopped asking those questions because, much to my surprise, many students here had been more engaged and curious about Creative Writing than I’d seen in a regular high school class. The inmates really wanted to learn. Aside from all the trivial stuff like gates, visitor forms, the occasional catcalls and uncooperative guards…and the terrible smell, I never regretted volunteering here. I loved coming to San Quentin State Prison every week. The Arena as the inmates called it. It was my way to make amends, to atone. If I’d ever be redeemed.
Until Laius Lazzarini joined my class.
Even though he hardly spoke, the intense way he looked at me—which felt an awful lot like the look that had brought me to my knees and made me do the unpredictable—sent back the anxiety…and the memory.
As if it’s ever left me…
The summer was half gone, and I was still haunted by the eyes that had abandoned me, the dark green pools that would hold me captive and make me submit to whatever they demanded. An exaggeration? Not unlikely. An act of sheer stupidity? Absolutely. No clever woman would have ever made the choices I’d made.
No matter what I did, though, I couldn’t get Tirone Wisely’s eyes off my mind, missing the way they made my mouth dry yet other parts of me wet, that I was searching for them even in the worst of places…like in the face of a convicted criminal.
It was pure agony, the reminder, but behind the sunglasses I pretended to forget on my face every class, I wouldn’t stop taking those gazes back at Laius. Couldn’t.
It wasn’t only because the president of the Night Skulls MC had incredible dark green eyes with an exceptional shade of gray surrounding them that made anything else in their proximity not worth looking at or that the intensity of his stare exuded power, sadness and menace all in one, daring you to look away, knowing you’d fail.
No. I kept staring back because I needed the reminder of my shame, the pain. Deserved it.
“Miss Moonshow, I have a question,” one of the students interrupted my awkward staring session, and I didn’t need to look to know which one.
Frustration, and a flicker of irritation, pulsed in me as I glanced toward the voice. If I made the effort to learn how to say Laniakea Kelekolio correctly, why would he not return the courtesy? I’d spent a substantial time on my first class instructing students on how to address me. Knowing that my last name could be a little tricky, I even permitted them to use my first name if they found Miss Meneceo too hard to say. Seriously, how hard couldMissJobe to say or remember? But no, Laniakea Kelekolio found that Miss Moonshow was the most convenient name to call me today.
“It’s Meneceo, you idiot,” Laius said under his breath and dropped his pencil on the notebook in front of him, tilting his head a little to the side toward Laniakea. “Me-ne-che-yo. How many times is she supposed to say it before you learn it, fucktard?”
My head jerked toward Laius. He’d barely said two words to his classmates since he set foot in my class, not even in greeting, always minding his own business and forcing the others to do the same with his intimidating stares. Having the urge to break his silence—and barriers—to correct my name on another man’s tongue sent an unfamiliar, warm, fuzzy feeling through me, as if he’d just defended my honor, not just told someone how to pronounce my last name.
“Not everybody here is fucking Italian, Furore. It took me a while to say yours the way your Italian royal ass likes it,” Laniakea said.
Laius rolled his eyes. “Furore is an English word, too, dickhead.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Actually, it is,” I intervened. “It means an uproar.” Which I found odd to be the road name of a man as quiet as Laius. Maybe he wasn’t too quiet outside of those gates. Or maybe he had a reputation of making girls go so loud in a furore…
Or he’s just from Furore, Italy, you dirty slut.
“What the…” Laniakea scrunched his nose at me, and then he shook his head at Laius. “Just mind your fucking shit and finish the fucking assignment.”
Laius smirked. “Already done.”
“Fucking showoff.”
“Laniakea, remember what we practiced three classes ago?” I was no longer fazed by the inmates’ use of the F word like their lives depended on it whenever they spoke, but if they had to swear, at least, they had to be creative about it. It was one of my first assignments for them. Creative swearing. Everybody seemed to have enjoyed that class in particular, and I still had their papers to prove these men knew how to be creative when they wanted to be.
“Well, sorry, Miss M…Jo.” He glared at Laius. “Away, you three-inch fool.”
I stifled a gasping laugh, expecting a riot. As the class erupted in sneers, and the guard in the room clutched his baton, I took a step back, reflexively, but my stare never left Laius’s face. Harmless joke or not, even the politest of men lost their composure when penis size was involved. Would he snap? It was always the quiet ones you should be most afraid of. He was in for assault with a deadly weapon after all.
But he didn’t even blink. With all the confidence and nonchalance in the world, the corner of his mouth curved higher. “Oh, I’ll show you how many inches I got for you when I’m deep in yourbone hole.”
Bone hole…I like that.
