Free Inside by Brenda Novak Page A

sweater from its hanger. “That’s it.”
    “Peyton—”
    His use of her first name took her off guard. Both the inmates and staff at the prison called her Chief Deputy Adams, as he’d done only moments ago. “What?”
    “There are people who want me dead. You read that letter, you know what they’re doing to my sister. If they’ve found me, if they’re watching me, they could follow us—”
    “They haven’t found you.”
    “How do you know?”
    Deciding to wear her hair down for a change, she ran a brush through it. “Because you’d already be dead.”
    His silence implied that he agreed, but he hadn’t given up arguing with her. “There is one other thing.”
    “What’s that?”
    “I was just released from prison, remember?”
    “I’m not likely to forget.”
    “It doesn’t bother you—make you afraid?”
    “According to what I’ve been told, you were innocent.”
    “That doesn’t mean I remained innocent. You’re the one who suggested I’ve become…warped.”
    She remembered the comment she’d made in the meeting. “Have you ever raped or killed a woman, Virgil?” she asked. “No.”
    “Would you if you had the chance?”
    “I had the chance yesterday, didn’t I?”
    She set her brush on the vanity. “Exactly.”
    His voice deepened. “But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want you.”
    The flutter in her stomach surprised her even more than his unexpected admission. She’d been propositioned by a lot of inmates in her day. She’d reacted with annoyance, revulsion, fear, sometimes amusement, but she’d never felt breathtaking excitement. She couldn’t imagine why she’d feel it now, except that it’d been a long time for her, too. Maybe not fourteen years, but two or three. And since Crescent City offered so little in the way of romantic possibility, the future didn’t seem very promising.
    “What you want is a woman, any woman,” she said. “That’s hardly flattering.”
    “Maybe not any woman,” he responded.
    She grinned at the wry note in his voice. “Humor, from an intense guy like you?”
    “When everything’s a matter of life and death you tend to get serious very fast.”
    “I understand. I’m serious, too, about bringing down the Hells Fury. That means we need to get to work—and I can’t show you pictures over the phone. I guess we could rent a motel room in a different city, where wewouldn’t have to worry about being spotted, but I don’t see how that would be an improvement. If we’re going to be alone it might as well be here.”
    “As long as you know not to trust me too much, we’ll be fine.”
    “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you just said you wouldn’t hurt me. At least, I think that’s what you meant.”
    “I won’t hurt you. But if you give me the opportunity to do the opposite, I’m taking it.”
    Oh, God… He thought he was putting her on notice, scaring her off. He probably figured that if he destroyed any chance he had before they were even together, he wouldn’t get his hopes up. But, in reality, he was offering her some of the thrills that’d been so conspicuously missing from her life. “Then I’ll be careful to keep my signals clear.”
    “That’s all I ask.”
    Now she was worried, but more because of how she might react to him than how he might react to her. “See you in a few minutes.”

5
    V irgil was fairly certain that what he stood to lose outweighed what he stood to gain. Driving himself crazy wanting what he couldn’t have had never seemed wise. While in prison, he’d watched other men torture themselves over missing this or that and he made a point of not being so stupid. But he was only human. And, as the chief deputy warden led him up the stairs to her front door, moving slowly because of her ankle, her ass was right at eye level. He couldn’t help admiring it. He’d been seventeen when he’d had his last sexual encounter—with the girl he took to the homecoming dance. They’d dated a few