“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.
The class went louder than acceptable. Thankful that their desks and chairs were bolted to the floor or else it’d have been a real, chaotic riot in here, I tapped the surface of my desk twice hard enough to make enough noise to gain their attention. That, along with the guard striding toward me, raising his voice at them in warning, releasing his baton, brought the class under control again.
“All right. From now on, no word sparring in class, please,” I said, feeling comfortable to walk around again. “If you feel the urge to swear, nonetheless, don’t say it but write it down in your notebook. One single sentence to sum it all up, and to make it challenging enough, no F word allowed. Now back to your assignment. You have exactly four more minutes to finish up.”
I went over to Laniakea to let him finally ask his question. Then, on the way back to my desk, I couldn’t resist taking a peek at what Laius was writing now in his notebook since he was already done with the assignment.
“Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood,” I read quietly, my skin tingling with every word.
“It’s not meant for you,Miss Meneceo.”
His voice, low and so very masculine, vibrated through my core. The Italian accent he played with my name had my whole body buzzing. And with every warm breath he let fall on my wrist, an inexplicable throb of my heart hummed over my thoughts. I stood there, in his space, in the heat radiating from his body that was hotter than July’s air, speechless for a moment or two, even immobile.
“Art thou well,Miss Meneceo?” He let out a chuckle.
My head whipped up as I swallowed. The way he kept saying my name, in that accent, in that…voice… He might be speaking lightly or innocently, but by the smirk I caught on his plump lips, and the darkness of his gaze that was meant to keep everybody else away but, again, trapped me in, it felt intentional. He knew what he was doing, and I should have understood there wasn’t an ounce inFurorethat was innocent.
I cleared my throat, dragging my eyes and myself away. “You read King Lear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he suddenly drawled in a Southern accent.
I’d read in his file he was from Texas. Damn, he really didn’t have a single shred of innocence in his two-hundred pounds of tattoo-covered muscles. Christ, how many tattoos did he have? There were skulls and roses all over his sun-kissed arms, the visible part of his skin the chambray shirt allowed and even on his neck…back and front.
“Good for you.” Despite everything, I was genuinely impressed. To read one book was something. To read Shakespeare and understand it was something else. To quote from it and use it in proper context was extraordinary in such environment. “However, I feel you’re too advanced for my class. I still wonder why you elected to join us.” I’d made all the students write a passage or two about why they joined this class and what they hoped to gain from it on the first day, but Laius hadn’t been there yet, and I’d never gotten access to his intentions or goals.
Would he give me some bullshit about reformation and joining college, like most of the students had said, even though he was in his forties? Would he be honest like the very few that blatantly had said it was to help with their parole?
His stare drifted to the bars in the upper side of the wall. The only part of the room that allowed the sunlight in. The orange late afternoon speckles danced on his pupils and gave his dark blond hair the perfect shimmer. God, he was gorgeous. Strangely, I found myself wondering about his safety in a violent place such as prison.
Focus, Jo. He almost killed a man, and he’s the president of a notorious motorcycle club. He can take care of himself. Worry about your own safety, girl, because you obviously need it.
“I have my reasons,” he finally said.
Ambiguous much? “I’m very much interested in knowing what they are.”
His eyes returned to hold me in place. “I prefer not to share,Miss Meneceo.”
Son of a…I folded my arms over my chest, cocking a brow to deflect from the annoying throbbing in my heart and between my legs. “Well, you have to. Everybody else did when they first joined. You’re no exception.”
“And if I respectfully decline?”
I narrowed my gaze at him, even if he couldn’t see it. “You will not pass this class.”