Page 3 of Jackson

The sub in me wanted to desperately let out a whimper.

I’d clearly been celibate for way too long. Maybe it was biting me in the ass not to have taken Tyson up on his numerous offers of getting off with him after lights out. But the potential for a ticket had never seemed worth it, especially since I’d been determined to have a clean wrap sheet for when I finally got out of SAC.

The felony on my records was already going to make my life hard the second I stepped outside of those doors three years from now. Adding onto it just seemed stupid.

Until now, apparently.

Slowly lowering myself to my knees, I gripped onto the flint and starter tightly. My hands shook slightly when I held it out toward the rope that was shoved my way by Tyson, whose overly eager smile was more than a little foreboding.

Hemay have confidence in me but I certainly didn’t.

“Remember,” Jackson said. “Strike it and then stoke it.”

“Right…” I mumbled.

Feeling both sets of eyes on me, I fought the urge to make up another excuse and instead, struck the flint against the starter harder than I meant to. Sparks flew everywhere, causing both men to lean back quickly to avoid getting hit.

“Oh! You got one!” Tyson pointed to the rope.

I dropped the tools in my hand quickly and cupped both of my hands around the ember, watching as it glowed a deep red.

“Now blow on it,” Jackson’s voice was nearer to me this time, practically in my ear.

A shiver raced up my spin.

I did as I was told, though, leaning over to blow gently on the ember until it grew brighter. It took a few more tries but soon, it was beginning to smoke, catching the frays that Tyson had burned up with it.

“That’s it,” came Jackson’s voice again, lower this time. “You’re doing so good.”

I took in one last deep inhale and let it out, encouraging the flame to live. It seemed to do the job a littletoowell, because I soon had a healthy flame that hungrily began to eat up the rest of the frayed edges of the rope, expanding out far enough to burn right against my hand.

With a yelp, I jerked myself back from it.

Jackson acted quickly, taking out some kind of thick towel from the back pocket of his trousers and patting it against the flame, snuffing it out almost instantly. He then full-body turned to me, reaching out with both of his hands.

“Let me see.”

He pried my hurt palm away from my body, holding it out into the sunlight where he could see a little better.

The skin was bright pink and already starting to shift into an ugly red where the flame had touched.

It didn’t look so bad now, butfuckdid it hurt.

“We’re going to need to patch this up before it gets too deep,” he said, his eyes growing serious.

“Um, what—” I didn’t even get the chance to finish my sentence before he was tugging me up onto my feet again, still tenderly holding onto my wrist and hand.

With a whistle, he caught the attention of a nearby firefighter, nodding over to Tyson. “Watch him for me? I’ve got to take this one to medical.”

CHAPTER 2

Jackson

It was my fault.

I’d gone too far in my teasing and now I had an injured inmate sitting in the medic station with an icepack strapped to his hand while I was rifling through the unit’s first aid kits.

It wasn’t every day that we got such a pretty looking inmate moved into the program. More often than not, I was dealing with the kinds of guys that you’d never want to cross paths with on a sidewalk in the middle of the day, let alone take home to your mother.