Page 10 of The Vigilante's Lover
The letters are always addressed to “Klaus” on the envelope. Inside, each begins with a broad-stroked “K.” Whoever K. Klaus is, this Jax guy is really into her. Kate? Kathryn? Karen?
When I found the first one in my aunt’s unsorted mail, I set it aside, planning to return it. But weeks passed, and one day in a flurry of going through letters to find a missing bill, I accidentally opened the envelope.
By the time I read the first line, I was hooked. I searched through a newer stack, and sure enough, a second one was buried in the pile.
I read them, again and again. The knots made them so personal, like they were meant for me.
And they were so sexy. I’d never read anything like it. It’s as though they unlocked some secret part of me. Forbidden. Hot. Exciting.
On one of my quiet days, I drove out to the local library, and hidden behind a fern, opened up that popular bondage bookFifty Shades of Greyto see if maybe the letter writer was just copying passages from it. I had gleaned from bits of news that filtered in from neighbors that this scandalous novel had the same sort of subject matter.
But no, the words were all his own.
I would never have written him back, except I kept passing that picture in the hallway. Mother, so beautiful and brave, fearless and full of adventure. How much harm could come from a letter? And wasn’t it akindness? I would be easing the plight of some poor incarcerated soul.
Obviously his K. Klaus lied to him about her whereabouts, as this address has been owned by my aunt for decades. She probably distanced herself after his trial.
I tried looking up the prisoner’s name. I found very little. No arrest. No crime. Just a small notice about his arrival at Ridley Prison. No picture. Just his age, 37, and birth city, Atlanta. Also a Southerner. He would serve fifteen years of a sixty-year sentence. Only a year had passed.
Surely if he did something truly terrible, there would be news about it. Probably he was some white-collar criminal who evaded taxes or laundered funds, and the company kept it quiet to avoid upsetting the shareholders.
Or so I told myself.
My first attempts to write him fell flat. I couldn’t quite bring the sexy into the knots. So I began to copy his letters word for word, then slowly rearrange the sentences and switch out the knots. But the time I managed a draft I was pleased with, my urge to share it was strong.
So I mailed it.
Shirley’s dog howls in the night, a long terrible wail. I sit straight up in my bed. Rowdy never makes any noise, not that I can hear down the road. The howl is followed by a series of barks, then he goes quiet. He must have tried to relieve himself in the yard, and it wasn’t pleasant for him after his snipping. Poor dog.
I relax back against the headboard.
I turn to the box of letters, wondering if I can handle reading one more before I go to sleep. Maybe my dreams will be full of Jax De Luca and his slipknots. I lift my hand in the air, the long cotton sleeve of the old-fashioned nightgown sliding to my elbow. I giggle, imagining my wrist tethered to the bedpost. I shift my ankles apart beneath the comforter. They don’t quite make the width of the bed to reach the knobs on the corners. The long skirt of the gown keeps me from spreading very wide.
I’m just not the sort of girl made for BDSM novels.
But Jax doesn’t know that.
I pick up a pencil and jot down one new idea that has just come to me with my movements on the bed.
You jerk my ankles apart with such strength that my gown disintegrates into tattered shreds around my naked hips.
I shudder at the thought of it. Now it will be hard to go to sleep. I set the pencil and paper back on the nightstand and flip off the light. In the dark, the night is quiet, a silence I am used to. Tomorrow I will try to sort through my life, figure out my next step. Somewhere out there is a future for me. I just never thought to plan for it.
My eyes are heavy. For a little while, I drift in a twilight sleep. The letters ruffle through my thoughts. The cool silk of a well-made rope sliding around my wrist. The tickle of a sheet as it slips across my body.
Then I’m awake.
Wide awake.
The light on me is harsh.
My arms are immobile.
Both wrists are tight against the bedposts.
My breasts and belly are crisscrossed with red rope over my white gown.
One ankle is tethered to the knob at the base of the bed.
