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 the students see 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 could Miss Jo be 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 your bone 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 in Furore that 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.”
