Freedom

Part 2: Hard To Get

Dinner was being served: a shit-on-shingle styled biscuits and gravy—(*Ugh, just like what Daddy used to make*, Danica thought in disgust)—with a side of nothing-fresh vegetables, all canned, and something that was supposed to be chocolate cake. Danica grimaced.

*God, this must be how people lose weight in here*, she thought, wrinkling her petite nose.

She pushed her plate away, an appetite that was strong in favor now lost to a platter of bland muck.

She sat away from the riff-raff. Most perceived her as a precious, pampered bitch—or a snob with the flair for the social elite. Or perhaps she had been one before her incarceration. They found her easy on the eyes, but Danica's intolerance for stupidity made it hard for her to interact with many of them. And the ones that were intelligent—she couldn't stand anyway because of their own high and mighty artillery of useless financial information, philosophical ploys...

"Lost in thought, Kitten?"

Danica turned her head. She smiled. She hadn't noticed or heard him sit down beside her, with his head once more perched in his hand, eased against knuckles.

Jerome looked at her food.

"Not hungry?" He proposed.
"No." Danica replied.

Jerome tapped her tray with the tip of his fingers, "I can whet that appetite."

*Fuck, he can really talk*, Danica felt her cheeks burn. She glanced down at his fingers dancing on the edge of her tray. She imagined him performing the same tap number against her inner thigh.
Perhaps his youth made her stomach jump since he wasn't even old enough to drink, a young pup with that bold energy.

Danica wasn't much older, just turned 26, but considered him to still be a teenager—albeit his maturity rating higher than others his age.

"All you have to do is stroke my ego," Jerome reasoned with her, having kept notice of her enchanted stare. "Then we take turns, stroking."

Danica looked at him.

"You talk a good game, Darling, but can you deliver?" she said gently, licking her bottom lip in hindered anticipation.

Jerome pulled his chair up closer to her, facing in her direction full-bodily. How he was seated was near provocative, but perhaps it wasn't from an outside perspective; in her mind, though, filthy thoughts played in her head.

"Gorgeous, I'm not a dog with a bark and no bite," he answered her question with no offense in his tone. Perhaps he got that a lot considering the stigma about age and sexual experience, but even so—he was inexplicably charming.

"I can tell you this, Kitten," he said, "you're not making this easy."

Danica turned her body toward him. Crossing her legs, she slid a naked foot against the inside of his pant leg. He glimpsed pretty toes climbing his calf, to his thigh—he grabbed her ankle from hiking up any further. She jumped, perhaps not expecting him to halt the play.

"*Babe*," he drawled, "Nobody enjoys light petting more than me, but you are not calling the shots here." He dropped her ankle daintily like one does to a set of keys.

Danica's lips pursed,
"I'm not used to being turned down—"

"Oh, no, no," Jerome shrugged it off, "I like the challenge. It makes the end game that much enjoyable, and I do love games."

Danica's mouth went dry.
He reached for her chair and pulled her closer by the bottom of the seat, the legs of her chair made a screeching of metal on tile, closing the distance between them, legs pushing together—*Oh my God, I can smell him*—and he put his lips to her ear. His words rumbled a delicious baritone, buried in hidden arousal,

"Danica, when are you going to break this wall of yours down?" His hand found her naked knee. "I can smell you from here, and I'm tempted to break you in myself—guards or no guards—day or night."

She felt the tip of his tongue graze her earlobe, then he let out a struggling sigh, his hand slightly clenching against the skin of her knee and the dress that hid her upper thigh. Danica's eyes fluttered in her arousal–*Fuck, he's barely touching me–
Within seconds, he pulled all contact away from her—mouth, hand, voice, and even the clothes that touched her chair—He was up in a minute.

Jerome collected himself, most likely knowing that he had shown his genuine interest in her enough to have her believe that he wasn't just flirting to have something to do. Well, not something, she added in her head. Her lips made an unbridled smirk.

"I'd love to do what I want all the time," he explained, "But if my mother ever taught me anything—which is very little—it's the woman's choice. Though, "he added, "I don't think you'll be outlasting me in our little game."

He tickled her underchin as an owner would do to a cat.

"Think of me tonight, eh?" He winked at her as he strode away.