“You okay?” How ludicrous a question, but I needed to know I wasn’t pushing her too far. Though the idea that I hadn’t, that maybe I never could push her beyond what she could handle, reeled me in, threatening to send me to the darkest corners of my mind. She was my fucking dream come true.

“I’m confused,” she said.

“You’re on eleven.”

“No, I mean…I need to come…but it hurts too much.”

I hadn’t been certain how ginger would affect her, but apparently, it was intolerable in its burn…intolerable in other ways too.

It was fucking perfect.

“Eleven,” I reminded her.

She blinked then recited, “Eleven.”

I returned to my spot behind her vulnerable ass, widened my feet, and prepared to deliver number twelve. As I did so with my cock strutting its stuff, standing proudly above my shoved down sweats, motion caught my attention from the corner of my eye.

Jax wasn’t staring at Alex or even the belt I fisted. He fastened his gaze on my cock, hastily unbuttoned his pants and lowered the zipper, and his hand went to work. His eyes darted to mine for a second—less than a fucking second—before he dropped his gaze.

And I realized he felt awkward, maybe even ashamed for ogling me, for being turned on by watching. Strangely, I didn’t feel the same way. I might have before we’d shared a cell for three years, but we’d had so little privacy in that cramped space, there wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen.

He’d been there all the times I’d curled into a ball, muffling my trauma into the pillow as my ass flamed from a slew of intruding cocks. He’d sat with me silently, not touching, just being there and listening as I tried to hold it in but couldn’t.

He’d given me his understanding without saying a word.

Though, at the time, I hadn’t understood how he could grasp even a sliver of the tormented headspace I’d fallen into. But now, having seen firsthand how he’d been raised…he’d known more about it than he’d let on.

I struck Alex again, and her muttered thirteen broke the trance for me. Though not for Jax. His head fell back against the wall, his lids at half-mast, mouth parted as he pumped his cock.

I eyed Alex’s reddened skin, yearning to watch her squirm for the last seven lashes, but she wouldn’t do that as long as the ginger tamed her movement. I worked it from her rectum, making her hiss in a breath, and for the final leg of her punishment, I put extra strength into those strikes.