Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Logan
Somehow, I make it through practice, a brand photo shoot, a treatment with Sawyer, and entertaining Matilda’s son without demanding answers. Although Sawyer complains that I’m “tense” during my treatment, she doesn’t seem to connect that tightness as being anything to do with her.
Why would she? I promised her that same night in bed that I wouldn’t go see Dalton, that I’d leave it alone, that if protecting her meant letting it go, that’s what I’d do.
It’s just that with my experience in foster homes, at schools, on the ice, and even now on social media—bullies don’t quit. They get bolder, worsen. Ignoring them is condoning the behavior, and Dalton won’t win this war. Not if I’ve still got breath in my lungs.
My gut tells me that Sawyer had leverage at some point. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Whatever fancy footwork they’d been using to avoid each other, it’s clear he’s got her on the ropes now.
Over the last few months, Sawyer and I have had many conversations about future plans, our histories, sexual and otherwise.
But any mention of Dalton has been, mostly, met with a brick wall.
Except for giving a warning about the videos and photos he took, his name doesn’t leave her mouth if she can possibly avoid it.
As a result, the places my mind has gone in the last few hours—phew—I’m not sure she can hold me back if I’m right about any of it.
Knowing what I do about Sawyer, what I’m imagining seems inconceivable.
There’s no way. And yet… The flinching when I catch her off guard, the way she tenses when I get heated, how she never seemed sure of herself when we first met…
Now that I see it, I can’t believe I didn’t clock it earlier.
In foster care, kids who’d been abused showed some, sometimes all, the same tells.
While I was never abused, I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere either.
An outcast. Sitting outside of a circle, you see a lot.
It's not until my personal chef has left my apartment after preparing a meal for Sawyer and me that I let myself wonder whether she’ll ever give me the whole truth about her and Dalton.
Whatever happened is raw or embarrassing or just not something she’s willing to revisit.
But I have to go after it. Given that I might have to reopen the wounds to get the complete truth, I’m toying with the food on my plate, trying to find an approach that’ll hurt the least.
“You’re very quiet.” She’s beside me at the kitchen island, and we don’t have to look at each other if we don’t want to, so I keep my gaze glued to my plate.
“I’m a quiet guy.”
“You haven’t been quiet with me in months—not the kind of quiet you’re being right now. Did something more happen with your biological family?”
“I went to see Dalton, even though you told me not to.”
“What? You did what?”
“In what world do I let him dictate what either of us do?” When I glance at her, she’s pale. “When he comes after you, he’s getting me. That’s just the way it is.”
“Logan!” She rises with her half-finished plate and takes it to the garbage to scrape out. “You can’t antagonize him. Nothing good comes out of you going there or even talking to him.”
I stare at her across the island, and I hate myself a little for what I’m about to do. “How do you know that antagonizing him is that bad?”
She stiffens slightly, but she leans her side against the kitchen counter and shrugs. “He likes being in control.”
“What did he used to do when he thought you were out of control?”
Her lips purse, and she breaks eye contact to stare at her feet.
“Doc?”
She turns away from me, and I slide off the barstool at the island. When I near, her back presses against my chest, and I run my hands up and down her arms that are braced against the counter.
“Doc,” I whisper in her ear. “I can’t help you if I don’t know.”
“I don’t want you to know. The kind of help you just said… And there’s nothing… Any evidence is gone.”
I work extra, extra hard to stay relaxed when everything in me wants to spring into action, force an answer, deal with him in a way that’ll only get me put in jail, not him.
“What happened?” I ask, keeping my voice gentle.
She turns in my arms, and she frames my face with her hands. There are tears in her eyes. “There’s no evidence,” she says. “Just my word against his. You know what that usually means? I can’t win.”
“But there was evidence?” There’s no chance we’re losing to Dalton. I’ll make up times, dates, locations, hire tech experts to use all the tools at their disposal if I need to.
“Yeah,” she says, dropping her hands, shoulders slumped. “Officer Stephen Foster had all the evidence, but I never filed anything. He said he’d keep the reports and photos in case I changed my mind. But he’s left the island. No one knows where he’s gone.”
“The threat of you filing kept Dalton in check.”
“I assume so, yes. We said our breakup was amicable, and we left each other alone.”
“He knows this police officer is off the island?”
“Yes.”
I try to catch her gaze because we’re still dancing around what actually happened. Something physical. My heart races to know, and my stomach churns at not knowing.
“I’m going to believe you, doc. The idea that I might agree with him is as unlikely as a rocking horse taking a shit.”
That makes a tiny stutter of a laugh escape her, and her watery gaze meets mine again. A tear streaks down her cheek, and this intense desire to protect her at all costs explodes across my body.
“Tell me,” I say again, knowing I might want to commit murder.
“You have to promise you won’t go see him. And not a promise like the last time. A real promise. One you mean. I couldn’t take it if I told you this and it ruined your life too.”
The “too” part kills me. I nod because I don’t think I can get any words past the sudden lump in my throat.
“When I was with him, he was always… He was a boundary pusher. Once we were both tested and knew we were clean and healthy, he stopped wearing condoms. The one time I said something, he said they made him enjoy sex less, and so he wasn’t wearing one when there was no reason.
It seemed… reasonable enough, I guess. I didn’t have a good reason to insist since I was taking the pill. Or I didn’t feel like I did.”
“Okay.” I draw the word out while my brain ticks through all the birth control conversations we’ve had. For me, since I don’t want kids anytime soon, I never even brought up not wearing a condom. Dual protection works for me.
“He’d been hinting at kids and marriage. But he’d been married before—twice—and not had any kids. So, I don’t know. Whenever he brought it up, I sidestepped it, but when Dalton really wants something, he’s… He’ll do anything.”
My brain makes a leap, but it feels so unbelievable that it takes me a moment to say it out loud. “He fucked with your birth control?”
“Yes.” Her hands are back on my face holding my gaze. I don’t know what she sees, but I have no poker face, I’m sure. “Logan, you promised.”
“You figured it out?”
“Yes,” she whispers, still holding me in place.
“And we got into a huge fight. I only remember it in snippets. But a lot of yelling. Then he pushed me, and I fell. I cracked the back of my head on something. A table? The arm of the chair? I’m not sure.
When I came to, he was… He was frantic. Told me I’d tripped.
At first I didn’t remember anything, but then enough of what happened snapped back into place.
In the bathroom, I called Stephen, and I stayed locked in the bathroom until he got there.
I didn’t unlock it until I heard Stephen’s voice. ”
She’s still gripping my face, and I’m struggling to hold in my anger at what she’s telling me. “He put his hands on you.” My voice cracks.
“That was the worst instance.”
“It happened more than once?” I can’t keep the disbelief out of my voice.
“This time, I left, and I never went back. Cut him off. Cut him out. But I didn’t realize all the damage he’d done that no one else could see.”
Except I did see it. Maybe I didn’t understand it, but it was there. Her lack of confidence when she was clearly good at her job, her hesitation to get involved in the first place, her refusal to have her photo taken unless she knew and consented—all of it adds up now.
“Logan, you promised,” she says, and her voice is thick with tears. “You can’t break that promise. Because I don’t care what happens to me, but I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you because you thought you needed to defend me. You don’t. I’m okay. I’m okay now.”
She’s not. Not completely. In large part because he still has photos and videos he’s holding over her head. The hints he dropped about trying to force her back into a relationship once I’m off the island weigh heavy on my mind.
I take deep breaths, trying to get my raging protective mode back in line with what’s realistic. Going to his house and beating the shit out of him means he wins. My head knows that, even if my heart wants him to pay physically for laying even one finger on her.
“I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place, but I don’t want you stuck there with me, okay?” she whispers.
“Wherever you are,” I say, my voice gruff, “that’s where I am. If you’re stuck, I’m fighting our way out right beside you. He’s not winning, doc. He’s not dragging you down again.”
“I don’t know how we win,” she says, her voice watery again. “If he releases what he has, I just look like I’m trying to deflect or cover up the truth.”
“Your leverage might be gone, but that just means we need to remove his too.”
Her gaze softens, and she searches my expression. “I love you for trying, for wanting to try.”
My heart skips, but I refuse to read too much into her words.
It’s not quite a declaration, but it’s so fucking close.
Maybe it’s stupid, but I don’t want to be loved “for” anything.
I want her to feel for me the way I feel for her—like love is an unstoppable force.
Even if I wanted to fight it or deny it, I couldn’t.
I love her. It’s a fact. Immovable. All-consuming.
The best and worst thing. The highest of highs.
Which, honestly, are making me really fucking terrified for the lowest lows that I’m sure are coming.
“No matter what I have to do, he won’t win. And I’m not sacrificing either of us to make that happen. That’s not winning. Winning is when he’s got nothing left, and we’ve got everything. That’s when I’ll know we’ve won. Things that matter to me, I don’t do half-assed.”
“I don’t need all that.” She feathers kisses along my jawline, and one of her hands is caressing the front of my pants, drawing my focus elsewhere. “We just need to stay smart about it all.”
I give into her seduction. She wants me to forget what I’ve vowed. To go along to get along.
That’s never been my style.
And as I lift up her shirt, unclip her bra, and scrape her nipple with my teeth, I’m already plotting. Planning.
She gasps, clutching onto my back and arching into the contact.
Her giving into Dalton’s tactics won’t happen while I’m around, and I want to make sure it can’t happen if I’m gone. I’m desperate to prevent whatever he intends to do.
With my palm flat, I slide my hand into her leggings, swirling my fingers around the sensitive bundle of nerves that’ll have her coming in minutes. She comes so fast for me now—no hesitation to seek her own release, and I fucking love it.
“You’re so wet already, doc. I need a taste.”
She tugs down her leggings, eager to have my mouth on her. It’s her favorite way to come. My mouth on her clit and my fingers inside her. I lift her onto the counter before I drop to my knees, spreading her legs.
When I trail kisses up her thigh without hitting the spot she wants, her fingers sink into my scalp.
“Please,” she moans. “Don’t make me beg today.”
Fuck it. I’ll give her what she wants. I cover her pussy with my mouth, licking and sucking and swirling my tongue in the rhythm that’ll get her to the brink the fastest, and when I can feel her starting to tense, I dip my finger in. One. Then two. Then three. She gasps, but then says, “More.”
“It’s not enough,” she cries, urging me up off my knees. “I need you. Now. I just need you now.”
She draws my shirt over my head, her hands smoothing along my tense flesh, while I open a drawer and take out a condom. They’re stashed all over my apartment and her house, ready for whenever the urge strikes.
“How do you want it?” I ask, drawing her to the edge of the counter.
“So deep and so hard that I can’t even think straight.” She links her heels at the small of my back. “Shut off my brain, Logan.”
“My pleasure.” I thrust into her, pulling her tight. Then I start a rhythm that causes her to gasp and moan with each entrance and withdrawal. Every time, I make sure we’re brushing our bodies together, hitting exactly the place she needs.
“Oh god,” she moans, one hand braced on the counter, the other around my neck. “You’re so good at this.”
“You’re going to come for me, doc. You know that? You’re going to come like a good fucking girl when I tell you to.”
“Yes,” she gasps, wiggling in my embrace. “Yes.”
Then I take my thumb, and I lick it. I swirl it slowly in the place she needs while I keep the punishing rhythm going.
Her arm starts to shake, and I tut. “Not yet. I’m not ready yet.”
“I want it so bad,” she gasps.
“What do you want, doc?” I murmur against her ear before nipping at the lobe. “You want me deeper?”
“Yes.”
“Harder?”
“Yes.”
“Faster?”
“Oh god. Yes. Logan, I can’t… I’m going…”
I press a little harder with my thumb. “Come for me, doc.”
Her breath hitches, and then she throws her head back with a long, satisfied moan, and I chase my own release, already knowing that the next moves I make, well, she may not like them at all.