9. Logan
Riley is…disruptive. I don’t like it. Should, in fact, be repelled by it.
The fact that I’m not unsettles me.
Watching her through the security feeds after retreating to my room is easier. It puts some distance between us and allows me to analyze her more clinically than when I’m confronted with her passionate, chaotic nature in person. But as I watch her trail her finger over the scar I put on her chest, I don’t feel clinical. I… react.
It takes me a moment to identify the feeling.
My cock is twitching. Filling. Responding to not the sight of her naked flesh, but to a possessive sense of satisfaction at the knowledge that I’ve marked it.
The feeling is dangerously addictive, so I quickly flick the monitors off, frowning as they go dark.
She’s trying to fuck with me, that’s clear from the way she deliberately looked around the room, cognizant somehow of the cameras even if she clearly doesn’t know where exactly they’re placed. But turning off the monitors doesn’t stop my body from responding to the knowledge that she and I are connected now. I’ve touched her. Left permanent proof on her body. And failing to observe her after the volatile way she’s reacted to the situation with her sister could put us at risk.
It’s the only justification I need to turn the monitors back on.
The moment I do, my eyes zero in on the scar again.
I’m no more used to feeling guilty than I am to the way the sight of her like this affects me, but that doesn’t stop both reactions from being true.
The scar bothers me. I hate knowing that I wasn’t able to repress the monster inside me when I put it there. That I lost control the night I marked her.
But I also wouldn’t change it, because it doesn’t only bother me.
It also turns me on.
I press my hand against my cock as Riley slips her pants off and stands in the middle of the room defiantly naked. She is… very aesthetically pleasing. But it’s the defiant lift of her chin as she deliberately scans the room again, eyes narrowed as if she’s still trying to locate the glimmer of the hidden camera lenses, that intrigues me the most.
She hasn’t found them and most likely won’t. I’m very good at what I do. So it makes no sense that I’m annoyed at the way her gaze is off center. That, not knowing where to look, she isn’t facing me directly as I stare back at her through the monitors.
I want to see her eyes.
I want to see what’s in them as she shows herself to me this way.
I move without taking the time to consider why that matters, leaving the order and serenity of my room and letting my feet guide me toward hers before I can second guess myself.
I open the door to her room without knocking, and Riley spins to face me.
I smile. Yes, this is better. Having her eyes on me. Watching the rise and fall of her chest as she meets my gaze with a courage and composure that I know for a fact is rare to find.
She’s… lovely.
The tumbled waves of her hair do little to hide her satin-smooth skin, but I like the way she doesn’t flinch away from my gaze. She’s used to displaying herself, of course, but now, anyone who sees her this way will also see that I touched her first. My stitches decorate her slim waistline. My slash marks her breastbone.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, a slight tremble underneath the hostile challenge in her voice.
I blink. I don’t have an answer for her, and I don’t like that at all.
Riley lifts her chin. “Did you come to shred my clothes again?”
I stiffen, the question unpleasant. The night I did that is all too clear in my memory, and yet it still feels like it was someone else who did it. Like the monster that lives inside me, my own personal demon, possessed me.
I don’t like the reminder, or the way that facing her now has me uncertain what my actual intention was in coming to her room tonight.
I do know one thing, though. “No,” I answer her, carefully folding away all the feelings I have no explanation for and tucking them out of sight. “I won’t destroy your clothes again, but you should get dressed now. You need to get some sleep so you can be alert tomorrow.”
Her eyes blaze. “So I can be useful to you guys,” she says, venom in her voice. “God, all of you are the same.”
We’re not, but she turns away to take sleeping clothes out of the dresser, so I don’t bother explaining that. Besides, in some ways, as different as Dante and Maddoc and I all are from each other, Riley is actually correct. The three of us share core values. Ones I rarely find in others and that have made it possible for me to trust my brothers the way I don’t with most people.
Ones I also see in Riley.
That thought unsettles the stability I require in my world, so I delete it. In fact, now that I’ve established that I have no logical reason to be here, I should leave.
I don’t.
Riley finishes dressing and glances over me as she pads toward the bed. “Why didn’t you take that wire away from me if you saw me grab it down in the kitchen?”
“Because I wanted to see what you would do,” I answer, her question surprising raw honesty out of me.
“Sadist,” she mutters, climbing into bed and settling herself amongst the pillows.
I cock my head to the side. “No. I don’t enjoy your pain.”
“Don’t you?” she taunts, raising her eyebrows.
I think about it. It’s true that I’ve found hurting her to be both arousing and satisfying, and watching Maddoc belt her was the same. But it wasn’t the pain I enjoyed, it was her reaction to it.
And the fulfillment I found in control of that reaction.
“Go away, Logan,” she says with a huff, closing her eyes before I can decide if I actually want to tell her any of that or not.
I run my eyes over her, noting the sensual way she shifts under the blankets and the way the irritated furrow in her brow draws me in. I really should leave. She needs to sleep. I need to… not be here.
But I don’t.
I don’t trust women, and I haven’t cared to be around them often. Riley is different, though. I’m curious about her. Addicted to trying to figure her out and understand her actions. She doesn’t fit into any of the orderly boxes I typically classify people in, but instead of frustrating me, the ongoing effort of trying to make sense of her feels… invigorating.
Oddly enough, I’m not sure I want to understand her. Not if it means the end of the quest to figure her out.
That’s illogical in the extreme, and the moment I realize it, rage overtakes me. I don’t like feeling out of control, and I can’t remember anyone else who’s made me feel that way as often as she has.
Well, one person. But my mother was a true monster. Riley is something else.
She opens her eyes with a sigh. “You’re still here? Honestly, you could have saved me the trouble of picking the lock on those handcuffs and almost getting shot by Maddoc. Is it some kind of sick game to you?”
“No,” I say, all the rage from a moment ago dissipating like smoke now that her eyes are on me again. “You were very… competent.” I pause, trying to define what I felt, watching her efforts to get away and help her sister. “And brave.”
Her cheeks turn pink. “Whatever,” she mutters, looking down.
I start to frown, but before I can get annoyed at the way she’s not looking at me anymore—or have to figure out why it bothers me so much—she looks up again. “Are you really okay with having me help you guys look for Chloe? I know you don’t trust me.”
I smile. I appreciate how intelligent she is. “Correct.”
She gives a delicate snort, her lips twitching. “You never have, have you? And Dante said you’re the one who put the cameras in here, so probably even less so now that you’ve watched me try to escape, right?”
I don’t bother answering. Obviously, the question is rhetorical. “We’ve got an agreement now.”
Riley rolls her eyes. “Sure we do, but this truce thing between us is shaky at best. None of you trust me, and I sure as fuck don’t trust you. You’re really just going to sit back and accept it?”
I blink. “Of course I am.”
She scowls. “I don’t get you.”
And normally, that wouldn’t bother me. For some reason though, it does. An uncomfortable, untouched part of me wants her to “get me,” so I explain.
“Maddoc is one of the two people in this world that I do trust, and I understand why he made the decision to include you in our efforts. It’s clear you’ll do anything to protect your sister. I may not trust you, but I do understand you.” I pause, frowning. That’s not true. I don’t understand her. I correct myself. “I understand that. That kind of loyalty, that love. It supersedes everything else. When my sister—”
I stop abruptly, shocked at the fact that I mentioned Emma. I don’t talk about her. Ever.
Riley sits upright, smoothing her hands over the blankets covering her lap as curiosity flares in her eyes. For a split second, I relish her interest, being the object of her focus. I note that the warm brown of her eyes is more than just pleasing. It’s as beautiful and nuanced as those bold paintings Dante pours himself into. But then that second passes, and it takes all the self-control I have not to flinch away from her gaze.
Accidentally bringing my sister into the conversation feels like I’ve just ripped off a patch of skin. Like I’ve flayed myself open and allowed Riley to see inside me.
It’s not a pretty place. Certainly not a safe one. I don’t like to look at all the darkness that lives there, and whatever this pull toward her is, whatever this inexplicable attraction is, it’s not worth exposing that part of me.
“Logan?” Riley asks, leaning forward.
“Go to sleep,” I say, cutting off whatever it is that she’s about to ask. Then I turn and leave, shutting the door behind me and keeping my mind carefully blank as I head back to my room.
I’ve left the monitors on, but I don’t let myself look at them. Not even to go near enough to turn them off. I can’t. Not while I’m feeling so… raw. Disordered. Out of control.
Luckily, I have a series of exercises that have never failed to settle me when emotions threaten to become distracting.
I go through the series. And then I do it again. Eventually, I lose track of the repetitions, only aware that for the first time I can remember, they don’t work. My mind stays in turmoil. I don’t find any peace. Even once my body is exhausted, I still feel like something inside me is on the verge of spinning out of my control.
Because of her.
Riley is disrupting everything.