18. Riley
My mind is spinningwhen I finally leave Logan’s room. The man takes scary-smart to a whole new level, and I’m beyond grateful to have his help finding my sister.
We spent hours together pouring over the data he’d dug up about the city, and even though nothing’s panned out yet, I’ve got real hope that we’ve narrowed down some ideas of where Chloe might be hiding.
But unfortunately, he made it very clear that we have to wait for daylight before we follow up on any of the ideas we’ve cobbled together. Maddoc’s orders.
“Dammit,” I huff, punching my pillow into a fluffier position before flopping back onto it again. I’m wired and restless and exhausted, all at the same time. And it’s not just the progress we made searching for Chloe that has me feeling this way. Being so close to Logan for so long, having the tantalizing scent in my nostrils and the constant, subtle brush of his body against mine all day, has left me with a whole bunch of frustrated energy that I’ve got no way to handle.
Well, not no way, but no satisfying way.
I’m not planning on going there though, so I keep my hands folded under my head and ignore the hum of awareness, of want, in my body, determined to shove it aside and get some sleep.
It takes nearly an hour of tossing and turning, but eventually, my eyelids droop and then stay closed.
When I wake up,I’m not alone.
I roll over and rub at my eyes, that distinct scent of Logan’s—some heady combination of his crisp body wash and his own enticing, masculine scent—telling me even before my eyes find him that he was thinking of me too.
I look toward the door and see him, our gazes locking in the darkness. Something is brewing between us. It has been all day. And as Logan strides toward me across the room, I stay still, frozen in place as I wait for him.
But not from fear this time.
He drags the covers off my body the moment he reaches me, letting them slide off the bed and pool at his feet as those pale eyes burn into me with the intensity of the white-hot center of a flame. I can’t look away as he bares me to his gaze, and it’s only once I’m fully exposed to him that I notice the moonlight glinting off the knife in his hand.
I should be scared.
We’ve been here before, and it was terrifying.
But this time, it’s not.
He doesn’t say a word, he doesn’t even blink, and my pulse starts to race as he climbs up onto the bed, prowling toward me like a jungle cat. He straddles my hips, and heat floods through me. Heat and want.
Logan has his own agenda, though. He doesn’t lower his weight onto me. Doesn’t pin me down or grind against me. He holds himself aloof even though I can see damn well that I’m not the only one affected here, hovering over me as his fingers drag down the center of my chest, like déjà vu of the intense moment of connection I felt with him in his room earlier.
That’s not the thing he seems intent on repeating.
I fell asleep in a thin white camisole and silky matching sleep shorts. Logan slips the cold blade of his knife under one of the thin straps of my top and slices it away, then repeats the motion on the other side.
This time, it’s not terrifying. This time is something different completely.
He peels down the top of the cami, baring the scar he marked me with to his view, and heat races through me. I’m used to being looked at, but I’m not used to this. All the single-minded focus and intensity that Logan brings to every single thing he does is on me and me alone. His look is possessive, almost feral, and being the focus of it is an arousing, addictive rush.
He drags the tip of his knife over the scar, not breaking skin, but I swear I feel it slicing straight down to my core. Then he bunches up my shirt in his other fist and pulls it away from my body before jerking the knife through the thin material and cutting it off me.
“Logan,” I gasp, my back arching and my hands fisting in the sheets on either side of me.
His eyes snap up to meet mine, but only for a moment. Then they drop right back down to my body, and when he runs the knife under the waistband of my sleep shorts, sliding it deep enough that I can feel the flat part of the blade against my clit, I bite back a whimper.
Before I can decide if he’s punishing me or teasing me, he slices the shorts off me too.
I bite back a whimper but can’t stop my breath from coming in short, needy pants. I’m so wet there’s no way he doesn’t see it, even with nothing but moonlight to show him how soaked my panties are. But Logan still doesn’t say anything, because of course he doesn’t. With him, silence is like another form of foreplay.
He drags the blade back up my body, teasing my nipples with it until they’re two pebbled points. Little shocks of lust explode inside me with each touch of the knife, but I’m going to go crazy if he doesn’t touch me. I want skin. Heat. Flesh on flesh.
He doesn’t give it to me.
He slides the knife over every inch of me, making me aware of every atom of my body in a way I’ve never felt before. Making me whimper and whine for him and bite my own damn tongue to keep from outright begging. Because this is Logan. He either bolts or shuts down every time things start to feel intense between us, and if he leaves me right now I’ll scream.
Finally, he brings the knife between my legs again, slicing through my panties. His thumb drags over my swollen, wet folds as he pushes the silky material aside, and my entire body clenches tight, a shudder of desire rippling through me.
“Logan.” It comes out laced with desperation, and Logan goes utterly still in that eerie way only he can pull off.
His head cocks to the side, his eyes drilling into me. “What do you want?”
The truth bursts out of me, a truth I haven’t even admitted to myself before now. “Fuck me. Oh god, please.”
I try to spread my legs for him, but they’re trapped between his thighs. I try to buck up against his hand, but the knife is suddenly at my throat and he’s leaning over me, pinning me down, grinding his hard length against my clit until I want to scream.
“You want me.”
“Yes.” I tilt my head back without any fear, not sure if I’m daring him or offering.
His eyes burn into me like white fire. “You want me inside you.”
“Fuck, yes, Logan, do it!”
He holds my gaze for an eternity, both of us panting, immobile. Then, with a low curse, he tosses the knife aside and rears back, shoving his pants down to his thighs and immediately driving into me.
“Oh god,” I gasp, that white fire ripping all the way through me. And he doesn’t stop. He fucks just like he does everything, with total control and barely leashed brutality.
It feels incredible… but I want even more.
He looks down at me with that silent, deadly intensity that makes it feel like he’s taking me apart from the inside out as he fucks me, and I feel it everywhere. Inside me with every thrust, on every inch of my skin that he claimed with his knife, and deeper. In that dark, dark place at the center of my soul that resonates each time I’m around him.
“Logan,” I whisper, reaching for him. Not sure what I’m asking for.
He gives it to me anyway, hitching one of my legs over his hip and bending over me, crushing me with his weight, bringing his lips toward mine as I breathe in that gorgeous, addictive scent of his. Letting me taste… taste…
I can’t taste him.
A frustrated noise spills from my lips, but he’s gone.
My eyes snap open. I’m gasping for breath, still aroused to the point of screaming, but alone.
I scramble upright in the bed, kicking off the sweat-soaked blankets tangled around my body and staring toward the door. The closed door. And I’m still wearing the pajamas I fell asleep in.
Logan was never here.
“Fuck,” I whisper, pushing my hair back from my face and then clenching my hands into fists as I take a few deep breaths, trying to calm down.
My sex throbs between my legs, my panties so slick inside that there’s no way to deny what I was just dreaming, but I’ll be damned if I shove my hand down there to finish myself off. It was terrifying enough when Logan actually came to my room with a knife, and while I won’t lie to myself and say I’m not attracted, I’m still equally afraid of him.
The only explanation I have for letting myself go like that in a dream is Dante. He got me too worked up in the bathroom, but even if he doesn’t scare me the same way Logan’s inner darkness does, dwelling too much on what he does make me feel is just as terrifying in an entirely different way.
There’s no way I’m risking going back to sleep, not with my core still pulsing with an unfulfilled ache that I can far too easily imagine any of the three Reapers under this roof satisfying for me, so I decide to go down and find some breakfast. It’s early enough that I’m not actually hungry, but staying in the bed I now have such vivid images of getting fucked in isn’t going to do me any favors, so I throw on a robe and head downstairs.
To my surprise, I’m not the only one up this early.
My steps stutter when I reach the kitchen. Maddoc is sitting at the counter with a plate of eggs and a tablet in front of him, and when he looks up and sees me, we both freeze. I haven’t been alone, in here with him, since he fucked me and I shot him… and with my body still primed for the kind of relief I’m just not going to get this morning, the memory of both those things slams into me like a freight train.
Maddoc’s expression shutters as he gestures to a cell phone sitting on the counter. “That’s for you. It’s got the number I gave Frank, so if he needs to reach you, he can.”
With that, he looks back down at his tablet, calmly taking a bite of his eggs like he’s not affected by those memories at all. For a second, I’m so goddamn angry that he’s ignoring me that I want to shoot him all over again.
Then I get my shit together and realize it’s for the best, so I just snatch up the new phone and then walk past him to get my own breakfast.
I pour some juice into a glass, not quite ready for coffee yet, and pluck an apple out of the fruit bowl, stealing another glance at Maddoc while I do. He looks rough. Stressed the fuck out, and like he didn’t get enough sleep.
Or maybe not any.
I crunch a bite of the apple, the hot blast of anger settling into something a lot more dangerous as I watch him.
I should not care about this man, so I tell myself I don’t, but I can see how much everything is weighing on him. I can’t pretend I don’t know by now what kind of leader he is, and how hard Troy’s death has hit him. Not just what happened to Troy, but that it happened on Maddoc’s watch. That he wasn’t able to stop it and still hasn’t avenged it.
He glances up at me.
“How’s your shoulder?” I blurt.
“Why?” he asks dryly, looking back down at whatever it is on his tablet that he’s so engrossed in. “Regretting that your shot went wide?”
I bite back a sharp reply but I narrow my eyes at him. Asshole. Was I seriously just emoting for the man?
When he looks up at me again, I hold his gaze and take another bite of the apple, imagining it’s his ball sac.
Maddoc laughs, then widens his eyes like the sound startled him. He looks back down at his tablet. “It’s healing.”
He eats some more of his eggs and I finish the apple, then before I can second guess myself I pour a second glass of juice and take both over to the counter Maddoc’s sitting at.
I slide one in front of him and take a seat on the stool to his left.
“Did Logan send you what we came up with?” I ask, nodding toward his tablet.
Maddoc looks at me like he’s trying to suss out my angle, but I’m not even sure I have one right now, and after a moment he obviously comes to the same conclusion.
He sighs and finally puts the tablet down. “Yeah, he did.”
“But that’s not what kept you up all night,” I guess, resisting the urge to reach over and rub some of the tension out of his shoulders.
Maddoc shakes his head. “That shit with Troy…”
He lets the thought trail off, reaching for his juice.
“Do you really think it was about Chloe?”
He hesitates, but then nods. “Yeah, but not just about Chloe. We’ve got a lot of history with them, and they’re getting more aggressive all around.”
“But… why?”
He grimaces. “Because McKenna is a greedy fuck who wants our territory.”
I picture the map in his office. “Don’t you want his too?”
Maddoc cuts his eyes over to me, then laughs. “Yeah, I do. But it’s not the same. He targeted us specifically a few years ago, deciding we were the gang to take out in order for him to gain some notoriety along with an expansion. We weren’t a threat to his organization at the time. At least, not one that he was smart enough to recognize. But he didn’t like what we were building here.”
He doesn’t elaborate, but I’m pretty sure I know what he means anyway. I’m not so naive that I don’t realize what the Reapers are. Whatever it is they do to support themselves is part of Halston”s criminal underground. I’m not under any illusions about the gang being full of white knights.
But still, there’s no denying that Maddoc has built something solid. He’s got principles and he sticks to them, a gangster code of ethics that’s night and day from the sadistic, self-serving way Austin McKenna seems to run things.
So of course he’s threatened by the Reapers. I’ve known enough small-dicked, power hungry assholes like him to understand that they always feel the need to prove themselves by taking out anyone who does it better.
Someone like Maddoc, who actually inspires loyalty.
“It’s personal between you two, isn’t it?”
Maddoc stares at me hard, but finally nods. “McKenna made it that way. He got aggressive with our business in ways that were fucking stupid. He hurt both organizations, and now it’s escalating. And yeah, he wants more than our territory. He gets off on trying to get one over on me too. He’s made it his personal vendetta. That’s why Sienna—”
He grimaces, then downs the rest of his juice instead of finishing whatever he was about to say.
Well, too bad for him. I want to know.
“Sienna?” I press.
Dante walks in.
“What about her?” he asks, looking between the two of us. “Is she trying to stir shit up again, Madd?”
Maddoc just grunts.
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Dante heads for the coffee pot, and he and Maddoc have one of those conversations with their eyes that I’m getting really fucking sick of not being a part of.
I set my glass down on the counter. Loudly.
They both look at me.
“Who’s Sienna?”
“A bitch who should die,” Dante says cheerfully, at the same time that Maddoc mutters grimly, “My ex.”
I’m hit with an irrational surge of jealousy, because of course I am. As if the last few days haven’t already been enough of an emotional rollercoaster. There’s no place for that shit though, not about some bitch ex of his, and not when it comes to the idea that he’s planning on marrying my sister. Not that I’m going to let that happen.. but not because I’m jealous.
A vague memory teases at the back of my mind, and I chase it because anything is better than going down that rabbit hole right now.
I drum my fingers on the counter. Then it comes to me.
“Wait, Sienna? Isn’t that the girl who was with Austin McKenna the night we found Chloe dancing at West Point’s club?”
They both nod.
“So you two were together, and now she’s with him?” I press Maddoc.
“That’s right,” he says, his tone making it clear he’s done sharing.
Dante isn’t though.
“She cheated on him,” he volunteers, earning a black look from Maddoc that he apologizes for by handing him the first cup of coffee, but otherwise ignores. “But worse, she fucking sold him out,” he goes on. “It wasn’t enough that she went and hopped on McKenna’s dick. She also gave up everything she knew about how we operate.”
“She what?” A surge of anger hits me. I shouldn’t care. This isn’t my fight. But I do. “Bitch,” I mutter viciously.
Dante grins and hands me a cup of coffee, doctored exactly the way I like it, then pours himself one and clinks his mug against mine. “Damn right.”
Maddoc snorts, looking back down at his tablet, but not before I notice the corners of his lips twitching.
I almost smile myself, but then Logan walks in and my body immediately flushes with heat as I’m swamped with vivid flashbacks of exactly how good it felt to have him stare at me so intensely while he fucked me through the mattress—
“Good morning,” Logan says calmly, because of course that didn’t actually happen.
I mumble something back and gulp my coffee, grimacing when it burns my throat and then yelping with pain when I jerk it away and the hot liquid sloshes over onto my hand. “Dammit.”
I shake the coffee off my hand, then look up to find all three of them staring at me.
“You okay, princess?” Dante asks, his eyebrows drawn together.
Maddoc is frowning too, half off his stool and reaching for me, but Logan must have moved faster because he’s already by my side, handing me a cool, damp dish towel as he takes my coffee and sets it on the counter.
“Wrap it in this.”
“Bossy,” I mutter.
“You’re just now noticing that?” Dante teases as he quickly cleans up the mess and wipes down my cup, then adds a little more cream to cool it down before handing it back to me. “We wouldn’t have passed Madd’s vetting process if we weren’t.”
“It’s a Reaper requirement,” Maddoc agrees dryly, playing along as he settles back onto his stool.
Even Logan’s lips twitch for a moment, and then my cheeks heat up even more as he takes matters into his own hands and wraps the towel around my burn with quick, efficient movements that, thanks to my dream-addled brain, feel oddly erotic in their clinical precision.
It does help soothe the burn, but it doesn’t do a damn thing to quench the warm glow growing in my chest as the three of them banter like actual brothers, Dante keeping all of our coffees topped up while Logan starts methodically putting together the kind of breakfast that convinces me an apple isn’t going to cut it after all.
They move around each other in the kitchen with a casual ease that speaks of true family, the kind I can completely understand Dante defecting from his former gang for, and with nobody mentioning all the shit we’re dealing with—Chloe still missing, the war with West Point, Troy’s torture and murder—it feels surreal to have all of us co-existing so peacefully in a room I tried to kill one of them in.
Surreal, but nice.
At least, it’s nice until Maddoc’s phone rings.
He glances down, the number on the screen making his brow furrow, and the laid-back energy in the room instantly changes as all of us go on high alert.
The call could be about anything, but I don’t think any one of us expects that “anything” to be good at this point.
And we’re right.
The moment Maddoc answers, the sound of shouting comes across the line. Shouting, traffic, and gunshots.
“Report,” Maddoc snaps, already on his feet.
And then, I think it’s Payton’s voice, loud enough that I can hear every word clearly—
“Maddoc? Maddoc! I need backup!”