10. Riley
Logan doesn’t speakas he leads me up to his room, but I’m used to his silences by now. He’ll probably never be the most expressive person, but he wants me here. I can tell.
“You missed me, didn’t you?” I tease him, something I never would have had the guts to do when we first met.
He doesn’t answer, but he flashes me the small, private smile that’s starting to come to mean the world to me as he opens the door and ushers me through.
His room is just as orderly and pristine as every other time I’ve been inside it, but this time, it doesn’t feel as weird to be here as it has in the past. I don’t feel like I have to walk on eggshells because of how volatile he can be. I’m not sneaking or snooping, and Logan’s not just putting up with me, either.
“Sit,” he says, nodding toward the edge of his bed where he’s already got medical supplies laid out. He turns away to grab the chair from his desk, trusting me to obey him, and knowing it doesn’t stress him out to have me in his space anymore tells me more than any words could how he actually feels.
He positions the chair in front of me as I pull my hair back and wind it into a knot to keep it out of the way. I get that tiny smile again in approval, then Logan grips my chin with his elegant fingers and starts carefully looking me over, his gaze skimming over all the aching areas on my face and throat from Austin beating on me.
I’ve finally figured out that the less expression Logan shows, the harder he’s working to keep it suppressed inside, and as he catalogs each injury, his eyes go completely flat, his face as expressionless as stone.
He’s furious at Austin, the kind of fury that only death and dismemberment will satisfy, and the darkness inside me responds to that fury with a rush of heat that makes me squirm.
“Be still,” Logan says, tightening his grip to exert the control that’s so necessary for him.
And that I find so damn arousing.
His fingers brush over a stinging cut on my cheek. “This one will scar.”
I didn’t even realize the cut was there until Logan touched it, but Austin was wearing one of those gaudy gold West Point Gang knuckle rings when he backhanded me, so I’m not surprised.
I can’t hide my wince as Logan starts to clean it, and I feel the slightest tremor in his fingers as he closes it with a couple of butterfly bandages.
“It’s fine,” I whisper.
Logan nods, his touch becoming sure and firm again, and I tilt my chin back to give him better access as he methodically works his way down my throat, checking and disinfecting everywhere Austin touched me.
When he reaches the loose collar of my shirt, his fingers lightly skimming my collarbone. “I need this off.”
I do it, removing my bra too, then I stand to wiggle out of my pants while I’m at it.
Logan frames my hips with his hands, his lips tightening so much that they turn white now that he can see the full extent of what Austin did to me.
Then he does his best to erase it, systematically examining every mark that bastard left and treating it in some way, even the ones that don’t really hurt. It’s like Logan can’t handle the thought of any trace of that bastard’s hands on my body, and I’m more than fine with that. His possessive determination feeds into all the emotions that have been so close to the surface ever since my men came for me at the exchange.
Logan stays seated in front of me, his blond hair perfectly combed, utterly silent and completely clinical as his hands move across my body. Every touch is precise and controlled in a way that affects me just as much as Maddoc’s possessive aggression did earlier.
He runs his fingers over the outer curve of my left breast, then down over the angry red skin covering my ribcage. “This is new. The bruises haven’t darkened yet.”
“It just happened this morning.”
Logan’s lips tighten again, his fingers digging into my ribs a little.
I flinch, and his eyes snap up to mine, his hand going still. “Does it hurt?”
I nod. “But it’s okay. They’re just bruised, not broken.”
He runs firm fingers over every single one of my ribs, as if he needs to prove it to himself. I take a deep breath in to show him, and it does hurt, but there’s none of the sharp, stabbing pain that would mean Austin had managed to crack a few.
Finally, Logan nods, as if satisfied that I’m right. He’s staring at one of the blooming bruises on my stomach, and he leaves his fingers pressed against it for another moment before abruptly pulling them away.
“A soak in the bathtub will help. I have Epsom salts.” He looks up at me again. “What set McKenna off this morning? None of these injuries are older than that. Why did he beat you?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Because he’s an asshole?”
That gets me the tiniest twitch of Logan’s lips, then his eyes narrow in thought. “Of course he’d beat you this morning,” he says softly, as if he’s talking to himself. “He wanted us to see it.”
I’m sure Logan’s right about Austin getting off on that idea, but that wasn’t why.
At least, it wasn’t the catalyst.
“I don’t know if he was just trying to fuck with my head, or if he meant it, but he started talking about keeping me for himself,” I tell Logan.
A mistake, because it takes me right back to the moment Austin assaulted me. I felt worse than powerless, and my breath hitches at the memory, my pulse starting to race.
Of course I didn’t want that motherfucker to touch me, but my bigger fear came from the realization that he’s totally sadistic enough to have set up the whole exchange solely for the sick pleasure of taunting me with what I wanted before taking it away again.
Logan’s hands go still on my body, and he looks up at me. Then he sets aside the disinfectant in his hand and stands. “We wouldn’t have let him.”
“I know.” I grab his hands and bring them back to my ribs, my nipples tightening. “Austin kissed me. I bit his tongue.”
Logan stares at me for a moment, then his lips tip up at the corner, just a fraction of an inch. “You should have bitten a little harder.”
“I stopped when I tasted blood.”
Logan’s eyes flare again at that, but he turns me away from him and goes back to carefully cleaning my wounds, his hands trailing down my spine. Once he reaches my ass, he turns me back around to face him, reaching for the disinfectant again. There are at least half a dozen spots where Austin broke the skin, thanks to that fucking ring he wore.
Eventually, as if he’s been processing it this whole time, Logan gives a small nod and says, “That’s why he hit you. Because you made him bleed.”
It’s not a question, and he’s not wrong, but it wasn’t just the blood. It was my defiance.
If I hadn’t bit Austin, if I’d played at being a willing little wifey for him, he’d just have found another reason to hit me.
I know he would, because he enjoyed it too much.
But still—
“It was worth it.”
Logan meets my eyes again and smiles, a rare one that spreads wide across his face, as slowly as sin… and looks twice as tempting.
“That’s my wildcat,” he murmurs, pride in his voice that does something to me, just like his touch does.
He lifts one of my arms and folds it across my chest, placing my hand on my opposite shoulder. The friction of my own arm against the tight nubs my nipples have become has me squeezing my thighs together tightly as heat pools between my legs. A heat that spikes hard when Logan pours disinfectant on a raw area he exposed under my arm, a spot Austin got repeatedly with that fucking ring of his.
I hiss out my breath at the intense sting, and Logan freezes, his eyes drilling into mine as tension builds between us.
We’re standing so close that I can feel his breath on my neck and the roughness of the denim from his jeans against my hip.
And I feel something else too.
He’s hard.
“I keep hurting you,” he rasps, his gaze dropping to my lips for a split second before bouncing back up to my eyes.
“And you like it,” I say, twisting to face him more fully… and to rub myself against his erection. Logan freezes again, and I lay my hand against his smoothly shaven jaw. “My pain turns you on, doesn’t it?”
Just asking the question has me getting even wetter, and even though he doesn’t answer me, I see the truth in his face. He does like it… and he still feels like a monster because of that.
Logan hasn’t fully embraced that he and I each carry a seed of true darkness inside us, and that that darkness isn’t just one of the things that draws us together; it’s something we both need.
He should never feel bad about that. It’s not wrong. It’s us.
I give his chest a little shove, and the chair he brought over hits the back of his knees as I rub his firm pecs, echoing the order he gave me when he brought me in here. “Sit.”
He does it, humoring me, and I crawl onto his lap.
Logan’s face is blank again, and I just know he’s working to keep what he sees as his monster caged tightly inside. His cock grows even harder as I settle myself on top of him though, and a hot thrill rushes through me as the hard length strains against me.
“Hurt me,” I whisper, rocking my wet pussy over his shaft.
“Riley,” he starts, his hands twitching where he’s got them resting loosely on my hips. “I don’t want—”
I lean forward and kiss him before he can lie to me, not offended at all when he stays frozen and doesn’t kiss me back.
“Yes, you do,” I say when I pull away, taking one of his hands and bringing it back up to the wound he was just disinfecting.
It still throbs with a dull, burning pain from whatever it was that he treated it with. The whole area is tender, the bruising there starting to darken from angry red to a bluish-purple.
I press his fingers over the worst of it. “Hurt me. I want you to.”
Logan’s cock jerks in his pants, but he’s still holding himself back.
I cover his fingers with mine and push them deeper into the bruise, hissing with the sharp ache. “It’s okay. It turns me on too, remember?”
Logan gives me a long stare, then—never breaking eye contact, and as slowly as he allowed himself that sinfully sexy smile earlier—he presses his fingers into my bruised ribs a little bit harder.
I let my head fall back and roll my hips over his cock. “Yeah, like that.”
The pain moves through me like a wave, and that darkness inside me, that twisted part of me that was never satisfied before I met these three men, uses it to feed the craving I already have for him.
“I know you’re in control,” I pant, staring into his ice-blue eyes. “You’ll never hurt me more than I can take. I’ll use my safe word if I ever need to. Do you remember it?”
“Red,” he says without looking away from me.
There was a time when maybe Logan truly did want to hurt me. Out of anger, not lust.
But everything is different now.
I know if it ever gets too much for me, he’ll respect my safe word.
I just need him to understand how completely he has my consent, so that he’ll respect that too.
I drape an arm around his neck, grinding down on his cock as I lean forward, whispering the words against his lips. “Don’t ever feel bad about what turns you on. Not when it turns me on too. Not now that you’ve shown me what I was missing.”
Finally, he groans, sliding his hand up my bare back and loosening my hair from its knot. The thick blue and purple waves fall around both of us, and he tunnels his fingers through it, gripping the back of my skull.
Then he tugs my hair.
Hard.
“Fuck,” I gasp, rubbing my bare breasts against him as the sharp sting of pain in my scalp sends tendrils of heat winding down to my core.
“You do like this,” Logan says, his voice full of wonder. “Every time. I hurt you, and you… take it.”
“I don’t just take it.” I grind against him, my thong soaked. “I crave it. It adds something I didn’t even know I needed. And I’ve finally started to accept that it doesn’t make me a freak, not any more than it makes you a monster. It just makes us—”
“Good,” he whispers, releasing my hair and gripping my ass with both hands. He’s the one in control again now, and he rocks me over the thick shaft of his cock until I’m right on the verge of coming from that alone. “We’re good together, wildcat.”
“Damn right we are.”
Logan pulls away, lifting me off his lap and spreading his legs so I fit in between them.
Then he puts me on my knees.
He fists my hair again, tipping my head back as he looks down at me with smoldering eyes. “But we’ll be even better with my cock in your mouth.”
Despite the smolder, he says the words with a careful precision that reminds me I’m probably the only one he’s ever said such a thing to. And it’s hot as hell.
I lean forward, holding his gaze, and mouth his shaft through the denim.
The tight grip on my hair never loosens, but Logan’s eyes drop to half mast, the flush of arousal creeping up his neck and spreading over his cheeks.
“Unzip me.”
His voice is husky, deepening as he gives in to his desire, and the rough sound heightens my own.
I pull his cock out, then lick a long stripe up to the head before sucking it into my mouth.
Logan makes an obscene sound, fingers digging into my scalp as a flood of his salty flavor hits my tongue.
“More,” he rasps, hips snapping forward hard enough to gag me.
I moan and open wider, the effect I have on him like a drug I could easily get addicted to, but Logan catches himself and pulls back, wrapping a hand around his cock as it slides out of my mouth.
“You won’t be able to use your safe word if we do this,” he says, his fingers flexing and tugging my hair like he can’t quite find his usual restraint, despite the concern in his voice.
I look up at him, rubbing my cheek against his throbbing length. “Please. I want it.”
He starts to shake his head. “Riley…”
“I trust you,” I say quickly.
A punched out sound escapes him, and he closes his eyes, a tortured look on his face as another spurt of precum spills from his slit.
I stay completely still, waiting, and when he finally looks back down at me, his pupils are completely blown in those eerily pale eyes of his. “Open,” he grits out.
I do it, and he winds more of my hair around his hand, fisting it hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. It makes me moan again, heat flooding my pussy as he holds me firmly in place and guides his cock back to my open mouth.
I extend my tongue and he rubs his cockhead over it, feeding me more of his musky flavor.
“Put your right hand on my hip,” he orders, his voice tight with control. When I do, he rewards me by letting his eyes drop to half-mast as his hips jerk forward in a series of short, shallow thrusts, plundering the heat of my open mouth.
I want to suck his cock.
I want to fucking worship it.
But I also want exactly what Logan wants: I want him to be in control, and I want him to use me hard.
His eyes drill into me as saliva pools in my mouth and starts to spill down my chin. “Tap my hip twice if you need me to stop. That’s your safe word right now. Blink if you understand.”
I blink.
Logan continues to stare down at me, his cock resting on my tongue. He’s still holding back.
I need him to know I’m his and I want this.
I carefully close my teeth behind his frenulum, applying just enough pressure to make him hiss and suck in a sharp breath before I ease up.
He doesn’t pull away, though. Instead, his hiss turns to a low, primal growl, and I can practically feel the darkness inside him start to bloom.
The changes in his demeanor are subtle but distinct. He’s still holding the most dangerous, most violent parts of his desire in check, but just barely.
The only reason I can see it now is because I know what to look for. It’s in his eyes, in the tight corners of his mouth, in the way he twists my hair in his fist until I gasp with the sharp sting… and then goes just a bit further.
He grabs my jaw with his free hand and pulls my chin down. “Open,” he says sharply, then exhales in a long, tight, controlled breath when I do it, fully opening my mouth to him. “Remember what I said.”
It’s the only warning he gives me.
With his eyes locked onto mine and enough force to take my breath away, he slams into the back of my throat and makes me heave forward on his cock. He doesn’t pause or let up. My eyes start to water as he thrusts even harder, his thick length blocking my airflow as he fucks my face for a minute, then lodges himself deep in my throat.
My body’s natural, reflexive instinct is to struggle, to fight, to push him away. I tamp down on those reflexes, though, holding his gaze and digging my nails into his thighs—daring him to keep going. Or maybe begging him to.
I don’t care that I can’t breathe. I don’t care that my throat is going to be just as sore as the rest of my battered, bruised body by the time he’s finished. I crave it, and fall a little bit more in love with Logan for not coddling me right now and giving me exactly what I need.
My vision starts to dim at the edges, my whole world narrowing to this moment, in this room, with this man who understands parts of me I never would have dared acknowledge before I met him.
“I fucking love the way your throat spasms around my cock,” he whispers, never breaking eye contact. “You really do trust me, don’t you?” He asks the question as if he’s being hit with that simple, honest truth for the first time, and I can feel something new open up between us. “I’m fucking choking you with my cock, but you aren’t even struggling. I’m hurting you.”
The heat in his eyes and the possessive, exquisitely painful hold he still has on me is at odds with the almost emotionless tone of his voice, and knowing we’re in this together, and that we both crave the same dark, twisted things, is comforting in a way I’m not even trying to comprehend.
I want him to take whatever he needs from me, to use me.
I want him to hurt me.
It’s everything Austin threatened me with, but it’s completely different now that it’s Logan. He’s in control, but this is my choice, and I want him to push me to the very edge and then keep pushing so he can catch me when I start to come undone.
I start to feel lightheaded from lack of oxygen, and he grunts and pulls out until just the head of his cock is left resting on my tongue. It pulses in my mouth, the salty, bitter taste of his precum flooding my senses.
Logan flashes a look that’s as sexy as it is dangerous. “We have to slow down. I’m not ready to come yet.”
I moan and work the underside of his cock with my tongue, letting him slip completely from my mouth just long enough to admit, “I am. I need this. Please.”
My voice is just barely above a whisper and almost gravelly from the pounding he’s just given my throat, but I still want more.
Without another word, he pushes back into my greedy mouth. He isn’t as rough this time, but he’s just as insistent, and he doesn’t stop until he’s stretching my throat again and sending another wave of wet heat rushing down to my core.
“Take it,” he grinds out through gritted teeth, pushing even deeper as the iron control he always keeps on his emotions starts to crumble. “Every. Fucking. Inch. This is what you want, right? This is what you’ve been begging me to do. Fucking take it.”
The tears that have been welling up in my eyes start to stream down my cheeks, and I’m not sure if it’s the lack of air this time, or simply the weight of everything I’ve been through these past days and weeks, but I don’t try to stop them.
I owe him my life.
I owe them. My guys. The Reapers.
And they’ve each put their lives on the line for me in return.
Willingly.
Eagerly.
The danger and adrenaline and the understanding that we will die for each other if it comes down to that has forged a bond between us that goes deeper than anything I’ve ever known. So much deeper than sex. Deeper than love, even—or what I thought love was before, anyway.
Everything in me, every fiber of my being, belongs to the three of them. Just like they belong to me.
There’s a trust and a freedom that comes with that realization that’s deeper than anything I’ve ever known. A trust that allows me to give my body to Logan right now without worrying about my own pleasure or well-being.
I know, without any words being spoken, that he’ll take care of me. Not just my safety. He’ll make sure I get exactly what I want, exactly what I need.
And he’ll hurt me while he does it.
Logan will give me the pain I’ve been craving; the pain that will cleanse that motherfucker’s touch from my body, mind, and soul.
My vision blurs again, and he pulls out slightly—just enough to keep me from passing out completely—but I keep my lips locked around his cock and I keep it buried as far down my throat as he’ll let me. I’m dimly aware of my own hand between my thighs, even though I have no memory of reaching down there to touch myself.
“So close. So fucking close.” The urgency in his voice makes me anxious to match his speed as I slip one and then another finger inside my wet, waiting pussy, grinding the heel of my hand against my clit as I chase what I need.
I’m rough with myself, imagining it’s Logan’s calloused fingers driving in and out, in and out, over and over again while his thick cock ravages my throat.
I don’t think. I can’t. I reach up with my free hand and feel his balls start to tighten. His cock throbs insistently against the back of my tongue, ready to spill over at any moment, and when I give his balls a not-so-gentle squeeze, it draws another hissing moan from somewhere deep in his chest.
He’s losing himself inside me, and I fucking love it. Knowing he’s willing to go to the very brink with me nearly makes me climax before I’m ready, and I have to squeeze my thighs tightly together as I try and fail to stifle another needy moan of my own.
“Together,” Logan rasps out, pulling my hair back again—hard—as if he wants to ensure that my eyes are locked onto his as both our orgasms crest and overtake us. “Come with me, wildcat. Come now.”
A fierce, violent pleasure rockets through me as my body instantly responds to his command with a flood of wet heat that radiates out from my core, making my eyes roll back in my head and my toes curl as Logan’s cock spills straight down my throat.
For a moment, a perfect split second suspended in time, nothing else matters.
Nobody else even exists.
Then the moment passes, and I slowly start to come back to my senses. Logan is still rock hard; still lodged deep in my throat as his shaft continues to swell and jerk with his release. My hand is clamped between my legs and my whole body is trembling from the force of the pent-up, intense orgasm I needed so badly.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chants, unblinking as he holds me and finally pulls back enough for me to taste the last few drops as they hit the back of my tongue. “Swallow it all.”
I do, and he exhales, his grip on my hair finally loosening slightly and his face more relaxed than I’ve ever seen it.
He gives me another of those small smiles that he seems to reserve just for me. “So good,” he whispers, his grip on my chin keeping me in place and his hips lazily thrusting as he stares down at me like he’s just as lost in the moment as I am.
I’m not sure how much time passes like this, with my blissed-out mind wandering and my lips still wrapped around Logan’s cock. Long enough that I can’t help but feel a pang of loss when his softening cock finally slips from my mouth.
“Logan,” I whisper his name even though I can’t say what, exactly, I need from him, or what I’m even asking for anymore.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, pulling me to my feet as he rises and pressing his thumb into the scar he gave me between my breasts. “Are you okay?”
I nod instinctively, but I’m honestly not sure. Being with him feels perfect. The release we just shared? Mind-blowing. But reality is setting in again, and there’s no denying that Austin has the power to hurt all of us now that he has my money.
Logan’s eyebrows pull together in the middle, and I know he can tell that despite my nod, I’ve let my worries for what will come next intrude.
“Better now that I’m here with you,” I say quickly, meaning it. I rest my head against his shoulder and take a deep breath, shoving those worries aside for now. “With all of you.”
“You don’t have to worry about being away from us again.” He leans back and uses a finger to tip my chin up until I’m looking into his eyes. I can feel the sense of relief washing over him. I can see it in the way he’s looking at me. “That isn’t going to happen. We’re all glad you’re back. We all want you here.”
There was a time when this conversation—in his room with just the two of us—would have been unthinkable. Knowing that Logan trusts me enough to share this kind of tender, intimate moment makes my heart do fluttery, floaty things that I don’t dare mention out loud. Not yet, anyway.
For now, it’s enough to know that he trusts me. That I trust him.
And that maybe he’s learning to trust himself too.
“I’m glad to be back.” I smile even though the endorphins are fading now and I’m more and more aware of each cut and bruise on my body with every second that ticks by. “I knew I’d be back. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew it would happen.”
Logan’s arms tighten around me, enough that my ribs hurt again. It’s the best possible kind of pain, though.
He doesn’t say anything, but I’m used to that with him now, and he doesn’t have to. The way he’s holding me is telling me everything I need to know.
“Thanks for taking such good care of me,” I say, smiling up at him when finally he releases me from that tight embrace.
He gives me a short, sharp nod. “Always.”
The silence stretches out between us for a few more seconds, and I know—I know—we both want to say more. But again, we don’t have to.
It’s still the closest I’ve come to sharing my feelings out loud.
My feelings about him. About Maddoc and Dante. About all four of us together.
Not yet, though. Accepting these feelings is still too new, and all of my emotions are still too raw. There will be a time and a place for that conversation, but it isn’t right now and it isn’t right here.
Instead, I push my luck given all the liberties Logan has already allowed me, and go up on my toes to press a soft, chaste kiss against the side of his mouth. Then I reach for the door and slip out of his room before either of us can say anything else.
This is how it has to be for now.
But for now, this is enough.