23. Logan
It’s takenus most of the day to organize contingency plans based on our best guesses of where Austin might attack next. Maddoc and Dante both agree with my assessment that McKenna will start whittling away at our territory at its most vulnerable points, the edges, and we’ve done our best to make sure our people who live and work in those areas have a place to bail to if things get hairy.
No, not “if.”
When.
I tamp down my rage over McKenna’s aggression, because it’s not productive here. The mood in the house is tense enough already, and the lack of solid information—the lack of control over what’s happening with our organization—has me feeling like ants are crawling under my skin.
It’s a feeling I’m familiar with, but surprisingly, I don’t feel the need to resort to any of my usual coping mechanisms. I’m self-aware enough to realize it’s because of Riley, I just don’t have the words to explain to myself or to her why exactly that is.
The sex has helped stabilize my mood, of course. Endorphins have predictable results. But it’s more than that, and the “more”—this connection she and I share, the outlet she gives me for feelings that would otherwise fester inside me until they explode—is something that makes me…
Not uncomfortable.
I don’t want to be rid of the feeling.
But I’m not entirely comfortable with it, either.
I push those thoughts aside since I’m not sure what to do with them, and don’t even realize I’m searching the house for her until I finally come across her curled up on the couch in the living room and realize that I have no other reason for being here except for my desire to be close to her.
She looks up as I enter the room and smiles at me, and that thing I’m uncomfortable with flares to life in my chest.
I definitely don’t want to be rid of it. I might even crave it.
“Hey, Logan,” she says, one hand resting on her stomach and the other wrapped around a mug with steam coming out of it. “Did you guys get things set up at the perimeter?”
“We did.” I frown, taking note of the way her knuckles are white around the mug, and the faint tightening of the skin around her lips and eyes. “Are you all right?”
She blinks up at me, those small signs of distress disappearing for a moment as a fuller smile graces her decadent mouth. “Yes, of course,” she says quickly, then backpedals a little with, “I mean, I’m worried of course. We all are, right? God, I hate that Austin is able to fuck with us like this.”
I nod absently, but then shake my head. She’s not lying. But she’s also not telling the whole truth.
“Something else is affecting you,” I state, at a loss for the right words to define how her distress is affecting me.
I need to know what’s causing it, though.
I need to understand the scope of the problem so that I can find a solution.
This time, when Riley smiles up at me, that feeling in my chest becomes almost painfully warm. I don’t even realize how close I’ve drifted toward her until she reaches out and slips her hand into mine. I look down at our joined hands, then back into her eyes. She squeezes, and I’m surprised to find I don’t mind the uninvited touch at all.
I maybe even… enjoy it.
“You’re so observant,” she says with a soft little laugh, releasing my hand to rest hers over her stomach again. “It’s really nothing to be worried about, though. I promise. I just started my period, and the stress of everything is making the cramps kinda brutal right now. It will pass, though. It’s just, you know, woman things.”
I frown. No, I don’t know about woman things. I know they exist, of course. But I’ve never been faced with them, and feel a frisson of anger at myself for being caught off guard by something I should have realized would become a part of our lives now that Riley is.
None of that anger is for her though, so I suppress it and give her a brief nod in acknowledgment, then head back upstairs so I can correct my oversight about this issue.
It takes more time than I anticipated given the ratio of anecdotal nonsense versus definitive research I find online, but eventually—and after contacting one of our runners to deliver certain items from the drug store—I’m prepared.
This time, I find her in her room, still curled around what I assume is another cup of tea, but this time on her bed.
She looks up in surprise when I walk in. “Logan?”
I set the supplies I brought with me down on her nightstand and remove the mug of tea from her hand, placing it next to the items I’ve gathered.
“Take your shirt off, please.” I hesitate for a moment, then add, “And your pants too.”
The pair she has on is high waisted, which won’t do.
Her lips twitch a little, almost like she’s laughing at me, but I don’t feel offended. I feel something softer. And she does what I’ve told her to without argument, which makes my chest ache again in that way that I’m quickly starting to crave.
I sit on the mattress next to her and guide her down onto her back, my body reacting to the sight of her smooth skin and athletic curves, clad only in a small pair of black underwear that barely cover the slit between her legs.
I have enough practice to make it easy to ignore the way my cock rises in response, but I can’t help the way my eyes are immediately drawn to the marks I’ve left on her.
The thin scar between her breasts.
The neat line of dots from the stitches I placed along her waistline.
The barely there signs of my fingers, still present around her throat.
She’s enchanting, but this isn’t the time to become distracted by how appealing I find her. Despite her apparent pleasure at my presence, all the signs of discomfort I noted earlier are still present in her body language, and this sort of pain clearly isn’t the type she enjoys.
I dim the lamp next to her to create a more soothing environment, then uncap the scented oil and pour some into my hands, rubbing them together to warm it.
“What are you doing?” Her eyebrows lift with surprise when I smooth the oil over her taut stomach, working outward from her navel in the appropriate formation for her anatomy.
“You know that I… enjoy hurting you,” I start, my voice low and my thoughts strangely muddled as I struggle to answer her; to put into words why I need to fix her distress.
She doesn’t flinch or deny what I’ve said, just looks up at me with a steady gaze, open and soft.
It’s still hard to accept how readily she welcomes the pain I inflict on her, though, and I swallow hard, dropping my eyes back to her stomach; focusing on the sight of my fingers, pressing into her warm skin in a steady, outward-circling rhythm. The way her flesh drinks in the oil is almost mesmerizing.
“Logan?”
“I enjoy hurting you,” I repeat, “but I enjoy taking care of you too. I like it.”
That’s not quite the right word. It’s not big enough. But it’s also not the wrong one.
I look up, meeting her eyes, and a soft smile spreads across her face that does something to me. “Thank you. I like both sides of you, you know.”
I didn’t know that. I’m still trying to come to terms with the fact that she cares about me at all.
Thankfully, she doesn’t press me to discuss things like feelings, nor does she stop me as I continue to rub the oil into her belly.
Touching her like this makes my cock even harder, but I continue to ignore it. I know her body is available to me. She’s made that clear. But this is about her, not me.
“Is it helping with the cramps?” I ask after a while, surprised at how husky my voice sounds. How intimate it feels to be with her like this.
“Yes.” She trails her fingers up my forearm. “How did you know to do this?”
I blink. “I looked it up. Some of the available information couldn’t be verified, but I found several methods with documented efficacy for menstrual pain relief.”
She bites her bottom lip, her eyes sparkling. “Oh?”
“Yes.”
She laughs, a low sound that sends heat spiraling through me. “What else did you find?”
I reluctantly remove my hands from her body, then meticulously wipe the oil off them before reaching for the bottle of whiskey I brought. “Apparently, a drink can ease the pain too.”
She looks from the bottle to me, then reaches for it.
I pull it away, an impulse taking me over that I refuse to question. “No. Open your mouth.”
She lets out a soft sound that I’ve heard from her before. She enjoys being dominated. And she’s so fucking beautiful like this.
I uncap the whiskey bottle and tip it into my mouth, the liquid cool and smooth on my tongue. I hold it there, then lean over her and grip her jaw, letting it pour from my mouth into hers.
She swallows it, a heated flush spreading from her face and throat down to the beautifully delicate area beneath her collarbone.
“You’re turned on.”
“Can you blame me?” she asks, her breath quickening.
Her arousal heightens my own, but the way she’s allowing me to fix this for her, to care for her and ease her pain, is even more satisfying right now than the idea of fucking her.
“What else did you learn about helping to ease cramps?” she asks, dropping one of her hands to rest over her stomach again.
Her skin has absorbed most of the oil.
It looks even softer than usual, rich and sensuous as she glides her fingers over it.
“Orgasms,” I tell her, lifting her hand off her body and placing it on the mattress next to her hip instead.
I enjoy watching her touch herself, but I enjoy being the one to decide how she receives her pleasure even more.
“I’ve never tried orgasms,” she says a little breathlessly, leaving her hand where I’ve put it and holding my gaze as she spreads her legs. “Not for cramps.”
“Good.”
The idea that I’ll be the first to bring her this kind of relief, just as she’s been my first for certain experiences, is more satisfying than I can properly express.
I slip my fingers under the silken scrap of material hiding her pussy from me, watching her face carefully as I drag them through her folds. They’re slick with her arousal, and there’s a coppery tang to the scent of it that I’m not used to. But I don’t encounter any blood, and it’s clear that she enjoys my touch.
Even now.
Even like this. Without any pain.
I circle her clit, my fingers lubricated by her own body, and a gorgeous shudder ripples through her.
“You like this.”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to come from this.”
“Yes.”
Her fingers dig into the bedspread, her back arching as her hips undulate in response to my attention, but other than that, she holds herself still. She lets me give this to her. She submits to my control.
I rub her clit faster, harder. Feel it swell under my fingers as her breath quickens and her nipples harden, untouched, into twin pebbled nubs.
“Please.” The word bursts out of her on an explosive breath, dripping with need, and I reward her by pinching her swollen button between my fingers, granting her a sharp, sudden burst of the pain that I know will send her right over the edge.
It does, the orgasm rolling through her body right before my eyes.
It’s addictive, so I give her another one. And then another, pushing her until she’s panting for me. Whimpering and begging as she writhes under my touch, her initial obedient stillness overridden by the intensity of her body’s response.
She’s incredible. I can’t get enough. I’ve never been so focused on another person whom I wasn’t in the act of killing before, and drawing her pleasure out of her consumes me until I lose track of my original purpose and exist only to hear her moans, to map the flush of arousal as it colors her skin, to feel her tremble under my touch and to taste her urgent, panting pleas as I push her to come, over and over.
I don’t remember laying on the bed next to her. I’m not sure when I pulled the panties that had become soaked with her pleasure off and tossed them aside. I have no idea how I ever existed without the feel of her mouth on mine, without her hands clutching my shoulders, tugging on my hair, clawing at my back.
I know I never want to exist that way again.
“One more, wildcat,” I demand, one hand buried between her legs and the other tangled in those long, jewel-toned waves of her hair. “Come for me.”
She obeys. She’s never disappointed me. But as her body comes down from the shuddering pleasure this time, her eyes drift closed and she sinks into the mattress, boneless and clearly exhausted.
She murmurs something unintelligible, and I press a chaste kiss against the corner of her mouth, a deep ache in my balls. I ignore it, just like I ignore the throbbing urgency in my cock, painfully hard where it’s trapped in the confines of my pants.
I’ve taken so much pleasure from Riley’s body tonight that the denial of my own is almost like a masochistic kind of fulfillment of its own. Or maybe it’s simply that I’m satisfied on a different level now.
One I didn’t know existed before her.
“Riley,” I whisper quietly, gently tracing the delicate blue veins in her closed eyelids with the tip of my finger. “Wildcat.”
Her only response is a soft exhale.
She’s asleep. I’ve worn her out. And she’s no longer in pain.
Warmth blooms in my chest, a deeply satisfied sense of pride at what I’ve accomplished here, and I carefully roll off the bed, then rearrange her body in a more comfortable position for sleep, tucking the blankets around her.
I’ve done what I came to, and there’s no further reason for me to stay, and yet I stand next to her, watching her, for longer than I can justify.
There’s no sense to it. I could access the same view from the cameras, back in the comfort of my room. It’s what I’ve always preferred in the past, but I no longer have any desire to keep her at a distance.
Finally, though, I press a kiss to her hair, carefully smoothing it back from her face, and leave.