Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
“Stop it.” Logan waited five feet behind Charlotte as she stood in his suite—their suite—and stared out at the Vegas night.
A million lights shined back at them, but he doubted she saw even a single one.
No, he knew what she was seeing in her head, over and over again.
The body of Evelyn Marteen. “This isn’t your fault, baby.
Stop letting the guilt eat you.” Did she think he didn’t realize what she’d been doing ever since they’d found the other woman?
“He was in the hotel.” A low murmur from Charlotte. “We were all in the same place, and I didn’t stop him.”
“Fine. Yeah, the bastard was there. Probably watching while you and I entered the place.” Which was just something else that enraged him.
The killer was locked and loaded on Charlotte.
Watching her come in the hotel. Calling her on the phone.
Taunting her. There was nothing about that crap that was reassuring and far too much that was terrifying.
It took a lot to scare him in this world. But the idea of ever entering a hotel room and finding his Charlotte sprawled on a bed with her throat cut…
Not happening. I am putting this piece of shit in the ground.
“The CIA was there.” Charlotte still had her body positioned in front of the window.
Her head was directed straight ahead. Her eyes seemingly on those lights that fought the darkness.
“There were at least five operatives in the hotel or near it. And yet a woman died and her killer got away. I was right there. She died on my watch. He got away from me.”
Enough of this. Hadn’t Logan already said for her to stop?
The guilt would do nothing but make Charlotte soak in misery.
“She wasn’t some innocent. Evelyn was working with him.
” He eliminated the distance between them.
Put his hand on her shoulder and spun her toward him. “She was guilty—you’re crying!”
She was.
Dammit. Hell. Dammit. His hands cupped her jaw. “Don’t cry.”
Another tear slid down her cheek.
His fingers rose and brushed away the teardrops. But more fell. “Stop it!”
“Her blood was everywhere.”
“Stop crying, Charlotte.” Ragged. Her tears made his chest ache. They also made him want to go out and destroy. “That’s an order. You stop it right now.”
But more tears just came. “I thought she was helping him.”
Why could the woman not follow a simple order? Those tears were wrecking him. “She probably was helping him!” Probably? More like definitely. “Evelyn delivered the champagne bottle to Harper. Jezebel has her on video doing that very thing.”
Jezebel and her team had finally recovered more footage showing how Harper had been removed from her hotel room.
Or, how they thought she’d been removed.
A room service cart had gone to her room about an hour after Evelyn left.
The staff member had unlocked the door. Gone in.
Come back out moments later with the rolling cart.
But there was no record of a scheduled room service call for that time.
The CIA suspected that Harper’s unconscious body had been stuffed in the bottom of that cart. Concealed beneath the white cloth that surrounded the cart, Harper had just been wheeled right out.
The CIA and Detective Meredith Reece were currently looking for the person who’d been pushing the cart. It had been a man, short, balding. With a tattoo on his left wrist. The HR supervisor at Harper’s hotel swore he wasn’t an employee. At the moment, no one knew the man’s identity.
As Logan gazed at Charlotte, a tear crept slowly down her beautiful face.
A savage growl broke from him.
“Can’t stop.” Her voice frayed at the edges. “I hate all the deaths, and I wanted to make a difference, and I wanted to stop him, but now Evelyn is gone. He has Harper. He will kill Harper, you know that. I know that.”
“If you shed one more tear…” Logan barely recognized the guttural sound of his own voice. “You will…” He stopped. Break me. Your tears are breaking me. Pushing me to the edge, and I don’t want to cross over that edge. I’m already in too deep with you.
“Are we being serious?” Charlotte asked him. “You and I, right now, are we being serious?”
What kind of damn question was that? “Dead serious.” Those tears had to stop.
“Don’t you dare shed another tear or I will have no choice but to make love to you so long and hard that pleasure wipes out every single bit of pain you carry.
” There. Done. She’d been warned, so if those tears didn’t stop, he’d be in her.
She shook her head. “I meant…are you being serious with me again? Or, will you be serious with me? Will you give me five minutes of the real Logan? I like him. I-I think I need him now.”
“You always get the real me. Serious or crazy, I’m real with you. And I’m being real right now when I say that your tears are making me want to destroy so you have to stop them. Baby, you have to stop because I can’t handle your tears, and my control is going to shatter because—”
She blinked those incredible golden eyes of hers at him. “Make the pain stop for me. Make me see something other than her in my mind right now. I don’t want to keep seeing her poor throat.”
A tear slid down her cheek.
Every muscle in his body tightened.
“I should be used to death given what I do, but it hits me so hard every single time.” A choppy exhale. “Please,” she whispered.
He bent toward her. His lips caught the tear on her cheek. He could taste the salt on his tongue. Her hands rose, curled around his shoulders, and she leaned into him.
Not. Good. Enough.
His hands flew to her hips. Locked around her. He lifted her up against him, holding her high. Tight. “Kiss me,” he ordered. “Now.”
She did. Her mouth met his. Did she taste the salt of her tears on his lips?
He couldn’t let her keep crying. He couldn’t let her be in pain.
Her pain was too much for him.
Four steps, and he had her pinned between him and the wall. Away from the windows where the world could look in. No, no, this moment wasn’t for the world. It was just for them.
His mouth turned frantic on hers. Her legs were around his hips. Her body arching against him, but there were clothes in their way. He intended to make love to his wife right then and there, and he couldn’t do it with the freaking clothes between them.
He lowered her, just for a moment. Wrenched away her shirt.
The bra. Her breasts spilled toward him, and they were perfect.
He lifted her up again. High enough that he held her pinned to the wall and his mouth could lock around her tight nipple.
He sucked her, hard, and she shuddered. She twisted. She moaned.
But when he looked up at her face…
Tear tracks on her cheeks.
“Not fucking good enough.” He put her down again.
Her breath came faster. Her eyes were wide.
His rough hands yanked her jeans and panties down, hauling her shoes and socks away with them. Her breath heaved in and out, and her tight nipples thrust toward him as he paused a moment to take her all in.
She’s mine. I’m hers. I would do any fucking thing in this world for her.
Except…
He would not let her cry. He would not let her be in pain, not if there was anything he could do to stop that pain.
“Logan?”
He bent, and his shoulder pressed to her stomach.
“What are you doing? Logan, I—Logan!”
He’d straightened, with her tossed over his shoulder. He kept one hand on her legs, and the other went to press to her fabulous ass.
Without a word, with her naked over his shoulder, he stalked to the bedroom.
To their bed. It would be great if he could enjoy long foreplay with her.
Drive her crazy with desire, but that shit was not happening.
No way would his control hold for long foreplay time. So he’d just get right to the point.
He dropped her onto the bed. Then fell onto her like the possessed man he was. His hands shoved her thighs apart, and his mouth went right between her legs. Right. On. Her.
His tongue thrust into her. His fingers stroked her. He greedily lapped up her taste, then eased back, just so he could mercilessly suck her clit, and he kept right on sucking and licking and lashing her with his tongue until she came with a sudden, fast shriek.
And that’s the point. Charlotte’s pleasure.
Her legs were trembling when he eased back. As fast as he could, Logan stripped. He reached for a condom in the nightstand. Did not take his gaze off her. He couldn’t.
Her chest rose and fell. Her nipples tempted him. Her parted legs…oh, they promised heaven. The overhead lights were on in the bedroom, and they allowed him to see every inch of her.
He crawled onto the bed. Between her legs. “You’re ready for me.” He’d made sure she was.
But she still whispered, “Yes.” And it was the sweetest, sexiest whisper ever.
The head of his cock shoved at the entrance to her body. His hands flattened near her head, and he fisted the covers as he drove into her. A slow, deep, steady drive. Relentless.
“Fuck me like nothing else matters,” she begged.
Logan shook his head. Not fucking. Not with you. Hadn’t he told her before? He made love to his wife.
“Logan?”
“You are the only thing that matters.” He let go of his control.
He withdrew, then slammed deep. Fast and hard because he knew that was exactly what she wanted.
What her body craved. She couldn’t do slow.
Not some gentle joining of bodies. Her emotions and pain had left her ragged, and she needed pleasure.
Fast. Hard. Consuming. The kind of pleasure that would wipe away everything else and leave a person breaking apart from the inside, out.
The kind of pleasure that he could give to her.
So he didn’t stop. He didn’t go softly. He just stroked her need. Built up her lust. Built up his own with frantic, greedy touches. Deep kisses. Demanding plunges of his body into hers.
Over and over.
Her nails clawed down his back. Her ankles shoved into his ass when she wrapped her legs around him and heaved up against him.