40
Lia
“They found him with a shot to the back of the head. Everyone assumes Coltello did it. But honestly, why are we all jumping to that conclusion? He was in that Idaho warehouse, waiting to meet with the Syndicate. It would make a lot more sense that someone from the Syndicate offed him. I bet some of them just hate his guts. After all, he’s trying to take it from them.
And their loyalty to Anna can only go so far.
You know, some of them still call her Anna Price.
She took Moretti’s last name, but to the Prices she’ll always be one of theirs.
And now she’s dead, so why the hell would they be loyal to him?
I bet they’ve just been aching to kill the guy.
I always said Idaho was a mistake. I don’t think Coltello has that kind of power anyway—”
“Had.”
I blink my eyes groggily. I’ve been tuned out to most of Everest’s monologue, feeling myself getting drowsier as Aurora rests her head against my chest. She’s fast asleep, and I would be too, if the knot in my stomach weren’t keeping me awake.
My eyes are glued to Logan. He sits beside me, texting back and forth on his phone.
I’ve never seen him look so closed off, and yet, I know he’s not angry at me.
Just tense with everything that’s about to happen.
He’s the one who cut off Everest, and now he looks up.
“You have a lot of theories, man, that’s great. How about you keep them to yourself?”
“Fuck off, man.” Everest leans back, rolling his eyes. “I bet Damien would be interested in those theories.”
Logan’s jaw clenches, and my heart tightens to see the look on his face that only I understand. Everest is completely clueless, as usual. “I’m sure he would,” mutters Logan. “How about keeping an eye on the kid?”
“Hmm?”
“Dolores is sleeping,” he says, gesturing to the woman in question, who’s resting her head against another airplane window. “And I’m about to join the mile high club.”
I sit up straighter, feeling just a bit of tension ease as Everest makes an exaggerated grimace. “TMI, dude. TMI.” Still, he lifts Aurora gently off my chest. I look at her, a lump in my throat, inexplicably feeling a sense of loss.
“C’mon, baby,” murmurs Logan, holding out his hand. I take it, and he guides me to the small private bedroom at the back of the plane. He closes the door behind him while I wait, hesitating to get in his preferred position, on my knees with my hands above my head.
And yet, when he turns around to face me, all I can do is rush into his arms.
“Shhh, Lia. My little ghost.”
“Please don’t call me that,” I sob out. “I don’t want to be your ghost.”
“Shhh.” He soothes me, running his fingers over my back. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise. Okay, Lia?” He puts a thumb under my chin, tilting my head back so that my eyes meet his. “I promise.”
I sniff loudly, wiping away the tears that have fallen on my cheeks. He doesn’t seem turned on by them now. Merely sad.
“It’s all my fault, isn’t it? If I hadn’t gotten you that birthday present… it’s all my fault.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “They would have found us anyway. Coltello’s mobsters were already in the area, hunting for us. Selling that painting made it easier for them to find us, but it would have happened anyway. You’re not responsible, Lia. I need you to know that.”
“Okay.” I allow myself to believe his words, the knot in my stomach easing just a bit.
“I want you to lie back on the bed,” he murmurs. “I want to pleasure you.”
Something in the way he looks at me makes my heart ache. It feels like the last time. I know he believes it is.
But I don’t allow myself to speak those words. I lie back, and even though I feel lost and in pain, my stomach muscles clench as he nestles between my legs.
“I’m going to give you the best orgasm of your life,” he says, slipping off my panties and rucking up my dress.
I let out a whimper as he grips my thighs and licks a stripe up my slit. “Then you’re going to have to hurt me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, baby.”
“Please, Logan.”
I need to feel that it isn’t the last time. I want it to be one of our normal times—the best version of normal there is.
He sighs. “Close your eyes.”
I feel his hands slide under my dress, reaching up for my tits as his tongue continues to lave at my folds.
It circles around my clit, his teeth nipping at it and sending sparks up through my core, while his fingers rub and flick over my nipples, stiffening them into hard peaks.
His light touch turns a little harder as he pinches and twists them, while he continues to toy with my clit, alternating between licks and sucks and bites.
It’s not as much pain as usual, but it’s enough that soon, I’m rolling my hips, grinding into his mouth, my legs shaky with the orgasm that courses through me and makes my toes tingle.
“That wasn’t the best orgasm of your life,” he says, pulling away from my face and licking my arousal from his lips.
“It was one of them,” I lie.
It’s hard to have the best orgasm of your life when you’re wondering if that life will soon be taken away from you.
Even harder when my body is not throbbing with pain.
I don’t know what that says about me. Nothing good, I guess. Logan was right to call me a little pain slut—that’s what I am, but only for him.
“You’re a little liar, aren’t you?” he teases, his voice suddenly thick with lust.
If I’m a pain slut, then he’s a sadist. We make a good pair. The unserious thought suddenly brings tears to my eyes, reawakening the sense of impending loss I’ve been struggling with.
“Wait till after your punishment to cry, crybaby.”
He sits on the bed beside me.
“A punishment, huh? I thought you weren’t going to hurt me.”
“I changed my mind. Come here, you.”
It’s hard to wrap my mind around the way the knot in my stomach fully eases as he drags me across his lap, his hand stroking up and down my bottom. There’s something very soothing about externalizing my pain.
His hand rubbing my ass lulls me into a state of relaxation that he breaks with a sudden smack to one cheek.
“Oh god.” I stuff my face in my hands, the loudness of the smack making me forget everything else. “They’ll hear, Logan!”
“Let them.” He settles into a fast and hard rhythm, not stopping until my cheeks are numb. And even then he keeps going, his hand instead attacking the sensitive flesh between my cheeks and my thighs.
“Fuck, Logan! Fuck!”
I forget all about Everest and Dolores on the other side of the thin door.
Even though I’m used to pain by now, it fucking hurts.
I’m squirming around on his lap, trying to get away from the blows.
But he holds me firmly with one hand, and all I can do is open and shut my legs—allowing him to land hard blows on my pussy.
Soon, my mind is shut off to everything but the pain and the wetness it causes between my thighs. And I feel Logan’s stiffness underneath me grow. That only makes my clit ache more, until I’m panting with need.
“Logan… please… please…”
“Are you crying yet, brat?”
“Ye-e-es…”
I sniff loudly, and he at last stops, rubbing out the sting on my ass and before bringing a finger up and down my sore, swollen folds.
“That was definitely one of the worst spankings of my life. Or, I guess, best.”
He chuckles, folding me in his arms and kissing me. “You’re my good girl, aren’t you?” he purrs against my lips. “My very good girl. And that’s just what you’ll be for the rest of our life.”
Before the bittersweet pain has time to tighten my chest, he has me straddle him, and I feel his cock push into me, relieving my aching need.
“Oh, Logan…”
“Fuck, baby…”
He holds me to him as his cock drives into me, each thrust making my core explode with heat. He presses his lips again to mine, his tongue claiming my mouth, as his arms squeeze around me. We’ve never fucked like this. In a way that feels like a desperate embrace.
He pulls his mouth away from mine at last, and I take in a gasp of air before nestling my face against his shoulder. I feel his head against mine, and my shoulder grows wet.
He’s crying.
I’ve never seen him cry before, and it sends a violent surge of pain through me.
“Logan, are you…”
“Shh, baby. Just hold me.”
We come together, his seed filling me, our tears mingling. Then I collapse in his arms, and he pulls both of us down on the bed.
“That was the best orgasm I’ve ever had,” I murmur against his chest.
“Mine too, little captive. Mine too.”