Chapter 20
Logan
My parents were packing, and I couldn’t stop glancing over at Lachlan.
He was leaning against the doorframe connecting the kitchen and the living room, watching as my parents finished up their goodbyes to me. He was casual and calm. Like he wasn’t tracking my every move with the focus of a wolf who’d caught the scent of something warm and willing.
I could feel him watching me as I handed my mom her bag and double-checked the zipper.
I barely heard what she was saying. Something about road conditions and snacks and calling when they got back home.
My nods were automatic. My brain was miles away.
Or more accurately, it was only thinking about the man six feet behind me whose stare was branding the back of my neck.
He hadn’t touched or kissed me all morning. Not once.
But there was pressure between us now. Like the second we were truly alone, it was going to snap.
He looked completely at ease on the outside, but I knew better. His fingers tapped an irregular rhythm against his corded forearm from where his arms were crossed. His jaw was tight. And every time our eyes met, even briefly, the air pulled tighter between us.
I busied myself by pretending to fold a blanket that didn’t need folding while my parents finished doing their walk through of the spare bedroom to ensure they didn’t forget anything. Both of them gave Lachlan a quick hug and handshake, but his eyes stayed on me the entire time.
“Alright.” My dad grunted, slinging the last bag over his shoulder. “We’re outta here.”
My stomach did a slow roll. My breath caught. I didn’t turn to look at Lachlan as I walked my parents to the door, but I felt the shift in him. The tightening. The stillness.
My mom hugged me, murmuring something soft I didn’t catch. My dad gave me the same I love yous and a hug. But all of it felt distant, like I was underwater.
I could feel Lachlan’s energy climbing behind then up me—he was everywhere.
The front door opened. Cold air swept in. The last goodbyes were said.
And then—click.
Lachlan, without a word, reached from behind me and locked the deadbolt with one smooth flick of his wrist. The second the metal thunked into place, I had exactly one heartbeat of warning. One flash of breath before Lachlan moved.
He came at me like I had my own gravitational pull.
His hands were on my waist, spinning me and slamming me back into the door so fast the world spun with it.
My gasp barely made it out before his mouth was on mine—hot, hard, and so fucking hungry.
I hit the wood with a thud, and he caught me there, his hips pressed into mine, his hands braced on either side of my face like he didn’t trust himself not to break me otherwise.
I melted. Or exploded. I wasn’t sure which. All I knew was that I clutched at the front of his shirt like it was the only solid thing in the room and kissed him back with every ounce of pent-up, aching need I’d been swallowing down from the moment I’d stepped foot in this house.
I easily lifted and latched my legs around his waist, and he used the leverage of my body against the door to undo his pants and get them down before he ripped open the button-up plaid of his that I was wearing.
His kisses moved down my jawline until he was nipping at my pulse point.
Then he paused and took a long inhale as if savoring everything about this moment, down to my scent.
“Logan,” he rasped, sliding a hand into my hair so he could angle my head and run his nose and lips down my neck, and I gasped at the gentleness of it.
“I’m going to torment you the same way you have me from the moment you stepped foot on my property.
” Kiss. “I’m going to savor every inch of your skin.
” Lick. His tongue moved down my chest straight to one of my sensitive nipples.
I arched into him and moaned as he sucked it into his mouth and nipped it with his teeth.
“Then I’m going to fuck you so thoroughly, you won’t remember your name. ”
I would’ve loved to get straight to that part.
I had never been so needy to be fucked in all my life, but Lachlan kept his word.
The man teased, kissed, and licked me everywhere within reach in our current position before he put my legs down gently and dropped to his knees.
He lowered my pants to the floor and helped me step out of them, leaving me bare right in front of him and my cunt inches away from his face.
He grabbed my leg and tossed it over his shoulder as he started kissing and teasing the delicate skin around my pussy until I thought I might come from just his touch alone.
The slowness was fucking torture. But then finally he swiped through my pussy with his tongue and I nearly combusted on the spot. I arched into him, desperately needing the friction.
“Please, Lachlan,” I begged, and then he started feasting on me, the crazed swipe of his tongue matching the grind of my hips into his face. He gripped and kneaded my ass, only egging me on further.
My whole body was on fire and tingling, my limbs were starting to feel heavy with pent up desire, and then the pleasure burst inside me and I threw my head back.
Pretty sure the leg holding me up gave out because Lachlan was holding me up by my ass as he continued to lick me until my shuddering stopped.
Lachlan helped me stay on my feet as he rose to his, quickly helping me move to the couch and then bending me over it. I bit my lip as he slid a thick finger into me.
“Fuck, Logan, I’ve waited so long, baby. I can’t be gentle.”
Thank fuck because I didn’t want that. I wanted the wild man from the woods. A moment later, his thick cock was running against my clit, and I arched farther into him as if silently begging him to take what he wanted, and then he obeyed.
He grabbed a fistful of hair at the base of my neck and thrust his cock inside me all the way to the hilt.
I cried out at the fullness, at how good it felt to finally be filled by him.
Immediately, he moved, gripping my hips with a painful hold that only spiked up my pleasure.
I was sure I’d have bruises tomorrow, but a part of me yearned for that mark from him.
“You look so damn beautiful when you take me so well,” Lachlan growled as he picked up his pace, and I could feel one of his hands soothing my back before it came up and gripped my shoulder until his thrusts became punishing.
Pleasure rushed through my body again and I moaned as his hips jerked and he spilled into me.
I felt our mixed releases start to dribble down my legs, but Lachlan was a man of his word because he obviously wasn’t done. He pulled me up and quickly lifted me into his arms, took me to the bedroom, laid me down on the bed.
He crawled over top of me and started kissing me gently, getting me riled up all over again when I didn’t even think I could.
He murmured sweet nothings into my ear as he kissed up and down my neck, licking and sucking lightly as he went before doing the same to each breast until I was writhing beneath him, but this time there weren’t any words shared between us, just this burning fire in both of our gazes as he held eye contact with me and slipped his hard cock back inside me.
This time, he wasn’t brutal. This was a claiming in an entirely different way, and I couldn’t let my mind dwell on it too much because if I did, I might cry from the intensity of it all.
He thrust into me in rhythmic, slow movements that made tears spring behind my eyes.
I was so close to unraveling underneath him all over again, and I didn’t know if I could handle it.
“Let go for me, sweetheart,” he murmured against my lips, and my whole body was so full of pleasure with nowhere left to go.
I cried out as it rushed over me in waves, so strong my vision blurred at the edges.
His body stiffened after a few more thrusts as he spilled into me, and he started murmuring gentle praises in my ear.
That was when I noticed he wiped a tear away from my cheek.
I was so thoroughly fucked, both metaphorically and physically, because I knew in that moment, all I could see were the strings between us.
Lachlan had taken quite a bit of time off from the firehouse to focus on the Christmas tree farm these last two weeks.
Families were still trickling in from the post-festival buzz, but I knew that wasn’t the real reason he’d stepped back from work.
No, that was far less wholesome. The man had laid me out and fucked me on nearly every surface of this place.
The cabin. The office. The back of his damn pickup truck.
We hadn’t been able to keep our hands—or mouths—off each other since my parents had left.
The only place we hadn’t done it was out in the woods, and I was fairly certain the only thing stopping us was the cold temperatures.
But beneath all of the mind-blowing sex, quiet dread had begun to settle in my chest, like frost creeping along the edges of the windowpane.
Christmas was tomorrow. The rush had slowed.
The tree farm had fallen into a calm, post-season lull the last few days.
And now that everything was quiet, it was harder to pretend I didn’t know what was coming.
After officer Miller, had seen us all together at the festival—Lachlan and me with my parents—all smiling like some picture-perfect Christmas card, they’d all backed off. No more patrols had stopped by the house. No more questions. Everything had been quiet.
Lachlan had plans now for the farm. Events, workshops, cozy seasonal fun that would bring in money during the slower seasons. His life was back on track.
Which meant our lie had done its job.
We were supposed to let this go.
But I hadn’t. Not really. I’d just clung harder to whatever time I had left.
And today had made it harder than ever.