10. Logan
10
LOGAN
“Please just leave,” I finally beg the guys, hoping they’ll get the damn point.
All of Dean’s club members are gone and so are the rest of Poppy’s family and mine. But Remy, Linc, Dom, and Ian are sitting around my fire pit like they never want to leave. Like they have the right to sit here and give me shit. Which, I mean, they’re the men I trust with my life, so they probably do.
“Why do you want us to leave?” Dom asks from his chair.
Hell, even their fuckin’ women have gone home without them at this point, which never happens because these guys are just like me and don’t want to be away from their hearts .
“Because my woman’s inside my house, for the first time ever, and I want to sleep with her in our bed, wrapped in my arms while I feel our kid kick her.” If I didn’t know with one hundred percent certainty that those jackasses wouldn’t be leaving until they got the truth, I wouldn’t have given it to them.
But I was there while each and every one of them had to pull their heads out of the sand when it came to the women they love, and they won’t pass up the opportunity to do it when it is my turn. So I’m not going to deny them.
Ian leans back in his chair and with a calculating look, he takes a drink of his beer. “You told me repeatedly that nothing changed. For you, that was the truth, wasn’t it?”
As always, he is careful about what he actually says in front of the others, and I have a ton of respect for his ability to still be my friend and my therapist at the same time. But the implication is there. The realization that every time he asked, or we talked, I was holding back and not explaining the truth.
“Knowing that I shouldn’t have her, that I don’t deserve her, has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve always wanted her.” I crack my knuckles to distract me from the fact that I’m essentially baring my soul to my closest friends. “That she’ll own me until the day I vanish into the dirt.”
“That wall, man.” Remy whistles to himself. “That’s intense.”
I shrug. “You know how it goes. You grew up with Linc and Danny and Parker all together.”
“Yeah,” Linc agrees. “But he didn’t have a love letter to Parker on his wall where anyone could possibly see it.”
The pictures are that, I guess. I never thought of it that way. But they are also a reminder. One that I see every single time I walk through the door. Hope, and a constant throbbing ache that pushes me in her direction, even when I know I should stay away.
“When Chloe left to take Nia home, she said that Poppy was headed to bed.” Ian finishes his bottle and throws it in the recycling bin. “Come on, guys. Dom’s the sober driver tonight, and my wife said if I make it home by midnight, she won’t lock the front door and make me sleep in my office.”
With that, they all get up and walk away. Everyone except for Dom.
“You know, I’ve kept pretty quiet about you and Poppy since the beginning.” He looks over his shoulder to make sure no one else can hear. “But if you’re gonna walk away from her, you need to do it now. Before she has your kid. I played this push or pull shit with Emma, and it almost killed both of us. I don’t even want to think about what’ll happen to the two of you. Remy’s right, shit’s intense between the two of you in a way none of us really understood before today.”
I’m already shaking my head, ready to deny that I’ll ever hurt her again, when he holds up a hand to silence me.
“I get it. How you feel about her was never in question. It was the same with me and Emma. From the beginning I knew what that pull was gonna do to us, and I fought it. But if you’re not in, a thousand percent in and willing to fight anything that comes your way, you need to back out and support her through the pregnancy, without the relationship.”
“I’m in.”
Dom doesn’t say anything to that. He doesn’t have to. The silence that hangs between us speaks volumes.
When he walks away and leaves without saying anything else, I’m left staring at the fading embers of the bonfire for about a second before I turn on my heel and go inside.
I’ve already spent over a decade keeping myself away from her, and I’m not going to waste another minute. Not while I have literally everything I’ve ever dreamed about in my house… my bed.
Except, Poppy isn’t in my bed.
Which leads to me searching the entire house to find her, my heart racing the entire time because her leaving me is exactly what I deserve after everything I put her through.
“Where the hell are you?” I mutter to myself while searching all four bedrooms, the bathrooms, and the living room.
It isn’t until I make it through the entire house that I start to panic. Not the same bone-chilling fear in my gut that I had when she collapsed at the campsite, but something equally terrifying.
What will I do if she leaves me before we ever have a chance? She is the only one who helps me stay in control. If I don’t have her, I may lose everything. I will lose everything.
Slamming open the front door might be a mistake if I had any neighbors. Fortunately, I don’t.
But when I see her sleeping form on the porch swing, I feel like a tool all the same. Because I know there’s no sleeping through that.
“What?” She sits up immediately. “What’s wrong?”
I watch her hands go to her stomach protectively, and I almost drop to my knees as I see the fear take over the features that were relaxed only a moment before while she takes in my expression.
“Everything’s fine.” I smooth the flyaway curls that frame her face. “You’re fine. I was worried when you weren’t inside.”
Relief floods her face, and she sags back into the cushions. “I wanted to watch the stars for a second.” She smiles up at the sky where there isn’t a single cloud to obstruct her view. “Must have fallen asleep.”
When she doesn’t lie back down completely, I take that as my cue and squeeze in next to her, pulling her scent into my lungs, relaxing again. “It’s been a crazy few days.” Poppy lays her head on my shoulder, and I can’t help wrapping my arm around her. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Lo.” Her voice is quiet, and with the porch swing swaying back and forth, I can barely hear her over the sound of the metal swing creaking. “Tell me about the wall.”
My heart thuds painfully in my chest. “You saw it. You know what it means.” Am I ready to do this? To give her all the ammunition she needs to destroy me?
Her arm snakes around my waist, surprising me. “Tell me anyway.”
With my eyes locked on the stars above us, I push the swing back using the balls of my feet and give her the pieces of my soul that she doesn’t already own.
“You got shot, and before you’d ever had a chance to live, I felt your heart stop. Before we had a chance to live.”
Her arm tightens around my body for a moment before she catches herself and releases the tension.
“I wanted you to live. To be happy, even if it wasn’t with me. But there’s no happy for me without you, Poppy. There’s only existence. Barely there, crappy, and lifeless existence.” I press my lips to the top of her head, breathing in the scent—vanilla and spice, the one that’s uniquely hers. “I created the wall so I’d always know where my heart was. Where home was for me. Just a reminder, really, because you’re burned into my soul. When I close my eyes, you’re always there. I wanted to see it with my eyes open too. Even though my choice tore us apart. I walked away, but that doesn’t mean that my heart didn’t choose you. Every single day.”
“You made that choice for me, too,” she counters softly. “You think you’re the only one who’s been existing and miserable? It’s been fourteen years, and I’ve barely held it together enough to survive. Watching you, knowing that I couldn’t walk across a room and throw my arms around you. That your kisses weren’t mine. The nights you break into my house are the best because in the dark I get to lie to myself. I can pretend that you’re going to be there in the morning when I open my eyes. You took that away from me. And it still hurts because I’m convinced that you’re going to take it away.”
I breathe deeply, trying not to panic at the thought of her leaving because once again, I’ve fucked it up. Even if I never admit it to another person, Poppy is the only one in the entire world who can wreck me without saying a single word. Just the look in her eyes will take me out at the knees. So, while I listen to everything she says, the truth that I can’t deny, I can’t watch her.
“I’m not going to leave,” I finally whisper. “And I’ll prove it to you every single day. There are times I won’t be there when you wake up in the morning, and times that you won’t be there for me. But at the end of shift, I’ll be here. I’m not gonna miss a single day if I can help it. A single hour. Everything I’ve done, I thought I was doing the right thing. I was wrong. I’m an idiot, but I’m trying.”
“Lo.” Poppy cups my cheek with her hand, and I have no choice but to lower my eyes to hers. “Take me to bed.”
I don’t give her a chance to change her mind. Taking all the care in the world not to hurt her or our baby, I pick Poppy up into my arms, wrapping one hand under her knees and the other around her back. Then I carry her into the house and up the stairs to our bedroom.
“Don’t drop me. I don’t wanna break my neck.”
Her order makes me pause on the stairs. “Never, Poppy.”
When I put her down on the edge of the bed, Poppy doesn’t move. Instead, she watches me with a smile on her face and leans back, putting her weight on her arms.
Her leggings are tight, but I have no problem peeling them off her skin, along with the black lace panties. That leaves only her shirt, which is technically mine. The dark-green one that I gave her the day I enlisted all those years ago, with USMC in black across the chest.
She’s worn it so much that the letters are faded, soft, and practically threadbare.
“I love you in my shirt.” A growl leaves my lips. “But I like you even better in nothing at all.”
At my admission, she bites her lip and lifts the shirt over her head.
“Why do you still have clothes on?”
Poppy’s question has me pulling my shirt over my head by the collar with one hand, and then I strip out of my jeans before she can say anything else.
When her eyes lock on my dick, I almost laugh. I would have if I wasn’t getting harder by the second. Just the way her chest heaves while her tongue pokes out and licks her lips a little at a time has me palming myself and squeezing.
Picturing the way she uses that tongue on my dick is going to drive me over the edge.
One. Two. Three.
I almost have myself back under control until she leans back again and spreads her legs.
“Are you already wet for me?” She nods. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “I kind of am. Blame it on the fact that you got me pregnant.”
Yes. I did that.
My internal monologue has to be put on pause because if I don’t get inside her, I’m going to die. Maybe not die but suffer a fate worse than death.
Poppy’s hand slips down her stomach and I lose it.
“Mine,” I whisper against the skin of her neck while I grab both her hands and raise them above her head. “All mine.”
She moves her head, bringing her lips to mine, and I have no choice but to give her the kiss that she silently demands. And when her mouth opens and her tongue wars with mine for the last bit of control between our bodies, I press my body against hers.
“I’m not going to last long.” Poppy gasps when the head of my cock notches at her entrance. “I need this so much, Lo. Please.”
With one hand holding her hands and the other wrapped around my hard length, I smile down at her. “Good. I don’t want you to last long. Just long enough for me to get inside your sweet core.”
Then I’m in her, sliding through her warmth in one stroke, all the way to the hilt.
“Shit.” She hisses. “Don’t stop.”
My hand leaves hers, but she doesn’t move her hands down from above her head. Instead, she grips the blankets in her hands, and her back arches as I start to thrust.
One.
Two.
Three.
By the fourth stroke, she starts to clench around me with the beginning of her release.
By the end of the fifth stroke, she’s screaming as the orgasm tears through her body.
But I don’t stop.
Instead, I grab her calves and lift her legs so that they rest on my chest, and I give her everything I possibly can so that by the time she comes back down to herself, her body has already started to shift around mine, demanding more.
“Again.” The order leaves my lips with a ferocious growl, and her eyes fly open to meet mine.
Her eyes are locked on me, pleasure bouncing between the two of us so fast that I don’t know where I end and she begins.
“Come with me.”
I can’t speak to tell her I don’t have a choice. I move my palm down her leg, bringing it to where our bodies are connected, and run my finger through the wetness. Pressing it against her clit, I groan as she clenches around me and I see stars.
I can’t stop it. My balls tighten, and fire shoots from the base of my spine through the tips of my fingers while I empty into her tight sheath.
“Mine,” she whispers, and I open my eyes to see the same passion I feel reflected back in hers.
“Yeah.” I nod. “All yours.”
“Good.” She slaps my side, and I slip from her body. “Now, will you make me a taco pizza?”
“What the hell is a taco pizza?” I kiss the side of her neck and then get up, offering her my hand so that we can both get cleaned up.
“It’s a pizza, with taco toppings.” Poppy walks by me into the bathroom, not caring that she is leaking our fluids down her legs as she goes.
I have to look away or I’ll bend her over the counter and take her again. I’ve literally never seen anything as arousing as her, pregnant and wet because of me.
“Screw it.”
I follow her into the bathroom.
Food can wait.
This? Perfection? It can’t wait another minute.