Chapter 29 - Lily
LILY
My heart races as Max chases me through the whole house until we end up in the bedroom. He tackles me onto the bed, and as his muscular body presses me into the mattress, it’s more than just adrenaline surging through my veins.
Max never misses an opportunity to touch me.
He is always soft and careful like he’s afraid of breaking me.
But sometimes, there’s a darkness flickering behind his warm gaze.
Even more so as he pins me down, a big hand wrapped around both of my wrists.
So unimpressed by how I’m trashing and kicking in his hold as he makes my stomach hurt from all the laughter his tickling forces out of me.
I hate being tickled. No, that isn’t right. I hate being tickled by anyone that isn’t Max. Because with Max, being vulnerable isn’t scary. Being at his mercy feels good, probably because I know he would never harm me or do anything I don’t want.
And maybe that is why his attack on my stomach turns into an attack of my lips against his.
I catch him by surprise, and the moment he loosens his grip on my wrists, I turn both of us around.
Straddling his lap, I grab his hands and press them into the pillow above his head with the certainty of someone he couldn’t easily throw through the room.
Max whimpers as I grind over his lap, and our breaths mingle as I hold my lips out of reach for him.
“Please, baby,” he whispers, shifting his hips in search of friction while he looks up at me with pleading eyes.
“Am I interrupting something?” Logan’s voice comes from the doorway, sounding almost amused.
“No,” I say, putting on my best innocent smile.
“Yes,” Max grumbles.
He uses my distraction to his advantage, and once again, I find myself beneath him with my wrists pinned over my head.
Max settles between my spread legs, his erection pressing directly against my clit, and with the way his open-mouthed kisses feel on my neck, I don’t know which firework in my body to focus on.
As it turns out, none of them.
“Greedy boy,” Logan scolds, yanking a protesting Max off of me. “I should get you a pretty shock collar,” he muses, searching for approval in my gaze.
I don’t dare to move—or to breathe. I don’t want to risk him ordering two.
“Bet you’d like that, sunshine. Deliberately fucking shit up just so you get my attention in the form of a nice little buzz.”
“Stop creating a problem if you’re not going to solve it,” Max says, provocatively glancing up at Logan.
Logan narrows his eyes, ready to give Max another scolding when Ruby opens the door.
“Dom’s here in five,” she says, looking from Max and Logan over to me. “Everything alright in here?”
“We were just talking.” Logan lets go of Max, a grin dancing over his lips.
“If that’s what talking looks like, I don’t want to know how other activities play out.”
“You already know. Because you don’t knock,” Max says in this specific tone of voice that makes Logan’s left eye twitch.
“My house, my doors, my rules.” Leaving the door ajar, Ruby walks away. “Get ready,” she yells over her shoulder, and as if to validate her, Mochi lets out a single bark.
“Who’s Dom? Are we going somewhere?”
The guys ignore me and gather their stuff, so I do the same. Asking for the fourth time still doesn’t get me an answer and only causes Logan to push me out of the bedroom right into the arms of a grinning Ruby.
The designer duffle bag she’s holding out to me probably costs as much than I make in a month.
“No,” I argue. “I can’t.”
“So you want to hurt my feelings by not accepting my gift?”
“Well played,” I mumble. "Thank you."
She forces the bag into my hands, and Max immediately takes it from me. The doorbell rings, preventing any further discussion from my side.
Ruby tells me to have fun, and the way she winks at me makes me wonder what I’ve gotten myself into.
But I guess that’s the new Lily. Who dives headfirst into potentially life-threatening situations with two men she met not even a month ago.
Not to mention that one of them still makes me feel like he’s actively fighting the urge to gut me in my sleep. Max wouldn’t let him, but still.
Outside, someone honks, and Ruby sighs while we walk out to the driveway.
“At least get out of the damn car, Dominic, I’ve got to introduce you to someone.”
The driver’s door opens, and the man takes his baseball cap off before he comes over to shake my hand, a bright smile on his face.
“Please call me Dom,” he says. “Dominic is reserved for mom. I'm Ruby's--"
“Assistant. And if you call me mom one more time, you can return the car right away,” Ruby says sternly.
“See, just like my actual mom.” Dom sighs, walking back to the car blocking the driveway as if he wants to make sure Ruby doesn’t try to take it from him for real.
The engine is running, and although I don’t know an awful lot about cars, I know that this one is expensive. Fifty tax brackets over mine-expensive. Blacked-out windows and headlights match the paint job, and Max’s eyes grow wide as Dom opens the trunk.
“Damn,” he mumbles, and Ruby groans.
“Got it at an auction, the interior is—“
“The highlight of the car,” Dom finishes the sentence for her.
“Depends on who you ask.”
When Dom opens the rear door, I understand what she’s talking about.
“Love it.” Max high-fives Dom while Logan shakes his head.
“Looks like a smurf threw up in there,” he says dryly, which earns him a thankful nod from Ruby.
“Says the one with no taste,” Max says.
“Obviously. How else would I have ended up with you? Now get in the car, Polly Pocket.”
I stick to Ruby to avoid being dragged into this discussion. After we’ve all hugged each other goodbye, Dom leaves the property with screeching tires, much to Max’s delight.
Logan picked the passenger seat, and I usually wouldn’t mind sitting next to Max, but as the drive goes on, I think a different seating arrangement would have been better.
Because with Max in the back, it’s impossible to block him and Dom out as they talk shop about headlights, ambient lights, and rims. By the time they start arguing about the best engine for an S-class, Logan clears his throat.
“Headphones,” he demands, holding his hand out to Max, who reaches for his backpack. “It’s a mystery to me how you guys get laid.”
After the little fallout Logan and I had, I began observing him like I’m David Attenborough.
If Logan refuses to talk about anything more substantial than dinner choices or the way he likes to get head, I’m going to take the scientific route, and study the behaviors and characteristics of the confusing life form that is Logan Cabrera.
So far, I’ve concluded that he likes to be in charge. To be fair, I realized that the first day I met him, but it’s just now that I understand how much he needs to be in control.
He barks out commands and always has to have the last word. It makes him nervous when things don’t go his way, and I know it’s bad when he starts tapping his fingers. Thumb to pinky, to index, to middle, to pointer. Over and over.
And if he does end up in a situation he can’t control, he leaves. Sometimes, it’s like the tide and the weather are enough to set him off just because they are out of his grasp.
He wears this unshakeable coldness like a crown, and I wonder if he knows how miserable he’d be without Max. Without someone who constantly neutralizes his temper, who functions like a brain outside of his body, and all that without a word of complaint.
The logical consequence would be to ask myself why on earth Max puts up with it.
Unfortunately, I get it. Logan’s hot and cold attitude, the harsh words that turn into spoken velvet, not knowing what side of him you’ll get that day—somehow, it makes you crave those rare, affectionate moments even more.
When Max and Dom finally shut up, I doze off against Max’s shoulder.
A few hours later, I wake up because Logan is screaming at someone. I blink my eyes open, and my gaze lands on the two scared recruits in the tiny house next to the base entrance.
“Open the fucking gate,” Logan barks while the two men feverishly try to call someone.
Logan reaches for the door handle, which is enough for Recruit 1 to shove his friend away and grant us entry to the site.
“Give me five minutes at the main building. You’ve got a fire extinguisher in the car?”
“Logan, please do me a favor and keep your cool for the twenty goddamn minutes we’re here, okay?”
“If I see him, it’s God’s way of telling me he wants me to rid the earth of this cockroach. Just so you know.” Logan crosses his arms in front of his chest, and as a precautionary measure, Dom locks the doors.
He drives us over to the airfield, and as I see the aircraft being loaded, my palms get sweaty. A blonde woman stands in front of it, watching groups of men move cargo, and as Max gets out of the car, she walks over to us with a smile. Once she sees Logan, her smile disappears.
She greets Max and me and even introduces herself to Dom, who then rushes to leave base before he gets in trouble. Scarlett continues to ignore Logan, and his expression sours when he says something, and she just walks away.
“First time flying on a military plane?” Max asks, giving me a cheeky smile as we board the plane.
“Take a guess,” I mumble, wiping my hands on my jeans.
“No need to be scared, baby. Scarlett could fly asleep and with bound hands, and we’d still arrive safely.”
“I thought Scarlett’s biggest talent was being a rude bi—“
“And it’s a short flight,” Max interrupts Logan.
“So we’re going too…”
Logan groans. “Fucking hell, just tell her already. It’s not that big of a surprise, and if she doesn’t stop asking, I’m going to gag her.”
“Montana,” Max says with a smile so bright it’s almost blinding. “And that’s all I’m going to tell you.”