by Karr, Kim
Each other.
I just hoped it would be like this forever.
My hands were not bound but they gripped the chair, my back was to his chest, and my legs were spread wide. I was open to him. Fully and completely open to him. In this position, I was his to do with whatever he pleased.
It was then I realized that in our relationship we didn’t need a dominant or a submissive. We only needed each other.
And as his palm found my breast and his fingers pressed against my clit, I closed my eyes and relished what I had with him.
For us . . . give and take was all we needed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DAY 30
LOGAN
“Let’s go to New York.”
“What?” she asked in surprise.
“Let’s go to New York,” I repeated.
“Why?” she sputtered.
Perched high on top of a ladder, I took the nail from my mouth and set the hammer down. “To get away. We can stay at my apartment in the city, go out to dinner with James and Lindsay, hang out with the gang, and do mindless tourist things I can’t stand even thinking about. You know, like going to the top of the Empire State Building or taking the ferry over to the Statue of Liberty.” With a wince, I added, “We could even see a Broadway show.”
“Logan, it all sounds wonderful, but you know I can’t leave the boutique. Rachel has Tuesday and Wednesday off and Peyton can’t manage things alone. I also have a schedule with Clementine that I like to keep to as much as possible. Routine is important for her right now.”
I picked the nail back up and pounded it into the wall. “I know all of that. I was thinking we could leave tonight after you close up and come back late Monday night, in time for the boutique to reopen on Tuesday. That way we won’t impact your work and your schedule with Clementine won’t need too much altering. It’s just one weekend away.”
She pulled her lower lip between her teeth. “It could work, but what about you? Don’t you have appointments?”
“I already checked and I don’t have any on Monday—my schedule is clear.”
Elle handed me the twin to the cuckoo clock that was already on the wall. “Do you really think it’s a good idea right now?”
I eyed the clock with disdain and then hooked it on the nail. “This? No.” I grinned. “But a weekend away with you, yeah, I do.”
She stared up at the clock. “That’s good, right there. And you know that’s not what I meant.”
I double-checked to make sure the clock wasn’t tilted and then waved my finger between them. “Are they going to go off at the same time?”
She nodded with a playful grin.
“Fuck.”
Her laugh sounded good. “I think you secretly want me to bring one home.”
I shook my head and caught her eye, seriousness taking over. “Elle, I’m fine. I know I’ve been in a bit of a funk and preoccupied with getting to the bottom of this drug ring over the last two weeks, but that’s why I need to get away. Everything is spinning and nothing is making sense. I just need to forget about my grandfather, Tommy, Patrick, about everything . . . even if it is only for a couple of days.”
Those green eyes, whose magic had spilled out into my life and changed it from a world of black and white to one where color actually seemed possible, looked contemplative. “It’s just that I don’t know if now is the right time.”
She’d been worried about me. That I wasn’t going to recover from my grandfather’s death. Sure, I’d been distant. Quiet. Gone a lot. Tracking endless leads taking me nowhere. Going on wild goose chases that only brought me back to the starting point. In my defense, my mind was constantly thinking and my body had to keep moving. It was how I coped. But I was Killian McPherson’s grandson, and he’d roll in his grave if he even sensed I’d let his death keep me down for too long. I looked over at her. I couldn’t believe how much I needed her. I couldn’t lose her. “I’m fine, or I will be as soon as all of this is over. Just hang in there with me. Give me some time to figure it out.” I was determined to find out who the Priest was and what his connection to O’Shea was. I felt like it was a big puzzle and all of the pieces fit in there somewhere.
Tears seemed to fill her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. And it’s not time that worries me. It’s you, going out there alone. Let your friends help you.” Her worry over me was evident. She didn’t like me going out on the streets on my own. Neither did Miles. Or Declan. I got it. Still, it was something I thought I should do by myself. But looking at her now, and after two weeks of getting nowhere, I knew it was time to stop being reckless and start being smart.
Climbing down the ladder, my grandfather’s voice came to mind. It’s not how you fall, Logan, he used to say, it’s how you get up that matters. Distancing myself from everyone hadn’t been on purpose, but his death had been a shock. The funeral was brutal and ever since, I’d been on a rampage to get to the truth. Every day I’d had to face the daunting reality that he was gone—because of me. It was harsh and tough to face. But my determination to make his death mean what he wanted it to mean—the freedom of my old man—was what had kept me grounded. Freeing my old man from the DEA was still on the table and that was what kept me moving forward, searching, looking, forging through all the shit. Even when it got me nowhere.
My old man surprised me. He was stronger than I’d ever thought he was. Somehow, he managed to stay away from the bottle. I knew it would take time for us both to truly accept that Killian wasn’t around anymore, but we both would in our way. We were the blood of a very strong man, after all.
As for why Patrick offered the swap of lives in the first place, that was pretty evident. Now up on RICO charges, his power was quickly dwindling, and getting rid of Killian was a power-play move. I’m sure in his own twisted way it somehow made him feel stronger, even behind bars, to have the authority to order a hit on the ex-mob boss. I’d made sure to put a crack in his shield, though. Let information slip on the streets that both Patrick and Tommy were going soft, turning state’s evidence against the gang. It was as much a lie as it was the truth, but I didn’t care. I wanted him out of play. Over the past two weeks the Blue Hill Gang had dismantled—every guy taking what he could and leaving town, or at least laying low. There had been no activity from any of them. Blanchet owed me one because chances were good that the Blue Hill Gang would completely dissolve very soon.
The information Tommy had told me about O’Shea still couldn’t be validated in any way. I had no idea if Tommy was telling the truth about his relationship with Lizzy, but my gut told me that it was at least partly true. Still, there were holes in his story. Mainly, how did Tommy know about the hit on my grandfather if he was out of the loop? Why would Patrick have told him? To gain his trust? To test him? Or was it possible someone in the organization leaked it to him? I had to find this out. It was key to trusting what Tommy had told me.
Then again, if I really thought about it, more than likely Tommy had killed Elle’s sister and wanted me to spend my time chasing something that wasn’t there. He wanted me to lose my mind thinking about Elle with Michael and wonder if he might do to her what he’d done to his wife. That was much more his game than the fact that a woman had stolen his heart and he wanted to avenge her death. No, he knew that was more my thing.
Regardless, I needed to get back inside to talk to him. See what I could find out about this Priest, but Miles couldn’t make it happen. I guess Tommy had spent a good two days in the clinic, and the explanation that it was a self-inflicted injury wasn’t holding up well with the higher-ups.
The only lead Miles had on where the Priest was located was where the drug deals were taking place, and that turned out to be a dead end. The cokehead Miles had found pointed out three buildings on the waterfront where the deals might have gone down. They all looked alike. No specific location could be identified. Absolutely no fucking help at all.
I wanted more. I wanted to know who the Priest was because (A), if
I provided that information, Blanchet would remove my father’s name from all of her files, and (B), now this was personal and I just fucking wanted to know.
The problem was that he was a ghost. The Priest was known on the street, but no one knew his true identity or where to find him.
It was early Saturday morning and Elle was trying really hard to make sure I stayed off the streets, so she’d asked me to help her do a few things before she opened the boutique. The ulterior motive was clear, but I didn’t care; I liked helping her and just being with her made me feel better. Besides, I’d already decided it was time to ask Declan and Miles for more help in finding the Priest.
As I glanced at her, I couldn’t help but feel she, too, had been preoccupied over the past two weeks. I could sense something more was on her mind that she wasn’t telling me. I took the last rung of the ladder and turned to her. “Well?” I asked, vowing to get to the heart of what was eating at her this weekend.
She raised a brow and pointed to the ladder behind me. “Do that again, will you?”
I laughed and for shits and giggles, played along and turned back. My cell vibrated in my pocket and I ignored it. The fun between us had all but been zapped with Killian’s death, but maybe this was the start of something even more. The flirtatious, sexy side I knew she had somewhere deep inside her was blossoming. And I really wanted to nurture what was emerging. Up on one rung, I twisted around. “You want me to go up and down the ladder so you can stare at my ass, don’t you?” I said coyly.
She flushed.
“Well?”
She stepped closer. “It is a great view from down here.”
Overjoyed, I yanked her to me and gently pulled her mouth to mine. “Answer me.”
Her body melded to mine instantly. “What was the question?” she asked, a little breathless.
Lip on lip, a gentle brush meant to be a small kiss. “You know what it was. Say yes,” I murmured with our mouths pressed together.
“Yes, I’ll go.” Her voice was low and I felt uncertainty in her tone.
I pulled back. Looked at her. Knew something was there. Waiting until tonight to talk about it sounded great in theory, but I couldn’t. “Why do I feel like there’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere?”
Elle took a deep breath and stepped off the ladder.
I followed.
She was wearing tight black skinny jeans, a gray sleeveless top, and a pair of boots. She looked sexy as fuck. “Logan,” she said quietly. “There’s something about myself I should have told you before we let things get so serious. But we went from zero to sixty and I never found the right time.”
My brow creased. “Okay.”
She drew in another breath.
My cell vibrated again, but I was too busy trying to untwist the knot that just formed in my gut to even think about answering it. “Hey, just tell me, because right now I’m thinking all kinds of weird shit, like maybe you have a husband out there and you want to go back to him.”
She shook her head and the corners of her mouth tugged up slightly.
“Phew, okay then, anything else I can handle.”
“There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. I can’t get pregnant.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but I wasn’t sure what the correct response to that was. An “I’m pregnant” might have shocked the shit out of me, but an “I can’t get pregnant”? I wasn’t sure what to do with that.
“Let me explain,” she added.
Good, because I was standing there dumbfounded.
She seemed a little lost, and the breath she sucked in tore at me.
“Take your time, Elle. I’m here when you’re ready.”
She blew out the breath she was holding. “Okay, I’m ready.”
I stepped a little closer.
She stopped me from getting too close. “When I was fifteen, my mother started to go into renal failure and needed a kidney transplant. My sister and I were both matches, but my sister was the better match. The surgery was scheduled, but the night before my sister swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills and had to have her stomach pumped. Because of this she was no longer a viable donor, and I took her place. During the surgery there was a complication. Once I was closed up my vitals weren’t recovering. The doctors discovered I was hemorrhaging internally and the surgeon had to go back in.”
Step by step, I slowly inched toward her. My heart was beating faster as she revealed more of the horrific childhood she’d had to endure.
She was shaking as she relived what must have been a nightmare. “I was bleeding severely and somehow in the midst of the trauma, my uterine wall had been torn. The doctors tried to fix it, but in the end they couldn’t. Now, I can’t get pregnant.”
I wiped her tears away with my thumbs. “I’m sorry, Elle. That was a terrible thing that happened to you.”
She pressed her face against my hand. “I’ll understand if you want to end things.”
My breath caught in my throat. Was she kidding me? “How can you even say that?”
“Because I’m broken,” she whispered.
“Broken?”
“Yes, I’m barren. And if we stay together, I can’t have your children. I should have told you a long time ago and I’m so sorry I didn’t.” She said it with such sadness in her voice that it hurt to hear.
Everything about her suddenly became very clear. I understood now more than ever her connection to Clementine. I took her hand. “I’m not him, Elle. I’m not your father, and I’m not your old boyfriend. I’m not going to leave you. I’m not either of them.”
She squeezed her fingers around mine. “I know you’re not them, Logan, and right now it might not seem like a big deal, but it is. You’re younger than I am, don’t forget, so maybe you’re not thinking about a family right now, but someday you will. And this is especially important for you because you’re an only child and it means your last name won’t have a legacy. There will be no one to carry on your family name.”
All I could do was stare at her. She was broken, but not in the way she thought. Actually, I preferred to think she was bent and I could straighten her out the way she was doing it to me. I brought my hands to her face. “If the day comes that we decide it’s time to have children, we’ll adopt.”
She shook her head.
“Elle, it’s done all the time.”
Tears were in her eyes. On her cheeks. Sliding down her face. “Logan, don’t you understand? I can’t have your children and you know this now. You should walk away and find someone else. Someone who can give you a family.”
Taking her other hand, I tugged her closer to me. “Just like you once said, I’m not going anywhere. I’m sorry, Elle, but I really don’t see this as a roadblock in our relationship. Not in the slightest bit.”
“You’re not mad I didn’t tell you before?”
My hands cupped her face. “No. This obviously means a lot to you, and finding the strength and courage to finally tell me makes me proud of what we have together. It means you trust me, you really trust me.”
Relief. Hope. Admiration. A myriad of images passed over her features.
The butler bell on the door chimed, surprising me, and I quickly turned around.
“Hey, man, I’ve been calling you,” Declan said, walking in with Peyton and a tray full of coffees.
I leaned in and whispered into Elle’s ear, “We’ll finish talking about this later.”
This time she took my face in her hands. “Think about it, Logan, really think about it. It’s a much bigger deal than you realize.”
With a hug and a kiss to her on the forehead I whispered, “I don’t have to. What you told me doesn’t change anything between us.”
“It should.”
“Stop it,” I scolded. Thinking she was being ridiculous, I kissed her on the lips and pulled away. Then I turned to Declan. “You got me now. What’s up?”
“Miles just called me. Tommy Flannigan was found dead in his cell
this morning. Knife to the throat.”
The girls both gasped.
A chill ran through me. Not because the motherfucker was dead. Not because I felt a huge sigh of relief that the shadow that had loomed over me for years was finally gone. But rather, because if his death actually occurred as he predicted, the chances that he was lying about O’Shea killing Lizzy were pretty slim.
“Crazy shit. Right?” Declan said.
My mind was thinking in overdrive. I kissed Elle one more time and then focused on what came next. “Are you busy right now?” I asked Declan.
“I have to go in to work and do inventory, but I’m flexible. Why? What’s on your mind?”
I looked at my watch. It was almost nine.
Elle looked at me warily.
I had to be careful. And I would be. I wasn’t going to go this alone anymore. Still, I knew she’d worry, and telling her my thoughts wouldn’t ease her mind at all. I didn’t want to lie, but I couldn’t blurt out the truth just yet, either. “I wanted to hit the gym before it got too busy. Saturdays can be crazy in there.”
Saturdays were always dead in the morning and he knew that. Too many hangovers for the guys to show up that early and start pounding the bag. “Yeah, sounds great.”
The boutique opened at ten, and it looked like Elle was happy with my response and was starting to get ready. She was behind the cash register, counting the money in the drawer. I walked up behind her and put my lips to her ear. “I’ll pick you up at six. We’ll run back to your place and grab a few things, and then jet. We can even take my old man’s car if you want.”
I felt her shiver under my touch, and I knew if we were alone and I could slide my hands between her legs that I could reassure her everything was fine. She must have had the same thought because she pushed her body back against mine. “Are you sure?” she asked.
I turned her around and pulled her flush to me so I could kiss her harder, more passionately. “I’m sure . . . about everything,” I said, stressing the last word.
She squeezed me tightly and I knew she felt relieved about telling me. I wasn’t lying to her about my feelings. We’d be just fine, and we’d deal with the child situation when the time came.