Jed knew her, a little. Honor couldn’t simply back out of the room. But it was her fault he’d just lost his mother. His Marine father had died in Afghanistan. Now his mother had been lost to violence as well.
What on earth could she say to him?
Without knowing what words might come from her mouth, feeling her knees falter with every step, Honor went to him. The coach looked up—he was distraught as well—but Jed did not, at first. She stood before him and waited until his eyes finally rose and met hers.
“I’m so sorry, Jed. I’m so sorry.” It was the only truth she had.
His eyes dropped away and sought that far-off place again, and a new spate of tears washed down his cheeks.
The coach nodded at her, and Honor understood; she was not invited into this moment. She left the room, wanting to cry as well, but all her tears were still lodged around her heart.
Out in the main waiting room, she still hadn’t called for a ride. And how would she pay for a cab, anyway? She stood there, thinking she might simply walk back to her apartment.
She stared down at the flimsy disposable slippers on her feet.
The toes of hard-worked brown cowboy boots entered the narrow field of her vision, and she looked up into Logan’s worried face.
“I can’t leave until I know you’re okay.”
Too tired to fight him, too weak to resist him, too sad not to need him, she said, “I’m not okay.”
His hands caught hers and held fast. “Then let me help you, Honor. I’m not trying to do anything but that.”
“Why?”
“I need to. That’s the only answer I got.”
“Okay.”
When he pulled her close, she let herself rest on his chest.
Tears swelled inside her and would not rise.
Chapter Twelve
Even getting into her apartment almost required an act of Congress. Fortunately, the building manager was home, and he gave her a key card for the elevator, escorted her and Logan up, and let them in using his set of keys. Honor thanked him and then locked him out of her home. She had a spare set of keys in her bedroom, thankfully.
She walked into the middle of the room and stood there, behind her sofa, between her kitchen and her living area, staring out at the night vista. Night. Hours had passed since she’d laughed with her friends over almost too much wine at lunch. A whole lifetime had ended. Three lifetimes.
Thinking of her friends, Honor turned on her slippered foot and considered her iPad, sitting on the stainless steel top of her island. She could message her friends from there. Let them know. Ask for them. Have them.
Logan stepped up behind her but didn’t touch her. Still, she felt his tall breadth at her back.
“I’ll leave now if you want me to,” he said, his voice low and careful. “But I don’t want to.”
Those had been practically the only words he’d spoken since he’d stood before her in the ER waiting room. On the drive home, seated in his truck, surrounded by a night she’d barely noticed, they hadn’t spoken. He’d opened the passenger door, helped her in, gone around to the driver’s side, climbed in, and, for a few seconds, simply sat there, watching her. She’d turned her attention to the side window, and he hadn’t tried to connect with her again until he’d helped her out of the truck outside her building.
But he’d been there, at her side. With her.
She didn’t want him to go. Damn her for a weak fool, but Logan was the one she wanted with her right now.
She couldn’t say those words to him.
“I need a shower,” she said instead, and walked away, into her room, to her bathroom.
Closed inside that sheltering space, she flipped a switch, and the pretty, frosted-glass sconces that gave off soothing rosy light came on at either side of her vanity mirror. She’d left in a hurry that morning and hadn’t put her makeup or hair stuff away—her hair dryer was still plugged in, and her round brush and her powder and blush brushes were still out, strewn across the marble counter around the vessel sink. The cap was off her bottle of cologne.
Reflected in the mirror, her blue silk robe hung from its hook on the back of the door.
The life she’d been living on the morning of this very day, when she’d been scurrying, leaving these marks in her wake, was gone. That woman was gone.
Finally, her eyes met their mates in the mirror. Though all her tears had been trapped in her chest, making her ache so sharply that each breath was like inhaling fiberglass, the makeup she’d applied this morning was smeared under her eyes. Her skin was pallid and dry. Spots of blood stretched down her cheeks like teardrops. Small scratches scattered over her chin and jaw, from glass shards biting into her.
Her hair—oh God. Snarled and matted, the ends on her right side dyed red where they’d had fallen into the spreading pool of Judi’s blood.
She had to wash. Right now.
Turning away from the ghastly sight of herself, Honor stripped out of the hospital scrubs and kicked away the disposable slippers. She turned the shower on, finding the highest temperature that she could stand, and stepped in, letting the spray have all of her at once.
She stood under the showerhead, her eyes closed, and let it simply rain down over her for a long time, until she looked at her feet and saw red steaks in the water swirling down the drain. How had she gotten so much blood on her?
Her chest felt like everything within her ribs had become solid. Every breath sliced through her, each one more stunted than the one before it. She couldn’t think, or feel, or breathe. It was all farther away than she could reach, on the other side of the wall of stone rising inside her.
The water began to cool, and she added more hot. She washed her hair, and then she washed it again. And one more time. Filling her shower puff with soap, she scrubbed herself until the blue netting unraveled into a useless strip. The water cooled again, and she found more hot, this time turning the knob to its farthest limit.
Her chest was fire and brimstone. All her tears, an ocean of them, were locked inside, boiling, turning to lava, turning to stone, and she couldn’t find the breach to set them free. She fell to her hands and knees on the tiled floor, the water ran cool over her back, and she opened her mouth and tried to scream, at least to scream, but those, too, were trapped now.
She needed this pain to break free, to get loose, to become real, or she’d die under its stolid weight.
A knock on the door. “Honor?”
“No!” she tried to shout, but it came out a dying croak. “No!” Another croak—but he didn’t knock again or call out her name. He left her alone.
She stayed on her hands and knees until the water became cold enough to pierce the stunted stone forming around her. She stood and turned off the tap, shivering. Using the towel she’d used that morning, she dried herself—clean now, but still trapped in the quagmire of her guilt.
She needed to feel. Something, anything, powerful enough to break this lock on her chest.
Staring at the drenched, ashen specter who faced her in the foggy mirror, Honor realized a thing that might help.
Without bothering to wrap the towel around her, or to slip on her silk robe, she opened the door.
Logan stood in her bedroom, facing the bathroom door. When he saw her naked body, he blinked and took a step back, dropping his gaze to the floor.
“Honor—”
“Shut up.” She walked right to him and grabbed his head in her hands. “Fuck me, Logan.”
“What?” His hands gripped her arms and tried to push her gently away. “Darlin’, no, I—”
“Shut up! I don’t care that you don’t care about me. I don’t want your love. I don’t want your words. Don’t tell me lies, don’t make me promises. I need to feel something besides this brick in my chest, or I’ll explode. If you want me at all, just shut up and fuck me now.”
She tried to pull his head down, but he resisted her. His eyes bored into hers, searching frantically. Desperate, losing hol
d of her sense of herself, she simply begged. “Please, Logan.”
“Ah fuck,” he muttered and let her pull his head to hers.
Their first kiss, in the empty private dining room at Angelo’s, had been stunted and furtive—full of sudden fire, kindling a need in her that sustained, but equally matched in guilt—and she’d pulled away quickly. Their second kiss, here in her apartment, the night Tyler had begun his obsession, had been a roaring blaze, longer and hotter and deeper than the first, but Logan had pulled away and doused the fire with words that had hurt.
This kiss, fueled by her desperate need for more than simply him, for her own emotions, her humanity, her soul, this kiss exploded into madness at once. When Logan gave in, he did it wholeheartedly, matching her fervor at once, as if he felt a need a fierce as her own.
As his mouth covered hers, claimed her, overwhelmed her, Honor released her clutch around his head. She let her hands slide into his hair, let her fingers twist and pull strands, relish their softness.
Logan grunted and released his grip around her biceps. His arms swept around her, drew her sharply closer until her body was crushed with his. The seams and rivets of his jeans, and the cuffs and buttons of his shirt, pressed deeply into her bare skin, while the weaves of fabric were a softer caress. If she were asked to describe his clothing, that was all she’d know; she couldn’t remember what the fabric looked like—whether his jeans were faded or dark, what color his shirt was, or if it had a pattern. All she remembered were those brown boots, so familiar to her, down even to the scuff marks over the toes, and the creases that marked the shape of his step.
His strong hands grasped her ass, and his fingers dug in and held on. Those hands were hard and coarse as granite—they were the hands of a working man, despite the wealth of his family.
She needed this. Oh God, she needed this like she’d never needed anything before. To feel him, focus on him, want him, to be wrapped in him—he made her body quiver and her mind quiet. He made her gasp and moan. He made her feel. He let her breathe.
He tore his mouth from hers with a groan as rough as a roar and dropped his head to the crook of her neck. Winding her arms around his head, holding him in place, she felt him nuzzle against her throat, the spikysoft bristles of his beard, and the wet, petalsilk contrast of his lips and tongue, brushing over her skin. His hands eased up from her ass, those wonderful, harsh hands, so full of work and earth and play, slid over her back, up her spine, until his fingers tangled and twisted into her wet hair.
“Honor,” he whispered with hot, harsh breath.
“Shut up.” If she let him, he would break this moment she needed so badly. He would say words that hurt her, he would deny her this solace, this need. He would turn away. He always did. “Please don’t talk.”
In her arms, his body went still, and with it, their wild fervor died out. Honor thought he’d deny her after all. His head came up, and he stood straight, forcing her arms to relax their hold of him. He looked down at her, his eyes searching. But he didn’t speak. His mouth, still glistening with the wet of his kisses and hers, was parted, but it didn’t try to shape a word.
“Please,” she said again.
He turned his head away, one direction and then the other, as if he were seeking an escape. But then he looked down at her again. He lowered his head to hers. This kiss was soft and light. Tender. His hands came free of her hair and eased down her arms until his fingers twined with her own.
When he stepped back, he drew her with him. To her bed.
As they stood together at the side of her bed, while he kept his eyes fixed on hers, Logan shifted back and forth sharply and a bit unsteadily—toeing off his boots. He kicked them away and began undoing the buttons of his shirt—it was blue, light blue, with a pattern of fine yellow threads running through the weave.
Honor stood where she was and watched him.
He pushed the shirt off his shoulders and exposed a bare, broad, well-muscled chest. Hairless. Beautiful.
There was a jagged scar across his ribs on the left side. She reached out and drew her fingertip over the raised seam of skin, but she didn’t ask about it, and he didn’t speak.
He reached back and pulled his wallet out—a brown billfold, scuffed and well-used, like his boots. Flipping it open, he pinched a condom from the fold and put the wallet away. Logan was a man who always carried a condom, because he was a man who might have unexpected sex at any given moment. This moment, for instance.
Logan was a hound. She’d known that about him; she’d done her research on all the Cahills, looking for landmines that could explode Heath’s defense. Long before Logan kissed her the first time, she’d known his extensive, and extensively inappropriate, sexual history as well as his nonexistent romantic history. She’d also known his strong relationships with his family and friends, and his solid reputation as a businessman and a guiding presence in his town.
She knew the kind of man he was: a good man wearing the thick, impenetrable armor of an asshole.
With a quick glance over his shoulder to check his aim, he tossed the condom onto her nightstand, then turned back and opened his belt and jeans.
He pushed his jeans and underwear down at the same time, and bent low—his head brushing lightly over her chest as he did—and got his socks, too, tossing the wad away before he stood. Then he was as naked as she, except for the medallion around his neck and the thick brown leather band of his watch around his wrist.
An impressive collection of scars dappled his legs, including another jagged one rising from his right thigh to cross over his hip. Honor reached out again and slid her hands over the sharp angles of his hips, enjoying the way the muscle at each side dipped in just before it thickened and became his firm ass.
His body was lean and visibly strong, without much hair anywhere to obstruct the view. Even around his cock—long and nicely thick, standing out like an iron beam—the hair wasn’t overwhelming. He trimmed there, obviously.
She wrapped her hand around him, just at the point his shaft met his body. Her fingers brushed lightly over the tender skin of his balls.
An agonized grunt shot up from his chest, and his arms came around her to draw her close again. This time, she was crushed against his bare skin, and he was hot and hard and soft all at once. She still had hold of him, and as his mouth crashed over hers again, she squeezed, hard, until he groaned and his hips rocked back and slammed forward.
His mouth and tongue went wild again, forcing her open, filling her. She matched him, tangled with him. He grabbed her hand and yanked it away from his cock, and then he took her to the bed, falling with her, on top of her, landing hard enough on her to push the air from her lungs. She tore her mouth from his, grabbing handfuls of his hair and yanking his head back, and took a huge, loud breath.
Logan grabbed her face in his hand and dragged her back to his mouth, covering her again, filling her. The scratches on her chin and cheeks stung. His heavy body moved on hers, pushing her the way he wanted, clutching and dragging. Honor strafed her nails up his back, and he went tense and roared into her mouth.
This was what she needed—force and roughness, power and frenzy. She needed to be outside of herself, beyond control, beyond loss and pain and guilt and sorrow. She needed to only feel, feel everything in this one moment and nothing else. It didn’t matter that Logan didn’t want her and couldn’t love her. It didn’t matter that he was anything but here, with her now, strong and fierce and wild.
His hand left her chin and dropped to her chest, finding her breast, her nipple. He pinched, and the piercing flare of sensation lifted her off the bed, into an arch. Still pinching, he pulled, pulled until it hurt, but the perfect kind of pain, deep and hot, full of promise and need. Honor felt her wet come down in a rush, and she slammed her hips up, into his.
The room was full of noise, as if she’d left the windows open to welcome the sound of a summer storm, but it wasn’t thunder or crashing rain, it was Logan, grunting and groaning
, growling, roaring, all against her lips, into her mouth. And it was her, too, answering him in moans and whimpers and heaving breaths.
She pushed her leg between his, pressing her thigh to his cock, rubbing against him as his hand continued its rough and perfect assault on her nipple. His hips rocked as hard as hers, they were humping each other, but there was so much more they could have.
He ripped his mouth from hers with a pained groan, and his hand left her breast as he pushed himself up to his knees. He reached for the nightstand and got the condom. Honor watched him open the packet and roll the latex on. Then his eyes met hers again, and their frenzy went quiet once more. He knelt between her legs and was still, his regard steady. But he didn’t speak.
Honor folded her legs up and spread her thighs wide. She put her arms over her head, stretching them to the opposite side of the bed—Logan had laid her crosswise—and offered herself up to him.
He came back down, crawling over her, and fed himself into her. And oh God. How long since she’d felt this? Months. She hadn’t had sex since Christmas, when she’d been home for the holidays and had met up with her high school boyfriend. But that had been tipsy nostalgia sex. Nothing like this. No sex she’d ever had had been like this—this desperate, this potent, this necessary.
Logan filled her full, stretched her wide but not more than was good, reached the depth of her where the most potent feeling was. He turned her mind away from its pain and found a deep pool of pleasure. She wanted him indelibly imprinted there.
He began to move, to thrust himself into her, but he was being careful, gentle, respectful, and that wasn’t what she needed. She needed to feel as much as she could bear to feel, everything, all of it, all the way through the stony lock around her chest.
Someday (Sawtooth Mountains Stories Book 2) Page 15