“Shut up, Lucky Charms,” I mumbled, turning away.
Not to be dissuaded, Lucas cupped my face with both hands and bent his head to mine. I went stiff at first and then attempted relaxing into the kiss—into Lucas. Moving my lips over his, I attempted channeling the feelings I felt for him, searching for what we had once had, only… those feelings felt far away now. Breaking the kiss, I turned away, swallowing back tears.
“Willow,” Lucas growled. “Why won’t you kiss me?”
I covered my mouth, stifling the sob that threatened. Because I’m in love with your brother.
“Are you going to say something?” Lucas demanded. “Or are you just going to stand there looking like you’re going to cry? Goddammit.” His fists clenched. “What the fuck is wrong with everyone? I’m back from the dead but everyone’s acting like it’s a fucking funeral!”
With a disgusted shake of his head, Lucas took off down the path, leaving me staring after him, still trying not to cry.
That evening, long after Lucas had gone to bed, I sat awake, staring across the dark room, my fingertips trembling fretfully across the tabletop.
Lucas and I had spoken very little after returning to the cabin. The growing silence between us made worse by our close quarters. Our once effortless camaraderie and easygoing banter had become painfully strained and downright uncomfortable. And I felt physically sick over it.
Sick over Lucas, worried about Logan, unable to sit and stare at Logan’s empty bed for another agonizing second, I jumped to my feet. With one last look at Lucas’s sleeping form, I slipped quietly into the night.
Camp was silent, the ground cool and hard beneath my bare feet. Looping around dark, quiet cabins, and finding no sign of Logan, I checked the construction site next, hoping to discover him hiding out in one of the unfinished buildings, only to find them all empty.
Approaching the main gate, I called up to the guard tower, finding Xavier and Joshua playing cards within. Neither had seen Logan, though they assured me he hadn’t left camp.
Circling back through the cabins, the lake was the last place I looked. As I tiptoed down the weathered, water-worn dock, the boards creaking softly beneath my feet, a figure emerged from behind the boathouse. Shoulders slumped, hands shoved into his pockets, Logan froze when he saw me.
We stood there staring at one another, me wishing desperately to touch him. I swallowed. If things had gone differently, if he’d come home without Lucas, we’d have gone straight to bed. And after, picking back up where we’d left off, bickering and arguing. I was even aching for that—to be fighting with him again.
“You’ve lost weight,” Logan eventually said, his tone flat and lacking his usual gruff condemnation, reminiscent of the cold, detached way he used to speak to me. Speaking in a way that made me want to grab him and shake him and demand that he stop avoiding and ignoring me, treating me as if the months we’d shared together hadn’t happened. As if we hadn’t happened.
“I tried to eat,” I stammered. Everything that I’d wanted to say to him since the day he’d left had fled in the face of his indifference. Indifference I was dying to scrub from his infuriating face and replace it with the hungry look I’d come to crave—the look he wore when he was buried deep inside of me and it still wasn’t enough. Part of me thought that he must have realized this—that he absolutely must sense the desperation bubbling within me, ready to erupt like molten lava and burn us both to dust—because how could he not? How could he not see how my lips trembled, the way my fingers twitched, the way my body bowed toward his?
I took a deep breath and tried again. “I tried to eat, but I was so worried about you. And Britta wouldn’t wake up, and… Logan, why didn’t you warn me about Luke?”
His gaze flicked away. “I should have said something on the radio,” he muttered. “I wanted to, but Luke wanted to surprise you and I couldn’t… I couldn’t—” Logan abruptly cut off, his jaw locked, his nostrils flaring as he tried to compose himself. And there it was—a breathtakingly beautiful flash of anguish across his formidable features and the green light I needed to propel me the remaining distance between us, to send my hands flying to his face and my body crushing against his.
I kissed him carelessly, biting his lips, dragging my teeth down his tongue. Logan growled, a deep guttural rumbling in his chest that echoed in my own, sending shivers up my spine.
“I need you,” I demanded, roughly pulling at his shirt. The buttons popped free, the worn flannel ripping beneath my hands. And then I was tearing at his bare skin, digging my nails into his hard, muscular body. The feel of him, the smell of him, the taste of his skin on my tongue leaving me begging for more.
My back slammed into the boathouse wall, my breath leaving me in a hard rush. Logan unzipped my hoodie, freeing my breasts and tore down my jeans, tossing them away. Then we were kissing again, our mouths fused with heavy, heated breaths, while Logan fought to free himself from the last shred of clothing between us.
My back still flush with the wall, I wound my legs around his hips. Our naked chests pressed together, the hot pulse of him was heavy between my thighs, pushing at my entrance.
“Logan.”
He slammed inside of me. My eyes locked with his, my muscles tensing as breathless, incoherent demands burst past my lips. Harder and faster, he moved until my head rocked loudly against the wall, and my back dragged painfully across the broken wood.
He continued to batter my body with his, each jarring thrust sending me hurtling further into euphoria, soon turning my tense muscles to little more than jelly, until it was all I could do just to hold on to him. My head lolled back, my fluttering gaze blinking languidly to where the moon hung low over the lake, looking fat and full and so beautifully close to bursting—a mirror image of how I was feeling.
My body tensed, my pleasure building. Burying my face in his neck, I let out a muffled cry. I was still whimpering, still flooded with the aftershock of sensation as his thrusts continued to pick up speed, until finally, with a teeth-clenching groan, he slumped against me.
Still breathing hard, Logan slowly lowered me to my feet. I clung to his neck, gazing up at him through hooded eyes. My legs shook, my arms trembled. We kissed slowly, his hands dropping to my hips, his fingertips biting possessively.
The dock creaked loudly. Jerking, Logan and I faced the walkway. Illuminated by the light of the full moon, Lucas stood at the rise, his wide eyes glowing white. “Holy shit,” he rasped, backing slowly away. “Holy fucking shit.”
“Luke.” His name slipped from my lips and his eyes locked with mine, hurt and anger flashing across his frozen features. Then he turned, breaking into a run.
“Luke,” I cried out, shoving Logan back even as he tried to hold me. Clutching my hoodie closed, I grabbed my discarded jeans and took off down the dock. “Luke, wait!”
Logan
I could hear Lucas yelling halfway across camp, the raging cadence of his shouts causing me to pick up my pace. All over, lights were turning on inside cabins and residents were sticking their heads out their doors to better hear the commotion.
“What the fuck, Willow! What the fuck! You and Logan? Really?”
“Please!” Willow sounded frantic and close to tears. “Please, just listen!”
“Listen? I don’t need to listen to you—I fucking saw you!”
There was a crash followed by a shriek as I was bursting through the door. Willow and Lucas stood on opposite ends of the room—Willow, with tears streaming down her face, Lucas, his face red from fury. The small lamp that had sat on the dresser lay shattered on the floor.
“Perfect,” Lucas growled in my direction. “Now you can both explain to me what it was that I fucking saw.” His hands were curled into fists, his body tight and straining. He didn’t look like my little brother anymore. Without the scruffy beard and long hair, with his easygoing expression replaced with one of barely restrained violence, unease fluttered through me. I knew that face; I’d grown up feari
ng it.
“Luke, please understand,” Willow cried. “We thought you were dead!”
“That’s your excuse—you thought I was dead so you fucked my brother?”
“It’s not an excuse—it’s the truth! We thought you were gone and we… we…”
“It was me,” I interrupted. “I started it—it was my fault.”
Lucas slapped his hands against his face, a flash of astonishment mixing with fury. “What the fuck—what the fuck, Logan! You hate her! You fucking hate her!”
“I don’t hate her,” I gritted out. “I’ve never hated her.”
Lucas choked over angry laughter, rife with disbelief. “Is this a joke? This is a joke, right? You’re trying to tell me that I haven’t spent half my life stopping you two from killing each other? So what was I doing then—stopping you from fucking each other?”
“Luke!” Willow screamed. “Please stop—please just listen!”
Lucas swung himself in Willow’s direction, snarling, poised as if he might charge her. I went still, ready to dart across the room and tackle him if he as much as flinched in her direction.
“You hated him! And you hated her! And the second I’m gone, you’re all over each other?”
“No, it wasn’t like that!”
“What was it like then? Have you been doing this behind my back the whole time? Was it all a fucking act?” His chest heaving, Lucas grabbed at his short hair, pulling frantically at it.
Willow stepped forward, her hands raised in supplication. “Please just listen. It wasn’t like that—I promise you it wasn’t like that.” Her voice cracked; her eyes filled with fresh tears. “Nothing was an act. Nothing.”
Bitter laughter bubbled past Lucas’s lips. “You used to say how unlucky we were—that, out of all the people in the world, we’d gotten stuck with Logan.” He laughed again, shaking his head in disbelief.
“And you.” Lucas pinned me with a vicious glare, even as he continued to laugh. “Do you remember how many times you’d told me to leave Willow behind? Saying I was better off without her?”
Shame flooded me; I couldn’t even look at Willow. “Luke,” I growled. “Listen to me—”
Lucas’s eyes flashed, his expression sharpening. “Don’t tell me what to do—you don’t get to tell me what to do ever again!”
“I’m not telling you what to do,” I continued through my teeth. “I’m just asking you to hear me out. Can you give me that? You’re my brother and I—”
“You what?” Lucas laughed coldly. “You love me?”
“Yeah,” I ground out. “I fucking do.”
Lucas only stared at me, a dark and sinister smile overtaking his face, a look that had me clenching my fists in response.
“How many times, Logan?” he demanded, his tone as cold as his expression.
I stared at him hard. “How many times… what?”
“How many times did you listen to me and Willow fucking, and wish it was you?”
“Luke!” Willow shouted. “What the fuck—stop it!”
“Did you watch us, too?” Lucas taunted. “Of course you did—you were always staring at her. You were always pissed at her, but you were always staring at her. I should have known—holy shit, I should have realized.”
Lucas stepped toward me, his hate-filled eyes boring holes through mine. “All those years of me having something you didn’t—that killed you. You couldn’t let that stand, could you? Not Lucky fucking Logan, the guy who always gets everything he wants. You had to take the only thing that was ever mine.”
Guilt and anger swarmed me like warring hornets. All these years, I’d kept us safe, clothed and fed, too. And I’d never asked for a damn thing in return. I’d never even wanted anything for myself. At least, not until now.
“Don’t call me that,” I growled. “Don’t fucking call me that.”
“Oh-no.” Lucas laughed bitterly. “Lucky Logan doesn’t like his nickname anymore?”
“How the fuck was I lucky?” I exploded. “When I had to deal with Dad’s inability to finish a fucking job? When I had to stop him from slapping Mom around? When I had to clean up after him when he passed out drunk? When I had to go to school with black eyes and bruised ribs and play it off like it was no big deal?” I paused and took a breath.
“Or how about when I had to pick up all the pieces after Dad… blew everything to fucking hell?”
It was early evening, though the sky looked the same as it had since morning, the same as it had every day for the last few months—varying shades of gray, not a shred of sunlight to be found. The same went for the bed-and-breakfast itself; without electricity, the only source of light was from the fireplaces—a dull substitute inside these dingy, gaping rooms.
Standing in the entryway of the sitting room, I rubbed my gloved hands together in a vain attempt at keeping warm. The smell of burned plastic clung to the cold room, much like the way the stench of vomit clings to a carpet—bitter and unforgiving. One story up, Willow’s mother was having another coughing fit that echoed through the hallways and down the winding staircases. If I listened hard enough, I knew I’d hear the pitter-patter of Willow’s feet as she rushed to and fro, tending to her mother’s needs. Lucas, I assumed, was with her.
My mother, along with Mrs. Gleason—a soft-spoken elderly woman—sat side by side on the couch, each of them clutching a steaming mug of coffee, Mrs. Gleason muttering beneath her breath. She was always praying these days; as if the power of prayer would get us through the winter. As if the power of prayer could accomplish anything at all.
Just a few yards away, Mackenzie and her mother stood huddled by the fireplace, talking among themselves. Every so often, Mackenzie would glance in my direction, her pretty, pert features furrowing. She was always frowning at me these days; whatever her problem was, I found I didn’t care. The merciless reality of our situation had made not just mine and Mackenzie’s, but all the relationships inside the small bed-and-breakfast, dysfunctional at best. Freezing cold temperatures and not enough food seemed to bring out the worst in people.
As for the rest of our obligatory companions, two impromptu search parties had departed early that morning: one group seeking food while the other searched for medical supplies.
What they thought they’d find, I didn’t know. Willow’s mother had been sick since early fall, and we’d exhausted every option available and yet her health continued to decline. At first, it was thought that she might have a lingering case of pneumonia, although lately I’d heard the term “lung cancer” bandied about. Not that an exact diagnosis mattered at this point; in this world, a world where doctors were suddenly in short supply, I assumed either illness would kill her.
The front door opened; three men blew in alongside a frigid breeze. Willow’s father—the first to enter—tracked snow across the room as he came to stand by the fireplace. Gripping the brick overhang, he stared into the flames until his shivering had subsided. The utterly dejected look on his face told me everything I needed to know—the search for medicine had been a failure.
“Find any food?” Mackenzie’s mother asked, as her husband joined her at the fireplace. The man shook his head solemnly, snow falling from where it clung to his thick eyebrows and beard.
“I’m going to check on my girls,” Willow’s father muttered. Still wearing his heavy winter gear, he padded slowly across the room, tracking water in his wake. From the couch, my mother watched him ascend the stairs, a look of pity pinching her features.
“She’s not going to last the winter,” Mrs. Gleason whispered to her coffee.
“Neither are we,” Mr. Hart added miserably. “There’s nothing left here—we’ve got to move on.” The former art teacher at the local middle school had twisted his ankle early on and still had yet to get full mobility back. Doing nothing was making him bitter.
“Be quiet!” My mother hushed, gesturing at the staircase. “Don’t let the kids hear you talk like that.”
Lucas and Willow, shoulde
r to shoulder, were traipsing noisily down the stairs. At sixteen years old, they could hardly be considered kids, yet everyone continued to treat them as such.
“Come sit down, Luke. Willow, you too—sit down right here where it’s warm.” My mother got to her feet, gesturing for them to take her place on the couch. “I think I’ll head upstairs and lie down. The coffee hasn’t helped at all.” Tucking her blanket over Lucas and Willow’s laps, she disappeared quietly up the stairs.
Eventually, the door opened again, another cold blast of air whipping through the house as the second search party tumbled inside, my father at the helm. “We got lucky at the Five & Dime out in Friendship.” Jeffrey Gleason, Mrs. Gleason’s adult grandson, set down a heavy-looking pack. “Lots of canned goods—enough for everyone.”
Excitement spread through the group as everyone gathered to view the findings, while my father backed away from the others. Rummaging through his knapsack, he produced a half-empty bottle, its black and red label revealing its contents as vodka. Still dressed in heavy winter wear, he unscrewed the cap and took several healthy swigs before replacing the cap. As his stormy gaze raked the room, I took a quick step back, falling just out of sight.
“Where’s my wife?” he demanded.
No one answered him—everyone was busy sorting through the pilfered goods that now lay scattered across the floor. Scowling, my father stormed up behind Lucas, gripping the back of his neck, dragging him away from the others. “Did you hear me, boy? I said—where’s your mother?”
Willow stood up abruptly, watching with a worried expression. Meanwhile, Lucas had gone still.
“Hey, idiot—I asked you where your mother is.” He shook Lucas roughly. “All them goddamn holes in your face must be causin’ your brains to fall out.”
The Blood that Binds (Thicker than Blood Book 3) Page 31