by Reiss, CD
“Only a little?”
He pushed the neckline aside to free my breast. “I’ve wanted to see what’s under here.” He traced the lines of my tattoo, a butterfly in the center of my chest exploding into smaller ones above and below. He traced them, then ran his thumb across the hard nipple. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thank—”
You was lost in a gasp as he bent to take my nipple in his mouth while sliding under my panties. When he felt how wet I was, he groaned and my body jolted from the attention. Digging my fingers in his hair, I pushed his mouth into me, and he sucked so hard I went blind with pleasure.
“Take me, please,” I begged.
In one graceful motion, he grabbed me by the backs of my bare thighs and hitched me against his hips. I wrapped my legs around his waist so he could carry me as he backed into a metal bar set across a set of double doors to open them.
The garage lights went on automatically. It was jammed with guests’ cars. Fifteen. Twenty. I had no time to count because the whirlwind of messy, reckless kisses and probing fingers took me again and I was on my back on the hood of a red car with my knees bent and my beautiful silver gown bunched around my waist.
His feet still on the floor, he bent over me to suck my nipple again, yanking my underwear down over one leg before sliding two fingers inside me.
“God, you’re so tight. I’m going to fuck this so deep. Say yes.” He jammed his fingers in as deep as they’d go, then thumbed my clit. “Say I can bury my cock inside this until you come.”
“Yes, already!”
He unbuckled, unzipped, pulling out his thick erection. “Open your legs for it.” He shoved one knee to the side, spreading me wider so he could mount me, then pushed inside.
“Oh, God,” I gasped, stretched past where I’d ever been before.
He thrust again and buried himself to the hilt in one shocking stroke. “That’s right. Take it.”
He slammed into me again, and I exhaled a cry of pleasure.
“Take it all.”
He did what he’d promised. Fucked me harder than I thought possible, pushing against my clit with his body, demanding I take all of him and nothing less. He used his cock with cruel efficiency, and I gasped with every thrust, pushed closer and closer to the brink each time.
“Come on my cock,” he snarled in my ear.
“Yes.” One word. A single affirmation was all I had.
“Let me feel it.”
“Yes. Logan.”
“Give it.”
Shoving hard into me, he buried himself, pressing against my pleasure center for the one, last bit of stimulation I needed; pitching me into a void of disembodied, physical ecstasy. My scream bounced against the high ceilings and concrete walls, mixing with his hard grunts as his dick pulsed with release.
We panted together without speaking. The cold metal of the hood was hard on my skin, and my balance had been kept by no more than the pinion of his dick, and all I could think about was how much I wanted him again.
“That meant nothing,” he said when he caught half a breath.
“Right.”
We were just a married couple with a story about being in love. None of it was real, permanent, or outside the parameters of a contract.
“Wait,” I said.
He straightened on his arms to look at me. “What?”
“What kind of car is this?”
“This? The one I just fucked you on?”
“Yes.” I knocked on the hood.
He craned his neck to confirm. “Ferrari 488 GTB.”
“We have to change our story.”
He seemed to think I’d lost my mind. For such a smart guy, he could be pretty thick.
“The first time we fucked story?” I added. “The Maserati?”
He laughed. “Right. Good call. I’ll have to buy a Ferrari.” As he started to get off me, he leaned in for a kiss, then stopped himself. “Right.”
He got off the car and offered his hand to help me up. I didn’t need it. I stood on my own, letting my dress drape around my knees and my underwear loop around my left ankle.
“Here.” Reaching toward my panties, he started to get on his knees. “Let me.”
“I have it.”
“All right.” He ran his fingers through his hair, turning away to let me get my underwear back in place.
“I’m done if you want to turn around,” I said.
He did, hands in his pockets, eyes on the floor as if he’d been caught raiding the cookie jar.
“That was fun,” I said.
“Yeah. Really fun. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” I smoothed my dress. “You’re going to make someone very happy one day.”
“As are you.” He offered me his arm. “Shall we?”
I looped my hand in the crook of his elbow. “We shall.”
He walked me back upstairs. I was sore and wet, stinking of sex, when I felt a drop of his fluid between my thighs.
“I should probably find a bathroom.”
“There are thirty-four.” He guided me around a turn. “If we keep going, we’re bound to walk into one.”
“What did we do those three days?” I asked. “After we defiled the Ferrari?”
“We sat in my living room and I fed you takeout Chinese. Then—and I’m not going to offer this information up unless someone asks—I fucked you again, but slowly.”
“After Chinese?” I wrinkled my nose.
“You couldn’t keep your hands off me.” He stopped at a half-open door with a tile floor and white marble sink on the other side. “Besides, it was a quickie in the garage. You only came once. I had something to prove.” He pushed the door open and leaned in to flick on the light.
“Maybe you shouldn’t tell that part of the story,” I suggested, halfway into the bathroom.
“What about your two—no, wait, I think I remember three screaming orgasms?”
“Keep that part implied.”
“Fine, killjoy. Go. I’ll wait here.”
He stood like a sentry with his hands in front of him, handsome as a god and confident as a king. I closed the door, and as if given permission, his fluids seeped out of me.
I hiked up my dress before it got ruined, lowered my trashed underpants, and sat on the toilet, in the first quiet moment since Logan had broken the post-sex haze with three words.
That meant nothing.
He’d been right, and he’d been right to repeat what we’d agreed. I’d needed the reminder that we were strangers and we had a deal to be no more than friends. If it meant something, we wouldn’t be able to split up. We’d be messy and expensive. All the benefits of the arrangement could be compromised by the wrong emotions.
That meant nothing.
Except the best sex I’d ever had.
I cleaned up, straightened out my gown, and was fixing my makeup in the mirror when I heard voices from the other side of the door.
“Just want to make sure you’re happy.”
That was Mrs. Crowne, my mother-in-law.
“I am happy,” Logan responded softly, though his voice echoed in the huge room.
“It’s just so sudden.”
“Not to me, it’s not.”
“I told your father you’d feel pressured. I said, ‘Hold off but don’t tell him why.’ I said, ‘Let him find someone in his own time.’ But he went and told you boys everything in his head.”
“Mom, I don’t care about the succession. I could marry her now or in ten years, she’s still the one, okay?”
“Don’t you think…?”
They must have walked away. I had to put my ear to the door to hear Logan.
“Me on this. I didn’t know it, but I was waiting for her, and when I finally found her, my life… everything added up. She’s… she’s the gravity that keeps my feet on the floor. The elevator that lifts me up.”
The utter terribleness of that line aside, that was a lot from a guy who had no feelings for me.
&nb
sp; His mother’s response got lost in the white noise created by the paper-thin space between my ear and the door, as did his. Then I heard heels on the hard floors.
I counted to five, and when I heard nothing, I opened the door.
13
LOGAN
My mother was getting frailer every day. Her dress fit but looked as if it were on the hanger, and the muted blue reflected on her skin as if she didn’t have any color of her own. The formal twist in her hair and the makeup she’d had someone carefully apply were a merry falsehood.
If she found out I’d lied about this, she’d break. In my grab for power, I hadn’t even considered what losing trust in me would do to her health.
“I just haven’t had a chance to see you two together.” Mom put her shaky hand on my arm to reassure me. “To feel it, is all.”
“Are you basing your opinion of my marriage on whether or not you had the tingle? Mom, really?”
“I trust you know what you feel.”
“You should. You know I wouldn’t do this lightly.”
“I know,” she said. “I think I’m just angry with your father. He shouldn’t have made that ultimatum. I told him not to.”
“Don’t be mad at him. Listen. Let me wait for Ella to get out, then we’ll meet you out there, okay?” I kissed her cheek, and she hugged me as tightly as she could. “I love you, Ma.”
“I love you too, sweetest,” she said. “You’re a good boy,”
With a smile seemingly meant to erase her own doubts as well as mine, she walked carefully away, getting smaller in the distance until she was part of the stream of people moving between dinner and the dance floor.
This was bad.
I’d made a mistake I couldn’t ever recover from. Not just my reputation as the public face of Crowne Industries. Not only with the people I loved. But my opinion of myself had curdled into a thick, sour mass.
The bathroom door opened, and Ella smiled at me, as preened and beautiful as a siren calling me to be the man no one who loved me thought I was capable of being.
That meant nothing.
When I’d said those words, I wasn’t really speaking to her. I’d needed to remind myself that the urgency of our connection had made me emotionally lazy. In the dancing and laughter, the constant buzz of anxiety had bubbled and popped like the champagne I’d drunk, and something else had slipped in.
I’d felt things.
Feeling things meant I’d lost control, and that was unacceptable if we were going to get through this.
“Hey,” Ella said, taking my arm. “Sorry I took so long.”
“It’s fine.” I led her back to the party.
“‘Elevator that lifts me up’?”
“You heard?” I expected her to mention my mother’s doubts so we could plan our next course of action. For the first time since my father’s ultimatum, getting the top spot at Crowne wasn’t the first thing on my mind. I needed my mother soothed immediately.
“Please say you didn’t come up with that line,” Ella said. “We’ll have to take you behind the shed and shoot you.”
“Was it that bad?”
“You were doing okay for a minute. Gravity was a little soft, but ending on the elevator—”
“Was it so bad she wouldn’t believe it?” I interrupted.
“I don’t think your way with words is going to make her believe you love me.”
Great.
I didn’t even know how to convince my own mother.
“So”—Ella leaned into me as we entered the crowd—“do I get a ride in your red Ferrari?”
“I never said red.”
“It was red… the one we just—”
“I’m not getting a red car,” I snapped, attention forward as if I was driving. “If you knew me, that would be obvious.”
“Okay. What color then?”
“Black. Make a note.”
There were too many people around. Too much laughing. Everyone walking in every direction, and Ella and I had no destination, no purpose, sitting ducks to get caught in the worst kind of lie.
We kept it light. She showed off her ring. People I barely knew congratulated and hugged me. We made excuses about our secrecy, claiming it all happened so fast, we forgot the basics.
My mother always seemed nearby, with or without Dad, reminding me that I’d lied to her and would have to continue lying or hurt her more.
Liam, my younger brother by four years, walked toward us with his three-year-old son, Matt. over his shoulder.
“Liam,” I muttered to her. “Be ready.”
“Right.”
I’d briefed her on my family, telling her as much as I could, but suddenly, I knew it wasn’t enough.
“Logan!” Liam said, free hand extended. Matt rested his head on his father’s shoulder, thumb lodged in his mouth. “I just heard!”
“Sorry about the secrecy.” I shook his hand, lying, lying, lying.
“You must be the newly-minted Mrs. Crowne,” he said.
“Papillion,” she said as she accepted his handshake. “Ella Papillion.”
“She won’t change her name,” I grumbled. “It wasn’t my preference.”
But it’ll be easier to get divorced in a year.
“What’s your secret?” Liam asked her.
“Pardon me?” She put her hand to her chest, exposing the ring.
“How did you get him to look up from his precious P&L statements?”
She smiled and took my hand, leaning into me as if we were in love. “He was pretty good at getting my attention.”
I felt her looking at me with a smitten smile. The pressure of the falsehood pushed against a newly-awoken conscience, forcing me to counter with a frown. “I bought her a coffee. And jewelry. So it was easy.”
“Logan!” She shoved me as if I’d been joking, which I wasn’t. I was only lying.
Liam laughed, but there was no light in his eyes. He’d seen the vein of cruelty in my attempt at humor
“Who’s this handsome fellow?” Ella asked, craning to face the boy. “Are you the Matt I’ve heard so much about?”
He nodded, eyes drooping.
“He’s wrecked,” Liam said. “Big night, and it’s past bedtime.”
“That thumb taste good?” she asked, and he nodded a little. “When I was your age, I sucked these two fingers.” She held up her right pinkie and ring finger. “I still have a callous right here. See that?”
“Please tell me how you stopped,” Liam said.
“I just stopped, I guess.” Ella shrugged. “But the morning after my mother died, I woke up with them in my mouth, so I guess I stopped needing it until I did again.”
“Ah,” Liam said pensively, and a dead weight fell on the conversation.
“We were going to get drinks,” I said to Liam. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, no, I’d better get this little guy to bed.”
We said our good nights and I pulled Ella toward the bar.
“Make a deal with me,” I hissed under the music and laughter.
“Another one?”
“Don’t offer up anything to anyone in my family. Ever.”
She yanked me back by the hand. “What just happened?”
“You stepped in it.”
“How?”
“Liam’s wife died almost a year ago.” Without waiting for her reaction or even to see if she’d followed, I strode to the bar.
“Logan,” she said, coming up next to me, “I’m sorry.”
“What can I get you, Mr. Crowne?” the bartender asked, wiping his hands.
“Macallan and”—I turned to Ella—“Shirley Temple?”
Any happiness we’d felt leading up to the encounter in the garage had drained out of her. She stood behind a cinderblock wall of hesitance. “Gin with ice.”
“Coming right up!”
The bartender went to make the drinks, and Ella slid onto a stool, chin up with a stone-cold profile to prove she didn’t give a si
ngle shit what I thought.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said.
“What’s not going to work?”
“This entire thing. It’s—”
“Shut up,” she hissed. “You shut up right now. This was going to be a tough night and we both knew it. Don’t you dare bail just because you forgot to tell me your sister-in-law died.”
“I didn’t forget,” I growled back. “I didn’t have time. We rushed.”
She faced me with a big smile and a city burning in her eyes.
“We rushed because you needed to, remember?” She placed her hand on my arm, telegraphing newlywed affection while grinding her teeth. “You want your brother out.”
“And you wanted a few million dollars.”
Our drinks came. She jabbed her lime down with her swizzle stick.
The ice cube in my scotch had a crown embossed in it. A real family made from a real marriage.
Logan and Ella were an act. A stage play put on for people who never bought a ticket.
“You have everything,” Ella said, taking my hand. “Your family loves you. Every last one of them. Even the brother you’re so busy fighting. They’d do anything for you. You think I envy your money? No. Not after tonight. Now take that fucking scowl off your face, Logan. You’re a newlywed.”
I smiled but had to hide it behind my glass when I saw my mother halfway across the room, practically running in her heels.
“Colton!” she shouted.
There he was, my failure of a brother in a backward baseball cap and tuxedo pants that fit like a garbage bag, opening his arms so our mother could run into them as if he were back from a war.
His presence on the earth irritated me, but he’d take some of the attention off Ella and me while we regrouped.
“Is that the Colton you were talking about?” Ella whispered.
She should know that. She should know we watched him spend all his money. That he was an embarrassment to the Crowne name. There was no way she wouldn’t fuck this up.
“We need to go,” I said.
“It’s ten o’clock.”
“Let’s go. We have a suite on the east side of the house.”
She pushed her glass away with a tight jaw and eyes hardened into stones. “I want to go home.”