Capture Me

by Amber Thielman

  Logan was twenty-nine years old. He was well into adulthood, but with the way Kassidy Harding's skin met his own with a warm, tingling sensation, he realized at that moment that no woman he'd ever been with made him want them as she did. Her skin, her breath, and the softness of her lips—it was nothing like he had ever experienced. Kass groaned quietly as he grasped the bottom of her tank top and lifted it above her head. He pulled it off and tossed it aside, exposing a pair of plump, perky breasts hidden shyly by a black lace bra. He pulled her into him, closer now, and rested one hand on her covered nipple. Kass moaned, and a fire ignited in him. He needed her. He needed her now.

  Reaching for the button on her jeans, Logan pushed her back against the wall, and his free hand reached up to embrace her neck. For a fleeting moment, he thought he saw a flicker of fear in Kass's eyes, but it was gone before he was certain, and before he could back away, she had her hand on the bulge through his jeans. The touch of her fingers sent a shock through his body, and his hips moved towards her instinctively. He felt weak and empowered all at once. She met his gaze again, and there was a glint in her eyes. Mischievous—innocent—irresistible.

  “Do you know what you do to me?” Logan whispered in her ear. He was breathless. They both were. His skin was on fire, and he wondered briefly if he could make it through this without losing it. Reaching for her jeans, he undid the button and slid them off, allowing Kass to step out of them as he admired her curvy, seductive body. The fire in him grew as he skimmed his eyes over her milky white skin, freckled shoulders, toned legs. Her panties, amazingly, matched her bra, but he now hoped to rip them both off her.

  What compelled him even more about Kass standing naked in front of him was her shining innocence. She had the confidence to flaunt her stuff, but he could see past that fake bravado, and a few times he noticed her reach to cover herself. The second time she did, he caught her hand, and the color rose to her cheeks. He stared at her hungrily, his body humming with anticipation. He pulled her into him, away from the wall, meeting her lips once more. This time, she greeted him with parting lips, and he felt a thrill of excitement as her tongue searched for his. He caught her lower lip with the front of his teeth, teasing her, and when he reached his hand down past her belly button, her black-lace panties were wet. He slid his pants off, embracing her head as he teased her tongue and lips. He maneuvered her around, towards the bed, and in one quick motion he had her down, back resting on the comforter.

  “Vegas!” Logan hissed through his teeth, trying not to laugh and kill the mood. “Move, please.”

  Looking scorned, the yellow dog hopped off the bed and retreated to a far corner of the room to resume his nap. Kass giggled. Logan stood over her for a moment, admiring the way her chest rose with every breath she took. Her skin was flushed, and her breasts were still covered, which only added to his excitement. She was beautiful—stunning. Even with the scars, even with all those demons, both physical and emotional, he had never seen such a gorgeous woman.

  As he watched her, he let his boxers drop to the floor, and he saw uncertainty flicker across her features. He paused, staying where he was, not wanting to overwhelm or frighten her. When she finally nodded her head, just a little bit, he knelt on the bed, taking her hand in his own as he slid up to meet her lips once again. She parted for him, both her lips and her thighs, but he could feel her hesitation. The suspense was killing him, but her expression made him hold back. He reached and brushed a strand of loose hair back from her forehead, gazing into her eyes.

  “What is it?” he whispered. Kass closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them again, he could have sworn she was staring right through him.

  “Don't hurt me,” she whispered. “Be gentle. I—”

  She trailed off, and like a kick in the groin, every hesitation he'd had only sharpened. Logan felt his body tense, and he allowed his hand to drop from her cheek.

  “Are you a virgin?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “Nothing like that. I just—Ryan is rough. I don’t…” her voice trailed off, and Logan rested the knuckle of his finger against her cheek.

  “We can stop,” he said.

  “No,” Kass said. “I want this.” She hesitated. “I want this with you.”

  So many emotions bombarded him at once, and Logan almost stood up. He was seconds from pulling away when he saw her hand snake down her chest, past her belly button, and under her panties. He watched, mesmerized, as she taunted him. Her eyes never left his face. The passion in Logan blazed again, and he wanted her so badly he could hardly stand it. Keeping his eyes on her face for any sign of apprehension, he lowered himself back onto her, slipped one hand under her bra and slid off her panties with the other, and then he met her lips.

  “I won't hurt you,” he breathed. “I will never, ever hurt you, Kass.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Afterward, lying entangled in Logan’s arms, Kass couldn't help but feel like her whole life had been nothing short of mediocre up until this point.

  Sex with Ryan had become a chore over the years. He hadn’t pleased her, and he never cared to. When they had slept together, Ryan had been rough—harsh. Kass had never experienced pleasure in sex; it was only something she’d done for him to keep him sane, give him what he wanted. But this, this had been so different. The feel of Logan’s skin beneath her touch, the way he’d gone slow, been gentle. He’d caressed her, kissed her, made her insides squirm with pleasure and goosebumps rise on her arms. Sex with Logan was like living in a whole other world.

  Kass lay against his bare chest, tracing her fingers up and down the skin on Logan’s abdomen. He had one arm around her, lightly trailing her arm with his fingers. They were silent, but it was comfortable. Nothing had to be said, but she felt a strange, nagging desire to do so, anyway.

  “Those scars on my arms—the ones you saw—I—” she faltered, feeling her heart beat rapidly against her chest. “Before you found me just recently, that wasn't new. I've cut for a very long time.”

  “I know.”

  “If I'm not cutting, I'm drinking.” She hesitated, taking a breath. “When I started dating Ryan, the self-harming cut down. A lot. But—it wasn't because he made me feel better. It was because I was afraid of how he would react if he knew.”

  “Did he ever find out?” Logan asked.

  “Yeah,” Kass said. “He found out. And he was angry. It's like it disgusted him. It was just something that he could use against me when we fought.”

  “And you never thought to tell him why you might need to hide from the pain?” asked Logan. Kass swallowed, closing her eyes briefly. It was weird to speak of Ryan while she lay tangled in another man's embrace. But despite how odd it felt, how strange it was, she was happy. She was comfortable.

  She hadn't been happy or comfortable in a very, very long time.

  “I figured that if he truly wanted to know, he would ask,” said Kass. “Otherwise, we could just stay in our happy little bubble of perfection and never have to worry about those demons.”

  Even then, though, their relationship had been far from a little bubble of perfection. Kass had struggled every day against Ryan, as he had against her. There had been childish fights, breaking up and making up—horrible, dark moments. Sometimes—well, most of the time—she had felt lonely. She'd had him, she'd had Ryan, and yet she'd still been completely and utterly alone.

  “Demons are dangerous,” Logan said. He shifted under her; his skin was warm against hers. “What is it that you never told him?”

  Kass felt her breath catch in her throat, hesitating. It had been all too easy to scare Ryan into a fit with the cutting alone. It had made him wary to talk about it, and it had forced him to withdraw from her, to become even more cold and aloof than he had before.

  Could she do that to Logan? Could he handle it? Could she handle it?

  The reason for her cutting had stayed a secret these years. She'd made an enormous attempt to block it out, to get over it, to forget it.
But she couldn't. She hadn't. She didn't cut because it was fun. She didn't drink to loosen up. She cut, and she drank, and those two things alone made her feel better. Those two things numbed her to the pain she could never face. But now, lying here, in Logan's arms, feeling his breathing beneath her, Kass realized that she had to tell him. No, she wanted to tell him. She had never been able to tell Ryan. She hadn't even been able to tell Abby. And now, here she was, in the arms of her kidnapper, and all she wanted to do was tell him—to get it off her chest.

  “My father used to beat me. Me and my mother both.”

  The words hung heavy in the air, and Kass wished she could take them back. For a moment, he said nothing, but the trail of his fingers against her skin had come to a halt. She took another deep breath and let her ears drift to the sound of his beating heart against her cheek. She waited for him to pull away from her, waited for him to push her away and stand up and leave—just like Ryan had done, if not physically. She could handle it. Kass could handle anything. She had no choice if she wanted to survive.

  She hadn't talked about her parents, let alone thought much about them, in years. And now, here she was, confessing her deepest, darkest secrets to a man she barely knew. And even then, feeling wary, feeling frightened, Kass knew she wouldn't have been able to hold this same conversation with Ryan. There was no way—he'd never given her a chance, and even if he had, what then? He was no better of a man than her father had been. They were the same; men drunk on power who got their kicks out of hurting women.

  Logan's muscles visibly tensed under her body, and she wished she could slap herself. Was it too much, too soon? That's what she got for jumping the gun, for trusting somebody. But even then, after all of that, after all her doubt, she had to continue. Leaving it where it was now would be wrong, and she wasn't sure she could proceed without getting it off her chest.

  “It went on for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I never told anybody about it, because I wanted to protect my family. If my mother could take it, then so could I.”

  Kass took a breath, chewing on her bottom lip.

  “That's when the cutting started, too. It was an outlet for the pain—a way to survive day to day despite what he might do to me. He may have had control of me, but I did, too.” She hesitated, catching her breath. “I moved out when I turned eighteen and rarely saw him after that. During my senior year of high school, they were killed in a car accident. I was devastated when it happened.”

  “I’m sure,” Logan said softly.

  Kass leaned into him, forcing herself to keep it together.

  “Despite everything he had put me through, my world ended when I got word of the accident.” She looked up at Logan, tears pressing against her eyes. It suddenly felt as though the weight of a thousand moons were sitting on her chest. “I went from my abusive father to my abusive boyfriend, and I fucking took it. How is that normal?”

  Below her body, Logan shifted, and she felt his free hand rise from her shoulder. He grasped her finger in his hand and, taking it gently, maneuvered it so her finger was resting on his head. At first, she didn't know what he was doing, but after a moment she felt it: a deep, jagged dent in the side of his skull, hidden by hair. Kass let her fingers massage the area, shocked at how distinctive it was.

  “I was sixteen,” he said. He dropped his hand from hers, returning it to her bare shoulder. He tensed up again, a stone statue beneath her. “I was a spitfire little brat, of course, but one night I came home late for curfew and got into a fight with my Dad. I turned to walk out of the house, and he broke a glass flower vase over my head.” He paused, rolling his eyes. “Sixteen stitches that time, and twenty bucks if I told the doc I'd fallen down the stairs. It was forty dollars the time after that when he broke two ribs and bloodied my face with his steel-toed boots.”

  Kass cringed, unable to imagine being inflicted with that kind of pain and having to lie about it. But then again, wasn’t that what she had done all those years?

  “Logan,” she said. “What—what is your mom like? Your real mom? Is she still alive?”

  She felt his breathing deepen as the question hung in the air between them. She had tried to resist asking, as she hadn't known his feelings about the matter, but curiosity got the best of her.

  “Mom died when Ashley and I were twelve,” Logan said. “She was such an amazing woman, Kass. She was kind of the light in everyone's life. I don't think she had even one single enemy.” He laughed, but he sounded sad. “God, I miss her every day.”

  “How did she die?”

  “Breast cancer,” he paused, and she could hear the pain returning to his voice. “She fought it for years, you know? Such a rough battle—but it won in the end.”

  “I'm sorry,” Kass said. “It sounds like you were all close.”

  “Oh, we were,” Logan smiled, and she felt her heart warm just looking at him. “We were mama's babies—both me and Ashley. The day she died I didn't think I would survive without her.”

  “But you did,” Kass said, and he nodded slightly.

  “I did, but it was only because of Ashley. She was so much like my mother that some days it physically hurt—but she was also my caregiver and my biggest advocate. She loved me despite all the stupid choices I made.”

  “There must have been a lot of them,” Kass said, and Logan laughed.

  “Fuck yes, there were. I did it just to piss off my dad, and to piss off Laurel when they got married. It became kind of a game.”

  “I bet it wasn't funny to her.”

  “No,” Logan agreed. “It wasn't. She hated Ashley and me—we were just a kink in her perfect little plan.”

  “What plan?”

  “Her money plan, of course,” he shifted under her, his muscles tensing and then relaxing. “Laurel didn't love my father, Kass. She married him for money.”

  “That's quite an accusation.” Kass lifted her fingers, pushing aside a wisp of black hair that had fallen into his eyes. “Maybe they really were in love, Logan.”

  “No,” he said. He caught her hand in his, squeezing it. “I know she didn't love him because she had a lover on the side.”

  “How do you know?”

  “For starters, I found them screwing on the living-room floor one weekend while my father was out of town for business,” Logan said. His tone sounded amused, even smug.

  “Ouch,” Kass said. “Did your father ever find out?”

  “I tried to tell him, but of course he didn't believe me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why else?” Logan intertwined his fingers and grasped them behind him, supporting his head. “Laurel might not have loved him, but he loved her—and all I was to either of them was a fucking reject. I should have tried harder, though. It's because of Laurel that I'm in this situation to begin with.”

  He paused, rubbing his hand over his face anxiously, shaking his head.

  Kass felt sick. She sat up, reaching for the sheet tangled around their legs as she pulled it up and around her, covering her breasts. It was like a slam in the gut, thinking of the situation at hand.

  “You okay?” Logan asked, sitting up beside her. He reached out to touch her, and she unintentionally pulled away. Surprised, he let his hand drop. “Kass?”

  “What now?” she asked. Her voice broke, and she covered her mouth, looking away from him. “What's going on, Logan? You need to tell me the whole story, as in what your plan is now because I'm not sure I'm buying any of it.”

  As the words left her mouth, she noticed his expression darken. There they were, lying together on the bed, naked, and suddenly everything was exactly the way it had been when he had taken her away from home with a gun to her head.

  It was the same, and yet it was so, so different.

  “I don't—” Logan caught his breath. “I'm not sure this is the time, Kass.”

  “The time?” she echoed. “The time for what?”

  “There's more to this than you know,” Logan said. He reac
hed for her, but she pulled away again.

  “Then tell me.”

  “I can't.”

  “Why not?” Furious, she slid forward, careful to cover herself with the sheet as she stood up to search for her clothes. “Why can't you tell me, Logan? Don't I have a right to know what's going on?”

  “It could be dangerous,” he said, and she felt self-conscious as his eyes trailed her movements. “I've done enough to you, haven't I?”

  “Oh, please,” Kass said, hanging on the last word with irritation. She was flustered, irritated—her good mood had suddenly vanished, and now she wanted to slap him all over again. “It takes two.”

  “Kass, please don't be angry.”

  “Forget it,” she said. It was a fight to keep the tremble from her voice, and no way in hell was she going to break down in front of him now. Not when she'd held it together so well so far. “I'm the idiot here, Logan, not you. I came back to you.”

  Gathering her clothes, she stuffed them under one arm and made her way to the bathroom to get dressed. Logan stayed where he was on the bed, his eyes still trailing her every move. She shut the door behind her and pulled on some pants and a sweatshirt, an array of emotions tugging desperately at her soul She gazed at herself in the mirror, wondering at which point during this fiasco she'd lost track of herself and fallen for her kidnapper. Even now, looking at herself in the glass, she was different. She was not the girl taken from home. Not anymore. She wasn't the insecure girl who worshiped her fiancé and stood back to let him flirt with other girls. Now she was the girl who had sex with bad men. She was the girl who took tequila shots and teased and dressed sexy. She was different. She could see it. She could even feel it.