Crush (Tainted Love Duet #2)

by Kim Karr

  We stayed like that, in each other’s arms, for a long, long time. When I felt strong enough to pull away, I did. My fingertips traced the discoloration under his eye. My palms caressed his head. Somehow I managed to speak around the painful feeling in my throat. “What happened to you?”

  His lips sought my forehead, slid down my temple, eased over to my ear. “Later, can we talk about it later?”

  I threw my head back in answer so he could kiss down my neck.

  Soft, velvety-smooth lips grazed my skin and left wetness in their wake. As they grazed back up, butterflies swarmed my belly and it felt like they might escape.

  When his mouth found mine, he sighed, and his arms went around me as tightly as they could. “I should take a shower.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I offered. I just couldn’t bear to be without him.

  He shook his head. “I’ll only be five minutes.”

  I started to protest, but his finger brushed my lips in the most soft and sensual way so that I knew it wasn’t rejection. But what was it? We’d never been shy about getting naked in front of each other. And for that matter we’d never really cared where we fucked. On the floor, on a table, on the couch, or against the shower wall, unless we were making love; then Logan preferred to be in the bed.

  All sense in my mind was gone. Completely demolished by the events that had taken place, and his refusal to allow me to join him made my stomach twist. It was evident something was going on in his head and that didn’t soothe me in the least.

  Logan kissed me deeply before he got to his feet. I touched my lips with my fingertips and felt them tingling where his lips had just been. Once standing, he walked over to the open blinds and closed them. Before he left the room to shower in the hall bathroom, he grabbed some clothes out of his drawer.

  While he was gone, I settled on the bed and leaned my head against the pillows. The last few days had been a roller coaster of emotions. In the dark of the room, I reflected on my actions and chastised my behavior.

  Why hadn’t I looked for him?

  What had happened to him?

  Where had he been?

  Did his disappearance have something to do with the Blue Hill Gang?

  It must have, and the thought sickened me.

  The bed dipped, and I was surprised I hadn’t heard the creaking of the floor. Logan crawled up to the top of the bed and lifted the sheet. “Come here,” he beckoned.

  My skin tingled and I didn’t hesitate to join him under the safety of the soft fabric. “Logan, are you okay?” I asked, still wondering and still worried.

  Without hesitation he scooped me in his arms and kissed my head. “I am now. I just need to feel you for a little while, just like this.”

  He kissed me again.

  And again.

  And one more time before he pressed my head to him.

  I stayed like that for a long while, and then I couldn’t stand it any longer and lifted slightly to look at him. It was dark and all I could see were shadows of his face. His hair was gone and even without it he was breathtaking, or maybe without it he was even more breathtaking. I couldn’t tell, nor did it matter. All that mattered was that he was here with me. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  His head began to shake. “Shhh . . . no more talking about it right now, please.” The tremble in his voice told me just how wrecked he was. Not one to cry, his emotional outlet came in different forms, and right now I knew that form was me.

  I straddled him and ran my palms over his now short hair, and then I found his face and his mouth with my lips and kissed him all over. I found myself whispering to him in the dark. “I need you so much, Logan.”

  He was silent but his hands roamed my body, pulling my shirt off, and then tugging my jeans down.

  Naked on top of him, I couldn’t stop kissing him. I needed to feel him against my lips to believe this was real.

  His hands found my slick flesh, already wet for him, and his fingers teased the folds of my clit. Soft. Gentle.

  Slowly, I lifted his T-shirt over his head.

  His fingers continued to tease me and I reveled in how good it felt.

  Through the material of his sweatpants I could feel his cock swell, and I slid down his body so I could kiss him there too.

  My lips left wet marks on the fabric all along his hardness, and then I pulled down his sweatpants and kissed the bare skin of his cock. My hands and my mouth worked in tandem down its length to his balls, and back up. When I took him in my mouth, he made a mewing sound like he was home, and everything came crashing down all around me. The enormity of our time apart felt like a weight I couldn’t bear. I needed to see him. To hear him tell me how he felt with his eyes and his mouth.

  Abruptly, I stopped what I was doing and crawled up the bed to turn the light on. When I did, I knew immediately why he hadn’t wanted me to shower with him and why he’d closed the blinds.

  “Oh my God, Logan,” I gasped.

  He reached for the light. “Turn it off, Elle.”

  I shook my head. “No, tell me what happened. Where did you get all of these bruises?”

  Logan reached for me and rolled us over so he was hovering over me. “I didn’t want to do this now,” he sighed. “I was pulled over and detained by some cops who I’m pretty certain are on Patrick Flannigan’s payroll.”

  I gasped. “Why?”

  “For Agent Blanchet and her task force, although she claims she knew nothing of my extended stay and poor treatment while there.”

  The squeak that left my throat was completely incomprehensible. “Treatment. Oh, my God. Logan. Are you sure you’re okay? Should we take you to the emergency room?”

  He smoothed my hair. “I’m fine. I really am. And I told you, I’ll tell you everything, just please, not now. I just can’t think about it right now. I just want to be with you.”

  I believed him and I understood. I wanted to be with him too. I wanted to touch him. To feel him. Every beautiful inch of him. “Turn the light off,” I told him.

  There was no hesitation in his compliance.

  “Logan,” I whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “Please, Elle, not right now.”

  “No, not about what happened to you. Tell me how you feel about me?”

  He fell back onto the mattress with a sigh that sounded so erotic it made my own body tremble. “That’s easy,” he said. “Ever since I met you, you’re all I can think about. It’s like you’re the air that I need to breathe. The reason my heart beats. Being with you makes me feel like everything in this fucked-up world we live in is right side up instead of upside down.”

  “Oh, Logan, I feel the same way. I was so lost without you this past weekend.”

  He sucked in a breath that I knew was one of guilt.

  I didn’t want him to feel that way. I wanted to make him feel good. To relieve the suffering. I went farther. “What do you feel when you kiss me?”

  “Like you’re the universe giving me what I need.”

  I loved that. I pushed my boundaries even farther. “How do you feel when I touch your cock or wrap my lips around it?”

  He groaned a noise that reverberated through my soul.

  And after hearing it, I was done talking. He could show me how he felt. I sat up and shifted my body so that the smell of him intoxicated me. When I was right where I needed to be, I pushed my hands under his ass to lift him closer to my mouth and then I took him all the way in.

  “Oh, fuck, Elle, that feels so good. Take me as far as you can. All the way.”

  I did as he told me and took his cock down my throat as far as I could. Over and over. Tip to base, my mouth sucked him, my fingers stroked him, my lips and teeth and tongue moved together.

  Soft words and louder groans told me how much he liked it and I kept going. I wasn’t going to stop until all his pain was overtaken by pleasure.

  When I sensed he was close, I asked him, “Do you want to co
me in my mouth or inside me?”

  His hips thrust upward. “I want to come inside you,” he whispered, as if worried his words would trigger an adverse reaction.

  They didn’t. This kind of dirty talk was how Logan connected with me, and it had become one way in which I connected with him too. Sure, we communicated outside of bed, but in this way I knew what he felt for me was exactly what I felt for him. Today we both needed this.

  I sat up and pulled him up with me. “That’s good, because I need you to be inside me,” I whispered into the dark.

  He had me on my back and was sliding his cock in me within moments of my words. “You’re so wet for me.”

  I ran my nails down his back. “Only you.”

  In and out.

  His cock moved.

  Slowly at first.

  And that deep shock of connection only we shared was the first thing I felt followed by a sizzling awareness that there would never be another for me in my lifetime. Logan was it. He was the man perfectly made to fit me.

  “You’re so tight. You feel so good,” he growled.

  Feeling his body all over mine was what I needed. I let go of everything except making sure my hips met his over and over. His pace picked up steadily, yet still, it wasn’t too fast or too slow.

  Flesh on flesh.

  Frantic.

  Grasping.

  My moans couldn’t be contained. It felt way too good.

  “You like that?” he asked.

  “Yes. Don’t stop,” I pleaded and then, out of nowhere, trembling spasms of pleasure started to sweep over me. My fingers clutched his shoulders as the tremors kept coming.

  Over and over, like electric shock waves that felt way to good for any one person to be able to enjoy.

  Logan groaned at the slight gouge of my nails in his flesh.

  I couldn’t help myself.

  The sound only tipped me farther over the edge. My orgasm continued and my entire body started to shake.

  He drove himself deeper, moved faster, and my pussy responded by clenching around his cock.

  “Oh, God, Logan. Don’t stop.”

  The sweet pleasure rippled through me again as he pounded harder, faster.

  “Fuck!” he called in a shout that matched my cry, and I knew then that he, too, was coming. He murmured my name, over and over, a little louder each time.

  Hearing it made me feel like my blood was singing.

  Once we were both spent and gasping, he shifted his weight off me and rolled onto his side.

  I turned to face him.

  We stared at each other for at least five minutes.

  My hand caressed his cheek. “Talk to me,” I said. “What are you thinking?”

  He kissed my fingers, each of them, and held my hand tightly. “Do you trust me?”

  There was only one answer to that question. “Yes.”

  Without hesitation he gathered me close and breathed into my hair. “I don’t think Michael or his family are who you think they are.”

  I didn’t miss that he called him Michael and not O’Shea, as if to soften the blow. “I know,” I whispered.

  Logan shot up. “Did he do something to you?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t tell him about Michael’s proposition. Not in the state of mind he was in right now, but I did tell him about Heidi and the note I’d found in her drawer.

  “You need to stay away from him.”

  I took his hand. “I can’t do that, Logan. I’m worried about Clementine.”

  “Do you think he might hurt her?”

  Panic started to creep into my soul. “No, not physically. But emotional scars can be just as devastating, and I couldn’t live with myself if I allowed that to happen. We have to find out what’s going on.”

  “We will.”

  “Do you promise?”

  Logan gathered me close once again and brought us down to the pillow. “Whatever it takes.”

  Whatever it takes, I repeated to myself, and then I leaned in to kiss him but found myself rubbing my face against the stubble on his jaw. I wanted to memorize every single thing about him. The angle of his jaw. His scent. The feel of his skin. His touch. The way his mouth curved at the corners. His lips. The things I’d struggled with trying to visualize exactly right the last two nights—I knew I’d never allow myself to forget again.

  Whatever it takes.

  DAY 33

  LOGAN

  The workday was over, but at the same time it was also just beginning.

  I’d already removed my jacket and was loosening my tie when I pulled open the boutique door.

  Elle was deep in concentration, sitting on the stool behind the cash register, counting the money in the drawer. She glanced over and held a finger up. “Would you turn the ‘closed’ sign around?”

  I did as instructed and made my way across the wooden boards with slow, deliberate steps until I reached her. “I think you’ve forgotten something,” I whispered in her ear from behind.

  She nudged me with her elbow. “Two hundred, one, two, three, four, three hundred.”

  “Like a hello.”

  I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was grinning.

  The pull and surge of sexual tension was thicker than ever between us. Yesterday we’d made up for the time we’d lost over the weekend. We also probably had one of the most candid discussions about O’Shea we’d ever had. I thought she was finally on the same page as me when it came to the kind of man he really was. If she wasn’t yet, I was pretty certain she would be after tonight. We’d agreed we were both all in, which meant I wasn’t going to try to protect her from the cold, harsh truth, and the reverse was also true.

  Tonight would be her first hands-on experience with the investigation that was already well under way. I was meeting with the guys and we were going to discuss what came next. I’d already told them about Blanchet and the acidifier. I also told them about what Elle had seen in O’Shea’s study. There was a very likely chance the missing drugs were in his possession, but we needed proof before Blanchet would make her move. There was also the issue of Clementine. Elle was worried about what would happen to her and asked that I wait before saying anything to Blanchet until she’d secured her role as Clementine’s guardian. That was a tall order, because who knew what he’d do? At the same time there was more to all of this, and waiting until we could figure it out wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. There was something bigger here—I just didn’t know what.

  My patience wore thin as I waited for her to finish. My need for her attention seemed to mount with every passing second. Who the hell she had turned me into I didn’t know anymore, but at the same time I felt more alive than I’d ever felt in my life.

  Dropping her off this morning to go into work wasn’t easy. After everything that had happened, I wasn’t ready for us to be apart. I drove her to the boutique since we had something to do after work. It made sense, and I really wanted to be with her as much as possible.

  When I couldn’t wait any longer, I nipped at the soft skin of her neck. “I don’t like being ignored,” I growled.

  Elle switched from the stack of twenties to the stack of tens, but I knew she was very aware of my presence because the wobble in her voice gave it away. “Five hundred, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy—”

  Her stool was a red leather swivel one from Italy. The showroom had become populated with leather items similar in nature. She kept counting, but as soon as she set the pile of tens down, I snagged her wrist before she could pick up the fives and turned her toward me.

  She swatted me across the ass. “Now I have to start over.”

  “Hey now, don’t tease,” I warned.

  Those emerald-green eyes almost gleamed when she looked at me. “Hi, you’re early.”

  She was incredibly beautiful, and for a few moments I couldn’t believe she was mine. Long enough that I had to pull in a breath, because I’d forgotten to breathe. “I have a lot of making up to do,�
�� I confessed, instantly turning the moment from flirty to serious.

  My guilt about what I’d put her through over the weekend wasn’t going anywhere. I did have a lot of making up to do.

  She looped her arms around my neck. “Stop saying that. It wasn’t your fault.”

  I leaned down and kissed her long and hard. I loved the taste of her, not just the cherry flavor of her lip gloss but also the actual taste of her tongue and her mouth. We were both breathless before I pulled away. “I want to take you to eat before we meet the guys. What do you need help with?”

  “I just need to finish the deposit and turn everything off.”

  Something caught my attention in the case beside us and my eyes darted to it. The glass cabinet held the sex toys display and the shelves were completely full. Diamond dildos, platinum vibrators, strings of pearls, and some things so exotic I wasn’t even sure what they were called. “You received the snakeskin handcuffs from Singapore?” I asked, raising a suggestive brow.

  She glanced toward the case, chewing on her lip. “Yes, everything arrived early this morning.”

  Three steps and I was in front of the unlocked case and opening it. One reach and the cuffs were in my hand. I turned around with a rueful smile on my face. “I’d like to purchase these.”

  She gave me a contemplative look and bit her lip. “Sorry, I’ve already closed out the drawer.”

  I took the one long stride that separated us and closed the distance. “Surely, there must be a way I can pay for these.” I dangled them in the air.

  A weary aspect had entered her eyes but I tried to push her past it.

  “We could barter.”

  Another smile prodded my lips. “Barter, as in trade?”

  She breathed very close to my mouth. “That’s what the early traders intended the word to mean.”

  Amused, I replied, “I’ll bite. What are you looking to receive in return for the goods in question?”

  “Funny you should ask, because we also just got these.” She turned on her heels and opened the glass case. On one of the shelves there was a stack of silk pieces of cloth in different colors. She picked up the red one and held it in her fingers. “Control.”

  I raised a brow. “Control?”