by Maisey Yates
“Tell me more about all the tortured years you spent in your mansion, sweet little Addison Treffen, living off Daddy’s money,” he spat, knowing he was being unfair. Knowing he was taking things out on her because he was ashamed. Because he burned with that shame. Because he wanted her to leave, not just his room, but his hotel so that he wouldn’t have to look in the eyes of the one person who knew his secret. Who knew just what he was.
“All right, congratulations,” she said. “You win, Logan Black. Spend your life alone. Spend it in this hotel. See if I care.”
“Are you leaving?” he asked, his voice hoarse, everything in him wanting to tell her to stay. While simultaneously wanting to drive her away.
There was no name for what he was. Fucked up, maybe, but that was it.
Yeah, that about summed it up.
“It’s what you want me to do.”
“I told you it wouldn’t fix it,” he said. “Nothing can fix this. Confiding in you was hardly going to change that.”
She met his eyes for one long moment, and she didn’t bother to hide the hurt. Oh, there was anger, lots of it. But beneath that, he could see her pain. And he hated himself a little bit.
But that was why he had to send her away now. It was why he had to stop this thing—whatever it was—before it turned into more. Before he started wanting more, when he knew damn well that was impossible.
Before he wanted to touch her again. Strip off all their clothes, all his control, and find freedom. With her. In her.
Then she lowered her head, and he found he wanted to take her chin in his hand, force her to look at him again. That he wanted to fork his fingers through her hair and tug hard, angle her head backward.
Feel her pulse. Strong. Steady.
To make sure his touch hadn’t damaged that in some way. Hadn’t damaged her.
But he didn’t. He didn’t deserve the luxury.
And then she turned and walked out of the bedroom, out of the suite.
He could only assume she would walk out of the hotel, and out of his life too.
And he should be grateful.
Instead he turned around and drew his fist back and punched the wall, the plaster biting hard into his knuckles, sending blood running down his arm.
And he welcomed it. That made sense at least. Pain. Pain he could understand. Good feelings were for better men.
Pain was all he had.
Chapter Eleven
Logan didn’t sleep for the rest of the night, and by the time he walked into his office he was in a terrible frame of mind. That wasn’t remarkable in and of itself.
He was in a foul mood, but he was also determined.
When he’d tried to get back to sleep last night, it wasn’t Kelly’s ghost that had haunted him. No, that honor had belonged to the specter of Addison Treffen.
To the memory of how soft she had been beneath his fingers. The memory of how she’d touched him in the shower. How tender she had been. The way she’d cared for him. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done that.
And he didn’t deserve to lust after her, given the nature of the touching. The fact that she’d practically been bathing him as if he were a mental patient, after he’d nearly… He had hurt her. And whether it had been intentional or not didn’t change the fact that it happened.
Didn’t change the fact that he had no right to lust after her. Or to say what he was about to say.
Knowing he didn’t have the right didn’t change what he was going to do. Because if there was one thing he knew for sure, if his time on the island had taught them anything, it was that he was capable of doing a whole host of things most men would never dream of.
That reality haunted his dreams. And there was no altering it. All things considered, he didn’t see why he shouldn’t use it to his advantage.
He’d made a decision last night. Lying there, with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, with an erection so hard it ached, and no relief on the horizon. There was no redemption for him. But there was Addison. And he wanted her, whether he should or not.
And he was determined to have her.
“Good afternoon, Addison. Sleep well?”
Addison looked up from her position at the desk, one eyebrow raised, the corners of her lush lips turned down. “Go to hell, Logan.”
“Been there, got the commemorative parasite. Thankfully it was curable.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you jovial? And joking about tapeworms? This is unlike you. And particularly given last night…”
“I made a decision.”
“I hope it has something to do with the hardware for the brownstones. Because Steve has been calling me nonstop about it.”
“It has nothing to do with hardware. I’m sure you find that devastating.” He ignored the guilt that was already starting to gnaw at his gut.
“Not half as devastating as Steve will find it.”
“Do you still want to play with me, princess?” He already had a spot in hell reserved just for him. Right now he was sure the fires were being stoked hotter.
She blinked rapidly. “What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. You said you were stronger than I thought you were. Prove it to me.”
His words barely made a ripple on the calm surface that was Addison Treffen. And he found that irritating. “And why are you suddenly so eager to allow me to prove it? I thought you said you weren’t going to touch me.”
“Well, I realized something,” he said, pausing and running the tip of his fingers across the puncture wound left behind on his palm. “I already have. So why bother resisting? I didn’t want to touch you because I didn’t want to hurt you. Because I prize my control over everything else, and that means I haven’t touched any women since my return from the island. But I touched you. And it’s too late to take it back.”
She looked down, her focus very carefully not on him. “What exactly are you asking for? Because I feel like I’ve already made an idiot out of myself in front of you and I don’t really want to do it again.”
“Until you confess to killing someone with your bare hands, I think we can safely say I have more to lose than you do. If you decide to run out of the hotel screaming, it isn’t like I can easily chase you. And you have a direct line to the press. Just think of the damage you can do to me. Just think of all the heat it would take off the Treffen family. I’m the one with the most to lose here, Addison. And I’m still asking for this.”
“But you aren’t asking for it,” she said, her tone raw. “I feel you’re just going to make me say it again, and then you’re going to reject me.”
Heat burned in his stomach, flames licking down south, pooling in his groin. He leaned in, breathing in her scent, that fresh, rain-washed smell. She was too good for him. Too bright, too innocent no matter how strong she seemed to think she was.
But he was not a man of honor. He never had been.
Before the island, he’d been at best a harmless philanderer, at worst, irresponsible on a catastrophic scale. The kind of man who put others in harm’s way simply because he failed to think. And after the island? Well, some might say he was a murderer.
All things considered, the fact that he’d ever tried to resist her was almost laughable.
He reached out, cupping her chin with his hand. Her blue eyes went wide. Looking at her, the innocence there, was almost painful. Because he knew that just touching her was going to corrupt that.
It’s too late. You’ve already done it. You might as well go all the way.
“I don’t want to reject you, Addison. I want to keep you. I want to strip off all your clothes, push you against the wall. Bury myself in you. Wanting you like this, it’s like drowning.” He leaned in another fraction, his lips only a whisper from hers. “And I know what that feels like. To be trapped beneath the surface of the water, lungs burning. That’s what this has been like.” He allowed himself a moment to run the tip of his thumb over her cheek,
before dropping his hands to his side again. “No good man could resist this. And I am not a good man. You deserve better.”
He moved away from her, knowing that if he didn’t put some distance between them he wouldn’t wait for her permission.
“Do I?” she asked, her voice unsteady. “My father was shot and killed in front of me. And he was an evil, horrible man. And…and I feel like I might be drowning too. Like I’m caught in the waves and I don’t know if I’m swimming deeper beneath the water or if I’m getting closer to the surface. I don’t know if I’m getting closer to salvation or death. I don’t know what I’m allowed to feel,” she said, tears glittering in her blue eyes. “How can I be sad that he’s dead, Logan? He was a bad person. And I knew it. I always knew it. But he was my father. And I’m…I’m so sad he was never the father I wished he was. I was never able to have the relationship with him that I wanted, and it’s because everything he was was a lie. I’ll never have that father. That fantasy is dead and over along with him. And I shouldn’t cry. Not for him. Not when he hurt Austin’s fiancée, my mother, countless women. I shouldn’t be sad. But I am and it doesn’t make any sense!”
Her shoulders shook and she took a deep breath, her expression so lost and desolate he felt it, deep inside him. She was adrift, and didn’t he know that feeling.
If he was another man, a better man, he would pull her into his arms and hold her. But he wasn’t another man, or a better one. He was just him. And it was probably better for her if he didn’t try to comfort her. He wasn’t qualified.
She was better off if he didn’t touch her.
Brilliant. Since it’s too late.
Yeah, well, fair point. Still, he stood rooted to the spot with his arms pinned at his sides. Because he’d forgotten this. This human connection thing.
Or maybe he’d never had it, and before he’d never noticed the absence because he’d never stopped to look at other people. He’d touch them, take what he wanted, and moved on. He was starting to wonder if he’d always been a monster. And it had simply been the island that brought it out. That had made him face it.
Maybe there had never been more in him. Maybe this was all he was.
He watched her shiver, shake apart from the inside out. Holding herself because he was too damn broken to go over and do it for her. Because it was best if she never thought she could count on that from him.
It would be best if she never counted on anything from him.
“If it helps,” he said, because standing there inactive really didn’t feel right at a certain point, “I don’t think there are actually rules on how we’re allowed to feel about things. I mean, maybe there are, but they’re bullshit.”
“What?” she asked, looking up, scrubbing her face.
“Feelings don’t make sense. They’re feelings. They aren’t supposed to be logical. And you know what? In the right conditions, or wrong conditions as the case may be, your brain isn’t even all that logical. I’ve been hungry enough, thirsty enough, tired enough where I would have believed anything, felt anything. Stress is a funny thing.”
“I just….am I even allowed to…”
“Who cares?” he asked. “I feel things that I can’t ever tell anyone because it makes so little sense…they’d lock me up. So I have to keep it under control. I have to keep me under control. Because…it all makes me seem crazy.”
“The panic? Or other things?” she asked.
He looked at her, all desperate, lost and corrupted. And he knew he owed her this. “The other things. Like the fact that sometimes I just wish I could go back. Back to the island. Away from this and people. And worrying about whether I’m okay or not.”
Addison took an unsteady breath. “That’s what I want. To go back. To when things were simple. Selfish. I know it is. But I can’t help it.”
“It’s not selfish. Or if it is, it’s no more selfish than what anyone else in your situation would want.”
“It’s terribly selfish. Because I’d rather be comfortable and ignorant than know the truth and deal with this. Because he hurt people and now that he’s dead he can’t hurt people and I’m still….wishing things could go back. It meant everything to Katy to have him stopped. Because it’s his fault her sister killed herself, and since Katy’s marrying Austin, she’s my sister and I just…Feeling this seems like a betrayal. Of her. Of so many people.”
“Because what happened betrayed you, Addison,” he said. “Because it changed your life. That’s why. Because he was your dad even if he was a prick.”
She laughed. “I know. And part of me…it’s like you have a picture of who your dad is. Of what a dad is. You get it when you’re really little. And Jason was never around much for me. But I would see him walking through the house in his suits. In a tux, ready to go out. And I thought he was…I admired him. I thought he looked perfect. I thought he was what everyone’s dad should look like. He wasn’t around much. He never paid a lot of attention to me. But I think part of me never gave up on the hope that he would. But…it’s too late. Now he’s dead. No redemption. No change. And I don’t have the father I hoped I could.” He let her words fade into silence, watched her take in shaking breath after shaking breath, until she lifted her head again. Her eyes met his, like fierce blue jewels glittering in the light. “Well, since I can’t have that, I suppose I’ll just have this.”
“What do you want?” he asked, trying to catch his breath. “I need to know what you want. That you want this. That you want me. If you do, then I don’t see the point resisting. I’m a lost cause. I have no soul left to save. So I might as well please my body.”
Addison let out a sharp breath, her chest curving in before expanding again. “What do I want? I want… I just want to make a choice for me. To make a mistake. As long as it’s mine”
He watched the color rise in her cheeks. It sent a shaft of pleasure through him. And he was beyond caring that he didn’t deserve it. “I still think it would be better if you said no. Better for you. I want you to say yes. I want you to say it over and over. I want you to scream my name. But that doesn’t change the fact that if you were a smart girl you would say no.”
“I’ve been smart all my life. I’ve been good all my life,” she said, her voice wavering.
“I’ve never been either.”
“Well, let me tell you, it’s overrated.” She looked up at him, her blue eyes meeting his, the expression in them fierce. “Yes. I’m saying yes. Because I want you. And I don’t care if it’s smart, and I don’t care if it’s right. None of that matters. All that matters is what I want. And I want you.”
His heart was thundering hard, and he could barely hear her voice over the roaring pulse in his head. “Be certain, because if I touch you I won’t be able to stop.”
Addison stood, her expression unwavering, and he knew it wasn’t a mask. Knew she wasn’t simply trying to care for him, trying to give to him. It was honest. It was her. It was only a shame she was wasting it on him. “Touch me. Touch me, Logan. Please don’t make me beg.”
Logan took a deep breath, then cupped her face. She was so soft, so much softer than he’d even imagined she would be. And she was not for him. If he knew one thing in that moment, it was that. He knew he should stop. He knew he should turn back. He wasn’t too far gone to realize that, and yet he found he didn’t care.
“Is this what you want?” he asked, sliding his thumbs over her cheekbones, over her silken skin. He wanted to savor the moment. This incredible, beautiful moment. The quiet, harmless moment, before he broke her.
“Yes.”
Regret and desire twisted his gut, in almost equal measures. “I will ruin you, princess.”
“Please,” she said, her voice a choked whisper. “Ruin who I was. Wreck me, Logan. I think it’s what has to happen so that I can start again.”
He leaned in and applied just the barest hint of pressure to her lips. Pleasure burst through him, light flashing behind his eyes. Just the slightest impression of her
lips on his, and he was shaking.
Oh, if past Logan could see this moment, the man would laugh at him. Logan Black, notorious playboy, trembling from a kiss. But he didn’t care. In fact, the realization only made him despise the man he’d been more. Because that man wouldn’t appreciate this. Wouldn’t appreciate the gift it was. Wouldn’t understand just what an incredible, earthmoving thing it was to kiss Addison Treffen.
But the man he was was dead now. And if anything good had come out of his time on the island, it was that.
He slid his hands back sifting his fingers through her hair, the slide of silken strands against his skin a sensual pleasure far beyond anything he could’ve ever imagined. He angled his head, deepened the kiss, parting her lips beneath his and touching the tip of his tongue to hers. She gasped, the sound sending a shock wave down to his stomach.
That soft sigh, combined with the feel of her beneath his hands, along with her flavor on his tongue, was enough to send him over the edge now. His cock was so hard he was in physical pain. Two years without touching a woman, and in all that time he’d never needed it this bad.
“I think,” he said, wrenching his mouth away from hers, “that it’s time we went back to my room.”
Chapter Twelve
They walked into his hotel room and Addison looked around. He didn’t have the plush quarters people would imagine a billionaire living in a suite might. Everything spare, the furniture pushed against the wall, because she imagined he rarely used it. She hadn’t thought of it the last time she was in here, because she’d been consumed with other things. It made sense now. A sad kind of sense.
She so rarely saw Logan use furniture. Even while he was eating his steak dinner, making confessions about that terrible moment on the island, he’d opted for the floor.