The hotel is a dreadful pink monstrosity, but it’s cheap and anonymous, so beggars can’t be choosers. Logan pulls the truck up in front of our room and we haul Rocky and our bags inside. He’d taken the police decals off and the siren is located beneath the grill so it looks like an ordinary truck. Unless the creep followed us here, we’ll be safe.
As I roll up to the door, I start to wonder, when did I start thinking of he and I as a we? I have to admit, I love the concept more than I would have thought. We. Us. A couple. It’s funny how the things we fight the hardest against are the things we end up needing the most.
“How long do we have to stay here?” I ask as I place my suitcase on the dresser in front of the bed.
I don’t mind the peeling paint, the obnoxiously colored bedding or the faded watercolor artwork. I do mind being forced out of my home—again.
“A couple days at the most. If we’re lucky, then just tonight.”
Logan shucks his jacket and I note the shoulder holster he’s wearing. A gun shouldn’t be sexy, but the way he wears it is undeniably attractive. The holster accentuates his shoulders and when he turns I notice it frames his chest. I find myself just watching him as he moves throughout the room until he looks up and catches me.
He notices me looking at the gun. “Just in case,” he says and places the holster on the nightstand next to the bed.
“Do you have more guns hiding in other places.”
His grin is quick and lethal. “Just one.” He lifts one pant leg and I eye the small silver pistol strapped there.
“Well aren’t you handy to have around?”
A quick glance around the room shows a small table and chair situated in front of the big window with the air conditioner underneath. A long dresser fills up the wall opposite the two double beds. The innermost wall is occupied by a long sink and counter with a coffee pot and hair dryer.
As I set out our things to keep my hands busy, Logan settles in at the table with his phone and proceeds to make a series of hushed phone calls. Not wanting to eavesdrop, I motion that I’m going to go outside to talk on my own phone to give him some privacy.
The midday autumn sun does little to warm my chilled insides. I dial Chloe’s number and immediately feel lighter as soon as her voice comes over the line. “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Jesus, I’ve been so worried about you. I was just telling Gabe I was going to call you to see what was going on. After the story in the news, I about had a heart attack!”
My heart slows to a dull thud and the womp, womp, womp of blood rushing in my ears nearly drowns out my response, “Story?”
“They did a story on you today in the Miami Herald. It was picked up by the stations in Jacksonville because I own your company. They like to tie any sensationalist news with my name ever since the kidnapping. Honey, if you would have told me what happened, I would have understood. I’m so, so sorry about what happened to you.”
I have to lean against the column to keep upright. “Do you have the paper there with you? Could you tell me the byline?”
“Sure, just a second. Umm, it looks like a Phil Exeter? Why? Does that ring a bell?”
I thought after everything that’s happened, I’d lost the ability to be surprised. Apparently not. “There’s a lot I should catch you up on, but I really can’t right now. Logan and I are staying at a hotel while we try to sort this mess out. As soon as the dust settles, we’ll make another date, okay? I promise, I’ll tell you everything.”
“I’m going to hold you to that. Is there anything I can do to help?”
A rush of affection surges through me. “No, but thank you for offering. You’re a great friend.”
“Of course I am.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
“Love you. You know that right?”
Tears fill my eyes and make my voice rough. “I know. I love you, too, Chloe.”
I stay outside until I can get control of my emotions. Logan is still sitting on the chair when I open the door to the room, except now he has the air conditioning unit running full blast and the television is on a local station, the volume turned down low.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes, I just got off the phone with Chloe.”
“Are you sure everything is okay?”
I sigh. “Remember Phil? The reporter? He got wind of Lena’s . . . of Lena and finally got his big break. He published a piece with the Miami Herald about everything.”
Logan comes to me and takes my hands. “I knew I should have arrested him when I had the chance.”
“For what?”
He frowns. “I’d figure something out.”
I kiss his cheek. “My hero.”
“Smartass.”
“Did you fill up on chili or do you want to order something for later?” I ask as I move to the dresser to take out pajamas. If we’re going to be holed up here, I may as well be comfortable.
“I’m all right. I have a few more calls to make.”
“I’ll give you some privacy. I wanted to take a shower anyway.”
At the mention of a shower and the stirrings of our last, he grins and my cheeks heat. I escape to the bathroom while I still have a chance.
Twenty minutes later, I get dressed in my pajamas and emerge from the bathroom and find him sitting, more like sprawling, on the high-backed desk chair, his legs spread and his dark brows slated over blue eyes gone molten. I lean against the far wall of the hotel room near the rattling air conditioner and watch him.
Then he spreads his legs wider and jerks his chin. Before I make a conscious decision, my body makes one for me and is moving across the room. I don't know if I need his closeness or just need him, but I just . . . need.
It’s as simple and as complicated as that. One taste of him apparently wasn’t enough. Despite all that’s happening, my body craves him.
He grabs my arm as soon as I’m close enough and guides me between his legs until I'm kneeling in front of him, feeling like very much the sacrifice. It’s the same position as the last time we were intimate, but this time there’s no question about who holds the power. Everything about his posture screams alpha male.
Something swims in the depth of his eyes, but I can’t read it. All I can do is grip his muscular thighs through his travel-worn jeans to hold on, because if I don’t, I feel like I'll just spin right out of the room and into orbit.
He lifts one of those big, strong hands and threads it through my wet, matted hair. It catches on the tangles and then his gentleness gives way to violence and he jerks my head back with one flex of his powerful fists.
My head now bent backward, my neck at his mercy, he leans toward me, the ancient chair creaking, and fastens his lips to the delicate curve of my bared throat. His hot kiss marks me like a brand.
I inhale swiftly, my insides turning tight and hot, forcing me to go limp against him. My fingers clutch his jeans and slip over the smooth material to his waist. At the first glancing feel of his hot skin against the tips of my fingers, my breath seizes in my throat. I delve under the material of his shirt and whimper, aching desperately for more. More skin—more contact—more him.
He groans, and his fist clenches in my hair almost impossibly tight as his tongue samples and his teeth nibble. The leisurely journey he takes from the base of my throat to my lips is agony. By the time he finds my mouth, I no longer have a breath to spare, but it doesn't matter—everything but his kiss simply ceases to matter.
I don’t think about what’s going to happen tomorrow. About the horrors from the past. I’ve never felt so completely overtaken. He plunders, his kiss waging a battle. It should go down in history because by the time he lets me up to breathe, I’m waving a white flag, never having experienced tactics quite so masterful.
His other hand comes to my waist and urges me up to his lap so I’m straddling him.
“You want this?” he asks, and nudges his hips upwards in a slow, rhythmic
roll. My response lodges somewhere in my throat, and he chuckles darkly. “Oh, yeah,” he growls. “You want it.”
I suck his lower lip into my mouth and nip it between my teeth as I release. His eyes flash and his hands flex, and I smile just as darkly causing him to grin against my lips.
When I speak, it’s guttural and I worry it betrays more of what I’m feeling than I’d like. “Yeah, Logan. I want it.”
The closeness is almost too much. All-consuming. Overwhelming.
My legs dangle off either side of his hips as he cradles the rest of my body in his lap. All I can do is clutch his head with my hands as our kiss turns carnal, all teeth and tongues and heat. I lose myself and can’t tell where he ends and I begin.
When I’m limp from it, he gets to his feet with me in his arms and crosses the room in two long strides to place me on the bed. He wastes no time ridding himself of his hoodie and shirt, then shucking his jeans, leaving himself completely bare.
Any other time, I’d give in to studying each and every blessed inch of his tawny, inked skin, but I barely have time to take him in before he’s ridding me of my own clothes. By the time I catch up, my shoes and socks are gone and his thick fingers are fumbling with my pajama bottoms.
“Here, let me,” I say when he growls in frustration and starts to rip them right off me.
His hands frame my hips as I work them down. Our eyes lock, and he dips his head, capturing my lips again. I keep getting distracted by the sleek, muscular body pinning me to the bed. There are acres upon acres of gorgeous skin for me to explore, and I can’t wait to trace every inch of it with my lips and tongue and teeth.
I start to do just that, scooting my body under his to trace his sternum and abdomen with my tongue, but he captures me under my arms and hauls me right back up. My shirt disappears next and then we are naked and bare against each other, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything so exquisite in my life.
In a few quick, efficient motions he pulls a condom practically out of thin air and opens it with his teeth. When he positions his hips between my legs, my eyes are drawn down to his hands as they sheath his cock with the layer of latex.
Then his eyes meet mine and he nudges me backward, crawling up my body until his weight rests above me. He bumps my thighs open wider, deliciously, uncomfortably so, and then he thrusts, and I see white. His own hoarse growl of satisfaction is low and sends warmth radiating through me. There’s no seduction this time, but I don’t need it. It’s all heat and need, mindless want.
Everything I’d been denying, all the feelings I wasn’t able to put a name to—or I didn’t want to put a name to—come rushing to the surface as he thrusts into me, slowly, inexorably, and we lock eyes.
“There it is,” he says.
I shake my head against the rise of sensation, the firestorm of emotion.
One hand comes to grip my jaw, and he forces me to look up at him. There’s no hiding from the tumult of sensation, no running from the inevitable tumbling over the edge. He has me trapped. As it overwhelms me, I give a cry of surrender, and he swoops down to swallow it with greedy lips. My orgasm sweeps through me, and I clench around him with greedy, wet pulls. It consumes me completely.
Logan
A couple of days locked in a room with a woman might terrify a lesser man. Instead, I picture it as a challenge. Here, I have her all to myself without any interruptions. Hell may be raging outside, but I have my own little slice of heaven within these four walls.
Sure, there were plenty of times during the past three days we’ve been sequestered in the hotel room when we got mad as hell at each other, but for the most part, the isolation has only brought us closer.
“What does this mean?” I ask, tracing the little tattoo of a moon on her wrist.
She smiles, one I’m coming to learn means she’s about to talk of her sister. She hasn’t gotten a sad look on her face in a while, I’ve noticed. Now all she thinks about are the happy memories. “Paige and I both got them when we graduated high school. She had a matching one. A sun.”
Piper lifts to an arm, uncaring of her nakedness and traces the ink on my back. “What about yours? Must have taken forever.”
I peer over my own shoulder, loving the way her pale fingers look against my dark skin, my darker ink. “It’s a work in progress.”
Her eyes widen. “You mean it’s not even done yet?”
“Nah, I add something to it to mark important moments in my life.”
“Really?”
“Mmhmm.”
“What are these names?” she asks, tracing the lettering scrawled over my shoulder.
“Brothers I served with who died.”
Her finger stills for a second, then she resumes her exploration. “It’s kind of like a patchwork quilt,” she murmurs.
I bury my face in the pillow, my shoulders shaking with laughter. “God, don’t tell Grandma Rose that. She’ll be wanting a tattoo next.”
Laughing, Piper throws herself back down against the pillows and I lift my head to watch her perfectly round breasts bounce. We just got done having sex and already I want her again. One hand goes to cup the weight of her and she sighs into it with a soft smile on her face.
She turns to me and moves close underneath the blankets. I shift so she can fit herself against my chest, resting her head on my bicep. My arm will probably go to sleep, but it’s worth it just to have her close.
Her left hand comes to my chest and slides up to cradle my cheek. “Logan, I—”
My phone vibrates on the nightstand. Knowing Colson is the only person it can be is the sole reason why I reach across her to answer it. She goes quiet as our little bubble bursts. He’d called regularly with updates, what little there was to update us on, anyway. No leads. No news. Stay gone. Even though I know it’s probably more of the same, adrenaline surges through me.
“Blackwell.”
“We got him,” Colson says triumphantly. “Her ex. Jacksonville P.D. caught him with a moving violation of all things. He’s in transport now.”
I let out my pent up breath in a violent exhale. “Jesus Christ,” I whisper. Part of me thought we wouldn’t get out of this without a fight.
“They’re bringing him in now for questioning, but we got the son-of-a-bitch.”
“That’s great news,” I say.
“What?” Piper asks. “What’s great news?”
I cover the microphone with one hand. “They found Gavin in Jacksonville. They’re transferring him now for questioning.”
Her smile is radiant and even though Colson’s started talking again in my ear, I lean forward to press a kiss on her lips. Even Rocky jumps on the bed to join in when we shout out our excitement.
“It feels so good to be home,” Piper says as she wheels her suitcase into her living room.
“What? You didn’t like our love shack?”
She snorts. “What I liked was having you naked and to myself the whole time. After the first day, I forgot there were other places on this earth except that bed.”
“You shouldn’t say things like that. Gonna make . . . ego big.”
Piper levels me with a look. “As if your ego needs any encouragement.”
“I’m going to go to the station to be in on the interrogation. According to the cops in Jacksonville, he was trying to high tail it out of there. Must have been the news article that spooked him.”
“I never thought I’d say this, but thank God for Phil Exeter.”
“Remind me to buy him a gift,” I say as she lets Rocky out the back door. “What time is Aunt Diane coming to get the B&B ready?”
She checks her phone for the text. “In about an hour? Gives me just enough time to shower and unpack. Do you want me to throw your clothes in to wash, too?”
I cross the room and take her in my arms for a kiss. “That sounds so . . . domestic.”
“Least I can do for my big, bad bodyguard.”
“Oh, the least, huh?”
When her
laughter fills the room, I cover her mouth to savor it on my tongue.
She breaks off, her cheeks pink and eyes dilated. “Don’t distract me. We both have things to do.”
“What if I changed my mind? We can both go back to the hotel and stay there. Sex and pizza for the rest of our lives.”
“Tempting,” she says, and squirms out of my hold, “but your aunt will have my hide if I’m not there to help clean up.”
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay here by yourself?” I ask as she pulls away to sort through our laundry for the first load.
“I’ll be fine. They caught him. Your aunt will be here in a little while and I have Rocky to keep me safe from bad men like you.”
I pin her against the washer from behind as she leans in to fill it. “How about I show you what this bad man can do after I get back?”
She twists around to kiss me. “It’s a date.”
The anticipation I experience on the way to the station causes me to speed all the way there. I roar into the parking lot and take the first available space without even checking to see if it’s reserved for a high ranking officer. Colson meets me at the entrance to the station and I clap a hand around his shoulder.
“Thanks for everything you’ve done for me about all this. I appreciate it.”
“Remember that when I decide to run for Sheriff.”
I laugh. “You got it.”
My long, hurried strides eat up the distance between the foyer and the hall leading to the interrogation rooms. Since I’m personally involved in the case, I’m not allowed in the room, but they do let me watch from behind the two-way mirror as Colson goes in to initiate the questioning.
I wanted to hate the man on sight. I wanted to feel the low hum of twisted expectation I used to get before I went in for a kill, but it doesn’t hit me.
“Mr. Lance, my name is Detective Colson. Do you understand why you were brought here today?”
Instead of answering with a sneer like I expect, the man’s shoulders round and he looks more exhausted than anything. He shrugs. “I don’t know. Whose murder am I being accused of today?”
First to Fight Box Set: Books 1-5 Page 75