by Kira Blakely
Another beat passed where no one spoke, and the only noise was that of nature: water, wind, the occasional chirp of a bird waking from its slumber. Then Marino started laughing all over again. Every “ha” which escaped him was backed up by those of the others on the beach.
It was a regular fucking party down here, but Logan stood firm, his finger on the trigger and his gaze trained on Marino.
“What did I say about you?” He pointed at Logan, looked around at his thugs. “What did I say, boys? He’s a regular fucking comedian, this guy. Put the gun down before you hurt yourself, Wright. You ever shot one of those before?”
Logan didn’t reply, but his lips curled back in a rictus.
God, he would shoot that gun. He’d boosted cars, once, and I doubted he’d done that unarmed and with a “please” and “thank you.”
“No? You going to continue with this?” Marino asked, hiccupping with mirth now. “Very well.” He put out his hands and one of his thugs handed him a semi-automatic. He lifted it, pointing it at Logan. “You die, then your girl dies.”
“But you won’t get your planes, then.” The words burst out of me before I could stop them. “You won’t get them if you kill us. Maybe we could strike up some kind of —”
“No,” Logan cut me off. “This is how it ends.”
Marino squeezed the trigger.
Chapter 17
Logan
I hit the sand and covered my head, bullets spraying the space I’d been seconds before, the crack and whizz above me bringing nothing but anger. No fear, just rage.
“Marino,” I yelled, and shifted so my gun was up, ready, again.
But it was too late to shoot.
Men in blue jackets, the yellow letters FBI printed on them, rushed out of the surrounding palms and up the beach. They were terrifying in their own right, with their Kevlar vests and guns raised.
“Drop your weapon!” one yelled. I followed the order and so did Marino, who was now red in the face and glaring directly at me.
“You’ll pay for this, Wright,” he hissed. “You’ll regret this.”
An agent came between me and him and blocked him from view, but his threats meant nothing to me. All that mattered was Katie and finding her in the confusion. I left my gun on the ground and launched myself up and out of the sand, jogging toward where she’d been only moments ago.
My pulse raced faster than it had when I’d first trained my weapon on Marino. The prospect of shooting him hadn’t scared me; the thought of Katie hurt did. I moved in between the agents, ignoring a shout for me to stop, and found her sitting in the sand with a bloody nose.
She pressed the back of her hand to it and looked up at me, closing one eye to focus properly. “Hi,” she said, in a decidedly nasal tone.
I dropped to my knees beside her, gently removing her hand from her face and surveying the damage. No break, just blood. “What happened? Who did this to you?” I asked.
“Agnete,” she said.
I blinked. “Huh? That sounds like a rock formation.”
“Her.” Katie gestured to a woman who was in the process of being handcuffed by one of the agents. “The minute Marino started firing, she drew her weapon too, so I dove at the bitch and clocked her on the jaw. She hit me in the nose. It’s just bleeding. I’ll be okay.”
Fuck, she was amazing. She’d been through all of this, and she wasn’t a weepy mess in the sand. She was strong as a rock.
I wrapped her in my arms and held her against my chest, inhaling the coconut scent still caught in her hair. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. “Fuck, Katie, I’m sorry for everything.” It was the first time I’d uttered those words in what seemed an eon. “I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you, that I treated you like the enemy.”
“Stop,” she said, and kissed my neck gently. “Stop it. It’s not your fault. It was Marino. He’s a master manipulator. I just – wow, can’t believe it ended this way. Thank god the feds rushed in time.”
I let her go, stood up, and offered her my hand. She rose and kept holding it. Damn, that felt good. Too good. Fuck, it was as if it was meant to be this way between us, and I’d been too blind to see it that way.
We stood side-by-side, watching as the FBI carted off Marino and the woman who’d attacked Katie. It was a surreal sight. And it was finally fucking over, months after it’d started.
“What now?” Katie asked.
I turned to answer her but cut off at the sight of one of the agents approaching—a middle-aged guy, hair graying at the temples ever so slightly, but otherwise nondescript. Perfect for blending in. “Mr. Wright,” he said and presented his hand, giving a firm shake. “Agent Sanders. We spoke on the phone.”
“Right,” I said. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for stepping in at the last minute there.”
“Literally,” Katie put in.
“We had to ensure everyone was in their positions and that there would be no… hiccups, so to speak,” Sanders replied. “Mr. Wright, I want to thank you for making this possible. Without your help, we wouldn’t have put away that maniac today.”
“I want to say it’s a pleasure, but I’m not in the habit of lying.”
“Understood,” Sanders replied, his thin lips quirking up at the corners. “Now, we’ll have a medical team down on the beach shortly to look you two over. The hotel staff is back in place—we found them locked up in one of the conference rooms in the main building. Everything here should return to normal, quite quickly.”
“Thanks,” I said, for lack of a better phrase. What the hell else could I say? This had been a pain in my ass ever since I’d made the choice to run with the information that Marino was planning on using planes to smuggle drugs into the United States.
“We’ll be in touch as we wrap things up, Mr. Wright. Good day to you.” Agent Sanders trekked off across the sand, beckoning to a couple agents as he did.
“Wow,” Katie said. “So that’s it. Job well done. Target eliminated. Everyone get back to their lives.” She dabbed at the end of her nose then clicked her tongue. “It’s bleeding again.”
“Here,” I said, and pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket. I plugged it for her, cupping her cheek with one hand. I devoured her gaze with mine, speaking words with it that I couldn’t with my mouth.
Fuck, there were so many things I wanted to say, but it was just too soon. I couldn’t afford to wreck this. It was too soon to tell her all the crazy shit pulsing through my mind. How two days was enough to know the truth. That I’d fallen head over heels in love with this woman, and every second apart from her had been agony, knowing I was the reason she’d been in this situation in the first place.
“Right, well,” she said and cleared her throat. “Guess I’d better get checked out by medical. I’ll see you around?”
“No,” I replied. “I’ll come with you.” If she thought I was leaving her side after this, she was goddamn wrong. Katie was mine. She just didn’t know it yet.
Chapter 18
Logan
I held the door to my bungalow open for her and watched her enter, admiring her curves and that subtle sway, inhaling her scent. Fuck, I’d missed her. The sound of her here, the smell, her presence. All of it filled whichever room she was in and drove me fucking wild.
“How’s your nose?” I asked, and placed my hand on the small of her back. She leaned into me, and let out a barely audible sigh.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I’ll live. Let’s call it a flesh wound. Or a reminder of the day I kicked some mafia bitch’s ass.”
“That’s the spirit.”
We walked through to the living room, and Katie took a seat on one of the teal sofas, stifling a massive yawn. The blinds were cracked slightly and provided a view of the rising sun outside and the beginnings of activity down on the beach. The resort was returning to normal again.
I placed Katie’s bag—yeah, we’d finally fetched it from the Fuego—next to the sofa and smiled down at her. Her hair was a mess, tangled an
d windswept, and her eyes a little red from the wind out there. But she was so fucking beautiful it made me hurt inside.
“Tired?” I asked, to distract myself, and stop my dick from stirring in my chinos. Shit, too late.
“You can say that again. Sorry, I didn’t get much sleep last— Oh no!”
“What?”
Katie sat on the edge of the sofa and then stood up. “Oh shit! I have to call my mom. Are the phones on?”
“No idea,” I replied, but produced the spare cell from my pocket and handed it over. “Here, use this.”
“Thanks.” She took it from me and fiddled on the screen, then placed the phone to her ear. She waited, biting the corner of her lip, and I watched her as if she’d slip out of sight and disappear again. “Mom? Oh thank god, you’re all right!” She walked over to the window and shifted the blinds apart, looking out at the turquoise ocean. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Listen, you don’t have to worry about Marino anymore. It’s over. It’s finally over.”
I left her to fill her mom in on the details and took her bag through to the guestroom. Fuck, it was tempting to place it in my bedroom instead, but I couldn’t do that. We hadn’t talked through anything.
How I’d behaved toward her. How this had all started. The fucking marriage deal. We still had to get that annulled, and I had no idea when her flight was. I won’t let her leave without me. We’ll fly back together on my private jet.
I went through to the bathroom, hopped in the shower, and soaped up. I washed off all the sweat and fury from earlier. I’d been so damn close to pulling that trigger. The things he’d said about Katie had brought out the beast in me.
The insinuation that he’d touch her or let anyone else hurt her brought the rage rushing back, and I forced it aside. It was over. He was gone. Business could get back to normal, and I could return to New York and take up my position at its head again.
That was all I’d wanted for the past few months. My goals had been to get rid of Marino and get back to work, bury myself in it as usual. Return to my luxury apartment every night too tired to cook or think or do anything other than fall into bed with my suit still on.
And now?
I couldn’t fathom leaving the island and all of this behind. The past two days with her here had become my new normal.
“Get ahold of yourself, jackass.” I cut the water off, wrapped a towel around my waist, and walked into my bedroom to get changed.
Katie stood in the center of the room, facing the closet and the safe room, shaking her head.
“May I help you?” I asked. Fuck, the answer had to be yes.
She jumped and moved toward me, clutching the phone to her chest. “Hi… oh… oh my god.” Katie licked her lips and averted her eyes. She held out the cell phone. “I came to give you this. The safe room just reminded me of yesterday, and everything that happened.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. Man, this had to be some kind of record. I’d never apologized this much in my life, let alone in the span of a couple hours. “About everything I put you through. I shouldn’t have forced you to stay back here. I fucked up.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Katie replied, and returned her gaze to mine. Her eyes sparkled, gems set in silk, and she laughed. “Not at all. None of this was our fault. I was here because I wanted to protect my mom and myself, the business. And you were here for kind of the same reason, I think.”
“I was here to end it,” I replied, and moved closer to her.
She scanned me with her eyes as I walked, but faltered when she reached the towel and blushed red again.
I was hard. Not like I had a damn choice in the matter with her standing there, wearing nothing but my shirt.
“And it’s over,” she said. “Which reminds me, I should probably book a ticket back to New York. Now that it’s over, my mom needs me there. I’m one of her best writers—if I do say so myself.”
I took the phone from her and put it on top of the set of drawers next to the closet. I brought her hands to my lips and kissed each of her fingers, slowly, softly.
“Logan,” she purred.
“Don’t think about tomorrow. Think about now. About being here with me. I won’t let you go now that I have you back, Jinx. When you were gone, I went fucking crazy. I wanted to tear this island apart to find you.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” she managed. “I kinda like it here, now.”
I dragged my finger under the collar of the shirt and lifted it. “You should take this off,” I said. “It looks terrible on you.”
Katie laughed again, without nerves this time, and dragged the hem of the shirt up and over her head. She dropped it beside her and stood naked in front of me, her hands on her hips. “Is this more to your taste?”
“Hmm,” I said, and took a step back, unhooking my towel as I did. It fell away and my dick sprang free, hung heavy between us, already dripping precum for her. “Turn for me. Slowly, so I can get the full picture.”
She raised both her eyebrows.
“How am I supposed to make a proper judgment as to whether it’s to my tastes without a full view, Miss Hendrickson?” Or rather, Mrs. Wright. Fuck, why did that make my cock thicken even more?
Katie rotated, stepping surely with those gorgeous feet, narrow, toenails clear of polish. Her ass swayed into view, and it took all my self-control not to tackle her to the damn floor and fuck her right here, right now.
“Yes,” I said and cleared my throat. “Definitely to my tastes. Stop right there. Just like that.”
She froze, her back to me, and turned her head to watch my approach.
I strode up to her, halted right behind her, and nestled my dick between her ass cheeks. Christ, she was so perfect. I dragged my fingertips down her arms, over them, and to her hips. I gripped them tight, then spun her on the spot and caught her around the waist.
Katie gasped, looking up at me. She was tiny in my grip, and I fucking loved it.
I lifted her off the floor, tucked her against my chest, carried her to the bed, and then lowered her onto it.
“Logan,” she whispered.
“Yes?”
“This is— I— Thank you. For everything.”
“Shush,” I replied, and lowered myself on top of her. I parted her legs with a tap of the backs of my hands and settled between them, my aching dick at her slick entrance. She was swollen for me again, pink verging on red, her juices dribbling between her ass cheeks and out of sight.
I grabbed the base of my cock and rubbed it over her velvet folds, between them, and dipped it up and slapped it against her clit.
She gasped and jerked underneath me, clamping her hand down on my forearm. “I want you inside me,” she whispered. “I need it, please.”
Anything for you. Christ, this is it. I’m whipped. For the first time in my life, I’m whipped.
I pressed into her inch-by-inch, stretching her wide to accommodate me again. She trembled and clenched around me, and I throbbed for her. Fuck, if I didn’t take this slow I’d blow inside her before I’d finished the third thrust.
“So good,” she whined, and arched her back, her tits on display for me, her nipples puckered, begging to be kissed. I did exactly that, bent toward her and sucking on first one, then the other. I pressed them toward each other and drew both her nipples between my teeth, nibbling lightly as I plunged into her, up to the hilt.
“Logan,” she gasped. “Oh my god, that’s so fucking good. That’s so fucking good. Please, more of that.”
I fucked her slowly, timing my thrusts with each long, lick of her nipples.
“Oh god, that’s so sensitive,” she whispered. “That’s going to make me come.”
I increased the pace, matched it with each kiss and suck, lavished her breasts with the attention they deserved. Fucking perfect, pale orbs. So delicious, so sexy.
The moist sounds our bodies made, the slurp of feasting on her—fuck, it was too much for me. But I held back, waiting for her orgasm.
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“Don’t stop,” Katie said and grabbed a handful of my hair. “Oh my god, don’t stop. Oh god, oh god—” She tensed beneath me and trembled, her eyes rolled back in her head dropped back, and lips went slack, fell open. Fuck. She was on the brink.
I destroyed her with another long suck of those nipples, warm now from my mouth.
She tensed around my dick, milked it, moaning my name over and over again. She was beautiful, caught like this, captured in her own fantasy, her pleasure.
I shifted my weight and pressed my forehead to hers, kissing her bottom lip, then sucking it as she came down from the top. “Are you ready, baby?” I kissed the tip of her nose. “Are you ready for me?”
“Uh-huh. I want it, baby. Give it to me.”
“You want my cum?”
“Yes. All of it.”
I shifted again, giving myself the perfect angle to fill her, then pounded into her wet, little cunt. Each thrust was the epitome of precision, timed, deep as it could go, and fucking ruthless.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” Katie whispered, then kept on repeating it, digging her fingernails into the meat of my shoulders and clinging to me.
She’d woken the beast in me, and it wouldn’t quit until it had taken her, claimed her. Fuck, she was mine. “You’re mine,” I growled. “Do you hear me?”
Katie’s eyes widened. “W-what?”
“You’re fucking mine. Say it.”
“I’m yours.”
“Again!”
“I’m yours. I’m yours. This pussy is yours, my body, my soul. I’m all yours, Logan.”
It was too much. My orgasm shocked me, and I fucking exploded inside of her. My name on her lips was music; it was a symphony. She was all mine. All fucking mine. I lashed her walls with my cum, filled her to the brim as I had before she’d been taken from me, and claimed her as mine, once and for all.
After, I rolled off her, tucked her against my chest, and breathed low and easy. My eyelids drooped and sleep drifted toward us.
“That was perfect,” she whispered, barely audible. “Perfect way to say goodbye.”