“I think you need to stop looking for explanations, darlin’. I don’t think there are any here. Tap thought he was doing shit for the good of the Club, and he didn’t give a crap about who got in his way doing it.”
This hurts to hear, and I wish it didn’t.
“Dad’s upset,” I murmur.
At Weed’s birthday party at the weekend, he stormed off after an argument with Derek and Slade. I don’t know the ins and outs of this either, but I do know that Dad is pissed with them both. At the party, I tried to go after Dad to talk to him, but Logan stopped me. I should have ignored him. I’ve tried to speak to Dad since, but he hasn’t been home and he hasn’t been at the clubhouse either. After multiple unanswered calls and texts, I got a message back saying he was on a ride and that he’d be back soon. This worries me. It’s not unusual for Dad to go off like this; he’s done it before, but given the circumstances, I’m not too happy that he’s out there alone—particularly since Dylan is still at large. Considering what he did to Wade, I would prefer my father was somewhere safe.
“Yeah, Jack’s upset,” Logan confirms, but doesn’t offer explanation beyond that, so I probe further.
“What’s going on with Derek and Slade?”
Logan freezes for a split second in his movement, but then resumes sifting my hair. “You don’t need to worry about it.”
I push up slightly off his chest, so I can see his face. “You don’t get to tell me not to worry. My family is falling apart, Logan.”
He studies me for a moment then sighs. “I can’t talk about it. You know I can’t.”
And I do, and I know I’m being unfair pushing him, but I’m tired of secrets. “Were they involved?”
“Beth.” The warning cracks in his voice, but I ignore it.
I want answers; I need answers and I’m willing to push him to get them.
“Were they?”
“Babe.”
I try to contain my emotions, but I can’t stop my voice from wobbling as I say, “I don’t know who I’m supposed to trust, Lo.”
He captures my face with his hands and kisses me softly. “You trust me. That’s who you trust.”
I cling to his wrists as if he can ground me, as if he can hold me steady. I suspect he is the only thing that is keeping me stable right now. The rest of my world is a colossal disaster.
I meet his eyes, getting lost for a moment in those dark brown orbs.
“I do trust you.”
And I do. I know that’s crazy, given the fact he broke my heart a decade ago, but he had his reasons for that. I’ve let the past go; I know Logan won’t betray me again.
“Then you trust me to make it right.” He kisses me. “This shit in the Club, it’s going to take a little time to sort things out. Jack needs space to cool down, that’s all. He’ll come around.” I nod. He’s right; Dad is like this. “Come and get back into bed, see if you can sleep.”
A glance at the clock tells me it’s three in the morning; at least he can try to get some shut-eye.
I let him pull me up, my cup of tea forgotten, and lead me back to the bedroom. The lamp is switched on around his side of the bed, his covers tossed back where he clearly got out of bed in a hurry to find me. This does not help the guilt gnawing at my guts.
I climb back under the covers on my side while he uses the bathroom. When he returns and gets under the covers, he draws me against his bare chest. My fingers splay across his pecs as I nuzzle against him.
“I love you, Beth.”
“Even if I’m nuts?”
“You’re not nuts.”
“I feel it.”
“We’re all dealing with this shit as best as we can. You have to deal with this the same way. If you need to cry about it or rant or hit shit, then do it. Whatever it takes, but you don’t sleep anywhere but with me, you understand?”
“Logan—”
“That’s not up for debate, Beth. I don’t care if you’re tossing and turning all night. You do it next to me. I lost you for ten years; we’re not starting this new chapter of our life in separate beds.”
His words hit me hard in the chest and I have to take a steadying breath. Even after dealing with all my craziness, after all the sleepless nights where I would wake up screaming, thinking Wilson was in the room trying to kill me, he still wants me next to him while dealing with this new dose of nuttiness.
How did I get so lucky with him?
Then again, Logan’s been dealing with my craziness forever.
I swipe at a tear as it escapes from my eye and murmur, “Okay, baby.”
“Okay.” He kisses my head. “Close your eyes and try to sleep.”
“I’ll try,” I promise.
I do as he commands while he holds me against him, stroking up and down my arm. It takes me a while, but locked in his embrace, eventually, I do fall asleep.
Chapter Two
I wake the next morning feeling exhausted. Logan is lying on his stomach, his head tipped towards me, his breath sawing out of him like a machine gun. I frown at him and then I smile because even snoring like a wild boar he’s still adorable. How on earth can a man as big and brawny as Logan be adorable? I have no idea, but he is. His hair is a mess of curls and waves and I want to run my fingers through it, but I don’t want to touch him for fear of waking him, especially considering how little sleep he must have got last night with my late-night antics.
For a moment, I just watch him. Creepy? Maybe, but he looks at peace, which is unusual for him these days. I’ve noticed the tightness around his eyes and his mouth and the constant drawing of his brow. My man has a lot going around that big brain of his. As Sergeant-at-Arms for the Lost Saxons, I have absolutely no doubt he has his hands full trying to keep the Club and all its members and their families safe; he doesn’t need me adding to that list of problems, too.
Guilt washes over me at that thought, and I pull my eyes from him to stare at the ceiling. This whole situation is so screwed up. What Tap did… I can’t even put it into words. Yes, his betrayal directly affects me, but it affects the entire Club as well. This is going to take us all a long time to get over because the Lost Saxons isn’t just about riding together; we’re family. Some of us by blood; a lot of us by choice.
I notice a change in his breathing and feel him shifting next to me.
“Morning,” he mumbles.
“Morning.”
I roll towards him and I’m greeted by sleepy chocolate brown eyes that I want to melt into. Not caring about morning breath, I brush my lips over his. His hands slide under my camisole and up my back. I press against him, my own hands finally getting to run through his hair.
After a moment, he pulls back, seeming a little more awake as he takes me in.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, honey, I’m good.” It’s only partially a lie, but while Logan might have wide shoulders, he can’t keep taking any more on them. If I can lessen that burden, I need to try.
He searches my face. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you manage to sleep?”
“Yeah, I did.”
And that’s not a lie; I did. He roves his eyes over my face, and the hungry look in his gaze makes my pussy quiver because I know what it means. It means I’m about to have a very good start to my morning.
He rolls me under him and pushes my camisole up over my breasts. Slowly, he kisses his way around my belly, making my abdominal muscles tremble as he moves back and forth before he zeros in on my boobs.
“Hmm, such pretty tits.”
I want to respond, but when he pinches my nipple, I lose all ability to form words and just let out a garbled whimper.
Then his mouth descends and I completely forget everything but the feel of his tongue and lips around my breast. He’s a magician because I swear he can make me orgasm from playing with my tits alone. No man apart from Logan has ever managed this. He just seems to know the right spots and the right pressure to apply to
make me squirm, and I am squirming right now. My back is arched off the bed and I’m letting out a noise that does not sound human, as his free hand moves to my hip to hold me down.
When he moves further south between my legs, I sift my fingers through his hair, needing something to ground me as his fingers go exploring.
“You’re wet,” he tells me something I already know. Everything down there is pulsing and clenching with need. “Are you ready for me, love?”
“More than ready,” I say breathlessly. “Chop, chop.”
He snorts. “I miss the early days, when you were all romance and the words ‘chop, chop’ weren’t in our bedroom.”
I writhe beneath him as his finger slides through my folds before pushing into my pussy. Fuck.
There’s a slight burn as my body accommodates the intrusion before I’m left wanting more. He doesn’t make me wait, sliding a second finger in almost immediately.
He keeps his eyes locked on my face as he moves his fingers in and out of my pussy, his thumb circling my clit at the same time. I lift my hips to force him deeper as I feel the familiar tingle starting to build deep in my pelvis.
“There, right there,” I tell him. It’s an order of sorts not to move from that location.
He obeys, and picks up his pace, finger-fucking me while he comes back on top of me so his mouth can latch back onto my nipple. He moves between the left and right breast, licking, sucking, nipping until I’m a writhing, gasping mess. My fingers leave his hair because I’m terrified I might scalp him, instead fisting into the sheets as my ecstasy roars closer.
The dual sensations of his weight on me, his fingers in me, his thumb on my clit and his mouth on my tits are heady. My pulse roars in my ears and I cry out his name, gasping and moaning as my pussy throbs and tightens.
“Fuck!”
Logan doesn’t let me have any respite. He flips me onto my front and hooks his arm under my hips, pulling my bum up off the mattress. My pussy is still pulsing as he pushes his rock-hard cock into me. I collapse onto my elbows, my face going into the mattress as he sets a relentless pace.
I’m pretty sure his hold on my hips is the only thing keeping me from hitting the deck completely as my orgasm continues. In this position, he’s so deep inside me, I can’t stop from moaning like a wildcat.
I love this man so much. I love that he can make love to me sweetly, and that he can fuck me hard and dirty. Right now, I need it like this, hard and dirty. He slams in and out of me without finesse and I love it. I don’t want soft today. I want raw, I want primal, and he’s giving it to me. He keeps one arm locked around my hips, the other squeezes my bum cheek, kneading the flesh as he pounds through the dipping wave of my orgasm. I’m building again, and it feels incredible.
I can barely breathe.
The sensations whooshing through me are intoxicating.
Blood rushes around my body and I feel dizzied.
When he spills inside me, it’s almost a relief to reach that climax, to finally be able to take that breath.
I collapse onto my front, gasping for air. He comes with me, giving me his weight for a moment before he pulls out and rolls to the side. I whimper as I lose his cock.
“Love?”
I open one eye, not realising I shut them.
“Yeah?”
“Are you all right?”
“No.”
He chuckles.
“I need to clean you up. I made a mess of you.”
He did. I can feel the aftermath of what we did dripping down my thighs.
“In a moment.”
“Babe?”
“Uh huh?”
He kisses my bare shoulder, moving down my back, his touch eliciting a shiver of pleasure as he goes. This lasts for several minutes, until I’m panting again, a desperate deprived mess. He finally stops, pressing a kiss near the line of my hips.
He glances down my body at me, as I peer over my shoulder at him. “I fucking love you, Bethany Marie Goddard.”
My heart soars hearing these words coming from the hardened tattooed man sitting naked on our bed.
I give him a love-drunk smile and say, “I love you, too.”
After we shower and dress, Logan takes me to work on the back of his bike. I have a car; it’s a really nice car, one that Dean helped me to pick after weeks of searching, but I don’t know why I bothered to buy it because I spend more time behind my man than driving. To be honest, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sitting behind Logan, my arms wrapped around him, is my favourite place to be.
Logan stops the bike at the kerb outside my office and waits for me to climb off. I do it with a bounce in my step, despite feeling exhausted from lack of sleep. Riding always gives me an adrenaline boost.
While he kicks the stand down and gets off himself, I take my helmet off and wait for him. Then he walks me over to the door that sits between Mim’s Bakery and the gym and waits for me to unlock it. I’m perfectly capable of doing this myself, but this has become our routine over the past two and a half weeks since Dylan did his disappearing act.
With the door now unlocked, I step back and Logan pushes inside the building first. He stops at the security panel on the wall and enters the alarm code before starting up the stairs to the first floor. I step inside, shutting the door behind me and wait at the foot of the stairs as he goes up. I admit, I check his bum out as he moves up. I’d be crazy not to; his arse is fiiiiine.
My office sits above Mim’s Bakery on the High Street and is nothing more than my office, a small meeting room for clients, a kitchenette and a bathroom. For now, that’s all I need, but it feels like an empire. After leaving London and my old job—translation: getting sacked spectacularly by Jan when I couldn’t return to work after being beaten and throttled nearly to death by Simon Wilson—I decided to start up my own business.
My forced unemployment gave me a good incentive to try, but Logan’s support also helped. He championed me completely and without that support I’m not sure I’d be the CEO of BM Marketing Solutions—BM for Bethany Marie. Original? No, but I like having my name in it somewhere. Weed pestered me to call the business after him, but Weed Marketing Solutions didn’t inspire confidence, so I vetoed that pretty fast.
My office space is amazing. Logan helped me find it and I have no idea how he located such a great space so quickly, but it’s cheap on the rent too. It needed a little work to get it into shape before I could move my stuff in. It was dirty, so I replaced all the carpets with that click together fake wood stuff and all three Harlow brothers helped me to redecorate it over a weekend. I ditched the white walls for bright colours that scream this is a creative space and I furnished it with fun, modern touches. I’m hoping if I have to bring clients back here, they will see it as a professional space. So far, it’s been me, myself and I, but hopefully in the future there will be meetings.
After a moment, Logan appears at the top of the stairs. “It’s clear.”
I wait for him to come back down and when he reaches me, he presses me against the wall and kisses me until I can hardly breathe.
When he lets me back up for air, he says, “Do you finish at six?”
I consider my workload and what I have to do today. “Probably closer to six-thirty tonight.” I’m panting slightly, and wondering if we have time for a quickie before work starts.
I mentally chastise myself. This is not appropriate behaviour for a CEO of a respectable marketing company—not that we haven’t already broken in the desk here, but that was before I had clients on the books.
“I’ll be here then.”
All thoughts of sex go out the window.
“Logan, you don’t have to keep dropping me off and picking me up every day.”
He trails his fingers down my neck. “While Dylan’s still out there, yeah, I do.”
His words exasperate me because I know he has his own stuff to do, and playing taxi every day is taking up a large chunk of his time.
“He’s not going
to come here.”
“I’m not taking that risk.”
“Honey…”
“If I can’t get here, I’ll send a prospect, but I’ll call you to tell you who. Don’t go with anyone else unless I tell you.”
I frown at him, my eyes scanning his face, but I can’t form any words that don’t start with a curse.
When I don’t offer him a response, he speaks again.
“Understand?”
“Yeah, Logan, I understand, but I think you’re being overcautious.”
“Maybe, but just humour me, okay?”
“Fine,” I grind out the word, but I soften this by rolling to my toes and kissing him again. I’d kiss him all day if I could.
He seems just as keen to do the same because it appears to take him monumental effort to pull back from me, and when he does, his hand cups my cheek.
“Lock the door after me.”
This I don’t argue with because I understand. I’m here on my own all day and although Miriam works in the bakery beneath the office, I doubt she would hear if I was screaming my head off. This is because Miriam’s bakery is a working one, which means her ovens and mixers are going all day downstairs. It’s a hive of noise and activity. She might hear me, but honestly, I’m not sure I would like to test it. And given my recent misadventures—translation: brushes with death—I’m not willing to try.
So, I give Logan the peace of mind he needs by saying, “I will.”
His smile is warm and I mirror it. “Have a good day, B.”
“You too.”
Stifling a yawn, I lock the door after him once his huge body steps back out onto the street and I wave at him through the glass. I watch him get back on his bike, marvelling at his powerful body as he swings his leg over the back of his Harley Fat Boy. God, he’s too bloody good looking for his own good.
He gives me a sexy as sin grin before he waves. Then he’s pulling off and merging into the traffic. I watch him until him and his kutte disappear from sight and then I drag my tired feet up the stairs.
I have my computer set up on a large L-shaped desk in a separate room with a big comfy chair behind it. There are big light wood shelving units with knick-knacks, plants and folders on. Okay, I spent far too much money kitting this place out, but I’m here forty-hours a week and I had a bit saved up thanks to paying no rent for years while I was living with Alistair. Logan helped as well with some stuff and Dad too. Grandad was keen to support me as well, so my office is probably overkill for a start-up, but I love it. It makes me feel legit, like I’m really doing this, and after Jan sacked me, I needed that. Every day I feel like a complete fraud; it’s only my family’s belief in me that keeps me coming here—that and the fact I’m actually developing a client base. I would never have imagined that would be possible. Okay, the Club was my first real client, but I’ve got real customers now. Businesses who aren’t pretending to need jobs doing to help out their family.
Renewed Rider: A Lost Saxons Novel #4 Page 2