Wicked Ride (21 page)

No discussion about my sordid
past as a grifter, or that I came into Logan’s
life on a pure lie, or that I was still intent on perpetuating a
fraud. No discussion about the amazing sex we had the first time, and
then the time after, and the time after that. Most certainly, we
didn’t discuss what happened in the wee morning hours when
Logan was clearly having a nightmare, and I couldn’t get him to
wake up at first. He mumbled in his sleep, but I heard pain-filled
words such as “no” and “please help her,” and
he was thrashing slightly.

Finally, with some rough shaking
and repeatedly calling out to him, he came out of it.

And then he did something that
I’m not sure if it
repulsed me or turned me on. He came out of a nightmare that was
clearly causing him distress with a hard-as-steel erection, and,
without a lick of foreplay or even a kiss from him, he poured lube on
his dick and thrust it into me so hard, tears stung my eyes.

Granted, the sting only lasted a
second, and then wow…
the way Logan fucked me after was beyond words could even describe,
but it was better than all the other times we’d been together.
I think it was better—to me at least—because Logan needed
me in a way that I’ve never been needed before. I could tell
there was something I was giving him, and something he required and
hadn’t succeeded in attaining before, and that did nothing more
than cement the bond that was already pretty mystically strong to
begin with.

He didn’t
explain his actions. After he came inside me, he held me tight and we
fell back asleep.

“One more thing I want to
show you,” Logan says and I lift my head from the window to
look at him. He slows his truck and takes a right turn down a gravel
and dirt road that’s narrow and lined to the edge with thick
chokeberry and hawthorn bushes. “This is Moose-Wilson Road and
will bring us out near Teton Village.”

“Not well traveled, is it?”
I ask with interest as I sense we are headed into some unchartered
territory given the rough nature of the road and the wilderness
encroaching right up to it.

“Actually, it is,”
Logan says to the contrary and points out his driver’s side
window. “This road is about eight miles long, but it’s
one of the best places to see moose in this area. There are wetlands
on this side of the road… a lot of moose around in there.”

“But I can’t see
anything,” I say as I turn in my seat to get a better look, but
the thick vegetation only opens up in patchy areas to provide brief
glances of wet, marshy-looking land beyond.

“I’ll drive slow. If
you see something, I’ll stop, but there are a few open places
with some small ponds where we can usually see something.”

We’re
silent as the truck bumps along. My eyes search for the elusive moose
out of Logan’s window. My eyes keep straying from the scenery
beyond him to his face, which is in profile to me. He wasn’t
wrong… the road is actually quite busy as we pass several
other vehicles, all driving slow with heads practically hanging out
the window as they look for wildlife.

Logan’s
face is just as beautiful in profile as he is full on. I can better
appreciate the lines that make him so masculine as I take in the
almost cocky natural arch to his eyebrow and strong jawline that sits
above corded neck muscle made strong by his job. His cheekbones sit
high with a slight hollowing underneath, but the angles are sharp so
he doesn’t look pretty but handsome.

Even last night, with the
moonlight filtering into the gloom of the trailer, when Logan was
fucking me in almost a furious attempt to banish his nightmare, his
face was harsh but beautiful at the same time. Such an enigma.

So much mystery around him.

“What were you dreaming
about last night?” I blurt out suddenly, and Logan’s head
snaps my way in surprise. His eyes are dark but inscrutable. “You
were really distressed.”

“I don’t remember,”
he says so quickly but without any emotion. I instantly know he’s
lying. His face turns back to look out the windshield.

I’m
not sure what compels me to fight him on this, but I’m guessing
it has something to do with the fact that I opened up to him about
something that was terrible and embarrassing. I almost expect the
same back from him, I guess. “I think you do.”

That strong, hard jaw locks, and
it causes a muscle right at the hinge to thump. I swear I almost hear
his teeth grind, not in an effort to prevent himself from divulging
to me, but because my question irritates him. He remains stubbornly
silent.

“Logan,” I say
carefully, all thoughts of moose sightings forgotten. “You can
tell me anything. I’ve told you the worst about me, and it
didn’t send you running. You need to trust the same about me.”

He doesn’t
respond, eyes remaining locked on the road in front of him and
knuckles turning slightly white.

So I push, trying to be gently
reassuring that I’m
here for him. “I know I felt so much better once I told you
what was going on with me. I bet you’d also—”

“Nothing will make me feel
better about my past,” Logan snaps at me, his head turning just
enough to pin me with a hard look before turning back. Then, after he
takes in a breath, he lets it out with a sigh, his voice losing a bit
of the frost. “Look… I left my former life behind, and I
don’t think about it. It’s done, and it doesn’t
define me anymore.”

Oh, but it does, Logan. Surely
you can see that because it’s
as clear as day to me.

Yet, I hold those thoughts. Logan
doesn’t want or need
me to tell him that whatever has happened to him in the past is
directly responsible for the fact that he’s emotionally closed
off right this moment, or that he’s clearly not left it behind
because it plagues him at night in the form of nightmares. I suspect
this man has tried very hard to push the bad down into a place that
is not easily accessible, preferring to ignore rather than address.

This bugs me to a certain degree
because clearly we’ve
shown trust in each other on more than one occasion. Neither one of
us doubted the other that we could have unprotected sex based on just
our assertions to each other that we were clean and I was on the
Pill. Most importantly, I trusted him enough to admit I was in the
process of pulling off a very serious crime, and yet he gives me
nothing in return.

Except orgasms but those alone
cannot sustain the bond we formed. In fact, him refusing to open up
after I have will fracture that bond.

However, I also don’t
need answers from him right this moment. I asked because I was
curious, and I offered to take on his burdens because I want to help
him. But those are not things I need to have for myself but rather
want to give to him. If he’s not ready for that, I can afford
patience. Granted… things are still going to move forward to
sell my “virginity” as far as I’m concerned, but
I’m hopeful that perhaps once that’s done, Logan and I
can continue to see where this goes.

There’s
no rule I need to go back to New York. I can go to college anywhere,
really.

I know it’s
silly to look that far in advance, but even though this man is
irritated with me and his lips are sealed firmly shut against my
curiosities, I’m still very much aware that we have something
that, despite being new, is deep-rooted and abiding. So I can wait
and hope that one day Logan will open up to me the way I have with
him.

It’s
absolutely something I can put off.

But there is one thing we do need
to talk about, and I can’t
let him put me off anymore. Anytime I’ve brought it up today,
he’s distracted me by pointing out something interesting in the
landscape or sneaking a kiss or changing the subject.

Seeing as how it’s
early evening and we’ll be back to Jackson soon, we do indeed
have to talk about this.

“I think it might be best
if you don’t go to The Silo tonight,” I say hesitantly.

While I note that Logan’s
knuckles go white again against the steering wheel, his voice is
relatively calm but no doubt set in stone when he answers, “I’m
going with you.”

“You do realize—”

“That you’re probably
going to have to do something that will drive me fucking nuts and
make me possibly angrier than I can remember being in recent memory?”
he finishes my thought.

Because yes…
there was a text from Magnus this morning that said he’d talked
to Bridger, confirmed The Silo would be open for business tonight,
and that he expected me to be there.

I was going back on display
tonight. No matter how much I hated it or Logan hated it, another man
was going to touch me tonight. The thought was utterly repulsive to
me because while I can usually do an adequate job of slipping into an
acting role to pull off the con, the mere fact that I’ve
developed a personal relationship with someone stuck deep within this
world I’ve infiltrated is making it hard for me. I can’t
even begin to imagine what Logan’s feeling, knowing that while
I may say I don’t have a choice to walk in that round building
tonight, I actually could refuse to do it. I could choose to put
Logan’s mind at ease and not let another man touch me, but I
will not choose that. I can’t put my dad at risk, and so
perhaps… this is the end of us?

“I’m sorry,” I
tell him quietly, turning back in my seat to face forward and looking
down at my hands clutched in my lap. I have no desire to look for
moose anymore. “I’m not sure if this helps, but I’m
going to hate every second I’m in there tonight, but I have to
do this.”

Logan’s
hand reaches over and takes mine. “I know. I don’t blame
you for doing this. I get why you’re doing it. You and I can
both hate it though.”

“So maybe you should stay
away—” I offer again.

“Bridger,” Logan
says, as if that one word solves all my problems.

“Bridger?” I ask in
confusion.

Logan turns to look at me. I
swear I might even see a little guilt in his eyes, and this confuses
me even more. But before I can even analyze what I might have seen,
his mouth flattens into grim determination and he says, “Bridger
will handle… be with you tonight.”

“And I’m guessing
there’s not going to be another fire code reprieve, right?”

He shakes his head and his voice
is strained when he says, “No.
Club is staying open.”

“So tonight, Bridger,”
I say with a shaky voice, not in the least mollified that Logan
trusts Bridger. I don’t know this man, and he’s still a
stranger to me. “But tomorrow night…”

I let that hang heavy on the air,
wishing that Logan would fill in the rest of that sentence.

Tomorrow night…
we run.

Tomorrow night…
you do what you have to do and I’ll live with it.

Tomorrow night…
Magnus will drop dead of a sudden heart attack and you’ll be
free.

Tomorrow night…
I won’t come to the Silo and watch you work your con.

He says nothing though, and
instead picks up his phone resting on the seat beside him. As he
drives slowly down the gravel road, moose and beautiful scenery
forgotten by both of us, he taps the screen a few times with his
thumb and peers at it. When he doesn’t
see what he clearly wants to see, he mutters a curse under his breath
and throws the phone back down.

I have no clue what type of
message he’s waiting
to receive, or if it will make him feel better when he gets it, but
right now, I can feel the tension vibrating off him in pulsing waves.
I feel terrible as I know this is hard on him. It’s just as
hard on me.

The difference, I’m
afraid, is that I intend to push past this and hopefully leave the
memories of this far behind. I’m getting the feeling though
that Logan isn’t going to let this go, despite the fact he
seems to have left a big chunk of his past in the rearview mirror
without looking back at it again.

Logan

My skin tingles all over as
Auralie follows Bridger out of my line of sight to the perimeter
hall. When I met with him early this morning, after he assured me
he’d put some
thought into a solution, we had to have the talk about what would
happen tonight. While I don’t think Bridger was overly happy
about it, he agreed to take Auralie in hand tonight per Magnus’
demand. He promised he’d do what he could to keep the
sensationalism of whatever he had planned to a minimum despite
Magnus’ demand that Auralie put on a show. I made sure he
understood that while a part of her knew this was a “job”
and she was “acting,” that it was still humiliating to
her.

And now it’s
out of my hands and Bridger’s going to have his hands—possibly
his mouth—on her. Worse yet, she’s going to most likely
have her mouth on him, as Magnus is all about Auralie showing the
clientele that although she may be virgin, she very much knows how to
give pleasure and won’t be a cold lay.

A bark of unbidden laughter
bubbles up in my chest, but I suppress it down. Auralie’s
as far from a cold lay as humanly possible. I have done so many
perverted things in the name of unfettered sexual abandon that the
Silo affords, it’s unimaginable that a sweet, ordinary girl
like Auralie could light my fire the way she has.

But she absolutely has, and I
can’t even imagine
anything sexier or more fulfilling than what she gives me. And we
haven’t even cracked the tip of the iceberg yet. We haven’t
even begun to explore all the dirty things I want to do to her, and I
want her to do to me.

Bridger being with Auralie
shouldn’t bother me.
I’ve shared women with him before. Fuck… wasn’t
all that long ago that Bridger teamed up with Rand and me, and along
with Cain, all four of us guys tag-teamed Cain’s woman, Sloane.
It was hot as fuck. I enjoyed watching Bridger work her over after
Rand and I had fucked her.