by T. S. Joyce
Logan’s lips turned up in a slightly wild smile as though he liked her sass.
The truck had that new car smell and was pristine. The Silverado was detailed down to the cup-holders with light gray interior, and even the floor mats were dirt-free. She clutched her purse in her lap like a shield as Logan gracefully climbed in behind the wheel. And as soon as he turned on the truck, before she could change her mind, she pulled the V-neck of her shirt to the side and closed her eyes tightly so she wouldn’t see his reaction to the claiming mark on her shoulder. Her greatest shame.
She didn’t have to see him to know his reaction. She could hear it in the snarl that rattled his chest and filled every molecule of air in the cab.
“You’re claimed.” It wasn’t a question, and when Winter opened her eyes, he was gripping the steering wheel in a white-knuckled stranglehold.
“I thought I was. He chose another.”
Logan frowned and released the wheel. “You didn’t claim him back?”
“Oh, I did. I had it all. Perfect life. Perfect mate. Perfect future. He married my best friend two days ago. Ex best friend,” she corrected. “They’re going to have a little panther cub in a few months. Lynn will be covering the claiming mark I gave him with one of her own.”
“You separated from your mate?” he asked, looking utterly baffled.
“No,” she said, choking on the word. “He got Lynn pregnant while we were together. While I thought we were happy, he was breaking our bond and giving one to her.”
“But that’s not how it works. You don’t just choose another. You claimed each other, so how the fuck did he even see another woman?” Logan shook his head and looked enraged. The air was too heavy to breathe comfortably, so she rolled down her window for some relief.
“You want me to kill him?” he asked in a low snarl.
“What? No!”
“Then why are you telling me this?”
“Because you said I stole from you and didn’t give anything in return.” Winter shrugged. “Now we both know each other’s dark secrets.”
Logan sat there, staring, silver eyes so bright they were hard to look at. Winter clutched her purse closer.
Logan sighed. “You’re scary,” he muttered as he looked behind him and backed out of a tight space between two cars.
Winter laughed—just one shocked sound before she asked, “Are you serious? I’m bottom-of-the-Red-Havoc-Crew submissive, can’t even claim a mate right, and I’m about half your weight. You on the other hand…”
“I told you I’m not a danger to you.”
“Hmm,” she said noncommittally as he drove down the gravel road and away from the safety of the others.
Even if she wasn’t one of his assassination targets, she hadn’t been this excited and on-edge around a man…well…ever. That felt dangerous enough. And to top that off, he had no plans of sticking around. He was on a mission to get himself snuffed out of existence by a she-dragon. Just the thought of him dying like that unfurled poignant pain inside of her chest, and she barely knew him.
She shouldn’t care. It was his life, his choice, but here she was, going weak over the someday-absence of a stranger.
Logan Furrow was the most terrifying man she’d ever met.
Chapter Six
Logan finished paying for his food along with Beast’s and the dragons’.
“Money-bags McGee,” Winter muttered coyly, then took a sip of her to-go iced tea. “I guess you won’t have trouble paying for your trailer if you get in the crew.”
“Nope.” He grabbed his ice water and pressed his fingers gently onto her lower back, leading her to a wall of stools that faced a long bench table in front of the window. The eatery was one of those hole-in-the-wall restaurants called Buff’s Burgers. It was small, but tidy, and a couple groups of locals were laughing heartily on the other side of the room. Dark wood graced the floors, and black ink covered the white walls where people had written their names and drawn pictures all over it. Where she sat, there was a black marker, as though the owner encouraged the artwork. Huh. She liked this place.
“They’re hiring,” Logan said low as he pointed to the front window with a handwritten sign advertising such.
“You must have some mighty big confidence in my ability to get past group interviews if you’re already looking at jobs for me.”
He took the stool next to hers. “Why did they ask who you think would be good for the crew?”
Winter watched an old copper GMC truck coast by the front window. “No idea.”
“They already trust your opinion to an extent. Well, until you threw my name into the ring. Rookie mistake. Don’t pick the bad bet.” He spun his Styrofoam cup in his hands with a faraway look. “Why did you say that?” he asked quieter.
“Why did I give them your name?”
“Yeah, that.”
“Uuuuh.” She sighed. There were a lot of reasons she wouldn’t admit, and some of them had to do with how her nipples perked up like little tongue-seeking marbles around him. She could give him something, though. “You moved away from me when you figured out I was uncomfortable with your dominance.”
“So.”
“So, an asshole would’ve just sat there and made me uncomfortable. Dustin would’ve. And you offered to get us all applications so we wouldn’t have to fight the fray. And you rushed to Kane’s aid to make it a fair fight.”
“That’s not why I rushed to his aid. Too many shifters coming at Kane, and you know what he’d do? What he’d have to do because his animal is the fucking apocalypse?”
“End them all,” she uttered on a breath.
“Exactly. I want to die, but not like that. Not with everyone screaming and running and Kane getting locked up in some shifter prison for mass murder.”
“I don’t like you saying that.”
“What, about shifter prison? It exists.”
“No, about wanting to die.” Anger rippled through her. “Don’t say that again. Not in front of me.”
Logan’s dark eyes tightened at the corners, but he nodded and muttered, “Fine. We’ll pretend everything’s okay.”
“That’s all I ask,” she said sarcastically.
“Red Havoc Crew, huh?”
She gave a private smile at his attempt at small talk. She sucked at this stuff, too. “Six-hour drive away from here, up in the woods, mostly dudes except for me and the alpha’s mate. And Lynn.” She said the skank’s name like curse.
“Was the alpha a good one?”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “Ben was amazing when I came to him. I was a mess, and he cleaned me up.”
“Yet, here you are.”
“Here I am. Brody messed up everything. I can’t stay in the crew and watch him build a life with Lynn and be okay, you know?”
“No. I don’t.” Logan poured a pile of salt onto the table and drew a question mark in it. “I’ve never had a mate.”
“Ever get close?”
Logan snorted. “What female is going to settle down with a man like me?”
“You mean a murderer?”
Logan winced. “Yeah. That.”
“I mean, women can be nuts. You just have to find one whose crazy matches yours.”
“Easy as that, huh? Yeah, I never did that. There was a girl I liked once. She was human. Thought about trying to leave my crew, leave my alpha, and go straight, you know? Stop the jobs.”
“What happened?”
Logan sipped long and hard on his water, then said, “She found out what I did for a living. Found out what I am.” He gave Winter an empty smile. “Her crazy didn’t match my crazy.”
“Did you like the jobs?” she whispered. His answer meant so much.
Logan looked at her and, in just an instant, his eyes aged a hundred years right in front of her. “No.”
“Then why did you do it?”
Logan leaned closer and closer until his lips were inches from hers. His eyes were troubled and locked on her mouth as if
he would kiss her. She was terrified, but she was hopeful, and warmth pooled deep in her belly at how close he was. Logan brushed her hair back off her shoulder with a gentle caress, eased to her side, and then lowered his lips right beside her ear. He whispered, “Because no one else would.”
“Your order is up,” the man behind the counter called.
Logan sat there for a moment longer, his lips brushing her earlobe, his cheek rasping against hers as Winter’s heart pounded hard against her sternum, as if it was reaching for him. And when at last he disengaged, a mix of relief and disappointment swirled inside of her.
Logan picked the marker off the counter, pulled off the lid, scribbled his name on an empty patch of white on the wall, then dropped it and strode for the counter.
Stunned, she picked up the pen and wrote her name under his and, at the last moment, drew a heart between the two words, hoping he didn’t look at her artwork before they left.
Looking like a wobbly fawn trailing a graceful stag, she stood on shaky legs and stumbled this way and that behind his easy stride. Logan grabbed the handles of the bags, doubled back, whooshed past her without a word, exited Buff’s Burgers, and let the door close behind him before she could follow. Rude.
“Thanks a lot,” she called after him as she trailed at a distance. When the scent of fur wafted to her on the breeze, she slowed, her alarm bells ringing.
“You shouldn’t do that,” he gritted out, shoving the food into the back seat of his truck.
“What did I do?”
“You shouldn’t tempt me. You can’t draw me to you, Winter. It isn’t safe. Don’t call my animal. And what the fuck is happening with your body. Are you in heat?” he asked from across the bed of his truck.
“What? No!” She didn’t think so, at least.
“Well, you smell like you want sex, and trust me when I tell you, you don’t want that shit with me. And I don’t want it! Not from you.” Logan got in the truck and slammed the door so hard the vehicle rocked.
Winter stood there in shock, opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish. But her anger snapped her right out of it. That, and cold iced tea hit her pants when she squeezed her cup too hard and pierced it with her finger. Mother fucker. She’d put the perfect amount of sugar and lemon in this one. It was basically a work of art. With a screech, she reared back to throw the leaky tea at his truck, but he yelled, “Don’t you fuckin’ do it!” in a muffled voice.
She was in it now, though, tits-deep in her fury so she threw it anyway, and it exploded against the glossy white paint with a satisfying splash.
The window rolled down slowly, and Logan was there, sunglasses over what were probably terrifying silver eyes. His muscles were rigid, mouth set in a furious little line. “Get in.”
Hell no. She cared about survival. Winter flipped him off and marched toward the main road. Kane’s territory wasn’t that far, and she would rather walk across the damn Sahara Desert with bare feet than get into Logan’s truck right now.
He coasted beside her, but she crossed her arms over her chest, lifted her chin primly, and ignored him.
His voice sounded defeated when he muttered, “It’s ten miles to Kane’s Mountains, woman. Just get in.”
“Take it back.”
“Fine, you aren’t in heat.”
She threw him a dirty look and walked faster.
Logan’s sigh tapered into a yell that bordered on a roar. “Fuck, woman, what do you want me to say, and I’ll say it?”
“I didn’t ask you to sleep with me, Logan! You didn’t have to say you don’t want to have sex with me. I just told you I was epically rejected by my mate, and you throw your lack of physical attraction back at me? That’s messed up.”
“I’m not good at woman shit!”
“Noted, and I completely agree. Bye.”
“I have a boner.”
“What?” she asked, skidding to a stop on the asphalt.
Logan was leaning toward the passenger window, one arm draped over the steering wheel, jaw clenched. “I have a boner. From you. From wanting to…” He shook his head and stared out the front. “Please get in. I can’t just leave you here to walk all that way.”
Her phone dinged in her purse. Outside of Red Havoc, hardly anyone knew her number, so she fumbled to pull it out.
The message was from Brody.
I think I made a mistake. Where are you?
She read the text three times to make sure she wasn’t imagining it. Hope and pain warred for her body. He’d finally figured it out? He’d made a mistake? Lynn was the mistake, not Winter? Her claiming mark burned. She had to get back to Red Havoc.
Wait, no.
Winter dropped the phone into her purse and gripped the straps closed to cut off her view of the glowing screen. Was she really that pathetic? Would she really go back to Red Havoc to pick up the scraps of Brody’s leftover affection? Even if he wasn’t happy with the pairing, he was going to have a cub with Lynn.
Winter would be the other woman now. No, this was just like him. He figured out she wasn’t still pining for him and wanted to slither back into her heart so she could never really move on and be happy. She wanted to cry and scream and curse Brody’s name. He’d ruined everything, and now he would make her the other woman? He would shame her even more. He would dissolve the final molecules of her remaining pride. For what? So he could have two females warring for his attention. That had been the game right?
Fighting a sob, she recklessly threw the door open and climbed in. “Take me away,” she whispered, her breath hitching.
“Who was it?” Logan asked in a dead voice as he eased back onto the road.
Winter would rather gnaw off her arm than think about Brody anymore right now. It hurt too much.
“Was it him?” Logan asked louder.
To quiet him, Winter reached over and rested her open palm on his erection, then pressed down gently.
Logan tensed under her with a deep grunt. The steering wheel creaked under his hands. He let off a shallow breath and rolled his hips against her hand. That was all she needed.
He was long and thick, so hard under her touch, and she dragged her hand down the length of him. Logan swallowed hard, legs tensed, jaw clenched, soft growl in his throat that was so fucking sexy Winter got lost to it all.
She dragged her hand back up his dick and under the hem of his shirt until she could feel the warm skin of his rock-hard stomach.
“Fuck, fuck,” Logan panted, chasing her touch with his hips.
He’d lied. He did want her just fine. She could tell by how fast his control slipped with just a touch of her hand. Winter dragged her fingertips up the flexed mounds of his abs, then back down. She hooked her fingers right under the band of his jeans and pushed down until she brushed the swollen head of his cock.
Logan unbuttoned himself, then ripped his zipper downward before he grabbed the wheel with both hands again. And when Winter pushed his jeans and briefs down his hips, he lifted off the seat helpfully. God, he was beautiful. He had that muscular V, sculpted abs, and his dick was a perfect weapon against her defenses. Silken skin, throbbing under her touch already, cock so thick she could barely get her hand all the way around it.
The last wisps of Brody’s betrayal vanished when she took the first long drag of Logan’s shaft. The feral noise he made in his throat was so fucking sexy she couldn’t stop now if she wanted. She had to finish this. Wanted to see his face as he came, wanted to hear his helpless noises, wanted to be the one who made someone lose their mind.
He rolled his hips with her strokes, pushing his dick into the tight hole she made with her fist, his body straining, breath uneven. At a barely-there turnoff, he yanked the truck off the main road and took a dirt track deep into the woods. He was so hard in her hand, so eager, she didn’t expect what happened next. Logan slid his hand down the front of her jeans without warning, and the shock of his hand moving through her wetness was like a hit of a hard drug. She let off a long breath,
spread her legs, leaned back, and gave him better access. Logan didn’t play or tease. He went right for her core. He pushed a finger into her once, and on the second stroke, pushed in a second. Winter cried out.
The tires locked up and Logan skidded them to a rocking stop, threw the truck in park with his free hand, ripped off his sunglasses, and then his lips were on hers. It wasn’t a gentle kiss, and there was no romance. This was two people who needed to escape their heads by getting lost in each other’s bodies. His teeth scraped her bottom lip, and she repaid his roughness by biting his lip hard. He snarled and ripped at her pants until they were on the floor. She was whimpering now as she stroked his dick. He was getting close, and his pleasure was urging her own.
He was loud, groaning, cursing with each pull. His lips were everywhere—her mouth, her neck, her shoulder, her claiming mark. He nipped her hard, sucked enough to make bruises, and she fucking loved every second of this.
Winter arched back against the seat to give him a better angle to her neck and he pushed his finger into her again.
“Fuck, I’m gonna come,” he gritted out. “Stop, stop, stop. I’m gonna come everywhere.”
“That’s okay,” she whispered desperately.
“My clothes…I don’t have anything else… Oh, God, Winter, I’m gonna come.”
Winter released him and snarled possessively, clamped her teeth on his neck after he pulled her over the console and onto his lap. She eased up and locked eyes with him. He couldn’t pass for human right now, but she didn’t care. She needed him inside of her. Needed it like she needed air. Gripping his dick to steady him, she slid over him until he was buried deep inside of her.
“I’ll catch it,” she whispered against his lips and then rocked forward.
Logan slammed his head against the seat and rolled his eyes closed as if the pleasure was almost too much. Bright eyes, that snarl, the scent of fur… She should be terrified, but she wasn’t. She was purring louder with each roll of her hips and every bump of her clit.
Logan’s hand was up her shirt now, under her bra, cupping her breast as he worked her neck and hugged her close. He matched her pace, rocking with her, gasping with her, groaning with her. Lost with her.
