by Maisey Yates
“Well, you probably want to know what that was,” she said.
He did. He shouldn’t. So he lied. “It’s your life, Addison. And whatever you want to share is up to you. But out of the context of our arrangement, and by that I mean sex, I don’t actually give a fuck.”
“Well…one of my best friends is missing in Europe,” she said, her voice trembling slightly her cheeks heated. “So…so maybe you should give a fuck about that.” She tilted her chin upward, her expression defiant, her cheeks pink. He highly doubted if Addison Treffen had ever said that word before this moment.
And he’d stepped wrong. He’d said he didn’t care, because he damn well wished he didn’t, but he did. And that was why he’d said it like that. That was why he’d been such an ass. Because he was trying to prove it to her. And himself.
And she was clearly dealing with a serious issue.
“Sorry,” he said, and he truly meant it. “I am sorry about that. Have you called the police?”
“Nora called last week, but they didn’t take her seriously. She said she just got hold of her landlord. Well, her former landlord. He said that Harlow moved out of her apartment about three and a half weeks ago, and she was with a man who was about her age and very nice looking. So we’re all supposed to calm down and assume that she’s off with her lover in another country, having fun while everyone worries, which…that’s not like her.”
“You don’t think? People change,” he said, “and sometimes they were never who you thought they were at all.” The words hung heavy between them, a wealth of meaning wrapped around each one.
“I know,” she said. “But can I take the chance? What if something happened to her? What if…? I just feel like she would at least call Nora. I think…I think I haven’t always been the best friend. Or seemed available. I don’t know.”
“Why do you think that?” he asked.
She looked up at him, a pained light in her eyes. “Sometimes I think I’ve been on my own island. I mean…maybe that’s not fair, considering.”
“I was very insensitive a moment ago. You’re allowed to go there.”
“I put myself on it, though. I did. I mean, they were my father’s rules and all, but…Austin didn’t follow them. He had a life, and friends. And I just sort of…let him make the outside perfect, and make it so much more important than the inside. And as a result? I ended up alone. I really have felt alone for so long.”
Logan hesitated for a moment, then reached out, tugging Addison into his arms. “I’ll help you find Harlow,” he said, and he felt her nod.
And for a moment, he felt as though neither of them was so alone anymore. They might be on an island, but right now they were together.
*
Logan hadn’t gotten much further in finding Harlow than she had, though a police officer had agreed to go to Harlow’s apartment and check it out personally. That had only confirmed what Nora had already discovered.
That Harlow wasn’t there anymore. And that she had left with a man. The whole thing made Addison feel as if her stomach were coated in ice. Yes, she knew insanity over a guy was possible. But she just…knew that there was something else going on.
Although Addison was now full familiar with that kind of attraction. The kind that made you crave things that you would have wrinkled your nose at and head tilted in confusion over only two weeks ago.
Because if anyone had told her she could want a man like this—want nothing but his body, forgetting the fact that she could barely hold a conversation with him…she would never have believed them.
In the past she’d been very judgmental of friends who were having sex-only relationships. And now here she was, in one of her own. Only it didn’t feel like only sex. But maybe that was how it was for everyone who ended up in one of these arrangements.
But a few weeks ago she hadn’t understood what it could really mean. She hadn’t understood how freeing it would be. To give over all of herself to someone else in that way. To find a workaround for all her inhibitions. He was incredible. And she couldn’t regret him.
She sighed and leaned back against the headboard. It was late and after working in the office, Logan had gone to his gym without saying much to her. So she had gone to her room. Alone.
What she really wanted to do was talk to him. And he seemed to be avoiding that. They’d had a moment of connection in the office, but that seemed to be over.
She slid down until she was lying flat on her back, her phone near her side. She’d eaten room service in bed, and the dishes were on a tray at the foot of the mattress. A funny thing. Something she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do the first night she arrived.
She’d sat in that chair then, perfectly upright, as though she were entertaining the queen, not sitting in an empty room. Right now she could hardly remember who that girl was.
Such a strange feeling.
Yes, Logan was broken. But she had a feeling she wasn’t a lot better off than he was.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and put her face in her hands.
Her life was falling down in slow pieces. Like old wallpaper, strip after strip. Her father’s legacy. Her father’s life. Harlow’s disappearance.
The facade was stripped away, uncovering cracked drywall beneath. Patchy and uneven. Proving just how little she knew herself. Because here she’d always thought things were fine. That underneath all the things that insulated her—her name, her friends—she was pretty together.
Nope. Big surprise. And while she had been making progress, ultimately she had very little clue about who Addison Treffen was apart from the family name. Apart from her friends, her sorority and her position at the university, her plans to be a society wife, she had no idea who she was.
With all of it gone she’d become someone she didn’t know. Someone she didn’t recognize. And that was highlighting all that was wrong with the life she’d been living before. It was terrifying to realize that she would’ve gone on like that forever. An entire existence devoted to pleasing other people.
She pushed open the door and let it close behind her. And then she realized that she was dressed in sweats, which…not the best seduction ensemble, but she didn’t care. This was for her anyway.
And he wouldn’t tell her no. Because they had an understanding. He would see her, and he would know what she needed to hear. Would know that she needed him, raw and untamed, to help bring out the beast inside her. To unleash the parts of her she’d kept locked up for so long.
Only Logan could do that. She wanted him. Tonight she needed him.
When they came together it was fierce. And she was fearless.
She walked down the hall and to his gym, knocking on the door before opening it. Because he was probably hanging from something in there, doing amazing physical feats and making his muscles look sexy, and she was not going to miss that waiting for him to come answer the door. Because…hello, muscles.
Which absolutely had a stake in her acting crazy and out of character. His muscles were unreal. Any woman would be heavily influenced by them.
Maybe Harlow was currently under the influence of muscles.
It was possible. And if that was the case, Addison was not in a position to throw stones.
She looked across the gym and saw him, shirtless, holding on to a rope that was hanging from the ceiling, his back slicked with sweat.
“Hi,” she said.
He lifted his head, the muscles in his back shifting. He didn’t turn. “I didn’t expect you.”
“Because you weren’t instigating?”
“You do your share of instigating. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”
“I’m sincerely glad you have favorite things about me. I’m having a crisis,” she said, feeling something shiver in her chest. Feeling something break loose.
“Are you?”
“Yes. A serious emotional crisis, actually.”
He looked wary, as if she’d told him she had a rattlesna
ke in her pocket. “You sound like it.”
“Yeah, well, it can all be deceiving, you know. The outward stuff. It deceived me for twenty-two years.”
“Your dad?”
“No,” she said. “Me. I deceived me.”
He turned then, still holding on to the rope. “You did?”
“I thought I knew who I was, but the further away I get from all that…the more I see that I was trying to be someone who fit into a box. The way I was raised, the school my parents sent me to, helped me decide what college to go to. And from there decided what sort of friends I would have. I am a product of that man. A product of a life that was never real and I don’t know what the hell to do with that now that it’s all gone.”
He let go of the rope and started walking toward her. “That,” he said, “in my experience is the worst part of all this.”
“What?”
“The worst part of being a castaway is that once the whole world goes away, once the expectations are gone, you really do start to see what a joke it all is. You start to wonder what you are without all that holding you back. Start to wonder if you’re even a human. Or if you’re just a fucking animal.” He reached out and stroked her cheek, his blue eyes fierce. “That’s when you start to wonder why you’re still following rules that don’t matter. It’s when you find out who you really are, and it’s a scary thing. Terrifying.”
“What am I supposed to do? Do I just…am I going to have to go back? When all this is over, do I have to go back to being who I was? Even if it doesn’t feel like it applies anymore?”
“I don’t know if I have the answer to how you should do anything. But I will tell you that the way I lived on the island isn’t the way I live here. On the island, after Kelly died, I only had myself to take care of. And when I came back I had to live for other people again. I had to live for people in a much more real way than I did when I left.”
“Why?” she asked, searching his face for answers and finding none.
“Because, baby, I’m a motherfucking miracle. The answer to all of my mom’s fervent prayers. To my sister’s most inane wishes and my father’s dying breath. When I came back from the dead, I knew I had to live for them. Because…because they’d already grieved for me, and if I came back to be a disappointment, then what the hell was the point of it?”
“Don’t you think you matter?” she asked, her heart squeezing.
“Not particularly,” he said. “This is why Black Properties matters. This is why…this is why I have to find a way to do what my mother needs me to do. Because I have to be that miracle that she prayed for. Rather than what I actually am. Just a broken, crazy guy, whose brain can’t figure out that he’s not on an island anymore.”
“So…no great insight into what I should do, then?” she asked.
“Not even one.”
“Well, then, I’m all out of luck.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“You do have other things I might want.”
“Are you propositioning me?”
“Is that not clear?” she asked, jerking her T-shirt over her head. “If not, allow me to increase the clarity.”
She reached behind her back and unhooked her bra, letting it fall off her shoulders and onto the floor.
“You are…impossible,” she said. “And I don’t understand you. Or me when I’m with you. But I want you. Which is too bad because this is obviously totally crazy, but there you have it.”
“It is too damn bad for you, baby. Because I’m never going to give you more than I take from you, and that’s a promise,” he said, gripping her chin with his thumb and forefinger, his eyes boring into hers. “I can’t. Do you understand that?”
She could feel the gravity to his words, the intensity. And they made her heart twist. And that was something she really didn’t want. She didn’t want to feel anything. She didn’t want to care.
She swallowed hard and jerked her chin away. “I don’t want your damn emotions, Logan. As long as you can give me pleasure, I’ll be happy. Think you can do that?”
He growled and brought his mouth down on hers, his kiss fierce, feral. An angry response to her angry words. And she liked it. Loved it. Reveled in it. It made her feel. Coated her veins in flame, heat pooling in her stomach.
It made her feel strong. As though she was alive. As though she was more since the facade had been stripped away. Not less. Not just a crumbling, naked wall, but someone who’d been freed of excess and left with nothing but the essentials.
A castaway on the island of Manhattan. Not exactly the same as Logan. But enough to give her a taste. Enough to prove her previous statement a lie. She did understand him. A small sliver of what he’d been through. And she wanted so much more than just his body.
He made more sense than anything else in her life and she just didn’t want to admit it. Maybe Manhattan wasn’t the island she was cast away on. Maybe Logan Black was her island. Her breaking point, her point of clarity.
Her thoughts slowed as he slipped his tongue along the seam of her mouth, demanding entrance. And she gave it. Because she was powerless to the need she felt for him. And she reveled in it. Because she gladly threw herself at his mercy. Gave herself up to his wicked demands so her own could be satisfied.
He pushed her pants and underwear down her legs before pulling away from her, reaching into his pocket and producing his wallet, pulling out a condom. “I was thinking ahead,” he said. “Just in case I needed you while we were in the office. Just in case I needed to push you up against the nearest wall.” Her heart pounded as she watched his movements, watched him take the rest of his clothes of. She was struck by his beauty. Raw, masculine. Wild. She was struck by it every single time.
By the fact that this man, who lived his life in a cage, lost his control with her. By the fact that she stripped him back to what he’d been on the island.
That he was a beast for her.
She loved it. Because it tapped in to the very thing she’d spent so long denying in herself.
He opened the condom and rolled the latex over his length, his movements methodical, tempting. His eyes never leaving hers.
He wasn’t a bad boy with leather and tattoos. Not the kind of guy who had to put on those signifiers of being an outlier in order for a person, a woman, to see what he was.
Dangerous. Feral.
He exuded it. Naked or clothed, smiling or enraged.
“You know, on the island it wouldn’t have mattered,” he said. “I could have had you anywhere, and there would have been no one to see. No one to judge. That’s one of the freeing things about being out there like that. Beyond help, beyond judgment. Part of the problem here is it’s hard to make myself care. About shoes. Dammit, I hate shoes. About when it is or isn’t okay to touch you. I’ve forgotten to care about those things.” He cupped her face, drawing her close to him. “If I’m hungry, I’ll damn well satisfy that hunger.”
She reached between them, putting her hand on his cock, squeezing him hard. “Then stop talking and satisfy it.”
His movements were fluid, controlled, and she suddenly found herself brought to the floor, his strength keeping the impact from causing her any pain.
He settled between her thighs, his expression fierce. “Impatient, baby?” he asked.
She nodded, her breath completely robbed from her lungs. He put his hand between her legs, pushing one finger deep inside her while he teased her sensitized flesh with his thumb. “Are you ready for me?” he asked.
She nodded, her throat blocked by the sob that was rising in her, threatening to escape.
“Tell me,” he said, his voice harsh. “Tell me what you want.”
“Y-you.”
“Not good enough, honey. Tell me what you want. I need to hear it.” He added the tip of another finger, a tease, the near penetration almost sending her over the edge.
“I want…” She tried to catch her breath, tried to make sense of the words, the demands, all jumbled up in
her head. “I want you inside me,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, the word a prayer. He moved his hand away, replacing it with the blunt head of his erection. “Don’t be shy with me. Always tell me what you want.”
“I want you. Oh, Logan, I want you.”
He slipped his hand beneath her ass and tugged her up against him as he drove in deep, burying himself to the hilt. She gasped, lifting her hands over her had, trying to find something to hold on to. Finding nothing.
He pulled away, then thrust back in deep, the motion pushing her back an inch over the carpet, the rough texture burning her shoulder blades.
She wrapped her legs around his hips, meeting each of his movements, bringing her into contact with his hard body, pushing her closer to the edge.
She moved her hands into his shoulders, her nails digging deeper as each of his thrusts pushed her farther back, her skin burning.
It was everything she craved. It was feeling, the essence of it. Raw and distilled, nothing filtered out. Everything good, everything painful. Everything she’d been numb to before him. Before this.
He made her want. He made her need.
After being dry for so long, she found it a revelation. It was the most beautiful thing she could imagine. To feel again.
He growled and pushed into her one last time, freezing, his body pulsing inside her, the look on his face, of darkest torture fading to release, pushing her over the edge, her internal muscles squeezing him tight as she found her own release.
They lay on the floor, the rough carpet starting to bite into her back, his weight pushing her harder against the fibers. She shifted and winced. She had some serious rug burn.
