Walk Through Fire

by Kristen Ashley

  That didn’t surprise me either. Dottie, like my parents, had loved Logan. They’d missed him. Dot had tried repeatedly (and failed miserably) to talk me out of ending things with him.

  However, Logan going to get in her face wasn’t fair.

  He didn’t know that.

  But it wasn’t.

  I bent closer to him and shared carefully, “You should know, she didn’t agree with what I did. She tried—”

  He slid his hand to cup my cheek in his palm. “Babe, you don’t gotta say no more. She told me you were in a state. I told you I get the state you were in. We’ve talked that through. Let’s not go back there.”

  I stared at him.

  I knew I missed him. I lived with that pain every day.

  But now I was remembering all the reasons why I missed him.

  One of these being that he was understanding. He listened. He did it with focus. He heard what you were saying and if it meant something to you, he found a way to get it so it wasn’t an issue. Alternatively, if he didn’t get it, he eventually found a way to accept it. That didn’t mean there weren’t arguments or out and out fights, but that was usually about unimportant stuff.

  The important stuff Logan treated as important.

  Another of these things was the fact that once an issue was put to bed, it was done. Not only did Logan not dredge it up again, hold a grudge, use it as an example, reopen discussions, he also didn’t let me do it either.

  If we found ourselves at a hurdle in life, once we cleared it, we kept going.

  No turning back.

  These thoughts were profound and made me an alarming mixture of happy, hopeful, and sad, thus they made me drop my head so I hit his collarbone with my forehead. I turned so my cheek was pressed to him and his fingers were forced to glide into my hair. To get more of him, I then slid my hand down his stomach and up so I could shove it under his shirt, skin against skin, around to his back.

  “What’s on your mind?” he rumbled.

  “I never forgot why I loved you so much, missed you so much. But having you back, I find that I still forgot.”

  “Baby,” he said softly.

  “I’ll get over it,” I told him, hoping that was true and I didn’t live with new wounds, wounds reminding me of all I’d missed over the years.

  “Yeah,” he murmured, gave me more soothing strokes, then moved us along. “Now we should take a shower. You got shit to sort bein’ back and we got shit just to sort and we should get on with that.”

  I didn’t want to.

  The day was sunny and warm. The snow was thawing. And this time we had together would be at an end.

  Logan was intent we’d have more times together and no matter how bumpy that ride got, this time I was going to hold on tight along the way.

  But now we had this moment. This final stretch of time in our reunion before we had to get on with life.

  And I wanted more.

  Even if it was just a little bit, I was going to finagle it.

  In order to do that, I lifted my head and shifted so I took some of my weight off him as I slid my hand into the other side of his shirt.

  “How about we sort out life in a little bit?” I asked quietly, watched his eyes fire, and I not only got my answer to my question, I got tingles.

  “Works for me.” His words rolled over me, through me, in me, and I got more tingles.

  Then I lifted my hands, arching my back to free his shirt so I could pull it up, and High raised his arms and did an ab curl so I could pull it off.

  And with him right there, in my bed, all mine, again, I decided to multitask.

  I’d get to do the catch-up I wanted while we had these final moments of our reunion.

  This was such an excellent idea I set about doing it immediately, taking him in, lazy but intent, smelling the smell of Logan I remembered, running my lips along his rough jaw, down his throat, my hands down the bristly hair on his chest.

  I followed them down.

  I found none of this had changed. The brothers had a workout space and they used it. They might drink and smoke and carouse but they took every opportunity to commune, including while lifting weights.

  So the hard swells of Logan’s pecs might have been bulkier, but they weren’t unfamiliar. The compacted bulges of his biceps might have been bigger, but that only meant better. The furred boxes of his abs were no less defined. The sleek ridges of his ribs no less delineated.

  I found a large tat along his side, losing sight of it on his back, but it protruded quite a way across his ribs. It was a set of scales, one tray having the word Red on it, blood dripping off the sides, the other having a ghoulish reaper floating up from it with the word Black. The base of the scale was the words Never Forget.

  I took one look at it knowing all the brothers got tats that meant something, told a story, proudly displayed a brand, shared history. Thus the story behind this troubling work of art, I decided, would wait for another day.

  So, quickly, I moved my lips across the word Black and trailed them down his abs and along the waistband of his jeans.

  His hand, already cupping my head, convulsed, the pads of his fingers digging gently into my scalp.

  He knew where I was going next. He wanted it.

  I wanted it too.

  I slid a hand up his hip and in, dragging it over his hard crotch.

  His voice was a coaxing growl as he said, “Keep goin’, beautiful.”

  He had nothing to worry about.

  I undid the button at his waistband, the next, the next. His fingers tangled in my hair as I went on and undid them all. The minute I was done unbuttoning his fly, I pulled his jeans down an inch, intent on getting to one of my favorite parts of him that I knew I still loved from recent experience, a part I would always adore, but I hadn’t been together enough to fully take it in.

  I was going to do that then.

  And I was going to take my time this time.

  Intent on that, I yanked his jeans down another inch, Logan lifting his hips to help. I could see the thick root of his hard cock and I couldn’t wait.

  I yanked again and something caught my attention.

  I looked at it, not taking it in at first, except to see it was freaking cool.

  The head of a snake, mouth open, fangs bared, inked into the muscles demarcating his hip bone.

  Staring at it, all of a sudden my insides froze and my fingers at his right hip yanked down more.

  That was when the rest of me froze.

  Because the body of the snake trailed down and across his hip, cool as all hell, beautiful really.

  But it covered my ink.

  It covered what had once been there.

  It covered his declaration that he was mine.

  All mine.

  Only mine.

  His ink was still at my back.

  My ink was gone.

  I stared at his hip, unmoving, for long enough for Logan to call, “Babe.”

  I didn’t even twitch.

  He slid his hand to my jaw, putting gentle pressure on to tilt my head so I’d look at him, doing this and saying softly, “Millie, beautiful.”

  … only her.

  Gone.

  I’d lost that.

  I’d lost it.

  And I’d never get it back.

  Not with our reunion.

  Not even if this worked and we had the rest of our days together.

  … only her.

  That was something I’d never get back.

  Ever.

  Scalded by this knowledge, blistering with the burn, the snake moving before my eyes, fangs bared, ready to strike and lay me to waste, I moved fast, launching myself to the end of the bed.

  I started to swing my legs around to get off, to run away, run fast, run for my life in order to get away from that snake.

  I didn’t even get my legs all the way around before Logan’s arm clamped around my belly and he hauled me back into his body.

  “Baby,” h
e whispered into my ear.

  I pushed against his hold with my body and my hands at his arm. “Let me go.”

  His arm tightened. “Mill—”

  I reared and lost it, shrieking, “Goddamn it! If I want to go, you need to let me go!”

  He let me go.

  I flew off the bed, into the bathroom, and slammed the door.

  Once inside, I stopped dead.

  “Okay, God, okay,” I chanted, starting to pace, my body controlled by emotions I couldn’t fight but I also couldn’t let loose or the healing that had begun would be lost and this new wound would open and fester immediately.

  I dragged my fingernails over my forehead, along my scalp and fisted them in my hair.

  “Okay, shit, okay… God,” I whispered, remembering.

  Remembering how we got those tats together. Me on my stomach on a table beside him lounging back in a chair.

  It had been the most romantic moment in my life.

  I knew it later, definitely, after losing him.

  But I’d felt it even then, my cheek to my arms folded in front of me, watching him, him turning his head to catch my eyes. I knew then that even when we got married, it would be awesome, but it wouldn’t be as beautiful as that.

  That was everything.

  That was us declaring we were us.

  I dropped my hands, moving to the mirror, yanking off my pajama top and turning my back.

  I held the material to my breasts as I twisted to look at the mirror, sliding the hair over my shoulder.

  Only him…

  No… only her.

  It was gone.

  He got it. Not even twenty-four hours and he got it. He got what I did. He got why.

  But I took us away.

  He would have understood back then. He would have been there to help me deal with the loss of our dream.

  He would have been there to help build a new dream.

  He would have been there.

  And my Only him… would have its… only her.

  Forever.

  And I threw it away.

  I slid down the cabinets to my ass, locking my arm over my breasts with my thighs as I curled into myself and the tears came.

  They were silent.

  They were deadly.

  “Millie,” Logan called through the door.

  I pressed my face in my knees, closing my eyes tight.

  And seeing snake.

  My body bucked with a sob.

  “Babe, come out or let me in!” Logan yelled. “You got two seconds!”

  I didn’t go out or let him in.

  I wept into my knees.

  I heard the door open. I heard the pained, “Fuck.” I felt myself shifted so I was not ass to the floor, face in my knees. I was ass to Logan’s lap, face in his neck, his hand pressing it there.

  For my part, I didn’t touch him. I didn’t curl into him. I didn’t hold on. I sat in his lap in his arms as the tears fell profusely and soundlessly, all this having discovered yet again how I’d lost it all.

  How I’d lost us.

  Logan stroked my hair and whispered, “I’ll tat it back, baby. I’ll ink you wherever you wanna be. You pick the spot. I’ll do it tomorrow. Fuck, do it now. We’ll get dressed and go out now, Millie. We’ll ink you back into me.”

  “I threw it away,” I replied brokenly.

  He curled me closer. “We’re not goin’ back there. We agreed. We’re here. Get back here with me.”

  “You can’t get it back,” I told him.

  “You get dressed with me, doin’ that now,” he told me.

  “You can’t get it back,” I repeated.

  “Baby—”

  I pulled my face out of his neck and looked at his misty beauty.

  “You can’t,” I hissed fiercely. “I made it so you can’t. I threw us away and it isn’t only me anymore, Logan. It’ll never be only me. I threw that away so I can never get it back. You had a wife.”

  “She didn’t—”

  “I don’t care,” I kept hissing. “She still had you.”

  “Millie, you calm down so I can explain, you’ll get—”

  I spoke over him.

  “I have mine. You saw it. I never changed mine because that never changed. And honest to God, I don’t know what’s worse. The pain of knowing I threw that away. I should have told you. I should have never let you go. Or the humiliation at admitting to you mine stayed true. It stayed completely true. It was only you. It was always only you, Logan. No boyfriend, no lover, hell, not even that first fucking date. Twenty years without you and it was always… only.… you.”

  After my pain-filled, mortifying speech, it took a few moments to get out of my head and back into the room.

  A room that was so still, it felt like there was no air to breathe.

  Then I saw his face.

  And my heart exploded.

  It did this right before he surged up, me in his arms, and stalked toward the door.

  “Logan…,” I began, but trailed off when he didn’t even look at me, his jaw set, his face hard.

  He stalked to the door, right to the bed, and threw me on it.

  I didn’t have the chance to bounce because he grabbed my ankles and dragged me his way.

  I began panting when he let me go but immediately bent in and latched onto my pajama bottoms. He tore them down my legs, tossed them aside, and I was struggling for breath, my body on fire, as he instantly sunk to his knees at the side of the bed, clasping my ankles again, tossing them over his shoulders.

  Then he bent; I lost his face and my head dropped back to the bed when I got his mouth as it latched onto me.

  He tongued me hard. He sucked my clit harder. He sunk his tongue deep inside me. In no time I was past squirming right to writhing against him, my thighs clamped to either side of his head.

  And then it washed over me, my orgasm carrying me away as I cried out in yipping gasps and caught his hair in my grip with both hands.

  I lost purchase on him. Hardly having started coming, his mouth left me and his hands were back at my ankles, using them to twist me around to my stomach. I kept gasping for breath against the sensations sweeping me away as I felt him let my ankles go but grasp under my arms and he again dragged me into the bed, coming in with me.

  He hauled up my hips and positioned. I felt the nudge of the tip of his cock before he drove inside.

  My head flew back at the glory of being filled by him and I automatically started to come up on my hands when I felt his fingers wrap around the back of my neck and push.

  “Stay down,” he growled, pounding inside me.

  Oh God.

  This again.

  Shivers of pleasure mixed with shivers of fear.

  His fingers left my neck but I felt them brush my hair to the side. I felt the trail of his touch across my tat. Then he grasped my hips in both hands.

  Oh God.

  No.

  Not this again.

  Something else.

  Something beautiful.

  “Stay down, Millie, and take my cock,” he ordered gruffly, still thrusting but now also pulling my hips forward and slamming me back to get more of him, faster, harder, God…

  God.

  I did as ordered, trying to hold it at bay, trying to concentrate solely on the feel of his cock ramming into me, the feel of his wild, the feel of his control completely gone, the feel of what he was communicating to me.

  But I couldn’t. All that was making it build again and I dug my forehead into the bed as I moved with his thrusts, whimpering into the sheets.

  “You gonna go again?” he grunted his question.

  “Yes,” I breathed.

  I felt his body round me, hand to the mattress, cock powering deep, his other hand slid around and in. He found my clit with his finger and rolled.

  God.

  God.

  “Then go, baby,” he whispered.

  I went.

  Through it, I moaned. Turning my head
so I was cheek to the bed, I ground back into him, my back arching as his finger worked my clit, his cock slamming inside me and again I was swept away.

  “There you go, Millie,” he groaned, then his arm locked around my belly and he held fast as I took his pounding thrusts and listened to his harsh grunts as he came inside me.

  I was coasting, no thought, just feeling, languid, peaceful, covered by my man, filled with him, and I stayed that way as he stayed that way.

  Until his arm moved from around me, his hand trailing across my stomach, my side.

  He flexed his hips into mine and my lips parted with a soft mew.

  “My Millie,” he murmured.

  Oh God.

  I stayed still, covered with my man, filled with him, as his hand kept trailing.

  To my back.

  I started trembling when I felt his finger trace the ink.

  “My Millie.”

  I closed my eyes tight as the lazy slid away, the peace started slipping, and the emotion rolled back.

  Logan slid out and shifted up. I felt pressure on my hip and at his nonverbal command, fell to my side.

  I instantly curled into myself and kept my eyes closed.

  I felt Logan’s presence leave. I heard the tap go on in the bathroom. Then I felt Logan’s presence come back.

  I also felt the bed depress when he returned.

  “Hitch your leg, beautiful,” he murmured.

  I hitched my leg.

  Gently, like he was so good at being, Logan cleaned between my legs.

  When the washcloth was gone, I felt his lips at my hip before he was gone again.

  But he came back.

  I couldn’t keep my eyes closed when he got hold of me again, careful this time. Sweet, tender, he shifted me until we were back in bed, how we started, this time naked, the covers over us, me on top.

  “Look at me, Millie,” he coaxed, his hand at the back of my neck resting, just his fingertips caressing the skin at the side.

  I lifted my head slowly to look down at him and the moment I did, he lifted his other hand to cup my cheek.