by Aubrey Irons
I laugh as I find myself grinning back at him; “You have no fucking idea, Raul.”
Except Quinn Archer is the best kind of trouble I’ve ever been in; the kind of trouble that you can’t get enough of, the kind of trouble that keeps hooking you back in, and the kind of trouble that you could just find yourself falling in lo-
Woah.
I let my hammer drop as I look up at her again, and this time she catches my eye and winks at me as she pushed a strand of hair out of her face. I can feel my whole heart get bigger inside, my pulse jumping in my veins as I meet those eyes of hers and just let myself get sucked in.
Just what kind of “L” word am I prepared to use when it comes to Quinn?
“So, you think I did OK today?”
We’re sitting on the balcony of the El Presidente suite of the luxury hotel back in Havana looking over the bay. Apparently, even doing humanitarian outreach comes with a little luxury when you’ve got Logan Dempsey-type money. The place is honestly a palace, occupying the entire top floor of the hotel and with full balcony terraces overlooking all of Havana Bay. Honestly, if we hadn’t spent the entire day giving immunization shots to kids at a hospital he built, I’d have put my foot down at first sight of this place.
“Yeah, Doc,” He grins at me and raises the glass of rum on ice in his hand to me; “You did OK.”
I fake pout at him; “Just OK, huh?”
I yelp as his other hand jerks out to grab my wrist and he pulls me giggling into his lap; “Ok darlin, you did amazing work back there, but quit pretending you don’t know that.”
I’m feeling wild, free, and more alive than I have since maybe even medical school, and for once, I push all those “what-ifs” and “maybes” and “but what abouts” out of my head as I lean in and kiss him. It’s not a hot and heavy make-out type kiss either, like it seems has been our style either. It’s just that; a kiss. And in that moment, I’m know suddenly and without a doubt that I’m kissing the real Logan. This is tender, and there’s something more behind it than just lust, and with a dawning realization, I suddenly know that this is Logan sans-armor. This is this man at his most open and unguarded, and in that moment, I know that whatever this crazy feeling is that I’m feeling for him is even bigger and wilder than I thought it was.
His lips tastes like sweet rum and there’s something even more intoxicating about that than even the drink in my own hand.
“So is that a ‘Hey thanks for bringing me to Cuba, Logan, and letting me get my hands dirty doing what I love to do’ kiss?” He’s grinning at me, and for a moment I’m terrified that the humor and cavalier attitude that he uses as his armor will come up, and I quickly kiss him again.
It’s deeper this time, moving from tender to something bolder; something more passionate. I’m kissing him with everything I have, because I need him to stay right here with me in this moment. I need to be in his arms; the real Logan.
“Mmm, now that was a thank-you kiss.” He murmurs into my mouth, his tongue darting out to run against my lips.
“Shh, hang on.” I whisper back, kissing him again.
“What?”
“Just- ” I hesitate, pulling back to look deeply into his green-gold eyes with my wide-eyed blues; “Just keep those walls down. I just want you, as is, without the armor.” His eyes flash at me, and yet he holds my gaze; “Just just stay here, right here with me.” I whisper.
“Darlin,” He says thickly, leaning into me as his lips brush mine; “There’s no where else in the whole world I’d rather be than right here, right now, with you.”
I kiss him again before pulling back once more; “You know what I mean though, right?” This is the moment of truth; this is the moment where he either lets me in or those walls come up again, and if it’s the latter, I’m not sure I’ll ever get in. Tthe thought has me suddenly terrified of him even answering.
He takes my chin in his hand and kisses me deep and slowly, like something out of a Hollywood movie; “This is just me, Quinn.” He says deeply and quietly; “No more walls, no more games; you have all of me.” And when our lips meet again, I know without a doubt he’s right.
“So, Logan Dempsey,” I pull back from the kiss and peer at him mischievously; “Is that a family name?”
He chuckles; “Anyone every tell you that subtlety isn’t really your bag, Quinn?”
I giggle into his neck as he pulls me against his chest and tickles me; “Oh comon! You’re always so guarded; cut a girl some slack when she sees a little chink in that armor of yours and wants to get to know the guy she’s running around with a little bit more!”
His eyes flash for just a second as he looks into mine; “Quinn, it’s-”
“Complicated; right, yeah I think we’ve covered that,” I say, rolling my eyes at him before cupping his chin and pecking him on the lips; “I mean it’s not like I don’t already have you totally figured out anyways. I did date a Psychiatry student in med school, you know.”
“Sounds immensely unfulfilling.” Logan’s body tenses and bristles under me at the mention of the ex-boyfriend in this possessively reactive way that I have to admit is kind of hot.
I grin at him again, seeing the flash in his eyes again; “It’s not like you have to tell me everything, I just want to know where a guy like you comes fro-”
“Texas.”
I blink, actually shocked that I didn’t hit another deflection or another wall of humor or sarcasm; “Oh.”
He laughs at the look on my face; “What were you expecting, Mars?” He chuckles; “And Logan was my dog’s name.”
“Your parents named you after the dog?” I raise my eyebrows at him.
Logan shakes his head; “Nah, I took Logan later, because I loved that dog. My mom named me after the guy that got her pregnant, even though he took off faster than she could say ‘I’m late.’“
“You mean your Dad?”
His jaw tightens; “Wherever that prick is, he’s not my father.”
I nod, biting my lip and just taking this all in. There’s something that’s just so intimate about sitting here with him letting him tell me these things, and it’s not because I’m basically straddling his lap, or that his hand is stroking the skin of my back under my shirt, it’s that this is finally an open, unguarded, and armor-less Logan that I’m seeing for the very first time.
“What about your Mom?”
“Dead.” He says without emotion. His eyes quickly lock with mine as he feels me tense at the coarseness in his words; “OK, I don’t actually know; probably dead. And that only sounds harsh if you don’t know her. My mom was a crazy, manipulative, parasitic drunk who liked violent, angry men. And she blamed me for that asshole running off on her.”
His face clouds darkly, and I find myself snuggling against him even more, as if the contact of our bodies can erase and heal whatever pain he’s obviously still feeling. He looks out over the bay, his eyes searching deep; “That where I first learned to put my fist up, actually.”
I look at him in shock; “Your mother?”
“Nah,” He grins at me; “The assholes she liked to bring home until they got bored of her. There was this one guy, Rich, who liked two things; drinking, and hitting kids half his size.”
“Jesus Christ, Logan…” I trail off, shaking my head and not even knowing how to respond except with sympathy.
“I had to find her a few years ago for-” He trails off and shakes his head; “I just had to go home for this thing. She hadn’t seen or talked to me since before I enlisted, and the only thing she said to me after asking for money was to stop wasting her long distance points while her soap was on.”
I bite my lip as I feel my heart break a little inside for this man who’s somehow ended up the man he is today despite what sounds like a complete lack of love growing up in the world. I mean, I understand loss, with my mother dying when we were little and my dad always being off traveling the world for business even before he passed. But I know there’s nothing there that c
ompares to what it must have been like to grow up as Logan. I might not have had my parents physically around, but I knew I had their love.
He sips on his rum and then darts his eyes back down to mine, where the hard look softens as he shrugs and grins at me; “Actually this might sound weird given the nature of our relationship, but your father was the only real parent I ever knew.”
I smile; “Not weird; my dad had that effect on people.”
“He saved us, you know.”
“From?”
Logan leans up and kisses me softly; “From nothing you ever need to worry about it.” I start to pull away in protest, not wanting him to close me out again, but he holds me still as he kisses me; “What he saved us from is the worst parts of ourselves, darlin. He saved me from a part of myself I don’t need to go back to; not ever.”
I nod slowly, understanding as he holds my gaze; “You’re not shutting me out?”
He laughs; “Just so you know, Doc, not even Bryce and Hudson know about my Dad.”
“Wait, seriously?” The full weight of just how open Logan’s just been with me almost takes my breath away.
He shrugs; “I guess I’m not big on sharing the past, even with people I like.”
“I guess this mean you either really like me or can’t stand me, huh?” I stick my tongue out at him, grinning as he laughs and wraps his strong arms around me.
“Darlin, I’d say that means I really, really like you.”
He presses his lips hotly and forcefully against my own, searing me with the heat there as he pulls me tight against his body. I moan into his kiss, and I can feel him surge beneath me, the kiss quickly turning more and more passionate and fiery. Our mouths open as our tongues tease together, and his hands slide over my body as I moan into his kiss. He’s teasing over my breasts and making my nipples harden under my tank-top as his tongue slides against mine. His hands slide lower to my legs curled in his lap and then over my knees and thighs, moving higher. I’m already soaking wet for him as his fingers push my panties to the side and slide easily through my folds. I’m moaning into his mouth and rocking into him as my hands fumble for the button of his jeans, desperate to feel him.
I slip my panties quickly down my legs and pull my sundress over my head as he shoves his jeans down his muscled thighs and yanks his shirt off. I’m kissing him passionately, tasting his tongue with mine as I straddle him and feel his cock so hard and ready, pulsing against my thigh. He stiffens as I wrap my hand around him and bring him against my wetness; “I’ve got one,” he growls, sucking at my bottom lip with his teeth; “Back in my bag, in the room-”
But I’m pulling back and shaking my head slowly, stopping his words; “Leave it.” I whisper, feeling a pulsing heat shoot through my body while his eyes smolder with lust as he understand what I’m saying.
“Quinn, I-”
“I’m clean,” I say maybe more hastily than I should have.
But he’s smiling at me as he cups my face in his hands; “So am I. I’ve actually, uh, never-“
“Me neither.” I whisper quietly, and he leans in and kisses me.
“Are you sure?”
For a second, I wonder if I am. After all, what really is this little secret fantasy we’re both living together? And where does it go after we leave this little fantasy island and have to go back to the real world, with family and work and all the reasons why this shouldn’t happen?
But again, the thought is only for a second, and of course, seconds do pass quickly.
“I just want you, Logan.” I say shyly, but with my everything behind it. I’m biting my lip and looking into those green pools; “Nothing between us, just you and me.”
He growls as he kisses me this time, and I’m whimpering into him as he pulls me into his lap. His cock presses against my wetness, and then he’s pushing inside, bare and without anything between us as I slowly slide all the way down his length until he’s completely inside of me.
“Fuck, Quinn,” He gasped into my mouth, and I can feel him throbbing inside as I slowly begin to slide up and down on his thickness.
We take our time, on that balcony. It’s slow, and it’s tender, and it’s like the gradual build of a tidal wave as we rock together in the current of one shared breath, one shared heartbeat, and two people moving as one. And the realization hits me right before I come that I’ve never done this before; because this is something new altogether.
This is making love.
And with that, the whole world shatters around me. I’m clawing at his shoulders and throwing my head back to the moonlit sky as I come crashing into him, feeling him shudder as he falls right over that cliff’s edge with me, filling me with his heat.
We stay in that position, me straddling his lap, him still inside of me, and my name dropping quietly from his lips as the stars glow above us; and in that moment, I know we’re untouchable.
“Logan!” She hisses, giggling and half-heartedly pushing me away as I try and slide my hand down the front of her pants. She bites her lip and rolls her eyes as my fingers find her slit, already soaking wet and heated despite her all-for-show protests; “We can’t, what about the pilots?”
I can’t quite tell if the look of genuine worry on her face that we’re going to get caught is more adorable or more just plain hot, but I decide on the latter as I slip a finger against her soft opening and watch her shiver with desire as I start to slide inside; “What about the pilots?” I murmur into her ear, loving the way she squeezes her eyes shut and lets her mouth hang open just enough to be insanely sexy without her even realizing.
“They might-” She whimpers as I push my finger deep inside and start to curl it agains her sensitive spot just inside as my thumb begins to tease over her clit; “They might see us!”
“Well I sure fucking hope not, because they’re supposes to be seeing where the hell we’re flying, not peeping back here.” I start to stroke my fingers in and out of her wetness, feeling my own cock throbbing rock hard inside my pants as she coos and makes these insanely hot moaning sounds as she rocks her hips against me. I start to unbutton her pants with my other hand, my tongue dancing over hers as I slide them off of her ass along with her panties and push them to the floor. My mouth moves down to her jaw, teasing and nipping at the skin there as I suck on her collarbone.
“Oh God,” she moans, and as she opens her legs wider for me, I can feel the pent up desire inside of me practically explode out of me. I still don’t even quite know what it is about this girl that drives me so fucking wild, but I do know that I can’t get enough of her. I know that touching her and tasting her, and filling her with every inch my cock is just about everything I ever want to do for the rest of my life.
I growl as I tear her shirt off over her head followed quickly by my own, and she’s kicking her pants off as I kneel in front of her, grab her roughly by the backs of her thighs, and shove her legs up over my shoulders. Quinn cries out as I drag my tongue through her wetness, teasing across her opening and swirling around her clit. Her panties are still tangled around her ankles, and with her legs up like that and her head thrown back, it’s just about the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
I abandon the slow teasing for deep powerful drags with my tongue, coaxing her higher and higher as I lick her faster and wildly. She grabs at my hair, the sounds of her moans and gasps filling the cabin so much so that I actually start to wonder if the pilots will actually hear us.
Something actually strikes me then. There’s something that tugs at the instincts carved deep into my being from years fighting to survive; from the Marines and war, and even from working with Blackriver. After years of conflict - years of sleeping with a weapon under your pillow and years of listening for that one twig snap or hint of a scent on the wind that can mean death around the corner, some things just strike you funny.
