by Mary Hughes
As the notes came back down I blinked, realized I was clutching Logan’s hand so hard his fingers were white. I released him with a sheepish grin.
He simply took my hand again, folded between both of his, and smiled into my eyes.
We stared at each other, knowing we had shared something exquisitely beautiful. A soul-deep moment had touched him too—how could I not love him?
On the way downstairs Logan muttered, “I may have to forgive him.”
“Who?”
“Zajicek. You’re right. To lose talent like that would be a crime, even if it would be safer for the rest of us.”
“Steel. This way.” A tall shadow waved us in just before disappearing into the dark. We circled a steel girder to meet our mysterious informant.
“You.” Logan hissed.
“You have brought a human. Why?”
“Leave her alone.” Logan’s back tensed and the warning growl was becoming familiar.
Last time Logan had hidden the truth from me in a silk bag of skirt. I was wearing pants tonight, safe from being turned into a full moon (so to speak). “I’m back to being ‘her’? I don’t think so.” I found my flashlight in my purse and flicked it on.
The beam carved blackness into the perfect features of Dragan Zajicek.
“I beg your pardon. I did not mean to offend.” Zajicek took my hand and bowed over it, very old-world. “Who are you, lovely lady?”
A dark sensuality bubbled under Zajicek’s grace. If I weren’t involved with Logan, I’d have gone beyond goo to be the gum wad on his shoe. “My name is Liese Schmetterling.”
“Liese.” His elegant nostrils flared. “Ah. Already taken. You are very fortunate, Steel.”
“And don’t I know it.” Logan pulled my hand away from Zajicek. “By the way, she doesn’t like to be treated like a sex object. She’ll slap you if you don’t watch out.”
“I am not a crass youngling.” Zajicek drew himself up. “I am simply properly appreciative of such a lovely female.”
Ooh. Now I was getting hot. Time to return to sane footing. “You had some information, Maestro Zajicek?”
“Dragan, please.” He reclaimed my fingertips, actually kissed them. I think my hair turned into a beanie propeller. I know I felt dizzy.
“Information.” Logan yanked my hand away and curled it protectively in his own. I sighed and burrowed in.
Zajicek was suddenly all business. “You have made a formidable enemy in Ruthven.”
“He was already my enemy. If he’s pissed off now, so much the better. Pissed-off people make mistakes.”
“Be wary, Steel. Ruthven is not an honorable man. He knows about your household settling in the Chicago suburbs. He plans to kill or enslave your humans.” Zajicek’s black eyes flicked to me, and I thought I saw apology there. “There was specific mention of a butterfly.”
Logan’s eyes flared flame-red. Literally, lighting up his face. “That’s…that’s despicable.”
“Yes. It’s why I risked meeting publicly. There’s more. Ruthven has a mole. I’m not sure if this person is inside your household or simply has access to the Meiers Corners Blood Center. But the mole is a human.”
“And so can move during daylight, when I can’t. Damn.” Logan’s face was grim.
That startled me. Someone in Logan’s household or the Blood Center was an informant for the bad guy? Someone I knew? I pulled up a mental list. Nurse Battle? Johansson? Maybe one of the Steel Security busy bees, but Logan had worked with them forever. Zinnia? Who would be so horrible as to betray Logan?
“I owe you one, Zajicek.”
“Do you? Well, perhaps you can get the Ancient One off my back, hmm?”
Logan’s grimace twisted into an expression of wry humor. “Ask for world peace or an end to hunger. Something easier, please.”
Zajicek inclined his head. “Elias does that which he wishes to do. Well, I have told you what I know. I wish it were more. Someone must stop Ruthven, Steel. This time he goes too far.”
“On that we can agree.”
Logan and I were staying overnight in Chicago. We could have driven back after the concert, but Logan got us a room with a whirlpool. How could I say no a whirlpool? It was a big whirlpool too, room enough for five with mirrors on three walls and the ceiling.
Logan started the tub filling then left the room to make a few phone calls. I took the opportunity to slip out of my clothes and into the water. I didn’t want the vast expanse of my cushioned flesh to interfere with me maybe getting some.
The water was hot, but unfortunately quite clear. A glance at the ceiling mirror showed my rounded stomach and hips. Yuck.
So I started the jets. Tension dropped out of me like anvils releasing, not just because my extra five pounds had disappeared. Ten. All right, fifteen but I think my shoes were at least four of that. The heat, the slap of the water, even the burr of the jets were soothing. I hadn’t realized I was carrying around that much stress. I guess my mom’s cancer, anxiety over my job and all the other little mysteries and uncertainties of the last few days had added up. I still had some anxieties—Ruthven was gunning for me, I didn’t recognize the woman Mom had become and my job was anything but assured.
But I’d stood up to Botcher and I’d stood up to Ruthven and damned if Logan wasn’t right. I was starting to trust my own ability to handle things. If I couldn’t believe in Botcher or even my own mother, I could at least believe in me.
Except…could I trust myself if I had to handle the worst mistake of my life? I stared at the rings on my hands, Botcher’s glass on the right and Logan’s unknown on the left.
What if I could? To take a chance on Logan…a shot at heaven…even the thought made my heart soar and my head spin. Loving him would be happiness beyond the galactic rim. A lifelong relationship with him would be wonderful, paradise…and impossible, if I didn’t come clean about the picture.
But if I told him, could I handle the rejection that was sure to come? Not just firing, although there’d be some of that too. But the shock and horror I’d see in his beautiful golden eyes when he realized I’d betrayed him almost as badly as Ruthven?
Whether I could handle it or not, one thing was crystal clear. I had to confess. Because I couldn’t enjoy sex…handle it, Liese…I couldn’t make love without a clean heart.
The door lock clicked. “Elias confirmed it.” Logan shouldered open the door, dragging through a pedestaled ice bucket. “Ruthven’s on his way to Springfield. I got us some champagne to celebrate.” Grinning, he held up two slim glasses.
Sweet heavens, he was such golden perfection. “Logan, wait. We have to talk.”
“Damn, are you naked under that water? No talk now, sweetheart.” He dropped the bucket, tossed the flutes onto the closest surface and arrowed for the tub. “Love now.”
“Logan—” I held up both hands.
He was coming so fast that I thought he’d jump in fully clothed. But his form wavered for a split second and his clothes dropped like rocks. And when he hit the whirlpool platform he was utterly nude.
His muscles pumped savagely as he vaulted in. “Gorgeous.” His eyes raked over my breasts, which were barely covered by the whirling water. “Slap me all you want, you’re absolutely gorgeous.” He palmed my face and swooped in for a kiss.
I turned, barely avoiding him. His mouth landed on my cheek, which he nibbled with a groan. “You taste even better than before. I’ll never get enough.”
“Logan, stop. You don’t understand. I’ve done something terrible. I need to tell you about it. I…I betrayed you.”
“Later, Liese.” His fingers threaded through my hair and I couldn’t evade his next kiss. His mouth plundered mine until I was breathless.
Even so I made one last attempt. “Logan, I can’t do this until I come clean about something. I was trying to ruin you—mphf.”
He kissed me deeply, tongue stabbing. When he had me thoroughly silenced he nipped my lower lip. “I know about the picture
, princess. And I don’t care. Mmm, you taste delicious.”
The words hit me. I know about the picture. I jerked but his grip was firm. I spoke into his marauding mouth. “I tried to get you fired.”
“Yes, yes.” He pressed me back against the tub with his big body. Kissed me into heaven, licked me with fire.
“You don’t understand,” I said when he let me up for air. “I grafted your head on a smutty picture—”
“Liese, I know. One of my men saw it when we migrated the email and showed me.” He kissed his way to one ear, sucked the lobe into his mouth. I nearly shot through the ceiling mirror. He nipped down my throat to the sensitive hollow at the shoulder. I saw his golden head in the mirror, buried in my neck. His breath was hot on my skin, hotter even than the water.
“Aren’t you mad? I sent that picture to…to Elias. I tried to destroy you.”
Logan’s head turned slightly, and full-length fangs split his lips. I nearly screamed. He sank them into my neck and the world came apart and I did scream. Pleasure zapped me, excitement cascading through my body until I was trembling with need.
The tips of his orgasmic fangs firmly embedded in my flesh, Logan began to physically torment me. His hand cupped first one breast, then the other, testing its weight, teasing the nipple lightly with his thumb.
I was trying very hard not to move, impaled on his fangs. “Don’t you want to…suck, or something?”
He chuckled against my throat. His fingers pinched my nipple. I jumped. It jerked his fangs against my flesh, embedding them deeper. The resultant jolt nearly made me scream again.
“Don’t—” I jerked when he pinched the other nipple. My neck was singing with pleasure so sharp it was exquisite agony. “Logan, please—!”
He pinched a third time, and my vision went black around the edges.
His fingers slipped under the water’s surface, caressing my belly. I was too far gone to care how my rounded flesh felt to him. Besides, he was purring. That deep rumble threaded through the rush of the jets, dark and sensual to my ears. His fingers found my vulva, probed.
I gasped. “How can you know about the picture and still want to…make love to me?”
Logan’s only answer was to sink his fangs deeper and purr against my neck. And to pet my pussy, over and over.
“Logan, I betrayed you.” I arched against the tub, catching sight of his bright blond head bent to my neck in the ceiling mirror, his body, huge and golden, bowed over mine. The water sloshed gently with the movements of his muscular arm. “Doesn’t that make you mad?”
He thrust a finger into me.
I gasped, clutched at the smooth back of the tub. “Are you torturing me? Are you really mad and this is you getting your revenge?”
His fangs slid out of my neck and his tongue pressed, brief and hot, to my skin. “I’m torturing you, princess, but not because I’m mad.” He licked down to where my breasts floated on the bubbling water. Sucking one into his mouth, he sent shocks through the soft mound by simply tonguing the nipple. When I was nearly shrieking he released it to lick toward the other. “I’m not mad. I’m flattered. You put my head on the better-looking body.”
As he licked around my nipple I squirmed on his motionless finger. Anticipation of his strong suckling made me almost crazier than feeling it. “I didn’t have a choice. Nobody’d believe you were the pudgy one.”
“As angry and frightened as you were, that was almost sweet.” He breathed on the nipple. After all that anticipation, it tightened instantly. “You’re so responsive. One of the many things I like about you.” He pulled the nipple into his mouth and sucked.
I shrieked. “The pudgy one…that was Botcher.”
“Then I’m especially flattered,” he said between suckles. “Since you thought we were both liars.”
“I didn’t know it was him at the time.”
“Maybe your subconscious knew.” His finger began moving in and out, gently but relentlessly.
My hips rocked in time. Water slapped against the edge of the tub. “But Logan—how can you ever trust me after I tried to ruin you?” I had done to Logan what Botcher had done to me. Logan should be horrified—heck, I was horrified.
He stopped to raise his head and look deep into my eyes. “Liese.” His gaze was warm gold. “I trust what’s in your heart. You want what’s best for me there, even if sometimes things like fear get in the way.”
And, with a deep breath, he plunged under the water.
His hands spread my thighs. His mouth found me and he clamped on like a wetvac. I gasped. Hot water swirled all over me, but his tongue on my clit was hotter than any of it. He lapped me to climax in about three seconds flat.
I panted and waited for him to surface.
He turned under me, his chin grinding into my pubic bone, his mouth on my slit, and lapped me to a second orgasm. I shuddered as the pleasure caromed through me, longer and more powerful this time. It left me weak and breathless. Panting, I waited for him to surface again. Instead, powerful hands twisted me in the tub, putting me directly in line with one of the jets. Logan pushed me to my knees, held my hips so the gushing water hit me bang in the clit.
Then he thrust his tongue into me like a hot muscular cock.
Pulsing jets of water assaulted me from the front. Logan’s agile, practiced tongue assaulted me from below. I grabbed onto the edge of the tub and came unglued.
He added fingers. I trembled as he thrust and sucked, the hard spray of water beating against the red little berry of my clit. The contrast of my nude pussy with Logan’s ruby mouth, upper lip just starting to bristle with gold, made me quiver. His mouth worked between my legs, hard and insistent. His fingers thrust almost brutally now, the mirrors revealing his stomach muscles clenching with tandem effort.
I peaked…and came. Waves of climax billowed through me, pulsing like the hot jets of water. I gasped and waited for Logan to surface.
But he wasn’t done yet. Thank you, optional respiration. He pushed my hips forward into the tub, pressing my clit directly into the whirlpool nozzle. I shrieked. He dropped his jaw until his big mouth covered my entire pussy. And then, as the geyser of water beat me from the front, Logan bit me.
His fangs went deep into my swollen labia. I cried out, hoarse from my earlier screams. My flushed face confronted me in the mirror, lips wet and glistening, eyelids heavy and almost drugged with pleasure. My breasts heaved with my panted breaths. My body gathered for another climax. Logan bit down harder, thrust with two fingers. Rhythmically, hard. I came, shuddering for what seemed like hours.
And finally he surfaced, sliding up between me and the jet. As the last shudders wracked me, he grabbed my hips and impaled me on his thick erection.
A hoarse shriek was torn from my throat. Logan rode me mercilessly, thrusting up from the water, sheets of it running off his sleek belly and muscled thighs. Waves slapped against the tub, sloshing over the edge as he thrust powerfully. His eyes were closed, his nostrils flared, and the look on his beautiful face was pure bliss. The fangs splitting his masculine lips were long as tusks. My poor exhausted pussy tightened at the sight.
Without losing a beat, he flipped me in the water, pressed me back against the tub. Now a jet pulsed against the bottom of my spine while Logan beat against the front, strong undulations of his hips grinding me relentlessly. I looked up, saw his huge broad shoulders reflected in the mirror, muscles clenching and releasing, my hands small and pale against them. How could any man be so stunningly sexual?
Then Logan sank his fangs deep into my throat, and I thought, Oh, yeah, he’s not a man, just before I exploded.
Exploded. No word could really describe the hard clench of muscles, the sweet rush of pleasure, the flood of well-being. Nothing could prepare me for the intense peace.
And nothing could describe, or prepare me, for love that filled me.
It was true. I loved Logan Steel. And there was nothing I could do about it.
Chapter Eighteen
/> The tweedle of my cell phone saved me from having to reflect on my predicament. I wrapped myself in a towel and sloshed out of the water. Digging around in my purse I managed to find the phone before it went to voicemail. “Hi, Mom.”
“Honey, I have good news.”
“You’re done early with your radiation? You won the lottery? Oh, don’t tell me you found a V-8 vibrator.”
“I’m getting married.”
“You’re—what? When? Who?”
“How, where, why,” Logan added helpfully in my ear, reminding me he was there. I nearly told him to leave the room but supervamp hearing might mean he’d have to leave the country for any conversation to be private.
“Race proposed and I accepted.”
“Mother—” Loving careful words were driven out of my brain. Marrying a vampire? “Are you insane? He left you once already, alone with a baby, remember? How can you trust him after that?” What kind of nutcase female would marry a vam—Logan sucked my earlobe into his mouth and I shivered. Would I marry Logan, if he asked? Assuming that a) he asked and b) he actually made it to the altar.
“Race explained it to me, Liese. He didn’t want to leave but he had no choice.”
“He’s lying. Everyone has a choice. He just couldn’t shoulder the responsibility, couldn’t hack being a dad, so he lammed. Now he wants back in your pants so he’s telling you what you want to hear.”
“Don’t be crude, Liese. He’s not lying. Something happened to him thirty years ago. Something life-altering. I can’t tell you what, but he showed me proof.”
Good grief. Lights clicked on in my head. I punched mute and turned to Logan. “How old is Razor, vampire-wise? Thirty?”
Logan shrugged (damn, he had edible shoulders). “I don’t keep track of Ruthven’s minions. I can find out if you want.”
“Please.” I clicked off mute. “Mother, to be clear—Raz…Race said he left you because that’s when he died and turned vampire?”
“You know about…them?”
“Just found out recently. But he could have come back for you after he converted.”
