my face since walking out of Teatro alla Scala. Being there, feeling the emotions running through the opera house from every person in there is the experience I’ve only dreamed about.
Logan swipes his key card, and the penthouse level lights up on the elevator display panel. I sink back against the wall with a sigh as it begins to climb.
“You glad we came back to Milan now?” Logan asks.
“Yes.”
“Even if you have to share a penthouse with me?” He cocks one thick brow, his signature smirk playing on his lips.
“I’d share a cardboard box with you after that show.” I sigh again as Logan chuckles. “It’s what I love. The story, the passion, the heartbreak.”
“The woman killing herself,” Logan says.
I shake my head, straightening my back away from the wall. “She died because of her love for him. Pinkerton married someone else and it broke Butterfly.”
Logan smiles. “Ah, that’s what I’ve been doing wrong. Forget the dating apps. The best way to find a woman is to marry someone else.”
A clouded expression passes over his face as though he’s just processed what he’s said.
“I don’t think that’s the moral of the story.” I shrug a shoulder, still riding my high.
My smile slips on one side as Logan meets my gaze, an unfamiliar look in his eyes.
“I thought you went on those apps for fun?” I narrow my eyes and study him.
He looks away from me.
“Logan?” I move to face him and see the seriousness taking over his face. “Oh my god!” I laugh in delight. “Seriously? The billionaire playboy actually wants to find love? And here’s me thinking you have those apps because you’re shallow and think with your dick. Tell me…” I tease, “… What’s wrong with them all? Why is no one perfect enough for Mr. Perfect himself, huh?”
“Leave it, Mads.”
“Do they not laugh at your bad jokes?” I smirk, tapping a finger against my lips. “Or maybe they have better jokes than you and you don’t like it.”
“Mads,” Logan snaps. “I said leave it.”
The atmosphere in the elevator plummets to icy. What’s gotten into him? We were having a great time when we left the opera. I was actually enjoying his company instead of enduring it. And now he’s acting all weird.
The elevator stops and Logan strides out when the doors open, heading to the penthouse. He opens the door, standing back so I can go inside first.
I step through and whirl to face him, a strange giddiness inside that I have something to toy with him about. I doubt he really has been a closet romantic all these years, but whatever it is, I’m getting to him, and it makes me feel strong, in control. I’m the one poking fun at his weakness for once. This is minor payback for the loneliness he made me feel years ago and all the jibes he’s made since.
“I’m not going to leave it,” I sing playfully. “I’m having way too much fun.”
I walk backward into the open living space as Logan follows, his eyes cast down, pulling off his bowtie as he walks.
“Can dish it out but can’t take it, eh?”
His eyes meet mine, flashing with something, before he walks over to the minibar, taking out two miniature bottles of something dark and pouring two glasses. He walks over to me and holds one out. I take it, knocking it back in one, the heat from the liquid fueling the manic fire that’s ignited in my gut, burning with years of frustration. Years of hatred.
Logan schools his features as I place the empty glass onto the sideboard before he’s even taken a sip from his.
I poke out my bottom lip, unable to resist goading him further. This is… fun. This is what we do. Me and him.
“Aww.” I pout. “Does the prince of pleasure get lonely at night, waiting for his princess to find him? Empty sex losing its shine?”
“Stop,” he growls in warning, his jaw tightening as he raises his glass to his lips. He sucks in sharply through his nose before knocking back his drink in one.
I laugh, my hands wrapping around the edges of the sideboard as I lean against it.
“Come on. Tonight’s been a great night. Give me something back. Where’s the asshole Logan that’s always ready to bring me down and put me in my place, huh?”
“You want me to be an asshole?” He steps closer, his fingers flexing around his empty glass.
“Why not? You’re so good at it.” I do a good job of mimicking his signature smirk as I look at him. But I’m met with a frown and stormy eyes.
He takes another step closer. A vein is pulsing wildly in his neck. I zero in on it, fascinated that tonight I’m getting to him. I’m making him as mad as he makes me.
It’s oddly thrilling, and yet, something else too. I shake off the hint of empathy trying to poke at me. He’s not really mad. This is how we are together. Only it’s usually him winding me up and me taking it.
He should play fair and let me have a go for a change.
“I guess growing up being protected gives you the freedom to be whatever you want.” My eyes flick up and down his broad body in his tuxedo. It’s radiating heat as he stands rigid mere inches from me. “And you chose to be… you,” I deliver the last word clipped and precise in a sickly-sweet tone.
“And who exactly am I seeing as you know so fucking well?”
The venom in his tone surprises me, but I conceal my shock as my hands tighten around the wooden edge of the sideboard. It digs into my back as Logan moves closer still, forcing me to push backward unless I want our chests to touch.
“Well?” he presses, a glinting challenge in his eyes.
I stare into intense green eyes. He’s never asked me why I hate him before. Never given me that opportunity. If I’ve ever plucked up the courage in the past to say something, he’s stolen it from me with his jokes and teasing. I gave up trying to talk to Logan years ago. But now he’s laying himself bare and asking what I think. It could be a trap that he will turn back onto me somehow. But regardless, my skin pricks with adrenaline at the chance to finally tell him.
I intend to savor every second.
I let my eyes convey everything I’ve ever felt in his presence as I open my veins and let the words bleed out.
“You’re the guy who got away with it and watched as his friend took all the punishment. The guy who followed his sister home from school when all she wanted was her brother. The reason she walked alone every day. The guy who made sure she didn’t have a date to prom because everyone thought she had crabs. The guy who laughed about it. Laughed at her.”
I jab a finger into his chest, but he doesn’t even flinch. He just holds my eyes with a cold stare.
“You’re the guy who, for whatever reason, decided he hated her first, before she hated you,” I spit finally, dragging in a deep breath that makes my lungs burn like they’re on fire.
It’s the first time I’ve ever said those words out loud to him.
And I want it to hurt.
I want it to rip him up deep inside. To feel like someone has crawled inside him and is destroying him from the inside out. The way he made me feel all those years ago.
And now that it’s out, I feel… better? At least, I should. But the only sensation I’m aware of is the bottoming out of my gut as Logan stares at me without a trace of regret on his face.
Why isn’t he reacting? Doing something? Anything?
He just continues to stand painfully close to me, his green eyes scorching in their intensity as he stares into mine, his mouth set in a grim line.
His lack of reaction makes my heart pound painfully in my chest. He made my life hell for six whole months while Drew was gone. And he hasn’t stopped since. We’ve just grown up, and I’ve gained distance from him. Reprieve.
The least he can do is say something.
I rake my gaze over him in disgust. The mood in the room is toxic. I lost exactly where our banter changed to something dark and ugly. But now the truth is laid bare, in all its messed-up glory.
“Maybe it was all a game to you,” I choke, my voice catching. “But it was my fucking life you were playing with. Mine and Drew’s. He didn’t have Daddy’s money to protect him.”
Logan grimaces, but his eyes maintain the intensity that’s penetrating my skin and ravaging through me like acid.
When he finally speaks, his voice is low and jagged.
“No. Drew didn’t have anyone protecting him. But if you think my dad bought my way out, then you’re wrong. You don’t know shit, Mads.”
I snort.
“And you’re a bigger spoiled Daddy’s princess than I thought.”
My arms shake with rage by my sides. “I hate you.”
He leans close enough that our foreheads almost touch as he spits, “So you keep telling me.”
“So get out of my face.”
He leans closer. My chest rises and falls in labored breaths as his body presses up against mine and his hips push into me.
I feel his arousal instantly, hard and thick between us. I refuse to move away and show weakness, so I stay with it pressed against me.
“Get the fuck out of my head and I will,” he growls.
Both of us stare at the other with a mix of fury and something else swirling in the thin slice of space that still exists between us.
There’s a soft thud as Logan drops his glass onto the thick carpet.
“I said…” His lips hover above mine.
He smells like brandy. Warm and dangerous.
“Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. Head.”
He reaches up and holds my face between his palms. I’m too stunned to move.
Until he smashes his lips against mine.
A searing kiss.
It’s rough, commanding, and entitled. Like he has every right to do it. Like I’m his.
His tongue finds mine, and someone moans.
Me.
“What are you doing?” I gasp, ripping my lips from his.
His eyes are dark, lust entwined with anger.
“Giving us both a release.”
“What—?”
He cuts me off by swiping his thumb over my bottom lip, before pushing it into my mouth. He runs the pad over the tip of my tongue, narrowing his eyes as he watches it.
A small whimper escapes my throat, and Logan smirks.
I wrench my mouth away.
“I don’t want anything from you,” I hiss.
He looks at the shining wetness coating his thumb. Something dangerous flickers in his gaze as he brings his hand to his mouth and swipes his thumb over his tongue, tasting it. Tasting me.
A deep rumble fills the back of his throat as his eyes drop back to my mouth.
“You don’t want anything from me?” he rasps.
“God, no.” I grimace.
“You sure about that?”
He rolls his hips and his erection presses against me. Instinctively, I part my legs, my heartrate spiking as my breath catches in my throat.
Another tiny moan slips free.
“I don’t want you,” I repeat as he brings his signature smirk so close to my mouth that my breath becomes his.
“You don’t?” he breathes.
“No.”
“Then kiss me because you hate me. And because it’s what we both need.”
His lips brush mine, leaving them tingling.
“I don’t need you. I’ll never need you.”
He licks the seam of my mouth, making me shudder.
“Okay,” he whispers.
He moves away, leaving me cold. My cheeks flare with heat and my lips thrum with energy.
I blink as he holds my eyes, a million thoughts running through my mind over why I hate this man. Why I’ve hated him for years. I want to hit him. Pound his chest with my fists until he begs me to stop. Give myself what I so desperately need.
A release.
It’s overwhelming, the desire to affect him, to do something, to…
“You’re an asshole.”
My words are instantly buried, working their way down his throat as I grab his shirt with both hands and yank him toward me.
He comes without hesitation.
He curls one hand around the back of my neck and slides the other inside the thigh-high split of my dress.
“You know what kind of asshole I am?”
“I can think of a few kinds.”
I don’t stifle my gasp in time, and it breaks free as he runs his thumb beneath the garter belt, pulling it back, then letting it snap against my skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
“An asshole that’s thought about nothing other than touching you since the moment I saw you in this dress.” He grabs a handful of my thigh.
“So be the asshole that touches me,” I taunt.
Time pauses for one heartbeat.
And as it re-starts, we crash together spectacularly.
I gasp into Logan’s mouth as he kisses me back with the ferocity to match mine. Tongues, teeth, lips, all clash and take from the other. A never-ending duel with no clear winner. I bite his bottom lip and he repays me by sliding his hand to the front of my drenched silk panties and balling them inside his fist.
“Fuck, you’re soaking. Don’t lie and say it’s because you haven’t thought about this.”
“I haven’t.”
“Liar.”
“Fuck—”
He rips my panties, the delicate silk a weak opponent. Then he slips two fingers inside me without hesitation.
“—off,” I gasp, pulling my lips from his so I’m able to breathe.
Logan chuckles. And it’s as dark as his eyes as he stares at me, twisting his wrist until he’s stroking my G-spot arrogantly, confident in his ability to make me unravel.
I drop my hand to grip his wrist, keeping him in the perfect spot. The tendons in his forearm flex as he finger-fucks me with the precision of someone who knows my body like he’s studied it daily.
“Try lying again and telling me you don’t like this.” His eyes roam over my face and come to rest on my parted lips. “Your cream’s filling my palm,” he sneers.
I tighten my hold on his wrist, unable to reply as his movements draw more wetness from me.
“I—”
He pulls his fingers back.
My body sags forward at the loss, and I lift my eyes to his.
He licks his lips, then sucks his fingers. His breath catches as he cleans my arousal off them, making a wet sound as he pops them free.
“You know what you taste like, Mads?”
“Pretty sure you’re about to tell me,” I snipe.
“You taste like you enjoy being fingered by the guy you insist is an asshole—warm and sweet. I bet your pussy will be throwing orgasms at him like fucking confetti, given the chance.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
His eyes narrow at the corners, and he drops a hand to the zipper of his pants like he’s still considering his next move.
I glance down. The dark fabric is straining against the bulge of his erection.
I look back into his eyes in challenge, holding my breath.
He swallows, unblinking as he returns my stare.
Then the sound of his zipper being slowly dragged down slices through the air.
My clit throbs painfully and all sane thoughts evaporate, fueled by lust.
I push his hand away and grab his zipper, yanking it all the way down. His pupils blow wide and then he starts moving, helping me to rid him of his tuxedo’s cummerbund. I tear his shirt from his pants and together we force his pants and underwear out of the way.
He grabs my thighs, wrapping them around his hips as he lifts me on top of the sideboard.
Then he sinks his cock inside me.
I feel every thick inch as he pushes inside me, stretching me to take him. His eyes don’t lose mine for a second. I have every opportunity to stop him. Enough time to say no.
But my choice was made before he even kissed me.
I’ve hated Logan Rich for years. And in a sick, twisted way, this is exactly what I need. So instead, I stare into his eyes, silent except for my hitched breath passing through my lips as he melds our bodies into one.
He curses as he pushes the final inch inside me until his balls meet my skin. My body throbs.
“This what you wanted?” he grits, his palms spread over my hips. “To be stuffed full of my cock.”
“Don’t kid yourself.” I gather my breath as I get used to his size. He’s bigger than anyone else I’ve ever known. “I’ve felt better.”
“Really?” His fingers dig into my hips, and he holds himself still like he’s fighting to maintain control.
“Really.”
My pussy clenches around him before I can stop it.
He draws back and then thrusts back inside, making the air whoosh from my lungs as I cry out.
“You sure about that?”
He pulls back and drives inside me again with a deep hiss. My eyes fall closed as I succumb to the pleasure rippling through me.
“Look at the guy you hate while he fucks you, Mads,” he growls.
My mouth parts as Logan fucks me with punishing thrusts. My ass gets thrown further back on the sideboard with each one, and each time he drags me back onto his cock, burying himself deeper inside me.
We move together, making the sideboard bang against the wall. Silent hatred burns between us as our foreheads press together and our breath mingles, sharing pants and groans of pure physical pleasure.
Nothing more.
He attacks my mouth with a kiss, making my chest clench and my heart race. I grab fistfuls of his hair in both of my hands, and I moan around his tongue as something shifts inside my mind that I refuse to acknowledge.
Thinking in this moment is dangerous.
I break away, my lips tingling. A flash of something passes through Logan’s eyes as we stare at each other, panting. I ball up the bottom edges of his shirt and pull him back, crashing my lips back onto his.
He drives his hips faster to meet me with more force.
I thought he was fucking me hard before, but his thrusts grow fiercer, wilder, accompanied by deep, rough groans that sound like they’re being dragged from deep inside his chest. The sound of them only makes me wetter.
He kisses me again, nipping at my bottom lip, and then he draws back, casting his eyes down to where his cock is driving inside my body.
“Fuck,” he breathes.
His grip tightens on one of my hips as he slides his other hand between my legs, using his thumb to rub my clit in deliberate circles.
My eyes dart from his thumb to his face and back again.
And the bastard smirks.
“You can admit it feels good.”
He knows I’m about to come. And he’s the one who’s giving it to me.
“Get that smirk off your face,” I say through a whimper of pleasure. “This means nothing. I hate you, remember?”
Logan presses his thumb harder against my clit, and my back arches as pleasure singes between my thighs.
“There’s nothing hateful about the way your pussy’s gripping onto my cock right now though, is there? Desperate for me to make you come all over it.”
“You’re insufferable,” I pant as the pressure builds, making my vision blur.
Logan cants his hips, and the movement makes me gasp. His eyes glitter with arrogance.
“Suffer through how hard I make you come for me.” He leans closer so his lips graze my ear. “You can even scream out my name if you like. Because I know you’ll be screaming it inside your head.”
“Fuck y—” The words die in my throat as the orgasm hits me, stealing my air, my vision, and my mind at the same time as it ravages my body.
And in this moment, I hate Logan Rich even more.
Because I scream his name. I scream it inside my head. I scream it out loud. A confused, emotional shout. A gasp. Then a curse. Then another gasp. And finally, a whimpered cry as surge after surge of pure electric bliss rips through my body, stripping it of all its bones, until I’m putty inside his strong hands.
I tear my eyes open and watch him watching me. He’s still thrusting into me, his cock sliding with ease now that my body has released and opened up to him, covering him in more wetness.
I expect words. Taunting. Instead, he looks at me in silent lust.
Just that smug, arrogant smirk on his face.
I shudder as he fucks me through my orgasm to the other side. Except there is no other side. I’m suspended inside it, the pleasure refusing to leave my body, hanging on tight for the ride, the feel of him inside me too goddamn good to give up.
I look down. My body is stretched obscenely to take him.
He tuts to bring my eyes back to his face. “When you’re still feeling me inside you tomorrow…” He thrusts deep. “You can say thank you.”
My eyes widen as the reality of what’s about to happen sinks in.
“No!” I shake my head. “Don’t you dare. I don’t want it.”
“Yet you’re the one pulling me deeper,” he tsks.
My hands are gripping his ass cheeks so hard that my nails must be puncturing his skin. But I can’t move them.
“Just let go, Mads. And I’ll stop,” he groans as his cock thickens inside me.
But I can’t. Despite the horror of what’s coming, I can’t let go. My head is screaming no. But my hands are tightening their grip on Logan’s muscular ass as my lips whimper and moan sounds of encouragement. Traitors.
He dips his head, leaning down to whisper in my ear, “Last chance.”
I shake my head, fury in my eyes as his pupils blow wide. Every muscle in his body seems to tense at once.
“Too. Late. Now,” he grits.
Then he groans, and I swear heat fires into every space inside me as he comes. His eyes glow with a menacing darkness, his lips curling into the smirk I hate so much as his cock pumps out inside me, his release burning me inside.
He digs his fingers deep into the skin around my hips and growls my name.
“Mads, fuck, take it, baby.”
“You asshole…”
My words of disgust shrivel as my body decides that the sensation of Logan’s cock thickening and pulsing inside me is too much.
I explode into another orgasm around him, even bigger than the first one.
“No,” I cry, my entire body quivering as sweat beads along my hairline, and a drop rolls between my breasts. “I don’t want it. I—” I gasp as another surge hits me. “Oh my god… Yes.”
“There it is,” Logan growls with a sinful smile. He leans forward and drives inside me with more determination, like he’s trying to push everything he’s released deeper inside my body.
My mouth falls slack as I continue coming in helpless waves around him.
“There it fucking is,” he grunts. And then he wraps a hand around my throat, pulling my face to his to kiss me.
All I can do is breathe through the pulses searing through my body as Logan growls and curses, his orgasm stretching on, and spilling inside me.
And I hate that I love it so much. Because I’d never have dreamed of doing this with Logan before this trip. I’d never have let my guard slip and gotten close to him. All the watching Italian weddings together, making wishes in fountains, opening up about why I love books so much… I’ve let him get close, see the real me. I shouldn’t have put myself in a position of being vulnerable with him. Not again.
I let him kiss me long after I’ve whimpered the remnants of my second orgasm against his lips. He swallowed every moan down like it belonged to him.
We kiss long after the final pulses of his dick can no longer be felt inside me, until his kisses turn gentle and he sucks on my bottom lip, his fingers caressing my neck in sweeping, tender strokes.
“Better?” he whispers.
I breathe, not knowing what else to do. The second I say something, or move, the moment will be over. He’ll pull out of my body. Some of his cum will be dragged out with his cock. The rest will remain lodged deep inside me.
And I’ll be left alone.
With a part of him inside me. Still feeling him.
Never the same.
Left to face the consequences.
“We didn’t use a condom.”
Logan flexes deep inside me with a grin. “I know. It felt incredible.”
I make a sound of disgust, and he grabs my chin, bringing my eyes to his. His eyes burn like green flames, his grin gone.
“You said ‘we’, but your tone implied you think I was the only one in this.” His pupils dilate with the anger in his clipped voice. Something about it re-ignites a spark of my own. I don’t know how to do anything with Logan other than fight.
It’s what we do.
“Well, I’m sorry for being upset about the fact that I’ve never had a man come inside me before. And yet, stupidity allowed me to lose all sense of reason, and I let you, of all people, be the first. I’m on birth control, thank God. But do you even know if you’re clean?” I glare at him, appalled with my body as it flutters deep in my core when he shifts inside me.
“’Course I’m fucking clean. You think I’d touch you if I wasn’t? I’ve never not used one before… Jesus. I know you think I’m an asshole, Mads. You tell me often enough. But I’m not a sadist.”
My lips part before I snap them closed again, something twisted blossoming in my chest as he confirms I’m his first. A first for both of us.
“I’m surprised, that’s all.”
“Surprised?”
Hurt laces Logan’s voice. I can’t bring myself to meet his eyes, so I stare to the side as he withdraws out of me and fastens his pants.
“Well, I’m pretty sure I have your nail marks in my ass proving that you wanted it as much as me,” he hisses, dragging a hand down his face before turning away.
I bring my legs together, ignoring the throb between them and my torn panties hanging around my hips as I stand and smooth down my dress. My legs tremble.
Logan’s back tenses beneath his tuxedo jacket. I’m not being fair. I might be confused as hell over what happened. But I can’t blame him for all of it. I can’t imply for a second that he took something from me that I didn’t give freely.
We both must accept the gravity of what happened between us.
“You’re right,” I croak. “It’s my fault too. In fact, it’s all my fault. I should never have—”
“Don’t—” He inclines his chin over his shoulder but doesn’t look at me. “Just don’t.”
I step toward him, then think better of it. What can I say? I can’t undo what happened, even if we are both regretting it already. I don’t even understand it or where it came from.
But I can’t stand here and watch the waves of anger and regret roll from him in front of my eyes.
It’s too much.
“I…I’m going to bed.” I pause, but he doesn’t look at me. “Thank you for the opera.”
As I leave, he curses softly, barely loud enough for me to hear. My step falters, but I keep walking.
