Wicked Ride (14 page)

My eye roll said everything,
directing my silent question to Magnus with raised eyebrows. What
now?

Magnus shifted on the couch,
laying one arm across the back as he looked at me with a smile.
“Seems your
dad was skimming the top off my cream.”

My stomach lurched.

My dad tried to stand up from
the recliner as he proclaimed his innocence. “I
wasn’t, Magnus. I swear it. My bookkeeping just got a little
out of whack.”

The big goon put a hand to
Dad’s
shoulder and shoved him back down in this chair.

Goddamn, Dad, I thought.

There
was no doubt in my mind that it wasn’t a simple math screw up.
My dad was a wizard at juggling a dozen different cons and keeping
the money straight. He had been doing it for years for Magnus and
hadn’t ever made a mistake. No, he took that money
intentionally and I knew why.

So I could pay tuition when I
enrolled in a community college this week.

“
How much?” I
asked Magnus, because if this wasn’t made right and done soon,
Magnus was going to do far worse to my dad than a split lip and a
black eye. “I’ll get it for you.”

“
You’re darn right
you will,” Magnus said irritably. “And I’ve got the
perfect con that will net us a small fortune. It’ll more than
cover your dad’s obligation to me, plus a ‘reasonable’
penalty for his shoddy bookwork. There will even be a little bonus
for you. More than enough to help you with some college.”

“
I don’t want any
of the money,” I growled, not even bothering to get the details
on the con he wanted me to help him with. “I said I’m
out. I’m only doing this one job, and then I’m done. But
I want your promise right now if I do this, you’ll leave my dad
alone and he’ll be safe.”

Magnus smiled an evil smile at
me, and I should have taken that as a hint of what was to come.

I should have bothered with
the details of the con before I committed, because I would have never
agreed to this if I’d
known how low I’d have to stoop to pull it off.

Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? I
would have done anything to protect my dad. He may have been a
wayward man, and he may have raised me on the hustle, but he provided
a roof over my head and more love than I could handle when my mom
died, even foregoing his own grief to make sure I was as happy as
possible.

Yeah…
this con isn’t a choice for me. My dad’s life depends on
it, and so I’ll see it through to the end.

***

Logan knocks again on the cabin
door. I shuffle with dread toward it as I know without a doubt he’s
not going to like what I need to tell him. Hell, I’m not going
to like it either, but I need to pull my big-girl panties up and
focus back on the end game.

When I swing the door open, Logan
almost takes my breath away. He’d
recently showered as his hair is still damp along his neckline, and
whatever soap he uses smells crisp and fresh. He’s wearing his
usual “Logan” clothes of jeans and a casual shirt—this
time plaid flannel with sleeves rolled to mid-forearm—along
with a pair of camel-colored hiking boots.

And he stands there in the
sexiest of poses with one hand holding onto the doorframe and the
other shoved in his pocket. He’s
big and looming, and his eyes sparkle with excitement to see me.

Then they drift down, taking in
what I’m wearing,
and his jaw goes rock hard.

For you see, I’m
wearing what I’m thinking of as my “Auralie Virgin”
clothes. Tonight’s ensemble is a floaty white skirt with lace
edges that comes down to my ankles, along with a sky-blue blouse that
sits demurely at my shoulders and cinches at my waist with a chiffon
belt. My hair is tousled and then wrapped in a loose bun I’m
wearing at the side of my neck with a few wispy tendrils pulled lose.

I have no makeup on other than a
little lip gloss, and I can read the thunderous expression in Logan’s
eyes without him needing to say a word to me.
You
are not fucking going to The Silo tonight!

“I have to,” I say
flatly, choosing to use words because communicating with my eyes is
too personal. I have to figure a way to build a barrier up between
us.

I turn and walk back into the
cabin, heading into the kitchen to get my purse off the counter where
I’d left it earlier
today after Logan dropped me off from the fishing trip.

“Absolutely not,”
Logan says from behind me.

Close behind me.

I spin on him. “You
can’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

He’s
so close he runs right into me, his hands going to my arms to hold me
upright so I don’t go crashing to the ground. But he uses my
momentum to his advantage, walking me backward into the kitchen and
right into the refrigerator, which sways backward a few inches before
righting itself.

“You are not going there by
yourself—”

“Fine,” I snap at
him, because I’m feeling every bit of frustration that he is.
“You can come and watch then.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,”
he yells as he releases me, spins away, and places his hands on top
of his head. He looks upward to the ceiling as if it has all the
answers, and then my heart breaks a little when he turns to face me
with pleading eyes. “No, Auralie. Tell him you’re sick
again. I can’t bear to watch you—you—”

“I know,” I say
softly as I push off from the fridge and walk to him. I lay a hand on
his chest, feel the wild gallop his heart, and try to make this
easier on him. “I don’t want that either, but Magnus will
never accept my excuse of being sick. You have to know I don’t
want to do this.”

“Then don’t go,”
he says as his hand comes to mine, and I can’t handle how lost
he sounds at this moment. This man and me… we’ve known
each other barely a week, and yet something has forged tight between
us. It’s my fault for letting it bloom and develop, and I
should have never let him get this deep with me.

I thought I was safe though,
because while I’m
holding much back from Logan, he’s doing the same to me. We may
have a connection, but we really don’t truly know each other.
Not the bad stuff anyway.

I pull my hand away and take a
step back. With a firm voice, I tell him, “Logan…
I don’t want to do this, but trust me when I say I have to go
through with this. I literally don’t have a choice in this
matter—”

“How do you know?” he
interjects with his arms thrown out to the side. “How do you
know unless you let me in on—?”

“I’ve involved you
too much as it is,” I tell him with quiet confidence because
this is a truth beyond all truths. “I should have never let it
go this far. But you are going to have to let me go and let me do
what I have to do. As I said, there’s no choice and you’re
just going to have to accept that.”

“Fuck,” he mutters
and scrubs his hands through his hair again, his eyes cutting across
the kitchen… not really looking at anything but clearly trying
to think of something.

Anything.

He spins on me. “What
does Magnus want you to do tonight?”

I shrug. “A
show. He wants me to put on a show.”

“Then I’ll—”

“He said it has to be with
someone new,” I cut him off, watching his face crumble. My
voice quavers a bit. “Said he wants picture proof.”

“Goddamn, I want to kick
that motherfucker’s ass,” Logan growls, but his eyes look
at me with grim determination. “But I have an idea. Go upstairs
and change out of that shit.”

“But—”

“Just do it,” Logan
barks at me, and if it weren’t for the frustration and almost
near panic in his voice, I’d balk at someone talking to me like
that.

But I don’t
hesitate because if Logan has an idea that will save me from having
to put another man’s dick in my mouth, and still let me put on
a show for Magnus’ liking, then I’m all for it. I turn
around and scramble toward the staircase, mentally putting together a
new wardrobe outfit.

Logan

Jealous.

I’m
goddamned jealous.

An emotion I don’t
have in me.

Fuck…
I never even got jealous if another man looked at Donna in an
unseemly manner. I was such a cocky, egotistical son of a bitch in
those days that it never once crossed my mind I should be jealous.
That Donna might look back. I mean, she never did. Not that I know
of, but still… I never once even had the humble grace to think
a woman would want anyone else but me.

And now, here I am about ready to
commit violence at the thought of Auralie even walking in that Silo.
Forget about her sucking strange cock…
I don’t even want those fuckers to have their eyes on her.

That’s
how fucking green this jealousy is.

And I don’t
have any good way out of this if Auralie truly believes she has to go
through with it. She doesn’t need to convince me how
distasteful this is. I see it in her eyes and the way she nervously
fidgets beside me in my truck as we head to The Silo. I could also
hear it in her tone of voice, how very sorry she was to be doing this
to me. I read it loud and clear in her expression that this was an
emotionless job she had to do and she was by God going to do it,
despite how badly it might make either one of us feel. Whatever her
obligation is, it’s something that runs deeper than whatever
feelings she might have developed for me, and goddamn fuck it all to
hell… even that makes me jealous.

But I do have something of an
idea that might alleviate a bit of stress off Auralie, and possibly
off me. It’s not
optimal, but I think it’s something I could live with.

I think.

Maybe.

Fuck…
I don’t know.

***

“You want me to do what?”
Bridger asks, his eyebrows practically crawling onto the top of his
head.

“I want you to let Auralie
suck your dick,” I say again, my eyes cutting to the office
door where Bridger sits behind his desk. I left Auralie out in the
hallway, preferring to lay this shit out to Bridger in private.

“Has the bright sun
reflecting off the Snake River baked your fucking brain?” he
asks me with narrowed eyes.

I disregard his snarky tone and
pin him with a glare. If he’s
as adept at reading me as Auralie is, he’ll understand I’ll
kick his motherfucking ass if he doesn’t stop fucking with me

But still, I guess I owe the dude
some context.

Taking a deep breath, I let it
out and say, “Okay.
Hear me out. You see… I’ve been seeing Auralie—”

“Dude, if you popped that
cherry, you’ve probably put her in danger,” Bridger cuts
in darkly. “That Magnus asshole is bad news.”

I shake my head and hold my hand
up. “I didn’t
have sex with her. Well, no penetration, but we’ve…
well… we’ve been fooling around.”

Bridger leans back in his chair,
crosses his arms over his chest, and skeptically cocks an eyebrow at
me.

“Okay, fine,” I
grumble. “We’ve been spending time together, and we have
this… I don’t know… there’s a connection
that I can’t explain. I’ve never felt it with anyone, and
so I’m intrigued by it, but it also scares the fuck out of me,
you know—”

I don’t
give him an opportunity to even nod in agreement with me.

“—but the thing is,
she’s got herself into some bad shit. She does not want to be
involved in this… whatever the fuck this is with Magnus
selling off her virginity. She sure as fuck doesn’t want to be
sucking other men’s cocks or parading around naked like Magnus’
little pet. And man, Bridger… that selling off your virginity…
that’s fucked up. Giving that up should be special, to someone
who cares about you… not some fucking high bidder.”

“Someone like you,”
Bridger says with a knowing grin.

“Exactly,” I say from
more of a reactionary place rather than from within the boundaries of
reality. So I start to backpedal. “Well, no… that’s
not what I’m saying. I mean, yeah… if she wanted to gift
that to me, sure… but it shouldn’t be in some seedy sex
club.”

Bridger’s
face darkens.

“Sorry,” I mutter.
“Your place isn’t seedy, and you know I love it.”

“Really?” he says
sarcastically. “Because I haven’t seen you fuck someone
in here in almost a full week.”

“That’s beside the
point,” I snap at him.

“No,” Bridger says
calmly. “That’s the exact point. I think what you’re
trying to say is that Auralie’s in a bad spot, she can’t
get out of it, you care for her, and you need some help tonight.”

My breath comes out in one long
rush of relief.

He totally gets me.

“Yes,” I say as I
walk up to his desk, put my palms on it, and lean in closer. “Magnus
is back home in New York, taking care of some business. He demanded
she come in here and put on a show, meaning he wants her to bestow a
hot cock suck on someone. Can’t be me. Woolf, Cain, and Rand
are out of the question now that they’ve gotten tied down.
You’re the only other one I trust.”

“Trust to do what?”
Bridger asks. “You know not a member in here would hurt her.”

“It’s not that,”
I grumble, my fingers going back to scrape along the back of my neck,
which is knotted with tension.

“Not to enjoy it?” he
asks quietly. “Because I’m sorry, Logan. She sucks my
cock, I’m going to enjoy it.”

“No,” I growl,
frustrated it has to be this way and beyond pissed he’s making
me say this. “I know you’ll enjoy it and that’s
fine. But I trust you to feel bad about what it’s doing to me.”

Bridger is a tough son of a bitch
98.3% of the time. But that other 1.7%, he can surprise you with
uncharacteristic displays of caring and compassion. Like right now…
his eyes get a little bit soft as he takes in my most embarrassing
confession and merely nods at me.