Ellie
“Come on, Ellie; you’re the one who went home with him and here you are angry with me? Unbelievable. You wouldn’t speak to me on the drive home, and you still refuse to talk to me. I told you when we left Logan’s place; he isn’t married. He doesn’t have a girlfriend, so what’s the big deal? It’s not as if you haven’t already slept with him. Talk to me. He’s asked Eric twice for your number. I’m going to give it to him if you don’t talk to me.”
The big deal? Oh, I could rattle off a half dozen of big deals and Norah will still try to get to the detonator button to set me off.
Push and explode.
I smash my eyes closed against the swell of potency that is Logan Mitchell. It hasn’t left me since I walked out of his door. The man is so powerful, so influential; he’s taking up all the space in my mind, and it terrifies me that he’s there. I’ve allowed him to place a crack in my walls. It won’t be long before the big brute of a man tries smashing them to smithereens.
Blowing out an aggravated sigh, I finish the window display I’ve been piecing together between customers most of the day. Our little consignment shop called Ebony and Ivory doesn’t make us wealthy, but it pays the bills and gives me the necessities I need to live.
I’m proud of our store, and I believe my parents would be too. It puts a smile on my face when a single mother walks in here with her kids, and they walk out with bigger ones on their cute faces. Carrying bags full of clothes, shoes, and accessories they couldn’t afford anywhere else.
“It’s not the clothes, the hair, the jewelry or any expensive thing you wear. It’s the way you carry yourself underneath that makes up you. Hold your head high, push your shoulders back and show the world you matter. If you always remember that, Ellie, whatever you do will be successful.”
My mother told me that every time we went shopping. At the time, I didn’t understand. Now it’s the motto Norah and I painted above the awning outside.
“I slept with him, not him and others. Logan owns a sex club, Norah. How many women do you think he’s slept with since me, before me? God, don’t answer that. Let me absorb this, and maybe I’ll forgive you, it’s just going to take a while to forget you betrayed me.” I suck in a breath, shame sliding in with it.
Norah is the last person in the world I thought would let me down and that hurts more than her deceiving me.
“The last thing I need is to get involved with a man like Logan Mitchell. I will not be with a man who wants other women. I am not made that way, Norah, and you know it.”
It doesn’t matter how good-looking or sexy he is. How he told me he didn’t teach anymore, how energy races through my skin when he’s near, how I love the way he draws some primal need out of me with his dirty talk. He’s hazardous. But damn can the man take me to a place called paradise.
Pleasure-seeking intoxication.
Even though I have nothing but a nightmare to compare Logan to, I’m sure the way he screwed me until I was coming over and over is from all the women he slept with before me. It’s not that he’s more experienced, hell, everyone is. It’s how he went about getting it that bothers me. I have every right to feel the way I do. And in finding that out lowers my self-esteem below existence.
Makes me angry at myself how I didn’t pay attention to my surroundings when I followed Logan to his home the night we met. If I had, that familiar feeling of being there would have slapped me upside the head like a two-ton brick. I would have bolted out the door and never looked back.
Logan is all dark and broody and mysterious. The kind of man who could easily convince you to jump in the sack with him with one little twitch of his talented mouth.
It’s frightening how I can still feel him everywhere too. Skin tingling as if those eyes were roaming over my body, his big hands following behind. Making me scream and shudder and shake. The man turns me on and scares me. It’s a puzzling feeling two differing emotions at the same time.
Makes me want to pull my hair out.
“You don’t know what Logan’s done since that night, Ellie. Have you talked to Eric yet? He feels awful. I can tell you he said Logan doesn’t come out of his office since the night you went home with him, and newsflash, my friend; you weren’t raised to judge people either.”
Guilt anchors down my throat, and I’m instantly drowning in it. She’s right, I wasn’t.
“I talked to Eric this morning. We’re fine. I’m not judging anyone. You should have told me, Norah. I couldn’t care less if he lives there. Let me give you a piece of old news. Do you remember the guy who would sit in the car with Shadow across the street? Logan, he’s that guy, Norah.”
Now that my shock has worn off and Logan isn’t all up in my space with his apologies and addictive smell, those soul-sucking eyes and the intensity between us. The intoxicating lust and hostility swirling around, my hardness has returned, and Norah is the one getting the brunt of it. I’m not the type to let someone toy with my life or my feelings. I did enough of that with the danger I have a feeling is about to tilt my world again.
It doesn’t matter what Logan said about him not being like Shadow, I don’t trust him, and after this, the man would need a damn good explanation for me ever to consider it.
“What? Are you sure? Did he bring it up? I mean, what did he say? Where’s Shadow now? Whitney and Elizabeth?” It’s her turn to be shocked. She stares at me, her mouth parted, eyes slightly bugging.
It’s what he didn’t say that has me this close to becoming an unsteady mess.
I’m overwhelmed with the need to know what he’s up to. To let him take and give what I need because there’s something about him that makes me want to feel, but that’s my choice to make — not his, and not Norah’s. Not anyone’s.
A tremor crawls through my being. A distinctive one that if Logan were to walk through our door right now, he’d draw me toward him, a prisoner held captive, edging toward the cliff and falling toward all of his carved, molded rock solid muscles. God, I’ve never wanted to lick and feel and watch a man’s body unravel under my tongue in all my life.
Quite comical when I’ve never given a blow job or had willing sex until him in my twenty-eight years.
He left me with a night to remember, and that’s the way it should stay.
“Yes, I’m sure, and if you tell your mother before I do, I will never speak to you again. I’m not sure where Shadow and Whitney are, Logan told me Elizabeth is dead though. Don’t give Logan my number either. I’m not angry, Norah, I’m hurt. If you can’t see how wrong it was to blindside me like that, then you’re the one with a problem.” God, I don’t want to discuss this anymore. If only I could be lucky enough that the information I’ve given her would stun her mute, then I wouldn’t have to.
“Logan faults himself for what Shadow did to me. At least that’s what he said.” I’ve never in my life felt another person’s guilt before, but then again, the man has me twisted all up, I don’t know what to believe. Truth or lie? I’m not sure. It makes everything about him much more confusing and questionable.
Gritting my teeth, I make my way around her and head to the back of the store, grabbing the pile of designer jeans I priced this morning. Right now I want to finish the day and go upstairs, lock myself away for a little while, down a couple of shots and think, but I know that’s not going to happen, so I brace myself for whatever it is Norah has to say.
“Wow. At least one of them is rotting in hell. Logan’s guilt goes to show he isn’t out to hurt you, Ellie. If he wanted to, don’t you think he would have by now? Logan is the first man you’ve ever shown an interest to, as in ever. Sure you’ve dated, but you weren’t the one watching the two of you the night you met him. I was. He made you smile; he made you feel good about yourself. He couldn’t take his eyes off you. I saw it, and excuse the hell out of me if I want my best friend to be happy. Those women who looked at us like we were nothing are jealous of you, and they have a right to be. You are beautiful Ellie. I won’t say I’m sorry when I’m not.”
Norah knows I couldn’t care less what others think of me, and yet I did. I let those women get to me, and I allowed one night with a man bust me wide open.
There are a hundred things I want to say right now about those women. If I open that stinky can of worms, we will end up being here all night. Upper class once debutante snobs who would scream bloody murder if they got their precious hands dirty. Yeah, I know their kind — socialites who think themselves above everyone else when they have more skeletons in their closet than most people. The majority probably haven’t worked an honest day in their lives unless you count lying flat on your back with your legs wide open.
Not that women who choose to stay home aren’t hard workers. I’ve no doubt most are. These women though, they are unlike any I’ve seen, including ones on those reality television shows.
I see the kind of man Logan is too, the man hiding behind a wall of secrets, and like a stupid woman, he’s going to suck me into his winded vortex and leave me breathless. If I let him devour my body again, I can see myself wanting more, and something strikes me dead center, screaming loud Logan Mitchell is about to bring my past into my life.
Very capable of killing me.
A shiver of fear, a warning whispers in my ear from a night that changed my life forever, it crawls like little insects all over me as it bites and burns.
My entire being shakes, and I drop the jeans all over the floor. My chest tightens as I press my hands to my head and fall to my knees.
Unwrapping my arms from around my stomach, I shook my head, lifted my dress and ran when a man I did my best to avoid, climbed out of a muscle car that pulled up alongside the curb, asking if I wanted to have a good time.
Fear sprinted at the devious chuckle rumbling out of his disgusting mouth.
“Fuck off, Shadow,” I’d said. “You and your sister are nothing but pond scum. Bottom feeders who use people. What should I expect when you were brought up by a woman who uses men to work her way to the top.”
Up until the creep graduated high-school, he provoked and cornered me, always thrusting his erection into my backside, grabbing and shadowing me. He would follow me and pin me with stares that if I allowed, would have had me running. The guy is a lunatic.
“At least I have a mother to raise me. Have to say though, every time I see you, you blossom more. Wonder how that hole between your legs would open for me?”
I folded my arms across my chest as if they’d hold in the cries and heartache and fear from the viciousness of his words.
“You are sick. You better leave me alone, or when I get home, I’m going in, grabbing my gun and shooting your pencil dick off.”
Malicious laughter rang. Loud and disturbing.
The asshole comes around once or so a month and sits outside our house. Always when I’m home by myself.
I hate him and want him dead.
“After tonight, I won’t be sitting outside your little shoebox house anymore. I have a kingdom to make larger. Get in the car, Ellie. I’ve been waiting a long time to fuck you, to tie you up and make you mine. I’ll show you just how big my dick is.”
Panic clawed at my chest.
I took off in a sprint when suddenly his car slammed to a halt, and heavy footsteps hit the sidewalk behind me. My arms and legs were burning as I rounded the corner just a half block from home. I let out a scream, hollering and begging for help when he caught me, and we tumbled to the ground with him landing on top of me, muffling my whimpers with his dirty grabby hands. He dragged me to his car, tossed me in the trunk and drove to an abandoned parking lot a few blocks over where he yanked me out by my hair and threw me onto the ground.
I fought with all I had, but Shadow overpowered me. I went still when he flipped me onto my stomach and ripped my dress and panties.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for you to become legal. Let’s see if little miss perfect is still a virgin. My sister claims you are.”
“No. Get off me.” I tried pulling his hair, clawing wherever my hands could reach, trying to escape what I knew was going to happen. To not be a victim and not let Shadow take what’s mine to give, but when he gagged me with something, tied my hands behind my back and unzipped his pants, I knew there was no escape.
“Not happening. You smell like purity. One of these days I’m going to lock you away and keep you forever. No man will touch this beautiful skin after me. I’ll leave my mark again and again. My uncle died, and I’m going to run our empire. Once I get things in order, I’m coming for you. I need a queen, and I choose you. I hate to hurt you this way, hate seeing you cry, but I promised Whitney I’d draw blood.”
I haven’t seen Shadow since the day he walked free. For years I had eyes in the back of my head, always looking over my shoulder. It wasn’t until a few years ago when I finally stopped having nightmares, and now I’m afraid to close my eyes.
That day two mentally unstable people who hated me as much as I hated them twisted the screw in my life as far as it could go — wrenching until it stripped.
That was the last and most valuable piece of me that they stole. If I ever see Shadow and Whitney again, I will kill them where they stand.
Before that, Whitney didn’t leave me alone. No, she was out to destroy me. That girl tried making my high school years a stark raving madness of hell. Every smile that lit up her features was the wrong kind. It was fake. Like she ran on the cold nastiness I knew she had instead of any form of genuine affection, and not just toward me, she directed it toward anyone who lived on the wrong side of Galveston County.
People were afraid of her. I wasn’t one of them.
To her, I became the trash she trampled on with her shoes. Shoes bought with my father’s money, and her friends followed. I did my best to ignore her, kill her with kindness, until one day I had enough of being bullied by the little bitch who took a shit daily the same as the rest of us. I turned the tables and beat the ever loving crap out of Whitney. I would have pounded her face into the ground and left her for dead if Norah hadn’t pulled me off her.
I think back then, if I weren’t so out of my head with trying to wrap around what happened to me, I would have blown heads off and dragged bodies behind my tiny Ford Escort through the streets of Dallas. Renita almost landed in jail when the District Attorney called to tell us Shadow’s charges were dropped due to it being his word against mine. The crooked snake had a rap sheet already, and still, they wouldn’t prosecute.
I’m no fool; I knew they were paid off by Elizabeth or his uncle. It’s all part of the twisted underground corrupted game.
Blood money.
Anyone who puts greed before doing right by someone can never be trusted. I learned that and much more from my father who loved his green, but not once did he put it before my mother and me. And, after what Elizabeth did just for money, I despise it with every fiber of my being, and no one will convince me to have more than necessary.
“I know enough about Logan to know he isn’t my type,” I tell her as I frantically scoop up the jeans in a hurry and walk back out keeping my head down while I start refolding and placing the sizes in order the way I had them before.
Norah might have done me wrong, but if she knew that horrible night escaped the box slammed tight in my skull, we’d never get out of here.
Damn it.
I wish I could erase the man from my mind. Logan is like a god that could quite possibly be the death of me. Literally. I need to get answers and then shake him from my thoughts before the memory of him tangles me up.
“You don’t know that. Logan could be what you need. He brought you out of your shell when no man before him could. Are you afraid because of what happened?”
My head shoots up, and I give her a don’t-you-dare bring it up look.
Lord knows it’s already dangling on the edge of me. Once I let go, I’ll be slipping into a hole I may never climb out of.
“Please, this has nothing to do with my past.” It does though really. Everything in my personal life has revolved around the worst night of my life.
It frightens me how fate has dropped someone from there in my lap and here I am wanting to find out why when every part of me is telling me to stay away.
My throat burns to scream, a setback weighing heavy on my shoulders — eyes stinging with both anger and tears. I won’t cry over what happened, not ever again. As much as my mind pleads to fall into grief, my heart protests, telling me I’m strong when Shadow, Whitney, and their ice-queen mother tried to leave me broken and weak.
I glare at Norah; she isn’t going to back away from this. I know her, she’s like a loose cannon when she wants something, ready to fire and nail you right between the eyes.
“Ellie, I can’t begin to imagine what it was like for you, but I was there, remember? I saw how you lost yourself, stood by and watched you fight to gain back your strength and inner beauty. I held your hand, went to therapy with you. God, this isn’t about me; it’s about you. It’s about me sitting back and watching a woman who has missed out on finding true love, of being consumed by the best feeling in the world — a man’s touch. Going home with him was an ice-breaker for you. You had sex. I’m sure it was incredible mind-blowing, stimulating sex. I can’t just let it go. Please, for yourself, try to look at the positives in Logan rather than the negatives in him and your pasts. Open your beautiful soul, Ellie, and while you’re at it, you could share a bit of how good the sex was.”
The sex was everything I needed and nothing I expected. It was wild, untamed, wicked and for one night I let go.
I want to do it again.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Drop it, or I’ll never forgive you.”
She stares at me as if she doesn’t know me. “Why not?”
“Because I said so. I get what you’re saying, but by opening my heart, I’ll be making myself susceptible to getting hurt.” Or dead. I’m afraid having it broken by a man like Logan is something one would never recover from. “There’s also the fact; I will never be a woman of flash and flare. I will never link myself with the rich, especially his type.”
“I don’t buy for one second those women are truly his type — first stage clingers is what they are. Maybe you should get to know the man before you cast a stone.”
Maybe she should shut her mouth and let me make decisions on my own.
The way Logan stood there like he wanted to tell those people off breaks into my mind. His apology. The way he looked contrite and devastated. The way he disappeared and never came back the entire time we were there. Which was all of a half hour because I felt eyes on me everywhere. Not to mention the woman I thought might be Logan’s wife or girlfriend kept glaring at me like she wanted to rip my hair clean from my scalp and claw my eyes out. Eric ended up telling me she’s Logan’s secretary. The woman glared at me the same way the handful of other women there did, all of them doing their best to shuck me full with intimidation. It dripped off them like poison.
I wanted to slap it off every one of their faces and spit in their eyes.
As confused as I am, I still have the urge to want to be near him. Logan has a captivating pull, one that without difficulty draws you into his world. Rough and smooth. Rugged and abrasive with his dirty words and caring with his hands.
That practiced, hooked seduction he wears easily made me feel something I never felt in my life. Made me consider being wicked and adventurous. Things I’ve never thought about doing in bed. Like jump in with my body first, head and heart last into the muddy waters of need.
I saw those same things in the way women looked at him as if they’d drop to their knees and submit.
I don’t want to be the kind of woman who is helpless to his magnetic power, weak and in desperate need of a man to take care of her. I need a man to hook me the old-fashioned way — by my mind, body, and soul.
Then again, I have a feeling that’s what Logan wants. He’s chosen to start with my body first.
Exhaling, I wonder, am I as thick skinned as I think I am, because I’m not just physically attracted to Logan. I’m enchanted. Drawn in by the darkness he alludes, caught up in his charm, enticed by the way my body reacted the minute I saw him again, and overly curious as to why I can’t get the man out of my head.
It’s maddening.
“I understand Logan scares you, and there is nothing wrong with being scared. Don’t let that man slip through your fingers without giving him the chance to prove the type of guy he is. If you don’t like him after a date or two, then you don’t. Logan is captivated with you, and you need to live. You were spontaneous the night you went home with him. Be that way again. Here, Eric gave me this.” She shrugs, hands me a business card, and takes the jeans from my hands, placing them in the empty cubby. Her way of telling me this conversation is over.
I’m glad. I need a breather from it all.
Tears gather in my eyes. God, how I wish it could be easy to forget what happened to me, to dream big. To let Logan consume me and me him. I just don’t know if I can ever trust the man.
I want to. God, do I ever.
My eyes drop to the black card in my hand. Gold letters form his name. Above it reads Mitchell Brothers Holdings, below is an office as well as a cell number.
“How many brothers does Logan have?” Eric told us Logan had brothers, how many I never asked.
“Two. Logan is the oldest. Lane is the middle, and then Seth. Their parents passed away. I’m not sure how. All I know is their father started the club. They grew the business from there.”
I bet they did by selling their bodies.
Sadness blisters my heart. I know all too well how Logan and his brothers feel if they were close to their parents. It’s a loss never to be filled again — a hole the size of Colorado right in the middle of your chest.
Jealousy suddenly sits hot in my stomach, its smoke thickening and climbing until it twines around my throat in hostile waves. I force the visions of Logan having women at his beck and call all over the place out of my head.
I take a moment to catch my breath.
Logan Mitchell will never give me what I desire in a man.
Faithful and true to only me.