Chapter 8

Auralie

I pull Magnus’ rental Porsche into a parallel parking spot just one block off the town square, almost giddy with excitement to have the opportunity to explore Jackson. To say I was stunned this morning when Magnus woke me up at the crack of dawn was an understatement. He burst into my room, telling me that I needed to drive him to the airport as he had an emergency back in New York he had to handle.

There was no way I was going back with him because he wasn’t about to waste money on a plane ticket when I wasn’t necessary to him there, and he also didn’t want me having any face-to-face contact with my father. When I asked him what the emergency was, my stomach dropped when he said with icy menace, “Your father apparently can’t follow instructions. He’s going to cause everything to crumble if I don’t get there and settle things down.”

Yeah, well, that’s what you get, Magnus, when you get a two-bit hustler to run a long con that’s completely out of his comfort zone.

I worried, of course, for my father. Magnus may at most times project an air of civility and politeness about him, but that’s just part of him staying in character. I’ve seen the nasty side that gets out of control with blistering anger. While Magnus Albright could never be compelled to violence as he might hurt his prissy, delicate hands, he has enough goons on his payroll that his messages are always imparted with brutal clarity as to his seriousness.

So Dad has screwed up apparently, and I’m worried for him, but I also have to remember that Magnus left me here and this game hasn’t been played out to his conclusion. He’s not going to do anything to my father that will send me running, so I’m just going to have to hope my dad didn’t fuck things up too badly and that Magnus can fix whatever it is.

And then he can come back here, and we can get this finished. I can move on with my life then, which most definitely includes a plan to pay Magnus back for making me do this.

But for now, I’m stuck in the picturesque town of Jackson. Although I’ve been here a week, I haven’t left the rented house I shared with Magnus except to go to The Silo. I was going stir crazy on top of plain old crazy because of this shit I’ve landed myself into, and now I’m going to spend a nice day just being a normal girl on a very abnormal vacation.

Over the next hour, I walk in and out of various shops, most of them geared toward visiting tourists. I spend twenty minutes alone in the studio of a photographer who specializes in native wildlife, wishing I had time to go explore Yellowstone. Maybe tomorrow, depending on how fast Magnus is coming back. I assume he’ll call me at some point today and give me a tentative plan. Until then, he merely told me to stay out of trouble and to keep a low profile until he got back.

I walk a few blocks off the town square, passing by a tattoo shop and wishing I had the time or extra money to get one. It’s always been a wish of mine, and I know exactly what I’d get.

A pair of rolling dice on my inner forearm.

My signature grift.

I pass a novelty T-shirt shop with product hanging in the window that says things like “Wyoming: Where Men Are Men and the Sheep Are Scared” or “I Support The Right to Keep and Bear Arms” with a picture of a grizzly holding a rifle.

Past a winter sporting store called Teton Ski and Snowboarding, which even though it’s still fairly warm out, it seems to have a ton of people inside as I pass by.

To a shop specializing in cowboy boots—

“Auralie?” I hear from behind me.

Turning around, I freeze in place as I see Logan walking out of the ski shop carrying a small paper bag in his hand. His expression mirrors mine, I’m sure. I never thought I’d see you again.

This we both knew was a truth because Logan whispered it to me last night. While we were getting dressed after that incredible session in the Black Room, he said he wasn’t going to come back into The Silo until after I was gone. It was both a sweet and sad sentiment, and I understood his thinking without even asking him why. I was also grateful he wouldn’t come back, because I didn’t want him to see me on my knees before another man, nor did I want him involved in this farce any longer.

“Hey,” I respond in a quavering voice, shaking as he walks toward me.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, his head swiveling left and right, I’m betting looking for Magnus.

“He’s not here,” I tell him, and his eyes snap back to mine as his shoulders visibly drop into a relaxed posture. “He went to New York for a few days and left me back here.”

The very second Logan comprehends that Magnus is gone and I’m here with no one to look over me, something flashes in his eyes that looks dark and dangerous and yet so alluring, a surge of adrenaline courses through me. I almost half expect him to grab me, pull me into a dark alley if such a thing existed in Jackson, and have his way with me.

Instead, he reaches out for my hand and says, “Come on. Let’s go get some breakfast.”

I don’t hesitate. Don’t even think to deny him. My hand lifts out and clasps his palm to palm because there’s nothing else I’d rather do in this moment. He turns and leads me back in the same direction I had just come from. We walk side by side in silence as he maneuvers us past tourists who clog the sidewalks, across a busy street when the walk sign says we can go, and down another sidewalk, which puts us back on one of the main streets that border the Town Square.

He leads me with purpose. The long strides and the way he grips my hand strongly but gently tells me he’s determined to get me someplace where we can sit down and talk.

Actually talk.

No more intent meanings hidden within the depths of our eyes.

While it was an excellent means to communicate when we couldn’t actually converse, I’m looking forward to just hearing more of his deep voice that has just the sexiest of rumbles to it.

Logan leads me to a restaurant called “Frannie’s” that looks like a log cabin. It has a flat, wide porch across the front with several rocking chairs where customers can rock away the time while they wait for a table. It’s past the early breakfast rush, and there’s no one waiting outside. Logan leads me in, nods at one of the waitresses, and pulls me through the restaurant to the back where there’s a semi-private table in a corner by the kitchen. He only releases my hand to let me slide into my chair, and then he takes the one opposite me.

With quiet speculation, Logan just stares at me, as if he can’t quite figure out what to do with me, except maybe feed me. I’m equally at a loss as to what to say, because talking about what happened between us last night could be extremely dangerous.

So I pick up the paper menu before me and start to study it. I don’t look up at Logan, although I can feel the weight of his stare, but I’m also so flustered to even be in his presence that I really can’t see anything on the menu either.

“Why are you letting Magnus sell you off?” Logan asks quietly, and my eyes lift until they peer at him over the menu. His visage is troubled and stormy, and I can’t have him incensed on my behalf. He could easily get me angry over the injustice of it all and convince me to run, and I just can’t do that.

“How about we talk about something that doesn’t have to do with The Silo?” I say quietly.

“So I can’t tell you how unbelievable last night was?” he asks, his eyes turning practically golden to match the heat of his words. “Since that happened in The Silo?”

I squeeze my legs together and duck my head behind the menu again. My privacy from such an intimate question is short lived as his fingertips peek over the top and pull it down. I notice his fingers are rough and nicked with cuts and scars, a hazard, I would guess, of his job as a fly fisherman.

My eyes reluctantly go to his, and reluctantly only because I’m terrified of the way he makes me feel. “We really should forget about it.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s an impossibility on my part,” he says dryly before leaning across the table so he can murmur. “And I know you can’t either by the way you’re squirming in your chair right now.”

Damn.

I immediately plant my feet hard on the floor and make myself stay still. “Logan… maybe another time—”

“Okay, if we can’t talk about The Silo or the amazing orgasms we gave each other last night, how about telling me a little about yourself? Where are you from?”

“Brooklyn,” I say, blinking in surprise at the abrupt change of subject, but with a lingering tingle in my lower spine over the mention of the orgasms. Because last night was the singularly most amazing thing that has ever happened to me in my life. I knew the power of what an orgasm felt like, but it never felt like that before.

Never.

“Your whole life?” he asks to clarify.

“Yes. Born and raised. And you?” I ask politely, not really liking this stilted, demure conversation, but knowing we’re both better off not venturing from this path.

“Chicago,” he says with a shrug. “Although I’ve lived in quite a few places since then.”

“Like where?”

He’s prevented from answering when a waitress comes to our table and places coffee cups before us without even asking if we want some, although she does ask, “Want anything else other than coffee?”

Logan and I both shake our heads.

“Know what you want to order?” she asks.

Logan pushes his menu aside, clearly having eaten here before. “Three eggs over easy, hash browns, bacon—crisp, toast—white not wheat.”

The waitress scribbles and then looks to me. “And you, honey?”

“I’ll have the same,” I tell her with a smile, not because that’s the easiest thing to do but because that’s the normal breakfast I would order, except sometimes I’d get sausage instead of bacon.

Seems our connection transcends to breakfast foods now.

“So, where else have you lived?” I ask again after the waitress leaves. I occupy my hands by adding a little milk and sweetener to my coffee, although Logan apparently drinks his black since he doesn’t doctor his up, so I know there are ways in which we differ.

“Several places really,” he says in a flat voice. “Texas. Spent a little time in Southern California. Then Washington and Oregon. Landed here a little over a year ago.”

“And before you started traveling?” I ask, my elbows resting on the table and my coffee cup held before me with both hands.

“I was in Chicago working a dead-end job,” he says, and the flatness in his voice goes so monotone, it’s almost difficult to distinguish the words from one another. There’s so much antipathy for whatever his life was in Chicago, that it’s clear it’s not a subject he wishes to discuss.

So I remain quiet and take a sip of my coffee.

“What did you do in New York?” he asks, attempting but failing miserably at the generalized conversation you might try if you were out on a first date. But we are well beyond that. Logan had his mouth on my clit last night, and I let him come down my throat.

I shrug, playing it vague and loose with the real truth. “My father does some apartment management-type stuff, and I help him out with that. But I was in the process of looking at some local colleges I could go to.”

“For what?” he prods, his coffee remaining untouched.

I shrug again. “I don’t know. Not sure what I want to be when I grow up, but I figured I needed to get started, right?”

“Depends,” he says neutrally. “How old are you?”

I don’t even hesitate in my lie. “Twenty.”

He lowers his head slightly and curses under his breath. “Fuck.” I can tell this displeases him. I’m not sure why, because I know Magnus has propagated the gossip grapevine at The Silo with my “age” and my sexual status—“virgin”. It’s common knowledge to everyone, so this shouldn’t be a surprise.

“I would have thought you were older,” he says to clarify.

“Why’s that?” I ask, my head tilted.

“You just have a wisdom about you that I can’t quite explain. I find most of the younger women I meet to be flighty… unsettled. And here you are, in a pretty untenable situation, and yet, you handle it with a solid backbone. You’re a strong woman, Auralie, and most twenty-year-olds don’t recognize that within themselves.”

I hate that he’s so close to the mark, but he’s right. Growing up the way I did made me street smart and gave me wisdom I didn’t ask for at a very early age. But I could say that whether I was fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years of age. I’ve been more mature than my age for as long as I can remember.

“So I ask again,” he says, his voice going hard and demanding. “Why is a woman as strong as you doing this?”

Emotions war within me. I’m pleased and warmed he cares enough about me to ask, but also affronted that he’s judging my actions. We may have some sort of connection that can’t quite be explained at this point, but he has no right to be piqued by my choices because he could never understand my motivation.

It’s with irritation I snap at him. “You mean debasing myself by sucking unknown men’s’ dicks and letting another stranger eat me out in front of a crowd of sexual deviants?”

He jerks back with true surprise on his face, before clarifying in a voice low and rumbling with dissatisfaction over my answer. “I’ll let the stranger comment pass. I’ll also let it pass that you failed to mention I made you come harder than I guarantee you ever have in your life. And if you enjoyed what you and I did, that was in no way debasing yourself. Plenty of people get off on that type of thing, and there is nothing wrong if you enjoyed it. So, again… I’d really like to know why a woman such as yourself—who is strong, confident, and smart—feels the need to do this? And I want to know this because I want to know if I can help get you out of this situation.”

I immediately shake my head. There is no way I am involving a good man in my very bad and fucked-up circumstances. “You can’t help.”

“Perhaps I can—”

“Logan,” I say with a firm voice. “Leave it alone. If you can’t do that, then I’m out of here.”

And I don’t want to be out of here, I tell him with a pointed look. I like your company and looking at you and listening to your voice, and hell… even silence is golden between us. So please… don’t make me leave.

His jaw locks tight. I can see the irritation flash in his eyes, along with frustration and some unfulfilled need, but he only holds that for a moment before every bit of it clears out and there’s nothing but understanding left.

“Okay,” he says softly. “I won’t ask you why you’re doing this, but just know… if you want to try to figure another way out, I’m ready to help you do it.”

I know I just shut him down tight a second ago, but I can’t help it when my mouth opens, my vocal chords engage, and a single whispered and needful word comes out, “Why?”

Logan finally picks up his coffee, blows across the top, and takes a sip while looking at me over the rim. When he sets it back down, he says, “Because we’re tethered.”

“Excuse me?” I ask, not in a tart, offended way, but in an I’m-completely-confused way.

“From the moment you and I first locked eyes on each other, there was an understanding of sorts between us. I don’t know the how or the why something like that happens between two people, and fuck… we spent three days communicating through looks and body language, but you can’t deny it, Auralie… you and I have something that ties us together, and I’m not sure what it is. But it was absolutely confirmed after the way we consumed each other last night.”

God, and I know it too. I felt it from the very first time we beheld each other. Call it metaphysical or just a product of my underused imagination, but there is a connection there that I’ve never experienced with another human being in my life.

“You with me?” Logan asks quietly.

I nod, getting ready to speak the words back to him, but the waitress arrives with our food. The intimate connection is broken as we both lean back a bit so she can set the plates down. After she leaves, Logan picks up his utensils. While he busies himself pulling his eggs over onto his hash browns and cutting them all up together—same as I like to do— he says casually, “I’ve got a fishing trip this afternoon, but I’ll pick you up at six tonight. I’m taking you out to dinner.”

I just blink at him, my own utensils in hand and poised to mix eggs and potatoes together. There’s not one part of me that enjoys being bossed around, and I’ve gone most of my life not ever having to withstand that, but for some reason, I like the way he just told me that’s what we were doing tonight.

So I just nod and smile, then I pull my eggs on top of my hash browns.

Fuck you, Magnus. I’m doing this for me.