Текст книги "Insider"
Автор книги: Olivia Cunning
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Текущая страница: 32 (всего у книги 34 страниц)
“Logan,” she spoke to his voicemail. “I’m sorry I took so long to get back to you. I didn’t get any of your messages until late and then I didn’t have my phone with me, so I couldn’t call you back until now. I really need to memorize your number.” She laughed at how frustratingly inconvenient convenience could be. “Call me when you get this. I don’t care how late it is, I promise I’ll answer. I believe you when you say you didn’t cheat, but we still have a lot to talk about. I’ve had quite a day.” That was an understatement. “I love you. Hope to hear from you soon.”
She disconnected and turned to find herself alone. Mom had apparently decided she needed privacy while she made amends with Logan. Toni trudged upstairs to her room, turned her ringer up to maximum volume, and plugged her phone into the charger. She refused to miss his call. But as she lay in bed staring up at the balloons floating overhead with no word from him, she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d given up on her.
Thirty-Six
At some point, Toni must have dozed off, because an unfamiliar, low-pitched rumble pulled her from a fitful sleep. Headlights reflected off her ceiling as someone turned into the driveway. Lost and turning around, she decided, until the engine died and the lights were extinguished. She lifted her phone and glanced at the time. It was three thirty in the morning. And she’d somehow missed an hour-old text from Logan.
OMW
As far as she knew, that acronym was short for on my way, but that made absolutely no sense. He was on his way to where?
Her phone rang, startling her so badly that she tossed it onto the floor as if it had sprouted fangs and tried to strike her dead. She rolled out of bed and onto the hardwood with an oomph before crawling after the flashing device that was blaring “I’m-Too-Sexy.”
“Logan!” she answered, her heart still tripping over itself from being scared out of her wits. Or maybe the battered organ was just happy he’d finally called.
“Which room is yours?”
“What?”
“You’re home, aren’t you?” he asked with a panicked edge to his voice. “At your mother’s house?”
“Yeah.”
“Which room is yours?” he asked again.
“I don’t understand.”
“How can I crawl into bed with you and kiss you awake if I don’t know which room is yours? I don’t want to accidentally scare the living daylights out of the wrong person.”
“You’re here?” Toni scrambled off the floor and flew across the room to her floor-to-ceiling windows. She peered down the driveway at an unfamiliar muscle car and the unmistakable, shadowy shape of the man she loved standing beneath a sky dotted with billions of stars.
“When I couldn’t reach you, I panicked. So I did what any nonsensical man in love would do. I hopped on a private jet, borrowed a friend’s car, and hunted you down.”
“You’re crazy,” she said with a laugh. And thank God for that.
“When it comes to you, I don’t know how to be sane.”
She unlocked the glass door that led from her room to the enormous deck that encircled the second story of the cabin. Barefoot, she crossed the cool wood planks and leaned over the railing.
“Look up,” she said and when he did, she waved down at him.
“Ah, my Juliet,” he murmured in her ear.
“Oh. Is that her name?” she teased. “Juliet.”
“Antonia. Her name is Antonia,” he said before he disconnected the call.
She gasped as he began to scale the lower deck. Standing on the railing, he sprang upward, missing the beam below her by inches.
“What are you doing?” she whispered harshly into the darkness below.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
She couldn’t see his face in the shadows, but she heard his grunt of exertion when he jumped again, this time getting one hand on the deck near her toes. He dangled there for a moment before losing his grip and dropping back out of sight.
“Logan!” Why did he have to be such a daredevil?
“I’m all right,” he said. “I caught my fall with my face. Can you throw me a rope or something?”
“You’re going to kill yourself. I’ll come down.”
She didn’t wait for his agreement, but scurried back into her room and bounded down the stairs two at a time. Still in her short, silky nightgown, she dashed through the kitchen and mudroom before unlocking the back door. She gasped in surprise as the door flew inward and she was tugged against him. One of Logan’s hands pressed into her back to hold their bodies together, the other tangled in her hair, pulling her mouth to his as he kissed her.
“Don’t ever leave me again,” he said against her lips.
She shook her head slightly, not wanting to interrupt his deep, demanding kiss. He was the one to eventually pull away. His breathing was harsh and ragged as he cradled her head to his chest, his heart thudding against her ear in a rapid staccato.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m better than I’ve been all day, but I won’t be truly okay until I have you naked and I’m buried balls deep inside you.”
Toni shifted out of his grasp and slipped the slender straps of her nightie down her shoulders and arms. One tug pulled the garment from her breasts, and the scrap of satin fluttered down to pool at her feet. She lowered her panties next, kicking them aside impatiently, and stood before him naked. Naked and unashamed. On her mother’s back porch.
“You’re halfway there,” she murmured.
“Here?” Even as he was questioning her, his hand moved to cup her breast, his thumb brushing over her taut nipple.
“If you want. Or maybe you’d be willing to teach me how to have sex in a car.” She nodded toward the vehicle he’d left parked in the driveway.
“Maybe,” he said calmly.
Toni squeaked in surprise when he scooped her into his arms and carried her across the porch and down the steps to the car. He set her bare ass on the cool hood of the vehicle, and she jumped when the temperature registered. Logan spread her legs and stepped forward, rubbing the rough fabric of his bulging jeans against the heated, sensitive flesh between her thighs. He kissed her again, stealing her breath, stealing every logical thought. She reached for his fly, wanting him—needing him—closer. Inside her. He caught her hands and held them against hard steel as he kissed his way down her chest, her belly. The tip of his tongue flicked against her throbbing clit so gently that she scarcely felt it. He continued with the same maddening, barely touching flicks of his tongue—teasing her there, faster, oh yes, faster—until she was moaning and squirming and tugging against the hold he had on her wrists. She somehow managed to keep her legs wide open for him, trusting that he’d eventually give her the mind-shattering orgasm she craved.
Her pussy quivered with need—aching and swollen, drenched, tingling. Hot. Christ, she was on fire. Logan completely ignored her need to be possessed, still barely flicking his tongue against her sensitive clit until she couldn’t take it anymore.
“You’re driving me crazy,” she said. “You have to fuck me.”
“I have to?”
She didn’t find his amused tone the least bit funny. “God, yes. You have to.”
“Not yet.”
He continued to tease her with those feather-light tongue flicks. She hadn’t thought it was possible to be more aroused than she already was, but she was oh so wrong. He took her higher, higher, until she was far beyond her normal breaking point.
“If you want to come, think naughty thoughts,” he said.
Toni moaned, enslaved by the slight change in stimulation brought by his breath against her heated flesh.
“You told me not to think during sex,” she reminded him. It had been hard to turn off her thoughts at first, but now she did it automatically. She didn’t want to think. She wanted to feel. Feel him.
“Think of how your pussy feels when it’s stuffed with my cock.”
Yes, that was exactly what she wanted to feel. His words inspired vivid memories of his cock inside her. She cried out as her pussy clenched hard on nothing. She filled her aching emptiness with thoughts. The way he looked when he came. The sound of his voice when he whispered her name, when he told her he loved her. The feel of his skin beneath her palms and lips, against her belly and her breasts. Between her thighs. The way his scent lingered on her body even when he was absent. How he consumed her inside and out when he made love to her. She visualized his cock sliding in and out of her, his tongue against her nipple, his finger slipping into her ass.
She wasn’t sure if it was her thoughts or the persistent flick of Logan’s tongue that finally sent her over the edge, but over she went. He shifted upward, captured her screams of bliss in his mouth, pressed her quaking body against his warm chest, and slowly filled her clenching pussy with his thick, rigid cock. He thrust into her slowly, claiming her deeply. Gently. When what she wanted him to do was fuck her hard and fast.
She should have known he knew what she really needed. His tender possession chased her intense orgasm with a sweet, languid pleasure that brought tears to her eyes. When her body settled into his peaceful rhythm, he pressed his face into her neck and whispered, “That’s how you have sex on a car. Are you ready to try it in a car?”
“I will try it in a car. I will try beneath the stars.”
“Will you try it here or there?”
“I will try it anywhere.”
He chuckled and kissed her collarbone. “I do love you, woman. We’re always on the same wavelength.”
“I will try it on a plane,” she continued her X-rated version of a Dr. Seuss rhyme. “I will do it in the rain.”
“Will you try it on a boat? Will you try it with a goat?”
Toni stiffened and pulled away to stare at him in horror.
“Not on a boat. Not with a goat,” he said, shaking his head.
“Yes, on a boat,” she said. “And maybe on a Thanksgiving Day float. But definitely not with a goat.”
“Let’s try in the car first. Your skin is chilled.”
She wouldn’t have noticed the chill at all if he hadn’t been caressing her bare flesh with warm hands.
He opened the car door, shucked his clothes, and left them in the driveway.
“Whose car is this?” Toni asked as she stood in the sharp gravel waiting for him to shove the driver’s seat all the way back and climb inside.
“Ever heard of the band Secondary Launch?” Logan sat in the leather driver’s seat and patted his thighs to encourage her to climb on.
“Of course.”
“It’s Justin Paige’s car.”
Toni knew him to be the band’s vocalist.
“He owed Butch a favor.”
“Everyone owes Butch a favor.”
“I owe him a million.” Logan somehow managed to close the door, and Toni tried to find a comfortable way to ride his cock in the confined space.
He shifted her into a more comfortable position. No, less comfortable, actually.
“Ouch! There’s a gearshift in my ass.”
“Oh, sure, you barely know this car, and yet you’re already giving it privileges you won’t give me.”
She slapped him halfheartedly. “Not inside my ass. It poked me in the hip.”
“You got me all excited for nothing. Back seat?” Logan suggested.
She nodded, and he reclined the seat completely so she could climb over him into the roomier back of the car. He caught her by the hips as she attempted to crawl over his head. She gasped when his tongue lapped at the hole he was so fixated on. She was more than ready to try anal, but it was so much fun to keep him begging for it.
“I can’t believe you’ll let me lick it but you won’t let me fuck it.”
“I’m saving my anal virginity for marriage,” she said as she tugged free of his grasp and flopped into the back seat.
“You’re going to make me marry you before you give up the goods?”
She was totally bluffing, but she said, “Yep.”
He climbed over the reclined front seat and joined her in back. “I think you underestimate how much I want to stick my dick in your ass.”
“I underestimate?”
“Yeah, I’d totally marry you for the privilege of claiming your anal virginity.” He sat behind the passenger seat and reached for her.
She shook her head at him and, facing the rear of the car, straddled his hips. “Don’t say it unless you mean it.”
She reached between them and took his cock in her hand, rubbing the head against her clit, dragging it through her wet seam and pressing it into her opening. She lifted her hips and dropped them slightly, taking just his cockhead inside her and allowing it to pop free each time she rose.
“Deeper,” he pleaded after several moments of the same treatment.
“This is payback for licking my clit so softly I could barely feel it.”
“You didn’t enjoy my sweet torture?”
“Loved every minute of it. You aren’t enjoying mine?”
“You know I love your evil side.”
Her evil side soon caved to the need to feel him deep inside. He showed her several positions, and she even discovered one of her own with her feet planted against the back seat and her back crammed against the passenger seat. The position provided phenomenal leverage for riding him hard, and he found her clit fully exposed so he could massage it with his thumb. The car was definitely rocking when she cried out with release. His body stiffened as he followed her over the edge, and she pulled off of him at the last instant, grabbing his cock with both hands and pumping his load out to spatter over her lower belly. She wished there was more light in the car; she loved watching him spurt. Loved the desperate, gasping sound he made when he came. Loved how he shuddered when she shifted his cock back inside her after he’d spent himself.
She relaxed against his chest and snuggled her face into his neck. “I have a bunch of stuff I need to talk to you about,” she said, “but it just doesn’t seem all that important anymore.”
“I have a few things to tell you as well,” he said, “but I think I’d rather sit quietly, just like this, and fall asleep with you in my arms.”
“We really are always on the same wavelength,” she whispered just before she fell into a blissful slumber.
She was woken hours later by a persistent knock on the windshield.
Thirty-Seven
Logan squeezed his eyelids closed and then pried them open, squinting against the light of the rising sun. He couldn’t feel his legs, and he was pretty sure his bare ass was permanently melded to the leather seat beneath him, but waking up with Toni in his arms was worth any discomfort.
“Are these yours?” said a muffled voice from just outside the car door.
The elderly woman—who had to be at least seventy—was waving Toni’s panties at the window. The woman knocked on the glass, and Toni jerked awake. She groaned and smacked Logan in the chest with a graceless arm as if he were the reason for her rude and likely uncomfortable awakening.
“Don’t look now,” he said, “but I think we’ve been spotted.”
Toni rubbed her face, and smacked her lips, scowling groggily as she squinted at him. She smiled when she recognized his face and snuggled against him, her breasts pressing delightfully into his chest.
The woman knocked on the window again. “Toni! I found your panties on the porch.”
Toni’s body jerked, and she slowly turned her head to peer at the woman outside the car. “Good morning, Grandma,” she said in a squeaky voice.
Great. What a wonderful first impression he was making on another of Toni’s relatives.
“Do you want them?” Grandma waved the garment at her.
“Yes, please.” Toni leaned back, one arm across her bare breasts as she attempted to roll down the automatic window and keep Logan’s lap covered with hers. As the car wasn’t running, the button didn’t respond to her persistent fingertip.
“Can you get me a robe?” Toni asked.
“Is that your boyfriend?” her grandmother yelled at the glass.
“Nope. I always meet strangers in the driveway for sex in unfamiliar cars.”
Logan’s jaw dropped, but her grandma just laughed. “I’ll leave these here,” she said and tucked Toni’s panties under the windshield wiper. “And go get a robe.”
“And some shoes, please!”
Her grandma nodded, offered a coy wink to Logan, who wasn’t sure if he should be mortified or amused, and then headed toward the house.
“I’m glad it was Grandma who discovered us and not Birdie or my mom,” Toni said.
“You’re glad?”
“Relatively speaking,” she said as she slid off his lap. She winced when she attempted to straighten one leg. “Let’s agree to never fall asleep in that position again.”
“Deal.” He cringed as he peeled his ass off leather. “If Justin finds out what’s been on his back seat, I’m afraid he’s going to have to burn his car.”
Toni laughed and leaned over the front seat in her journey to recover her panties. Logan groaned at the glorious sight her bare ass presented to him as she scrambled to get behind the wheel. The car started with a loud vroom, idling with the low ferocity only an eight-cylinder could produce.
“And if he finds out what’s been on his front seat,” Logan said, “he’s going to get a boner every time he drives.”
Toni snorted. “I highly doubt that.” She rolled down the window and rescued her panties from beneath the windshield wiper, then squirmed into them. With one arm over her boobs, she eased the door open and grabbed some of Logan’s clothes from the ground outside, tossing them into the back before closing the door. Visibly shivering, she fiddled with the heater while he acrobatically donned his underwear, jeans, and one shoe.
“Did you find my shirt?” he asked, grateful that his junk was covered. But her grandmother was headed back in their direction, and he still wasn’t what he’d consider respectable.
“I couldn’t reach it. If I could, I’d be wearing it. I’m f-freezing.” Her teeth chattered as she shuddered.
He leaned over the seat and kissed her chilled shoulder. “I can’t believe you aren’t upset about this.”
“I’m too happy that you’re here to care. I’m just glad Birdie didn’t catch us. Her questions would have been endless.”
Still holding her boobs with one arm, Toni rolled down the window when her grandmother reached the side of the car. Toni took the proffered fluffy pink robe and slid her arms into the sleeves. Next she wriggled her feet into a pair of slippers.
Her grandmother leaned into the car and extended her hand to Logan, who took it uncertainly.
“I’m Joanna. You must be the guy with all the flowers.”
Logan felt a blush rush up his neck to his cheeks. “Yeah. That would be me trying to get your granddaughter’s attention.”
“I’d say it worked.” Joanna chuckled and released his hand.
“I’m Logan, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Logan. Come on inside for breakfast,” she said. She picked up Logan’s shirt from the ground and instead of handing it to him, she carried it with her into the house.
“She took my shirt,” Logan said.
“Can’t blame her,” Toni said. “You look scrumptious in nothing but those jeans.”
Toni rolled up the window and shut off the car before climbing out into the chilly, damp air. She flipped the seat forward to let him out, and he hopped around in the gravel on one foot as he rescued his other shoe from beneath the car.
Once he had it on, he drew Toni against him and ran his hands over her terry-cloth-encased ass to pull her closer. He leaned in for a kiss, but she turned her head.
“You do not want to kiss me right now,” she said. “My breath is toxic.”
“I do want to kiss you right now,” he said, capturing her jaw in his hand and turning her face toward his. “I want to kiss you every morning.”
She buried her fingers in his hair and smiled up at him. “Okay, but no tongue until I brush my teeth.”
“A little tongue,” he bartered. He closed the distance between their mouths, stroking her upper lip with the tip of his tongue as he drew away.
Staring up at him with wide eyes, she took a step back. And then another.
“Oh my God!” she cried. “My breath really is toxic. Your face is melting off!”
She dashed up the steps, and laughing, Logan chased after her. In the kitchen, her mother’s harsh stare drew him to a halt. His smile faltered.
“Logan is here!” Birdie yelled, running in his direction with three dogs on her heels. She looked him up and down, her eyes overlarge and inquisitive behind her thick glasses. “Where is your shirt? Are you going swimming?”
Logan covered his chest with one arm, similarly to the way Toni had concealed her breasts in the car. “Someone took it.”
Joanna grinned as she handed his shirt to him. “Someone misplaced it,” she corrected before she returned to the stove to stir a pan of scrambled eggs.
Logan gratefully tugged his shirt on over his head, and he swore he heard more than one disappointed sigh in the room.
“I’m going up to shower,” Toni said. “Keep Logan company while I’m gone.”
And then she left him there. With her family. He would have tried to join her in the shower if three pairs of eyes weren’t watching his every move.
“Do you need help with anything?” he asked Toni’s grandmother, glancing toward the stairs in hopes that Toni had just secured the world record for fastest shower ever.
“You’re a guest,” Joanna said. “Have a seat.”
He’d much rather have had some mundane task such as buttering toast to keep him occupied, but he sat on a stool at the kitchen island and fought the urge to pull out his cellphone to pass the time and avoid awkward questions.
“Not there, silly,” Birdie said. She took his hand and urged him from his perch, leading him to a square blue-gray breakfast table in a corner nook. “We eat over here.”
“As you wish,” he said with a cordial nod, and Birdie giggled in delight.
He watched her collect plates and set one in each spot while Joanna manned the stove. Eloise hadn’t moved since he entered the room. She was watching him so closely that he considered hiding under the table. After several uncomfortable moments, he met her gaze and held it, which apparently was her cue to sit at the table beside him.
“I’m not sure what Antonia told you about the incident with the tabloid,” Eloise said.
“Just that she wasn’t the one who sold our stories.”
“It wasn’t her,” Eloise said, licking her lips. “I didn’t act alone, but ultimately, I am responsible.”
“You!” Logan blinked at her, unable to fathom what she’d just told him.
“I wish I hadn’t done it. I don’t want this incident to damage Antonia’s future career prospects or her um, friendship . . .” Eloise tilted her head toward him as if waiting for him to qualify what she was saying. He shrugged and shook his head, not sure what she was going for. “Or damage her friendship with you.”
Oh, she was baiting him for relationship information. “I wouldn’t be here if it had damaged our friendship,” Logan said. “I knew she wasn’t capable of hurting people she cares about. She isn’t like that.”
Eloise closed her eyes and nodded. “I always worry that she’s too soft, too good, too gentle for her own benefit and that the world will chew her up and spit her out. But maybe instead of her changing to try to appease cruel reality, the rest of the world would do better to become more like her.”
Yes, exactly. He was surprised he and her mother saw eye to eye on something like that.
“I’ve got her back,” Logan said.
“Do you think it would be best to break our publishing contract with your band—”
“No!” He hadn’t meant to shout, but if there wasn’t a contract, there would be no reason—besides him—for Toni to return to her place on tour.
“—and let Toni pursue the book’s publication independently?” Eloise finished.
Logan rubbed the back of his neck. He had no clue what would be best for the book or the band or Toni in that regard. All he cared about was that she would be at his side.
“I don’t know,” Logan said. “Why don’t you ask Toni? Or Sam. He’s the one who thought your publishing house was best for the job. There has to be a reason for that.”
“It’s because Toni does excellent work,” Eloise said with a smile. “I don’t give her enough credit. I’ve been trying to get everything in order so I can retire and hand the reins over to her—”
“You’re retiring?” Joanna said, dropping a bowl of biscuits on the table with a thud. A few popped out of their container and rolled toward the floor. Luckily Logan had fast reflexes.
“That’s the plan. I was going to wait a few years, but something Toni said last night convinced me that it’s time to sell the company and pursue other ambitions.” She glanced over at Birdie, who was pouring orange juice into five small glasses with strict concentration and aided, apparently, by her protruding tongue. “Toni doesn’t want to run the company. She wants to continue to create. It’s what she loves. What she’s good at. I don’t want to be responsible for squelching that spark in her. I want her to be happy.”
Logan hadn’t been sure he liked Eloise until that moment. A few minutes earlier, he was sure he didn’t like her. But anyone who wanted to ensure Toni’s happiness was a champion in his book.
“So maybe you could ask her what she wants me to do about the book,” Eloise said to Logan. “I think she’ll be open with you. I’m not sure she trusts me much right now.”
Logan shrugged. He didn’t really want to be sucked into Toni’s family problems, but he did want her to follow her dreams. Especially if they included him.
“Birdie?” Joanna said from the stove.
Logan leaned around Eloise to see what the sweet child was up to. She was standing at the counter, a puzzled expression on her typically smiling face.
“Birdie?” Joanna said again, louder this time.
The pitcher of juice dropped from Birdie’s hand as she clutched her chest. Orange liquid spread across the tile at her feet. “Somefing . . . Somefing’s not right, Mommy,” she said, just before she crumpled to the ground.
