Walk Through Fire Read online

  Not since Millie taught him not to do it.

  “Fuck, bitch,” he snarled, “you cannot seriously be standing there tryin’ the guilt game on me when you fucked up my whole goddamned life, and like that wasn’t enough, waltzed back into it, you lookin’ for me, to try to do it again.”

  And apparently, what he said took it too far for Millie.

  He knew it when she leaned forward, her beautiful face twisted in pain, and hissed, “I’ve been walking through fire for you for twenty years, Logan. Do not stand in my office that you walked into without an invitation and feed me your shit. This is revenge. This is your way of hurting me after I hurt you. I’m not stupid. You want it?” She leaned back and tossed out both arms. “Take it. But I’m not gonna get on my knees and let you shove my face down so you can’t see it but you can fuck faceless pussy knowing exactly how much you’re humiliating me. You need to take from me, I’ll give it but only because I’m giving to get.”

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t get when you were on your knees for me at Bill’s,” he sneered.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t know exactly the insult you were delivering,” she fired back. “You knew, High. You knew. You knew you were delivering the worst insult a man could give to a woman. You knew it and do not tell me you didn’t.”

  He couldn’t tell her that because she was right.

  And she’d deserved it.

  At least he’d thought that at the time.

  Staring into her face, a face saturated with fury and hurt, he was thinking twice.

  “Tell me how you walked through fire for me,” he ordered.

  “No,” she whispered, the word soft but it held so much power, it left a gash in the air of the room and he felt his chest burning like he was struggling for breath. “Never,” she went on. “I was gonna give that to you but then you lost the right to it.”

  “So it’s still game on,” he noted.

  “Not if you release me,” she replied.

  He decided to lay it out.

  “Clue in, Millie. I’m comin’ to you, so who’s got a hold on who?”

  “You’ve got the power to let this be over,” she told him.

  “How’s that when I don’t even have to fuckin’ kiss you to make you drenched for me?” he returned.

  “God!” she cried, looking to the ceiling.

  He ignored that and shared, “This isn’t done, we both know it and I’m guessin’ from this irritatin’ conversation we got no choice but to ride whatever the fuck this is out, but it’s me who’s gotta do it hopin’ you don’t rip me up in the process.”

  She tipped her head down and again locked eyes on him. “If you think that, then you aren’t paying attention.”

  “Baby,” he drawled, “trust me, you got my complete attention.”

  It was then she landed the hammer.

  “No, I don’t and from the way you’re treating me, it’s clear I never did.”

  With that, she ended their conversation by turning, entering the bathroom, and slamming the door and he heard the lock go.

  He could bust down the door but enough was enough.

  The bitch told him she walked through fire for him, insinuating that there was something he fucking didn’t catch back in the day.

  Bullshit.

  Total bullshit Millie games.

  And High slammed out of her office thinking precisely that.

  But the blow had been delivered.

  And he’d walked through her house and he’d seen how she’d changed, how she lived like a ghost, how she was nothing like the woman he thought he knew her to be.

  So he couldn’t stop the nagging at the edge of his mind that Millie hadn’t cut him out but instead he’d lost her and he hadn’t only done it back then but he’d done it again now.

  His Millie was gone.

  In every way she could be.

  * * *

  Later that night, when High had switched out his bike for his truck, he went back to Millie’s.

  Not her house.

  The alley.

  He knew it was stupid.

  He didn’t care.

  He told himself he needed every bit of ammunition he could get in this war and that crate was full of ammunition.

  He wouldn’t allow himself to believe he went back for a different reason.

  But when he got to the Dumpster and got out of his truck, he saw the crate was gone.

  He lifted the lid on the Dumpster and saw that it hadn’t been emptied nor had the crate been thrown into it.

  It was a decent crate, could be used for a lot of shit.

  Someone had stolen it and stolen High and Millie with it.

  Likely they’d toss all the photos. Three years of living a dream, gone.

  He got back into his truck, his gut roiling, his hands clenching the steering wheel with fury.

  She’d dumped them.

  And now they were gone.

  And as he drove away, High decided the bitch would pay for that too.

  Twenty-two years ago…

  Logan woke to an empty bed.

  He blinked away sleep, looked to Millie’s nightstand and caught the time on her alarm clock.

  Then he threw back the covers, got out of bed, and walked out of their bedroom.

  He didn’t find her in the second bedroom, a room she’d set up as a place she could study.

  He knew why he didn’t find her there. When she did late nights like that, she did them at the dining room table downstairs so any noise she made wouldn’t disturb him.

  Unsurprisingly, he found her where he knew she’d be but he found her slumped over, cheek to a notepad, books open everywhere, dead asleep.

  He moved around the room, shutting off lights, before he moved to his girl.

  Gently, he lifted her away from the table, then up in his arms.

  As gently as he did it, she roused.

  “Wha… oh man,” she muttered drowsily. “Did I crash?”

  “Yeah, baby,” he replied, moving from the living room into the foyer to the stairs.

  “I can walk, Snooks.”

  Logan felt his lips curve up.

  Snooks.

  The boys called him High.

  Millie didn’t call him High.

  She called him Logan, Low, and Snooks when they were in company and when they weren’t.

  But she called him Snook’ums when no one was around.

  It was goofy and it was cute and it was all Millie.

  He loved it.

  Halfway up the steps, he stopped and put her to her feet but he didn’t take his arm from around her.

  She slid hers around him and they walked up the rest of the stairs together.

  “You get done what you needed?” he asked.

  “No clue. I don’t remember when I crashed, but I’m guessing… no,” she answered.

  Logan’s lips didn’t curve up at that.

  They tightened.

  It was finals. She was taking a heavy second semester schedule in hopes of graduating in three and a half years rather than four so they could start their life and their family and do it without delay.

  She was also still working part-time at the mall. She made dick but no matter how often he told her she should do it, she wouldn’t give up the job.

  She also wouldn’t give up on him, the Club, their life.

  She was all in with everything. She never missed a class. She studied between classes. She was never late for work. She studied when she got home. They went to movies. They went to bars. They went to parties. They went to concerts. They went to rallies. She cooked for him. She cleaned the house for him. And she studied more whenever she had the chance.

  Business. That was her major.

  “Don’t know what I’m gonna do with it,” she’d told him on a grin. “Just know I’m gonna kick ass whatever it is I do.”

  He believed that. She didn’t do anything in half measures. She sucked life dry, setting her teeth in deep, straight to the bon
e and pulling out the marrow.

  But this shit had to end. She was about to finish her first year of college and she wasn’t going to take a break. She was going to take two classes during the summer and go full-time at the store in the mall until her sophomore year started.

  Which meant more of this. All-nighters where he went to bed alone, woke up alone, saw her faking it and drained dry but giving him a grin and the cute when he knew she was about ready to pass out.

  He watched her pull off her clothes, dropping them to the floor as she wandered to their bed, and he decided it was time for this shit to stop.

  She got in and Logan got in with her. Pulling her into his arms, he tangled himself up in her as she returned the favor and snuggled deep.

  “Babe, you gotta quit that job,” he told the top of her head.

  “Need the money,” she muttered sleepily.

  “You don’t,” he replied. “I can cover us.”

  And he could. Chaos business, the garage and shop called Ride, and the other shit they did, he could totally cover her and him. He could even do more. Get them nicer furniture, new shit that looked good. After a year or two put money down on a house. Take her on vacation to get her away from her work. Take her to Paris and kiss her under the Eiffel Tower.

  He could give them better than what they had.

  He could give his girl everything.

  He could do that.

  Absolutely.

  “Can’t do that,” she mumbled, sounding very close to sleep.

  “Millie,” he gave her a squeeze, “you’re gonna burn out, you keep this shit up.”

  “Only two more years,” she replied. “Most… two and a half.”

  “Babe—” he started but didn’t go on when she suddenly tipped her head back.

  “No, Logan,” she whispered, her voice still sounding tired but it was also strong. “I do my bit.”

  “You’ll do your bit when you got your degree and you get a fancy-ass job that makes us a lotta cake,” he returned.

  “I do my bit now. I do my bit every day,” she shot back stubbornly.

  He dragged her up his body so they were eye to eye in the dark. “You know it’s no hardship, me takin’ care of you. You also know that’s my job, one I get off on, so stop bein’ so stubborn and let me do it.”

  “If I can do my part, I will, and I can, Low,” she retorted.

  “Millie, this is the third night in a row you crashed at the dining room table,” he reminded her. “When it’s finals, it’s worse, but it’s bad all the time and that shit’s not good for you.”

  “I have to.”

  Logan went silent at the fierce tone in her voice.

  “I have to, Logan.” She slid a hand up his chest to curve it around the side of his neck. “I know you can take care of me. I love how you take care of me. But I have to do this. For you. For us. To prove something to myself. My parents. You. I have to. And if you wanna take care of me, that’s how you can take care of me. By letting me do it.”

  “I know what you need, baby,” he whispered back. “And you gotta know I don’t need that. I’m in. I know you’re in. We’re both in. All in. There’s times I gotta have your back. There’ll be times you’ll hafta have mine. Let me have your back now, Millie. It’ll mean a lot you got the time to do what you gotta do and I can go to bed beside you.”

  She was silent a minute and he thought he had her, then she shook her head against the pillow.

  “Please understand,” she said softly. “I just need to do my part. I need you to know I’m going to. No, that I’m able to. Life’s gonna throw a lot at us, Snook’ums. I need you to know I’m ready to do my bit when it does.”

  She needed that. He knew it. He heard it. Fuck, he even felt it.

  And he knew why she needed to give it to him. They were young. They were starting early. They were both all in. And they both wanted the same out of life. To be together, to build a family, to build a life. Neither wanted to delay.

  So she needed to prove she could stick it, through thick and thin.

  He didn’t like it but if his girl needed it, he was going to give it.

  So he gave in.

  “Okay, Millie.”

  She snuggled even closer, pushing in to kiss his throat. Then she took her hand from his neck, trailed it down his chest so she could wrap her arm around him.

  “Thanks, Low,” she murmured. It was again sleepy but there was feeling behind it.

  Yeah, she needed it.

  So he settled in, his girl cuddled close, and he gave it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Going Through the Motions

  Millie

  MY ALARM WENT.

  I opened my eyes, looked at the time, sleepily went through the magnitude of things I had to do to get ready to face the day, decided on one I could not do in order to buy more sleep, and I hit snooze.

  I settled back in, closing my eyes, exhausted.

  Because of all that was going on with Logan, I hadn’t found sleep easy the night before and I didn’t sleep great when I found it.

  And it was getting on my busy season. I had a wedding coming up in two weeks and the bride was still changing her mind about practically everything. I also had a fiftieth anniversary party that should go off like clockwork, but it was happening that coming weekend, so I had to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.

  But it wasn’t just the holiday season coming making things crazy. I was also reconnoitering clients’ homes and offices to create design schemes I would present, then I’d need to make sure I had everything to put my designs into action. Sometimes this took months. And it was taking those months, starting about two weeks ago.

  I usually worked nine-to ten-hour days and nearly always put in time during the weekends. But it was getting to my six-day-a-week, ten-to twelve-hour-a-day season.

  And to do that and be able to do it well I needed sleep, something I wouldn’t get if Logan remained in my life.

  I should never have let this game with him go on.

  It wasn’t just stupid.

  It was unhealthy.

  When he’d showed at my house Monday night, I should have done everything in my power to get him gone. Then I should have gone to Ride, talked to that Tyra woman, told her to stay out of my business and also told her to tell Tack to keep Logan out of it. And to do that, I should have threatened to call the cops.

  Chaos did not like cops.

  There were a variety of reasons why, including the fact that they grew and sold weed back in the day (and maybe still did).

  I knew there was more to it than that but Logan had never shared any of it. And I knew whatever that more was was becoming a bigger part of Club business.

  I knew this because, in the time I spent with Logan, Chaos’s antipathy toward police had grown to paranoia.

  I also knew it because Logan would often need to go off and do “Club business,” business he did not share when he got back to me, business that could happen at any hour of the day and night, and the longer we were together, the more often that happened.

  Not to mention, the more wired he got when he got home, agitation mixed with adrenaline that might translate to good things, like fabulous sex, but it was nevertheless concerning.

  As concerning as it was, it was also Logan and I trusted him. I trusted him to do right by me, himself, us, so I didn’t question it. Not ever.

  Until I could use it to be a means to an end.

  So threatening getting the police involved would make my point and I should have done that.

  But I didn’t because I was weak and needy and Logan was Logan. True he was a new, asshole Logan who cut me to the quick, didn’t mind doing it, and thus did it repeatedly. In fact, he got off on it in a way I knew it was his sole purpose to come back and dish out more.

  But he was still Logan, older, wiser, and even better with his hands, mouth, and cock.

  And as fucked up as it was, I had to admit I was getting off on the game in my o
wn way. I was not in control of it as I was in control of every millimeter of space around me, every aspect of my work, every second of my life. I had no idea when he’d show and when he showed, what he’d do.

  I just knew what I’d get.

  His attention. As damaging as it was, it was still Logan in my space, eyes on me, mouth talking to me (and doing other things), hands touching me.

  And I’d get all that as well as the orgasm he’d give me and the orgasm he’d have that I gave him.

  Of course, thinking all of this, I did not snooze, so when the alarm went off again, I was wide awake and had so much to do that day I couldn’t take the eight more minutes another snooze would give me.

  I hit the Off button on the alarm and threw the covers back, hauling myself out of bed. I went right to the bathroom, doing this again thinking I needed cats. Another presence in the house. Someone to talk to. Someone to take care of. Someone to love.

  Sure, feeding them would add time to my morning routine but to have all that, to cut through the loneliness I’d been denying was weighing on me, I’d do it.

  I scratched searching for kittens on my mental list of things to add to my physical list written on a pad on my desk in my studio as I did my preliminary bathroom business and walked out to put coffee on.

  I did this thinking about my desk and the time it had taken to right everything after Logan left the day before.

  I told myself it was annoying, especially since he’d destroyed my weekly delivery of flowers, got water everywhere, decimated several blooms, thus it took more time to clean up and the arrangement looked like crap after I put it back together and I was good with flowers.

  But it wasn’t annoying.

  It was hot.

  God, I was crazy.

  No, I was fucked up.

  And I was fucking myself up, letting this go on when I was supposed to be sorting myself out.

  I sighed as I moved to the end of my kitchen counter that delineated the living room from the kitchen.

  It was then I felt it.

  No, I felt him.

  I stopped dead, my head came up, and I stared at Logan leaning against the counter by the sink, mug of coffee in his hand, his Chaos cut thrown on the marble beside him, wearing his uniform of jeans, motorcycle boots, and black thermal Henley, looking gorgeous.