Ravage (Book 3) Read online

  “Miss Ash,” she says, “I’m happy to say that you and your baby are just fine, a little bruised, but nothing we can’t deal with. I’d recommend a cold compress for the pain, but I can prescribe you some Tylenol if you’d prefer, though I do like my pregnant patients to stay as natural as possible.”

  “The pain isn’t bad at all,” I say. They’ve cleaned me up. My nose aches and my body pulses here and there, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. “What about the man I came in with? Is he okay?”

  “Well, I’m not sure. But I can find his room number for you. You’re free to go anytime you like.”

  “Yes, please.”

  She gets me his room number. He’s on the bed, sitting up with all his clothes on, as the doctor finishes the last few stitches. He grits his teeth but makes no sounds of pain. I wait off to the side. We have so much to say to each other, so much distance to bridge. As I stand there, I wonder why I didn’t just tell him the first chance I got. I feel guilty, silly, stupid, evil. A wave of emotions crashes into me and I have to sit down, put my hands on my knees and try to focus, find a center where I can properly evaluate the situation. Somehow reality bends and it’s my fault for not telling him, because if I told him he’d never have let me go to work. I think about that: going to work. That was a mistake. That really was fucking stupid.

  “Cora?” He reaches his hand down to me. “Are you coming?”

  I look up at him, the father of my child, strong and brave and solid-looking. The wavering emotions evaporate. “Yes.” I take his hand and pull too hard. He winces in pain. “Sorry!” I throw my arms around him, kissing him on the cheek, and then finding his lips. He pulls me close to him and we lose ourselves in the kiss for a few moments. When we break it off, Logan tells me he’s called a cab.

  We ride back to his place, sitting close. I place my hand on his thigh and he does the same, and we sit like that for the rest of the ride. He keeps smiling at me. I get the sense there’s lots he wants to say, too, but won’t because he doesn’t want the cab driver listening into our conversation. We go up to his apartment and he drops onto the couch. I take the chair and for a moment we just look at each other. Then he leans forward and says, “So, we’re having a baby.”

  “We’re having a baby.”

  “Can you get me a beer?” he asks. Then he shakes his head. “I suppose I better get it myself, actually, what with you being pregnant and all.”

  “Sit down!” I command, hopping to my feet. “I’m not the one who’s been stabbed twice. When I’m bloated and can hardly walk, you can get your own beers. But right now, you stay put.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He smiles, leaning back.

  I get him his beer and get a juice for myself. He sips the beer, smoothing his hair out of his face. He looks so sexy, so manly, so Logan. “I want to raise this kid,” he says. “I want to stand by you. I don’t know if there’s anything else I need to say about it. Well—I guess there is. It’s just ... well, Cora, I don’t know if I’m going to be the best father, ’cause I’ve done some pretty damn horrible things in my life. I’ve killed people. I’ve robbed people. I’ve outlawed since I was a teenager. I’ve fought and I’ve hurt and I’ve made women widows. All bad men, but who’s to say that’s any better? And now with this kid on the way, I’m thinking maybe I ought to just ride to the East Coast and get on a boat and get out of your lives. Maybe that’d be the best thing for it.”

  My first instinct is to laugh. It’s a cruel instinct but it comes nonetheless, perhaps because all I’ve wished for today is to see him, for him to save me from Moretti and his goons, and that’s exactly what he did. And also because adrenaline is still pumping through my body with the power of a motorbike, thrumming through me. Everything is upside down. But then I really look at him and see that he means it, he isn’t just talking; he’ll leave if I tell him to, and he’ll stay if I tell him to. He clenches his jaw and stares off into the distance, as though seeing all the violent things he’s ever done, his life on replay right there in front of him.

  “Are you saying you want to quit the club?” I ask.

  “Maybe,” he replies. “Don’t know what my old man’d make of that, but there’re plenty of other fellas who could take my position. I can think of three or four men who’d do a damn good job right now. But that ain’t the point. This isn’t about me. This is about you, and ... I don’t know whether to call it him or her or what.”

  “No.” I smile. “I’ve had the same problem.”

  I go to my knees in front of him, clasping his hands. “I know you’ve done bad things,” I say. “I could tell you that you did those things to men who deserved it, who chose that life, but I know that won’t make you feel better. So all I’ll say is that it isn’t the past that matters anymore. It’s the future. It’s this child, and what we’re going to do with our lives. I don’t want you to run away. I want you here, with us. I want you.”

  He grips my hands so hard it hurts, but I don’t tell him. He’s gripping me with love, or something close to love; he grips me like he’s scared I might float away. “You’ve changed your mind, then,” he says, “’cause I remember not so long ago you wanted nothing to do with me. You threw me out of your apartment, if I remember correctly.”

  I slap him across the face, soft and playful. “What did I say about the past, Logan? Huh? What did I say?”

  “You better not do that again,” he warns. “I don’t care if you’re pregnant. I’ll still work you over.”

  His ice-white eyes burn into me, burn cold like a tundra a million miles away, a yawning icy abyss which never ends. I look into his eyes and I see the future and the past all rolled into one, and then they disappear and all I see is Logan, my Logan, the man who made me forget that I was lonely and hard and cynical, the man who made me forget that I had promised myself never to love. He touches my face, running his thumb along my lip. A thrill runs through me from his thumb to my toes and back again, an electric line that sparks connecting lines, which run to every nerve in my body, lighting them all up. My clit aches as he touches my lips; it’s like he’s touching my pussy. The closeness, the magic of it, is astonishing. He reads this on my face. That’s the sexiest part. I see it in him, a shifting as I shift. He squeezes my face, and then grabs my neck in his hand, looking sternly into my eyes.

  “Your injuries,” I whisper.

  “You’ll have to be gentle with me,” he replies, a smirk on his face.

  “I don’t want to hurt you ...”

  But even as I say that, my hand is sliding up his leg toward his cock. Flashes of the violence from a few hours ago come to me: blood and bone and pain. It seems that the only way to fully block this out is to throw ourselves in the other direction: closeness and heat and love. I slide my hand all the way up his leg until I reach his crotch and then press down firmly. His cock is hard, is always hard for me. His eyes have that wide crazed look, that animal look. I rub him up and down as he grips my neck, cutting off my airway just enough to make it dangerous, to make it fun. I unzip his jeans with one hand and pull out his cock, grabbing it at the base and moving my hand up and down, taking my time. I love the way his veins press against my palm, love the way it twitches as though coming alive for me.

  “Goddamn, Cora.” He moves his hand from my neck to my chest, sliding it under my shirt and my bra, squeezing the flesh and tugging softly on my nipples with his thumb and forefinger, making them as hard as his cock. “God fuckin’ damn.”

  I arch my back, pushing my breasts up. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of the way he looks at me when I pose for him, as if he’s been waiting his whole life to see me in this precise pose, as if he’s been waiting his whole life to meet me. It makes me feel special and important, as absurd as that might have seemed to me once upon a time. I keep rubbing his cock with my back arched, and then lean down and take him in my mouth. He makes the manliest groaning sound as I push my face down, as though he’s trying to keep quiet but can’t help but let out the animal
noise. He groans and touches my hair, pushing me down. I grab his thighs and push harder, but not all the way. I suck him slowly, passionately, almost like I’m making out with his cock. I massage the base and kiss and suck the upper half. Then I lean back and undo his jeans, yanking them down around his knees.

  He makes to stand up. I push him in the belly. “I’m going on top today,” I tell him.

  “Is that right?” He smiles, dropping back onto the couch.

  “That’s right.” I stand up and strip, pulling my shirt over my head and wriggling out of my pants, standing there naked in front of him. “Now take off your clothes.”

  “So bossy.”

  He grins and takes off his jacket, and then tries to take off his shirt but pauses as his bandages shift. I go to him and help him pull it over his head. Then I pull his jeans completely off. He looks so damn rugged and wild sitting there like that, the helmet of his hard cock pointing straight up. There’s something about the contrast between the couch and him, the wild on the civilized. He strokes his cock, drinking in my body with his eyes, starting at my legs and ending at my neck. I point my toes, push my hips out, bring my shoulder back to make my breasts more pert, getting hornier and hornier the more he looks at me like that. Then I strut over to him and climb onto the couch, being careful not to touch his bandages.

  “You’re too fuckin’ hot,” he growls, sliding his hands up my legs and grabbing my ass cheeks, squeezing firmly.

  I sit down slowly on his cock, reaching down and grabbing the shaft, guiding the tip toward my pussy. I tease him a little, letting the very tip go in and then just sitting there. He opens me up wide but I’m used to the feel of him now. My body is hungry for him. My pussy spreads and warmth floods my lips, my clit, my inner thighs. A wet feeling presses against the walls of my pussy. I place my hands on the couch behind him, squeezing down on the cushion and lowering myself even more. Then Logan loses control and tugs on my ass cheeks, pulling me down to him. I gasp, scream, and then sit down so hard it feels like the first time I ever felt a man. I close my eyes for a moment, take a deep breath, and then start to writhe and wriggle atop him, move like the water-snake he said I was all those weeks ago, grind and dance on his cock, dance like I did on stage when he couldn’t take his eyes from me.

  He grips my ass cheeks so hard that I can’t wait to look in the mirror later and see my new hand-shaped tattoos and thrusts up in time with me sitting down on him. Propping my knees on the couch, I sit up and then down, up and down, over and over, controlling how much of him enters me, when he enters me, the speed of it. I have never felt so confident during sex, or so close. I kiss him on the lips without feeling even a shred of awkwardness, our lips as close as our sexes, joined at two parts instead of one. We kiss for a long time, writhing slowly, coming together and then apart, heat and wetness and pressure building between us. I feel the pressure and the wetness in my sweet spot most of all, which I guide his cock to over and over. It presses down against it, triggering another wave of wetness. I’m so wet now that it drips down his cock onto his balls.

  I buck faster and faster, the pressure building, the closeness almost too much to bear. This is the father of my child, inside of me like he was inside of me to make the baby, and this is the man who saved my life a few hours ago, who killed for me. This is my protector and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I focus on the heat at the tip of his massive length, his hands on my ass, listening to his groans and smelling his sweat, smelling his hair, feeling his lips against mine, our teeth clicking together, our clashing tongues. I focus on the way his cock slides deeper and deeper and never seems to end—and then I can’t focus on anything at all. Something snaps inside of me.

  I break off the kiss and bury my face in his neck, kissing and biting and moaning as the orgasm releases. It feels like something propelling my hips, a power I don’t understand forcing me to grind faster and faster so that I can keep up with the euphoria. Logan pulls me close to him, fucking up as I fuck down, slamming into me as I slam onto him. The orgasm lengthens, squirting come spilling down his cock into his lap, squirting come emptying out of me so that I feel deflated, utterly spent of pleasure. I grind down one final time, feeling every inch of him.

  He looks up at me, hair across his eyes, face twisted. “Thank God.” He lets out a long breath and comes inside of me for a full ten seconds, sucking on my breasts and kissing my chest over and over once his pleasure passes.

  I slide away and curl up next to him. I should go to the bathroom—his come is pooling on the couch cushion—but I feel too content here.

  “So I take it you want me to stick around, then.”

  I kiss him on bare skin. It’s like that does it: the connection of skin on skin. Love pours through the kiss and I’m struck with the suddenness of it. “I love you,” I whisper, almost in awe.

  He flinches as though struck, too. “Wow,” he mutters. “I ... goddamn, Cora, I love you.”

  We don’t kiss or make love again. We just sit there a while, sharing silent love.

  Epilogue

  Cora

  Hauling around a one-month pregnant body was easier than hauling around an eight-month pregnant body. If I could tell a newly-pregnant woman anything at all, it would be that simple fact. One month is like having an imaginary friend. I knew he was there and I knew one day he might become real, but it never really occurred to me how real he’d become: so real that I’d feel as if I was carrying around a belly full of water all day every day. But I forget about those concerns when I place my hand on him, feeling his kicking legs. That freaked me out the first time, but now I love the feeling. He’s desperate to get out and meet his parents.

  I ride the elevator up to our apartment. I moved into Logan’s place after a month and I’ve lived with him ever since. But slowly it become our place, because living in a barren cell didn’t much appeal to me. Now it’s covered in Norse artwork—a picture of Odin on one wall, a carved replica shield hanging from another—with plush rugs and a homey feel. Maybe we’ll get a house one day. I don’t know.

  I sing softly to myself as the elevator glides toward our floor. I’ve been singing a lot. It’s my intention to get right back into performing after our son is born. I can’t exactly perform right now, though. Having my waters break onstage isn’t exactly my idea of the rock ’n roll lifestyle.

  I walk down the hallway feeling happy, the grocery bag under my arm. Logan is out of the club, working as a mechanic and training poor kids at the gym, teaching them to box and how to take care of themselves. All in all, this is the happiest I have ever been in my life, ever dreamed I could be as an angry, lonely teenager with no real friends.

  And then I open the door and know that my happiness is only just beginning. Logan is in a suit, his hair tied back in a bun and his bushy brown beard combed neatly. He looks handsome, devastatingly so. His white eyes pierce me. He’s on one knee with a ring box in his hand. The diamond glints at me.

  “Logan ...”

  “Cora Ash,” he says, that wicked smile on his lips. “Will you marry me?”

  I’m stunned for a moment, mouth hanging open. I kept expecting him to propose to me after we moved in together. There was a small part of me that feared he would use me for the will executor’s clause. But after living with him for almost a year, after making love and wasting away on lazy Sundays, I know that this proposal comes from love and nothing else.

  As if reading my mind—and perhaps worried by my silence—he says, “We can get married after the baby is born, if you like.”

  “Are you crazy?” I leap across the room and snatch the ring from the box.

  He takes my trembling hand and slides the ring onto my finger. “Is that a yes?” he asks.

  “Of course it’s a yes!”

  He kisses me, lowering me in his arms, and then lifts me up and takes me to the couch, which is covered in rose petals. He’s laid out two glasses: one with champagne and another with orange juice. “I was gonna go with the chario
t deal, but I reckoned that was a bit much.”

  “I need to call Mr. Polly,” I say, smiling. “I can’t wait to hear his smug voice drop.”

  “Let’s not think about that for a while.” Logan hands me my orange juice. “Oh, and one more thing. I know you’re this tough punk lady and all that. But you’re taking my name and that’s that.”

  We clink glasses, and I snap off a mock-salute. “Sir, yes, sir.” A mock-salute, but I mean it.

  I want to swap Ash for Birch.

  Logan

  “Is she next?” Mom asks, bobbing baby Thorne up and down on her knee. He smiles with his gummy teeth, reaching over to me and miming the word Dada, which he said a couple of weeks ago for the first time and now can’t stop saying.

  I wipe my oil-stained hands on my work trousers and reach back to him, giving his hand a squeeze. “Relax, Ma.”

  “Don’t tell me to relax. I’ve never seen her perform before. I’m excited.”

  We sit near the front row of an upscale bar, hipster-looking types all around us, me and Mom sticking out like a pair of sore thumbs. But I don’t mind one bit. I’d much prefer to have her performing in joints like these rather than dive bars.

  “Give him here.” I take my son as the announcer calls out Cora’s name, ’cause Mom is already getting to her feet to dance. I don’t stand up. I whisper in Thorne’s ear, “Do you really think Mommy would let me take you to a rock concert, little man? Look. There she is. This is just for you.”

  Cora walks onto the stage in her Viking outfit, the one she wears for most of her performances now, a patterned tunic and trousers, leather boots and a metal wolf pendant at her neck, partially covering the snake’s mouth. She nods to the band, smiling over the crowd, and then smiling even wider when the band get up and walk offstage. Cora grins down at me, winking at Thorne, and I give Thorne a tickle. He giggles up at his mother.

  Then Cora sings, and even if it’s not what these hipsters wanted, even if she’ll have to pay the club owner for pulling a stunt like this—maybe give a free performance in a couple of weeks’ time—it’s worth it.