They were silent.

They were deadly.

“Millie,” Logan called through the door.

I pressed my face in my knees, closing my eyes tight.

And seeing snake.

My body bucked with a sob.

“Babe, come out or let me in!” Logan yelled. “You got two seconds!”

I didn’t go out or let him in.

I wept into my knees.

I heard the door open. I heard the pained, “Fuck.” I felt myself shifted so I was not ass to the floor, face in my knees. I was ass to Logan’s lap, face in his neck, his hand pressing it there.

For my part, I didn’t touch him. I didn’t curl into him. I didn’t hold on. I sat in his lap in his arms as the tears fell profusely and soundlessly, all this having discovered yet again how I’d lost it all.

How I’d lost us.

Logan stroked my hair and whispered, “I’ll tat it back, baby. I’ll ink you wherever you wanna be. You pick the spot. I’ll do it tomorrow. Fuck, do it now. We’ll get dressed and go out now, Millie. We’ll ink you back into me.”

“I threw it away,” I replied brokenly.

He curled me closer. “We’re not goin’ back there. We agreed. We’re here. Get back here with me.”

“You can’t get it back,” I told him.

“You get dressed with me, doin’ that now,” he told me.

“You can’t get it back,” I repeated.

“Baby—”

I pulled my face out of his neck and looked at his misty beauty.

“You can’t,” I hissed fiercely. “I made it so you can’t. I threw us away and it isn’t only me anymore, Logan. It’ll never be only me. I threw that away so I can never get it back. You had a wife.”

“She didn’t—”

“I don’t care,” I kept hissing. “She still had you.”

“Millie, you calm down so I can explain, you’ll get—”

I spoke over him.

“I have mine. You saw it. I never changed mine because that never changed. And honest to God, I don’t know what’s worse. The pain of knowing I threw that away. I should have told you. I should have never let you go. Or the humiliation at admitting to you mine stayed true. It stayed completely true. It was only you. It was always only you, Logan. No boyfriend, no lover, hell, not even that first fucking date. Twenty years without you and it was always... only... .you.”

After my pain-filled, mortifying speech, it took a few moments to get out of my head and back into the room.

A room that was so still, it felt like there was no air to breathe.

Then I saw his face.

And my heart exploded.

It did this right before he surged up, me in his arms, and stalked toward the door.

“Logan... ,” I began, but trailed off when he didn’t even look at me, his jaw set, his face hard.

He stalked to the door, right to the bed, and threw me on it.

I didn’t have the chance to bounce because he grabbed my ankles and dragged me his way.

I began panting when he let me go but immediately bent in and latched on to my pajama bottoms. He tore them down my legs, tossed them aside, and I was struggling for breath, my body on fire, as he instantly sank to his knees at the side of the bed, clasping my ankles again, tossing them over his shoulders.

Then he bent; I lost his face and my head dropped back to the bed when I got his mouth as it latched on to me.

He tongued me hard. He sucked my clit harder. He sank his tongue deep inside me. In no time I was past squirming right to writhing against him, my thighs clamped to either side of his head.

And then it washed over me, my orgasm carrying me away as I cried out in yipping gasps and caught his hair in my grip with both hands.

I lost purchase on him. Hardly having started coming, his mouth left me and his hands were back at my ankles, using them to twist me around to my stomach. I kept gasping for breath against the sensations sweeping me away as I felt him let my ankles go but grasp under my arms and he again dragged me into the bed, coming in with me.

He hauled up my hips and positioned. I felt the nudge of the tip of his cock before he drove inside.

My head flew back at the glory of being filled by him and I automatically started to come up on my hands when I felt his fingers wrap around the back of my neck and push.

“Stay down,” he growled, pounding inside me.

Oh God.

This again.

Shivers of pleasure mixed with shivers of fear.

His fingers left my neck but I felt them brush my hair to the side. I felt the trail of his touch across my tat. Then he grasped my hips in both hands.

Oh God.

No.

Not this again.

Something else.

Something beautiful.

“Stay down, Millie, and take my cock,” he ordered gruffly, still thrusting but now also pulling my hips forward and slamming me back to get more of him, faster, harder, God...

God.

I did as ordered, trying to hold it at bay, trying to concentrate solely on the feel of his cock ramming into me, the feel of his wild, the feel of his control completely gone, the feel of what he was communicating to me.

But I couldn’t. All that was making it build again and I dug my forehead into the bed as I moved with his thrusts, whimpering into the sheets.

“You gonna go again?” he grunted his question.

“Yes,” I breathed.

I felt his body round me, hand to the mattress, cock powering deep, his other hand slid around and in. He found my clit with his finger and rolled.

God.

God.

“Then go, baby,” he whispered.

I went.

Through it, I moaned. Turning my head so I was cheek to the bed, I ground back into him, my back arching as his finger worked my clit, his cock slamming inside me and again I was swept away.

“There you go, Millie,” he groaned, then his arm locked around my belly and he held fast as I took his pounding thrusts and listened to his harsh grunts as he came inside me.

I was coasting, no thought, just feeling, languid, peaceful, covered by my man, filled with him, and I stayed that way as he stayed that way.

Until his arm moved from around me, his hand trailing across my stomach, my side.

He flexed his hips into mine and my lips parted with a soft mew.

“My Millie,” he murmured.

Oh God.

I stayed still, covered with my man, filled with him, as his hand kept trailing.

To my back.

I started trembling when I felt his finger trace the ink.

“My Millie.”

I closed my eyes tight as the lazy slid away, the peace started slipping, and the emotion rolled back.

Logan slid out and shifted up. I felt pressure on my hip and at his nonverbal command, fell to my side.

I instantly curled into myself and kept my eyes closed.

I felt Logan’s presence leave. I heard the tap go on in the bathroom. Then I felt Logan’s presence come back.

I also felt the bed depress when he returned.

“Hitch your leg, beautiful,” he murmured.

I hitched my leg.

Gently, like he was so good at being, Logan cleaned between my legs.

When the washcloth was gone, I felt his lips at my hip before he was gone again.

But he came back.

I couldn’t keep my eyes closed when he got hold of me again, careful this time. Sweet, tender, he shifted me until we were back in bed, how we started, this time naked, the covers over us, me on top.

“Look at me, Millie,” he coaxed, his hand at the back of my neck resting, just his fingertips caressing the skin at the side.

I lifted my head slowly to look down at him and the moment I did, he lifted his other hand to cup my cheek.

“That is not a sacrifice I’m comfortable that you made,” he said quietly.

I licked my lips.

“Even sayin’ that,” he went on. “Knowin’ that’s the kind of love you have for me, that rocks me. Rocks me in a good way, baby. Knowin’ you were in so deep for me you didn’t let go even for a hookup, makes me feel like a dick sayin’ this, but I’m sensin’ you need to hear it, it means a lot.”