Chapter Fifteen- The Dirt Road

He looked like a movie star in his brown metal-framed sunglasses as he drove my old car back to his house, and I just stared at him like a groupie.

The more physical contact I had with him, the deeper down the rabbit hole I fell, but I just couldn’t stop. He pulled me closer to him no matter how hard I fought against his life force.

He glanced between me and the road over and over again. “You know, we’re both in the doghouse with Jacob, and when he smells me all over you, he’s going to be pissed.”

My fingertip pointed into my chest. “Why am I in the doghouse? I’m the one who has the right to be pissed here. You both kept a pretty big goddamn secret from me.”

Both his hands sat at the top of the steering wheel, but one flipped up to explain the situation we were in. “When Jacob and I talked about how things would be between us, we agreed that the first time we had sex, it would be all three of us. No favoritism kind of shit. We’d make a schedule or something, so we could have equal time with you.”

I was so addicted to the shot of endorphins shaped into a man sitting beside me that I nearly forgot about the matching one waiting on us. “So, what happened?”

“After you and I were together” —he shivered and cleared his throat before he shifted to the next gear— “after I tasted you and held you against me, I knew I couldn’t share.”

His hand swept over his mouth, and his head shook at the impossible decisions that stared at him. “I know it’s not right, but I want you all to myself, and I don’t care what that means for Jacob.” The hand met mine in the center of the car. “It’s not your fault, but I can’t help how I feel. When you two are finally together, it’s going to kill me.”

His thumb beat against the wheel as he looked at the town in the rearview. “You know, if it wasn’t for this pack, if I didn’t have everyone depending on me to keep this thing going, I’d keep driving.” His hand squeezed mine, and he peeked over at me. “I’d take you away somewhere, and it would just be us. No one would ever find us.”

I just came to town looking for a good time, but when I saw how upset he was, I realized having sex with him was a colossal fucking mistake. He didn’t want me with Jacob, and he was asserting his dominance in our threesome. If allowed to, he would never let Jacob have me fully.

I rubbed at the pounding between my eyes. “So, how do you fix this with Jacob? I mean, you can’t exactly un-fuck me, Logan.”

At the next dirt road we came to, he yanked the wheel right, and we bounced around my car as we rushed along the hole-filled path. When we came to a clearing, he pulled the break and looked at me. I was the Queen of many things, and panic attacks were near the top of the list. The bounding pulse in his neck, his dilated pupils, and the tremor in his hands was a telltale sign. He needed to be free of the box we sat in and the chains binding him to this town. “Get out.”

I met him at the back of the car, but he paced back and forth as his fight or flight response demanded him to react. “I agreed to be a part of this because I wanted you so much. I would have said anything to get you here, but I don’t want him putting his fucking hands on you anymore, Tessa. I…”

Logan ran his hands through his hair, then they wrapped around my shoulders and brought me closer. “Just don’t love him more than you love me.” He snatched his glasses from his face and flung them onto the back of the car. “I can’t live like that.”

I shook my head, but I knew there was nothing I could say that would make him happy. No matter what I promised him, he would be hurt. “Logan.” I didn’t know what to say to make this right. I didn’t want to start some rift between him and his brother when I didn’t even want to be part of their stupid trio.

His hand slid around my cheek and pulled me to his lips. “Please, Tessa, when you’re with him, don’t forget that I love you more. No one will ever love you more than me.”

Raindrops trickled down over us, and I squinted my eyes to shake off the drops on my lashes. “Logan.”

My eyes fell to the car, and I nodded. I rarely thought things through about the consequences of my temper tantrums or how my decisions affected other people. I didn’t have to. I had no one. So it seemed like such an easy problem to fix. “Let’s do it. Let’s just go.” My hand balled his shirt inside of it. “Come to Savannah with me. Leave all these bullshit traditions behind, and just be happy with me. Just you and me.”

He hissed through his teeth and shook his head. The rain was drenching us, but those were tears falling down his cheeks. “I can’t. This is all I know. This pack is who I am.”

His hand pushed my hair away, and his lips met my forehead. One last rush of energy broke through, and he spun me around. His hand moved between my shoulders until I was flush to the trunk of my car, and I heard his zipper unravel. The wet fabric peeled off my bare ass, and without warning, he was inside me.

The squelch of my hands moving around the wet metal alternated with the wet slaps of his balls against my skin. I could feel his anger at his life and the pressure of his family’s expectations in every blow, and I finally understood.

Whereas I could tell everyone in the world to fuck off because I was independently wealthy as hell and didn’t even have a family to speak of, he was trapped. His pack-his family- was everything to him.

Since the day he was born, this way of life was beaten into him. The ideals of bloodlines and service to others before yourself were all that mattered to their kind. Until he met me. I ruined everything he thought he wanted.

He knew the bitter end of the temporary happiness and comfort of my body would soon belong to another man, so he marked me properly when he flipped me over and pressed me to my knees.

My tongue was bathed in his fluid, and it dripped from my chin to my black dress, where he knew Jacob would have no choice but to see it.

While his hand milked every last drop onto me, his eyes flashed gold. “Don’t love him, Tessa. You belong to me.”

Hypnotized by sex and the taste of him, I nodded as I rubbed him into my skin. “I won’t.”