Blue Blooded (14 page)

Rachel froze.
Did he just say Leopold?
She elbowed Logan in the gut. “Did you hear him say Leopold, or am I going crazy?”

Pale, he shook his head. “You're not going crazy.”

At the end of the short news clip, the anchor added that Senator Hutton would be speaking to some of the wealthiest businessmen in the country during an upcoming appearance at the Tuscany Hotel in Las Vegas, in an attempt to sway influential public opinion and to prevent Senator Byron's bill from passing in the Senate.

She didn't know much about viruses, but she didn't have to in order to know that the Leopold virus would spread easily in a crowded place like a resort casino. “Could Fink and Evans be transporting the virus in the gas canister?” she asked Logan, a chill running down her spine.

Swearing loudly, Logan whipped out his phone and dialed. He put it up to his ear, his jaw tight and his eyes worried. “Looks like we're going to Vegas.”

“S
O ARE YOU
going to tell me who the hell this friend is who is flying us up to Vegas?” she asked as they parked the truck across the street from a house with its own runway. Seriously, even the president didn't have his own runway at the White House. And she'd thought Cole DeMarco, the owner of Benediction, was filthy rich.

They'd left the motel at the crack of dawn and had driven three hours down to a private strip of land in the Florida Keys, where Logan's friend had arranged them to take a corporate jet.

“Yeah,” Logan said sheepishly, scratching his freshly shaven cheek. “You may have heard of him. Sawyer Hayes.”

Her jaw dropped just a little bit. “The billionaire?”

Everyone in America had heard of the man who'd become the youngest billionaire in the country at age eighteen when his parents died, leaving him as the sole heir to the entire Hayes estate. She'd been the same age and a freshman in college at the time, and although their reasons for not having family were vastly different, she'd identified with him and had thought the way the media had hounded him after he'd gone through such a tragedy was in poor taste. Then months later, he'd suddenly disappeared from the news, and she'd rarely heard his name mentioned again except in passing.

“Not anymore.” Logan tossed the keys in the glove compartment. “Some woman stole a big chunk of his money, but he still has more than anyone could spend in a hundred lifetimes.”

They got out of the car and headed up the patch of grass to the back of the palatial home where Sawyer's plane was supposed to be waiting. Even with all her professional contacts, she didn't have anyone who could not only give them a plane but owned a mansion with a private runway that lacked the typical security found at airports.

Must be nice to have friends in high places.

A knot settled in her stomach. “Are you sure the FBI won't be able to trace us to this plane or to Sawyer?”

“There's no official flight plan, and Sawyer sent one of his employees here on legitimate business. Plus any record of it will disappear a minute after we get into the air. It's one of the perks of having friends who also happen to be the best hackers in the country.”

From what she could recall, Sawyer originally hailed from Arizona. “You mentioned you met your hacker friends in the army. Did that include Sawyer?” she asked.

“Yeah, I met him during basic training.”

That explained where he'd disappeared to all those years ago. It would be hard for the media to follow him while he served in the military, especially while overseas. Still, that seemed awfully extreme to escape the scrutiny of the media. With all that money, couldn't he have just bought a private island to disappear?

Sticky from the morning's heat, she lifted her shirt away from her chest a few times, fanning herself. “Why would anyone do that if they didn't have to?”

Logan's blue eyes darkened, his gaze colliding with hers. “I didn't become a soldier because I had to.”

She stopped. “Really? So if your brothers hadn't been marines, you would've still joined the armed forces?”

“Sawyer had something to prove, and that's all I can say about him.” He thumped his chest with his fist. “I did it because I wanted to serve our country like my father had and my brothers do. I made that choice all on my own. My family would have supported any decision I made, but for me, the only decision was what branch. Only, after a few months, I realized the armed forces weren't for me. So after serving my four years, I didn't reenlist and got out.”

“And went to law school.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “There are a lot of people out there who need defending. Too many innocents go to prison. They need someone to believe in them.”

Innocents like them.

The people Logan defended were blessed to have a man like him on their side. Not because he rarely lost, but because he truly gave 100 percent to everything he did. He believed in them.

Did he believe in her?

Exhaustion settled like a weight around her neck. “Do you think we'll get out of this mess?”

Nodding, he wrapped his hand around her neck. “I do. I promise we'll find out who's responsible for all of this and we'll take them down.”

She took a breath. “I'd like to believe you.”

His gaze dipped to her lips, and a flare of lust bloomed low in her belly. How could he arouse her from just a look? With a hand splayed on the bottom of her spine, Logan steered her around the corner of the house. As the plane with the Hayes Industries logo came into view, her heart flopped into her stomach, and perspiration that had nothing to do with the heat popped up on her nape.

Growing rigid, she froze. “We can't fly on that.”

The sleek white-and-blue plane had two propellers, which meant it had two engines, so if one of them stopped working, they wouldn't fall out of the sky. But what if they hit a bird and it took out both engines at once?

Logan frowned. “Why not?”

She balled her hands into fists, her nails digging into the flesh of her palms. “It's not safe. He's a multimillionaire with a private plane. Shouldn't it be, you know, bigger, like the ones they'd show in the movies with a bedroom and a fully stocked bar? This thing would fit in my apartment.”

He slung his arm around her waist and propelled her closer to the plane. “It is perfectly safe, and it's plenty big for the two of us. Haven't you ever flown on a small plane before?”

“Sure.” She gulped around the lump of fear in her throat. “One of those commercial planes with fifteen rows rather than the usual forty. I prefer my plane to come equipped with flight attendants and alcohol. Lots of it. In addition to the two Xanax I take an hour before the flight just to set foot on it.”

Before the events of the past couple of days, she'd always considered herself courageous. But braving the Everglades, rogue FBI agents, and now this deathtrap on wings was way outside her comfort zone.

“Don't worry.” Logan smiled as they boarded the plane. “I'll keep you safe.”

“How?” she asked, stepping inside the narrow aisle of the plane. “If the pilot passes out, would you know how to fly this thing?”

A man dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, board shorts, sneakers, and a pilot cap appeared from the cockpit. “Don't worry, miss. I don't plan on dying today, so you'll be fine.” He laughed at what she guessed was his idea of a joke and stretched out his hand. “Captain Ivan Rothschild at your service. I take it you're Mr. and Mrs. Smith?”

Mr. and Mrs. Smith?
Did he really believe those were their names? And that they were married?

Logan shook the pilot's hand and they spoke about altitude and flight time for a couple of minutes while she checked out the interior. There were four rows of leather seats. The seats were wider and the rows roomier than on commercial flights, but the plane itself was narrower and seemed to be shrinking by the second.

“Relax, Rachel,” Logan said, rubbing the back of her neck reassuringly. “You're in good hands.”

Hyperventilating, she blinked a few times and realized the pilot had gone back into the cockpit already. Since she couldn't get her feet to move, Logan helped her advance farther into the plane and into her seat. A few moments later, he waved a mini-bottle of vodka under her nose. “Take a drink.”

She knocked it back in two large gulps, the burn of it sliding down her throat and warming her belly.

Working in the high-pressure field of journalism, Rachel couldn't show weakness or the people waiting in the wings for their chance would snatch up the opportunity to upstage her. Since she'd started at the station fresh out of college as a lowly assistant to the producer, she'd taken every precaution to shield herself from looking as if she had any vulnerabilities. It was sink or swim in her profession, and in seven years, she'd managed to keep her head above water.

But now she wasn't only sinking, she was drowning. And Logan got a front-row seat to her humiliation.

Beside her in the aisle, he crouched, placing his hands on her knees. “Rachel, you need to breathe. Concentrate on my voice,” he said, his tone firm but soothing, as it had been the other night as he'd bound her. “I'm going to count back from thirty, and I want you to repeat each number after me.”

She nodded mindlessly. By the time they'd counted to one, her breathing had normalized and the pressure from her chest had lifted.

“You know why you have a fear of flying?” he asked as he settled in the seat beside her. He reached over her lap and grabbed the buckle, belting her in before clicking himself into his own seat.

The whir of the engine started up, but she was too agitated by his question to care. “I don't have a fear of flying. I have a fear of crashing.”

A slow smirk spread across his face. “No, you have a fear of losing control. When you fly, you're completely dependent on someone else for your safety. There's a great amount of trust that comes from handing over your power to another, and you have a hard time doing it.”

“That's not true. I did it the other night with you.” The words popped out of her mouth before she could stop, and she immediately regretted them.

“Yes, but I had to tie you up, blindfold, and gag you in order to get you to relax.”

As the plane sped down the runway, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Too bad that's never going to happen again.”

He leaned into her, his eyes daring her to lie to him. “Oh no? And why not?”

“I've decided.”

“You've decided.” He cupped her chin, tilting her face toward him. “What happened to our agreement?”

She licked her lips. “You can't hold me to it. It's not as though it was binding.”

His mouth inched closer, hovering over hers. “Are you saying you're a woman who goes back on her word?”

“Yes.” Confused, she shook her head. “No.” They were in the air, the ocean below them, and she wasn't freaking out because all she could concentrate on was the faded scar on his bottom lip. What had he asked? “I can't think.”

“Exactly,” he murmured as his lips brushed over hers.

In that moment, she decided that thinking was overrated.

She should've known by the way he'd used his mouth on her pussy, but wow, the man could kiss. His lips slanted softly over hers, teasing and coaxing her to part her lips so their tongues could dance in a passionate tango. She sighed into his mouth, the tension in her muscles ebbing away like a mirage in the desert. With a rumble from deep in his throat, the kiss changed, Logan apparently no longer satisfied with soft exploration. Instead he devoured her, his palm wrapped around the nape of her neck, holding her captive to his domination of her mouth. Heat suffused her body, a heady rush that left her dizzy and aching.

She didn't know a kiss could be like this, as if he was making love to her with his mouth. It absolutely terrified her. Because love had nothing to do with what was going on between them. It was simply lust. Only nothing about this situation was simple.

But the intensity of his kiss made her want to dive headfirst into the tempestuous sea and forget that falling in love with a Dom who craved control would only end in her drowning alone. Because no matter how much she liked him, she wasn't a submissive. She couldn't give him control over anything outside the bedroom, and although he swore he didn't require it, she couldn't take that risk. Maintaining control was equally as important to her.

As long as she didn't fall in love with him, was there any reason to deny herself a few orgasms? She wasn't sure if her climaxes were a result of the man himself, his talents, his domination, or, like a perfect storm, a combination of all three, but she wasn't naïve enough to believe another man could produce the same outcome. Not after more than ten years of lovers who had tried their damn hardest to give her an orgasm and failed. Logan had shown her climaxes were half-physical and half-mental, and only those who could break through the barrier and quiet her thoughts would be the ones who could give her the ultimate pleasure.

Now she would return the favor.

She moaned as he thumbed one of her nipples over her shirt. The captain's voice came on over a speaker announcing they were at a cruising altitude, but it was dulled by the thudding of her heart. Ripping her mouth away, she unbuckled her seat belt and fell to her knees, situating herself in front of him. She spread his legs, moving between them, and released his seat belt before going to work on the button of his pants.

His hand covered hers. “Rachel, you don't have to do that.”

She'd heard that line from guys before, but this was the first time she believed it. Logan truly didn't expect anything in return for the orgasm he'd given her the other night. With him, it wasn't quid pro quo when it came to pleasuring his lover.

Which made her want to do it for him even more. “I want to. If we're going to do this again, I don't want to be the only one getting off. I want to please you.”

And she did. Those words had never been uttered by her to a lover. Pleasing them was nothing more than a means to an end. It wasn't something she'd wanted to do. With the exception of the boy who'd taken her virginity, sex had never been about affection. It had been a mutual agreement between two parties for business purposes. Her agreement to temporarily become lovers with Logan had started much the same way. But a couple of minutes after he'd started her massage two nights ago, she had realized there was something different about what was happening between them. Without having experienced anything like it in the past, she just didn't know what it was. Even as her heart pounded and her palms sweated, she was calmer around Logan. Her thoughts slowed and her breathing deepened. It was as if her body was attuned to his. But what she felt for Logan went beyond physical attraction. Until him, no man had ever made her feel safe. There were people out there who wanted them dead, and yet he had a way of making her forget it. With him, she discovered a sense of peace that she hadn't realized was missing from her life. From his seat, he gazed down at her with indecision in his eyes, his pupils dilating and cock growing under her fingertips. He swallowed hard and nodded. “Pick a safe word.”