Reaper’s Property Read online

  “What a coincidence,” he agreed. “It’s almost as if you’ve been summoned.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic, but he smiled, and nothing else mattered.

  “Join us for lunch,” he said. A command, not a question.

  I wanted to say no. I started shaking my head, trying to get out of it but Amy grabbed my wrist.

  “Please,” she said. “I’d love to talk about art, and my dad is on his phone all day. He says he’s taking time off from work, but then he does it anyway.”

  I looked at Logan. He smiled at me, and I was aware of his presence, of how close he was to me, and my body responded. Not in front of Amy, I told myself. I had to behave. But I couldn’t help who was around when Logan turned me on. If I’d been able to help it, the night underneath the bridge wouldn’t have happened.

  “Please,” Logan added.

  “Okay,” I said, defeated.

  We bought Amy’s paints and left the art shop. The Griddle Café wasn’t too far, and we took a seat against the brick wall that took up the one side of the café. Logan looked out of place here, too.

  “I was thinking,” Amy said when we’d ordered out food.

  “That’s my girl,” Logan said with a smirk.

  Amy rolled her eyes. “That’s getting old, Dad.” She turned her attention to me. “I want to do a show with you.”

  “With me?” I asked, surprised.

  Amy nodded. “A joint show. I think it will help me get out there and Daddy said it’s fine.”

  I glanced at Logan. He shrugged. Could it be that the weakness of an MC leader was a thirteen-year-old girl with neon nail polish and a denim skirt? The idea was endearing.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said.

  “Why?” Amy asked, looking upset.

  Logan’s eyes became icy. I felt sorry for the poor person who ever crossed him or his family.

  “Because my work is out there, people know who I am, and I have a reputation for a certain style. If you show with me, my work will overshadow yours, and you’ll never get noticed. What you want to do is make a name for yourself independent of anyone else.”

  The food and coffee arrived, and we spent time salting our meals, pouring sugar into our coffee. Amy thought about what I’d said. I glanced at Logan, who was still watching me but his expression had changed again. His eyes changed with his moods like a mood ring. They were a stunning pale blue now.

  “That makes sense,” he said.

  I rolled my shoulders back. “I know what I’m talking about.” It came out more arrogant than I’d meant it, but there it was.

  Logan grinned at me.

  “So, what do I do?” Amy asked. “I want to be noticed. I can’t be stuck drawing in my room for the rest of my life.”

  I nodded, sipping my coffee. “I know how you feel, but you’re still young. You have a lot of time. I don’t think I have someone that can help you though.”

  “Who?”

  “I have an agent. Her name is Lisa McKinney if you want to look her up. She represents different artists and styles, and she might be able to point you in the right direction.”

  Amy’s face lit up, and she looked at Logan. “An agent, Daddy.”

  Logan nodded and smiled at me. I had to hand it to him; for someone with a reputation that preceded him, he handled a teenage daughter remarkably well.

  “You need to get back to school, sweetheart,” Logan said a short while later.

  Amy pulled a face but nodded, getting up from the table. “Thanks, Hazel,” she said and hugged me.

  I nodded, assuring her I would set her up with Lisa as soon as I had a chance. I picked up my bag, ready to leave as well.

  “Wait,” Logan said when I got up. “I’m not done with you yet.”

  “That’s not the first time you’ve said that to me. You’re quite demanding.” I sat down.

  Logan shrugged. “When I want something, I take it.”

  That was an understatement. I had experienced it firsthand. I still got wet when I thought about it.

  “I know the other night was out of the blue,” Logan said. “It’s not my style.”

  “Isn’t it? You’re quite insistent.”

  Logan nodded. “I’m not talking about taking control; I’m talking about being with someone I never met. There’s something about you that’s not like the others. I want to get to know you.”

  I nodded slowly. “I’ve been thinking about that night.”

  Logan chuckled. “It’s not about Amy, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve had women on call despite her being in my life.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Charming.”

  He shrugged, not willing to apologize for what he’d said.

  “It’s not about the sex, either,” he added. “Although the sex was fantastic.” I blushed. “But if there’s sex involved…” He let his sentence trail off, and I laughed. He was funny and mesmerizing. There was something about Logan, something other than the magnetic attraction I felt for him, that I wanted to get to know, too.

  “Okay,” I said. “Meet me at Everson Royce bar tonight. Do you know where that is?”

  Logan nodded. “I’ll be there at eight.”

  ***

  Everson Royce Bar was a polished cocktail spot with banquette seating and bar bites, and I loved hanging out here with my friends. It was the right amount of class without costing too much.

  “I have news,” I said to Alice when we’d caught up on all the other gossip in our lives. Alice was an artist that showed her work through the gallery. I had recommended her to Dina. We’d been friends since school, and she was open-minded and free-spirited, like me.

  “Spill,” Alice said. Her brown hair was pulled back, and she wore jeans and a blouse like mine. We both fit into the scene, and we didn’t. It was one of the reasons I got along with Alice – we were both just the right amount of ‘different’.

  “I have a student.”

  I explained to Alice that I was asked to mentor Amy. I didn’t tell her exactly what I’d been doing when we met and I didn’t say much about Logan. Instead, I focused on the art side of the story. Alice didn’t know I was an underground street artist. She only knew the paintings I did at home. She was always urging me to show my work to Dina, saying I would be accepted into the gallery as well. She had no idea that I was already out there as Emerald thanks to Lisa’s resourcefulness.

  “I think that’s great,” Alice said. “You deserve something like this. People ought to know how good you are.”

  I checked the time. It was almost eight.

  “Hello, ladies,” Logan said, standing at our table as if he’d appeared out of nowhere.

  Alice looked at him, taking in the sight of him. He wore black jeans and a sleeveless shirt that showed off his arms. He was muscular – I knew what his arms had felt like but not what they looked like – and he was covered in tattoos.

  “Logan,” I said. “This is my friend, Alice.”

  I looked at Alice who smiled and introduced herself, giving me a sidelong glance that said she expected me to tell her everything about this guy as soon as possible.

  “Am I interrupting?” Logan asked.

  Alice answered before I could. “I was about to leave. I’ll leave you two to it.” She got up and hugged me. “I’ll see you soon. We need to talk.”

  When she left, I looked at Logan again. Something about him tonight was the same as the first time I’d met him. When he wasn’t with Amy, he came across as dangerous, oozing sexual desire, and I wanted to test the waters, walk that thin line between risk and regret.

  Chapter Five

  Logan

  “Dance with me,” I said, holding out my hand.

  Hazel looked at me like she wasn’t sure she wanted to do it. If I’d asked she would have jumped for it, but I was ordering her, and it grated her. It made me want to do it all the time.

  But right now, I wanted to touch her, to pull her up against my body, to do
what I had done to her the first time we’d met. The next two times I had seen her, it had been with Amy, and I was tired of keeping things PG with her.

  She took my hand, and I fought the urge to tell her, “Good girl.”

  I led her between the tables where the patrons had made an impromptu dance floor. The music was blaring, smoke hung against the ceiling like an artificial sky, and the bar had the hot sense of closeness that happened when too many bodies were crammed into a small space. It was perfect; it put Hazel right up against me.

  People parted before me like water, and I felt on top of the world. I was respected in this town, wherever I went; I owned the very ground I walked on when it came to respect.

  I pulled Hazel against me, and we moved to the music, her body flush against mine. She had been drinking, and she was more comfortable than she had been with me before, her face close to mine. I smelt the alcohol on her breath, saw the lust in her eyes. I slid my hands over her body, and she responded, moving in rhythm with my dancing and the sound of the music.

  “I want you,” she whispered in my ear, and my cock stiffened in my pants right away. God, this woman was something else.

  I took her hand and led her out of the bar. We turned the corner – walking into the alley that ran between the two buildings. Darkness swallowed us, and I was on her in a heartbeat. I pressed her up against the wall, one hand gripping one of her wrists, pinning her. With the other hand, I roamed her body, squeezing her breasts, sliding my hand over her ribs and cupping her pussy. She gasped, and I ached for a release, my dick throbbing in my pats.

  “What do you want, kitten?” I asked.

  “You,” she gasped out in a breathy voice. “I want you.”

  “Say please,” I growled out. I wanted her to beg.

  “Please,” she said, and I didn’t need more than that.

  I made fast work of her pants, working them down her hips onto her thighs. Instead of taking them off all the way, I spun her around, so she faced the wall. I pulled her hips back, so she bent over a little, and reached around her body, my fingers finding her slit.

  “You’re wet for me, kitten,” I said, pushing my fingers into her wetness and she moaned in response. I wanted to get her off; she was begging to be fucked.

  I reached down and unzipped my pants, pulling my thick flesh out and pressing it against her ass. I guided myself to her entrance with my hand on my cock and another on her hip.

  She cried out as I slid into her and braced herself against the wall. I fucked her, sliding my dick in and out of her, one arm around her waist and one on her neck. I took my sweet time, sliding into her slowly, torturing her. I worked myself in and out with care. She shivered.

  She begged and moaned, and it took everything not to ram into her hard and fast. We were out in the cool night, and the thrill of what we were doing was like ecstasy in my veins. We could get caught, locked up, slapped with fines, and it made everything more intense.

  When I couldn’t hold it anymore, I started pounding into her, fucking her harder and faster. She cried out as I hammered into her, both hands on her hips.

  She orgasmed suddenly and violently, pleasure rocking through her so hard her body clamped down on mine. My balls slapped against her pussy, and the sounds of our sex filled the night.

  When she recovered, I resumed my pace. I had slowed down to give her a chance to breathe. This time, I didn’t relent until I came. She orgasmed another time before I released inside of her. I pushed into her as far as I could and pulsated and spasmed, emptying myself out.

  The door to the bar opened, and music spilled into the night. I pulled out of her, yanked up my pants, and tucked myself away. Hazel did the same, turning to the side and leaning against the wall. By the time two of the patrons walked past the alley, glancing in to see us, we were two people standing together, nothing more.

  Chapter Six

  Hazel

  In the next few weeks, Logan and I fell into a sort of rhythm. We made time for each other in our busy schedules and got to know each other. Every time I saw him, a part of me awoke, a part I hadn’t known existed. We did our best to talk about life and love and other things, to keep it PG, but inevitably we fucked. Every time. We took it to a motel most of the time. It was safer than doing it out in public like the first few times, and we didn’t have to be quick about it either.

  We could spend the whole night if we wanted to. And we often did.

  I wasn’t sure where that put us. We weren’t dating, not by a long shot. Logan had his MC to worry about, and I had my underground career to think of. And there was Amy, too. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be a mom and Logan had never pushed for any kind of commitment. Maybe it was convenient for him to meet up for a good fuck and move along. It was convenient for me, too.

  “I’ll see you later, Lisa,” I said after arranging a time and hung up the phone. I waited only a beat before calling Logan.

  “I arranged a meeting with my agent for Amy, but she doesn’t have a lot of time. Will this afternoon work for you?”

  “I’ll make it work,” Logan said.

  The man made a point of always making time for Amy. He was an asshole in a lot of ways, and he was sexy to a fault. I was sure I was far from the only woman he banged on a regular basis. But he was a good dad. Better than most.

  I walked into my room to get dressed. My stomach turned, and I ran to the bathroom and threw up. I threw up everything I’d eaten, and when there was nothing left to throw up, I dry heaved for a while. Finally, I pulled myself up from the bathroom floor and splashed cold water on my face. At first, I’d thought it was a stomach bug. But it had lasted more than two days, and I felt sick in other ways, too. I had no energy, and I felt feverish from time to time, even though my temperature was normal when I checked it.

  “Pull yourself together,” I ordered myself in the mirror. I couldn’t afford to be sick now. Things were going in the right direction in my life for a change. My stomach twisted but it wasn’t more nausea. This time, it was panic.

  My period was late. It wasn’t that, of course. I had just miscalculated, or my cycle was out or something. There was no way I was pregnant. Not on the pill.

  All the stories I’d heard of people getting pregnant on the pill popped into my mind but I pushed them away. I wasn’t an exception like they were. Everything would be fine. And if kept telling myself that, I would end up believing it.

  ***

  Lisa and I met at The Griddle. She had blonde hair that she kept in a pixie cut and an efficient attitude. What set her apart from other agents was that she cared about the artists as people, not only as an income.

  “She’s very young,” I said after hugging Lisa and sitting down.

  “It’s a tough world for her to get involved in.”

  I thought about Logan, how her father was the leader of the Valley Reapers. A tough world was all Amy knew.

  “I think she’ll be okay. She has the raw talent, and I have a feeling she might be more street-smart than she comes across as.”

  Lisa nodded. “Let’s see how things go.”

  Logan and Amy arrived a short while later. Amy wore two tank tops layered over each other, low rider jeans and bangles on both arms. She’d made small braids in her light brown hair, and she looked about as old as she was. Lisa glanced at me. Are you serious?

  When she looked up at Logan, her face changed, and she jumped up. Logan was intimidating on a good day, and judging by the look on his face, it wasn’t a good day. His eyes were stormy, a gray-blue and he wore black leather pants and his black leather jacket. If anyone looked at him, they would see mean and nothing else.

  I introduced them, and we sat down.

  “So, Amy,” Lisa said, “tell me about yourself and your art.”

  Amy glanced at her dad before sitting down and taking a file out of the bag she’d brought along. “I think it’s better to show you,” she said.

  Lisa took the file and opened it. In it, Amy had filed all h
er best work, everything from portraits to graffiti. Lisa paged through it, and we sat in silence, the music and the chatter and the odd clinking of knives and forks all around us providing the soundtrack to the meeting.

  When Lisa was done, she looked up at Amy. “This is really good.” She looked surprised.

  “Really?” Amy asked.

  Lisa nodded. “Better than most of the portfolios I’ve seen lately. You do this all by yourself?”