Heaven

Bella fixed up her hair in the mirror as she breezed passed it. Her blonde curls seemed to have a mind of their own today. She grabbed a hat from her coffee table and pulled it on. She felt excitement bubbling up inside her. She had always loved carnivals, the rides were her favourite. She quickly got inside and made a beeline for a toffee apple. She gently bit down on it as she surveyed the tents, trying to decide which one to go into first. She heard someone approach her and Bella smiled. “I’m thinking about seeing the acrobats first. How about you?”

“Food. Definitely food.” Amelia smiles, wrapping her arm over the other’s shoulder. “C’mon. You can’t do anything on an empty stomach, Bella. What’d say? Fried Oreos?”

Archie had been cooped up in his room all day. It wasn’t that he was intentionally avoiding people, that would be ridiculous. But he had been working on a song and he hated leaving in the middle of his process, or as Deon had affectionately put it his “obsession”. The song was finally finished, and when he looked out of his window the sun had gone down. That didn’t bother him though, he preferred night time. He grabbed his phone a wallet and headed out the door. Everyone would be at the carnival by now, which made him feel a little out of sorts as no one had messaged him about it.

When he finally got the the show grounds, which was just a giant field outside the main bit of town, there seemed to be hundreds of people lining up to enter into the carnival. Sighing, Archie resigned himself to the end of the line. He missed the days when he could just push up front but now, instead, he was forced to wait. That was when he spotted someone closer to the front. Grinning, Archie sauntered up to them. “You don’t mind if I cut in with you, right?” He asked.

“Cutting is actually frowned upon in society, Arch.” Amelia smiles, allowing more room next to her. “But for you I’m sure to make an exception.” 

“How’ve you been?” She asks, looking ahead of the line. “Keeping out of trouble I hope. But If you ever needed me to bail you out, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

courage spills from his lips at that, had she not asked what he’d wanted perhaps he would not have been able to admit outloud—- he’d already gotten to the point of it being some big feat, just uttering the question  ‘ do you wanna have sex?  ‘ it’s not like him to be shy about it then again most of the women he’d been with had been strippers, who know how to produce an opened communication,  he’d become a non-paying client just because he’d been favored among them. but this was logan creed, this wasn’t just any dominant, this was his boss, one who almost mirrored in reputation, a woman who he could see himself getting in deep with.  still uncertain if it were something positive or negative perhaps a happy medium of both.

a soft smile rests upon his lips, index tap lightly on the side of her waist, there is an admiration in the way she seems to fit just right in the slot of his hands, just the perfect amount of space. he gives her hips a squeeze as the words pass through her lips. malachite hues blink gently, slowly to her. his head adjusts, gaze moving from her beautiful face down as her hands travel down across the expanse of his chest,  he knew right away where they were headed. his chest responded before his mind or mouth did, jerking at the touch. the smile still remains upon his lips,  pearly whites sinking into his bottom lip with a soft mewl. it’s a chide that he brings himself to, at how easily he folds at that very specific zone stimulation.

what keeps you from it?  he wants to say, wants to somehow find a way to speak the words, but they just sit there upon the tip of his tongue. castor figures he’d learn eventually or there was some purpose to it, to the extended pause between them. both just trapped within a ever-growing comfortable silence. his back pressed to the wall, he exhales, their pelvises press together and he urged himself to remain still but he can’t—- he couldn’t and his hips roll into hers, mostly when her ruby red lips made their way to his ear and filthy words drip from her.  prove to her he was a good boy, and if that didn’t melt his insides, he didn’t know what would  ;  it did.  his eyelids flutter and he really doesn’t have time to respond properly before the hand moves atop his head and guides him down.

willingly he drops to his knees,  and quickly he removes the ruined shirt, no point in keeping it on— his skin goosebumps to the slightly cold air of the space in contrast to the desert heat just outside the building, tossing the material over his shoulder. still his head remained, so close to her arousal, it was like being intoxicated. his calloused hands go back to the smooth skin of her legs, starting at her knee, sliding them up hiking her skirt up. his hands reach up, one places atop her lower belly while the other brings his thumb to her clit, rubbing over it gently. it was by that time, his mouth salivated, the hand not steady on her belly moves, spreads her, and his tongue presses out, circles around her clit, before dipping, down into her, then back up, lips encompass that bundle of nerves and he sucks very gently, humming contently, letting it vibrate against her.

Her fingers threaded their way through his soft hair as she took a sharp breath of air. 

Fuck. 

The thousands of nerves that bundled in her clit were causing her juices to swell up inside her. She rolled her hips against his mouth as she pressed her back against the wall, needing the concrete support. How was it that a man could nearly bring her to her knees? Logan would never know.

“Oh yes. You’re a very good boy.” She encouraged, moaning as his tongue licked her folds. Had it been that long since she had her own needs met? 

“Right there. Just like that.” Logan cried, fisting his hair and pressing his head deeper into her pussy. With her other hand she took his own and placed it over her breast. Her senses were running at a million miles a second. 

She wanted more.

No, needed more. 

Hooking a leg over his shoulder, she allowed the sensations he gave her to take over her body. 

This is about a boy.

“To family feuds that won’t quit,” he toasted along with her, raising his glass and taking a slow sip. He set his glass down and rolled his shoulder idly.

“You know, I thought the same thing myself?” he said, looking down at his glass, then back up to her and smirking. “But some people simply don’t know what they’re gettin’ into. I appreciate your cooperation in settling this affair,” he said. The last thing either family needed was for unfounded lies to result in one or more pointless deaths. He had never been one for small talk, but he wasn’t in a particular rush for Logan to leave. She hadn’t been completely insufferable this time. And come to think of it, neither had he. At least not yet.

“Pray tell, Ryan. You know exactly what you’re getting into? At all times?” Logan asked with an arched brow. She took a sip of her drink, feeling it burn her system. She wasn’t alluding to the fact that she knew two siblings out of the three she watched might’ve been sleeping with the enemy. Not at all.

She answers both seriously and not—been cheeky for the sake of it, which earns a grin from Chase, even though the suggestion about the blood on her suit is a dark one, when he thinks about it. But after three years, he’s used to comments like that—he knows about what goes on within these families, and all their henchman, and he’s at the very least acclimatized to the dark sense of humour that goes with it. It’s just the actual… witnessing of murder or involvement in it that he’d… prefer to take the back seat in. Or you know, not get in the car at all. 

When she leans forward, he can smell the delicate spice of a perfume—possibly on her clothes left over from another night, or fresh from this morning—hard to tell, but either way, it has him leaning in too. Just a touch. Though that could just as easily be credited to his instinct to follow her lead—where she does, he will too, especially if it lands him closer to her. A brush away from the fall of her self-assured hand. 

He mirrors her smirk, and at her comment, he chuckles a little, fingers coming up to tug into his hair, push fringe away from his face. “Erm, well—fer you miss, anythin’. But I’m assumin’ that you got lots a blokes trained in that kinda stuff who would do a far better job than lil ol’ me. I’d be worried ‘bout blowin’ yer cover.” Her comment is a tease, and so he teases back, but there’s truth in his words. And a little part of him prays she never asks, because he couldn’t disobey—but he also doesn’t know that he could do it, much less that he’d want to. And then, what they? Would she fire him? Kill him? He’s an escort, not a thug—he does what he does best. But he wouldn’t want to disappoint her, either. 

“I’m going to need you to sleep with someone. Not yet.” Logan stated as she traced a finger on her martini glass. “I need information and I’m hardly one to do my own dirty work when it comes to digging around.”

“I ain’t lookin’ to scare you or threaten you. Just informing you. I know you’re a fixer. I’ve asked my men. They’ve all denied it. If it turns out to have been one of ‘em, we’ll turn ‘em in. Otherwise, figure out where that little lamb went and we can all move on, Lo. It’s that

“That, or I’m really good at poker,” he said, flicking his brows up. Logan didn’t know all the cards Ryan held in his hand, but he wouldn’t give her any reason to suspect anything. “Let’s not pretend your lot hasn’t tried to off me before, Creed.”

“Well then here’s to a family feud that just won’t quit then.” Logan raised her glass to dry toast their upbringings. 

a frown seems to etch its way upon his lips, at the hiss she produces, there is much sympathy in his eyes— but also disdain, that she’d let herself bleed out or potentially get an infection because she was too proud to completely admit when she needed help, needing that extra push. she’d come to him hadn’t she, some small inkling of a desire to be taken care of,  to register when she needed help whether she admitted it outloud or not. and to his dismay she’d denied it but he hadn’t let her give him a negative answer, he’d pushed his way right into it. the pain it strikes in him is unnerving— he hadn’t felt this way outwardly, this strongly, the urge to protect. sure, he felt it with the kings, but he couldn’t…. it wasn’t the same or he didn’t consider it the same. logan creed was a different kind of person to him, a different dynamic. while things with ezekiel were just as complicated, there was no confusion about his emotions, about any of it. personal and professional attitudes were able to be kept separate, here and now, he couldn’t not when she was hurting   ; he wasn’t causing it in fact he was helping it, but its in the way he has to create a sting in order to get it better.

he’d seen men and women hurt, seen them got shot right before him— hell he’d even shot a few, but nothing would’ve prepared him for this. it wasn’t that he didn’t know what was happening, in fact, he did know he just didn’t want to admit it, he doesn’t think any time soon he ever will…. nor would she, she went straight to him and if that didn’t tell him anything, what would?   somehow he cared about logan, cared about this person before him that so many believed to be heartless,  a wicked snake in the garden of eden, and she was, her reputation proceeded her, but there was another part.  one he’s experiencing firsthand now, as he had a few other times before perhaps a little too subtle.

castor scoffs, rather playfully for the way he’d snapped beforehand, “there are other people besides doctors who do that,” he doesn’t know why he’d been so callous about divulging   ;  they knew his mother died, but not how, it was his turn to feel rather vulnerable. he took great pride in making sure most of his personal issues and health were kept on the backburner, they tended to bring red to his vision. “and c’mon with our line of quote unquote work, i’m sure you’ve delivered your fair share of bad news.” he’s trying to rationalize it,   he  didn’t want her to get hurt, but it was part of the job. he didn’t want to let her know when he got hurt, no one ever died. it was a sign of weakness, or so that was the general consensus. but it’s then that he goes quiet, concentrates on the task before him.

the needle goes in through part of the skin and out the other side, he winced himself every time more blood pooled out, wiping it away every once in a while with another towel, “thanks,” there was nothing he could really say to that, nothing else felt appropriate, she was complimenting him, softly, outside the bedroom, outside of following up an act of violence or a job well done. no this was pure, raw. he didn’t know how to take it. however, she follows up with something that should’ve brought an amusement to his gaze, to his features, but instead it’s only a small smile,  “nah, not hapless victims, just myself.  heh, it’s a lot easier on someone else.” he’s thinking back to it, to the first time, he remembers because it was with norah, even before things were complicated, where this was an accident or so he chooses to keep in his mind as such. he pulls the last of it through, before using his teeth to cut the thread. a fresh new bandage is taken from the first aid kit and placed upon the wound, “hold that there,” when her grip was on it, he took the surgical tape and taped it down with a gentle cover of the expanse of it with his calloused hand before leaning up to place a kiss just above the bandage, impulsively placed.  “there, don’t pop it this time.”

“It never seemed like bad news.” Logan shrugged, wincing at the needle. “Yes, of course, in our line of work I’ve knocked on plenty of doors way back when. But it felt like part of the job. You knew exactly what you were signing up for the minute you accepted any part of the King deal. So...” She paused, wondering where this admission was coming from but also wondering if it made her more or less of a monster. Not that it mattered to the woman in the first place. 

“...So when I had to face a hopeful mother and tell her that her daughter wasn’t coming home or an expecting wife that her husband was in the hospital, I never saw it as bad news. I just saw it as the ultimate sacrifice for the some greater good that we’re all bound to.” She sighed as the faces flooded through her mind like a broken dam. 

“Maybe that makes me a bad person but heaven never had a place for me to begin with.”

The kiss on her wound sent shivers down her spine. Unexpected. Sweet? It caused her belly to tighten as she’d never been so close to anyone. It was like Castor was taking her oxygen and robbing all her senses with it. Logan couldn’t quite describe what this emotion was. Was it even a feeling? What she had with Castor it was just sex. Wasn’t it? Still she couldn’t deny the reality of how something so small, a kiss on her wound, could make her feel so addicted to his touch. 

“Thank you.” She stated, wrapping her arms around her body. Suddenly feeling the cool air hug her almost nude top. “Do you think I could take a quick shower here?” Logan asked with a slight red tint creeping to her cheeks. “And maybe borrow some clothes?” Her cerulean hues shifted to the torn up, bloodied blouse on the floor. 

“I am that transparent, huh?” Ronan let a breathy laugh and nudgedLogan’s drink slightly as he slumped in his chair. “And what do you see?”

“I see...” Logan reached a hand up to cup the Mackenna’s cheek. Her thumb pad brushing under his eye with ever so slight pressure. “I see a man who’s willing to lay his life down for all the wrong people. And that, Ronan, will your greatest downfall.” She took her hand off his face, leaving the intimacy behind.

They ought to have adoctor on call. This couldn’t go on longer. Logan shouldn’t be bleeding likethat. And Rory shouldn’t be the one to fix here. And yet, here she was,agreeing it. “Jesus. Of course. We need to clean it first, at least a little.Let’s just hope you don’t bleed yourself into a coma before.” It wasn’t the first wound she would tend to, the joys of being a King.

“At least if I were comatose, I wouldn’t have to deal with your idiot brothers.” Logan stated through clenched teeth. “Come on.” She took the woman’s arm and dragged her to the bathroom. “These places usually have a first aid kit somewhere... Oh, fuck... Aurora. You need to find me a needle and thread. Get the barkeep to give you a bottle of vodka too.”

“Apparently, a prostitute’s come up missin’, and everyone’s first instinct is to blame me for it. I’ve already said what I have to on the matter, and I don’t wanna keep talkin’ about it,” Ryan said. “Any more accusations come at me, then you’ll have real problems on your hands,” he said simply.

Ryan took the martini, graciously dipping his head in a slight nod of thanks, then brought it to his lips. He cocked a brow when the woman mentioned that a queen on a king’s board was the most powerful piece.

“Is that so? There ain’t a Queen piece on my board. There ain’t gonna be, either. So I suppose I hold all the power, hm?”

“Oh. How adorable, Ry.” Logan chided with a tilt in her head. “It’s as though you believe your words frighten me.” She leaned forward with a smirk, the blonde vixen always getting her way. “There was never a problem I couldn’t fix. That’s a promise.”

Ronan bit his lip, stiffling a laugh, he followed Logan as the woman ordered a drink, leering shamelessly over the endless lines of her body. Those obscenely long legs that had half Vegas daring to gamble their good health. “Been thinking a lot about my dick, have you?” He took the drink, inching forward making their conversation a touch too private. “Isn’t that particular trait a vice to all men? Thinking with our dicks more than we do with our heads?”

“It’ll be the downfall of you all. Even though you essentially have two heads on your body...” Logan looked down, referring to that on his cock. “You all still act as though you didn’t have any.” She shrugged, “But even I can see right through you, Ro.”

It was coincidental. Without the actual, physical gun Cassidy had no case. The charges would be thrown out before he could even dream of make them stick. Which was why Logan was sitting opposite of him instead of rotting in a jail cell where she belonged. “How unfortunate,” he drawled lazily as his gaze cut across the table into hers. “Perhaps you should keep your loaded gun in a safer place, Miss. Like, say, strapped to your thigh?” 

He chuckled at the thought of Logan Creed running around Vegas without protection. The woman didn’t need a gun to strike fear into most men.

His mouth quirked up at the corners at her question. “To be a woman running around Vegas without any means of protection?” he mused. “Can’t say I do.” 

“What a great idea. I’ll invest in a cute garter belt to match.” Logan teased. She flashed him a smile and momentarily wondered if he knew that’s exactly where she kept her weapon. “But it’s so much easier not carry. That way hardworking, good cops like yourself don’t waste your time on someone like me.”