Page 47 of Thirst Trap
Penny stepped right up to him, chest to chest. He loomed over her, but she didn’t flinch.
“Then let me love the monster,” she whispered.
His breathing hitched, rough and jagged. The mask cracked. His obsessions, his guilt, all of it swirled in his eyes like storm clouds. And before he could stop himself, before he could shove her away again, he kissed her.
It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t gentle. It was an obsession bleeding into desperation, needing to claw its way through his control.Clothes stripped like confessions, their bodies colliding with the urgency of two people who’d been starving for too long.
But Penny didn’t let him hide this time. She kept her hands on his jaw, kept her eyes locked on his, forcing him to stay present. Forcing him to see what she saw.
“You’re not a monster,” she said against his lips. “You’re just mine.”
Logan groaned like it hurt, forehead pressed to hers as if he could disappear inside her. And for once, he didn’t push her away. The room was still humming when it was over, their breaths ragged, bodies slick and tangled in sweat and sheets.
Logan lay flat on his back, chest heaving, staring at the ceiling like it might swallow him whole. He looked wrecked. Like the sex had stripped him bare instead of putting him back together.
Penny sat up first. She always did. Her hair clung damp to her temples, her lips swollen from his kisses, but her spine was straight. Firm.
That’s when she noticed the blood. Not from her. His shirt had ridden up, and beneath it a jagged cut ran across his ribs, raw and angry.
“Jesus, Logan,” she breathed, pressing a hand to his stomach to hold him still. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
He shifted, trying to pull away. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.” She grabbed his wrist, sharp, unyielding. “You’re bleeding all over my bed.”
“I don’t need a doctor.”
Her eyes snapped to him. “Then you get me.”
Before he could argue, she slid off the bed, padded into the bathroom, and came back with her kit. Antiseptic. Gauze. Steady hands.
He tried again, weakly this time. “Penny ”
“Shut up.” She crouched beside him, pulling his ruined shirt aside. The wound was ugly, deeper than he’d admitted. She dabbed antiseptic to the gash and he hissed, jaw clenching.
“You trust your crew more than doctors?” she muttered, working.
“I don’t trust anyone.”
“Bullshit.” She pressed gauze against his side, firm enough to make him grunt. “You trusted me with your secrets. With your tips. With your goddamn life.”
His throat worked. He looked away.
“You think I haven’t pieced it together?” she went on, voice steadier than she felt.
“You’re the one who keeps Lucas clean. You’re the one who does the ugly jobs so he doesn’t have to. You bleed for him. You bury him. And then you crawl to me when it’s too heavy.”
“That’s not your business.” His tone was hoarse, defensive.
She sat back on her heels, eyes hard on him. “You’re right. It’s not my business.”
Then she softened, voice lowering. “But I want it to be.”
That landed. She saw it in the way his chest stuttered, the way his mouth opened and closed like the words got stuck.
“Penny…” he rasped.
She pressed fresh gauze to his side, then looked him dead in the eyes. “I am done being your little journalist on the side. I am done being just your tips girl. You don’t get to crawl in bleeding, fuck me, and then vanish until the next job. Not anymore.”
