Angels Who Prefer To Walk 2

If I’d known that I was out of proestrus and well into estrus, I would’ve second-guessed my reaction here. But at the moment, all I could think was: who was fucking my Logan?

The smell was in the apartment. That incensed me even more. He couldn’t even go to some hotel? I knew it wasn’t my apartment, no matter how much time I spent there while my own place was being fumigated.

(It got fumigated both way too often to keep any houseplants and not enough to ever get a knock-out on the roach infestation.)

Still, it felt like my territory. And if Logan wanted to fuck someone, the least he could do was not do it in my bed, or in an extension of my bed… someplace I felt safe enough to doze off, which wasn’t many locations in this rainy circle of hell.

I sniffed. Pronounced enough for Logan to give me a look. It wasn’t what I was smelling, it was what I wasn’t smelling. No spermicide, no latex. Scents I was very familiar with, because who had unprotected sex in any place I was likely to go or with anyone I was likely to meet?

Well, Logan. I smelt cum, the musk of exerted sweat, even a little lube, but no condoms. Did that piss me off? Yes. Did I want Logan to breed me? No—but since when did that give him the right to mate with someone else?

“What’s her name?” I demanded of Logan, every scorned-woman movie I’d grown up with getting a replay behind my eyelids.

“What’s who’s name?”

“The girl you stuffed full of cum,” I answered readily. “Or do you not get their names? Enough to know they’re on the Pill?”

The really unfortunate part is that I was in no state to appreciate the look on Logan’s face. It must’ve been a beau. “Max, what the hell are you talking about?”

I suppose it was the cat DNA—I liked playing with my meals. So instead of giving him the full-court press, I danced away and let him think about that first hit, following my nose into his study. Oh yeah. He’d been getting real cozy before I’d interrupted. His shoeprints on the rich carpet, his heat still settling into the Barcalounger, ice melting in the vodka tonic set down on the coffee table. And right next to his coaster was a magazine.

I could’ve laughed. Even his nut rag was a little pretentious. It was called Leash and it looked more like a glossy fashion magazine than Juggs, but one flip through the covers and I could see it was all hardcore S&M. Well-photographed, but all that leather wasn’t just because plastic was bad for the environment. And from the smell in the air, Logan had been reading the hell out of the articles.

I looked at him triumphantly, only to find him gazing back at me curiously. Which hit me right back, if we’re still doing that metaphor. I’ve always gotten a kick out of airing people’s dirty laundry and I’d known for a while that Logan had to have a dark side—no one could be that good without something to make up for—but Logan didn’t evince any shame in being a total pervert.

It was more him looking at me, seeing my reaction to his dirty little secret, instead of giving himself away at all. Which was disconcerting. A bit like getting into a TV show, only to have the main character turn to you and ask how you’re enjoying tonight’s entertainment.

I paged through a little more of the magazine. Women, beautiful, scantily-dressed if at all, and never with the full range of motion. Always handcuffed or tied down or with thick leather straps keeping them from going anywhere.

“Always did wonder how you got your kicks,” I said. “But really, a magazine? Isn’t that a little retro? Can’t a guy like you watch a hologram of a woman in a corset? Hell, what are you doing masturbating at all? Can’t be that hard to find a date.”

He chuckled and scratched his jaw and weirdly, still didn’t seem like his poker face was going anywhere. “There is some appeal to fantasy over reality, Max. Even I can’t snap my fingers and have a woman as willing as a magazine.”

“All you have to do is open it and you get it all, huh?” I turned the page again, getting an ad for razors. “Hey, five for a dollar. Is that a good deal or are they really shit razors?”

Logan took the magazine away from me. “I don’t read it for the savings. I read it for inspiration.”

My heart was beating just a little faster. God, it was fun to tease him. Even if I wasn’t getting to him, I was still a little bit under his skin, making Logan defend himself.

So I was a bully. Sue me.

“Trying to figure out what your next camera should be? The one that took the picture of the woman having her hair pulled or the one that took the picture of the nipple clamps…”

Logan didn’t give an inch. My skin was flushing a little. I could feel the warmth rising off me, like I was irritated, only it wasn’t that. This was a good feeling.

“Close,” he said, opening the magazine up to a spread of a woman tied up in a knot, spreader bars holding her in the uncomfortable position. “I’m looking for new ways to tie up women. I’m not that creative and you can imagine the disappointment if a girl came up here for kinky sex and all I could think of was handcuffing her to the headboard.”

1.     I had never expected the phrase ‘kinky sex’ to be said by Logan, ever, in my life.

2.     I cannot imagine any woman, ever, being disappointed by Logan handcuffing her to his headboard.

I puffed air through my lips in something that was trying to be a laugh. “Trying to shock me, Logan?”

He closed the magazine up and dropped it in a rack. “Just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

I was tired of dancing around. I felt uncomfortable in my skin. It was humid now, not warm, sweat soaking into my clothes. A fleeting thought had me ripping off my outfit and daring Logan to say anything, but I couldn’t stop there. I wanted to tear off my skin, my muscles—leave nothing behind but cool, clean bones.

“I’ve got the right idea,” I said, tone snappish. “Mr. Master of the Universe has it all. Good looks, nice apartment, billion dollars in the bank. Then he meets me, a girl who can throw him across the room, and suddenly he’s all about tying women up. Using riding crops on them.”

I grinned at him ferociously. I didn’t know what expression I was even trying to make. What did I care if he fucked the whole Swedish Bikini Team, with paddles or without? And Logan was usually pretty nice to me, whatever he fantasized about. But I just had to get the last word on whatever argument I was having—was it even with him or just something he’d said, not thinking too hard about it, that had lodged in my subconscious and put me on the defensive?

I was wild, yes, but I didn’t like being out of control. Talking to him about this, even just talking, felt out of control.

“Cod Freudianism,” Logan nodded. “I suppose it’d pass muster for a serial killer in bad cop TV—” That was Logan. He didn’t get angry, he got critical. “But this goes back before I met you.” He pushed past me to pick up his vodka martini and take a sip of it before the melting ice got to the flavor. “It’s only been a few years. You really think I’ve exhausted my own creativity in that amount of time?”

I snorted. For some reason, the thought occurred to me of reporting into Logan, giving him all the deets on whatever case we were working on, while he had a blonde in the backroom, tied to the bed, just gagging for him to come back and…

Heat. Sweat. Under my arms, at the nape of my neck. I knew what this was now. I could’ve laughed if it weren’t so very not funny. Logan wasn’t getting to me. It was just my old friend estrus, back in town again.

Which meant I shouldn’t be talking to any eligible bachelors, much less my boss, much less about tying women down and fucking their brains out.

Stop sparring, I told myself, stop sparring and go home and knock yourself out with ExtraStrength NyQuil like a good girl.

But being a good girl had never been my specialty.