I studied all the pictures with males besides Logan in them, hoping to find some clue as to who Marcus was. I was feeling more hopeless the longer I went through them, because it wasn’t as if Marcus was going to be standing there with a nametag emblazoned across his chest.
Just as I was ready to give up on the pictures, I opened one up where Logan and Kristina were posing in front of a lake with another couple. Logan had attended law school at the University of Michigan after undergrad, and the other guy in the picture was wearing a University of Michigan Law sweatshirt. It triggered a memory of Logan telling me that one of his law school buddies lived in L.A., and he had struck up a friendship with him again when he had moved there. I was almost positive that he had said his name was Mack, which could be a nickname for Marcus.
I took a deep breath as I opened Logan’s contact list to see if I could find his name. For what was probably the hundredth time today, I reached up and touched the gold heart hanging on the chain around my neck. Cassie’s necklace, which I always wore, helped to ground me and make me feel not so alone. The irony wasn’t lost on me that I was experiencing a betrayal that I had committed against Cassie, but I had made amends with the past.
I scrolled through the list of names until I got to Mack Wallers. There was no address but he had an L.A. area code, so it had to be him. I reverse searched the number but it came up as unlisted, although it was identified as an L.A. cell phone number. I did a quick Google search of Marcus Wallers to find that there was indeed a lawyer who resided in L.A. under that name, and he was the right age to be Logan’s law school buddy.
Now that I had figured out this piece of information, I didn’t know what to do with it. I doubted Marcus would take kindly to a stranger calling him up and demanding to know whether Logan and Kristina had been involved in an affair. Even if he did speak to me instead of hanging up, his loyalties were to Logan, and obviously Kristina, since he was the one who had told her about Logan’s accident.
I decided to just sit on the information while I raided the rest of Logan’s apartment. I searched every nook and cranny, opened every box and looked through every drawer, but I found nothing. It was late afternoon by the time I was finished carefully putting everything back in its place after ransacking his apartment, and I was exhausted, both emotionally and physically. When my phone beeped and I saw Logan’s text, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Hi, babe. I’m leaving work early because I miss you. I’ll pick up dinner. Any requests?
The latter emotion won and I felt tears streaming down my face. It was the first time I had allowed myself to cry since finding Kristina’s texts. What the hell was happening? I felt like I was going to go crazy from not knowing the truth. I was tempted to just lay everything out there and demand that Logan to tell me the truth. But the thought of what that truth might be scared me too much.
I quickly texted a reply, glad that he hadn’t called since there was no way to hide what a blubbering mess I was.
Anything’s good. See you soon.
I let myself cry, to mourn the loss of everything I had thought we had shared, and then determinedly wiped the tears from my face. I didn’t want Logan to see how upset I was when he came home because I still wasn’t sure how I was going to approach the situation.
By the time Logan came home, my face was streak free and I was able to muster up a smile.
“Hope you’re in the mood for Chinese,” he said, after he had kissed me hello and set the bags on the table.
“I’m always in the mood for Chinese,” I replied with a smile. “I’ve never turned down a Kung Pao anything in my life.”
I was going to pretend tonight. I was going to pretend that everything was okay, and make myself believe it. I would decide tomorrow what to do with everything I had found out, but tonight Logan loved me, and only me. Tonight there was no Kristina and no betrayal, no pictures of Logan tenderly looking at Kristina burned into my brain. Tonight it was just me and Logan, and I pushed everything else out of my mind.
We had a leisurely dinner in front of the TV, although we mostly ignored the news channel that hummed in the background. After we finished eating, we relaxed on the couch and I sighed in contentment, cradled in Logan’s arms. I refused to let any errant thought ruin this moment.
“Did you get a lot of writing done today?” Logan asked, as he played with my hair, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. Despite my determination to keep my mind off my troubles, I tensed at his question. I had spent the day raiding his privacy, not writing.
“A fair amount,” I lied. “I still have a ways to go.” I quickly changed the subject before he could ask any more questions. “What about you? How was work?”
“Nothing too exciting. I won’t bore you with the details.” Logan absentmindedly twirled a lock of my hair around his finger. “Do you remember me telling you about my friend Mack from law school? The one who lives in L.A.?”
What in the actual fuck. Could he read my mind? I was glad that I was leaning back against him so he couldn’t see my face, because there was no way I could hide my reaction. I paused before answering, trying to make sure my voice was steady when I spoke.
“Yeah,” I answered, as casually as I could. “What about him?”
“We touched base while I was in L.A. and he actually came to see me at the hospital because he found out about my accident from one of my colleagues. He’s coming out here for work next week, so he called me today to make plans to hang out. Of course, I’d love for you to meet him. I thought we could all go out to dinner one night.”
Was this some sort of cosmic joke? I wondered if somehow Logan knew that I had snooped and he was testing me. But, apart from having his apartment rigged with cameras, there was no way he could know. This just had to be a crazy coincidence. It was also an opportunity. I could ask Mack face to face whether Logan was screwing around with Kristina, and it would be much harder for Mack to lie in person than on the phone.
“Sure, that sounds like fun.”
“Speaking of fun…” Logan’s hands slid down my arms and slipped under my shirt, stroking my stomach. I tensed reflexively, feeling on guard with him for the first time in a long while. He obviously felt my reaction because his hands stilled.
“What’s wrong?” he asked softly, and despite my fears of Logan’s infidelity, I still felt a shiver run down my spine as his lips brushed against my ear when he spoke. Maybe physical pleasure could blot out all the pain of today’s revelations. I was at least willing to try.
“Nothing,” I whispered, slipping my hands under my shirt and covering his hands with mine. I guided them higher to cover my breasts. My nipples instantly hardened under the warmth of his hands, even through the barrier of my bra. “I need you to fuck me hard tonight.”
Logan gripped the cups of my bra and pulled them down, freeing my breasts which were already responding in anticipation of what was to come. I caught my breath when he grabbed my nipples and twisted them between his thumb and forefinger. Pleasure, heightened by an edge of pain, shot through me and I whimpered as I arched my back, asking for more.
“Get up and take your clothes off,” he rasped, his voice thick with desire. “I want to see my slut’s body that belongs to me.”
We shifted into our own little world as raw desire propelled us into a space that seemed almost foreign in our everyday lives. Sure, there were times when we had sex and it was just vanilla, but those instances were few and far between. Our norm was Logan using me as his sexual plaything and me loving it. Tonight I was grateful for it, because I was able to lose myself in it and push everything else out of my mind.