“Which is?”
“The main reason you’re single is because most guys can’t handle you,” he says, his voice going low, almost intimate. “You’re too smart. Too independent. You don’t need them, and you intimidate them.”
Oh.
Wow. Just…wow.
I once went swimming in the Pacific in April. The way that freezing water punched the breath out of me and how I kept struggling for over a minute to stop hyperventilating? That’s how I’m feeling right now.
I’ve definitely underestimated this man. Because he’s right…I guess? It’s like he held up a mirror that I’ve never dared to look into, and now I know why. He’s shining a light on something that goes to the core of who I am: I don’t need a guy in my life to validate my worth. I don’t need a guy to feel safe or capable or purposeful.
And I’ve always been proud of that.
So why do I suddenly feel like a sinkhole just tore the ground open below me?
My eyes burning, I ask him, “Are you done?”
I stiffen as he slides across the bed, eliminating the distance between us and bringing with him the heat from his body and a subtle smell of alcohol and shaving cream. With bated breath, I anticipate feeling his hands on me. Where will he touch me first?
Where do I want him to touch me first?
But he just leans in, his face hovering next to mine.
“I’m not scared of you, Paige Waters,” he murmurs. “Are you scared of me?”
Oh, my God.
“Should I be?” I hear myself saying as if from a distance. Every nerve ending in my body is tensed and primed, ready for ignition.
“Not if you don’t mind that I’m done waiting for you.” His voice is like a purr, and it's close to me—so close.
“I didn’t know you’d been waiting.” My exhalation is way too loud. Does he know what he's doing to me? Can he tell? “You asked me out, and since I said no you’ve barely talked to me.”
His hand comes down flat on the pillow, next to my head. “Did that confuse you?”
A slight trembling starts in my core, spreading like an earthquake to my limbs. I don't want to answer, don't want to give up any ground to him.
But still something compels me to reluctantly confess, “I guess.”
“Good.”
And then he answers my silent question of where he’d touch me first by putting his hand on my neck. The weight on my throat is startling, the sudden heat where his skin meets mine like an electric shock.
I can’t help the quiet, almost inaudible gasp I breathe out as his thumb traces the curve under my chin. His touch slides and spreads until his hand is splayed across the side of my face, his thumb on my cheek and his fingers brushing the hair at the nape of my neck.
He’s got big hands. Strong ones, probably. And I’m sure he knows exactly how to use them right.
I’m aching to lean in and tell him I’ve wanted his hands and mouth on me since his eyes locked on mine in the conference room five months ago even though I know it’s stupid and unhealthy and I’ve spent countless hours despising myself for it.
The song ends and another one begins with a funky and familiar guitar riff, followed by a fast and peppy beat, and then comes Prince’s unmistakable falsetto singing the first lines of “Kiss.”
This has to be a joke. My chest heavy and heaving, I try not to let it affect me, the sexy rhythm that’s begging me to move my hips, to bump and grind. It’d be so easy right now to just give in and grab on to him. My whole body heats with anticipation and the urge to let go of my hesitation, imagining his lips on mine, picturing and craving his tongue and his teeth on me, his hands stroking and seeking and seducing, determined and self-assured.
I could have him, right now. Our limbs entwined, bare skin on skin, panting and frantic. I could have him inside me, and God, just the thought is enough to make me ready to burst. Gimme, every fiber in my body is screaming. It’s all I want right now, just a few minutes of raw, carnal bliss. With this man.
“I still think you're scared,” he says.
“I still think I'm not.” My heart is hammering, because what I just said, it’s a lie. A gigantic, filthy, stinking lie. Logan McKinley, and how badly I want to fuck him, terrifies me.
He weaves his fingers with my hair, tightens his grip, and tugs me so close I can feel his hot breath on my ear. “Prove it.”
No. My heart stops and my toes curl, and my body is so, so ready for this, but my mind is wailing, No, no, no.
Now’s the time to get up and walk out. Because I get what he's doing. He's waiting for me to kiss him, so that he can say I made the first move.
It's such a calculating, manipulative, and…brilliant tactic. It’ll give him leverage, a reason to gloat, and he’ll be able to say he won. That he beat me at a game I didn't even know we were playing.
And years from now, if he even thinks of me at all, his pretty-boy face will split in that smirk of his as he remembers how Paige Waters didn't just surrender to his charms. She ended up throwing herself at him and practically begging for it.
I definitely need to get up and walk out now.
“No, thanks,” I say as I grab on to his arm to push it away.
But his limb doesn't budge, like it’s made of stone. “I forgot to say,” comes his deep voice in the darkness, “that I'm pretty sure this good girl image of yours is a ruse.”
That’s it. Enough. With impatience and anger and reluctant but urgent desire swirling into an ugly mess inside me, I feel something snap.
“Go to hell,” I grind out, and then I bend my arm and slide it across myself before driving it sideways into his abdomen, my elbow crashing against the soft fabric of his shirt and the hard muscles underneath.
A breathy grunt escapes him. As I feel his body folding slightly, I don’t wait for him to recover. Shoving his arm away, I vault off the bed, snatch my clutch, and pick up my shoes.
I’m at the door when I hear his quiet chuckle, stalking me, taunting. “See?”
Yeah. Touché, jackass.
I grit my teeth and my shaky hands fumble with the lock for a split second, and then I yank the door open and rush outside, slamming it behind me.
He’s a dick, just like I suspected.
And if he ever touches me again, he’d better be ready for the consequences.
Chapter 7
Logan
Present Day
“One more chapter, please, please, please?” Abi begs from beside me, giving me her best doe-eyed stare as I insert the hard-plastic bookmark and slap the cover closed.
“It’s late, sweetie,” I tell her, brushing her long and mussed blonde hair behind her ear. “Can’t have you be all tired and grumpy tomorrow.”
The camping lantern fills the tent with a muted light, and below us, the air mattress gives a deep, plastic groan with every move from my fidgety children. From where he’s lying in the crook of my arm, Elliott puffs his cheeks out, imitating the swooshing sound effect I just made while reading a chapter from George’s Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl—a book that’s way beyond his comprehension level, and so the noises are a necessity to keep his attention.
“Are we fishing tomorrow?” asks Freya, who’s lying on my other side, distaste dripping from every syllable.
“Grandpa will be for sure. And you better hope he catches something, because we didn’t bring anything else to eat for dinner.”
Freya gapes at me. “Seriously?”
“Uh-huh.” I have no qualms about sticking to the fib. It won’t hurt her to wait until tomorrow to find out that she’ll be having hot dogs and s’mores.
“Ugh!” she whines and crosses her arms over her face, playing up her mental anguish.
“Mommy would read another chapter,” Abi says pertly while I tighten my hold on my wiggly worm of a toddler.
“No, she wouldn’t,” Freya pipes in, her arms falling away from her face.
“Well,” says Abi, eyes throwing daggers at her big sister, “Daddy will becau
se he’s better than Mommy.”
I manage to cover up my snort-chuckle with a cough. While my oldest daughter tends to be guileless and direct, Abi is a different story. Underneath that sweet and easygoing exterior lurks a master manipulator who would put Machiavelli to shame. It makes me proud and terrified all at once.
“Daddy’s definitely not better than Mommy,” I say, because not talking shit about each other in front of the kids is one thing we’ve actually agreed on. “And I'm not reading any more tonight.”
While the girls groan with disappointment, Elliott’s had enough of being restrained, and he expresses it with a series of angry grunts and whimpers. Relenting, I let him go, and he sits up on the mattress, finds a sleeping bag zipper, and starts fiddling with it.
My hope that Elliott would be asleep by the time I finished reading—or at least close to it—dwindled fast. He’s still alert and chipper, and I’m clenching my teeth, visions of his missing pacifier dancing before my mind’s eye, taunting and teasing me.
God damn you, Paige.
I bend my elbows to push off so I can get up, but Freya stops me by throwing her arm over me and putting her head on my shoulder.
“Can we come live with you all the time, Daddy?” she asks, her voice pleading and pitiful.
“Yeah, can we?” Abi chimes in. “Please, please, please?”
My chest constricts, feeling for a second like it's going to cave in. Every so often, Freya asks me this or something like it. I've figured out that it tends to coincide with her butting heads with Paige, but that doesn't make it any less gut-wrenching.
“I'm sorry.” I stroke the top of her head—a head that was once so tiny it fit in the palm of my hand, and now it’s much bigger and full of thoughts and questions and complicated emotions. “You know I’m at work too much.”
“There’s before- and after-school programs.” Her voice becomes muffled as she buries her face against my T-shirt.
“Yeah, but then how would you get to your Girl Scout meetings? And Abi to her dance classes?” Pulling her closer and squeezing her bony body as hard as I dare, I add, “Besides, you’d miss Mommy.”
“No, we wouldn’t,” Freya spits out.
“Nuh-uh,” agrees Abi almost immediately, because her big sister is her hero and she always agrees with Freya…unless they’re bickering about something.
“Why can’t you just move back home?” Freya asks.
A thickness fills my throat, pressure swelling behind my eyes. I've answered that before as well. Never gets any easier, though.
It takes me several moments of swallowing and blinking before I manage to grind out my standard response. “Because your mom and I aren’t friends anymore, remember? So it’s just better if we don’t live together.”
The only indication I get from Freya that she heard me is the clenching of her fist against my side. But Abigail pushes up on her elbow and puts her little hand on my cheek.
“You just say sorry, Daddy.” She frowns at me like she can’t believe I don’t know this already. “Then you’ll be friends again.”
A smile tugs at my mouth. The solemn wisdom of a five-year-old.
“I wish it was that easy, sweetie,” I tell her, and I’m speaking the goddamned truth. Because if sorry was good enough for Paige, I wouldn’t be lying here all choked up with my kids clinging to me like they’re afraid I’ll disappear if they let go. Because for the past year, I’ve become a fucking novelty in their lives.
Which, admittedly, is my own fault. I made the choice to move into the city, taking the gamble that if I removed myself as much as possible, Paige would realize she didn’t actually want to be more or less a single mom. I was hoping she’d figure out it was better to have me around to help than not.
It was a calculated move, and it backfired big-time. Should’ve known my stubborn wife would take it as a challenge.
“Time to go to sleep,” I say briskly, giving myself a mental shake before extricating myself from all of the small limbs on the bed, pushing down to the end, and getting to my feet.
Turning back, I find Elliot crawling after me, and I manage to catch him just as he starts to tumble off the mattress.
“Hey! Where are you going?” I chide playfully, lifting him up so I can carry him around and back up to the head of the air bed.
“Nooooo!” he protests in his shrill, seconds-away-from-a-full-meltdown voice as I deposit him back on the mattress in between Freya and Abi, who are both glaring at us, never happy to share a bed with him, even when he’s not throwing a tantrum.
“Stay here with your sisters, okay, buddy?” In one hurried motion, I unzip his sleeping bag all the way and drape it over him, tucking in the sides. Because I don’t hate myself enough to try and actually wrestle him inside that thing right now.
“Binky,” he wails, his face reddening, and he starts shoving and kicking at the sleeping bag. “Binky!”
“He wants his binky,” Abi explains, because she’s helpful that way.
I have to close my eyes to keep them from rolling back into my head. Deep breath. I’m calm and in control—and not fantasizing about horrible things happening to my almost-ex-wife.
When I open my eyes again, my boy has pushed the sleeping bag away and found his way back to the end of the bed. Edging around the mattress, I scoop him up, ignoring his squirming and wailing protests.
So, two options. I can lie back down and force his little body to remain in the horizontal position until he falls asleep and then try to sneak away without waking him up.
Or I can be kind to myself. It takes me only a split second to choose the route that will allow me to crack open one of the bottles of Modelo from the six-pack my dad put in the trunk of his car.
“All right,” I say, hoisting Elliott higher up on my hip, “come on. Let’s say good night to your sisters.”
“Why does he get to stay up?” Freya grumbles as I bend down to kiss her forehead.
“He doesn’t.” I move over to give Abi her peck. “Love you. Go to sleep.”
After grabbing Elliott’s sleeping bag and flicking off the lantern, I exit the tent, pulling the zipper down with my free hand before carrying him over to where my dad sits in front of the flames in the fire ring, his dog lying by his feet.
“She picked a hell of a time to take the pacifier away from him,” I say as I settle down in the mesh camping chair, bracing myself for the little boy in my arms putting up a fight. But instead he sinks against me, his head tucked under my chin, and I wrap the sleeping bag around him.
“Doubt there’s ever a good time for that kind of thing.” My dad laces his hands behind his head, watching me with a neutral expression.
Acknowledging his statement with only a grunt, I nod at where the six-pack sits by his chair. “Hand me one of those, would you?”
Plucking out a bottle, he pops the cap with the opener. Holding it out to me, he says, “Asked Paige today about that divorce case you’re both working.”
“Yeah?” I accept the beer bottle with my left hand, eyeing the six-pack, which now contains five bottles, wondering if today is the day my dad stops being a teetotaler—and knowing it’s not going to happen. “What’d she say?”
“She’s not happy about it.”
Right. I probably shouldn’t have told him about the case, because I feel a lecture coming on. “She’s free to withdraw at any time.” With a shrug, I take a swig of beer, the rich and honey-like flavor washing pleasantly over my taste buds.
“Come on, now.” My dad’s weathered face looks grim in the muted light of the flickering flames. “Look, I get that you’re dealing with an important client and that you can’t bow out, but Paige being opposing counsel doesn’t mean you have a blank check to be a dick to her.”
I clench my jaw. “I like how you assume any trouble here is my doing.”
“No,” he responds with a roll of his eyes, “I’ve been around you two enough to know that the shit flies from both directions. But you have the u
pper hand here, Logan. You’re the one with an established career and a steady paycheck. She has a lot more to lose than you do.”
Pressing my lips together, I fix my gaze on the red-orange glow in the fire ring, the heat from it warming my face. “She’s the one pushing for me to give up the case. I told her there won’t be any problems. Not sure what else I’m supposed to do here.”
My dad leans forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “She walked away from her career for your family. She still depends on you, and don’t think I don’t know just how easy it is for you to keep that the status quo. I’ve got a pretty good idea of how much an equity partner at a firm your size pulls in a year. So everything of Paige’s and the kids’ that you’re still paying for? It’s a drop in the bucket for you.”
Shooting him a bitter smile, I say, “Funny, here I thought you were proud of me. That’s why you put every extra penny you had into my college fund all those years, right? And you won’t even let me pay you back.”
“That’s not the point,” he says in that low, menacing tone that always gave me a stomach ache as a kid. “I don’t want your money, son. I wasn’t making an investment for myself. I was giving you options. I did the best I could, and I know I made mistakes. Every parent does. But I’m pretty goddamned sure I didn’t raise you to be a bully.”
His words sink like a rock into my stomach. Is he right? Am I bullying Paige?
No. She’s the one who told me to leave. She’s the one who’s trying to take my kids away. She’s not a victim; she’d never allow herself to be.
And still…
“I just want her back.” Letting the confession slip out feels like tearing a piece of flesh from my chest, leaving me exposed and in agony. This is what’s been churning at the back of my mind since my session with Sharon this morning.
After things having been shitty between Paige and me for what seemed like forever, moving out last summer actually felt like relief. But even as I’ve missed my kids and my old life, and even though I can’t get Paige out of my head and the idea of touching a woman who’s not her is about as appealing as eating dirt, I guess I’d convinced myself that I didn’t really want her back. That we’re better off apart than together.
Mend (Waters Book 2) Page 9