by Elise Faber
She could show him precisely how difficult she could be.
She would show him—
He bent—a long way down since he was a foot taller than her, and a foot was a long fucking way when she was just wearing slippers instead of spiked heels. He was going to kiss her. Fuck, she wanted him to, wanted his lips on hers, his tongue in her mouth, his large hands stroking and cupping and pulling her flush against all of his hard.
Her lips parted.
Her body drifted forward.
He scooped her up and carried her from the pantry.
“What are you doing?”
Logan set her on the counter. Not the one with her laptop, but instead the one that was adjacent to the stove. He placed a hand on her belly when she would have hopped down. “Stay.”
“Stay?” she asked, incredulous. “Stay?”
His lips curved. “You repeat yourself around me a lot.”
“Maybe that’s because you don’t listen,” she gritted out.
“Nope.” He kept his hand on her belly, the heat drifting through her skin, sinking down, warming her from the inside out. “That’s not it.”
“That’s not—”
Now, he kissed her.
One brief touch of his mouth to hers.
She lifted her hands, every thought in her brain encouraging her to shove him away. Instead, her limbs seemed to take on a mind of their own, her arms wrapping around his shoulders, her legs around his waist.
And she kissed him back.
He groaned against her lips, the rough, masculine sound vibrating through her, tightening her nipples, making her pussy clench with longing.
God, it had been so good between them.
The best.
He rested a hand on her arm, wrapped his fingers around her wrist, tried to tug her off him. But she didn’t want to let go of Logan, not when he was kissing her, not when desire was pooling in her center, need coiling through her body.
She wanted more kissing. More touching.
It was her day off. She could—
He set her away from him, chest rising and falling rapidly. “You,” he growled, “are dangerous.”
Char’s lips parted, a protest on the tip of her tongue.
Logan kissed her again, swallowing that protest as effectively as Brit swallowed up the puck in the goal crease. Brit. Brit. Hockey. The Gold. Her job. The fact the man who was kissing her within an inch of her life worked for her.
Oh, God.
Oh, God.
She shoved at his chest. Not lightly, but rather desperately. Desperate with a tinge of panic.
Hell, who was she kidding?
It was all panic.
She couldn’t do this. She. Couldn’t. Do. This.
Logan pulled back, crouching a little to meet her eyes, but for as strong as Char considered herself, for all that she had giant brass balls when it came to work, she couldn’t find the strength in this instant to force her gaze to his.
He saw too much.
He meant too much.
She didn’t want that to be the case, but she also wasn’t a liar. Not to the world, not to the people who worked for her, and certainly not to herself.
“Don’t panic,” he said.
“I’m not.” Her throat had to work hard to swallow said panic she wasn’t having.
He grinned, cupped her cheek. “Welcome back.”
Narrowing her eyes, she pointed to the door. “Don’t let it hit you on the ass on your way out.”
The bastard kept grinning, even as he stepped back.
But not toward the door.
Or at least not toward the door she wanted him to exit through. Instead, he moved around her and opened the fridge, grabbing the eggs and one of the blocks of cheese.
“What are you doing?”
He carried the supplies to the counter, pulled out a pan from the drawer beneath her stove. “Making you breakfast.”
It was said so matter-of-factly that it took her a minute to process.
“What?”
He opened cabinets until he apparently found what he wanted, pausing to pull out a medium-sized bowl. Then he began opening more drawers, stopping when he’d located a cheese grater. “Breakfast,” he said with a smirk. “That’s the meal you usually consume in the morning.”
“It’s not the morning.”
Realizing she was still sitting on the counter, she went to jump down.
Logan appeared in front of her before she barely shifted more than an inch, his palm on her tummy again, the heat making her pulse pound.
He could pound something else—
Get. A. Grip.
“Stay,” he said, for the second time.
And for the umpteenth time since he’d appeared in her kitchen, Char got her hackles up.
“Stay. Stay?”
“On repeat, Starlight,” he said, pressing a kiss to her temple after freezing her in place with the old nickname. His lips moved to the spot behind her ear, touching the sensitive skin there, sending a shiver down her spine. “Don’t you know I love how those chocolate eyes look when they’re sparking with fire?”
She’d begun to melt, to lean into him.
Then his words processed.
“You have some fucking nerve.”
A cocky grin. “Newsflash, baby, I also like it when you yell at me.”
Sighing, she shoved at his chest. He backed up all of six inches, so when she slipped off the counter, the front of her brushed the front of him. Her braless, pantyless front, rubbed all along his hard, hard front.
She’d had a plan or at least a purpose for getting off the counter.
But hell if she could remember it.
Not when her nipples were acting extra perky from the sensation of rubbing against his yummy chest. Not when he was so close, so big, so strong, so . . . fucking tempting.
Tempting.
He’d been tempting before. So fucking tempting just before he shattered her heart. So tempting before she’d nearly given up everything for him.
Enough.
Just enough.
“Leave,” she said, no hint of soft, of heat in her tone now. She slipped between the counter and his body, ignoring the way her body reacted to his this time, ignoring that draw as she strode out of the kitchen.
Ice in her tone.
In her veins.
Desire muted by reality.
This man had broken her. She wasn’t going to let that happen again.
“You’d better be gone by the time I come back down.”
She hurried up the stairs.
Not a retreat.
It was, quite simply, the only survival mechanism she had at her disposal.
Nine
Logan
He was creeping on Char through her windows again, only this time he’d upped the ante by remaining in her back yard.
He’d just plated the omelet, had been intending on washing the pan, but then he’d heard her footsteps at the top of the stairs, so he’d only been able to fill it with water then scoot out the back door.
He’d pushed her enough today.
Now, he needed to feed the beast.
Grinning to himself, he kept his gaze on the kitchen, on the plate with the steaming hot omelet. She’d come down and see it, smell the deliciousness of that cheese, her mouth watering.
Or maybe that was just him.
Because he was starving.
“Focus,” he muttered, waiting for her to appear. He had a plan. Fill her belly, keep her thinking of him—
“You’re fucking unbelievable, you know that?”
Logan jumped like a cat that had seen a cucumber.
That was, multiple feet and scrabbling through the air.
And thanks to Max and his copious amount of YouTube scrolling for bringing that particular viral video to his attention.
But that wasn’t the point.
The important part of the situation was that Charlotte was standing in the open door, her arms crossed
, smirk teasing up the edges of that luscious mouth.
Fuck, she was beautiful.
“Not so funny when you’re on the receiving end, is it?”
He snorted. “You know you can’t say shit like that around me, Starlight.”
Her brows drew together. “What—” She halted her question after the one word, shaking her head and sighing. “Really?”
Logan shrugged. “You’ve been around plenty of locker rooms. What do you think?”
Brown eyes on his, holding him in place.
Then she sighed again, turned back for the door.
She disappeared inside.
He should go. Really, she’d told him to leave. He’d pushed. He’d kissed and touched and gotten under her skin. If his whole end goal was to win the girl—excuse him, the woman, because Char would like him calling her a girl about as much as she had liked him telling her to stay—then he should leave her to her day off.
Slow and steady.
Rebuild her trust in him.
She popped her head out of the opening. “Are you coming or what?”
Coming how exactly? he thought before he firmly shook his head. Not the point. “Coming where?” he asked out loud, and that was also not the point, especially when the talk of coming how and where had him thinking of what he wanted to be doing when he came.
Namely, Char.
“Inside,” she said.
That had him blinking. “You told me to go.”
She smiled—the huge, wide grin that was tinged with mischief and was one of the main reasons the press loved to photograph her. Charlotte was gorgeous any time of the day or night, beautiful inside and out, but when she smiled, Logan swore the Earth stopped revolving around the sun.
Instead, it spun around this woman.
“Did you see the size of that omelet you left on my plate?”
He walked toward her. “It’s a perfectly respectable-sized omelet.”
“For a behemoth such as yourself,” she said, still smiling, though it was softer now. “Come inside, Log. Let’s figure this out. We need to work together, not be at odds.”
He followed her in, ignoring the whole come inside thing.
“We have been working together, Starlight,” he said, closing and locking the door behind him. “That’s not exactly at odds.”
“It hasn’t exactly been comfortable,” she pointed out.
No, it hadn’t.
Because he’d been longing for this woman, dreaming about her, wishing things had turned out differently, even while knowing he still wouldn’t have changed how he’d ended their relationship. He’d known what he would be missing back then, just as he knew now.
“I want us to be able to be friends.”
Logan stopped.
The urge to bust out laughing was strong, so strong, in fact, that his mirth nearly burst free.
Thankfully, he managed to pause, to breathe.
Because friends.
Friends hung out together. Friends ate and hugged and touched and spent time at each other’s places. Friends was slow and steady. Friends gave him a chance to convince this woman to trust him.
“Yeah?” he asked, studying her closely now.
She crossed her arms, lifted her chin. “Yes. Friends.”
He hesitated. Because he knew that while friends gave him an in, it also gave Char an out. She could use it to keep her distance more easily. Friends may spend time together, but they also didn’t kiss, didn’t hold or caress one another like he wanted to touch this woman who held his heart in the palm of her hand.
She gave him a look he recognized.
One that told him he could accept her offer, or . . . that he could go fuck himself.
Since he’d prefer to fuck her, Logan said the only thing he could. “I’d love to be friends with you, Starlight.”
Her brows drew together. “No kissing?”
He considered that. “Does on the cheek count?”
She sighed. “Logan.”
Lifting his hands in surrender, he said, “No kissing.” And so, maybe he’d crossed his toes inside his boots before he headed over to the plate he’d made for her.
“Promise?”
“Mmm-hmm,” he said, opening the drawer to pull out a second fork.
“Logan,” she said on another sigh.
More toe-crossing. “I promise.” He brought the plate over, closing her laptop and shoving it to the side before setting a fork on either side of it.
“You’re a fucking liar,” she grumbled, sitting on the stool and picking up a utensil.
“How do you figure?” he asked innocently.
“Because I know you and your tricks,” she said, nodding at the empty stool. “Your little toes are probably crossed right in those boots of yours.”
“What about yours?” he asked, not admitting to anything. “How are they feeling in your slippers?”
Her breath caught.
He took the opportunity to scoop up a bite of omelet and offer it to her.
She allowed her mouth to open, for him to slide the fork inside. She closed her lips around the tines, chewed and swallowed.
Then moaned.
And he was back to thinking about coming.
“This is delicious,” she said.
He scooped up another bite, brought it to her mouth. “Good,” he said, feeding her again. “Because it’s the single thing I know how to cook.”
She was mid-chew, her eyes having slid closed, but at his admission, they flew open. “Logan,” she said. “Please, tell me you’re joking. You cannot almost be thirty and the only thing you know how to cook is an omelet.”
He shrugged. “It’s food.”
Char paused then shook her head. “That’s it?” she asked. “It’s food is the only explanation you’re going to give me?”
“I’m really good at ordering salads on DoorDash?” he said, and yes, it was more of a question than a statement.
She huffed out a breath.
“Will you teach me?”
Brown eyes warmed as they held his gaze. “You want me to teach you?” She chuckled. “I think you’d be better off watching a cooking show. My parents didn’t pass many of their foodie skills to me, no matter how hard I try.” A shrug tinged with self-consciousness. “And much to their chagrin.”
He fed her another bite. “I seem to remember some very delicious cookies,” he said.
Maybe it wasn’t wise to remind her of the past, of their time together, not when it had ended so explosively. But . . . he wanted her to remember the good times, wanted to build them up, to peel away the veneer that buried them.
She studied him closely.
“I seem to remember that I baked three batches in order to get a dozen decent cookies.”
He couldn’t hold back his grin. “You did?”
“I did.” Char made a face. “I don’t even quite know how I managed to get twelve good ones. My apartment smelled like charred sugar for weeks.”
“That’s why you stayed over?” he teased. “To get away from the smell?”
Her lips twitched. “I traded burnt cookies for hockey funk. I don’t know which was worse.”
Another bite. “I’ll have you know that I haven’t had hockey funk in years.”
“How many years?” she asked after she’d finished chewing. “One? Two? Because I’ve smelled that locker room after games, and let me tell you, it’s certainly not peaches and cream.”
He had a sudden image of a ripe peach, juice dripping down its skin, sliding over lush curves. He wanted to taste the sweetness, to lick and kiss until the stickiness was gone, until it was just his tongue tracing every inch of her, until he was just tasting the woman beneath. Just Charlotte.
The image and its subsequent longing was why it took him too long to reply.
“I figured you’d be immune to it by now.”
She shuddered. “I don’t think anyone can ever get immune to hockey funk.” A chuckle. “That sounds like a bad genre of
music.”
He laughed and she joined in, but after a few minutes they both stopped, a sudden seriousness entering their conversation. “Fuck, Char,” he whispered. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I—”
“I know,” she said. “We were too young. We needed the distance so we could both grow.” A nod, her expression turning rueful. “I-I just wanted to impress you so badly, and I loved you so fucking much.”
I loved you.
Past tense.
That shouldn’t hurt. That was the bed he’d made up, the same one he’d rested in for over eight years.
But it still did.
But . . . this wasn’t just about him and his decisions, his regrets, his love for this woman that had never ever waned.
This was about Char and the pain he’d caused. He set down the fork, reached over and covered her hand with his. “You did impress me, Starlight. Probably more than you can ever know.”
Her eyes skittered away, and she picked up her own fork, scooped up a bite, and fed herself, all while not looking at him.
“I didn’t want to break up with you,” he said.
She sniffed, spine going ramrod straight. “It’s okay, Logan, you don’t have to feed me a line of bullshit. We were both in our early twenties—an intern and a rookie—it was always a recipe for disaster.”
“No.”
“And if Luc had found out?” she asked, naming the GM that had taken her under his wing, the one who he’d gone to for a trade when it became clear that for as strong and smart as Char was, she would have given up everything for him. “We would have been in serious deep shit,” she said and scooped up a bite. “It was just as well you were the smart one and ended us before things got bad.”
Logan could deal with a lot of things.
Eight years apart from the woman he loved, watching her love other people, live her life and fulfill her dream, unable to be at her side.
Having her hate him because he’d broken her heart.
Ending a relationship that had meant more to him than his own career.
Those were all things he’d knowingly shouldered, things he’d been able to cope with.
Because Char had been happy and working for her dream.
Maybe not right at first. They’d both been wounded deeply.
But she’d gotten over him. Moved on.
Because Logan had drawn the line at watching her love for him die a slow, incremental death, seeing it rot by inches, until nothing was left, not even fond memories.