“Escorting you to your room.” He flipped up the counter, and instantly we were free of the hot press of humanity. It was like suddenly breaking through the water and taking your first deep breath of air.
“That’s not necessary,” I said as we walked past Karla working the counter and back into the kitchen. Cook didn’t even look up from where he was shaking salt over fries. “I can make it on my own now,” I said, digging my key out.
Logan ignored me, plucking my key from my hand and unlocking the door to the loft. Still holding on to my hand, he pulled me up the stairs after him, his feet heavy thuds on the wooden steps. “You really think it’s a good idea to live above this bar, Pearls?”
I bristled at his use of that nickname. “It’s just for the summer.”
“What? Mommy and Daddy won’t spring for a pimp apartment. You gotta stay here?”
I bit back a “no.” He didn’t need to know the particulars of my life—that my parents only paid my way as long as I did exactly as they instructed.
“I’m home now.” My sandals hit the steps hard in my mounting anger. “You can go. I don’t want to keep you from your job.”
“Saving damsels from drunks is part of the job requirement.”
We reached the top floor and I tugged my hand free of the warm clasp of his fingers. “Yeah?” I tossed my handbag on the futon and turned to face him.
“Yeah,” he tossed back. “I’m pretty sure it’s even more important to my brother when the damsel happens to be a good friend of his.”
I narrowed my eyes on him. “Did Reece tell you to look after me?”
He snorted and crossed his arms over his chest, advancing on me. Those well-carved lips curved as he spoke. “That goes without saying.”
“Oh.” I inched back, stopping when the back of my knees hit the edge of the futon. “You think he would approve, then, of you hitting on me?”
Chuckling, he stopped directly in front of me, leaving only a thin line of space between us. “I don’t answer to my brother. I’ve been my own man for a long time.”
I had a flash of memory then. Pepper telling me that Reece was only eight when their mother died. Logan would have been just three then. And their father was a mean drunk. Cruel and bitter even before the accident that put him in a wheelchair. Yes. By all accounts, Logan had been his own man for a long time. He had missed his childhood entirely.
The breadth of his chest was so close, vibrating with an energy and vitality that made something inside me quiver . . . stretch soundlessly toward him in response. But it was an invisible thing, buried deep inside me. I refused to let it loose.
I made no move. No sound. The clean, musky scent that I was coming to learn as belonging to him enveloped me, filling my nostrils.
He lifted a hand, dragging his thumb down my cheek. His fingers trailed down my throat, stopping just above my neckline and picking up a lock of hair, rubbing the long strand between his fingers. “I don’t check with my brother for approval when I decide that I want a girl.”
I swallowed. He wanted me. I knew that, I guess. Even if he had stopped spending the night on my futon. But still . . . hearing him say it like that. While he was looking at me like he wanted to devour me. Like I was the one thing on this earth that he needed.
He continued, “This is between us, Georgia. It’s no one else’s business.” His fingers tightened around my hair, wrapping it around his fist and forcing me closer until our bodies were flush.
Us. It was tempting to believe there was an us. That there could be.
“There is no us,” I whispered, my lips brushing his jawline as I spoke. Deliberately. Because I had to. Because I couldn’t stop myself.
“Because you won’t let it happen,” he countered, his fist tightening in my hair, tugging my head back to look him in the eyes.
Was that why he’d been staying away? Because he was mad at me for not putting out? I shook my head and then froze as he bowed his head, burying his face in my neck, nuzzling my skin and turning slightly so that his mouth grazed my ear. “Let it happen, Georgia.”
He bit down on my earlobe and pleasure spiked through me strong enough that my knees almost buckled. I grabbed his shoulders, holding on to him. He released my earlobe and breathed into the whorls of my ear, his voice coming out hoarse. “Do you know how you look in this dress? How badly I want to pull it up around your thighs.”
I exhaled a ragged breath and shivered, shaking my head no.
His mouth skated down my throat, lips skimming over the straps. “I want to tear these tiny little strings, rip them off with my teeth . . .”
God. I’d never had anyone breathe words that hot into my ear before. I didn’t think I even remembered conversation happening when Harris and I fooled around, but Logan talked. Something told me he would talk all throughout it. Sexy, dirty words. And I had to be honest with myself—I liked that. I wanted that.
He gave my hair a slight tug, pulling my head back even farther and arching my throat. “Then I’d do other things to you. With my mouth. My tongue. My teeth. I’d taste all of you, every inch of your sweet peach skin . . .”
A thrill shot through me. I felt his words as effectively as a skilled touch.
With one hand still fisted in my hair, holding me hostage, his other hand was free to roam, free to toy with one of the straps that he had threatened to tear. “Were you on a date, Georgia? Is that why you put on your pretty dress? Did you let him kiss you? Touch you?”
I made a strained, incoherent sound and shook my head.
“No?” he asked idly, giving my head another tug. “He didn’t kiss you?”
“N-no.”
“Good. Because that wouldn’t be very fair to the bastard, would it? Kissing him when it’s me you want.”
I sputtered, then laughed hoarsely, fighting to hold his brilliant blue gaze and not look away. “God. You’re arrogant.”
“Honest. There’s a difference. If you were honest, you would just say it. Admit you want me to fuck you.”
I blinked, startled, both turned on and horrified at his blunt speech. He just called it what it was. What it would be if the two of us were to come together.
He laughed roughly and released me then, stepping back. “But you’re too scared to let that happen, aren’t you? To be honest with yourself. With me.”
This is the part where I could have admitted that I wanted him. That I was honest with myself. I knew I wanted him. I just wasn’t going to let myself have him.
Flings with eighteen-year-old guys weren’t responsible. And yet I held silent. Admitting I wanted him was giving him power over me, and when it came to him I already felt too weak.
His chest fell and lifted slightly and I realized he was turned on, too. My gaze dropped and I noticed the raging hard-on pressed against the front of his jeans.
I yanked my gaze back up, cheeks burning.
“Logan.” I hardly recognized my own voice. It sounded so small and tremulous. Not the mature twenty-year-old I was going for. “This is out of hand. You need to leave me alone.” Please. I didn’t say it, but the word hung there because I was afraid I couldn’t resist him much longer. If he continued to come around me. Touching me. Talking to me the way he did. I was lost.
He stared at me for a long moment, those vivid blue eyes examining me in a way that made me feel somehow lacking. Then he nodded once, his jaw tense, mouth set grimly. “I’m gone.”
I watched, battling feelings of disappointment and helplessness as he turned his back and left me alone in the loft.
I stood there for a long moment, shaking.
And still wanting him.
Chapter 11
I’D GIVEN UP EXPECTING Logan to knock on my door. Each night I would listen as Mulvaney’s quieted under my feet, closing for the night. I’d gotten in the habit of keeping late hours. Unfortunately
that meant instead of sleeping, I got hungry in the middle of the night. I often found myself raiding my kitchen. Tonight was no exception. I had even made plans for the perfect late-night snack. Pretzel bread was my weakness. I’d picked up some from a bakery a few blocks from campus. I’d already bought turkey and Swiss cheese earlier in the week. Ducking to peer inside the refrigerator, I realized that I was still missing a key ingredient.
Committed to the idea of a turkey and Swiss sandwich on pretzel bread, I slipped on my flip-flops and headed downstairs. I turned on the kitchen light. The bar was silent. Cook was gone, so I was free to invade his kitchen.
I quickly located the brown mustard in the large standing refrigerator. Feeling slightly guilty over raiding Cook’s supplies, I smoothed the mustard on the bread with smooth strokes. I’d have to be sure to buy him an extra jar tomorrow to relieve my conscience. I slapped the bread together and hurriedly put the brown mustard back into the fridge. I started to turn for the stairs when voices drifted into the kitchen. Angry voices.
“Get your mitts off me before I lay you the fuck out, you hear me! You’re not so tough I can’t do it either!”
Still clutching the sandwich in my hand, I moved through the kitchen, peering over the counter with eyes that felt wide in my face.
A burly man sat at one of the tables that faced the counter, gesturing wildly and taking swipes at Logan. He jabbed a finger toward the ceiling. “Last time I checked that’s still my name up on the bar and if I want another drink, then get me another drink, damn it!”
I winced. His father. Of course. I could see the resemblance in his ruddy and slightly swollen features, all a testament to years of drink and hard living.
He’d been handsome once upon a time. Like Reece and Logan. The same blue eyes. I could see that even across the distance. His hair was longish and looked like it needed a good shampoo. In fact, all of him looked in need of a shower. His arms were tatted and muscular and I had no doubt that back in the day he had broken up his fair share of barroom fights under this very roof.
“Dad, it’s late. The bar’s closed. It’s time to go home.” Logan sounded tired. Older than his years. I’d never been so glad in that moment to know that he was getting out from under his father. This was no kind of life, caring for a parent who did nothing but heap abuse upon your head. At least my mother was the passive-aggressive sort. She never yelled or cursed at me.
He plunked his beer bottle down on the table. “Listen, you little bastard, you might clean up my piss, but that doesn’t make you my keeper, now get me another beer. I’ll be done with this one soon.”
Logan didn’t even flinch, which told me he was accustomed to such verbal abuse. “Actually you and Mom were married, so I’m not a bastard.”
“Such a smartass.” Mr. Mulvaney picked his beer back up and took a swig. “You think you’re a big man because you can throw a fucking ball—”
“That’s enough. I’m taking you home.” Logan grabbed the beer bottle and wrested it from his father’s thick fist, but Mr. Mulvaney snatched it back and sent it crashing across the room. It smashed into the base of the counter I stood behind and shattered into a thousand pieces.
I jerked at the unchecked violence, a shiver running through me. Suddenly my stomach felt queasy. I doubted I could go back upstairs and eat my sandwich now.
Logan tracked the destruction, his eyes lighting on me at the end of the trail. The moment stretched as we stared, the knowledge passing between us that I had witnessed the ugliness he lived with day to day. I saw. I knew what he lived with . . . what made him who he was. Someone accustomed to taking care of people who didn’t appreciate the effort, who still continued down their paths of self-destruction.
My pulse strummed against my throat as we considered each other in silence. For a split second some unknown emotion passed over his face. Shame? Regret? Then a shutter fell over his eyes and nothing. It was gone. His face was impassive as he unfolded himself from where he was bent over the table his father occupied.
Mr. Mulvaney looked out at me with bleary eyes. “Who the hell are you?”
I fired to action, not entirely realizing what I was doing until I was halfway across the bar. “Hello, Mr. Mulvaney. Care for a sandwich?”
He eyed the sandwich dubiously before looking back at me. “Who are you?”
“Georgia,” I replied, deliberately choosing not to elaborate. I wasn’t sure how he would feel about me living above the bar he felt so proprietary over even though Reece had taken it over.
“I made it with this really delicious pretzel bread. Made fresh this morning. It’s unbelievable.”
Mr. Mulvaney’s gaze dropped to the sandwich I held wrapped in a paper towel in my hand. If there was one thing I knew about a hard night of drinking, it was that the munchies were never far behind. I glanced down at it and added, “Turkey and Swiss cheese, too.”
He held out his hand. “Give it here.”
I handed it to him and he started eating, assessing me as he chewed. He swallowed. “It’s good.” He shot a glare to his son. “Would taste a hell of a lot better with a cold drink. This beer is getting warm. Make yourself useful.”
Logan snorted and looked from me to his father and back again. “Too bad we’re closed and no longer serving.”
Mr. Mulvaney waved at me as he tore into the sandwich again with gusto. “She one of your girlfriends?”
I shook my head even as Logan lifted his gaze to me. I didn’t miss the use of the plural. Even his father knew he was a player.
His father snorted. “Oh. It’s like that then. Complicated. I had a complicated relationship once. I married her and that only made things even more complicated.” He laughed roughly.
He took another bite out of his sandwich and then set it down on his lap, presumably keeping it. He lowered his hands to the sides of his wheelchair and rolled out from behind the table. “Thanks for the sandwich.”
“Sure.” I gave him a small wave good night, watching as he descended down the ramp. Turning, I found Logan staring at me with an odd expression on his face. “Yeah. Thanks.”
I shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. “It was nothing.” And it really was nothing. I didn’t do anything special. I gave his father a sandwich. Big deal. He could have thrown the food at me and just as easily kept yelling at Logan. He could have yelled at me, too.
“No, my old man . . . he’s difficult.”
I resisted pointing out that that might be an understatement. My mother was difficult. His father was abusive. And that angered me, tightened my chest with all kinds of impotent rage for the little boy he had been, living under the same roof with that man.
He motioned to the back door and then tucked both hands into his front pockets. He rocked on his heels for a moment. “I gotta take him home.” He looked down at the mess and sighed. “I’ll come in early and take care of this. Watch your step so that you don’t cut yourself.”
“I will.”
He looked at the back exit again, clearly reluctant to go. He probably just hated leaving the mess. I’m sure it had nothing to do with me. “A buddy of his dropped him off. He can’t drive himself . . .” His voice faded.
I nodded. “Of course. I understand. You gotta go.”
He lingered, still looking like he wanted to stay. If not for his dad, would he ask to stay the night? I had given up expecting to see him at my door. Especially since we had those ugly words the other night. He’d called me scared in the most scathing way, but right now he looked like he wanted to crawl all over me. Every part of me tingled under his regard, tiny pinpricks of sensation racing along my skin like lit gunpowder.
I tried to cling to my outrage, but after seeing how his father treated him, I just wanted to hold him . . . bring him into my body until the only thing either one of us felt was the gratifying rush of release.
Even as tension-riddled as t
hose nights had been with him asleep across the room, I missed it. I missed our conversations. The laughter. His scent. The physical ache of his nearness. I missed hearing him adjust his weight on the futon. The too-fresh memory of his body stripped down to his boxer briefs as he readied himself for bed made me all kinds of hot and bothered. I shifted on my feet, squeezing my thighs close together.
“Thanks again . . .” He looked like he wanted to say more, but then he pressed his lips flat and left it at that. Big hands still buried in his pockets, he turned and headed down the ramp out the back door, his tread thudding over the barroom floor. I watched him go, listening as he locked up.
I turned my attention back to the mess. Beer had settled into the wood, marking it a darker brown. It wasn’t the first beer ever spilled on the floor. Still, I hated to leave it overnight. I headed back into the kitchen for the mop and bucket. One less burden for Logan to bear—and I refused to let myself consider too closely why that mattered so much to me.
I WAS UP EARLY the following morning. I had agreed to meet Connor at the Java Hut at eight A.M. before heading over to the library. I was busy stuffing a protein bar in my bag and not really looking where I was going as I passed through the kitchen. Staff didn’t usually arrive until nine A.M., so when a voice rumbled across the air I yelped and jumped back a step.
“You cleaned up?” Logan stood near the counter leading out into the bar, looking slowly from me to the bare wood floor where shards of glass sat late last night.
My hand clutched my chest. “You gave me a heart attack.”
He pointed to the floor. “You cleaned up the broken bottle.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to leave it overnight.” I adjusted the strap of my messenger bag on my shoulder and shifted on my Chucks.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“You had your hands full last night.” His jaw tensed, and I got the sense he didn’t like the indirect reminder of his father.
Most nights it seemed like he had his hands full. Between work, baseball, school, his father. My gaze skimmed him. At least he looked rested. That, unaccountably, made me feel better. My chest loosened with relief for him and then tightened back up again as I studied him. He looked good—better than good—in fresh jeans and a graphic T-shirt. I inhaled and caught a faint whiff of shampoo and his deodorant.
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