by J. Woods
“The police officer sitting next to me when Logan walked in.” Zoe was not about to admit that she had lost full control and humiliatingly threw herself into his arms when she saw him. It was something she couldn’t explain to herself let alone Rachel who would look too far into the situation when there wasn’t anything to look into. Logan wasn’t her type and he wasn’t into her - she just hadn’t gotten laid in a while and she was obviously anxious about the threats she was receiving. It was human nature to want to be around other people when you were scared, natural. Hell she had just been yelling at him about how much of a jerk he was, because he was - a jerk that is. Until he wrapped his arms around her and told her it was going to be okay. Until she felt his lips press against the top of her head in a comforting gesture - damn it, she almost wished he would stay an asshole. He would be a lot easier not to want that way.
Logan walked through her front door before her just as he did yesterday except today, he wouldn’t be leaving. Zoe’s nerves were shot, she had never brought any guys to her home and in the past couple of days it seemed her front door was a conveyor for men inside her sanctuary. “Stay here.” She rolled her eyes at his command but did as she was told and watched Logan and Axel sniff around for intruders. When she got the all clear she moved into her living room throwing her bag on the first chair in sight. “I have to run downstairs to get my bag.”
“Okay,” Zoe nodded her head.
“Axel, stay with Zoe.”
Chapter Six
Logan walked through the door that was going to be his home for the next couple of weeks, at least. Normally he didn’t feel comfortable staying anywhere other than his cabin in the woods, but he didn’t get that sense when he walked into Zoe’s place. It was full of vibrant life with soft cushions and worn wood in front of a fireplace, the complete opposite to her white and grey cold office. He wondered who she really was - was she the stuck up princess he originally thought her to be or was she this warm, soft entrancing woman who lived within reds and oranges mixed with dark rustic timbers. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the Zoe in professional mode; she was damn sexy but almost in an untouchable way. This Zoe, the one who lived in this million dollar loft, she felt more vulnerable, more approaching.
“I can show you to your room.” Zoe’s soft, uncertain voice crashed through his thoughts and a new one had his jeans tightening incomprehensively - the thought of Zoe and him in the same bedroom. Instantly he pictured her lying beneath him, her naked skin covered in a gleam of sweat as he took her to a peak so high she was screaming his name. There was nothing he ever wanted more than to hear his name on her lips and knowing he was the one who put it there.
He cleared his throat pushing his inappropriate thoughts to the back of his mind, “Sure.” He followed her down the hallway as she explained each room they walked past. He had already seen them when he completed his searches of her home but he allowed her to continue, thinking it was maintaining and air of normalcy for her.
“This is my office, where you can probably find me most of the time, that is if the Bachelor isn’t on.”
“The Bachelor?”
“Guilty pleasure,” she shrugged. “I’m guessing you’re not a fan?”
“Not really, but I have three younger sisters so I’m usually up on all the gossip.”
“Three? Wow. And here is your room.” She stepped inside; exactly what he didn’t want her to do as he followed her in. The room was surprisingly masculine but he could tell the feminine touches that she had put in place. “You have your own bathroom just through that door. There are clean towels and anything you would need. If you need more, they are in the linen closet across the hall. And my bedroom is the door at the end of the hall. Please make yourself at home, use whatever you want, eat whatever, whenever you want. Oh, there is a TV in this armoire and there is satellite so I don’t know if you like sports or whatever but I get all the channels. So… That’s that I guess.”
“Great.”
They stood staring at each other for a long moment before Zoe smiled nervously. “I’ll get out of your hair, I’m sure you’re tired. Rest up, I’ll get dinner.”
“Okay.” He watched her walk out of his room and down the hall until she disappeared into the living room. He wondered what she was going to order, he hoped something good and not any of that healthy seaweed shit his sister Cameron had tried to get him to eat the last time he went to her place for dinner. His sisters were great, but when they told him to come over for a BBQ and it turned out the burgers were made of tofu - a thing they were trying, apparently - he wasn’t too keen to return. They all lived together, his sisters, and they were all single; something Logan and his brothers approved of. Logan was protective of all of them, even if they threw fits and yelled at him from time to time telling him they were adults and capable of making their own decisions. He normally shrugged it off, pulling them into his arms as he rumpled their ‘just styled’ hair. He smiled, Roxy’s shriek still echoing in his ears from the last time followed by her exasperated laughter - she could never stay mad at him. He was her favorite big brother after all.
After unpacking his clothes he sat on the end of the bed taking a deep breath when his phone rang. “Hey, Ma. How are you?”
He waited listening to the soft tones of his mother’s comforting voice. “I’m great honey, how are you?”
“I’m good.”
“Max told me you’re on another job. Something about a beautiful woman?” Of course Max wouldn’t forget to mention Zoe’s beauty and of course he had to tell his mother, who he knew would try to pry anything out of Logan, especially concerning a woman. He knew his mother worried about him and he didn’t give her any reason not to be, but he couldn’t help it. The military had changed him, dimmed the light on his personality, but how could it not with the things he had seen? He would never regret what he did, he loved his time in uniform, but that didn’t mean the black marks they left on his soul would ever disappear. “Yes, I am on another job, Mom.”
“Are you in town?”
“Yes, it’s a local job.”
“Okay good, then that means maybe we’ll see you for Sunday dinner?”
“I don’t know about that Ma, I’ll have to see where I am on this case.”
“Okay honey, I won’t keep you any longer. If you’re home tomorrow, I’ll drop off this casserole I made for you.”
“Actually I’m not at home. I’m, staying with the client for a while.”
He rolled his eyes at the long pause before his mother continued. “Okay. Be safe honey. I love you.”
“Love you too. Tell Dad I say hi.”
“Of course. Bye, sweetheart.”
“Bye, Mom.” Logan let out a rough breath combing his fingers through his hair; he was going to kill Max for putting the idea into his mother’s head. Hearing Zoe clang around in the kitchen, he pushed himself off the bed wondering what she was doing and where his dog was. Although he had a pretty good idea, panting at Zoe Alcott’s feet just like any other red blooded male who had ever set eyes on her. He walked into the open concept living and dining room to see her stirring something on the stove. “I thought you were going to order something?” he asked her surprised. She turned around to grin at him, damn, he thought, what he wouldn’t do to keep that grin on her face.
“No, I don’t usually do take out. Is stir fry okay?”
He pulled out a bar stool and continued to watch her add things to the simmering wok she had on the stove. “Sure. What can I do to help?”
“Oh! Nothing, thanks for asking though.” He had to chuckle at her surprise, what did she think he was? She stared at him with a wondrous look before going back to the sizzling pan behind her.
“I’ve never heard you laugh before,” she mused almost to herself. He frowned at her back not knowing why he didn’t like the surprise in her voice. Before he could answer she continued with, “What would you like to drink? I have wine, beer, water, milk.”
“How about I g
et the drinks?”
“Um, okay sure. Everything is in the fridge.”
“What are you having?”
“A glass of white please. Wine glasses are in the cupboard behind you.”
Not knowing what would be appropriate for a dinner with a client, he placed his beer at the head of the table and hers to the seat next to his. As he walked back to the kitchen Zoe was plating the food. The smell was mouth watering. They sat down at the table when Zoe let out a small laugh. “What?” he asked.
“I don’t think I’ve ever actually sat at this table and had a meal.”
He frowned at her in confusion. “Where do you normally eat then?”
“At the bar, or on the couch or in my office. Dig in, dig in,” she urged.
With his first mouthful he couldn’t suppress the moan that escaped him. “This is amazing. I didn’t know you could cook, let alone like this.”
She looked at him and smiled and he could swear the dimming sunlight grew just a little brighter. “Thanks! I don’t usually cook for anyone but myself so it’s nice to be able to cook for someone else.”
Logan had never seen this side of Zoe before. Right now she wasn’t the CEO of a multimillion dollar company, she was just Zoe and he knew instinctively he had been wrong. This was who she truly was. He had the strong urgency to want to get to know her better. “Did your mom teach you?”
Zoe laughed. “No. My mom, I’m sure, doesn’t even know how to turn on a burner let alone boil water. She’s awful in the kitchen. My dad can scramble an egg or make a grilled cheese, although you have a fifty-fifty chance of it being completely black on both sides. It was actually Rachel’s mom who taught me how to cook. We grew up living beside each other and her mom was always cooking in the kitchen, so one day I went in and asked her if I could help. She taught me a few things and then when I went away to college I learned the rest through cookbooks and stuff. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Can you cook?” she asked raising a challenging eyebrow at him.
“Well I can certainly boil water, I’ve been known to scramble an egg and I don’t think I have ever burned a grilled cheese.” He loved the sound of Zoe’s laugh - there was that word again. He must be tired.
“All good skills to possess. Would you like more?”
“Oh no thanks, I’m stuffed. That was amazing though, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
She stood to grab the plates but he was quicker. “You cooked, I clean.”
“How very equal rights of you. Thanks.”
“I try.” He shot her one of his charming grins and he could almost see the fire in her eyes. Was he imagining it? Did she want him like he wanted her? He didn’t think he was her type. She seemed like the type to go for a guy in a suit rather than someone like him. Shrugging it off as he ran the water, he couldn’t help but think over all the new qualities he was learning about the layered Zoe Alcott.
When he was finished, he found her in the living room with her feet curled up underneath her as she flipped through the channels to find something on. He took a moment to just look at her. She really was beautiful, maybe one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Her dark hair fell in loose curls. Her matching eyes were intense as she absently raised her wine glass to a set of lips that had his mind’s dial set to dirty. He sat down on the opposite side of the couch as Axel found his spot near the fire she had turned on.
“So tell me something about you , Logan Savage. Since you’ll be staying here I figure I should know something about you. I’m sure you’ve already done a background check on me, but I unfortunately don’t have those luxuries.” She was right, he had done a background check on her but it didn’t tell him things like how she could cook or show him this warm, feminine side of her. It told him that she grew up in a nice neighborhood without any brothers or sisters, her parents weren’t rich but they were well established, what schools she went to, that she had been suspended from school for cursing out a teacher…
“What would you like to know?”
“I don’t know, anything. You had mentioned before that you have three younger sisters, is it just the four of you?”
Logan let out a laugh, he had to wonder what his life would have been like if it was just the four of them, but he couldn’t, because he wouldn’t trade his family for anything. “No, they are just the ones that are going to give me grey hair. There are eight of us in total.”
“Eight!”
“Yeah, blended family.”
“Oh cool! So your mom remarried and he had kids too?”
“You got it.”
“How old were you when that happened?”
“Eight.”
“That can be a tough age for such a huge change.”
“Yep, I’m the second oldest so it was definitely harder on my brother Aiden who was eleven, but we all saw how happy David made my mom and that was all we wanted for her.”
“What about your real dad?”
Logan’s face got hard at remembering the cowardly sperm donor. “I don’t know. He left right after the twins were born and never came back. Haven’t seen him since.”
“Oh wow, I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about.”
Zoe watched Logan carefully as he took a long swig of his beer. She knew she hit a nerve when she asked him about his father, but how was she to know it was a sore spot? Damn her and her curiosity. She had never wanted to get to know a guy the way she wanted to get to know Logan but she definitely didn’t want to make him angry, especially on his first night in her house. She had to turn this around. “Tell me how Savage Security was born.” She watched his face soften and she let out a silent breath of relief.
“My service ended with the military and I knew I wanted to remain in a similar role, but I didn’t want to work for anyone but myself. That’s when Ashbrook contacted me for a freelance job which I took. When that ended I knew that I wanted to create a security company. I called my brother Max, who was a police officer at the time, and told him what I wanted to do. That day he quit the force and we forged Savage Security. Now all four of my brothers work with me and my sisters are starting to get into it too.”
“That’s incredible!”
“Yeah, it’s pretty great,” he acknowledged.
Zoe knew how great it was to work with someone who was close to you; her and Rachel had known each other since they were six years old, she was her best friend and the fact that she got to work with her every day made Zoe’s day that much brighter. “So you were in the military doing…?”
“Special ops.”
Zoe’s curiosity so badly wanted to hear more about his time as the sexiest man in camo but she knew with his reaction to his father he would probably be even more guarded regarding his past career. It also explained a lot, she thought. He must have seen unimaginable things - Zoe read military romance novels and knew the pasts of military personnel weren’t usually filled with sunshine and roses. Instead of pushing him on, she could already see his eyes clouding over with memories of the past, she continued on. “Wow, impressive. Okay so you were Special Ops, your brother Max was a police officer…”
“Luke was a soldier in the military, Nate was a private investigator, and Aiden was a marine.”
Zoe could tell Logan’s pride for his family was astounding and she could only want to get to know him better. For the first time she wanted a guy to open up to her, she wanted him to share what he was feeling, his past and what he wanted in the future. He was so closed off that made her want to know more. With an embarrassing thought, she realized she actually knew nothing about him. She was having all these lustrous thoughts but for all she knew he had a wife or a girlfriend waiting for him at home. Her heart stuttered at the thought. She had to ask, she didn’t care how it made her look, if she didn’t it would eat her alive. “That’s amazing. Your family sounds amazing.”
“They are.”
“Are any of them married?”
“Nope, as far as I know we’re all single.” She felt her smile grow before she could call it back. Single. “What about you - how did Harbor Press come to be?”
“Before I get into that, would you like another drink?”
“Sure, one more.”
She stuck her head in the refrigerator thankful for the cool air that poured onto her quickly heating skin. What was wrong with her? She wanted to slap herself across the face but knew the sound would echo so instead settled for listening to her own inner monologue lecturing her, something about drool and embarrassment. She walked back with a beer for Logan and her refilled wine glass. “Harbor Press,” she started. “It started off as kind of a hobby. I heard about blogging so I started one myself, people liked what I was posting and I kept having all these guest bloggers asking me to post on my site so what started out as this small thing to do when I had some free time during college, started to grow into this uncontrollable, crazy thing. I knew I wanted to continue growing it so I changed my major to business, got enough bloggers and staff - and advertising money to open a small office, the one we had before this one, and here we are today.”
“So you did it all yourself. Did your parent’s help you out at all?”
“Monetary-wise? No. I kept all the money I got from the ads on my site, saved up enough to pay rent on the small space, and as the site continued to grow so did our need for office space.”
“That’s incredible, you did it all yourself.”
“Yeah, well just as I’m sure you did with Savage Security.” Zoe couldn’t look away when he stared at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. He tilted his head, looking at her like he was able to see straight into her soul. She quickly looked away, his gaze too intense if she was supposed to sit there with him and not jump on him and rip his clothes off.
“You surprise me Zoe Alcott.” She brought her eyes back up to him with her own surprise on her face.
“Right back at you Savage.”