Could I really let him leave? Could I walk away from the one man who awoke something so pure and raw inside me? What if he was the one—the one I was waiting for?
Could I really live without him? Could I—
It happened in a flash: my body thrust forward, crushing my lips onto his. There was no thought behind it—only need.
Logan reacted instantly, pulling me closer with his hands in my hair, kissing me with a ferocious need. My tongue ran along his bottom lip, searching for entrance, but he pulled back, resting his forehead on mine. “I adore you.”
With a ragged breath, I opened my mouth just enough to slide my tongue into his.
Chapter Fourteen
Bombshells
Heat was all I felt—a scorching wave of warmth prickling my skin, flooding my system, and fueling the arousal building within me as Logan’s tongue parted my lips and dived in, exploring and dancing with mine.
My legs were between his, his hands in my hair. It felt so good, yet my brain was flickering back to life despite my will to block it out.
What am I doing?
No, I wasn’t going to think—not now—just feel. It was amazing and perfect, sating my angry nerves that had been restless for far too long. I kissed him harder, as though there was nothing else in the world I should be doing, as his hands traveled down my back and settled on my hips.
My head was spinning, focusing on only one thing: his unrelenting and demanding kiss. It matched mine with every move, every prod of his tongue.
“Logan?”
I pulled back, panting, head dropped.
What?
Blinking once, twice, three times slammed me back to reality. I straightened, letting my hair fall down to block my flushed face from the room—the bar full of patrons getting a free show.
“Excuse us, ladies, we were in the middle of something,” Logan said to the female voice that had interrupted us.
I didn’t dare look back, though her voice was much too squeaky to belong to Natasha.
“Wow, forgotten already,” another girl chimed in as I held up my hand to the bartender for another shot.
The weight of Logan’s stare boring into my side grew unbearable as I sat in silence. I blocked him out and downed the shot that was in front of me instantly.
When his fingers slid through my hair, tucking it behind my ears and revealing my hidden emotions, I stiffened.
“Let’s get you home, sweetheart,” he leaned in and whispered, placing a soft kiss on the corner of my jaw. I bit my bottom lip and closed my eyes, struggling to collect my thoughts.
“Come on, there’s no way you could forget about us. The fun on the airplane? Come on, it was just the other week.”
The other week? My eyes closed, gut churning.
I felt Logan move back from me. “Leave!” he demanded, his voice taking on a stern edge.
The girl scoffed. “Really?” She giggled, then lowered her voice to a seductive purr. “Since when do you like privacy?”
I swallowed hard, my icy veins flooding with rage, chilling me to the bone and extinguishing the fire Logan had lit seconds earlier. I wouldn’t let this break me. I was going to sit right there and hold it together. Logan was a free man who could do whatever or whomever he wanted. As much as it hurt, I feigned indifference. My eyes were set on the bartender as he walked past with a bottle in hand. I threw up my hand, requesting one more.
“We’re leaving,” Logan snarled, yet the girls didn’t seem to hear him. One of them leaned in behind me, snickering.
“Word of advice: the man likes it rough and he prefers two at once, so why don’t you let us take over and you can go find yourself some nice boy next door to take home?”
I heard and felt Logan stand, but I was already out of my seat. That was too much.
“He’s all yours,” I shot back, walking out.
There it was—yet another item on the endless list of reasons Logan was off limits. Why men sucked. Why he was nothing more than a man I was attracted to. I had to get out of my head. I wouldn’t let it happen. Not again.
He likes it rough. Two at once.
The words replayed through my thoughts as I pushed open the front door, heading to the parking lot. My day was bad enough discovering my dad had run off with my nineteen-year-old babysitter, and now this?
“Cassandra! Stop!”
“You should go back in, Logan. I’d hate for you to miss out on a sure thing tonight!” I yelled.
“Cassandra!” he threatened.
“Go! They know what you like, and for the record, I could never share a man, so why waste your time?”
“Stop!” Logan grabbed my arm and whirled me around. “I’m not that man anymore! Now listen to me!”
I yanked my arm free, standing off the sidewalk in the freezing night air, snow flurrying down over us.
“But you were that man a week ago for them?”
His expression softened. “Sweetheart—”
“When? When were you with them?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, tell me when. That night Luke drove me home? I saw you head back into town.”
Logan’s eyes never strayed from mine as he spoke. “I did come back to Haven that night. Natasha had left the bar and I needed a drink. I was angry, and those girls approached me. I told them I wasn’t interested, but they gave still me their numbers.”
“And you kept them?”
“I put them in my coat pocket and didn’t think about it again until the next morning after our conversation at your house. When I left for my business trip, my head was a mess. I thought I just needed to give up and go back to my old life—let you go so you could find someone to make you happy.”
“I don’t understand. When did you call them?”
His head ticked slightly to the side, reluctant to say more.
My eyes closed, and I inhaled a breath as realization sunk in. “You took them with you.”
“I wanted to move on. Not for me, but for you. To leave you alone, and I thought—”
“You took two women on a business trip for sex minutes after you left my door.”
“They didn’t mean anything. I regretted it the moment it happened, but it was too late. I just wanted to get you out of my head. You were never going to give me a chance. ”
“You’re right. It’s better this way. You’ve solidified my belief that there is no future for us.”
“No, you didn’t want me, and I just needed to see if—”
“If you could forget me by having sex with strangers? I got loud it, and clear!”
“I know how it sounds, and I wish it’d never happened, but it did. I had a moment of weakness because the woman I love wouldn’t even allow me to drive her home! I haven’t wanted to sleep with anyone but you for months, and those girls were no different. I hated myself every second I was with them.”
“Yet you still gave them a time to remember.”
His expression lost its remorseful softness. “I’m through talking about them. This is about us!”
“Don’t you get it yet!?” I shouted with a ridiculous cackle as he regarded me with a tight expression. “There is no ‘us’! We won’t work, Logan. Ever! We’re different people. I want a completely different life than you.” I nearly screamed it out, not only for him to understand once and for all, but for myself as well.
I turned and began walking again. It felt good—liberating—to release it from my body. We would never have a happily ever after. It wasn’t in the cards for us.
It took only a second or two until he was there, jogging over and stepping in front of me.
“You don’t know what I want because you won’t give me a chance to—”
“A chance to what, Logan? Even if I forgot about those girls, you’d be miserable with me after the first week. You’re not exactly the monogamous type, so why are you pushing this?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it.
“I’m not into wom
en,” I said with unwavering confidence. It was time he saw exactly what he was working so hard to obtain. “Never been with one, and never plan to. So you and me?” My finger flipped between us. “This is just some irrational attraction that has gone on for too long. I’m done feeling like this—enduring this connection based purely on lust. That’s it. Bottom line: we have no future together. Why can’t you see that?”
“You don’t know me as well as you think you do, sweetheart.” His jaw was clenched, hard eyes on me.
“I know you spent weeks trying to be my friend just so you could sleep with me!” I blurted out. “And I know the longer you keep reeling me in, the harder it’s going to be to put myself back together when you toss me aside like all the rest. Like the girls in there. I can’t.” My head dropped, eyes slamming shut. “I can’t be one of those women, Logan. It would destroy me.”
He said nothing, lifting my hands in his. I tugged them away and looked up at him, determined to keep the upper hand as long as possible. He was winning, and there was no way I could stop it.
I spoke with newfound determination and strength. “So let’s just get this over with—right where we started, exactly where you wanted it!”
I reached out and gripped the fabric of his dark wool coat around his forearms and crushed my lips to his before he had a chance to reply. The pounding music blaring from the bar set the tone of our pained kiss. This was it. I was giving him what he wanted—what my body needed.
On my terms.
Clutching onto Logan for dear life, I ambled backward, his hands now tight around my waist. He kissed me with equal force.
There we were—ready, wanting. Quick and hard in the parking lot of Haven. The thought broke the last shred of hope I’d held onto as his hands roamed freely over my back and down to my ass, squeezing me against him.
When I hit the wall, stopping my steps, my hands worked quickly, making its way down his broad chest and pushing his unbuttoned coat open. The width of it hung around me, sucking me into the warmth and heady scent I’d forever crave, despite myself.
“Cassandra.” My name on his lips sounded almost like a plea.
A plea for more?
With one hand holding him close around his neck, the other traveled to the waist of his trousers and, in a brazen move, stroked his growing erection. Tonight I’d be the woman who took what she wanted, then walked away before he had a chance to.
A groan poured from his lips and vibrated through mine. He pulled me closer, his manhood pressed tight against the fabric covering my body, begging to be released. With angry hands and skillful fingers needing to make a point and show him exactly what was behind his fascination with me, I tugged open his belt.
I caught his bottom lip in my teeth, tugging and nipping, leaving kisses over his five o’clock shadow. I made my way up to his ear, where I ran my tongue over his lobe.
“Sweetheart…”
Pleased I was able to take control so easily, I ran my tongue over his earlobe and whispered, “It’s time we got this over with.” Not missing a beat, my lips descended to his neck as my fingers snapped open the button on his fly.
The zipper was in my hand, and with one look up under my long lashes to Logan’s dark, tense eyes, I dropped down to my knees—a first for me—taking his zipper down with me.
This was what he wanted, and this is what it would take to show him I was no different from any other girl. I was nothing he’d consider special for long.
My hand dipped inside his open pants, grabbing his hard, impressive length. The strong, hefty girth filled my palm; he was larger than I’d dreamt, and oh, how I’d experienced hours and hours of fantasies about the moment I’d finally have him like this. None of them even came close to reality.
When I closed my palm around him, I gave a firm squeeze, relishing the sight of his head falling back as he grunted an inaudible mumble. I pulled his erection completely free of the prohibiting fabric to take control over his body.
I wasn’t prepared for his reaction. He stepped back with a loud huff.
“Damn it!” Logan grunted as he tucked himself back in and zipped his pants. “Not like this,” he said to himself, but I caught it.
Snowflakes floated down around him as he turned his back to me, and I watched the rise and fall of his shoulders as he took a deep breath and then ran his hands through his hair.
Slowly, he turned back and looked down at me, still on my knees, muddled with chaotic thoughts and arousal, desperate to be sated.
“Get. Up!” He growled, his face set with rage.
“Why? This is what you want—your words, I believe, were that you wanted to ‘fuck me in the alley’! So what’s the problem? You want to move down a few more feet to be in that exact spot?”
“Get. The fuck. Off your knees!”
It was irrational, but I wasn’t moving. “Get the fuck out of my head!” I screamed.
He stood over me, eyes wide with fury, and ripped me from the ground, holding me up by my forearms.
“Why?” he hissed through gritted teeth, nostrils flared. “Are you that scared of me—of the possibility of us?”
“Shut up!” I struggled in his arms and beat my hands against his chest, but his grip never wavered.
“I’m not the same man I was then.”
“A week ago?” I scoffed.
“You didn’t want me!” he protested, but I was too lost in my anger to process anything at that moment. “You changed me, Cassandra—showed me what was possible. What do I have to do? Tell me anything, and I’ll do it!”
I let out a heavy breath and sunk into his hold on me.
“I never wanted a relationship with any woman after Natasha. Do you hear me? Never. I foolishly convinced myself that what I had with her was as good as love could get, so I gave up and never thought about the possibility of it again.” He crooked his finger under my chin, lifting my face to him.
“I hate that you saw my past indiscretions, and worse, what you saw of them tonight. I have no excuse, but a man has needs, Cassandra, and I was never one to refrain from activities I found enjoyable. So for the past four years, I’ve taken what I wanted—what desperate women threw so easily at me. You should have never had to listen to those girls in there who meant nothing to me—women I never spared another thought about after I’d left them.”
I tried to look away—it was too much to hear—but he held my chin firmly.
“I was miserable, Cassandra, for years—young, and unsure how to raise Oliver on my own. So I did things that I regret—things at the time to…to help me feel. Regain the control that Natasha stole. It was nothing more than a means to an end for lonely nights. I can’t deny that I had more than a man’s fair share, but I never felt like this. Not until you.”
“Don’t say that,” I all but pleaded under my breath.
“What do you want me to say, then? What can I do?”
The liquor was fueling my actions—at least, that was how I justified what I said next, because it was as shocking to me as it was to him.
I held his gaze in mine and murmured, “Show me.”
Chapter Fifteen
Reality Crashes
The kiss he bestowed upon my lips was anything but forgettable, soft yet demanding. His hands reached behind me and lifted me up into his arms, and I didn’t fight him.
I went with it, my body needing to feel the connection, if only once. I never stopped kissing him, my tongue exploring the hidden caverns of his warm mouth laced with the taste of liquor and mint. Even as I felt him walking, carrying me away, I never broke the contact.
The steps he took were up metal stairs. When he stopped at the top, he released one hand and dug it into his pocket, but I only held him tighter around the neck, not wanting to break the moment. My brain switched back off happily, going with what felt right.
A door creaked open and he carried me farther, my hands fisting his dark hair. Uncontrollable, my hips began grinding against his strong abs, ready for what I
knew would be a night to remember—even if it meant spending the rest of my life trying to forget it.
This wasn’t love. Love shouldn’t be this hard…this painful.
Blissfully lost in the lust consuming me, I wasn’t prepared for the drop that landed me on an unfamiliar bed in a dark room. My skin tingled, blood pounding in my ears, urging me to continue what I’d started.
“Where are we?” I breathed, releasing my lips from his and sitting up beside him. He stood at the end of the bed, regarding me with a focused eye.
Why did I have to speak? Why did I care where we were? I needed more of him. I sat up on my knees and ran my fingers over his open fly that he’d never re-buttoned.
“Alone.” His voice was delicious and raspy, eyes glowing in the darkness. He caught my hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the pad of my thumb and working his way to each finger until he reached my pinky.
I looked around, unsure of my next move, doubt beginning to creep in when Logan released my hand and sat beside me on the bed. He caught my face, caressing my cheeks, successful at regaining my full attention.
“I promise we’re alone. I own the building and we rent out these rooms …well, all but this one.”
“Okay,” I replied dumbly. My hand lifted to his jaw, fingers tracing his lower lip, eyes searching his. With nothing but want, I swung my leg over his lap, straddling him.
“Kiss me, damn it.”
And he did, ruthlessly. His hands gripped my hips, bringing me as close to him as possible, but it didn’t last. The moment I slid my hands over the swells of his chest, he hesitated. His hands loosened, stroking my jean-covered thighs at a deliberately slow pace.
I sat back just enough to trail my hands down his strong arms, tracing the ripples of his muscles with my finger, then dipped my head down to place a wet kiss on the side of his neck. A relaxed, pleased moan greeted me, building my confidence and urging me on.
Irreplaceable (Harmony) Page 14