by Avery Flynn
Shaking her head, she swung open one of the refrigerator doors and immediately wished she hadn’t. Since she’d been practically living at the brewery for the past few weeks, she hadn’t bothered with grocery shopping beyond instant oatmeal and frozen dinners. Whatever the green mush ball in the crisper drawer had been in a previous life, it was a nasty-smelling science experiment now.
She yanked the crisper drawer out of the fridge and dumped the contents into the kitchen garbage, squirted a healthy dose of dishwashing soap into the now empty, but still reeking, drawer and filled it with water. A quick scrub in the morning and it would be as good as new. The kitchen, however, would smell like a toxic dumpsite if she didn’t get the trash bag into the outdoor container.
Bracing herself for the October night’s chill, she dashed out the back door and made a beeline for the outdoor garbage bin next to the house. In one fluid motion, she tossed the plastic bag in and swiveled to head back to the house. A truck sat parked at the end of the driveway, blocking in Natalie’s rental car. The front porch light was off, obscuring all but the outline of the vehicle. Heart in her throat, her mind went blank except for one word. One name.
Carl.
She scanned the shadowy wraparound porch for signs of movement, but even the wind had stilled. Weak light spilled out from the back door she’d left open.
Open!
Like an idiot, she’d left the house vulnerable. And Natalie was inside, asleep and alone. Pushed forward by the terror nipping at her heels, she sprinted the last few feet and bounded onto the porch. She grabbed the screen door’s handle with one hand and with the other grabbed a hollow, ceramic garden gnome sitting on the railing.
“Miranda.”
She whirled around and brought the gnome down against her attacker’s head. It shattered against his skull, and he dropped to his knees.
Taking advantage of his incapacity, Miranda ran into the house, slammed the door shut, and flipped the deadbolt.
The front door. Was it locked?
She tore through the kitchen, whacking her thigh against the corner of the table and not giving a damn. The living room was located on the other side of the dining room and beyond that, like a lone sentinel on a faraway battlefield, stood the front door.
Running as if her sister’s life depended on it, she slapped her palms against the front door in record time.
The deadbolt was already locked. Still, she ran her hands over it to confirm her what she saw. Her clammy palm slid off the cool metal and she sunk down to her knees, sucking in lung-fulls of air.
She rolled back onto her haunches and listened for the truck’s motor to turn and for Carl to get the hell off their property. The only sound she heard was her own blood thundering through her ears.
She had to call the police. Hauling herself up, she tried to mentally pull herself together. The old farmhouse was solid. Natalie and she were safe. All she needed to do was get to the kitchen and call 911. Ignoring as best she could the pain in her thigh, Miranda limped into the kitchen and grabbed the phone with shaking hands.
“Miranda.” The muffled voice coming through the back door struck a chord.
Was that… Her fingers faltered on the phone’s number pad. “Logan?”
“It’s me,” he said. “I’m bleeding. Please let me in.”
The phone hit the hardwood floor with a bang. She hurried to the back door and flung it open. Logan stood with his right palm pressed against his temple, blood dribbling down his cheek.
“Oh, my God. I thought you were Carl.” She grabbed his free hand and pulled him inside the kitchen.
“Yeah.” He gave her a shaky smile. “I would have called first, but had to leave my phone at the station.”
Logan sank down into a chair at the oak table. His jaw tightened and blood traveled a crooked path down his cheek, making the skin around it ashen in comparison to the bright red.
A wave of dizziness hit her. “I’m so sorry. It’s bleeding like a stuck pig, but I don’t think it’s very deep.” He paused and inhaled a deep breath before letting it out with a groan.
Miranda sprang up from her seat and grabbed a clean dishtowel out of the drawer by the sink and dampened it. Knowing she had a job to do calmed her jangly nerves and gave her something to focus on beyond her own panicked reaction. “Okay, let me take a look at my handiwork.”
He dropped his hand, revealing his blood-covered temple. Bile rose in Miranda’s throat, and her knees wobbled. There was a reason why someone with her grades in organic chemistry bypassed medical school and went straight into the finance program. Clenching her jaw against the upcoming tide, she wiped away the blood to reveal a two-inch-long gash that, while bloody, didn’t look to be all that deep.
She gritted her teeth and surveyed the cleaner surface. “It’s not awful, but you should probably still get it checked out. You might need stitches.”
“You’re looking a little green there, Sweetling.” He flashed her a grin that sent panties dropping six counties away. “It’s nothing. Head wounds always bleed like crazy.”
Whether or not he meant to distract her, it sure as hell was working. Her heart skipped a beat or twelve, and heat pooled in her belly.
Leaning in closer, she wiped away the blood already drying on his skin. His woodsy scent reminded her of warm summer evenings and soft kisses that turned into so much more. Damn, the man was like potato chips. She could not stop with just one night of hot sex with him.
“Oh yeah, you have plenty of experience with head wounds, huh? Are you leading some kind of double life?”
“Hud split open my skull in middle school while we were swinging horseshoes at each other. One nicked me in the back of my head. It was like the Red Sea was parting my hair.”
Determined to resist the pull of attraction, she devoted her attention to cleaning along his hairline. Turning to get a better angle, she bobbled. His arm shot out to her waist, steadying her balance but throwing everything else out of whack. Suddenly, her lack of bra became more noticeable as her breasts grew heavy with want and her nipples tightened. The threadbare T-shirt left little protection from the lust licking its way across her skin.
“I probably could have used stitches that time, but I skipped it and survived. This isn’t nearly as much blood.” Logan circled his thumbs against her hips, neither pushing nor pulling, instead taunting with careful control.
“Why were you and Hud fighting?” The bleeding had slowed to barely a dribble, but she wasn’t ready to step out of his arms just yet. Truth be told, she wanted to sit astride him and see if the bulge in his pants felt as good as it looked.
“Who said we were fighting?” His brown eyes turned as dark as espresso, the irises expanding. “It was just good…” His hands slid higher on her hips, sneaking underneath her T-shirt’s hem. “…clean…” Stopping just above her yoga pants’ low waistline, his fingers caressed her lower back. “…fun.”
Her breath caught, and her body ached for his touch with such an overwhelming force that it scared her. Get ahold of yourself. He’s a Martin, and he’s sitting in your kitchen bleeding because you whacked him with a garden gnome. She needed space. Now.
“You hold this.” She pressed the cloth to his cut, slapping his hand on top of it and backing away from his touch. The knuckles on his right hand were bruised and swollen, but she didn’t have the fortitude to stick around to find out why. “I’ll go get the first aid kit.”
In the bathroom, she gave her flush-cheeked reflection a long, hard look. For the love of Pete, the man was injured and all she could think about was jumping his bones and riding him like a rented pony.
She hadn’t just drunk the Salvation Kool-Aid—she’d started to brew her own.
That was not good.
Not good at all.
She needed to bandage him up and get him the hell out before she forgot who he was�
�again. She grabbed the kit from under the sink and hurried back into the kitchen.
“Okay, I got the—what are you doing?”
A barefoot Logan stood at the sink, holding a yellow and green I heart NORML glass in one hand, the stained dishtowel tossed aside on the granite counter. “Getting a drink of water.”
“You should be sitting down.” The last thing he needed was to pass out, or whatever it was that people did after getting conked on the head with a garden gnome.
“It’s not that bad.” He put the glass under the running water. “It’s barely bleeding anymore.”
She threw out one arm and pointed toward the table. “Sit.”
He shut off the water and walked over to the chair facing out toward the rest of the kitchen.
She should run. Lock herself in the bathroom. But she didn’t.
Couldn’t.
Wouldn’t.
With exquisite slowness, he unbuttoned his light blue shirt, which had a small reddish-brown stain on the collar. Inch by inch, he revealed his broad chest and the happy trail that disappeared beneath his waistband.
The sight made Miranda’s tongue stick to the roof of her mouth, and her thighs quivered. Desperate to stick to the plan, she leaned against the doorframe to anchor herself to the here and now instead of the if and when and why nots.
He never lost eye contact as he shucked off the shirt and laid it across one of the empty chairs. God, he shouldn’t but he looked perfectly at home in the farmhouse kitchen. Big and brawny and sexy as all hell with his mahogany hair ruffled and the fuck-me-now pheromones coming off him in waves. She tried to remember he was an injured man. A very sexy injured man.
He sat down in a chair and spread his legs, drawing her gaze to the outline of his hard cock pressing against his pants. “I’m all yours.”
She pushed away from the doorway, holding the first aid kit in front of her like a shield. “Saying something like that is just the sort of thing to get our ancestors turning over in their graves.”
She sat down next to him, her leg so close to his that it brushed against his knee, sending a delicious shiver up her thigh that hit home in her core. She opened up the kit and laid out the rubbing alcohol, cotton pads, and butterfly bandage. She doused the pads with rubbing alcohol. “This is going to hurt.”
God, wasn’t that always the case when a Martin and a Sweet mixed company? Still, she was starting to believe the pain would be worth it—worth him.
Logan flinched once when the pad touched his skin, but he managed to stay still after that. “When did our families begin feuding?”
After one last swipe, she dropped the pad to the table and grabbed the bandage. “Right about the dawn of time.”
As she moved between his legs, his hands wrapped around her hips, his touch burning through her yoga pants. Her thoughts scattered, but the yearning for him in her core centered and grew. Hot and hungry, desire threaded its way through her body. So bad, yet so good. And there was more. A need for him that couldn’t be satisfied with only sex. Damn her greedy soul, she wanted more.
“All because your how-ever-many greats grandfather broke into the family homestead and stole my how-ever-many greats grandfather’s fiancée, Elizabeth, out of there on the night before the wedding?”
He pulled the bandage from her grasp and peeled away the waxed paper over the adhesive before handing it back. This time, he kept his hands to himself, making it easier for Miranda to form coherent thoughts and complete her nurse duties. Sort of.
Her fingers trembled as she centered the bandage above his wound. “That’s not how it happened. They’d planned her escape together. She chose to go with Matthew Sweet for love. “
With as soft a touch as possible, she sealed the bandage and took a step back, but Logan tugged her back between his legs. Unlike before, his touch wasn’t playful or teasing. It didn’t make her thighs quiver or her breath quicken. Instead, his fingers dug into her skin, skating the line between hard enough to bruise and exquisite pleasure. His flirtatious, easy smile slipped, replaced by pursed lips, clamped so tight a white line formed around them. “I’m sorry.”
Her entire body clenched. “For what?”
He dropped his gaze to the ground, and Miranda’s heart plunged along with it. Even though she shouldn’t give a damn, his answer mattered, really mattered. More than the fight over the brewery land. More than the past hurts. More than their families’ history. Finally, she admitted it to herself. Her heart hung in the balance. Fear blew a cold breeze across her skin.
Logan took a deep breath and looked up. “How we—how I—have treated you and your family. It was wrong. I’m sorry.”
Head swimming with the effort of understanding her tumbled emotions, she tried to tear free of his grasp, but he wouldn’t relent. “Why are you telling me this?” She pried his fingers from her hips, but he grabbed her wrist before she could escape his overwhelming closeness.
“Because I know how Elizabeth felt.” His voice broke with emotion, and he let go of her wrist, letting it fall limp to her side as if her closeness burned him. “It’s hell to be pushed into following a certain plan because of someone else’s expectations of you, especially when the one person you want so badly that your whole body hurts is the person you can’t ever have. I fucked up before. I wasn’t man enough to stand up for you then. I am now, and I’m hoping like hell that you’ll let me prove it.”
The world tilted under Miranda’s feet. She’d always thought they were so different, but sitting in this kitchen lit only by the single bulb above the sink, she saw that they were just opposite sides of the same coin. Both fighting against others’ perceptions.
But, together, they could just be themselves.
That’s how it had been that summer. It was how it could be again.
His five o’clock shadow scratched against her palm when she tipped his head up. “What if you’re wrong, Logan?”
Chapter Seventeen
The kiss started as a brush of her lips across his, meant to reassure and comfort. A soft exploration of something too new to name no matter how strongly she felt it. A tentative touch. A gentle skim.
But it wasn’t enough. Miranda needed more. Careful to avoid his bandage, she swept her fingers through his thick hair and deepened the kiss. She teased his lips apart and swept inside, tasting the coffee and chocolate that lingered on his tongue. He groaned into her mouth, and his strong fingers spanned her waist. He tugged her down to his lap and the hard bulge behind his zipper.
Her lips trailed across his stubble-covered jaw as her fingers squeezed between their bodies to tangle in his dusting of coarse chest hair. She rocked against him, the friction enough to tease as she undulated her hips against him. Logan’s groan vibrated his chest under her fingertips.
She nipped his earlobe. “I want you.”
“Sweetling, I need you so bad it makes me cross-eyed.” He fisted the back of her T-shirt, pulling it tight against her boobs.
Her nipples poked against the thin material, their dusky hue visible through the white shirt. His eyes dilated and he reached out with his free hand, tweaking her nipple. It hardened, begging for more attention.
“That’s a lot.” She arched her back, pushing her breasts out even more.
“It doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.” He released the shirt. “Take it off. The pants, too.”
She shivered in anticipation. “Aren’t you demanding?”
“When it comes to wanting you, there’s no other way I could be.”
“I don’t know, it’s a little chilly. I might want to add more layers.”
He growled, grabbing the hem of her shirt and yanking it over her head. He tossed it into a corner. “Pants.”
“These?” She hooked her thumbs in the low waistband, turned and lowered the pants an inch, showcasing the upper swell of her ass.
Enjoying the thrill of teasing him, she rolled her hips from side to side and lowered her yoga pants another few inches, revealing half her butt to him. Logan traced the crack of her ass with a finger, making her clench. He followed the move by licking up the base of her spine while pulling her pants to her ankles. Her heart raced as she stood with her back to him, naked, vulnerable, and nearly melting with need.
“I’m half tempted to bend you over my knee for teasing me like that.” His warm palm glided across her ass before he spun her around, lifted her up, and laid her flat on the table. “Maybe next time. If you try it again.”
The wood surface bit into her shoulder blades, but she barely noticed, she was so busy thinking about what they could do this time, let alone next time.
Next time? Getting ahead of yourself, aren’t you?
Maybe she was. But it was what she wanted. Him. A next time. And another after that.
Every part of her body ached with the need to be touched. To touch him. Her whole body throbbed with want.
She winked. “I look forward to it.”
Looking down at Miranda spread out before him took Logan’s breath away. She turned him inside out, and he loved her for it. The realization hit him like a lightning strike. Love. He really did. He opened his mouth, but the words were too new to come out.
But he could show her. He slid his hands up her thighs, pushing her legs wide apart so he could see her glistening center. Unable to help himself, he bent down and sucked her clit into his mouth and was rewarded by her moan of pleasure and her taste on his lips.
His right hand glided down her stomach, stopping at the border of her springy curls, and he lifted his face. “I should have known you’d taste sweet.”
“Glad you like it.” She gave him a saucy grin as she cupped her boob and brought it as close as possible to her mouth. Maintaining eye contact, she stretched her tongue and lapped her nipple.