She flipped him and her coffee-colored hair rained over his face, curtaining them in her drugging jasmine scent. While his hands raced over her back, she panted against his neck and straddled his legs as she took all choice away in the best way possible.
With a strong, sure hand, she guided him inside of her. She stopped when she realized there was no protection. The head of his cock was there at the threshold of the most perfect place on earth, but he stopped and stared up at her.
“No one but you, Izzy. There’s been no one.”
Her eyes widened. “But…”
He cupped the back of her head with both hands and pushed her hair back so she could see him and know the absolute truth. “No one.”
The sound she made as he slid inside of her would live in his head for the rest of his days. Wonder and a breathy sigh of absolute pleasure. This he could give her. He’d find the words after, but for now there was nothing more important than showing her just what she meant to him and how being away from her had killed him.
He drove into her with slow, measured thrusts until they were slick with sweat and the silky glide of her body accepting his. When their keening groans grew frustrated, he focused on her and the way he knew exactly what she needed. He thrummed and plucked, stroked and gripped until she was wrapped in him.
Until he could roll her under him and open her wide so she had no choice but to accept this one thing that was always right between them. He curled himself over and around her as she broke. He accepted the biting edge of her teeth on his shoulder and the burning trail of her nails at his back.
He lived for the pain and the pleasure. And in the dark, where there was nothing but a tiny line of firelight in his room, he loved her with all that he had and finally felt alive.
CHAPTER SIX
Bella gasped out a breath. He was heavy. The kind of heavy she didn’t know she’d missed. She turned her face into his neck and licked at the raspy scruff below his beard that whorled around his Adam’s apple. Salt and Logan.
She desperately needed a shower. In fact, she didn’t even want to think about how much she’d needed one before they’d gotten horizontal. Planes, no hotel, a whore’s bath over the sink in the bathroom. She was a level beyond road rash, but he held onto her like she was something perfect and fragile.
The magic of Logan was the way he made her feel soft and strong at the same time, sometimes even in the span of a minute. And yet he’d managed to carve out her heart with a spoon called lies.
She let her legs and arms fall away as the afterglow slid away like the sweat drying at her temples.
Logan propped himself up on his forearms and looked down at her. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then to her temple. “I’ll explain everything. Just know that everything I did was because I wanted to protect you.”
She pushed at his shoulders. “You think that’s a good excuse?” He rolled his hips against her and his cock lengthened inside of her. She closed her eyes. “You don’t get to do that.”
She hated that her voice cracked on a whisper, but when he slid out of her and moved off of her, she was finally able to roll to her side. She needed space.
He wrapped his arm around her middle and dragged her back against him. He pressed his lips to her ear. “You listen, Isabella Grace. I’m not kidding when I say I did it to protect you.”
She stilled in front of him, tightening all of her muscles when all she wanted to do was melt back into him. She turned her head and looked over her shoulder. His perfectly clear green eyes met hers. For a moment, she felt bad about the puffy bruise ringing his left eye, but then remembered all the hurt and pain of the last few months and steeled herself against it. “Then quit the bullshit and tell me why I needed someone to watch over me.”
“Because of a woman.”
She stiffened and tried to roll away, but he maneuvered her onto her back and caged his arm around her, his heavy thigh pinning her into the mattress. “No. Not like that, Izzy.”
“Logan, let me go.”
“You’re here and you want to know what happened, then you stay there and you listen.”
She shook her hair out of her eyes and curled her fingers around his forearm, unrepentant when her nails dug into his muscled flesh. “I’m listening.”
He gritted his teeth, but he didn’t move. It was then that she finally took in his tired eyes and heavily bearded face. The fullness had an undeniable auburn aspect to it that made his freckles stand out and his skin seem far paler than just losing his summer tan. But the muscles were new. Logan had always been a densely muscular guy, but now he was a little overwhelming. Strength radiated off of him, where it had only ever been an elegant athleticism before.
And all of it was hovering over her with serious intent.
Her grip on his arm eased. What could bring out this kind of transformation? She’d missed him, ached for him in the night, but she had survived without him. She knew right now that if she walked out that door she’d have one helluva setback, but she could live her life without him.
Something would be undeniably missing, but eventually she’d move on.
Logan looked haunted.
She stuffed down the urge to react and shout. She brushed her knuckles down his cheek then cupped his jaw. “I’m listening.”
He lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was gentle this time. Desperation had blown through both of them, but she wouldn’t be sidetracked by how good he felt. When the kiss deepened, as it always did, she turned her face. He rested his forehead against her temple, brushed another lingering kiss there before he drew her up to sit in front of him.
He coasted his hand over her shoulder, pushing her hair back. “It’s gotten really long.”
She tugged lightly on his beard. “Ditto.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up. He stood and she forced her eyes down. Smooth skin, freckles and the abundance of bunching muscles would not get her the explanation she needed. He opened a slim, built-in cabinet and tugged on a pair of jeans and white thermal shirt. When he came back to her, he held a familiar blue Henley out to her.
“I’ll make some coffee.”
She nodded and tugged the worn, soft material over her head. Her dress pants were a soggy wrinkled mess. Instead of following him, she wandered to the huge window that overlooked the Village. Cobblestone roads intersected with paved, motorcycles and cabs fought for control of the narrow roads, but it was the pedestrians that ruled this area.
Sightseers, shoppers, the party set, the trendy. All of it was such an interesting mishmash of New York. SoHo had always been one of her favorite parts of living in the city. She’d been a member of the trendy and partiers. It seemed like a lifetime ago, though it was only two years.
As much as she loved this view and the life of the city, she missed Winchester Falls.
Bella followed the sound of Logan puttering around in the kitchen and the glorious scent of coffee. He was pouring from a French press into two huge steaming mugs. He held one out to her. “Sorry I only have milk.”
“It’s fine.” The warmth seeped into her hands and she took her first sip. “You make one helluva cup of coffee.”
“It’s what I live on lately.”
She looked at the frozen peas thawing on the counter, then at him. “You deserved that.”
“Yeah, I guess I did.” He took the peas and his coffee. “Let’s sit.”
She snagged the thick throw blanket off the back of his couch and curled into one end. “What’s going on? I don’t want the press release version. I want all of it, or I walk out that door.”
He pressed the peas to his eye with a wince. “Who taught you that right hook?”
“Living here.”
“Yeah?”
“I went to school here and ended up staying. All smart women know self-defense.”
“Well, your teacher should be proud.” He tossed the bag on the glass-topped end table. “Okay.” H
e blew out a breath. “I don’t even know how to tell you this story.”
She turned to him and balanced her mug on her knees, hugging them close to her chest. “Start at the beginning.”
“Ugly truth is that I got involved with Aimee Collen a few years ago. We were at some party and both of us were getting a lot of paparazzi attention. Every celebrity deals with them, it’s just part of the job.” He shrugged. “I was tired of tripping over them every time I walked out my door. At first we hatched a plan to send them all over the place. We called in anonymous spottings so they’d leave us alone.” He sighed. “She was fun and beautiful, and I was a mess. The album was doing well, but I hated every fucking song.”
“Really?”
“I’m not in my twenties anymore. The record label was worried that we were starting to slide so they set me up with songs that weren’t mine. Oh, I got half of my own on the album, but they pushed the young songwriters and working with other artists. It was either that or go on those music shows.”
Her eyes widened.
“Yeah. Not happening.”
“So…” She tried to remember the things she’d read about him a few years ago, but once she’d gotten the idea to advance Between the Lines into a storefront, she’d lost interest in the club and party scenes and the gossip rags. “You were in the party scene?”
“Yeah. Los Angeles and London at the time. It was a haze of booze and shows. We kept bumping into each other at parties and we had a thing. Give the papers something to write about, we thought. She was outrageous and I was too fucking gone to care.” He hooked his middle finger into the handle of his mug and gulped down coffee. “The label loved it. They left me alone. I didn’t think it was serious. She liked the attention way more than she liked me. I was usually just an afterthought. Until Vegas.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You married her?”
“God, no.” He sat forward, his hand outstretched to her side of the couch. “I swear I didn’t marry her. But we were fucking around outside The Graceland Chapel and she posted something on Instagram or whatever.”
She curled the blanket over her bare foot. “And you broke the internet.”
He slumped back on his side of the couch. “Pretty much.” He finished his coffee and set the mug down. “That woke me up. I’d been over the whole thing for a while, but the machine was running by then. I’d finally started writing again and we had a new album that was just All the King’s Men - no other writers. It was time to record and get on the road.”
A tickle of foreboding crawled over her neck. “She didn’t like that.”
“No. The picture outside the chapel changed her. She started talking about a wedding and how we were already celebrity royalty. Her parents were obscenely wealthy. It was actually another point in her favor at first. She didn’t give two shits about my money.”
“So it was a bad breakup. I’m not going to say it wasn’t shitty, Logan. Because it was.”
“Undeniably. She’s the second biggest mistake I’ve ever made.”
She looked down at her mug, tracing her thumb over the sports logo. “That still doesn’t explain the security.”
“The breakup wasn’t pretty, you’re right. But after the initial blow-up she seemed to have just ignored that it happened. She turned up at every party I went to, my album release, movie premieres for the two soundtracks I’d done.” He curled his fingers into fists. “It was just annoying at first, then it was her spreading rumors that we were back on. The woman has been spinning the press to suit her needs since she was fourteen years old. She’s a master at it.”
She set her mug down on the table and scooted forward. Without thought, she wrapped her hands around his fist. “I didn’t know.”
“The press sees and reports what it wants. I disappeared for a while. Rehearsals for the new tour distracted me, I started dating again. I figured if she saw me out with someone else she’d finally let it go.”
“Not so much.”
His hand unfurled and he linked his fingers with hers. “No. It was nothing overt. Nothing that I could pin on her. She was just always there. It was messing with my head.”
He looked down at their joined hands and tried to pull back, but she twisted them tighter. “She was stalking you, Logan. If a man did that to a woman, no one would call it anything else.”
“People told me to shake it off. Ignore her. In this business, we deal with people that can get a little focused.”
“Focused? That’s not focused. That’s obsession.”
He finally met her gaze. “All she did was come to the shows. She maneuvered her way backstage no matter how I tried to block her, she was just too connected. Aimee was the most wanted person at a party. The fact that she was always at my shows didn’t look strange to anyone because she still played with the press. Are they on or off this week?”
His grip was like iron, and her bones protested, but she held on.
“She even played the field with other men to throw chum into the waters. But it was always me that she wanted. Then came the anonymous letters and gifts. Untraceable, but I knew it was her.”
“Logan.”
He blinked and finally saw how tight he was holding her hand. He immediately released the death grip and brought her hand up to his mouth. He kissed her palm and pressed her hand to his cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She lightly drew her nails through his beard and he leaned into her touch. His eyes were ancient right then. Emotional warfare was just as abusive. She knew that firsthand. “So you upped security?”
“No. I don’t know why. Pride and guilt were probably part of it. I asked for the fame and the lifestyle I led wasn’t exactly free of fault. I partied and I hurt people. But there she was. Every-fucking-where. I lost it. Binge drinking full of hate and anger. One weekend I trashed a series of hotels that her parents owned.”
“So you threw a tantrum.”
He laughed and stood, his fingers sliding out of hers. “Pretty much. I’m not proud of it. It wasn’t the way to handle any of it. But after a year of having that kind of crazy in my life, add in the pressures I put on myself, and the exhaustion of a tour. I was beyond done.” He looked out the window to the city below. “Hell, I even went to see a shrink.”
Well, that explained the Valium she’d found. And his vigilance when it came to locking things away, security in his home, the gates, and the security detail at the festival.
So much made sense and still she knew there was something else.
She followed him to the window. “What’s the part that you’re not telling me?”
He looked over his shoulder at her. “I found a middle ground. She was still always there, but I compartmentalized it for the most part. I grew to hate going on stage, but I did it. I closed down the tour and sent everyone away.”
His body language screamed for her to stay away, but she was going to see this through. She slid a hand around his middle and under his shirt. Where once it had been solid, with a little give, now Logan was all steel under smooth skin. “And it got better.”
He covered her hand and brought it up to his chest. The chain he always wore slid over their joined hands. “It was this kind of stasis. She was always there, but without an actual outlet to see me, she grew quiet. I still got letters, but I could ignore them. But then the festival was coming up again. I did it the year before. You weren’t in Winchester Falls yet.”
She laid her cheek against his shoulder blade. “No, we moved in the next month actually.”
“It’s a good thing. That show was the beginning of my trip into crazy town. I hated that she had ruined the one place I loved to play. And when I knew I was coming back, I was determined to make it different this time.”
“You, your band, and your friends made the festival a complete success.”
He turned in her arms and her hands slid up his back to hook over his shoulders. “You were the reason. I forgot for a little while that she was there. I had fun on the
stage again. I had my brothers back.” He locked his arms around her hips. “I was falling so hard for you, Izzy. The no turning back kind.”
“I…” Her throat closed up. The words were pretty and she could see the reasoning behind how he acted, but there were still so many holes in his story. “You kept all of this from me. How can you say you were falling in love with me if you couldn’t share them?”
“I was going to. I was going to come clean about everything after the festival. But then she was there.”
She slid away from him. “You knew she’d be there. What did you just tell me? She’s always there?”
“She wasn’t there that first night. I thought maybe, just maybe I was finally free of her. She’d been quiet. Then there was this woman who finally made me want more. I wanted something that wasn’t just scratching an itch until I got to the next show.”
“And you threw it away in the middle of that fair, Logan.” She drew in a deep breath. “Even before that when you kissed Lindsey.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Logan stalked across the floor to her. “No. I didn’t kiss Lindsey. I almost did. She was the kind of choice I made before. Fun, no frills, no emotions. I wanted her to be the one I lost myself in. Not you.”
She jerked back a step and pain flared in her eyes. “Well, I’m sorry I was such a bad choice.”
He rushed her, locking his hands around her forearms as he forced her to stand there. “That night you came to dinner. The night you turned me away.”
“So it’s my fault?”
“No. You wanted to shut us down just as bad as I did at first. Admit it.”
Her topaz eyes glistened as she lifted her chin. “You’re not the choice I’d make.”
His gut burned, but he lifted his hand to the back of her neck, tangling his fingers in her hair. “Neither of us wanted this. I was a hot mess of problems, and you had your own plans. I get it. But it doesn’t matter. The moment I saw you in that barn I knew I was fucked. That barn changed everything. It gave me everything.”
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