“Oh, spare me.” She pushed up from her chair. “We’re not related, thank God.”
What the hell was he supposed to say? That he walked away because he was terrified of screwing things up? Or that something might happen to her and that he’d flip out and lose his grip on reality? Again.
Or that when he was with her he couldn’t seem to control himself and that scared the hell out of him?
“The reason I walked away had nothing to do with my attraction to you.” He rolled his shoulders back and tried to dispel the tension in his limbs. “That wasn’t a factor.”
“So you were attracted to me?”
He cleared his throat. “Of course I was.”
“It wasn’t a pity fuck? You know, because of...” She blinked and straightened her shoulders. “Because Dad had just died.”
He gritted his teeth and tried to keep his voice at an appropriate volume. “No.”
“Are you still attracted to me?” She stepped forward.
It was too much: her messy blond hair, the wine on her lips. The hungry look in her eyes.
“I’m not answering that.”
She stepped closer again and now he could smell the faint remains of perfume on her skin. Chanel No. 5. He’d bought her a bottle for her birthday. Damn expensive crap that smelled like old ladies in the bottle but transformed into heaven on her skin.
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not why I’m here.”
“Right, I forgot. You’re playing bodyguard.” She rolled her eyes. “You know I always did have a thing for role-playing.”
Tension snapped in the air between them and she seemed about to say more, but she simply shook her head and turned back to the table. Plates clattered as she cleared up their abandoned meal.
“One day you’ll push me away hard enough that I won’t come back,” she said quietly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” His stomach knotted as a sense of foreboding fell over him.
“I’m just saying that it won’t always be like this. Change happens and I might not always be around.”
Change. A dirty fucking word as far as he was concerned. Change always meant pain; it always meant loss. And loss meant destruction.
“I don’t want things to change.”
“We don’t always get what we want, now do we?” she said, not looking at him. “Anyway, you’ll need to make up the bed in one of the spare rooms. I was going to do that over the weekend. You remember where the sheets are?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
He’d been dismissed, apparently. By trying to do the right thing, he’d screwed up again. It seemed to be his lot in life.
“Probably for the best,” he muttered to himself.
He wasn’t cut out to care about people, because loss was inevitable and it turned him into a wild beast. Losing his mother had ended his military career, losing Daniel had sent him straight into Addison’s arms, and if he lost her...who the hell knew what he’d do.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t want her. Far from it. He just knew that he couldn’t act on his desires.
4
LOGAN SET HIMSELF up on the couch with his laptop and a cup of decaf. He was far too wired to sleep, and his vantage point allowed him to watch the thin beam of light from under Addison’s bedroom door. Every so often a shadow flickered, telling him she was unpacking and setting up her room.
Being run off the road wasn’t enough to deter her from organizing every little thing the way she liked it.
He smiled to himself. She’d always been that way—needing to have everything just so. Teenage Addison had been a straight-A student with neat-freak tendencies. She used to visit her dad at the office after school and would happily spend hours reorganizing his filing system and making sure the staff kitchen was clean and tidy. Logan had always pretended not to notice her, of course.
Daniel had once told him that Addison developed her organizational habits after her mother died. A sense of order in her physical environment had helped her sift through the pain and confusion in her head, apparently. Her father had encouraged her to take those skills and turn them into a fruitful career, which she had. Addison was the reason Cobalt & Dane had been able to grow as a company. Without her, they’d still be a couple of scruffy guys too focused on the security side of things to get the rent paid.
He envied her ability to turn her loss into something useful. His pain never seemed to cause anything but pure destruction.
Sighing, he raked a hand through his hair and stared at the laptop screen. Going through his emails might help him relax. Daniel had set up an extensive security system when he’d first bought the cottage, so the chance of anything happening without Logan’s knowledge was slim.
Eventually the light under Addison’s door disappeared, but that didn’t stop Logan’s gaze from wandering there every few minutes. This weekend would be torture. Bittersweet torture.
“Lucky you’re a natural-born masochist,” Logan muttered to himself.
After an hour of trying—and failing—to get any work done, he snapped his laptop shut in frustration. If he wasn’t going to be productive then he’d go to bed and attempt to sleep. A few hours of shut-eye might help his concentration.
“Yeah, ’cause sleep is the problem,” he grumbled as he walked past Addison’s door to the linen cupboard.
It was packed with clean sheets, towels and blankets and smelled musty in a way that brought a rush of memories to him. He’d come to this cottage often, spending Thanksgiving weekend with Daniel and Addison since his own father had made it clear he wasn’t welcome with the shiny new family he’d acquired. Those long weekends had been filled with fishing, eating and letting Addison beat him at poker until she got good enough that she whipped his ass all on her own.
His fingertips brushed a piece of floral fabric sandwiched between two plain blue sheets. The flowers had faces, but the pattern had faded over the years. Time, the cruel mistress that it was, had robbed them of their smiles.
A noise caused Logan to turn. He tiptoed to Addison’s door and pressed his ear to the wood. The muffled sobbing caused pain to wrench in his chest. He touched his palm to the door and sucked in a breath. What the hell was he supposed to do in this situation?
If Addison was in danger, he wouldn’t hesitate to act, because protecting her came second nature to him. But a tearful Addison was totally outside his experience. The only other time he’d seen her cry was at her father’s funeral...and look how that’d turned out.
He should walk away. Let her cry it out and emerge in the morning with her mask intact. Isn’t that what she’d want?
Walk away, you useless son of a bitch. Be a deserter. Isn’t that what you do best?
Logan gritted his teeth and eased the handle down on her bedroom door. The room was dark, with only a thin shaft of moonlight illuminating the bed. The cool bluish light showed the outline of her sleeping form. The curve of her hip and the gentle dip at her waist. The soft gleam of her blond hair.
“Addi?” He let the door shut behind him.
She was crying, more softly now. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could make out the tremble in her curled-up form. She was facing away from him, her body so small and vulnerable in the center of the large bed.
“Addi? Are you okay?”
She muttered something under her breath and then sighed, but he couldn’t make out the words. For years he’d teased her about the way she talked in her sleep—he’d witnessed it on the few occasions when she’d fallen asleep on his couch after having an argument with her dad. Sometimes it was a soft jumble of syllables and other times it was full sentences. Often the words had no meaning.
“Logan,” she sighed.
He tiptoed over to h
er bed and knelt on the mattress with one knee. Both her eyes were shut and her cheeks were damp with tears. The wet skin seemed to shimmer in the bright moonlight. But she slept on.
And dreamed about him, apparently.
He brushed his knuckles along her arm, his breath sticking in his throat when she shivered at his touch. Her body was covered by a white sheet, but a spaghetti-thin strap of black silk curved over her shoulder and a hint of lace peeked out from the top of the sheet.
Sweet mother of—
“Logan?” She shifted on the bed, her voice groggy.
“It’s just me, Addi. I heard you crying.” He brushed the hair away from her face.
“I was sleeping.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you. I came in to check that you were okay.” His heart thudded in his chest so hard it felt like the organ was trying to punch its way out of his rib cage.
“Oh?” She touched her fingers to her cheek. “I must have been dreaming.”
“I’ll let you sleep.” He pulled away, but she rolled and reached out for him. The movement caused the sheet to slip farther down, revealing a black silk camisole gleaming under the moonlight. The glossy fabric looked almost wet.
“Stay for a minute,” she said sleepily.
Maybe he was the one dreaming. Addison never asked him to stay with her for anything, not these days. The car accident must have shaken her worse than she’d let on.
“Lie with me. Just until I fall back to sleep.” She tugged him to her and he lowered himself onto the bed. “I had trouble drifting off before.”
Propping himself up on one elbow, he rubbed his hand up and down her arm. Her skin was clammy. Damp.
“Hmm.” She mumbled under her breath and turned so she was facing the wall again. “That’s nice.”
He tried to pull the sheet back up, but she swatted him away with a protest about being hot. Little did she know it was more for him than it was for her. The sight of her bare skin against the black silk was jacking up his pulse. Not to mention he was fighting off the beginnings of a rock-hard erection.
All you have to do is get her to drift off, then you can back away. Tomorrow, you’ll pretend you never came in here.
He kept a few inches between them as he lay down beside her, but she wriggled until her back lined his chest, the curve of her ass cradled perfectly in his lap. A jolt of arousal shot through him, but he held his breath and forced down the excitement. It was like trying to swallow a pill without water.
“What if you hadn’t followed me tonight?” she whispered groggily. “What would have happened if...if...”
A tremor ran through her body and he wrapped his arm around her, hugging her to his chest. “I’ll find this guy and take him down, I swear.”
“I want to take care of myself.”
He held his tongue. There was no point arguing with her now—he knew how she felt about being independent. About wanting to prove that she could handle things on her own. Of course, he disagreed. She wasn’t weak, far from it. In fact, Addison was the strongest person he knew. But she didn’t have his training, his experience.
Daniel had sheltered her from the ugly aspects of their world, and to the best of his ability, Logan would continue that. He could never lose her, never let anything happen to her. Because without her...well, he didn’t even want to think about a world where she wasn’t part of his life.
“I want to take care of you, for once.” Her whispered voice prickled at his resolve; it picked apart his defenses.
His brain scrambled to find the right thing to say, but that had never been his forte. Some guys had a knack for words; they knew how to seduce and influence and placate. But Logan was only good with his hands.
“Shhh.” He brushed her hair back, smoothing his fingertips over her temple with each stroke. “You need to sleep now.”
For a moment he thought she’d drifted off; her breathing became soft and her body seemed to melt against his. He’d been holding himself in check but the slight shift of her body, the gentlest brush of her ass against his lap, yanked open the floodgates. His cock leaped from half-mast to full attention and a groan stuck in his throat.
As he was about to extricate himself from her bed, she moved again. This time he realized it was on purpose, and knowing that made him even harder. His brain screamed at him to go, but she felt so damn good in his arms. Soft yet firm, silky smooth. So tempting.
“Logan,” she breathed, rolling her head back against his chest. Her hand slipped between them and she felt for his cock. His whole body was about to go up in flames.
Yeah, flames. Because you’re going straight to hell.
“Addi, we shouldn’t—”
“Shh.” Her fingers danced along the length of his fly. He strained painfully against the confines of his jeans, the zipper barely keeping him in. “I can feel how much you want it.”
“It’s not about my wants,” he gritted out. How could he be so weak to end up in this position again?
“Is it about what I want?” Her hand moved away from his cock and he thought he might be off the hook. But she captured his wrist and pulled his hand down until he cupped her between the legs.
Heat radiated through the sheet. Even with the material stopping him from fully exploring her, he could feel how ready she was. She kept her hand over his as she circled her hips into his touch.
“Dammit, Addi.” He moaned into her hair. It was all he could do not to rip the sheet from her body and plunge his fingers into her sweet, hot sex. “This isn’t right. Last time was...”
“Sex, Logan. It was sex.” She huffed. “I’m not some delicate flower, you know.”
She pushed the sheet down, exposing the full glory of the silk camisole as it hugged her incredible body. When she pushed up to straddle him, her breasts bounced, unconfined. He remembered how she’d felt under his tongue, the way her rosy little nipples had stiffened when he’d kissed them. The way her back had bowed when he’d sucked on them. The way her skin had tasted sweet and earthy and unique.
“I can read you like a book.” She pressed down, tilting her hips back and forth so that she rubbed her sex along the hard length of him. The sensation was too good; he forced his eyes shut and his fingers dug into her hips. “You want me.”
If he wasn’t careful that gentle rocking of her hips was going to make him come in his pants. But he couldn’t seem to push her away. She was right—he wanted her. He wanted her more than the air in his lungs.
Always had, always would...against his better judgment, anyway.
“If you don’t stop that, I’m not going to be able to walk away.”
A wicked smile curved on her full lips. “I doubt you’d be able to walk anywhere right now.”
* * *
ADDISON SWIRLED HER hips in a figure eight, feeling the rasp of Logan’s jeans against her sensitive skin. Hovering over him—knowing he was fully at her mercy—was a power trip. In every other aspect of their lives he was in charge; he was one step ahead.
She might not be able to have control in the boardroom, but in the bedroom...this could be her domain. This was where she could gain control back, where she could have the upper hand.
You sure it’s nothing to do with the fact that you could have died tonight? That you could have lost him for good?
Fear wrapped its hands around her throat but she shoved the troubling thoughts away. Now was not the time for weakness. She leaned forward, hinging at her hips and giving him an eyeful of her breasts. Obviously she hadn’t packed the camisole for him, since she was supposed to be spending the weekend alone. She simply loved the feel of silk on her skin.
But she liked the feel of his hands on her even more.
“Keep pushing me, Addi. I dare you.” His face was hard-set, the angle of his jaw sharp in the near darkness.
His big hands slid along her thighs, catching the hem of the camisole and pushing it up. “Is that so?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
His hands inched higher. “You’re making one terrible mistake right now.”
“What’s that?”
His thumb brushed the sensitive skin of her sex. “Thinking you’re in charge just because you’re on top.”
Before she could retort, he felt for her clit with his thumb. Pleasure rocketed through her the second he made contact and she fell back, bracing herself on her hands. It was shameless how she thrust her hips toward him, determined to get as much friction as possible. The slow, sensual seduction was over.
That exactly was what Logan was like in bed. To the point. He didn’t mess around. Rather, he went straight in for the kill.
“Oh God.” Her head lolled. “You’re too damn good at that.”
“Tell me how good,” he urged her on, his voice shredded and rough. “If I’m going to hell I want to know you’ve enjoyed the ride.”
A low chuckle came from her throat. “And you still say you’re in charge?”
He grunted and grabbed her hips, yanking her forward and pushing himself down on the mattress at the same time until her body hovered over his face. Was he going to...?
He latched his mouth onto her sex and his tongue lapped at her with a focus that made her whole body quake. Tremors racked her, but his hands held her down over him. She pitched forward and planted one hand on the wall behind the bed to stop herself from falling over.
“Logan!” His name dissolved on her tongue as orgasm swept through her. Her muscles clenched and released as pleasure poured through her veins. Obliterating her. Turning her to mush.
As the tremors subsided, he guided her back down to the bed. She curled into him, her hands seeking out the warmth of his chest and the vibrations of his heart.
“Score one, Team Dane,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her.
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