by April Hunt
“I know.” The first tear slipped down Rachel’s cheek, quickly followed by a second. This time, Logan couldn’t simply hold a hand. He sat next to her and pulled her into his arms. She went willingly, her tears soaking his shirt in seconds. “I know all of this, Logan. I do. But I have to believe she’s okay because if she’s not…it’s totally on me. I’m the reason she fell.”
“The hell you are.” Logan tugged her chin up, demanding her attention. “Does it suck that you didn’t intercept her phone call? Yes. But the blame isn’t on you.”
“So you’re saying it’s Carly’s fault?” Rachel’s eyes narrowed.
“No,” he said, treading carefully, knowing he’d stepped into an active minefield. Pre-Rachel, he’d would’ve crossed it without a care in the world, knowing that the end result justified the means. But now, holding her in his arms, her damaged heart might as well be his. “I’m saying it’s the fault of Fuentes and his entire damn drug emporium. It’s the fault of the drug pushers on every street corner, all over the globe. It’s the fault of assholes who make money off of people’s hard times. But it sure as fuck isn’t yours…or Carly’s. Neither of you asked for this to happen. It happened to you.”
“I may not have been the one to put the drug in my veins, but I became an addict all the same. Addiction doesn’t discriminate between voluntary and forced.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t. What matters is how you handle it, and you did so gracefully.”
“So gracefully that the school system turned down my job application,” Rachel said dryly. “Although I can’t really blame them. I don’t know how I would feel about a drug addict teaching my child.”
“So you keep at them. You show them everything you have to offer, and eventually they’ll realize that you have a hell of a lot to give those kids. But you don’t give up. That’s not you.”
And it wasn’t.
Since the day he’d first laid eyes on her eighteen months ago, he’d recognized her for what she was—a fighter. Her recovery had been a hard one, difficult to watch, much less experience firsthand. He’d visited her in the hospital, witnessed her struggle to remain upbeat, and so he’d irritated her.
He’d flirted unabashedly.
He’d carried on inane conversations, bringing up topics he knew would get her blood boiling.
And he’d done it to show her that she still had a hell of a lot of fight in her.
“If it looks like I handled everything so well, it’s because I had Penny’s support, and Charlie’s, and yours…and everyone else’s at Alpha.” Rachel wiped the dampness off her cheeks. “Carly didn’t have that backup. I was her backup. I should’ve made myself more available. I was her friend, and I let her down.”
Logan hated seeing her beat herself up. Palming her cheek, he ran his thumb over her jaw. “Sweetheart, you’re trying to heal too.”
“I’m fine.” Rachel’s brightening green eyes belied her words.
They both knew she hid more than she admitted aloud.
He gentled his voice. “There’s no reason to put on an act for me. It’s just the two of us here.”
“I’m not putting on an—”
“You’re trying to con a con man, darlin’.”
She pushed his hand away and got to her feet. “You know what? You’re right. I am putting up a front. I smile and laugh. Because if I don’t, people I care about worry while others look at me like I’m going to raid their medicine cabinets the second their backs are turned. But pretending is so…”
“Exhausting.”
Rachel’s gaze snapped to his. “Exactly.”
Logan didn’t talk about his time in the Marine Corps. To anyone. And for all the reasons Rachel pointed out. Truth made people twitch. But he couldn’t watch her pretend anymore. He couldn’t let her think she was alone.
“I get the need to pretend everything smells like sunshine and roses.” At her shocked expression, he added, “I laugh. I joke—sometimes in excess. I wear raunchy shirts that have my gran praying for my everlasting soul. Because if I don’t, what people see would scare the shit out of them. People get a little antsy around a grumpy guy who can shoot a fly off a horse’s ass at twenty-five hundred yards—go figure. Add in having the highest kill count for the shortest length of deployment and antsy turns to scared shitless.”
“You’re not joking now, and you weren’t last night—at least not when we were together,” Rachel pointed out, her voice soft.
“And look what happened. You ran for the hills.”
By laying his cards out there for her to read, he’d handed her an invitation to turn tail and run—again. Standing, he paced the length of the room, fully aware of her gaze locked on him.
Sliding his fingers through his hair, he released a heavy breath. “I could try and blame it on emotional exhaustion and always having to keep a game face on, but that’s not what it is when I’m around you, Rachel. I drop the act because I savor being with you, and being me. It feels right. Last night was no exception, or at least I thought so before I woke up and realized you were gone.”
“I left because—”
“Of Carly’s message. I know, but can you tell me without a doubt that you wouldn’t have tried ducking out regardless?” At her silence, he let out a humorless laugh. “Thought so. Damn, it was like reliving the past.”
Fuck.
Rachel, all too observant, cocked her head to the side. “Considering that was our first time together, I’m guessing you mean someone else?”
“My fiancée.”
Rachel’s mouth fell open before she could catch herself. “You were engaged?”
“Yep. And no, no one at Alpha knows.” Suddenly exhausted by the entire damn conversation, Logan rubbed his face and turned toward Rachel. There was no sense in keeping it bottled up anymore, and part of him didn’t want to. In order to give whatever they had together a chance, he needed it all out.
He leaned against the edge of the table, distancing himself so he could think. “After I came home from my first tour of duty, I proposed to my high school sweetheart. I was barely twenty, old enough to die for my country but not old enough to have a beer. As soon I passed my qualifiers, I went into sniper training, and then, before long, another tour. We kept pushing the wedding off. Now I realize it was a blessing in disguise. We had no business thinking about marriage.”
“Just because you were young?” Rachel’s voice held no judgment.
“No, because after every tour, I came home different. At first Ann tried ignoring it, but she eventually demanded reasons for my change.”
“People change over time, Logan. It’s the natural progression of things.”
“It is, but it was more than the passing of a few years. I was a Marine…a Marine sniper.” Logan clarified, “Every aspect of my deployment revolved around death. But I finally told her about the things I’d both seen and done. I purged it all. And when I woke up the next morning, it was to an empty apartment and her ring sitting on top of my rucksack.”
Logan braved a glance at Rachel, both shocked and awed at the tears in her eyes. “Why are you crying, darlin’?”
Her chin trembled. “Because you bared your soul to her and she let it lie there out in the open, unprotected. You deserve so much more than that.”
“I’m finally believing that…but it’s taken awhile.”
Realization dawned in her eyes. “The smiles. The jokes. The raunchy T-shirts…”
“All camouflage.”
Logan’s feet remained glued to the floor as Rachel slowly walked to him. With every step his throat dried more, so that by the time she stopped in front of him, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
As she looked at him through her silk lashes, a pool of emotions swam in her gorgeous green eyes, ratcheting up his heart rate until the sound of each pump thumped in his ears.
Rachel tentatively touched his arm, making him realize he’d bunched his hands into fists. “I didn’t run out on you because yo
u made me nervous. At least not in the way you think.”
Logan’s hands itched to touch her, and he did. Looping an arm around her waist, he slowly guided her against him. His body tingled where they touched, the sensation intensifying when she slid a hand around the back of his neck and into his hair.
There it was again…that sense of rightness he’d never felt with anyone. “Maybe you should be running in the other direction. You would if you knew what was good for you.”
“I do know what’s good for me…and it just so happens that it’s a moody former Marine sniper who can pull off both a yellow pineapple shirt and one that claims him to be an Orgasm Donor.”
A small smile tilted Rachel’s lips. As he cupped her cheek, Logan caressed the curve of her mouth with his thumb. “You like my shirt, do you, darlin’?”
“You said you didn’t want to pretend with me, Logan, and I feel the same way about you. You do make me nervous. Without a doubt. But it has nothing to do with what you shared with me and everything to do with how alive and powerful you make me feel.”
“You don’t need me to make you feel powerful. You’re strong all on your own.”
Rachel smiled, her gaze flicking down to his mouth and back. “And that’s exactly what I mean.”
Lifting to her toes, she brushed her mouth against his. Swept away on first contact, Logan shifted his grip and invited her to deepen the kiss. And she did. She gave him so much more than he could ever hope to give her.
Logan had once vowed to never again leave himself vulnerable.
But with Rachel, he felt anything but.
He felt powerful.
Chapter Five
Uncertainty didn’t stop Rachel from approaching Logan, or kissing the hell out of him. For once she ignored that self-conscious, unsure voice in the back of her head and followed that warm tug in the center of her chest straight into Logan’s arms—as she had the previous night.
Her heart throbbed, aching from his story and, more importantly, the emotion his words conjured. And she understood it. She understood him.
Maybe that was why this felt so damn right.
Muffled by the window, the honking cars and roaring engines became background music to the sway of their bodies. Rachel couldn’t touch Logan enough. She ran her fingers through his hair, holding him close in case he dared pull away. His hands, in return, anchored her firmly against his body, his calloused fingers kneading her hips.
Everyone else treated her like fine china, but not Logan. It was a heady feeling for someone who’d felt trapped for the last year and a half.
Logan’s mouth pulled away, making her groan in protest. Panting as heavily as her, he gifted her with a crooked grin. “You need to make sure this is what you want, darlin’. I’m not going to pretend to know what’s happening between us, but going this route isn’t going to make it any clearer.”
“Maybe not, but it makes me certain of a few other things.” At the inquisitive lift of his eyebrow, she added, “That I don’t want you to stop touching me. That I don’t feel like damaged goods when you’re kissing me. And that when you’re holding me, I feel like the person I was before I went to Honduras.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.” He gently caressed her mouth in a featherlight kiss. “We’ll figure all of this out—including us. And we’ll do it together.”
Rachel agreed in a soft whisper, “Sounds good to me.”
Logan gave a slow glance around the room. As his attention returned to her, a coy smirk lifted the corner of his mouth. “On a scale of one to ten, how much do you trust me?”
Rachel barely contained a chuckle. “Is that a trick question?”
“Close your eyes and don’t peek.”
“For how long?” Rachel didn’t mask the wariness in her voice as she watched him carefully.
“Until I tell you to open them.”
Getting that kind of order from anyone else, Rachel wouldn’t have agreed. But this was Logan. She closed her eyes and sensed a small puff of air in front of her. “Did you check to see if I was peeking?”
Logan chuckled. “I know you Kline women are allergic to surprises, so yeah.”
He kept her guessing as to what he was doing, because he didn’t stay in any one spot. He walked back and forth across the room, either dropping a kiss to the back of her neck or caressing her bottom each time.
Off to the far left, something purred to life, filling the room with the sound of bubbling water and the faint scent of coconut. The unmistakable sound of a lowering zipper made her catch her breath.
Logan’s clothes.
Seconds later, water gently sloshed as if being disturbed. “Am I allowed to open my eyes now?”
Logan’s voice dropped to a masculine purr. “Go ahead, gorgeous.”
Rachel blinked, adjusting her vision to the newly dimmed light. Logan had turned off the main brights and found the switches that operated the wall-mounted tiki torches. It resulted in a romantic glow, both on the hot tub and on the man lounging inside.
Shadows darkened the planes of Logan’s face, and slick and dotted with water droplets, his bare chest looked oh-so-touchable. Her gaze dropped to his clothes on the floor.
Shirt. Pants. Boxers.
“Got pretty comfortable, didn’t you?” Rachel teased, thankful for the dimness masking her warm cheeks.
“It would be a hell of a lot more comfy if you were in here with me.” Logan’s stare heated her to her core. Arms propped on the ledge of the faux hot spring, he crooked a long figure in her direction. “Lose the clothes. I want to see Rachel—not Priscilla.”
Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. He’d seen her naked before, but this time felt different. She reached around to her back, found the zipper, and lowered it until all that held the dress in place was her hands. Watching Logan as the dress dropped to the ground with a weighty thunk, she caught the firm bob of his Adam’s apple.
“Goddamn, darlin’. You’re gorgeous.” Logan’s hands gripped the edge of the tub as if he was trying not to reach out. “Now the rest.”
A sudden sense of rightness washed over her, and before Rachel realized, she’d unhooked her bra, letting it fall to the heap along with her dress, and next were her panties. “Better?”
“Come here.” Logan’s eyes glittered, feasting on her body as she carefully made her way to the small steps leading into the hot tub. At the final step, Logan wrapped his hand around hers and supported her descent into the warm water. The second she was within arm’s length, he eased her onto his lap.
Her legs parted automatically, making room for his waist. “I’m here.”
“Damn straight you are.” Skin on skin. Body against body. Trapped between them, his rock-hard erection pushed into their stomachs. “I wanted to take my time with you.”
“And now you don’t?”
A heady combo of mischief and desire burned in his eyes. His hands, slow and steady, ran up her torso, gently cupping her breasts. “Now I want to be inside of you.”
Lowering his mouth to her left breast, he placed an open-mouthed kiss over her nipple. The bud instantly tightened, sending a zap of heat straight to her core. Rachel squirmed. “I think I like that idea better.”
“I love the way your body reacts to me,” Logan brushed his thumbs across both aching nipples. “Always so hot and primed.”
“No different than yours.” To demonstrate her point, she rolled her hips. Her lower stomach brushed softly against his erection.
His chuckle ended on a groan as she rolled a second time, shifting her weight on his lap until she brushed him from root to tip. “Maybe a little different.”
Rachel ran her hands up his arms and over his shoulders. Threading her fingers into the back of his hair, she firmed her grip and heard him hiss as she lowered her mouth to his. That’s all they needed to stoke the fire. On a deep groan, Logan slipped into her mouth and devoured her like a man who hadn’t eaten in months.
Every slow glide of their ton
gues zapped a new electrical current through her body. When he thrust, she parried, occasionally sliding back far enough to nibble on his bottom lip. The cat-and-mouse play turned the kiss hotter, their touches more brazen.
His hand kneaded her hip in an attempt to hold her still while its coworker ran its fingers along the sensitive flesh of her inner leg. Rachel opened her thighs wider. “Touch me, Logan. Please.”
“Where?” Logan circled his fingers over her mound, not quite touching her where she needed him the most. “Here?”
Rachel whimpered, swiveling her hips in an attempt to get him where she wanted him. “I don’t need all this foreplay, cowboy. I’m more than ready.”
Logan kept his touch slow and purposeful as he teased her opening. His slid his fingers through her wetness, avoiding the hot throbbing button of her clit. “How about here?”
“Please.” Panting, Rachel pushed her mound closer to his exploring hand.
“Good things come to those who wait, darlin’.”
“I don’t want to wait anymore.” In a burst of need, she reached between them and palmed his cock.
Logan groaned. “No damn fair.”
“More than fair.” Rachel grinned as his length twitched in her hand. Her tease worked.
On a low growl, Logan plunged two fingers into her body. She gasped, one hand gripping his shoulder to keep herself upright as he pumped. At every three or four thrusts, his thumb brushed against her clit. Her body quivered, tightened in preparation for a big finish, but she didn’t want to come without him. Exerting more pressure with her hand, she pumped his throbbing cock in what became a delicious give-and-take.
“Fuck. Stop.” Logan caught her wrist, halting her movements. “I’m one pump away from blowing and no way am I doing it in a damn hot tub when I could be coming inside of you.”
* * *
Logan couldn’t grab the condom fast enough. He needed Rachel more than his next breath—or hell, his Stetson, which was currently lying somewhere in a police station parking lot.