Was it possible she could’ve been in that worked up of a state just from being alone in Logan’s presence? When she lifted her eyes to find out if that was the case, her gaze locked with his. He wasn’t just casually looking in her direction. No, this was a heated stare. One she felt everywhere.
Yep. Definite possibility.
The tugging in her belly stirred up to a full-blown ache in her core. The tingle that had only been in her fingertips was now spreading up her arm. New sensations bombarded her senses under the weight of his undivided attention. Her breasts suddenly felt full and heavy. She was fairly certain—without doing a nip check—that the tips of her lady lumps were as perky as they would’ve been had she been wearing a bikini in Alaska. A skittering shiver ran down her spine, stopping when it reached the apex of her legs.
Just when she was about to internally reprimand herself, her inner voice yelled, Research!
A lightbulb went off in her head. The justification, even if only for her, for staying there with Logan illuminated itself. Nothing had to happen between them, obviously. Her body was hotter and more aroused than it had been in years and all he was doing was looking at her. She could use everything he made her feel in her books.
She just needed to make sure their staying there was actually something he wanted, not something he’d offered out of obligation. Right as she was about to find out, he beat her to the punch.
Clearing his throat, he set his fork down. “I’m sorry that I asked you to stay here in front of Drew.”
Keeping her face as neutral as possible, Emma desperately tried to disguise the immense disappointment that washed over her at hearing his regret. Forcing herself to speak through the waves of sadness over something that up until just seconds ago she hadn’t even known she wanted, she smiled. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell him that it’s not going to work out when he gets back. We’ll be out of your hair by tomorrow afternoon.”
“No. That’s not…” Logan shook his head, his eyes narrowing. “I didn’t mean that I don’t want you to stay. I do. I want you both here.”
Her heart jumped at his words. Easy, girl.
“I was apologizing for not asking you privately. It was wrong to spring that on you. I shouldn’t have put you in the position of being the bad guy if you didn’t feel comfortable staying here. Honestly, the idea just came to me and I said it, but I promise, if you do want to stay here, which I hope is the case, that won’t happen again. I will always run things by you before Drew gets wind of it.”
If Emma hadn’t known the man she was staring at for as long and as well as she did—the man who’d rendered her completely dumbstruck—she would’ve assumed he wasn’t for real. What kind of a man not only possessed enough self-awareness and consideration to figure out independently that he’d overstepped some perceived line, but also to acknowledge that fact and then—wait for it—apologize?
Logan Dorsey. That’s who.
It was strange, but somehow, knowing Logan, mainly through Andrew’s having told her about him, made her feel like she knew him better than almost anyone—even though it was through a third party. He was loyal, a man of his word, and honest to a fault sometimes, according to her late husband.
She remembered more than one recounting of how Logan had caused random girls who’d been solely interested in hooking up with a Marine to end up in tears because he didn’t play games. Brutal honesty—her husband said it was the only way Logan knew how to communicate.
Of course, Andrew had been gone for six years now and people did have a tendency to change. But she was hoping that that wasn’t the case now, so she sat up straighter in her chair and rolled her shoulders back.
“Are you just asking us to stay because you feel sorry for us? Because I don’t want or need your pity.”
“No,” Logan answered without hesitation.
Her heart rate sped up. Before she got ahead of herself, she figured she better find out one more thing.
“Then why? You’re a single guy. You have this place all to yourself. Why would you want to give that up for me and Drew?”
Placing his elbows on the table, Logan leaned forward. Whereas his answer to her first question had shot back rapid-fire style, this answer was slow as molasses. Emma found it hard to do anything while she waited for it. Could someone be paralyzed from anticipation? If they could, then that would explain a lot.
She couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe.
“Part of the reason is because I want to spend time with Drew. I’ve missed out on a lot of his life.”
The sincerity in Logan’s eyes would’ve convinced her that he was telling the truth even if she hadn’t known how honest he was. But that wasn’t the whole story; he’d said part of the reason. When he didn’t continue, she prompted him.
“What’s the other part?”
Logan’s dark eyes bored into hers. Other than his stare, his expression remained blank. He was breathing evenly in and out through his nose.
Since she had been a kid, Emma had always wished that she could read minds. But she’d never wished she’d possessed telepathic abilities quite as much as in that moment.
“Have you ever wanted something you know you shouldn’t?”
Yes! her inner voice screamed as her head bobbed up and down in silent response. She was afraid if she opened her mouth, she would blurt out exactly how badly she wanted something she shouldn’t—him!—so she pulled her lips between her teeth to keep them shut. It was her own version of sitting on her hands so she didn’t talk with them.
Before Logan had a chance to follow up his obtuse inquiry, the screen door banged against the wall and Drew ran in, soda in hand, with a man who looked eerily familiar, but Emma was sure she’d never laid eyes on him.
“I got the soda.” Drew held up two six-packs.
“Thanks, bud.” Logan turned in his chair.
Drew motioned at the man behind him. “And I met your dad.”
His dad!? She’d never spoken to Logan about his father directly, but from what she’d heard from Andrew, he had never been in the picture. In fact, she remembered her late husband telling her that Logan had only met the man once. It was after his mom had passed when he was twelve. If memory served, the lowlife had only stuck around for the will reading, and when he discovered that she’d hadn’t left him anything but his sons, he’d taken off again.
Standing from his chair, Logan lifted his chin in acknowledgement of the man who was standing behind her son. “Charlie, this is Emma, and you’ve already met her son, Drew.”
“Emma.” Charlie crossed the room and extended his hand. “So nice to meet you.”
Upon shaking the man’s hand and seeing him closer up, she realized why he looked familiar. Logan and his father had the same eyes. The same mouth. And the same jaw.
“I don’t want to interrupt you. I just thought…”
“Right. Dinner.” Logan briefly closed his eyes.
Emma wasn’t sure what was going on. When he opened them, he handed his father a plate.
“Why don’t you grab a burger?”
It was odd to see the interaction, to see Logan so stiff and formal. He was always pretty self-contained, but now, he seemed to have more walls around him than Fort Knox. He wasn’t being rude. He’d invited the man to dinner, after all. But he seemed cold. Disconnected.
“Burger sounds great.” Charlie sat in the extra chair, and everyone settled in for dinner.
Thanks to Drew, there was no lull in the conversation. As he told them all about Mountain Ridge and filled Charlie in on his bear sighting and his great escape from Camp Pine to see Logan, Emma sat silently still contemplating whether or not she should stay. She played and replayed Logan’s words over and over in her head.
“Have you ever wanted something you know you shouldn’t?”
Her imagination was having a field day with trying to guess what he’d meant by that. She knew that her answer was a resounding yes. Yes. She. Did.
Ch
apter 7
‡
As the credits rolled on the fifty-two inch flat screen, Logan looked beside him. Drew was curled up on the far end of the brown leather couch using the armrest as a pillow, and Emma, who was sitting between them, was leaning against Logan’s left arm, both were out cold. He was the lone viewer who had made it all the way to the end of the movie without falling asleep.
Drew and Emma hadn’t even lasted a half hour. Logan could have turned it off and called it a night after getting them to bed, but he hadn’t. Instead, he’d stayed on the couch and finished the two-hour-and-forty-five-minute movie.
He hadn’t wanted the time to end. It had nothing to do with the movie, which he’d seen at least a half dozen times before. The reason he’d let the film play to the end was because he had known that, the second everyone headed to their rooms and the night was over, the warmth and comfort surrounding the three of them would be gone.
When Charlie left, Drew had asked if they could have a “movie night.” Logan had seen the flicker of battle in Emma’s baby blues between not wanting to disappoint her son and also needing to get some sleep.
Needless to say, not disappointing Drew had won out. They popped popcorn, and Emma had even whipped up a batch of brownies. Logan had tried to help, but she’d explained that baking calmed her nerves. Apparently, Drew had already known that, because he’d stayed out of her way until the brownies were in the oven.
As soon as they had sat down and started the flick, Logan’s mind had stopped racing. The dark cloud of anger and regret, that always seemed to be hovering over him had lifted. It had been replaced by a peaceful contentment, and even though he was sitting in a dark room, his heart and mind were filled with light.
When the screen went back to the DVD menu, Logan knew that, as much as he might’ve wanted this feeling, this night, to never end, it had.
“Hey, guys. Movie’s over,” he spoke softly, not wanting to scare them.
Both mother and son remained asleep.
“Emma,” he said a little louder.
Still nothing.
Realizing he would have to take more drastic measures, he began to stand up. And instead of waking up, she slumped over. But his arm caught her before she hit the cushion. On instinct, he scooped her up in his arms. Her body settled against his as he made the short walk back to the guest room.
After gently laying her down on the bed, he stood back up and saw that her blonde hair was fanned across her face. He brushed it back, running his fingers through the silky strands.
Letting out a small moan, she turned her head, snuggling deeper into the pillow. As he gazed at her sleeping face, he was spellbound. His eyes took in every feature.
He studied the curve of her dark-brown brow over her lids. Her long, thick lashes resting against the smooth creaminess of her cheek. The rounded tip at the end of her cute, turned-up nose. And then the showstopper—her lips. The plump fullness of both top and bottom matched like mirrored images. Their deep red made Logan want to nip into them to taste their sweetness.
The desire to do just that crashed into him like a semi. He needed to get the hell out of there. Pulling the comforter over her, Logan covered Emma up and tucked the blanket beneath her shoulder so that it stayed in place.
An overwhelming urge hit him with more force than the semi-driven desire had. All he wanted to do was take care of her. To make sure she got the best night’s sleep she could. Never before had he felt so fiercely protective of another person.
Emma made him feel things, things he had never thought he was capable of feeling. Things he had no right feeling.
When he turned around, he was surprised to see Drew in the doorway.
Logan stepped towards him, and Drew moved out into the hallway. As Logan quietly closed the door, Drew yawned and sleepily rubbed his eyes.
“Thanks for taking care of my mom. She’s always the one who takes care of everyone else.” With that, the kid walked down the hall and disappeared into the other spare room, closing the door behind him.
Logan stood motionless. Emotions he was so unfamiliar with that he couldn’t even name them, spread through his entire being.
He’d been responsible for the kid for a total of one and a half days, and it had been fun, but he was also exhausted. How in the hell had Emma done it for so long on her own? Before Andrew had been killed, he’d barely been around. Between deployments and special-ops training, Logan and Andrew had been gone more than they’d been home by a three-to-one ratio.
Every time Logan thought about his fallen friend, his body responded the same way it had when he’d slipped off a roof at age ten and landed flat on his back—it knocked the wind right out of him. He tried to take a deep breath and relax, but his chest was tight, like someone was squeezing it from the inside out. His arms were heavy as they hung beside him. His head felt both so light that it might float away, and so full that it might explode.
The station shrink had mentioned that he shouldn’t suppress his emotions. She’d said that he needed not only to identify them, but also “live” in them. Feel them.
If Logan had a shot in hell at returning to active duty, he’d have to see the therapist again, so he figured he might as well try to do what she’d said. His footsteps sounded so much louder than they ever had before as he made his way to the kitchen.
He’d never lived with anyone before, unless he counted sharing a room with his twin brother when he had been a kid and then again when he had been in the military. But as an adult civilian, he’d lived alone. Not once had he even let a woman stay the night.
At first, this was because he never knew when or if he’d have a night terror. Then, once he’d started working undercover, it never seemed safe. In fact, in the last three years, he’d never even brought a woman home to his apartment.
Cool air hit his face when he opened the fridge. Just as he was reaching for a beer, his phone rang. After quickly snatching it from his pocket, he answered on the second ring.
“Yeah,” Logan snapped.
“Wow. So I guess playing house doesn’t put you in a good mood,” his twin brother observed.
Playing house? “Why are you still up?” Logan asked, ignoring his brother’s comment. He knew he was being an ass. He just didn’t care.
It was midnight in California, and that meant that it was three a.m. in South Carolina, where his brother lived. He had a big fight coming up, which meant he should’ve been taking care of himself.
“I like to mix up my training schedule. I’m pulling an all-nighter.”
From his twin’s cocky tone, Logan had a pretty good idea what kind of all-nighter training was happening, and he seriously doubted that it had anything to do with his MMA career.
Lucas “Lucky” Dorsey had never had to work too hard—or hard at all—for attention from the opposite sex. There’d been a running joke between his brothers that Lucky never kept one woman longer than a toothbrush. He wasn’t a cheater, and he wasn’t scared of commitment. To hear him tell it, he just got bored. He had relationship ADD.
“Training, huh?”
“Yeah. I’m working on my stamina.”
“What do you want, Lucky?”
“I had an interesting conversation with Pops tonight. He said that he had a nice family dinner with you, Emma, and Drew.”
Leaning back against the counter, Logan ran his hand through his hair and tried not to let his brother push his buttons, something Lucky was an expert at. He might’ve been a world-champion MMA fighter, but he also could’ve easily earned a title in starting shit. Normally, Logan didn’t take shit from anyone. The only exception to that rule was on the other end of the phone. His twin brother had always had a longer rope than anyone else, and more often than not, he hung himself with the sucker.
“If you have a point, get to it,” Logan said flatly.
“My point? So I have to have a ‘point’ to call and talk to my brother? My twin brother?”
Logan did something he only e
ver did while he was talking to Lucky—he rolled his eyes. He also decided to wait his brother out. Chances were, after a few minutes of giving Logan a bad time, Lucky would get bored and lose interest in the conversation. His attention span was about that of a gnat’s—fighting being the only exception.
“Seriously though, dude. Pops said you were acting totally normal around Em. How the hell do you do it?”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Logan snapped.
No one knew how he felt about Emma. Not even Emma. So he had no idea what the hell his brother was talking about, but he sure as shit didn’t appreciate the insinuation.
This entire conversation could’ve been a fishing trip for Lucky. Since he had been little, his twin would get wind of something, have a feeling about something, or only know part of a story, and if he wanted to get to the bottom of it, he would “go fishing.” He’d cast his line into the water and see what bit. Unfortunately, if that was the case, Logan had just bit—hook, line, and sinker.
He hadn’t been able to help it though. Hearing his brother even say Emma’s name, especially when he’d shortened it like they were old friends, had caused him to see red. Protective didn’t begin to describe what had flared up in him like dry brush ignited with a blowtorch.
“Whooooaaa. Relax, bro. I just meant that, between the books she writes and, well, how ridiculously smokin’ hot she is, I didn’t know how you weren’t sporting a boner so big it could knock the dinner table over.”
“How do you know she writes books?”
His brother had met Emma a few times over the years when Andrew had been alive, but the thought of him keeping in touch with her turned all the protective instincts that had just erupted in him into raging jealousy.
Magic Kiss (Hope Falls Book 11) Page 7