“Ok,” I say hesitantly.
“I want you more than I want air,” he says. My heart starts to beat a tattoo rhythm in my chest. I open my mouth to speak, but he holds up that damn finger. “But I can’t act on my feelings. Not while I don’t even know your name.”
He takes a deep breath and waits for me. I can’t say anything. I wouldn’t know what to say even if I could.
“I want to take you to bed, and make love to you all night long.” He cocks a grin at me. “Lips. Tongue. Fingers. Teeth.” He makes a circle motion with his hands. “Should I go on? Or do you understand?”
I nod. I get it. He reaches over and lifts my jaw to closes my mouth. His touch is tender.
“I want to do things to you that you probably couldn’t imagine.” His blue eyes are dark and the centers big and wide.
“I don’t know,” I start. I am imagining all sorts of things right now. And my clit is thumping so hard I have to push my legs together to ease some of it. It doesn’t help.
“But even more than I want to lick you all over and make you cry out my name and swear you see God, I want you to trust me. And you don’t. Not yet. But you might one day.”
I’m breathing so hard I feel like I just ran a mile. “I trust you,” I say.
He shakes his head. “No you don’t.” He smiles at me, and my heart flips over. “But you might one day.”
The waitress brings the receipt to the table, and gives him a pen. I see that she’s written her name and phone number on the bottom of the receipt. He tears that part off and gives it back to her. He shakes his head, and tilts his at her, and she looks disappointed. Her heavy bottom lip pokes out.
I look up at her and blink. “I absolutely hate it when skanks try to give my boyfriend their contact information,” I say.
Logan chokes, coughing into his fist.
The waitress steps toward me, but Logan gets between us. That’s good, because I will take that bitch out. “Have you ever slept with her?”
He looks up at her and takes in her features. “I don’t think so,” he says quietly, by my ear.
He’s slept with that many women that he can’t tell one from another?
She huffs away. He tugs me to my feet. “You shouldn’t have called her a skank,” he says with a laugh.
“What do you call a woman who gives her number to a man who’s been holding hands with someone else?” I ask crisply.
“And you shouldn’t have called me your boyfriend.” He looks down at me as he opens the door of the restaurant for me.
“I’m sorry,” I start. “I shouldn’t have said that. I just wanted her to go away.” And I wanted to stake my claim, even though I had no right to one.
He looks down at me beneath the street light. “You shouldn’t have said it because you gave me hope,” he says.
I can’t speak. I can’t utter out a sound.
“Come home with me,” he says.
I shake my head.
He sighs heavily. “You know how this is going to end.”
“I shouldn’t.” I really, really shouldn’t.
“Fine,” he says, and then he bends at the waist and tosses me over his shoulder, just like the night before. Only this time, his hand is on my ass, under my skirt, instead of holding the backs of my legs. It’s hot, pressed against my panties.
I can’t say a word to him, because he wouldn’t hear me. So, I just hang there, all the way to his building, and up four flights of stairs.
He opens the door and walks inside. His brothers are there, and they look up. Sam and Pete snicker, and Paul shoots them a look. Matthew is on the sofa, and he shakes his head.
Logan puts me down. Apparently, I’m not a side show attraction tonight. “Hi,” I say tentatively to them all.
“Hi,” they call back. They don’t get up and rush over to me, not even when he sets me on my feet and steadies me. “You’re back,” Matthew says as he walks to the fridge.
He looks better tonight. Not quite as green.
Sam walks to the kitchen and Paul snarks at him when he reaches for a beer. He takes a soda, instead, grumbling to himself.
Logan signs something to them. Pete tells him the name of the movie, and it’s one I haven’t heard of. Logan points to the TV and then to me asking me if I’ve seen it.
I shake my head. He sets my bag and my guitar on floor, and laces his fingers with mine. He tugs me gently toward the couch. Logan bumps Sam and Pete’s knees until they scoot down. There’s barely enough space for him, much less for me. “I’m going to go take a shower,” I complain.
But he sits down and pulls me into his side, his arm around my shoulders.
Matt gives me a look I don’t understand. He doesn’t seem completely pleased by my being there. Did I do something to offend him?
But Logan looks down at me and smiles, and then places his lips against my forehead. Matt gets up and goes to his room, but not before shooting me a glance that I couldn’t help but take as a warning.
Logan
She fell asleep curled into my side. The credits roll on the TV and I don’t want to move. I don’t want to set her away from me. My arm is sweating where she’s pressed up against me, and her hairline is damp. I reach over and brush her hair back, and she blinks her brown eyes at me. “Is it over?” she asks.
She stretches, her arms raising high above her head.
I nod. The movie’s over. But my feelings for her are not. They’re just beginning. I like having her on my couch. And I like it even more that she’s so soft in my arms.