Page 79

The oven timer dings, and I get up to check on the batch of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies I’m baking. There’s a knock on the door as I’m pulling a cookie pan out of the oven. I glance at the clock on the microwave. It reads 8:12 p.m. Huh? Who could it be? River wouldn’t knock.

“Can you get the door?”

I call out to Bruno, my back to him as I slide the parchment paper the cookies sit on onto the kitchen’s granite countertop to cool.

“On it,” he calls back.

I turn when the door opens and can’t help the smile that takes over my face. I drop the hot cookie sheet in the sink and make a beeline to Logan. I throw myself at him, arms around his shoulders. He catches me, and his head buries into my neck a second later and he’s inhaling me. His arms tightly wrapped around my back hold me flat against him. I want to wrap my legs around his waist, but police duty belt and the dozens of things hanging from it make that impossible. I settle for just hanging on to him, my feet dangling several inches off the floor.

He inhales me again and whispers against my skin.

“Hmm, orange blossom, pizza, and... is that cookies I smell too?”

I laugh. His cookie addiction cannot be denied. With one last squeeze, he sets me on the floor. I take him in. I love to see him in his uniform. I love it even more when he’s out of it.As in, naked.

With no shoes and on my bare feet—or my socked feet, rather—the height difference between us is even more evident.

Logan reaches behind him and closes the door and looks over my head. I look back too and realize—with a little guilt—that I forgot Bruno was here. And now he’s working on his fourth slice. I narrow my eyes at him and he smirks at me.

“What are you doing here? I thought you couldn’t make it.”

“That’s because I’m not here. I’m at Pat’s, getting a coffee. You haven’t seen me tonight. Not at all.”

Logan winks at me and I catch on.

“Too bad you’re not here. If you were, you could have some homemade pizza and fresh-baked cookies.”

“Oh, I think I’m also getting a slice of pizza and some cookies to go with that coffee from Pat’s.”

“Come on.”

I tug at his hand.

He resists and glances back at Bruno sitting at the table and back at me, then pulls me into him again and kisses me. Not a hello kind of kiss. Not even a lingering hello kiss. Nope. With one arm around my waist and the other behind my head, Logan positions me against him and molds me to his body. This is a breath stealing, heart thundering, panty melting, fucking-my-mouth-with-his-mouth kind of kiss. The kind of kiss that promises so much more is on the way. The kind of kiss that gets burned into one’s lips, skin, memory. If there were a Nobel Prize for kissing, this kiss would win it. By a landslide.

When Logan lets me go, I wobble a little on my feet. I’m drunk on lust. Logan steadies me, a smile on his face. His smile melts away the last few functioning brain cells I have. He looks over my head again. I turn back and remember Bruno. Damn it! I forgot all about him. Again.

Bruno’s mouth is half-open, a bite of pizza hanging from it. And is he blushing? I’ve never seen Bruno blush. Ever. My face gets warm too, reaching the same heat level as the rest of my body.

I take a step away from Logan.

“Pizza?”

“I can’t stay. I shouldn’t even be here, but I had to see you.”

“How about I get you a slice to go?”

“And some cookies too?”

His hopeful smile is that of a little boy. Gosh, he’s melting my panties one minute and in the next, he’s melting my heart.

“Come on, I’ll pack it to go.”

Logan sits at the table across from Bruno and nods at him. Bruno, still looking uncomfortable, nods back.

I grab two slices of pizza and put them on a paper plate and cover it with another. That earns me a frown from Bruno.

“Oh, please. You’re on your fourth slice. I don’t know where you put all that.”