Page 15 of Riding the Sugar High

It feels like even showering didn’t help with the crippling terror.

I’m a criminal. Lying to the police makes it official, and I spent the last few hours twisting and turning in bed, trying to make my mind up.

I can’t be arrested. It’s not like I meant to set anything on fire anyway. Sure, I’m guilty of trespassing, but people don’t go to prison for that, do they?

I grab my phone to do a quick online search, but there’s no service, and after watching the screen buffer for a few seconds, I set it back down.

Just when I need to know if there’s such a thing as “accidental arson.”

I peer around the small room, trying to decipher something—anything—about the man whose house I’m currently sleeping in, but there’s not much to go on. A bookshelf, a desk, and a crate full of toys. The fact that they’re neatly stacked in the guest room probably means whoever the child is, they don’t come here often.

Those two cops seemed to know him. The man, whom Logan calledConny, definitely wasn’t a fan, but Josie? Connor said she and Logan are family. Could she be an ex-wife? He looks older than me—maybe thirty.

Oh my god. What if she makes it her life’s mission to prove I’m guilty of my crimes because she thinks I slept with her ex-husband?

“Shit,” I mutter as I sit on the edge of the bed. Maybe I should leave this house and never come back. If I get a cab to the airport, will they contact the authorities back in Mayfield?

We need to figure this out—right now, I decide as I stand and open the bedroom door. Everything’s dark, but the door to what I presume is Logan’s bedroom isn’t fully shut.

Approaching with as much stealth as I can muster, I look through the sliver and locate the two piglets sleeping in a bundle of blankets on the floor. The moonlight hits the bed directly, and Logan’s lying face down, his long hair strewn over the pillow and a sheen of sweat covering his broad back.

Everything I can see from here is covered in intricate black tattoos.

For a moment, my eyes run over the muscles and furrows. I haven’t personally seen a whole lot of naked men, but none of what Ihaveseen comes close to the near perfection that is this man’s upper body. I didn’t even know people this sculpted existed, and it’s as thrilling as it is intimidating.

Pushing the door open, I walk to one side of the bed and call his name. Nothing. I do it again, a little louder, but he makes no sign of having heard me, so I climb onto the thick mattress and sit on my heels.

“Logan?” I insist as I gently shake his arm.

He flinches. “Hmm?” He turns over and narrows his eyes, his long brown locks caught in the crease of his neck. “If you’re going to set me on fire, have the decency to let me sleep through it.”

“I’mnotan arsonist,” I insist.

“Whatever you are, you’re in the wrong room.”

He turns his back on me, and I have to press my lips tight at the sight of his rippling muscles. “Logan, what happens when the police come back?”

He inhales. “Normally, they’d drop it. The police department can’t waste resources on two stolen piglets, and Derek knows better than to try to take me on by himself. But your little pyro-show spices things up.”

“So what will we do?”

“Same as we did last night,” he mumbles in a sleepy voice. “Lie our asses off.” He twists his neck to look at me over his shoulder. “Which, by the way, you suck at. Do I look to you like someone who’d let you kick him during sex?”

Ignoring him, I shake my head. My chest feels tight, and there’s a fluttering sensation in my stomach that won’t disappear. “Listen, I think I should just tell the truth.”

His head drops on the pillow, and after a groan, he pulls himself up. The blanket bunches at his waist as he leans against the headboard, a hand rubbing the side of his beard. “What?”

“It’s not like I meant to set Derek’s garbage on fire. It was just an accident.”

“Butdidyou set it on fire?”

“Yes.”

“Afraid it still counts as a crime.” Hand dropping from his face, he studies me for a few seconds, then he shrugs. “You do realize you’re not even a suspect, right? They think I set that asshole’s garbage on fire so I could steal the piglets.”

“But there must be my DNA on the crime scene. And if they search the woods, they’ll find my blood. Look,” I say, pointing at the scratches on my legs.

“Search the woods?” He huffs out a laugh. “Does that happen before or after the FBI sends a helicopter?”