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“But what? It’s okay to tell me. I can almost promise you, whatever emotions you were feeling—fear, anger, annoyance at that dude’s gross floral cigarettes—I’ve had it.

” His understanding tone made him sound like a therapist. “You assume that in a life-threatening situation, you’d be focused on whatever is most likely to get you killed.

But that’s not always the case. It can be a number of things. ”

His understanding tone somehow made it worse.

I pressed my palms against my eyes, feeling everything I’d been holding back trying to claw its way out.

The rational part of my brain screamed at me to shut up, to maintain some dignity, but the words came anyway, spilling out like water through a broken dam.

“I crushed you.”

Silence stretched between us, broken only by the storm outside. Then, “What?”

“When we were hiding. I was on top of you, and I know I’m not exactly a lightweight, and you couldn’t move me because I’m too—” I stopped, hating how pathetic I sounded, how small my voice had become.

“Too what?” His voice had gone very quiet, very careful.

“Too big. Too solid. Too much like a linebacker instead of the kind of woman men actually want to—” The words tumbled out faster now, two years of accumulated hurt mixing with today’s humiliation.

“I just mean, I know I’m not feminine or delicate or any of the things men want.

And then after, you’ve barely looked at me, and obviously, you don’t want?—”

“Stop.”

“I’m sorry. I know I’m being ridiculous, but?—”

“Lauren, stop talking.”

I looked up to find him staring at me with an expression I couldn’t read. Somewhere between disbelief and frustration and something else entirely. The small camping lamp he’d set up threw shadows across his face, making his eyes look darker, more intense.

“You thought I couldn’t move you? I did move you.”

“I—what?”

He crossed the small space in two strides, each step deliberate, controlled. “You think the reason I kept you still while those guards were twenty feet away was because you were too heavy for me to move?”

“I mean…” I swallowed hard. He was too close now, looming over me with that intense focus that made thinking difficult. I could smell rain on him, earth and green things and something uniquely Logan. “Yes?”

“Jesus Christ, woman.” His hand cupped my jaw, tilting my face up with gentle insistence. His palm was warm against my cold skin, callused but careful. “You’re completely insane, you know that?”

“Logan—”

His kiss shut me up. His mouth was on mine, hot and demanding.

This was pure hunger, a clash of lips and teeth and tongues that stole every thought from my head.

He speared his free hand into my wet hair, angling my head for better access as he pressed me back against the concrete wall.

The cold surface was a shock against my back, contrasting with the heat of him against my front.

I made a sound—surprise, need, relief all tangled together—and he swallowed it, using my parted lips to deepen the kiss.

He tasted like rain and controlled violence and something uniquely him that made my knees weak.

When I grabbed his shoulders for balance, feeling the solid muscle beneath my hands, he made a low growl of approval that I felt all the way to my toes.

The kiss went on and on, desperate and consuming.

His body pressed against mine, and I could feel every hard plane of muscle, the barely leashed strength in how he held me.

One of his thighs pushed between mine, and I gasped into his mouth at the pressure, my hands clutching at his shoulders like he was the only solid thing in a world gone liquid.

My fingers found the hem of his shirt, holding on, needing the anchor of him.

Logan took advantage of my gasp, his tongue stroking against mine with a skill that made me forget my own name.

The hand in my hair tightened, not painful but commanding, holding me exactly where he wanted me while he kissed me like a man starving.

His other hand found my waist, fingers splaying wide against my ribs, thumb brushing the underside of my breast through my soaked shirt.

The touch sent electricity through me, made me arch into him, seeking more.

Every nerve ending in my body lit up at once.

This was nothing like Patrick’s lukewarm kisses that always felt like he was doing me a favor.

This was Logan claiming me, wanting me, unable to get enough of me.

The solid weight of him pressing me into the wall should have made me feel trapped, but instead, I felt anchored, desired, absolutely certain that he wanted me exactly as much as I wanted him.

When he finally pulled back, we were both gasping for air.

His chest heaved against mine, and I could feel his heart racing as fast as my own.

His eyes had gone dark, pupils blown wide with desire, and the look he gave me was pure predator.

But instead of frightening me, it sent liquid heat pooling low in my belly.

“That,” he said, voice rough and deeper than I’d ever heard it, each word deliberate and weighted, “is what you do to me. Every minute of every day since I met you. So, don’t you dare tell me you’re not exactly what I want.

And don’t fucking speak nonsense about being too heavy.

Whoever made you feel that way was making up for their own shortcomings by trying to blame them on you. ”

I stared at him, lips swollen and tingling, heart hammering against my ribs, completely undone by the raw need in his voice.

He was still pressed against me, and I could feel the evidence of his desire, hard and insistent against my hip.

The knowledge that I’d done this to him, that I affected him this much, was almost overwhelming.

“Oh,” I breathed, the single syllable all I could manage.

His thumb traced my lower lip, and I couldn’t help the way my tongue darted out to taste it, salt and rain and Logan.

His eyes went impossibly darker, and a muscle jumped in his jaw.

I could feel the tension in him, the control he was exercising, and it made me feel powerful in a way I never had before.

“Yeah,” he said roughly. “Oh.”