Page 53 of The Player Next Door

He grinned. “Sometimes that’s half the fun,” he said, even as he stepped back and let her get her legs under her again. He held her by the elbows until he was sure she was steady, then let go, but a blush was gradually crawling up her neck. Logan examined her closely and she looked away, worried he would somehow see the images that were flashing behind her eyelids every time she blinked.

Logan, kneeling in front of a chair.

A woman with long brown hair sitting before him, legs spread.

Her fingers splayed against the back of his head, holding him in place while her back arched.

“Or maybe you know that already,” Logan added, turning her to face him with his fingers under her chin. His smirk had deepened and his eyes were molten. “Tell me, Clare, did you see something you weren’t supposed to see?”

Her breath was coming in short, ridiculous pants. She probably wouldn’t have been able to stand if it weren’t for the metal pole behind her, rigid and cool. “You could have closed your blinds,” she blurted, and then covered her mouth.

But Logan just laughed delightedly. “I knew it,” he crowed. “I knew you saw us; you’ve been squirrelly about something this whole time.”

“It wasn’t long, I swear,” she protested. “I just—well, your window isright there.”

Logan winked. “That was the whole point.”

At this rate, she was just going to be permanently crimson. “I—you—she—” Clare sputtered while Logan waited with an air of amusement. “Do you—in public? Often?”

Logan shrugged and backed up, her lungs filling with air fully for the first time in ten minutes. Even still, she missed his warmth, his closeness. “Not often. Exhibitionism isn’t really my thing, but it was Amber’s, so . . .” He trailed off and ended with another shrug. “It felt like a good compromise.”

He picked up the basketball and laced their fingers together, peeling her off the pole and towing her toward the gate. “You’ll do stuff you’re not into?” she asked, honestly interested. There wasn’t a lot of exploration or experimentation in her sex life, and she found his attitude to be fascinating.

“Not everything. I’ve got some hard no’s, but something like that? I’m up for it, if that’s what gets her off.”

Clare ignored the urge to squirm and rub her thighs together at his words. “Oh,” she said, more to have a response than anything else.

He grinned at her and let the gate swing shut with a clatter. “Just something to keep in mind,” he said with a wink.

Oh.

Chapter Twenty-six

It was hard to play a pick-up game with just three people—Vince had to go home straight from work to Nicole and the baby—so rather than the usual game, Logan and the Aidens were just messing around on the court, challenging each other for the ball and attempting trick shots. Sam called it playingwho’s the coolest?and claimed it was a game that all unstructured physical activities involving men tended to devolve into, and she wasn’t wrong.

Didn’t mean it wasn’t fun, though. Brooks nailed a half-court shot and fist pumped, following it up with a chest bump from Aiden because sometimes, the Aidens were incredibly predictable.

Not for the first time, Logan found himself feeling just a little bit separate from them. They could be fun, but there was an edge to their humor that he didn’t always love. And they could be super immature, which was sometimes funny but felt less and less so lately. A few months ago, Logan thought maybe they were changing, getting cruder and louder, but now he could tell it was the opposite. It wasn’t just Brooks hitting on Clare, either.

He was the one who was changing. Leaving Clare at her door after their game of Horse was one of the hardest things Logan had ever had to do. He couldn’t remember a time where he’d ever walked away from a willing partner, especially one who made him feel the way Clare did.

Well, no one had ever made him feel the way Clare did.

But that was why he made himself kiss her goodbye and leave, instead of waiting for her to offer to let him in. It all felt so new, so overwhelming, that some instinct had him holding back.That’s called being a grown-up, welcome to the club, he could hear Sam say, complete with an accompanying eyeroll. But it was more than just personal growth. It was that Clare was special to him, and he wanted to be sure he was doing everything right. He might have started hanging out with her in a desperate attempt to salvage his job, but now he didn’t give a damn about Schneider. He did want Peggy Roth to like him, but he didn’t care if she fired him. He wanted her to like him because he wanted everyone Clare cared about to like him. Everything was different.Hewas different, hence the walking away.

But when he got home, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. The way her lips tasted in the rain, the way her smile made his father’s slightly dingy kitchen a few shades brighter. The way she gasped and moaned against him when he kissed her on the basketball court, the way her skin felt impossibly soft under his fingertips.

The way she couldn’t meet his eyes when she admitted having seen him eating out Amber. The way he couldn’t stop thinking about how Clare would taste.

Logan shook himself out of that very dangerous thought process just in time to see Aiden hurl the ball straight at him. “Think fast,” he yelled, and Logan just barely managed to catch it before it slammed into his face.

“Go to hell,” Logan sighed. He dribbled for a while, sizing up the hoop, and then drove in for a lay-up. He tossed it over to Brooks for his turn and stepped back, breathing a little harder now.

Aiden stepped up next to him. “She still on your case?” he asked.

Logan frowned. “Who?”

“Madame Vice President,” Aiden said with faux-superiority. “Weren’t you in trouble for fucking her niece?”