Page 59 of The Player Next Door
“Is itcloseto pink?”
“I don’t think I said anything about hints,” he said sternly.
Clare leaned forward and captured his lips in a short, soft kiss. “I bet I can get it out of you,” she murmured.
The dark, breathy timbre of her voice did something powerful to his chest, but he made himself look puzzled. “Are you seducing me?” he asked.
Clare grinned and sat up the rest of the way, slinging a leg over his hips to straddle him. “Yes, I am. I’m sorry, was that not clear?”
“Mmm, not sure,” he said as he dragged his hands up her thighs to settle at her waist. “I’m not too smart; might need to make it more obvious.”
He pressed his head back against the couch to see her more clearly, chin automatically tilting up as she took his face in her hands. “I don’t like it when you say that,” she said seriously. “That shit about not being smart. It’s not true, and I won’t let you talk about yourself that way.”
Logan’s throat was too tight to speak, so instead he nodded. Clare brushed her lips over his and pulled back, head tilting to the side. “Orange,” she said, and he shook his headno. “Yellow, then?” she guessed. He could tell it was just a random stab in the dark, but he rewarded her anyway with a slide of his tongue alongside hers.
“Almost,” he whispered. He let her control the tenor of the kiss, slow and searching and yet somehow igniting a fire low in his belly. His hands slid around to cup her backside, digging his fingers in and pulling her down against his rapidly filling cock. All thoughts of colors flew from his head, because all that was left was her.
She moaned into his mouth, but when he let his left hand dance across her thigh to settle between the apex of her hips she pulled away. Logan whined before he even realized he made the noise, missing the hot, wet taste of her mouth.
“What was that you told me about seduction?” she said, still holding on to his shoulders.
“I have no fucking idea,” he replied honestly. All that mattered now was that she kiss him again and lower herself back against his aching dick inside his jeans. He craned his neck toward her and she pulled back, just out of reach.
Her face took on that look it had when she was about to teach him something, bright and playful and sharp as fuck. Christ, he loved that look. She skated her hands down to his wrists, curling her fingers around them. “I think it wasseduction is about getting the other person to take what they want,” she said, and pinned his wrists to the couch on either side of his ears. His heart was hammering so loudly for a second he thought someone was knocking on the door, ready to curse Peggy for yet again interrupting them.
Peggy.Right. He still had to unknot that mess, not to mention convince Clare to go on a double date with his worst client. He realized the only way he could pull it off was to be honest, and even if that was a big risk, it was one he had to take. Because his other option was lying, and he just couldn’t do that anymore.
With the most impressive show of willpower he’d ever possessed, he pulled away from Clare’s mouth. “There’s something you should know,” he said.
“Is it that you’ve had a lot of sex? Because I thought we’d covered that, as I’ve already watched some of it,” she teased.
Logan huffed out a laugh. “No, it’s—Peggy.”
“No offense, but I really don’t want to talk about my aunt right now. And I know you work for her or whatever already.”
Logan wanted nothing more than to pull her back against him and pick up where they left off, but a tiny voice in his head told him he would regret that for ever. So, he persevered. “No, it’s more than that. It’s about me, too. My . . . motivations.”
Clare leaned back, sitting on her heels. “What about your motivations?” Her voice was sharp, suspicious; utterly unlike her. It pierced his chest like an ice pick.
“I—I have a churn problem. Clients like me enough to start, but they rarely stick with me for long, and Peggy—we had a conversation about it. There’s one client in particular, who is a huge dick, by the way, but he’s important and I have to keep him, or else I’m fucked. He’s uncomfortable with, um, my reputation. And Peggy said I needed to show some maturity; prove I was someone she could trust, and that clients would trust. And then—”
“And then she walked in on you having spent the night,” Clare finished. He couldn’t read her tone, or maybe he just didn’t want to.
“Yeah, that. And I—the first time, that had nothing to do with it. But I didn’t want her to think I’m that sort of guy.”
“Someone who sleeps around, including with her beloved niece.”
“Yeah, that.”
“Except that is who you are.”
Logan ran his hands through his hair. “It is, yeah. Or it was, I guess, because—god, Clare, I fell for you so fast. I’ve never—you’re—” He stopped and sighed. “I’ve had women be interested in me before because they thought I was, like, damaged or something. Had some sort of secret pain, and they were going to heal it. But you—you didn’t do that. You just like spending time with me. I mean, I think you do, anyway.”
Clare chewed her lower lip and he wanted nothing more than to loosen it with his thumb, but he needed to be sure she understood him first.
She hadn’t moved from his lap, at least.
“What are you saying, exactly? This was all . . . to impress Aunt Peggy?”