Page 31

CHAPTER 31

ROSE

“W hew, close your mouth, girl.”

I snap it shut and tear my eyes away from Logan. “Erm, is it obvious that I’m drooling over the man?”

“So obvious.” Hope grins before taking a massive bite out of her burger.

“Oh, no,” I whisper.

“What’s wrong with that?” she asks with her mouth full. “He’s your boyfriend.”

I’m jealous of her sensible swimsuit, a navy two piece with thick straps over her shoulders that don’t have her constantly checking herself. I try as discreetly as possible to pull my top up by pinched fingers.

I’m also viscerally jealous of how Hope can say that, because she can stare at her hunky boyfriend to her heart’s content without fearing consequences.

If Logan catches me eating him up, he’ll know that I have a thing for him. Or more than a thing.

Yes, I’m really attracted to him physically. Who wouldn’t be? The guy is a masterpiece of chiseled muscles, a ridiculously perfect bubble butt, legs that never skip the gym, luscious hair that reaches his shoulders, and a five o’clock shadow that deserves awards. And then there’s all the tattoos, most of which I had seen one way or another before, except that now I discovered one that peeks from under his swimming trunks at his thighs.

And the swimming trunks. The criminal piece of fabric that clings to his body under the weight of the water.

I had to latch myself onto Hope after we decided to get out of the pool because looking at him got too painful. Has anyone told him that his lips alone are enough to make a girl fantasize? And that’s before peeping at anything under his neck.

“It’s just…” I worry my bottom lip. “I’m trying not to freak him out.”

“How?” she asks, swallowing.

I look at the burger on a paper plate balanced on my lap. “Well, you know him. He’s kind of aloof and, like, after the whole thing with Ben I don’t really want to be the one who wants the guy more, does that make sense?”

“Hmm.” Hope reaches for the iced tea bottle at her feet and takes a healthy swig before talking. The sun is setting behind her, and the automatic lights around the pool start to turn on. “Well, Logan’s not that aloof. He’s pretty friendly, actually.”

I look at her like she grew another head. Fortunately, she’s more focused on her food than on how that lands.

I guess I’m also jealous of the relationship Hope and Logan have. It’s true that he’s a lot more relaxed around her than anyone else, including the rest of the team or myself. He basically treats me the same way he does Cade or Lucky—which is to say, not that friendly.

Hope has no way of knowing how my heart is squeezing when she continues talking. “And as for the other topic, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“What?” I completely forgot what the other topic even was.

“Trust me, Rose. He’s so into you, it’s funny.”

“Huh?” I lean forward abruptly, eyes bulging.

“You didn’t see how he was looking at you earlier?” No reaction comes from me, so she adds, “When you were taking off your shorts. He kept doing this.” She sets her plate down to open and close her fists hard enough that her muscles bulge. “Cade said he was surprised the dude didn’t crack a tooth with how hard he was clenching his jaw.”

“Clenching his… what?” I shake my head, still confused.

“You were this close”—She pinches her index and thumb close enough to touch—“To him picking you up and taking you somewhere to do unspeakable things during a family function.”

As if on cue, a gaggle of toddlers runs by us, the leader holding a hot dog up high like it’s a trophy.

I turn back to Hope. “You must’ve been hallucinating. There’s no way that Logan—” I catch myself because he’s supposed to be my boyfriend. Of course he’s supposed to want me. So I correct myself. “That he would be that obvious in public.”

“So is that the issue?” Hope checks our surroundings and lowers her voice. “Is he not affectionate enough, like whatshisface?”

Logan and Ben don’t even belong in the same sentence together.

And that’s the issue. Without having any feelings for me or ever having been intimate, Logan has already shown me much more affection than Ben ever did.

Logan probably thinks I don’t notice the little things he does, like earlier when we were driving over and some guy in traffic was looking at me in a lewd way. It wasn’t like Logan could do much in that circumstance, but reminding the stranger that I wasn’t alone was enough to get him to look away.

I wonder if he could feel my heart hammering against his back, or if he had any idea that I wanted him to keep his hands around my thighs—pull me even closer if possible.

I wonder if he knows I almost cried when he gave me his shirt. That in this sham we’re in, I’ve felt more like a WAG than I did in any intimate moment with Ben Williams.

“He is affectionate,” I say with a sigh. “Just not so much in—in public,” I lie, when actually Logan is the perfect boyfriend in public and a stranger in private.

“Give him some time. He’s surprisingly shy—just don’t tell him I said so.”

“I won’t.” I smile weakly.

How right she is, dang her. Logan is a force of nature to most people, certainly a thorn on the side to Cade, but that’s because they haven’t caught a glimpse of all the hurt and loneliness hidden inside of him.

I did, back at the birthday dinner with his awful parents. I wish he’d let me in—for real. I wish this giant crush I’m harboring had a purpose other than to torture me.

Drawn by him, my eyes find him among the guys once more and I jolt, because Logan’s looking straight at me.

He motions with his head in the universal shall we? way, and I nod. I am so ready to get back home, shower, condition my hair, and crawl in bed with a romance book I can live vicariously through.

“I think we’re going to head out now,” I tell Hope, watching as Logan extricates himself from Lucky’s and Cade’s hold, breaking from the group.

“This early?” she asks while chewing the last of her burger.

“Yeah, I’m sure Logan needs his beauty sleep before the trip tomorrow.” I smile in a sad way, legitimately bothered that I don’t get to tag along with the team to the next away series, and that I won’t see him for three days.

At least not in person. I’ll sure look at the screen version instead.

“Fine, I guess I’ll go nag the cowboy. See you at home later?”

“Yup.” I also didn’t have much left of my burger and polish off the rest as Hope and Logan meet halfway. She says something quick to him that makes him nod. Unlike a professional baseball player, I’m really bad at reading lips and I can’t tell what he responds back with, and then they continue their separate ways.

My pulse climbs quick and nimble like a spider as he approaches. After hours of careful observation, I can confirm that his swimming trunks have dried up by the fact that they’re no longer clinging to him.

“Ready?” he asks as he reaches the pool chairs that Hope and I commandeered for the better part of the day.

My response is a hum, since I’m still munching away. Logan reaches for the backpack and sets it on the free chair, opening it to pull out our clothes. I wipe my hands with a napkin before accepting my shorts and top—the baseball one, not my lavender one from Old Navy. He pulls out his black cargo pants and I watch, riveted, as his pecs jump with the motions of putting on his pants.

I drown down a groan with a sip of Dr. Pepper.

Now he’s putting on that tight muscle T-shirt he wore on the way over. A sliver over his pants catches my attention and I nearly choke on my drink. That’s a tanline right across the ridge of the V that goes down his pants. He deserves jail for showing me that.

As his T-shirt clears his head, I scramble to toss my towel away from my shoulders and start to get dressed as quick as possible. I wish I was brave enough to peek at him, see if he’s watching me the way Hope described—but I don’t dare. I need to get on his bike ASAP where he will look away from me for half an hour and I can stew in my own misery.

After putting on our shoes and grabbing our helmets, I grab his free hand with mine and tug him for a quick round of farewells. The whole disaster of the dinner with Logan’s parents taught me to take heed of his advice about people, and even though I politely bid my thanks for the day to Amber Brown, I don’t stick around long enough to enter any sort of yikes territory with her.

I’m much warmer saying good night to Miguel and his daughter, who is the spitting image of him, but tiny female version and way grumpier. Lucky, Cade and Hope get hugs from me and nods from my boyfriend.

Er, my pretend boyfriend.

That mental slip speeds me up and I all but drag Logan out of the property. When I’m sure we’re out of sight, I drop his hand like it burns.

He sighs. Probably relieved to finally be free.

Logan puts on his helmet and as he fastens the chin strap, I observe his bulging bicep. Most of it is taken by a big red rose that must’ve been a pain to get tattooed on. “Logan?” I ask.

“Hmm?”

“I’m curious about something.” He turns to me, which is kind of eerie when he’s wearing his helmet, visor down. “Did it hurt to get so many tattoos?”

“Yes,” he responds candidly.

My eyebrows rise. “Then why did you do it?”

“Because…” He trails off and I think he’ll leave me hanging until he finally finishes the sentence. “I needed to pretend I’m different from them.”

My brow furrows because at first I don’t get it.

Pretend? From who?

But then he pulls ahead, opening one of the pockets of his pants to extract the key as he reaches the bike. He slots it in and digs into the same pocket to produce his gloves, and I watch him put them on, his forearm muscles shifting as he works his hands in.

And that’s when I realize that he needed to busy himself because he said too much.

Which means this is about his family. That’s the one topic I unfortunately lucked into learning about that others don’t know.

“You don’t need to pretend,” I say in a quiet voice that still snaps his attention to me, making my chest squeeze so hard that I almost gasp for air. Instead, I add, “You’re very different from them.”

I put my helmet on and feel around for the strap. One of them got sucked in and I hook my finger around it to pull it back out.

Logan takes a few steps toward me and I freeze as he reaches for my hands—no, not my hands. He actually pulls them away. Instead, his gloved fingers, which are so large they should be clumsy, easily find the straps and clasp them under my chin.

He taps the top of my helmet and says, “No, I’m not. I’m just as bad.” Before I can protest, he makes a project of removing his backpack and hooking the straps over my shoulders.

Sliding my arms into the straps, I say, “No, you’re not. An evil person wouldn’t care if my helmet is tied properly.”

“That’s not why I was doing it. You were probably going to take two business days to tie it.”

I harrumph because, yes, that’s true. But also because I know it’s a deflection. “How about earlier when you fended that creepy guy in traffic off me?”

Logan stops in the middle of raising his leg to ride his bike, and almost loses his balance. At the last second, he just drops his leg onto the seat. “You saw that?”

“Yes, I did.” I fold my arms. “That was very nice of you.”

“Nice?” He snorts with a little ha! “I didn’t do it out of being nice.”

“Then why?”

“What if I had ulterior motives?” he asks while completing the motion of sliding over his bike. Damn it, he even looks gorgeous from the back with that impossibly wide back and tiny waist.

I shake my head hard and approach to climb on. Hands on his delicious shoulders, foot on the peg, and hoisting myself up until I find the opposite peg. I lower myself down behind him and he does the thing again, the one that sends my pulse from normal to Speedy Gonzalez: he grabs the backs of my knees and slides me forward until I fall on him. I wasn’t prepared for it and my hands land on his thighs, right against his hips.

“What ulterior motives?” I squeak out, lifting my hands quickly to hug his waist.

His chest expands with a big intake of air that he releases slowly. He turns the key and the engine roars to life beneath us. Twisting, he turns over his shoulder to look at me. Or at my helmet, I guess.

“Rose.” My name comes out like a growl that can rival the engine. “When you’re on my bike, you’re my backpack. And I don’t let anyone covet what’s mine.”

I suck in air.

Then the jerk kicks the stand back and accelerates hard enough that my body pulls back, forcing me to grab tight onto him.

Okay, I’m sure he can definitely feel my heart about to burst from my chest and tear into his. That’s definitely what the traitor muscle wants to do, but I can’t let it.

Logan said when I’m on his bike , as if I was an extension of his property.

That’s not it either. I want to be loved hard and openly. I don’t want to be a guy’s possession. That feels too close to what I was to Ben—just a conquest, not a real person with her own feelings and needs.

Neither of us speak at any of the stoplights or stop signs, and the half an hour drive feels like it’s been an entire hour by the time he pulls into my residence. I key in the code to open the gate and since we’re going a lot slower now, I only grab onto his waist until he stops in front of the townhouse I share with Audrey and Hope. The lights are on inside, which means it’s early enough and Audrey’s still awake.

We do the whole operation of getting off the bike smoothly, like we’ve done this a million times. But unlike earlier, Logan doesn’t release my waist right away.

I reach for my visor and lift it. “What?”

He tilts his head slightly and his hands tighten, making me jolt a bit.

I lift his visor too, hoping that looking into his eyes will help me understand what’s happening. It doesn’t work that way, though. I know it’s dark and the light from the streetlamp is weak, but why do his eyes look like that? All dark and intense—unprovoked.

“What, Logan?” I ask again, my voice less certain.

“A really nice guy wouldn’t be thinking the things that are going through my head right now.”

My eyes widen. My heart kicks hard. “What things?”

His hands splay wider, covering more territory of my waist and the top of my hips. “How I would make you mine if you let me.”

I gasp—and choke.

“Unthinkable, huh?” He shakes his head and slowly eases off my waist, his hands sliding across my stomach until he lets go. “That’s not part of the deal and I know that. But I can’t help thinking… and wanting…” He takes a step back, eyes lowering down my frame. “To kiss you. And more.”

I hope it’s dark enough that he can’t see the goosebumps breaking all over my skin. I wrap my arms around myself. Out of breath without any reason, I ask, “Is that it?”

His eyes snap back to mine.

“You just want me physically?” I clarify.

After a beat, he says, “Yeah.”

“Right.” The word comes out very firm for someone whose chin is trembling and is about to burst into tears at any second. “That is definitely not part of the deal. No kissing. Certainly nothing more than that. I’m never going to be someone else’s little play thing ever again.”

“And that makes me the worst piece of shit, doesn’t it?” he says slowly, quietly. “Because I know that. I saw how much that asswipe Williams hurt you, and here I am, lusting over you all the same.” His shoulders shake with a sardonic laugh. “How does that make me freaking nice , Rose?”

I bob my head, getting the point—understanding that he also doesn’t care about me.

That like many guys before him, he can’t—doesn’t want to—see past my body or my face.

But at least Logan is much more transparent about it.

I snap my visor closed so he can’t see the tears that are starting to fall. “Well, thanks for the honesty. Good night, Logan.” I’m proud of myself that my voice doesn’t waver and neither do my steps. I walk into the house and that’s when I realize that I’m carrying his backpack.

I sink to my knees, fully shaking as I take out all my things and dump them on the floor. Somehow I manage to open the front door and place his backpack right outside.

He’s watching me from exactly the same spot I left him at, and he doesn’t move a muscle even as I close door again.