Page 44

CHAPTER 44

LOGAN

“R ose?”

Her name spills from my mouth the second I wake up.

My chest rises and falls rapidly and I’m covered in sweat, the bed sheets tangled around me uncomfortably. I feel around my bed until I find my phone tucked under a pillow. With groggy eyes, I light it up to find that the call got disconnected, but it’s logged.

We spent hours on the phone last night and at some point must’ve fallen asleep. That’s what’s real—not the nightmare that woke me up bathed in cold sweat, where my past and my present got tangled, but instead Rose was the victim.

I rub my face with my hands. I’m never going to let that happen. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Rose safe, even what I never dared to do before. It’s not like I had much to lose before, but there was nothing worth doing it for—certainly not myself. I was just waiting until I found what I’ve been searching for all along.

Belonging. I belong here in the Orlando Wild, and with Rosalina Mena. I don’t belong to my parents or my brother, no matter how much our blood links us. I can’t subject Rose to them, and so they need to be cut out of my life.

“Like pruning flowers,” I murmur with a smirk, looking at my blue bell and rose tattoos running down my arms.

This was the answer all along, and I think I knew it. I just wasn’t brave enough—didn’t have a reason to be.

My therapist will be both proud and horrified that it took me this long to figure it out.

Groaning, I pull myself up on the power of my left arm alone. My right shoulder is still angry, but not more than my ribs. Gnarly bruises spot my left side but my stomach is clear. I run my hand across my abs, wondering if this is a good spot to tattoo some lavender bunches on me now.

It takes considerably more effort than usual to get out of bed and hop in the shower, but I manage. I take my sweet time grooming my beard to perfection because I want to see Rose today, even if it’s on FaceTime only. She’s at work and I am… not, what with being put on strict rest for at least a week.

“Shit, I haven’t even asked her out on a date.” I frown in the mirror. Sure, we’ve gone out several times, but there was always that cautiousness wedged in between. What would it be like to just be us? No pretense, no deadlines, only honesty between us?

I better find out ASAP.

Picking up my phone, I find her contact at the top of my text messages and ask if she has lunch plans. She responds right away.

My Rose

Shouldn’t you be resting?

Me

I can rest better while looking at your face

My Rose

Oh

Okay

I like that

My face stretches into a grin. The worst part of it is that I mean it—it wasn’t just an empty line to flirt with her. Between being cooped up in my apartment with internet, a TV with cutting edge sound system, and a million books, I’d rather be with her. There’s no need to pretend like that’s not the case any longer.

After much protesting on her side, instead of buying lunch for us and coming to my place, we agree that I’ll go to the facilities. What eased her is that I have a couple of team meetings to attend, even if I’m on the injured list, so it’s not like I’m going out of my way just to see her.

Let’s face it, though, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m actually not mandated to attend the team meetings in person for a week.

I hop on my Maserati and don’t even put the top down. I only remember that I could’ve done that when I’m already parking at the ballpark, like the fact that my mind now feels fully free means that I don’t have to compensate for that by driving in the open wind. I doubt that my claustrophobia is fully cured, but I sure as hell feel different.

My watch says that I’m way too early to whisk Rose away for lunch, but I figure I can at least drop by her cubicle for a little make out session. At the entrance I veer left into the admin offices, where I normally veer right toward the team area. The closer I get, the more my pulse climbs in anticipation, but when I get to the marketing area, the place is deserted and I stop at the entrance cursing my timing.

“She’s in the big meeting room with everyone else.”

I glance over my shoulder. Audrey Winters stands a few paces away, a stack of manila folders in her arms. I won’t even ask her how she knows who I’m looking for because at this point there is a giant, neon sign hanging over my head that says I’m wild over Rosalina Mena .

Instead, I motion at her folders. “Need help?”

“I’m good, but thanks for offering.” For some reason, she starts smirking. “I can see why Rose chose you.”

“Sorry?”

“You’re a good one, Logan. I trust that you’ll stay good to her?” She tilts her head, a challenge clear in her expression. I get the feeling that she’s capable of inflicting great harm on anyone who hurts her friends.

“Always,” I respond, solemn and with my whole damn chest.

“Good.” She nods at me, and continues going. I watch her retreat, long blonde hair swinging behind her. Where Hope is straightforward and headstrong, and Rose is clever and sweet, this one is confusing. She reminds me of the me before Rose.

Or maybe I’m just so damn in love that I’m starting to see funny things that I didn’t notice before.

Shrugging my good shoulder, I change direction to the big meeting room and thanks to the fact that all the walls around the admin area are made of glass, I spot Rose easily. It’s the curls—I’ve started to be able to pick her out in a crowd of thousands at a packed ballpark.

I hide my grin behind my hand as I lean against the wall outside in the corridor. But Rose also notices my presence and it stops her mid sentence. That stupor leads to other heads turning my way.

I raise my hand for a wave.

Rose pushes her chair back and scrambles around the large meeting table. With everyone watching, she opens the door and pokes her head out. Her voice sounds breathless when she speaks, “Logan! You’re early.”

“I wanted to see you.”

“But…” She glances back.

“I can keep just seeing you from over here. Or I could go if that bothers you.” I resist the urge to cringe, realizing only now how annoying I must be coming across.

“No, it’s just—” She bites her lip.

“Oh, for goodness’s sake. Let him in,” says Dave Rogers, Rose’s boss. “It’s not everyday that we can get a player’s input while we brainstorm.”

A moment later, I find myself sitting next to Rose and watching her in her element. I offer a couple of thoughts about whether the guys on the team would or wouldn’t like some potential sponsorship products, but for the most part I spend an hour witnessing Rose kick serious ass.

I can tell that the team respects her because even managers several rungs above her listen intently when she speaks, and how could they not? She’s freaking brilliant, hardworking, confident, and so damn beautiful it hurts to look at her directly. Yet I can’t stop. Even if she burns my retinas, I won’t.

“What?” she whispers at me once we’re walking out of the meeting room together, her smaller hand in mine, her other one holding onto my arm.

I lean toward her. “I’m just in awe of you.”

Her eyes widen, cheeks growing hot like I’ve just performed a magic trick.

Some of her coworkers snicker as they glance back at us, but they leave us alone in the corridor and no one gives us any further crap. I shift my hold on her, bringing my arm around her waist to pull her against me.

She runs her hands over my chest, awakening my skin. “Why?” She asks, placing her chin at the top of my sternum.

“Just you.” I look at her button nose and finally do what I’ve always wanted to—I give it a tiny peck. “Your very existence is a miracle to me.”

“I could say the same.” Her lips smile and her eyes light up. “You’re who I’ve always been waiting for, Logan.”

I kiss her.

Rose melts against me with a feminine sigh that makes my blood roar. I grab onto the back of her neck, barely grazing her curls so I don’t damage them, and this way I can tilt her head so she can offer me her mouth fully. And I savor it slowly, like we have all the time in the world. Like no one’s watching, even though we’re very much in public.

I slide my free hand down her back, reaching the top of her curves and keep going. Her perfect butt cheek fits in my hand like it was made for it, and I palm it with gusto, squeezing.

“Logan,” Rose gasps.

“Do you not like that?” I nibble at her trembling bottom lip with my teeth and the tip of my tongue.

“I more than like it,” she chuckles all throaty. “I’m just afraid that if we keep going someone’s going to call HR on us.”

“Screw HR,” I mutter, traveling my lips down her throat to where her scent is stronger.

Her hands fist around the fabric of my T-shirt as I find the spot where her pulse throbs harder, and I kiss it like it’s her mouth. With mine open, with tongue—so I can really brand the taste of her skin in my brain forever. A guttural moan tears out of her throat and my hand presses her even closer against me, not releasing her butt for a second.

“Damn, I really wanted to do this last night.”

“Oh yeah?”

“To start with,” I tease.

I feel her turn her face slightly, her breath fanning over my ear. She whispers, “And I wanted to do this.” Then she lightly bites the shell of my ear, and it sends such a powerful shock down my body that I freeze. She takes advantage of it to free her arms from between us, running her hands down my chest, my belly. I wait, my heart pounding against her chest as her hands find the waistband of my jeans, but rather than traveling lower, she lifts my T-shirt and touches my stomach. “And this.”

“You’re an abs girl?” I ask, panting like the dog I am.

“I’m a your skin girl.”

“Ah. Touch away.”

“I have to get back to work, though.” But even if that’s true, she sure cops a good feel under my T-shirt.

Smirking, I lean back so I can look in her eyes again. “Do you now?”

“Uh huh.” She nods all serious, her hands now grabbing my pecs almost possessively.

“Hmm…” I pretend to think. “What if I join you and sit on your chair and you work from my lap?”

“Extremely tempting, but surely too compromising for the office.”

“And this isn’t?” I look down at my T-shirt, lifted up to my chest that she’s still feeling around.

“You’re right.” She sighs. “I’ll unhand you when you release my butt.”

“Your first.”

“No, you first.” Her lips twitch.

We end up releasing each other at about the same time, but I can’t fully cut off contact quite yet, so I offer my hand. And she grabs it tight.

After that, we resume our leisure pace through the corridors, as if our blood wasn’t drumming at the pace of each other’s hearts.

“What do you have to do now?” I ask.

“Edit some videos of the guys. You?”

“Crash the team meeting.”

She turns to me. “Crash it? I thought you had to attend.”

“It was an excuse so I could come fondle your ass.”

Rose blows a raspberry, but after a second she says, “Dang it, I should’ve fondled yours too.”

That makes me bark a laugh. It sounds rusty, like it was chained in the depths of my chest for decades.

And maybe it was, I haven’t felt joy like this ever before.

After a shorter kiss, but no less scorching, we finally part ways until lunch. I watch her head over to her office in her little cardigan and the light purple leggings she once wore to give a quick makeover to my apartment, and I promise to myself that one day I’ll map the exact dimensions of her body with my hands.

Rose stops and turns back, finding me still rooted in the same spot while I check her out. It brings a smile to her face and she blows me a kiss delicately. I’m a catcher, though, so I pretend to catch it like it’s a fastball and put it in my pocket for later. Chuckling, she finally disappears around the corner.

My mouth trembles with another smile that threatens to spill. It takes the whole walk down to the team area to school my features into something resembling professionalism.

By this time, the team is either about to finish the morning workout, or already in the auditorium for Beau’s highlights and lowlights of yesterday’s game. Since today is the last game in the series with the Riders, and after more careful review the whole shitshow of two days ago caused their leadoff batter and starting pitcher to get suspended—ha!—I assume it’s going to be a spicy one.

I come in through the back door and find literally every single guy with their hands up like this is kindergarten and they were just asked what’s two plus two.

“Huh?” I mutter to myself.

A few heads swivel to me and someone says, “Oh, shit.”

More people turn and Beau stops right in the middle of whatever he’s saying. That’s when I see the massive screen behind him projecting some words. It takes me a hot second to process them, but they say:

Raise your hand if you want to make Logan Kim the franchise’s first official captain.

My jaw drops.

A chair scrapes against the floor and one of the players sitting around the middle stands up. It turns out to be Lucky Rivera. He waves a hand, motioning at me to step out. “Can you just go out and pretend like you didn’t see this?”

Beside him, Cade Starr starts lowering his hand and says, “Damn it, there goes the surprise.”

The first one to start laughing is Miguel Machado and it’s an infectious laugh, the kind that belongs to a sitcom or something and sends the whole room into a fit.

Meanwhile, I manage to snap my mouth shut and with a nod, I walk right back out. But there’s no stopping it anymore, I grin like a whole ass clown.