I’D BEEN TO REECE’S apartment above Mulvaney’s once before. Pepper had cooked dinner and we’d played cards afterward to the quiet rumble of the bar below us.
The apartment felt like a barren shell compared to that night. They had left the bed, futon, kitchen table, and major appliances. Pepper mentioned they would be buying new stuff for their new place. Even with the basic furniture, all the little flourishes that had made it feel like a home were gone. The photographs and wall art. Reece’s bike in the corner. The books crammed into the bookcase. It felt like an echo of what it had been before.
The bar was a low murmur under my feet as I padded barefoot around the space, unpacking and hanging clothes, stopping occasionally to eat some of the fried pickles that the cook had forced on me as I passed through the kitchen to take the stairs up to the apartment. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to pack on the pounds living above Mulvaney’s kitchen—home of the famous Tijuana Fries, Death Burger, and Fried Pickle Chips with Chipotle Ranch Sauce.
Pepper had made sure I met all the staff earlier when I arrived this afternoon. Those who were on the clock anyway. Mike was the manager. Karla manned the food counter most nights, and the cook, a former cook in the navy, was—unsurprisingly—just Cook.
I’d seen Mike and Karla plenty of times when I hung out at Mulvaney’s—mostly back in the days when Pepper was prowling Mulvaney’s after first meeting Reece. Since Harris and I broke up, I hadn’t been here as often, figuring that any guys I met here wouldn’t be the kind I was interested in. Good, studious types that I could bring home to my parents didn’t hang out at bars. The next guy I brought home would have to be pretty spectacular, at least in my parents’ eyes, to replace Harris. Especially since Mom was still hung up on the idea of Harris and me.
It was after one in the morning when I finally finished arranging the apartment to my liking. I just couldn’t sleep until everything was put away and organized. Emerson called me anal. Granted she was a mess and wouldn’t know what to do with a hanger, but I had been raised to be tidy and organized. It was simply habit now. My mother was exacting. Clothes had to be color coordinated in the closet. Books in alphabetical order in my bookcase. Disorder and chaos was not tolerated. Again, I think it reminded her too much of my mess of a birth father.
Feeling grimy after putting everything away, I pulled my long hair up into a knot and took a shower, enjoying the fact that this shower was twice as big as the showers in the dorm. I let the warm spray of water beat down on my body and loosen my muscles. Once I was out of the shower, I slipped on panties and a soft tank top.
Still feeling a little restless, I curled up on the futon, pulling my fuzzy throw blanket over me, and watched some television.
After the second rerun of The Big Bang Theory, I turned off the TV and tossed out the remaining pickle chips. As I passed the couch, I noticed that I hadn’t put away everything. My guitar, still in its case, sat propped between the futon and the side table. I hesitated, staring at it with a funny tightness in my chest.
When I’d pulled it out of my dorm closet, I had almost forgotten its existence. I hadn’t left it at home because I was worried Mom would get rid of it. She had tried to cart it off to Goodwill a few times over the years, but I had stood my ground and insisted on keeping it. For some reason, she had always capitulated. Mostly, I think, because she never saw me pull it out and play it anymore. That would have concerned her and forced her hand. So I ignored it for many years. Forgotten like an old pair of shoes.
Sinking on the couch, I pulled it out of the case and brought the comforting weight of it across my lap, my fingers caressing the colorful blue-and-green-patterned strap before moving to the strings. I plucked one. The out-of-tune twang filled my ears, and my fingers instinctively went to the knobs, strumming strings and rotating the knobs until the sound was just right.
When I had it perfect, I played a few chords of “Landslide.” I smiled, losing myself in that part of me that I had buried for dead long ago. I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t stop myself. For a moment, I let myself go. Surrendered to that part of me . . . the part of myself that reminded my mother so much of my father. The part that terrified her.
At the sudden thought of her . . . and him, I slapped a palm over the strings, effectively killing the music my fingers had created so effortlessly from them.
My heart ached, but I forced the guitar from my lap. Forced it from my hands like another moment in my clasp might somehow poison me. I set it down beside the futon, against its case, not even taking the time to put it inside. Later. I would touch it later. Right now I just needed distance.
I turned off all the lights except for the small light above the stove. At the bed, I pulled back the covers. I had one knee on the mattress and was arranging my multitude of pillows to my liking when I heard footsteps, growing in volume.
I froze, eyeing the opening that led to the stairs, wondering who was coming up here this time of night. Surely not Pepper or Reece. The bar had quieted in the last hour and I assumed it was closing up for the night if not already fully closed. The bottom door that led to the stairs had a lock, which I had utilized, but clearly that hadn’t stopped this person.
I managed to push up off the bed, but couldn’t move otherwise. I stood frozen—prey caught in the crosshairs as Logan ascended the steps to the top floor of the loft.
I recognized him even in the dim light. The long, lean lines of him. The broad shoulders. The weak light limned his hair like sunlight and cast one side of his face in a golden glow. My heart squeezed tightly as I drank up the sight of him, eyes trailing over the square-cut jaw, the shadowed slant of his lips.
I reached for my bedside lamp, fumbling to turn it on.
He beat me to it, flipping the switch on the wall where he stood a split second before I turned on the lamp. Light from both sources flooded the room.
It was inescapable. The blast of light. Him. The full impact of his face. The deeply set eyes with criminally long lashes. The strong angles that my fingers itched to trace. And the dark blue eyes drilling into me.
“Fuuck,” he breathed, dragging a hand over his close-cropped hair as his gaze swept over me.
Heat scored my face. I didn’t do obscenities all that often. I grew up in a household where the word crap got you grounded. With that kind of upbringing, curse words tend to get stuck in your throat. But yeah. That word about summed up my feelings on seeing Logan Mulvaney standing in my doorway when I wasn’t wearing anything more than panties and a tank.
My chest locked up, not even lifting to draw air as our stares collided.
I unfroze. Straightening, I brought both feet down to the ground gingerly. Like too sudden a movement might break the spell and spur either one of us into movement. And I wasn’t certain what that movement would be. Me running from him or to him?
My bare feet flexed on the floorboards as we watched each other like two wary animals. Okay, well maybe I was the only one wary. He just looked . . . surprised but not all that wary. No. He looked like an apex predator ready to pounce.
I shifted my weight and tried not to think about the fact that I was standing there in my boy shorts and a tight tank sans bra. I wore swimsuits that revealed more skin and yet I felt like I was standing before him naked. I never even felt this exposed with Harris. But then I couldn’t recall Harris ever looking at me the way Logan was.
His gaze traveled over me. I felt it like a physical caress, roaming my face, my naked shoulders, then down my chest. My breasts grew heavier under his inspection, achy against the cotton of my tank, and my treacherous nipples hardened. I resisted the urge to bow my shoulders and cross my arms over my chest, convinced it would be a sign of weakness. An admission that he affected me.
The deep blue of his eyes darkened. He snapped his gaze to my face. “What are you doing here?” he asked thickly, the tendons of his throat working as he managed to get out the words.
I lifted my chin. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“I work here. My brother owns the place.” He angled his head, looking at me, waiting for the obvious to sink in.
“Reece said I could stay here over the summer.”
Logan sighed and dragged a hand over his face. “Of course.”
“He forgot to mention that to you?” I asked, feeling both relieved and a little angry. Relieved because he wasn’t stalking me. And angry because he wasn’t stalking me.
Great. I’ve turned into that girl. Another Annie who liked the bad boys. The ones wrong in every way.
Logan nodded, resting a shoulder against the wall. “Yeah. He might have left that out. Sometimes I stay the night here when I close up. Since it’s so late. I sleep on the futon. Pepper started insisting on it when she and Reece got together.”
That was so like Pepper, always looking out for others. I glanced at the clock. Yeah. It was really late for him to be driving home. I know he lived half an hour away.
“Sorry,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked tired. “Reece and Pepper moved into the new house . . . I just assumed it was empty up here.”
I nodded, my face still burning even though I knew this was a simple misunderstanding. Reece was busy with the move, his relationship with Pepper, running two bars now—and I had sprung it on him that I would accept his offer to move into the loft. No surprise he hadn’t mentioned me moving in here to his brother. The fact that Logan and I had kissed, that not a night went by without my touching myself and thinking about him didn’t make this awkward. Not at all.
Okay, it was awkward, but it didn’t have to be. I could be an adult about this.
He turned to leave, his hand going to the switch to turn the light back off. “Sorry,” he repeated.
“Wait.”
He stopped and turned.
I swallowed. “It’s late. Your brother wouldn’t want you driving back this time of night.” I sucked in a breath. “And neither do I.”
He leaned a shoulder on the wall again, crossing his arms over that broad chest of his. “I’m not angling for an invite to stay the night—”
“I didn’t say you were.”
He continued to stare, his keen eyes discerning in a way that made me want to fidget.
“Look, you stay on the futon like usual. I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t,” he returned.
I blinked.
“You shouldn’t trust me,” he repeated, looking me up and down slowly. “I’m not like the guys you’re used to.”
What guys were those? Harris barely touched me by the end of our relationship. And the last couple of guys I dated pawed at me and slobbered over me and then broke up with me when I didn’t jump into bed with them. I didn’t want Logan to be like those guys.
My mind made up, I turned and plucked a pillow off the bed. Grabbing my fuzzy blanket from the foot of the bed, I marched to the futon and dropped both items, suddenly annoyed enough not to care that I was in my underwear just a few feet away from him. “There you go.”
A corner of his mouth lifted and he shoved off the wall. My heart dropped into my stomach at the sound of his footsteps on the hardwood floor, coming closer.
Suddenly I felt so . . . alone with him. Acutely aware that we were the only two people inside the building.
“You sure about this?” He walked toward me with measured steps and I wasn’t so clear what it was he was asking me anymore.
I pointed. “The couch,” I clarified—maybe just as much for myself as for him. “Yeah, I’m sure you can spend the night there.”
“Thanks.” He stopped before reaching the couch, looking me up and down again in my scanty attire. The sweep of his gaze caught on my guitar where I’d tucked it between the futon and side table. “This yours?” He sank down on the futon and picked up my guitar, settling it on his lap.
I took a protective step forward, my hand reaching out before I could stop myself. He looked up, lifting his eyebrows, not missing my involuntary move, “I’ll be careful,” he murmured, a smile playing about his lips. “You play?”
I shrugged uncomfortably. “A little. I used to. N-not really.” God. I was babbling.
“No?” He plucked at a few of the strings. “Then why do you have it?”
I lifted the guitar from his hands. “I used to keep it in the back of my closet. Just haven’t gotten around to putting it away yet.”
“Back of the closet, huh?”
“Yeah.” I walked across the loft and opened the tiny closet where the vacuum barely fit and stuck my guitar inside, making sure it was secure before closing the door.
I turned around and gasped, nearly yelping at finding him directly in front of me. He moved like some kind of cheetah. Silent and swift.
His clear blue eyes flicked over my shoulder to the closet. “So you’re a ‘closet’ guitar player?” He grinned. “You know you’ll feel better if you just own it and come out to the world.”
“Very funny. Do I look like the musician type to you?”
“I don’t know.” He lifted one broad shoulder in half a shrug. His cotton shirt looked soft and inviting, hugging his chest. There was no mistaking the ridiculousness of the body under that shirt. “What does a musician type look like?”
I had a flash of my father in the one picture I had of him. Aunt Charlene had given it to me. She told me a child should know what her father looked like, and then she told me to never let Mom know I had the photo. I hid the photo in the middle of a book, taking it out often over the years to examine it and search for evidence of me within the features of his face. I would study it for hours. Days of my life were lost to that photo.
The edges were curled with age now, the paper slightly faded. He was wearing an Eagles T-shirt and holding me like I was something fragile. But there had been something in his velvet brown eyes—eyes so like my own. Tenderness. Love. At least I thought I saw it there. I convinced myself it was there. I was only a few months old, all swaddled up in a blanket. His dark blond hair hung in straight strands to his shoulders. His face was narrow, handsome with taunting eyes. A guitar hung on the back of his chair. Like it had to be close. Like he could never be far from it.
I knocked the image from my head and focused on Logan again, watching me, waiting for my response. “I don’t know. Just not me.”
I backed away several paces before turning around. Like I was afraid to present him with my back. At my bed, I slid beneath my fresh sheets, my eyes trained on him as he moved back to the couch and began to undress. First his shoes. Then he reached back behind him and grabbed the collar of his shirt with one hand, pulling it over his head in one smooth motion. My mouth dried. Un-flipping-believable.
He was like some guy in one of those calendars my aunt Charlene always hung on the front of her fridge, ignoring Mom’s protest that they were vulgar. Maybe I was like my aunt. Minus the five hundred cats. Or maybe that was my future. Eccentric Cat Lady with a calendar full of guys who looked like Logan. God. That was a tragic thought. Especially when I had the reality right here within reach.
Logan was real. Hard and cut. I could probably break my knuckles on his abs. Not that I was going to punch him. I wasn’t even going to touch him. No, all that beautiful golden skin was off-limits.
Still, my gaze roved over him in appreciation. His stomach was ripped with muscle and a mesmerizing, happy trail led south to the zipper of his jeans. His hands went there, popping open his fly. My pulse jack-knifed against my neck as the teeth of the zipper sang out.
I couldn’t look away. I watched, gawking as if he were putting on some sort of show just for me. He shoved the jeans down, revealing a pair of fitted boxer briefs that did very little to hide his package. At least it did very little to hide the shape and size of it. The growing shape and size.
Oh, God. He was hard. My gaze flew to his face. He was watching me intently. His mouth curled in that perpetual mocking half-grin, but his blue eyes lacked all mirth. They were smoldering dark and focused on me.
He might be smiling but hard-core sexy-time thoughts were tracking through his head. They had to be.
His deep voice rumbled over the air. “Want me to keep going?”
I licked my lips. “What do you mean?”
“Keep undressing?” His hands moved to the band of his briefs.
“No!” I practically shouted the word, holding out a hand.
He lifted one eyebrow. “You just seemed so interested in the view. Remember . . . all you have to do is say the word, Pearls.”
The reminder of what he’d offered me at the baseball park washed over me and my cheeks burned hot. Not that I needed reminding—his words had been taunting me for days—but to know that he hadn’t forgotten his offer, that he hadn’t been kidding . . .
Any time you want me to make you scream, you just let me know.
Crap. I wanted that. Heat flooded my face and I knew I had to be tomato red. I waved a hand in his general direction. “It’s hardly anything I haven’t seen before.”
The words were all bravado. I’d only ever seen Harris. And that was mostly in the dark. And Harris’s body was nothing like his. Harris had been soft. Not overweight . . . there just hadn’t been any defined muscle. His flesh always gave way beneath my fingers. Like firmer-than-usual Jell-O.
And there hadn’t been . . . that between his legs. I could tell, even beneath the fabric of his briefs, that it was different . . . bigger.
Suddenly he was moving, walking toward me.
I shrank into the bed, pulling the covers to my chin, hoping, dreading . . .
My heart pounded so hard I was certain he could hear it in my ears by the time he stopped beside the bed. I hadn’t positioned myself in the center of the bed, so he stood just inches from my side and, this close, I could smell him. The faint salt of his skin and a whiff of deodorant. He leaned down over me, his face so close the brilliance of his eyes awed me.
“I can guarantee you haven’t seen me, Georgia.”
His warm voice—those words, the heavy promise implicit in them, made goose bumps pucker across my skin. I gulped. No. I hadn’t seen him. Or anything even close to him.
My eyes fixed on his mouth as he inched forward just a fraction closer and extended his arm . . . to turn off the lamp.
The soft click filled the air.
The low glow of light from above the stove saved the room from total blackness, but his features were impossible to make out. There was just the dark outline of him and his voice. That deep, seductive rumble that created friction across my skin.
My fingers clutched the edge of the sheet, my grip bloodless and aching.
“Good night, Georgia.”
The words puffed across my lips and then he was gone, moving back to the couch.
Bastard.
He got me worked up and then left me aching. I had no doubt he knew it, too. My only consolation was the sight of his raging hard-on. He was aching, too.
I listened in the near-dark to his movements as he settled down on the futon.
He really wasn’t going to make a move on me. I felt my features scowl in the dark, angry at the sharp lance of disappointment shooting through me. I should be feeling relief.
I tossed and turned before settling on my side. Tucking my hand beneath my cheek, I glared into the dark, convinced I would never fall asleep. Closing my eyes, I released a deep breath and focused on forgetting his presence only feet away, convinced that was impossible. No way would I fall asleep with Logan Mulvaney in the same room with me.
When I next opened my eyes, it was morning.
Early-morning sunlight poured into the room. Frowning, I stared at the wide, curtain-free window and the tiny motes of sunlight and dust particles dancing on the air. I searched my mind, trying to remember where I was precisely.
It all returned to me then, hitting me in a rush. I was in Reece’s old apartment. I was spending the summer above Mulvaney’s bar.
I held still for a moment, and then remembered all the rest. The most important thing of all—a half-naked Logan Mulvaney was asleep across the room from me.
I sat up with a bolt.
The futon was empty, the throw folded neatly across the back like he had never been here.
I dropped back on the bed, my fingers playing about my lips.
I think you want me to do dirty things to you . . .
Turning my head on the pillow, I glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was eight A.M. I had to meet Dr. Chase and the other research assistants at eleven. If I got up now, I could manage to fit in a run.
With a groan, I dragged myself out of the bed. A run was just what I needed. Endorphins pumping through my system that made me feel better, stronger. That helped get rid of all residual sexual frustration.