Chapter 8
“Someone’s been sleeping in my bed,” Logan murmured softly, his arms snaking about August’s waist as he stood behind her to nuzzle his lips against the warmth of her throat.
It was only just after seven o’clock in the morning but August was already sitting at the breakfast bar nursing a mug of steaming hot coffee in her hands.
She turned to give him a startled glance, her eyes like those of a deer caught in a car’s headlights, before her gaze returned forward. “Sorry?” The delicate warmth creeping into her cheeks was evidence she’d heard what Logan said the first time.
Logan had woken a short time ago feeling more refreshed than he had for weeks, realizing that he must have actually slept peacefully for several hours. He hadn’t done that for the past month. Since the nightmares started, to be exact.
He had felt so good when he woke, he had even wondered, for a few seconds, if perhaps those nightmares were over at last.
Until he became aware of the unique smell of August’s perfume of citrus and spice on one of his pillows, in his hair, and literally down the whole length of the right side of his body. Which could mean only one thing: August had been in bed beside him sometime during the night. Very close beside him if he smelled of her perfume.
Close enough to hold him in her arms?
Logan believed so, yes.
It didn’t take two guesses to realize the reason why she had, and it had absolutely nothing to do with sex; Logan was pretty sure he would have remember that if it had happened.
No, he’d had another nightmare and must have woken August with his shouting. He often woke himself when he did that, and then couldn’t go back to sleep.
It should have felt embarrassing to think of August seeing him like that, sweaty, angry, and totally lost in the torment of his nightmares. But the truth was Logan felt too fucking relaxed and rested after the best night’s sleep he’d had since the shooting to feel anything but gratitude for whatever magic August had cast that had allowed him to sleep in peace for a few uninterrupted hours.
His arms tightened about her waist. He huskily voiced that gratitude. “Thank you.”
August gave Logan another glance beneath her lashes but didn’t answer him, mainly because she was unsure what he was thanking her for. Her brain, through lack of sleep, really wasn’t up to thinking about anything too deeply this morning.
Last night, her hope that, once Logan had fallen back into a deep sleep, she could slip as quietly out of his bed as she had climbed into it and go back to her own room with him none the wiser, had proved impossible. Each time she tried to pull away, Logan’s arms would tighten about her and hold her even closer. He’d buried his face against her throat several times, one of his legs still thrown over both of hers, his arm firmly about her waist, preventing her from moving unless she wanted to wake him.
Even more disturbing was the hard length of Logan’s aroused cock pressing against her thigh for most of the night. Every time he showed signs of losing that erection, Logan would hold her closer and his cock would be as rigid as steel again against her softer flesh.
Sleep wasn’t even a possibility when she was held securely in the arms of a man so physically aroused.
But at least Logan had slept.
As long as August didn’t attempt to move away from him.
So she had stayed, eyes remaining wide open as the hours passed slowly. Until her wristwatch told her it was almost seven o’clock in the morning and a reasonable time to get up.
Logan had begun to stir again the moment she was out of bed, but August was determined to make good her escape this time.
An hour and a shower later, and her eyes felt as if she had grit under the lids, her tired body heavy and lethargic. There was also the fact that, despite the shower, she felt completely grungy having to wear the same clothes she had worn last night.
“Any news about Jenna?” she prompted huskily.
“Rourke text me just after seven o’clock to let me know she’d spent a reasonable night but isn’t awake yet.”
“I still want to go in and see her this morning.”
“Of course.”
“You can let go of me now,” August said dryly when her attempt to escape his arms proved just as futile now as it had during the night.
His breath was warm against the side of her throat. “What if I would rather take the two of us being in bed together last night to a different conclusion than you getting up and leaving?”
August remained stiff and unyielding in his arms. “Then you’re in a minority of one!”
His hands moved up to cup beneath her breasts, the soft pads of his thumbs stroking lightly across her turgid nipples. “Sure about that?”
Having spent the majority of the sleepless night held against Logan’s hot and aroused body, August wasn’t sure about anything. Especially when the response of her own body was now starting to betray her.
Logan’s hands felt so warm through the thin sweater she was wearing, between her thighs melting into liquid heat as his thumbs continued to caress the hardness of her sensitive nipples, his lips warm against her throat.
But she had known men like Logan before. This was just a game to him. Another conquest in a long line of them.
August stiffened her spine. “I’m not interested in a thank-you fuck, if that’s what you have in mind,” she stated firmly.
“What the…? That’s a definite passion killer if ever there was one.” Logan removed his arms from about her waist before he straightened and then stepped around the breakfast bar to stand on the other side of it. He looked at her from between narrowed lids, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw.
The dampness of Logan’s hair showed he had also taken a shower this morning. But, unlike August, he looked completely alert and refreshed in black jeans that weren’t ripped at the knee and another black T-shirt, this one having the print of an old rock band on the front.
His dark eyes glittered. “You did sleep in my bed with me last night.”
“I can assure you there was very little sleep involved on my part— Shit!” August scowled as the humor deepened in Logan’s eyes. “What I meant to say was—”
“I am grateful, August,” he stated evenly, lifting a hand to briefly caress the warmth of one of her flushed cheeks. “I would apologize for waking you in the first place, but if it meant I got a good night’s sleep for a change…” He gave an apologetic shrug. “You have no idea how long it is since I was able to sleep for that long and so deeply.”
She swallowed. “Tell me?”
His jaw tightened. “Since we rescued those kids in France.”
August had known instinctively there was more to this man than that sarcastic arsehole Logan chose to show the world, and he had just confirmed it. It wasn’t being shot that gave him nightmares, it was imagining the fate of those children if he and Rourke hadn’t managed to rescue them.
“In that case, you’re welcome,” she said huskily.
“Careful there, August,” he murmured. “Or we might find ourselves approaching something that almost resembles a friendship.”
She gave a snort. “I somehow doubt that.”
He eyed her guardedly. “Why is that?”
“Oh, come on, Logan,” August said lightly. “The two of us have absolutely nothing in common.”
“There’s Jenna.”
“Apart from Jenna,” she conceded dryly. “I’m the assistant manager in an art gallery, and you’re—you’re—”
“Yes?”
Her expression was pained. “You’ve admitted to killing people if you have to.”
His jaw was tight. “If I have to, yes.”
She nodded. “Those two things alone mean that our paths would never have crossed in the normal way of things. They never have crossed before now, despite the fact I’ve been friends with Jenna for over four years and we’ve shared an apartment for the past one of them.”
He shrugged. “Haydn will have been the one to do a security check on you. As he didn’t bring up any red flags on you, we’ve left that situation alone.”
“How nice,” August muttered insincerely.
Logan shrugged. “It is what it is. We protect our own.”
And August’s protection was only a temporary thing. “What I was trying to say is I doubt you would have allowed me anywhere near your apartment if you didn’t feel it was the only way to protect me. For Jenna’s sake.”
That she was right only made Logan scowl all the more. “You did something good for me last night. Something you didn’t have to do. I’m grateful for that.”
“And hating every minute of having to feel that way,” she guessed.
He gave a hard, humorless grin. “You think after a single day and night that you know me. Logan the arsehole. Logan the pain. Logan the hired killer. Logan the fucking mental case who has nightmares because he can’t get a few missing kids out of his head. Logan the—” His tirade came to an abrupt halt the moment August placed her fingertips lightly against his lips.
“Logan the protector,” August continued gently as she stepped closer. “Logan who loves his family. Logan who cares about all the missing children, not just the ones he’s able to rescue. Logan who will protect me to his dying breath if he has to, not because he knows me, but because that’s who he is. Logan who has nightmares every night because he can’t save everyone. Logan—”
“That halo you’re giving me is likely to fall down and strangle the fucking life out of me,” he dismissed in a hard voice. “I’m not some knight crusader riding to the rescue on a white horse, so don’t ever think that I am.”
August laughed softly as her hand dropped back to her side. “If I’m ever silly enough to think that, then I’m sure you’ll be only too happy to behave badly again just to remind me otherwise.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why do I get the feeling that the two of us having spent one night in bed together means you’re no longer taking me or what I say seriously?”
She sighed wearily. “We did not spend the night in bed together. Okay, we did, but not in the way you’re implying,” she conceded impatiently as he raised mocking brows. “I’m too tired to think straight this morning, Logan. I also need to go back to my apartment and change after I’ve spent some time at the hospital with Jenna. Then I have to go in to work— What do you mean, no?” she demanded when Logan shook his head.
“We can’t risk you being in such a public place until we know what’s going on,” he explained evenly.
“I spent all day yesterday there without anyone protecting me,” she protested.
“Only because we didn’t know then that you were the target and not Jenna.”
“This is ridiculous. I can’t— You can’t—”
“You forgot Logan the determined bastard when you listed my other sterling qualities just now.”
August glared at him. “I don’t care how determined or how much of a bastard you are, I am not allowing any of this to take over my life. I can telephone my boss at the gallery and explain about visiting Jenna at the hospital, and that I’ll be in a few hours later than usual, but I do have to go in sometime today. Yes, Logan,” she stated firmly as he once again shook his head. “We’re too busy at the moment for me to take the whole day off. You can come with me, if you insist.” She snapped her exasperation with his stubbornness, although she didn’t look happy at the prospect of him going to the gallery with her.
He studied her. “What’s so important about work at the moment that you have to go in?”
“I told you, we have a very important exhibition this weekend.”
“How important?”
“Very.”
“What’s so important about it?” Logan barely managed to temper his impatience with her unhelpful replies.
August gave a beaming smile. “Out of a shortlist of three galleries, Adam Waterston chose the Jervis Gallery to show some of his deceased father’s amazing art collection at an exclusive invitation-only exhibition this Saturday. It was something of a coup, because as I said, there were several other galleries vying for the exhibition too. You’ve heard of Paul Waterston, right?” she prompted at Logan’s silence.
He had, as it happened. Waterston senior had been a billionaire recluse, and he had kept the art collection he had accumulated over fifty years hidden away with him. It was only after his death a year ago that his son announced the extensive collection of never-before-seen paintings. Many of them were Old Masters, others of the more modern artists.
The names and paintings inside the brochure August now took from her shoulder bag and handed him were mind-boggling. Monet. Renoir. Caravaggio. Raphael. To name but a few. As well as Damien Hurst, Andy Warhol, David Hockney, and several other modern artists.
He looked at August. “How many paintings in total at this exhibition?”
“Thirty.” Her eyes glowed with pleasure. “They are absolutely stunning.”
“You’ve seen them?”
August nodded. “Mr. Jervis—the owner of the gallery—and I went to look at them a couple of months ago when we were informed we were on the short list of galleries to show them.”
“So you met Adam Waterston before he settled on the Jervis Gallery?”
She nodded. “It’s such an honor that Adam— Mr. Waterston,” she corrected herself, “has chosen the relatively small Jervis Gallery to exhibit them.”
The slip of using Waterston’s first name, and then August’s irritation at having done so, was telling. Leading Logan to question how well she knew Waterston junior, along with whether or not the other man’s final choice of gallery had anything to do with the beautiful redhead who worked there.
Logan’s mouth tightened. “I take it the gallery has adequate security in place for the exhibition?”
“Trying to drum up business?” she teased.
“I’m being fucking serious here, August,” he snarled.
“Of course there’s adequate security,” she assured as Logan continued to scowl at her. “There will be even more on Saturday,” she dismissed.
“Why the wait?”
“Because the paintings aren’t at the gallery yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because Adam— Mr. Waterston,” she corrected again, a light blush coloring her cheeks this time, “thought it best to keep the collection safely at his father’s country estate until a little nearer the time.”
“So when are the paintings arriving?”
“I’m not allowed to say.”
“But you do know?”
“Of course I know. I’m the assistant manager of the gallery. I’m just not allowed to tell anyone.”
Logan had a feeling he had just discovered exactly why those men might have wanted to abduct August.