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“I told you I regretted what happened.” His voice was tight. Brittle.
“It’s too late for regrets.” She carved off a small piece of lasagna and forked it into her mouth. It tasted of nothing. “And you’re not my father, Logan. You don’t get to vet my dates.”
“I know that.”
“And you can’t keep watch over me twenty-four/seven.”
He folded his arms over his chest, the muscles curving outward. Defined and honed to perfection. “I will be until we figure out who’s after you.”
He wore a fitted black T-shirt—his uniform—and damn, it looked so good her mouth watered. Ugh, why couldn’t she be attracted to normal men who didn’t have hero complexes?
But as much as she was loath to admit it, he made her feel safer than anyone else on the face of the earth.
“You can’t have it both ways.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” His eyes flashed. “I’m trying to do the right thing.”
“By chasing off any chance I have of finding a decent man? Anyone who gets close to me is treated like a potential terrorist. Then they quickly decide I’m not worth the trouble.”
Frustration bubbled up within her; the argument was well-worn between them. Normally she was able to tell Logan to go to hell and get on with her day. But not now, not after he’d been proven right. Not after she’d almost been...
The reality of her situation suddenly crashed over her like a wave. Someone had run her off the road; they’d tried to get her out of her car. She’d been trapped like an animal in a cage of her own making, defenseless. Vulnerable.
If he hadn’t shown up, God only knew what might have happened to her.
“You are worth the trouble, Addi.” He raked a hand through his longish hair. “Fuck, I’m sorry that I’m such a thorn in your side. But I can’t not take care of you...”
For a moment she studied him. It was easy to see why women went crazy over Logan—the overlong, light brown hair, heavy brows and strong jaw made him look dangerous. Powerful. His hands were rough and calloused; his muscles were rock solid. There wasn’t anything polished about him. Not even running a successful company for two years had smoothed his sharp edges.
There was a rawness to him, a brutal honesty, and an unfiltered, unbridled passion for what he believed in.
“I guess I could assign one of my guys to look out for you. One of them might be a little less...” A crease formed between his brows. “Intense.”
“You wouldn’t trust someone else to do what you think is your job,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s the problem. You’re trying to take responsibility for me when I’m telling you that I’m a grown woman. I want to live my life.”
“But you never know what kind of shit people are hiding. All I’m saying is that you need to do some due diligence, especially now.” He paused. “You’re too trusting.”
She gulped the remainder of her wine, feeling a slight sense of relief as the alcohol wore down her nervous energy. “You’ve got to be kidding me. After the way you treated me, I don’t trust anyone.”
He stood suddenly, pushing the dining chair back so hard it almost toppled over. “I said I was sorry, Addison. Christ, what more can I do? I crossed a line, I realized my mistake, and I made a promise that it would never happen again.”
And by “crossed a line” of course he meant that he’d given her the greatest night in her very sheltered existence. The moment Logan had walked into her father’s office as a damaged, angry twenty-two-year-old, she’d been in love. Her sixteen-year-old self had fallen hard and fast.
But Logan had been Mr. Morals when it came to her—except for that one night. But then he’d moved on so quickly that she’d gotten whiplash from it.
“We had sex, Logan. You make it sound like you forced me.” She pushed her food away, her stomach twisting itself into knots. “I wanted it. God, how I wanted it—”
* * *
“STOP.” HE HELD up a hand like she was some misbehaving toddler and instantly regretted it.
But hearing her talk about how she’d wanted him was more than he could take. It was more than his resolve could take. Walking out of Addison’s apartment the morning after they’d been together had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. Ignoring her hurt had damn near killed him. But it had been the right thing to do. Because he’d promised her father he would care for her.
Not fuck her.
Fire flashed in her dark eyes. “Am I that hideous that you can’t even stand being reminded of what we did?”
Hideous? “You’re out of your mind if you think I wasn’t right there with you.”
“Then why did you run out of there like a bat out of hell the next morning?” Her hands twisted in her lap.
The red lacquer on her nails glinted in the light. It was the only remaining sign of the hyperpolished image she presented at the office. She must have changed for the drive—gone were the sexy heels and stockings, gone were the pearl earrings and the tight skirt. Instead, she wore a pair of soft jeans that hugged her small hips and long legs. A loose white T-shirt revealed a hint of a pink bra beneath.
Addison had a thing for lingerie, and now so did he.
Before her, he’d been happy to have a girl as she’d been made—without a stitch of clothing. But Addison had taught him to appreciate lace and silk and those damn fiddly clasps that held her stockings up. All in one night, she’d changed him. Changed what he liked, what he craved.
What he wanted for his future.
“It was a mistake,” he said, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat.
It was the best mistake he’d ever made.
“Why?” she demanded. “We were two consenting adults. We used protection and we didn’t do it in public. Our having sex hardly threw the world off its axis.”
Except it did—his world, anyway. “You’re like family to me—”
“Oh, spare me.” She pushed up from her chair. “We’re not related, thank God.”
What the hell was he supposed to say? That he walked away because he was terrified of screwing things up? Or that something might happen to her and that he’d flip out and lose his grip on reality? Again.
Or that when he was with her he couldn’t seem to control himself and that scared the hell out of him?
“The reason I walked away had nothing to do with my attraction to you.” He rolled his shoulders back and tried to dispel the tension in his limbs. “That wasn’t a factor.”
“So you were attracted to me?”
He cleared his throat. “Of course I was.”
“It wasn’t a pity fuck? You know, because of...” She blinked and straightened her shoulders. “Because Dad had just died.”
He gritted his teeth and tried to keep his voice at an appropriate volume. “No.”
“Are you still attracted to me?” She stepped forward.
It was too much: her messy blond hair, the wine on her lips. The hungry look in her eyes.
“I’m not answering that.”
She stepped closer again and now he could smell the faint remains of perfume on her skin. Chanel No. 5. He’d bought her a bottle for her birthday. Damn expensive crap that smelled like old ladies in the bottle but transformed into heaven on her skin.
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not why I’m here.”
“Right, I forgot. You’re playing bodyguard.” She rolled her eyes. “You know I always did have a thing for role-playing.”
Tension snapped in the air between them and she seemed about to say more, but she simply shook her head and turned back to the table. Plates clattered as she cleared up their abandoned meal.
“One day you’ll push me away hard enough that I won’t come back,” she said quietly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” His stomach knotted as a sense of foreboding fell over him.
“I’m just saying that it won’t always be like this. Change happens and I might not always be around.”
Change. A dirty fucking word as far as he was concerned. Change always meant pain; it always meant loss. And loss meant destruction.
“I don’t want things to change.”
“We don’t always get what we want, now do we?” she said, not looking at him. “Anyway, you’ll need to make up the bed in one of the spare rooms. I was going to do that over the weekend. You remember where the sheets are?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
He’d been dismissed, apparently. By trying to do the right thing, he’d screwed up again. It seemed to be his lot in life.
“Probably for the best,” he muttered to himself.
He wasn’t cut out to care about people, because loss was inevitable and it turned him into a wild beast. Losing his mother had ended his military career, losing Daniel had sent him straight into Addison’s arms, and if he lost her...who the hell knew what he’d do.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t want her. Far from it. He just knew that he couldn’t act on his desires.
4 (#ulink_3416a308-ba00-596f-a4f5-614f5937ae56)
LOGAN SET HIMSELF up on the couch with his laptop and a cup of decaf. He was far too wired to sleep, and his vantage point allowed him to watch the thin beam of light from under Addison’s bedroom door. Every so often a shadow flickered, telling him she was unpacking and setting up her room.
Being run off the road wasn’t enough to deter her from organizing every little thing the way she liked it.
He smiled to himself. She’d always been that way—needing to have everything just so. Teenage Addison had been a straight-A student with neat-freak tendencies. She used to visit her dad at the office after school and would happily spend hours reorganizing his filing system and making sure the staff kitchen was clean and tidy. Logan had always pretended not to notice her, of course.
Daniel had once told him that Addison developed her organizational habits after her mother died. A sense of order in her physical environment had helped her sift through the pain and confusion in her head, apparently. Her father had encouraged her to take those skills and turn them into a fruitful career, which she had. Addison was the reason Cobalt & Dane had been able to grow as a company. Without her, they’d still be a couple of scruffy guys too focused on the security side of things to get the rent paid.
He envied her ability to turn her loss into something useful. His pain never seemed to cause anything but pure destruction.
Sighing, he raked a hand through his hair and stared at the laptop screen. Going through his emails might help him relax. Daniel had set up an extensive security system when he’d first bought the cottage, so the chance of anything happening without Logan’s knowledge was slim.
Eventually the light under Addison’s door disappeared, but that didn’t stop Logan’s gaze from wandering there every few minutes. This weekend would be torture. Bittersweet torture.
“Lucky you’re a natural-born masochist,” Logan muttered to himself.
After an hour of trying—and failing—to get any work done, he snapped his laptop shut in frustration. If he wasn’t going to be productive then he’d go to bed and attempt to sleep. A few hours of shut-eye might help his concentration.
“Yeah, ’cause sleep is the problem,” he grumbled as he walked past Addison’s door to the linen cupboard.
It was packed with clean sheets, towels and blankets and smelled musty in a way that brought a rush of memories to him. He’d come to this cottage often, spending Thanksgiving weekend with Daniel and Addison since his own father had made it clear he wasn’t welcome with the shiny new family he’d acquired. Those long weekends had been filled with fishing, eating and letting Addison beat him at poker until she got good enough that she whipped his ass all on her own.
His fingertips brushed a piece of floral fabric sandwiched between two plain blue sheets. The flowers had faces, but the pattern had faded over the years. Time, the cruel mistress that it was, had robbed them of their smiles.
A noise caused Logan to turn. He tiptoed to Addison’s door and pressed his ear to the wood. The muffled sobbing caused pain to wrench in his chest. He touched his palm to the door and sucked in a breath. What the hell was he supposed to do in this situation?
If Addison was in danger, he wouldn’t hesitate to act, because protecting her came second nature to him. But a tearful Addison was totally outside his experience. The only other time he’d seen her cry was at her father’s funeral...and look how that’d turned out.
He should walk away. Let her cry it out and emerge in the morning with her mask intact. Isn’t that what she’d want?
Walk away, you useless son of a bitch. Be a deserter. Isn’t that what you do best?
Logan gritted his teeth and eased the handle down on her bedroom door. The room was dark, with only a thin shaft of moonlight illuminating the bed. The cool bluish light showed the outline of her sleeping form. The curve of her hip and the gentle dip at her waist. The soft gleam of her blond hair.
“Addi?” He let the door shut behind him.
She was crying, more softly now. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could make out the tremble in her curled-up form. She was facing away from him, her body so small and vulnerable in the center of the large bed.
“Addi? Are you okay?”
She muttered something under her breath and then sighed, but he couldn’t make out the words. For years he’d teased her about the way she talked in her sleep—he’d witnessed it on the few occasions when she’d fallen asleep on his couch after having an argument with her dad. Sometimes it was a soft jumble of syllables and other times it was full sentences. Often the words had no meaning.
“Logan,” she sighed.
He tiptoed over to her bed and knelt on the mattress with one knee. Both her eyes were shut and her cheeks were damp with tears. The wet skin seemed to shimmer in the bright moonlight. But she slept on.
And dreamed about him, apparently.
He brushed his knuckles along her arm, his breath sticking in his throat when she shivered at his touch. Her body was covered by a white sheet, but a spaghetti-thin strap of black silk curved over her shoulder and a hint of lace peeked out from the top of the sheet.
Sweet mother of—
“Logan?” She shifted on the bed, her voice groggy.
“It’s just me, Addi. I heard you crying.” He brushed the hair away from her face.
“I was sleeping.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you. I came in to check that you were okay.” His heart thudded in his chest so hard it felt like the organ was trying to punch its way out of his rib cage.
“Oh?” She touched her fingers to her cheek. “I must have been dreaming.”
“I’ll let you sleep.” He pulled away, but she rolled and reached out for him. The movement caused the sheet to slip farther down, revealing a black silk camisole gleaming under the moonlight. The glossy fabric looked almost wet.
