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The hell of it was, Elena had a beautiful face paired with one hot, bodacious bod. It was the kind of coupling that made a man think only of…well, coupling. But Logan knew from personal experience that it wasn’t wise to let your wits wander southward when you were around Elena. While you were busy dreaming of her scratching your back, she’d be busy finding ways to scratch your eyes out.
The funny thing was, people genuinely liked her as a person. Women included, despite the kind of loveliness that might inspire jealousy. She was reputed to be an indefatigable employee and Logan’s new sister-in-law swore she was a terrific friend. But when a man approached Elena O’Brien as a man, she’d hiss and spit and scare the poor guy off. Sometimes off women altogether.
Rumor had it there was a guy in the next city who, after one date with Elena, had moved back in with his mother and was now raising bunny rabbits.
Inhaling a fortifying breath, Logan began strolling toward the kissing booth. As if sensing his destination, the people in front of him parted, clearing his path just the way the citizens of Dodge City cleared a path for the white-hatted sheriff in a bad Western.
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his worn jeans and ignored the chug of his blood pulsing through his veins. He hoped like hell his face was expressionless. Conventional wisdom said it wasn’t smart to show fear around animals that bite.
The senior prom committee’s booth was situated in the shade of mature trees and had a fanciful, castle-like facade that was painted white and decorated with bright pink and red tissue-paper flowers. The colors framed Elena’s vibrant beauty perfectly, and as Logan approached she raised her black brows in twin arches just as perfect.
He shoved his hands deeper in his pockets and curved his lips in what he hoped appeared a relaxed, casual smile. “Hey, there,” he said, bracing for the expected verbal lashing.
An overlarge, empty glass fishbowl sat on the booth’s narrow countertop. It was where the kiss money was supposed to go, and in other years the thing had overflowed with bills. Elena didn’t spare it a glance as she slowly slid from a high stool to land on the soles of her sneakers. “What do you want?” she asked, her tone on the low end of the truculence scale.
Well, good. Apparently she didn’t immediately assume he was after a kiss, which would be sure to set her hackles rising. “I, um, just thought I’d say hi.”
“Yeah?” As usual, she wasn’t much impressed with him. “Hi.” Her gaze fell to the toes of her shoes.
Something about the short response put Logan on alert. The truth was, he’d accidentally and unfortunately stood her up two weeks ago, the night of the wedding rehearsal dinner. Given their past history and the daggers she’d thrown with her eyes all the way down the church aisle, he’d been convinced she’d take this opportunity to launch a full-on verbal assault.
“Is something wrong?” he asked warily.
Instead of answering, she flushed.
Logan’s jaw dropped. With her gaze still on her feet, he could only see the top of her head and the red color crawling up her neck. He didn’t know what to think. She was never subdued, shy or, for that matter, even civil around him. “Are you sick?” he asked.
Her head jerked up. “Is that what they’re saying?”
She sounded hopeful, Logan thought, still trying to comprehend her out-of-character reserve.
“Is that it?” she insisted, that hopeful note intensifying. “Does everyone think I’m contagious or something?”
He couldn’t lie to her. “No,” he answered, stepping forward. “But, uh, Elena…”
“Never mind.” She scuttled back against the stool. “I didn’t really think so.” As if to prove she was in her usual fine fettle, she lifted her chin to half glower at him.
Still puzzled, Logan studied her face. There was definitely a flush on her skin, and he was certain it wasn’t a fever or even a flush of ill temper. Hell. It couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible, was it? Was Elena truly bothered by her lack of business?
Damn it, that wouldn’t make things any easier. He’d come over here to help out the senior prom fund. To save noble knight Tyler from Elena’s wrath, and possibly a career in the rabbit industry. She’d murder Logan if she somehow leaped to the conclusion he was here to buy a kiss to save her from humiliation.
But Elena humiliated? It just didn’t seem possible.
Not sure what to believe, he decided to postpone immediate action by smiling again, trying once more to appear friendly. “Have you heard from Griffin and Annie?” The two were on their honeymoon, touring Europe.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “A postcard from France.” The corners of her mouth lifted in a sweet, genuine smile.
Uh-oh. At the sight of that enchanting smile, Logan felt his knees go weak. His brain stuttered as whatever amount of blood supposed to keep the top half of his body in working order instantly rushed lower.
Her eyes narrowed and her body stiffened. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.
He sucked in a quick, desperate breath. “N-nothing.” With another breath, his voice got stronger. “Not a thing.”
She relaxed slightly, though her eyes remained watchful. “Okay.”
Whew. That was a close one. A really close one. Elena hated when a man displayed a reaction to her beauty. Particularly when he did. But it was an impossibly difficult thing to control so instead he just took great pains to hide it.
With a show of nonchalance, he stepped closer and leaned casually against the side of the booth. “I met your sister.”
Her face brightened, that smile threatening to blossom again. God, she was gorgeous.
“You met Gabby? She’s here?”
Logan nodded. “With Tyler Evans, who I’m guessing is her boyfriend.”
Elena shrugged. “I suppose. One of those casual things, though. Gabby’s going to UC Berkeley in the fall.” Her voice filled with pride. “Pre-med.”
Impressed, Logan raised his eyebrows. “Tyler just told me she’s an artist too.”
“Mm. A hobby.” She raised her shoulders in a little shrug. “But it’s her brains that will take her farthest.”
Her dismissal of Gabby’s other talents rankled Logan. “Yes, but—” He bit back the words, thinking better of exposing his personal raw spots. “I’m sure she’ll be a success at whatever she chooses.”
“That’s right,” Elena replied. “Gabby’s going to have everything. Perfect prom, perfect graduation—”
“Perfect pre-med college life,” he finished for her wryly.
She apparently hadn’t caught his tone because for once she smiled as if she really liked him. “Exactly. That’s what we’ve been working for.”
We? That earlier rankle edged into a strange worry. “Elena…”
“Hmm?” she said absently, her gaze drifting over his shoulder.
Logan turned, saw a man walking toward the kissing booth, then saw the man suddenly recognize the woman on the other side of the counter. The man abruptly spun about, and hastily got in line at the booth supporting the local children’s hospital, as if that was his chosen destination all the while.
“Well,” Logan said with a laugh. “It should be interesting to see how they do a Caribbean thread-wrap on that guy’s hair.” The man was completely bald.
When she didn’t answer, he swung around. Her eyes appeared so blue their color hit him like a blow, and he suddenly realized there were tears in them. He swallowed, feeling almost sick. “Elena—”
“Don’t. Don’t say anything.” Her voice was tight. “I’m in this dumb booth for Gabby. I don’t care, do you understand?”
Even though her eyes were watery, she could still pin him painfully with her glare. “And if you try to tell anybody, anybody I was crying over something as stupid as that man not wanting to buy a kiss from me, I’ll…I’ll…”
It was testament to how truly upset she was that she couldn’t complete her threat. “Boil my toes?” he offered helpfully, trying to give her a chance to recover. “Stick ants in my ears?”
That got her. “Ants in your ears?” She flicked one fallen tear away with her thumb. “Oh, just be quiet.”
“Elena—”
“Leave it alone, will you?” She’d blinked away the last of the tears, but her customary prickly armor wasn’t yet quite back in place.
“I’m sorr—”
“I told you. Leave it alone. My mood has nothing to do with the kissing booth. I’m just having a bad day.” She glared at him again. “Can’t I have a bad day?”
Since she generally caused bad days—his—he was unsure how to answer. “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.
“Everything,” she muttered, looking away. “You name it.”
Logan’s blood chilled. Something was wrong. Could it be man trouble? He hadn’t heard she was seeing anyone, and God knew it would take a special kind of man to knock that boulder-size chip off her shoulder, but…. But it made him damn angry to think someone could have gotten to her heart, then broken it. “Is it a man?” he asked.
“Of course not,” she answered, but still, she didn’t sound like herself and she didn’t meet his eyes.
“Who the hell is he?” Logan demanded.
She shot him a startled, sidelong look, then shook her head. “No, no. It isn’t like that.”
Not good enough. He still didn’t feel relieved. “What exactly is it like then?” he pressed.
That got her bristling again. “Logan—”
“What’s the trouble?” he said through his teeth, his anger unexpectedly jumping to match hers. “Tell me now.”
“Oh, fine!” Her gaze slammed into his. “If you really want to know, I’ll admit it. The trouble is this.” Her hand flew wildly in the direction of the empty fishbowl, and she made contact, sending it rocking. “It’s mortifying, okay?”
Ah. Well. Logan felt his surprising, unfamiliar surge of anger instantly subside into something quite different. Not that her words were anything to get all worked up about. Except that Elena O’Brien, the toughest, prickliest, least-likely-to-surrender woman he knew, had just admitted out loud she actually possessed normal, human feelings.
Suddenly the prospect of kissing her didn’t seem quite so dreadful after all.
He ran his tongue over his teeth, then smiled. It felt like a charming smile. “Hmm. Well. I may not be able to do a lot of things, but I can do something about—” he gestured toward the fishbowl “—that.”
Her eyes widened, then narrowed, her mouth bunching up. She could have been sucking on a lemon. “Don’t you dare!”
It occurred to him he should possibly be insulted by her apparent distaste. “What’s wrong now?” he said grumpily, hoping like hell she wasn’t going to be thorny about this.
“Logan.” Angry heat flared in her eyes. “Don’t you dare think about kissing me.”
Damn her. She was going to be thorny about this, and here he was, about to do her a favor.
Then her eyes narrowed even more. “Oh, I get it now. You think you’re doing me a favor, don’t you?”
While he tried to look properly wounded by her correct guess, she propped her hands on her hips and stomped closer to the counter. “Listen, Logan. I don’t need your pity.”
She was close enough that he could detect her scent. She wore an exotic fragrance that smelled like flowers heated by the sun. Logan tried thinking of some response to what she’d just said, but his head was suddenly spinning again.
She could tell that too. Her eyes rolled. “Uh!” She spun away.
He reached out, grabbed her wrist.
Elena froze. A tremor ran down her back then her head turned slowly toward him. She looked at his hand on her, then looked at his face. “Let go of me,” she said.
“No,” he answered. Her arm was quivering against his hand and Logan didn’t know if it was outrage or embarrassment or some combination of both. He hauled her closer, so that only the narrow wooden counter separated them.
Her breath was coming so hard and so fast that her astounding breasts were heaving against the cotton of her shirt. Staring at the sight, his brain whirled again and she almost used his distraction to pull away, but then some instinct deeper than lust made his hold tighten possessively.
“I don’t want your pity,” she said again.
“Pity,” he repeated. “You don’t know how much I wish I was going to do this out of pity.” He crowded closer to the counter, getting closer to her.
That flush was running up her neck again, past her mouth, over her cheeks. Her chin lifted. “Why is it then?” she hissed. “Don’t tell me. I can guess. It’s—”
“Don’t.” It was his turn to say the word. “You’re in the kissing booth and I’m buying one kiss. Hell, Elena. Let’s just leave it at that.”
He bent his head. He hadn’t kissed her in eleven years, since she was sixteen and he was eighteen. He hesitated now, because the memory of those kisses wasn’t something he was quite ready to relinquish. The reality of kissing Elena couldn’t be as good as he remembered.
Her body was trembling again and her eyes were snapping blue fire, but she wasn’t trying to get away and he knew he couldn’t get away with retreating from this kiss. Hell, it had been leading to this for the past few months, ever since they had met again. It was probably plain good sense to get it over with.
He covered her lips with his.
She inhaled sharply at the contact and he froze. Her body shook, and he dropped her wrist to cup her shoulders with his palms. He slid his tongue between her lips. Not into her mouth, just between her soft, full, how-could-he-have-forgotten-their-decadent-taste? lips.
She inhaled sharply again, unwittingly drawing in his tongue, and Logan’s senses, instead of whirling like the dervishes he expected, heightened. Focused.
From her throat came the tiniest of moans, the sound vibrating against his tongue. Her flower-scent bloomed around them and he tasted her desire in the heat of her mouth and in the way her tongue slid against his, as if she had to know its texture, too.
All his muscles tensed, every one, everywhere, going rock-solid. He pressed her mouth harder, took the kiss deeper, and even though he felt his blood rush through his body and his heartbeat jump to unprecedented speed, his mind remained crystal-clear, as if to sear this new kiss in his memory.
His eyes opened, and he saw hers as languid slits of blue, like pieces of hot summer sky. He saw it all in them: the attraction, the arousal and then he saw something else.
Vulnerability.
Oh, hell.
Blood pounding and every nerve howling in protest, Logan broke the kiss, slowly but surely easing Elena away. He knew she was staring at him, but he refused to meet her eyes. Instead, he concentrated on getting his breathing back to normal, while one hand slid into his pocket.
Just that morning he’d met a friend and traded his Beemer for a well-worn pickup and some big-billed cash. He pulled the wad of bills out now and looked at them, the numbers on the corners making as little sense to him as the advanced calculus formulas had in college. Blinking, he focused harder, found the one he wanted, pulled it free.
Still without looking at her, he dropped it in the fishbowl. Grover Cleveland’s face fluttered to the bottom.
He turned to go.
“Wait.”
Reluctantly he swung back and looked at Elena. She was completely recovered, he was relieved to see, except for the slightly swollen appearance of her lips. Her blue eyes were back to their usual cool and the one brow she raised was just as confident and saucy as always.
“The senior prom committee thanks you,” she said.
Logan released a silent sigh, immediately understanding the remark’s significance. It wasn’t Elena who thanked him, but the prom committee. Whew. He nodded, and found he was recovered enough himself to touch his forehead in a casual, two-fingered salute.
