Crazy for Her(69)

“Christ, first I take advantage of you, and now I’m going to get you killed,” he said, and grabbed her hand, dragging her under the overhang. “Sit,” he ordered, and pushed her toward a deck chair.

There was something sexy about an alpha male bossing her around. Not that she would stand for it when it mattered, but at the moment she rather enjoyed it. He left, returning shortly with two bath towels; he handed her one and then lit the candle on the table between them. She rubbed the towel over her hair and then wrapped it around her shoulders.

Logan stared moodily out at the rain, not speaking. There was still another secret he kept close—the one he’d said he wouldn’t talk about ever—but she sensed it was the one at the root of all his issues.

No matter what happened between them, even if they didn’t have a future together, she at least wanted to part company knowing he had put all his demons to rest. He would never be at peace otherwise, and this beautiful man deserved to be happy.

Dani stole a peek at him. He stared off into the distance, his body taut, his jaws rigid, his lips pressed firmly together. Apparently it was going to be up to her to get the conversation going again. She leaned her head back against the chaise and sighed. Men.

“You should know, I take issue with your claim that you took advantage of me. I’m a single, consenting adult, and I assure you, I was eager to consent. But back to my question, are you going to answer?”

He finally looked at her, but his expression was blank. “What question was that?”

She tried to decide whether to sigh again or roll her eyes, but maybe it would be more effective if she just bashed him on the head. “You’re not stupid, Logan, so don’t act like it. You don’t want to answer, do you? You know it’s unreasonable to expect me to remain celibate for the rest of my life, and you think you should tell me I deserve someone better than you, but you can’t bring yourself to say it.” His eyes flared. Well, she’d hit the nail on the head.

“You can and should find someone better than me.”

“Why? What makes you so bad? From what I know of you, you’re an amazing man. You made something of yourself when the odds were against you, you raised a lovely sister, you’re one of our country’s heroes, and you created a company that appears to be highly successful. Best of all, you make an awesome paella. Where’s the bad in all that? And if you say it’s in your blood, I’m going to go find one of those guns I know you’ve got hidden all over the house and shoot you just to put you out of your misery.”



 Logan was self-destructing and he knew it, but like a cruise missile locked on its target, he couldn’t seem to keep it from happening. All the things she’d just praised him with might be true, but it was all a facade, a false front he’d erected to fool anyone who looked at him too closely. She wanted to know the bad in him? Fine, he’d enlighten her. See how amazing she thought him then.

“That other thing, the one I said I would never talk about—”

“You don’t have to tell me,” she interrupted, but her eyes said different. She wanted to know his dirtiest secret.

He leaned forward and glared at her. “Oh, but I do. You’ve got it in your mind I’m some kind of hero. What would you say if I told you . . .” He couldn’t say it. Couldn’t tell her about that damned, godforsaken morning.

The woman he would willingly die for, the one who’d given him his first taste of the pleasures he’d listened to other men talk about, sometimes joke about, lifted her leg and stroked her toes over the top of his foot.

“If you told me what?”

Her toes found their way to his knee, and he stupidly wondered how far they might travel. His cock responded to her touch the way it had since the day he’d walked in the door of her cabin. Pavlov’s dog—that was him and it fucking pissed him off.

“Little girl,” he growled, “you’re playing with fire. I may be new at this, but I promise, I pay close attention.”

“Fire can be a beautiful thing.” Her foot crept up a few more inches. “If you told me what, Logan? Come on, I dare you to say it.”

“You dare me? Fine then. I shared a bed with my mother. Satisfied?” That should have the desired effect of sending her back to Asheville, so far away he might be able to find some kind of peace of mind and forget all that happened that night. In about a hundred years.

Between anger and intense arousal, she’d somehow managed to suck the confession out of him, the one he’d sworn would never be spoken of to anyone, especially her. And even then, he tempered his words, made them less crude than he’d intended.