Magic Kiss (Hope Falls Book 11) (12 page)

“Oh.” A light shade of pink flushed on her smooth cheeks. “I think I do remember something about that,” she said right before pulling a
huge
chunk off the top of one muffin and stuffing it in her mouth.

“You do, huh?” he practically growled. He was fighting the strongest urge to wipe off the small piece of crumb that had landed on her chin. Actually, he had the urge to kiss it off. Or lick it off.

Totally oblivious to his inappropriate-urge struggles, Emma tilted her head, her cheeks reminding him of a squirrel storing nuts for the winter. With a twinkle in her eye and a small smile pulling at her lips, she shrugged as she stated defiantly, “She deserved it.”

Her puffed-out cheeks and her borderline cocky attitude made Logan do something he didn’t do often. He laughed.

She chewed her food and then took a long sip of coffee, moaning as she did. When she set the cup down, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and her gaze narrowed ever so slightly.

“Perfect. Two sugars and a splash of cream. Did you remember that too?”

Yes
.

Since he had no rational explanation for that one, it was time to change the subject. “Have you given any more thought to whether or not you want to stay? It was all Drew talked about this morning.”

Dropping her head back, Emma sighed. The heavy breath pushed her hint of cleavage up, and Logan fisted his hand as the desire to reach out and touch her there crashed over him.

Since the second she’d walked into the kitchen this morning—hell, who was he kidding? Since the second she’d shown up on his doorstep yesterday, the overwhelming compulsions to touch her, kiss her, and pull her body against his so he could feel her soft curves melt into him, just about consumed him. It was unnerving, to say the least.

He’d experienced intense attraction before, especially in his early twenties. But this was more than that. Although what Emma inspired in him was no less primal than what he’d felt before for other women, it was also layered with a need to protect and care for the woman he wanted to strip naked and bury himself in.

Which wasn’t ever going to happen. Not only could he never betray Andrew like that, but Emma was like an angel. She was good. Logan was as far from angelic as someone could get. He’d done things no one should have to. In war. On the job. He’d seen things, unspeakable things that had taken him to dark places. That darkness was in him. It didn’t just go away because he was no longer in those situations. Bringing someone else
intimately
into his life wasn’t an option.

It lived in him. It breathed in him. It saturated his being.

Lifting her head, she grabbed a piece of bacon. “I know he’s going to want an answer the second he gets home.” Emma stuffed the slice in her mouth and chewed it as she stared at her plate.

Out of sheer self-preservation, Logan should’ve suggested what he had originally envisioned happening. That he would keep Drew for the rest of summer break so Emma could head back to Seattle and have the luxury of uninterrupted work.

But instead of laying that plan out, he heard himself say, “I really would love for you guys to stay. It’s no trouble. Really.”

Emma’s aqua-blue stare was boring into him. He knew she was trying to detect whether or not he was telling the truth.

So he half-teasingly threw out, “My cousin Adam has a lie detector test and is licensed. Do you want me to take a polygraph?”

Her blue eyes twinkled with amusement as she let out a belly laugh that squeezed his hardened heart. It hit him square in the chest like a ray of light in a pitch-black space.

She sounded so happy. So light. So carefree. He could listen to her laugh for the rest of his life and never get tired of it.

The thought scared the shit out of him.

“
You
? Take a lie detector test? How many girls would love that opportunity? That might just be too good to pass up,” she teased as she rubbed her hands together like she was plotting his demise. “Would I get to ask you
anything
I want?”

“You can always ask me anything you want.” Logan’s answer had come out much more serious than he’d meant it to. His voice had also sounded a hell of a lot more gravelly than he’d wanted it to.

The energy between them had already felt electric, but now, it was crackling with tension as their stares remained locked. Emma’s smile faded as she nervously licked her lips. He knew he should look away. Do something, anything to bring back the light, joking atmosphere his words had shattered. But he just couldn’t bring himself to.

“Okay,” she said a little breathlessly. “How did I get to bed last night?”

“I carried you.”

Emma’s eyes widened, and her flushed cheeks darkened to a deeper shade of pink. Dipping her head, she broke off another piece of muffin. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to.” He didn’t mention the other things he’d wanted to do.

“Oh,” she breathed and grabbed for her food as if she were drowning and it was a life preserver.

As she lifted a bite of muffin to her mouth, her hand shook. He shouldn’t have gotten so much satisfaction over the fact that she was at least somewhat affected by whatever was going on between them—if not just as much as he was.

Nothing could ever happen. But, if he was being honest with himself and “living” with his feelings, he had to admit that it was nice not being in this alone.

“Can I ask you something?” He didn’t want to pressure her, but the thought of her and Drew leaving felt…not good.

“Yep.” She grabbed another slice of bacon and put it in her mouth, chewing as she looked at him with her wide baby blues.

He wanted to tell her how fucking adorable she looked, but it wasn’t his place. So he asked the question he still wasn’t a hundred percent sure he actually wanted the answer to. “Do
you
want to stay here? For you. Not for Drew. Or me. Do
you
want to?”

From what Drew had mentioned over the last few days, it wasn’t hard to puzzle out that Emma did everything for the kid. And it sounded like for her neighbors, his school, and his sports teams. Logan wanted to make sure that, if she did stay, it was because she wanted to. Otherwise, even though the last thing he wanted was to see her and her pink suitcases walk out that door, he would put his original plan to keep Drew for a few weeks on the table.

His jaw flinched while he waited for her response. Her chest was rising and falling as she bit the inside of her mouth. After a few seconds, she sat up straighter and rolled her shoulders back.

“Yes. I do.” Emma nodded just once, as if to emphasize her statement.

His mouth spread into a wide smile as a funny feeling settled in his chest. “Good. Then it’s settled.”

Logan stood, walked over to the sink and rinsed his plate off. If he didn’t get the hell out of there now, he would do something stupid—like grab her, push her up against the wall, and kiss her senseless. He couldn’t remember having ever felt this happy—ever. And he did not trust himself.

“Wait.” There was a definite panic in Emma’s voice, and then the chair scraped against the kitchen floor. “I didn’t say that I was staying.”

When he turned around, she was on her feet and some of the color had drained from her face. He could see what needed to be done, so he did it.

“You need uninterrupted time to work. Drew loves being at Mountain Ridge, which means he’ll be out of your hair. I want to get to know my godson better. Drew wants to stay. You want to stay. I want you to stay. You’re staying.”

His little speech could’ve gone one of two ways. Best-case scenario: she was exhausted from always making every decision, and having someone else take the reins would be a welcome change. Worst-case scenario: she’d be offended and think he was an asshole for telling her what to do.

But the color returned to her face—her cheeks were growing pinker by the second. Her voice held a tiny, almost indiscernible quiver in it as she said, “I am?”

Since she wasn’t throwing the breakfast he’d made her at his head, he figured they were in best-case scenario territory.

“You are,” he confirmed.

“I am.” She nodded as her tongue slipped between her lips, moistening the seam.

Holding in a groan of male appreciation, Logan pushed off the counter and stalked out of the kitchen.

“You’re leaving?”

Emma’s voice barely registered in his lust-addled brain. There was so much blood pounding in it that her words had sounded muffled.

He grabbed his keys off the table beside the front door, and without sparing her another glance, reached for the front door. “I’m getting out of your hair too. Levi asked me to help him lay down a cement path he’s pouring today. I’ll pick up Drew when I’m done. We should be home around six.”

With that, he was out the door. She yelled for him to have a nice day, and he felt a little like an ass for his abrupt departure. But it was for the best. If he hadn’t, he would have done something they’d have both regretted. Something he couldn’t take back. Something that couldn’t happen.

‡

W
hat’s going on?

For the last three hours, Emma had had the house to herself. That was exactly what she’d needed. Peace and quiet. No interruptions. No disturbances. No responsibilities pulling her in a thousand directions. The circumstances couldn’t have been more ideal, and she’d written a grand total of one page.

One. Freakin’. Page.

It was so unlike her. Normally, she was nothing if not disciplined. But as much as she tried to buckle down and get some work done, her mind just couldn’t focus. Normally, she could block everything out. Normally, she had the focus of a professional athlete. Normally, she hadn’t just almost had an orgasm from a man simply taking charge of her schedule.

Biting her lip, she turned her head and gazed out the window. There was a river that ran down the back of the property and pine trees for as far as the eye could see. Several squirrels skittered up and down the trunks of the trees. Birds flew around. It was breathtaking. Under any other conditions, the view would’ve calmed her. Inspired her. Helped her zone out and work.

It wasn’t doing those things. Because of one harmless interaction in the kitchen, her mind was anywhere but where it was supposed to be.

No matter how hard she tried not to think about how hot and bothered Logan had made her, she couldn’t stop the words he’d spoken when he’d told her that she was staying from playing on repeat. Part of her was mortified that she’d responded so viscerally to his statement. She had always prided herself on being an independent woman. She didn’t need a man to rescue her. Her life track record was proof of that.

Once she’d lost Andrew, she hadn’t run into the arms of some man to take care of her. How could she have? She’d still been madly in love with her husband. He was gone, but that hadn’t meant she was over him.

It had taken years for her to fully put that chapter of her life behind her. To come to peace with the fact that, although she would always love Andrew, he wasn’t coming home. He was gone.

She hadn’t looked for comfort or support from anyone during that time. She’d taken care of Drew. Made a life for herself and her son. And done it all without the help of a man.

So why had she been about to explode from the most gratifying orgasm of her life just because Logan had taken charge and told her what she’d already known—that she was staying? Honestly, it had just felt so flippin’ amazing to not have to be the one to make the decisions for once. Well, it was that and the dominating look he’d given her. It had registered as too hot to handle for her body.

Not that she should’ve been thinking about any of that. This time was precious. It was like gold. She couldn’t squander it because she had a totally inappropriate and unreciprocated lust crush on Logan Dorsey.

Shaking her head, she focused on the screen in front of her and placed her fingers on the keyboard. Blowing out a puff of air, she sat up straighter, determined to get this work train back on its track.

Rereading the scene she was working on, she realized that it wasn’t coming together and decided that it would probably be best to move on to something else. So she opened her outline and scanned what still needed to be written—a lot. She rubbed her temples as she breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. Then, leaning back in her chair, she did her best to hold off the flood of being totally overwhelmed.

Just write. Type one word. And then another,
she told herself. It was the same thing she had said immediately following Andrew’s death, when being overwhelmed hadn’t even scratched the surface of what she’d been feeling.

As she sat back up, her eyes fell on the one scene she’d been dreading writing the most. It was the
first
love scene between Tina and Kade. The first time they would be consummating a relationship that had been sweltering for four long years. She’d tried, and failed, to write it about twenty times now. It had to have a jump-off-the-page, panty-melting heat she just hadn’t been able to capture. She hadn’t been able to “find her way” into the scene.