by Linda Kage
Checking out their uniforms and patches, she realized they worked for the city, not the university. Maybe a different law enforcement agency wanted to take different measures.
She itched to reach out and touch Logan, just to reassure him and herself everything was going to be okay. But by the stiff, formal way the men stood, soothing touches seemed forbidden. Curling her arms around her body, she hovered just beside Logan as one officer pulled out a notepad and the other asked if they could question him.
“Mr. Xander,” he started, his voice brooking no room for jokes. “Were you aware Dorian Wade died in his dorm room late last night?”
Chapter Thirty-One
PAIGE GASPED ALOUD. The two cops glanced her way. Staring back, she stumbled in reverse until she sank into a nearby chair.
Sheet white, Logan stared at her for the longest time before he turned back to the cops.
“No.” He shook his head. His voice sounded too hoarse to be healthy, and he looked as if he might pass out. “No, I…I…I had no idea. Oh God, how did he die? Was it some kind of blood clot? I hit him so hard, I…” Losing his voice, he bowed his head and bent his shoulders in over his body.
No, no, no. This wasn’t happening. If another person died after getting into a fight with him, Logan would lose it. And she would lose him to his own self-torment.
“He was shot at close range…four times,” one of the cops said.
“What?” Paige sprang to her feet, not expecting this answer at all. “Shot? With a gun?”
She wished it had been one of those moments when someone would roll his eyes and snicker, saying, “No, he was shot with a spoon.” She needed a comedic break right about now. But no one even cracked a smile. The seriousness of the situation ricocheted through her with a full-body tremble.
Dorian Wade had been shot with a gun.
And killed.
The same night he’d tried to rape her.
“Oh, God,” Logan repeated, straightening. He blew out a relieved breath. “Oh, thank God.”
When both policemen frowned, he flushed. “I mean, not thank God he’s dead. Just…that I didn’t kill him from our fight. I just—” He shook his head as if realizing he should stop talking before he incriminated himself further.
“When was the last time you saw the victim, Mr. Xander?”
“Last night,” Logan croaked. He looked as if he were about to empty his stomach. Paige wondered how he was still standing. “At the…at the party.”
“At the fraternity house where you engaged him in a fight?” the officer asked.
Logan nodded, closing his eyes.
“You didn’t see him again after that?”
This time Logan shook his head. “No.”
“Where were you from between midnight last night and six this morning?”
When it struck her where he’d been, Paige gasped again. Both officers turned toward her. She slapped her hands over her mouth and gaped back before quickly lowering her fingers.
“He was with me,” she admitted, shocked she was actually his alibi.
This seemed to take the men by surprise. “And you are…?” The cop asking all the questions shifted intimidatingly closer to her.
“Paige Zukowski.” Her voice was small as she answered.
The uniform taking notes paused halfway through his writing and looked up. “You’re the…”
“The girl Dorian attacked,” she finished. “Yeah.”
Logan shifted protectively closer to her, and she shared a quick look with him before turning back to the officers. “I…we…after Logan saved me from…from…well, you know, my dorm mate brought me home. Logan showed up almost immediately to see how I was doing. I was pretty shaken, so he stuck around the entire night and took care of me.”
This time, the two cops shared a glance with each other, both looking entirely too suspicious for Paige’s comfort. In unison, they turned back to her. “And you two just happen to work together?”
Paige couldn’t help herself; she sent a telling look from The Squeeze apron around her own waist to the one wrapped around Logan’s. “Uh…yeah,” she answered the obvious.
The cop with the pen took notes as the other motioned between them. “What is the nature of the relationship between you two?”
Paige’s cheeks burned with heat. When she realized Logan had turned to her expectantly as if he also wanted the answer to that question, she cleared her throat. “Um, well…I’m not too sure yet. It’s kind of undefined at the moment. I mean, I started out really, really not liking him. But then he was okay, you know. And I just couldn’t hate him no matter how hard I tried. And now…now he’s just…amazing and—”
When she lifted her face, she caught Logan’s gaze. He looked so hopeful she whirled back to the officers before she did something embarrassing like throw herself at him. “I guess you kind of interrupted us mid-transformation between relationship statuses.”
Both cops stared at her as if she was loony.
Logan cleared his throat. “You can just say we’re coworkers.”
The cop scribbled that down.
Nothing about the situation was funny, but Paige grinned anyway.
“Can anyone else verify this alibi?” One cop asked, making her grin die a quick, ugly death. “Did anyone else see him in your room all night?”
Her mouth fell open. They didn’t believe her? Shocked, she was too busy gaping at them to immediately realize she hadn’t answered the question. Then she snapped her fingers.
“Ooh! Yes, my roommate can. She let him into the building when he arrived.” At least, that’s what Logan had told her. She sent him a swift glance. “Right?” When he nodded, she returned her attention to the cops. “Then when she came back in the morning at about…eight, eight-thirty, he was still there.”
Another blush scorched her cheeks. “She actually thought we’d…you know.” Motioning between Logan and herself, she managed a nervous laugh. “But we hadn’t.”
“I don’t think they really care about that part,” Logan murmured beside her, looking amused.
She rolled her eyes. “Trust me, everyone always cares about that part.”
He stared at her a moment before his lips twitched. It was so charming, she wanted to throw herself at him again and kiss him all over his sexy mouth.
Clearing her throat, she forced her gaze back to the officers, who were also sporting entertained grins they were trying to hide.
“So, you two were together, alone in your dorm room from…?”
“From about eleven last night to eight this morning, I guess.” Wow, had it only been this morning?
The cops nodded, finally looking satisfied with one of her answers.
“Okay. I think that’s about everything we needed to know. Oh, one more thing.” They focused on Logan. “Do you own a gun, Mr. Xander?”
Logan shook his head. “No.”
“All right then. Thanks for answering our questions. We’ll be in touch if we have more. You two stay safe. There’s an armed murderer out there on the loose.”
Paige shivered as she watched them leave. No wonder Gus had called. It hadn’t had anything to do with Logan’s past it all.
Things had just gotten real.
The Squeeze was deathly silent after the cops left.
“Logan?” Paige said as he locked the door. He looked so tense she grew worried about him.
He closed his eyes and shook his head, waving his hand to keep her away. “Thanks for the alibi,” he rumbled.
“I just told them the truth.” When she took a step toward him, he flashed his eyes open. The wild gleam in them warned her to keep her distance. She skidded to a stop.
“Well, thank you anyway.” He turned away. “I’m going to stock up on supplies, and then we should go.”
After he disappeared into the back, she stared at the spot where he’d been standing. Shaking her head, she hurried after him. “Logan—”
He put up a hand again to stop her fr
om approaching any closer. “I can’t…” He wouldn’t look at her. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered, not wanting to push.
Logan cleared his throat. “I’m not…this isn’t…” When he glanced to her, he shook his head and sent her an apologetic look. “Forget the supplies. I should get you home and safe as soon as possible.”
His words sounded so final, as if he felt it was the last thing he’d ever say to her. It scared her. Even though he was going to escort her home, she didn’t want to leave the juice bar until they settled this. Following her body’s natural instinct to race after him, she caught him as soon as he reached the time clock.
“Logan, wait.” Grabbing his arm, she spun him around, and he let her. Hugging him tight, she pressed her cheek against his chest and clenched her eyes shut. “I won’t give up on you,” she said, meaning it from the bottom of her soul. “I can’t.”
He shuddered and hugged her back. “Paige, we can’t…this isn’t…God!” He squeezed her back and pressed his face against her hair as a full-body tremble seized him. “I killed someone. I killed your brother. And people here know that now. Whenever anyone else dies, I’m going to be the first person they look at. I’m—”
“No,” she insisted, shaking her head hard and tightening her grip.
“Yes.” He grasped her arms and pulled her back so she’d be forced to look at him. “Don’t you get it? Every bad thing that ever happened to you originated with me. Your brother, your mother, your father. Even your best friend. It’s like bad things just follow me around so they can attack you. I’m a…a bad-thing magnet.”
She couldn’t help but smirk. “A bad-thing magnet?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. My brain is fried. I couldn’t think up another term at the spur of the moment.”
This time, she grinned full-out. “I think my first gift to you is going to be a thesaurus.”
His eyes went moist. “How can you smile and tease at a time like this? It’s like…” He shook his head. “It’s like you’re pure sunlight and I’m darkness. You are so amazing, you don’t even realize. You’ve been so good for me. I need you like I’ve never needed anything. But I’m just bad for you. I hate that.”
When he closed his eyes and bowed his emotion-ravaged face, Paige wrapped herself around him again. He shook his head, but the rest of his body went into some strange kind of conflict. His arms came up between them as if he wasn’t sure if he should push her away or pull her against him, but the rest of him swayed close.
“You’re not bad for me.” Making up his mind for him, she folded her arms around his neck. “You’re not bad for me.”
When she kissed him, he resisted for a second. Just a micro-second. Then he groaned and tilted his chin to fit their mouths more firmly together.
Paige cradled his face in both hands as he cupped her waist. Lifting her off her feet, he swept her around until her back met the wall. Snuggled between him and another solid surface, she climbed him, hooking one leg around his waist.
He opened his mouth against hers and kissed her desperately.
Heat and energy and a crackling electricity curled through her. “I don’t want to be away from you right now. Especially at night. You’re the only one that brings me peace. Please. Come back to my room with me.” She panted between long liquid kisses. “And stay.”
“Yes,” he said, and he kissed her again. “Yes.” And again. “Yes.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
PAIGE WAS KIND OF GLAD it was so cold out; it gave her plenty of reason to snuggle as close to Logan as humanly possible on their long walk to Grammar Hall, a walk that suddenly didn’t seem long enough because it was filled with stolen kisses and straying hands. It felt as if she’d snagged a chunk of time and was able to keep it separate from everything happening around them. In this moment, they existed in their own little bubble. Just the two of them.
When her dormitory appeared at the end of the block, she let go of his hand and put a foot of space between them.
“We probably shouldn’t touch when we go inside. My friend, Einstein, hangs out in the entrance a lot and gets insanely jealous when he sees other guys around me.”
When Logan wrinkled his eyebrows and cocked her a strange look, she tried to explain. “I don’t want him to do anything to you. He’s scary smart on the computer. And one time, this guy simply smiled and said hi to me when he passed by the common’s room where Einstein and I were doing homework. They next day, I heard he’d had a bunch of problems because his transcript suddenly disappeared out of the system. He had to drive home and manually retrieve it from his high school and was lucky he didn’t need to repeat all the classes he’d taken last semester. I didn’t ask, but I had a bad feeling Einstein was behind that.”
With a frown, Logan shifted closer to her and grasped her hand, holding tight enough that she couldn’t let go. “That doesn’t sound good. Paige, if this kid is so obsessed with you—”
“He’s harmless,” she assured, leaning against him since he seemed to want to ignore her warning to keep his space. “Einstein is just—”
“He sounds disturbed. Like really—”
“He has his issues. I know that, okay? But he also needs a friend. He’ll never get better if no one befriends him.”
With a surrendering sigh, Logan wrapped his arm around her, sealing her to his side. He kissed her temple. “You have too good of a heart, do you know that?”
She smiled and snuggled close, then tipped up her face for a kiss, which he gladly obliged. But as they approached her building, she held her breath and her joints stiffened with anxiety.
Keeping an eye out for Einstein as she unlocked the door, she eased inside the foyer with Logan unwilling to let go of her hand.
Einstein didn’t appear.
Her shoulders fell with relief as she exhaled, but she just as quickly frowned. “Hmm. I wonder where he is.” Biting her lip, she glanced up at Logan. “Do you think he’s okay? With a killer on the loose—”
He shrugged. “I’m sure your little friend knows how to take care of himself and stay safe.”
“You think?”
“From what little I’ve seen of him, I think he knows exactly what to do to survive.”
Paige wanted to keep defending Einstein. She knew he had problems, but what person didn’t? Except Logan went and buried his nose into her hair, distracting her. He kissed her temple as they ascended the stairs.
“Though I have to admit,” he murmured, “the kid does have great taste. If I had to pick one girl on campus to become unhealthily obsessed with, I’d pick you too.” When Paige turned them down the hall toward her room at the top of the steps, Logan pressed his mouth to her jaw. “Actually, I think I’m already unhealthily obsessed with you.”
When she paused in front of her door, she looked up at him before digging her key from her purse. “Unhealthily?”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “Yeah. After last night, I know you need time and space to get over what happened, but I can’t keep my hands off you. I’m still just so amazed you’re letting me touch you, that you want me to touch you.”
With the reminder of what had happened less than twenty-four hours before, Paige shook as she tried to fit her key into the lock. “Wow. So much has happened today, that feels like ages ago.”
He covered her hand to help her unlock her door. “But it’s still only been a day.” He turned the handle and then preceded her into her room, turning on the light and glancing around before he fully let her in.
Grinning, she shut and locked them inside alone before grasping his arm and whirling him around to face her. When she looped his neck with her arms, he caught her waist and let her lean flush against him.
“Were you checking out the place for bad guys before you let me come in?”
His blue eyes glittered as he kissed the end of her nose. “Maybe.”
She let out a big, dramatic sigh. “My hero.”
Stepping up onto tiptoes, she pressed her breasts against his chest and fused their mouths together.
The man must be the best kisser on the planet. Strange, amazing things happened to her when his lips touched her. Then they opened and his tongue tangled with hers, and she moved into him enough to make him stumble backward. Using her momentum, she corralled him toward her bed until the backs of his legs bumped the edge. When he lost his balance and went down, she happily went with him, landing on his lap as soon as they hit the mattress. Smothering any possible protests with another soul-searing kiss, she plastered herself to him.
He was all in, kissing her back just as heartily until she let her hand wander between their bodies so she could explore him through his jeans. Then he rocketed backward, tearing his mouth from hers.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he panted. “We need to slow down. Jesus. We need to stop.”
“Why?”
“You’re not ready. It’s too soon. I—”
“I’m ready.” She assured him, caressing his face and kissing her way along his jaw.
He drew in a heavy breath, and his body tensed under hers, but when she slid her hand down his ribcage and toward his lap again, he caught her wrist. “No. You’re not. I Googled this today, and rape victims have to go through a bunch of steps before they can heal. There’s fear, shock, disbelief, denial, a complete breakdown of out-of-control emotions and anxiety along with depression. And then you can finally accept and move on. You—”
“Oh my God.” Clutching two handfuls of hair, Paige clenched her teeth and scowled at him. “You just won’t give up about this, will you?”
“No. I know you, Paige. You’re not over it. You’re just pushing it down, and that’s not healthy.”
“Okay, fine.” She blew out a disgusted breath. “Let’s see. What did you list? Fear? Check; I definitely experienced that already. Shock? Oh, yeah. I’ve had some of that too. Disbelief? Totally. Denial?”
When he arched his eyebrow, she rolled her eyes. “Oh, shut up. So, I’m pushing it down. Would it make you feel better if I had a total breakdown and freaked out on you right now?”
