Chapter Thirteen
Logan
“Do you need to go home first and then I’ll drive you over there?” I asked Maddie, getting back into responsible-uncle mode.
My safe space.
My comfort zone.
It’d been forced on me, but now it was my saving grace.
The reason I woke every morning. My world now revolved around Maddie. And with her gone, me living for myself for a few hours made me feel like a stallion who’d been unbridled and left to roam around the filly paddock for a few hours while the wranglers slept off a night of whiskey.
“Yeah. I know that’s extra driving and it’s late,” Maddie said and lowered her head.
I gently lifted her chin. “Don’t ever think about that. If I can’t do something for you, Mads, I’ll say so.”
“Are you having a good time with Delsey?” She glanced over her right shoulder.
“Sure. But we’re here for you. Did you have a good time?”
“I did.”
“Do you...like this Marco guy?”
She exhaled. “Yeah. But I think just as a friend. I didn’t get that heart-pounding thing.”
I folded my arms. “How do you know about the heart-pounding thing?”
She smiled. “I do read.”
“What? What books have—” I stopped myself, realizing I was completely ill-prepared to have this conversation when the dirty half of my brain was making my own heart pound. “Never mind. You’re eleven. There will be more Marcos.”
“I hope so,” she said and leaned back to stretch.
She was so damn steady on her feet. It tugged at the other ventricle of my heart. How do parents manage all these feelings? Wanting to bang mama’s brains out and then be expected to have a rational conversation with the kid?
“Okay, folks. We got one more song. This is for our kids. Who wants to line dance?” the band leader asked.
A roaring cheer erupted from the bleachers, followed by the stomping of little legs pounding on every level to get down to the dance floor. A stampede of five-foot preteen maniacs came running at me.
“You wanna stay for the line dancing, Mads?” I asked, pulling her out of the path of screaming kids.
“Can I?”
“Of course, honey. This is your night.” I leaned down and kissed her forehead.
Next, her skinny arms wrapped around my waist. “Thank you, Uncle Logan. I love you.”
I remembered the first time she’d said those words. She was five. I’d been telling her since the day she was born, but it had only clicked at age five. And she’d said it out of nowhere. It never failed to stop my heart. The pure unconditional love of a kid.
“I love you, too, Mads. No matter what, you’ll always be with me.” God, was I actually thinking about some kind of life with Delsey? “You’ll always come first. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said, seeming anxious. The music started and the lines had formed.
“Ready, Maddie?” A girl with long dark hair streamed by.
“I’ll see you after the song, Uncle Logan.” Maddie fled, holding the girl’s hand.
Stepping off the basketball court that had doubled for a dance floor, my radar went up to find Delsey. Parents had clustered around her at times. She’d said polite hellos and talked here and there. I didn’t want her harassed. Not when she was in town because of me, or at least partly because of me. Not when she was at this dance because of me.
Not seeing her, though sent a roar of sheer panic down my spine. Had she...left? To avoid the decision of whether or not to end up in my bed? That, I could see. And I was going to come out and ask her, wasn’t I? No more subtle comments or innuendos. I’d reached that point of madness in my body where I needed to know if she wanted me as much as I wanted her.
Holding her and dancing with her brought me back to that night senior year when I kissed her. How I’d imagined her beneath me. I’d lost my virginity two summers before that and had wanted sex all the time. I was seventeen. This was different, though. Sure, I’d been in one hell of a self-inflicted dry spell since the accident a year ago. While my body had missed the feel of a woman, I’d had other things to worry about. And so, I’d just been taking care of myself. Besides the awkwardness of getting involved with anyone in town, my financial situation made me ineligible for anything real with someone.
Delsey was an infuriating paradox. For one, she wasn’t just someone. Yet, she was the last person I should be involved with because of our king-size conflicts.
She was leaving. The more I told myself that, the more it made sense for us to get this damn thing out of our systems. But it crushed me, too. I was going to like her, wasn’t I? Hell, I already did, and that was before I let myself fantasize what it would feel like to slide into her lush body. She was going to bring me to a place, I’d never been, wasn’t she? That kiss senior year killed me. How I’d survived the years that followed was a miracle. From a kiss?
How would I survive the next stretch of years if I made love to her?
Delsey
I POINTED MY TOE AND made a tight semicircle in the grass. Right in the spot Logan had kissed me. Why that spot had held such a magical memory, considering he’d kissed me three times since then, I didn’t know.
Who was I kidding? I knew why. It was my first kiss.
Another one hadn’t come along until many years after. The velvety feel of Logan’s mouth on mine had gotten me through college and my first semester of grad school. I hated to admit, the dozen or so kisses that followed paled in comparison.
None were as good. And those lip-locks in the last five days? Off-the-chart-ville. But they had a different meaning. The kiss senior year spelled victory for me. Or so I’d thought. The end of the drama with Logan Grady. The end of the bullying. Or so I’d thought.
“There you are.” Logan’s voice cut through me.
I turned around slowly. “You’re kidding, right?”
“What?” He sauntered up to me, my coat in his hands because I’d meandered outside without it.
“You said those exact words to me, that night.”
He looked up and let go of a sharp exhale. He hadn’t realized he’d stumbled on the sacred kissing spot. “What you don’t realize,” he came up on me and draped my coat across my shoulders, but held the ends of my collar, drawing me closer to him, “after that kiss, most things emptied out of my head. I can’t tell you where I was before I came out here that night, or where I went after. If you told me I proposed to you during the kiss, I’d have to believe it because all I knew at that moment were your lips.”
“And my tongue.”
“Oh, yes.” He dipped his head toward me. “I want to feel mindless like that again, darlin’.”
“Have you since?”
“Like that? Hell no.”
And that was saying something since he’d bedded plenty of ladies. Yet a kiss had stuck in his mind.
“You didn’t propose.”
“What would you have said?”
I laughed and slapped his chest. “No, of course. I was eighteen and heading to college. I didn’t want a husband. I’m...not sure I want one now. Or I wouldn’t have let Truitt go so easily. Right? If I did, wouldn’t I have tried to work it out?”
“Cheating is a hard thing to get over. I’ve heard. If I’d been cheated on, I never knew.”
“Me, neither. Until then. It didn’t...destroy me like I thought it would.”
“There’s your answer. No, you shouldn’t have tried to work it out. Because he didn’t mean that much to you.”
“I guess. But still, I have... There’s stuff going on in Houston I have to deal with. I haven’t said anything because it doesn’t have to do with you.”
“That’s a fancy way of saying it’s none of my business.”
“It’s not.” I shrugged.
“Okay, but you also sound like you don’t think you’ll find love again.”
I couldn’t speak the words that crawled into my throat
. That somewhere I loved him. That I never loved Truitt because deep inside I always loved Logan. In some fantastical, unrealistic way.
“Where’s Maddie?” I asked him.
“They’re doing a line dance finale.” He checked his watch. “Should be over soon.”
“And she’s sleeping over at her friend’s house?”
“Yep.” Logan’s stare wrecked me. “I have to bring her home so she can pack a bag and then I’ll drive her over there.”
The logistics gave me an out. My SUV was at Logan’s. When he left to take Maddie to the friend’s house, I could leave.
“Can I suggest something?” he said, still holding me.
“Shoot.” I’d love to hear a suggestion, put the blame on someone else for the big mistake we were about to make.
“Coast is clear for you and me to spend the night. Find out after all this time what it’s like to touch each other in dirty places. Go crazy. Get out of control. House will be empty. It could be a wild night. You can scream my name and I can grunt real loud when I come inside you.” His words made my center throb and clench. “Those other kisses all had roadblocks ahead. No more. How about I kiss you knowing we can take it further?”
That’s Texas for ya. Go big or go home.
Have the wildest, dirtiest night of my life.
Or go home.
Alone.
“Kiss me, cowboy.” I pulled his mouth down to meet mine giving him my answer.
Logan
WHAT IN FUCK’S SAKE was in Delsey’s mouth? Why did she taste so sweet? Why were her lips so soft? And wet? Why did her tongue rubbing against mine feel like satin?
She moaned in my mouth, and I groaned right back. I needed that kiss. I needed to get it all out of my system. Explore the promise of where this could go. Where that mouth of hers could be next. Man, she’d take me in her mouth, wouldn’t she? Slow and deep like the hip city girl I hoped she’d turned into. I planned to taste her but good. Make her come and then flip her over and take what I needed.
Except, the kiss, right here, right now grounded me. There wasn’t any other place I’d rather be. I liked a good kiss, but kisses were the necessary fun to getting my ultimate prize. Yet, kissing Delsey felt supremely satisfying. My erection, long and hard down my right leg, pressed against her, throbbing like it had its own heartbeat.
Dry humping got a bad rap.
The kissing kept going, our tongues tangling, as more and more fire shot through my veins. I lowered my hip to grind my erection against her sweet spot. She moaned again and lifted a leg to give me better access. Holy shit. I would pay for this painful hard-on later for sure if she turned me down. Every second was a gift because I knew I had to stop. But my feet felt like they’d been in a bucket of hardened cement. I couldn’t goddamn move.
“I want to touch you,” I whispered in her mouth. “Are you wet, darlin’?”
“That will give me away.” Her voice sounded strained.
Delsey stepped back and leaned on one of the scoreboard poles and parted the bottom of her wrap dress. All I saw were creamy thighs.
No stockings. All skin.
Mine.
“If you’re wet, you come home with me and I’ll make good on my promise.”
“Challenge accepted, darlin’,” she said, mocking my southern charm. She rubbed her hot little hand against the hard-on beneath my dress slacks, surprising the hell out of me.
“That’s the best way, right?” I tried to stay focused. “That we both want this so much?”
“Touch me,” she said, softly whining as her warm lips glided down my neck.
My right hand slid down her shoulder and I squeezed her breast along the way. Firm. Fit right into my hand. Damn. I liked that. “I figure if you invited me to third base, I can stop at second.”
“You seem like a base-stealing kind of guy,” she said, continuing to stroke me.
“I like taking what I want. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. So long as there’s consent.”
“Touch me,” she said again and then I realized I’d been stalling.
Afraid. Afraid of how good she’d feel. Afraid of how wet I made her and what was waiting for me. All I had to do was take it.
It turned frantic suddenly. My control gone. “Lift your leg higher,” I growled, the hungry predator emerging. I found her heat under lace. Thin. Tiny. A thong. Of course she wore a thong. I slipped my finger in from the side and my cock jerked when I felt smooth skin.
Damn city girls with the waxing.
Devil women tempting men to sin.
She whined from the back of her throat as my finger got lower. Still smooth skin. Heat and silk. Then I got there. The top fold. My finger sunk right in and I felt her bulbous hard clit throbbing.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
“Oh my god, I can come just like this,” she said, her head in my chest and curling her hips forward and back for more friction.
“Let me do all the work. I’ll make you come if that’s what you want.”
“I want to come so bad, Logan. You... I want to come for you.”
The trail deeper was warmer and wetter. God, so damn wet. The damn slit was tiny and tight. Man, I’d have to push my way in with my cock. Even being as wet as she was, she was still tight. I couldn’t wait to hear her scream my name when I finally got to sink my cock into her velvet heat, making her feel so damn good, and me right along with her.
With one finger deep inside her silken heat and my thumb on the nub, Delsey lost it.
“It’s just me. It’s okay. Let it go, I want to hear you.”
She looked up at me with those damn dark green eyes and then her lips were on mine again. Kissing me. Devouring me. Owning me.
With her right leg lifted high and wrapped around my waist, my sweet shy girl was riding my hand. She got wetter, but she wasn’t coming. She was enjoying herself and that’s all I wanted for her. I slowed down, giving her a chance to build it up again.
“I can take you so good,” I whispered. “This is just my hand. And we have all night.”
“I can make you feel good, too,” she growled back, possessive. Damn. I really liked that. “Let me. Please?”
“Oh darlin’, you don’t have to beg me. I’m yours tonight. Take me. Use me.”
Her sudden cry of pleasure sounded a little too loud for a kids-night-out so I kissed her. She got so silky and wet as her clit throbbed in my fingers. She’d have trouble walking after this.
She was only going one place.
To my truck.
And then to my bed.
Chapter Fourteen
Delsey
I hadn’t wanted Logan to make me come with his fingers the night he kissed me in high school. I was a virgin and a good girl. Good southern girls didn’t put out after a kiss. So I’d been told. Logan stroking me to a fever outside the gym fourteen years later was so deliciously bad, I’d gladly wear a scarlet letter across my forehead for the rest of my life.
After, we stared at each other and my imagination went wild with all the words he wasn’t saying to me. But when kids began pouring out of the school, Logan snapped back into uncle mode and the transformation was so adorable.
We collected Maddie and got in his truck.
The lights of Wild Heart after dark flashed across my face, stinging my sight as Logan flew home. Maddie chatted away in the back. Sounding more excited about the sleepover than her first date.
Sorry, Marco.
Shaking away the memory of Logan’s hands in my panties, I twisted around and asked Maddie, “How did the leg feel?”
“I felt comfortable. Marco is cool about my leg. He didn’t mind when I wobbled. He’s such a nice guy.”
The death rattle for a man’s ego.
Logan’s throaty chuckle laced with relief meant he may have had the same thought. Next, the truck lumbered up his driveway and there it stood. His house. My house. The place where we were going to have sex.
Me and Logan Grady.
If a
psychic had suggested that to me on a Ouija board, I’d have asked for my money back. There was time to back out. Was I ready to take that step with him? Knowing the bait-and-tackle-store-sized can of worms it would open up between us.
I’d been checking my phone on and off to see if my accountant had put together that cheap loan offer. Before I climbed on my plane to go back to Houston, I was determined to have Logan’s signature on a purchase contract for the house.
Now, I just wanted his hands on me again.
“So, Delsey, thanks for coming with us tonight,” Logan said to me in a strange voice.
Holy crap. He didn’t want Maddie to know I was staying the night.
His cold, awkward, detached tone made me feel like I’d been doused with ice water. Perhaps it was for the best because I didn’t want to confuse Maddie.
“Yeah, I had such a fun time. Thank you for letting me come, guys.”
Maddie scoffed a laugh. “I have a feeling Uncle Logan wouldn’t have come if you didn’t.”
I rolled my eyes at the irony of the word come used in those two contexts, thankful neither Logan nor Maddie could see me. Jeez, how did people manage an electric sexual storm and then smile innocently at a kid? I had a little more respect for those parents earlier steamrolling everything in their path to dance.
“That’s not true.” Logan waggled a finger at Maddie. “Kid, I’m all yours. At your disposal.”
Did Maddie know how men and women made love? I didn’t have kids, what did I know?
Stop. Stop. Stop. I shouldn’t be putting those two thoughts together.
Making Maddie consider her sweet uncle rolling naked in the sheets with a woman she felt was her hero could make the little girl mad. Like, if something bad happened with Logan, I wouldn’t want to be her friend anymore. Or help her with her leg. Kids thought in those stark unnuanced terms.
A three-way staring contest blossomed between us. Then Logan shook his head and got out of the truck, quickly opening the door for Maddie to help her out.
She hobble-skipped to the house, her glittery tights sparkling off the porch’s lamp lights. “I’ll pack my stuff,” she hooted, opened the front door, and disappeared inside.
The Cowboy's Rebel Heart: An Enemies to Lovers Second Chance Romance (Wild Texas Hearts Book 4) Page 13
