by Ella Frank
“Did you now?”
“Yep. Last week. I was halfway through a pack, looked at it, and decided I wasn’t going to do it anymore.”
“Just like that?”
Tate nodded. “Yep. Just like that.”
“No cravings?”
Tate’s mouth quirked at the side as he ran his gaze down over him. “Not for a cigarette.”
“Swapping one addiction for another?”
“Maybe. Are you complaining?”
Logan gave a wolfish grin. “Definitely not.”
“Didn’t think so. Plus, I don’t know…I just have a lot of energy today.”
“Have you always been like that? Full of energy?”
“Pretty much. As a kid, I never sat still. My mom always—”
Tate stopped talking and frowned, then he turned away. He started walking down to the edge of the water, and Logan stood to follow. Stopping behind him, he reached out to offer a comforting hand, hesitated for just a second, and then gripped each of Tate’s biceps.
He felt him tense. Then he leaned back into him, and Logan wrapped an arm around his chest.
“You okay?” he asked as he rested his chin on Tate’s shoulder.
Tate angled his head to the side so their hair was touching and then reached up to hold his hand where it rested on his chest.
“Yeah. I just…” Tate paused as if he were trying to think of the words to say. “I just can’t believe she could be this cruel. To talk about you—”
“Me?” Logan asked. “No, Tate. Don’t you even think about me. This is about you. What she did to you was...I couldn’t even imagine how you felt then or are feeling right now.”
“I feel confused.”
That wasn’t the word Logan had expected to hear.
“I’m confused because the woman I grew up with, my mother, taught me to love everyone.” Tate stopped and turned to face him.
Logan could see the pain in his eyes. He would have done anything to take that from him, but there wasn’t anything he could do except listen.
“I guess she meant everyone like her.”
Logan took Tate’s face in his hands and leaned in so their noses touched. “I’m sorry they hurt you. That they don’t understand.”
“She didn’t even try to understand.”
Logan stroked a hand over his hair. “Many won’t.”
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t?”
Tate shook his head and kissed him lightly. “No. I’m done pretending I don’t understand what’s going on here. It’s crazy and intense, but Logan, it’s real. Every time I’m near you, I feel alive.” He closed his eyes and whispered, “What they did and what they said...that’s their choice, and you are mine.”
25.
By the end of the week, Tate knew they needed to go home. Logan’s phone had been buzzing for the last two days, and his still held the heavy weight of silence. They both had to return and face reality, no matter how unwelcome it might be.
As Logan zipped his bag, Tate could feel his eyes on him from across the bed they’d shared for the last half of the week.
He was no longer a guest in this house.
In fact, Logan had welcomed him in every room.
“You ready?”
Tate acted as though he had to think about it. “Well, I don’t know. I had so much to pack.”
Logan picked his bag up and threw it at him across the bed. With an oomph, he caught it and slung it over his shoulder.
“Are you ready?”
Logan came around the end of the huge king-sized frame and kissed him. “Never more so.”
“Okay then. Let’s go home.”
* * *
Ten minutes on the road and Logan knew that something was on Tate’s mind. Their time away had been incredible. The more he’d let down his walls, the more connected he’d felt with Tate. But as they sat there heading back to the reality that awaited them, his guy was deep in thought.
“Want to talk about it?”
He looked over to see Tate give a half smile.
“About what?”
“Whatever’s on your mind.”
Tate reached across the console and placed a hand on his thigh. Logan covered it and tightened his fingers.
“What is it?”
“I’ve been wondering about something.”
Tate looked so serious Logan swore his heart actually skipped.
“Okay. Then ask.” He concentrated on driving, and when Tate said nothing, he quickly glanced back at him. “Ask, Tate. You’re making me nervous as fuck.”
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to know. Whatever happened to Chris? Did you see him again?”
That, he hadn’t expected. After the night he’d told Tate what happened between him and Chris, they hadn’t spoken of him again.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I never saw him again. I called for the ambulance that night, and as I walked out the door, he told me he wished he’d never run into me again, and that hit harder than any punch he could have landed. Because it really did mean that everything he’d said to me over the last two years was a fucking lie. He didn’t press charges. I figured he wouldn’t. Otherwise, he’d have to explain who I was. And there were too many questions there that he didn’t want to answer. I did check the hospital the next day to make sure he was okay. They’d released him.”
“God,” Tate whispered.
Logan concentrated on the road and managed, “Yeah.”
There was a short silence before Tate said, “Hey?”
Logan looked at his passenger to see he was turned toward him.
“One more thing.”
What else is left to say?
“What’s that?”
“Do you still need a date to your work function?”
Logan was sure he’d misheard. “What did you say?”
“Your work function. Is the offer still—”
“Yes,” Logan answered before he’d even finished.
Tate chuckled and settled back into the leather seat. “Okay then. Would you please focus on the road? I have this sudden need to see you in a tuxedo.”
Logan’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel, and before he let slip the ridiculous grin he wanted to, he pulled it together and told Tate, “I have the sudden urge to peel you out of one.”
“That can definitely be arranged—as long as you promise not to rip it. I only have the one.”
Logan switched lanes and imagined Tate in a tux.
Jesus, I really want to see that.
“A challenge. I do love a good challenge.”
“Yes, I know,” Tate answered. “I found out the hard way.”
Logan laughed at that. “There is so much that could be said right now, but yes, Tate, you were my hardest challenge yet.”
Tate reached across the car and took his hand, bringing his palm over to the zipper of his jeans, proving just how hard he was. “Apparently, I still am.”
Logan could see Tate out of the corner of his eye as he took their exit. He was looking at him and applying a real nice squeeze. Shit.
“What the hell are you trying to do to me?”
Tate shifted closer when they pulled up to a red light and told him, “I’m challenging you. My place is closer. Get us there in one piece and I’ll take you upstairs and do all kinds of things to you with my mouth.”
“Fuck, Tate.”
Logan turned his head and took Tate’s lips in a bruising kiss. He curled his fingers around Tate’s growing erection, and it wasn’t until a horn blasted behind them that he pulled his mouth away. He put his foot on the accelerator and took off down the road.
“Be ready. And remember, you started this.”
Logan felt Tate push against his palm.
“I know. And I plan to finish it—and you—as soon as you get us home.”
Logan was done chatting.
Somewhere between New Buffalo and downtown Chicago, Tate had managed to not
only make him achingly hard, he now had Logan shaking he wanted him so badly.
Sitting beside Tate was torture. Add in Tate grinding against his hand and hell yes, Tate was about to see a less-than-civilized lawyer in around ten minutes.
He turned his car down all the correct streets as if he were on autopilot until he finally made a right onto Tate’s. He drove into the parking garage and Tate told him in a voice full of gravel where his parking space was. Since his bike was currently parked over at his house, Logan could use that for the moment.
He slowed the vehicle down to a crawl and then turned the ignition off. He looked over to where Tate had his head resting against the seat with his eyes focused on him.
Goddamn it. The man is insanely gorgeous.
His messy hair was all over the place, but it somehow suited him. One of his curls was brushing against his cheek in the exact spot Logan wanted to kiss. He had a cocky smile on his face, and Logan knew his heart was sunk.
“Tate?” he rasped across the car.
Tate’s eyes locked on his, full of desire.
“Hmm?”
Logan quickly unbuckled his seatbelt and waited for a minute. The silence that stretched between them hummed with the sexual tension inside the car. Or maybe that was the blood rushing from his head to his cock. Then he heard a sigh from Tate, and that was all it took.
Logan lunged across the center console. Taking ahold of Tate’s shirt, he yanked him close and sealed their lips. Christ, it had only been a little over forty minutes, but he hadn’t tasted Tate since this afternoon and he was hungry.
Tate’s lips parted instantly for him, and Logan wasted no time pushing his tongue inside. He groaned deep in his throat, and Logan’s cock pounded in time with his heart as Tate’s hand left his lap and speared through his hair. The erotic sounds inside the car were just a prelude to the act Logan knew would come.
Then Tate pulled away and whispered, “Upstairs. Now.”
* * *
An aroused Logan plus an elevator equaled one hell of a ride. As Tate stood with his back against the wall and Logan against his front, he wondered if they would make it to his apartment.
The second the doors had shut, Logan pinned him to the wall and moved a leg between his own. Tate grabbed his ass and pulled him forward, rubbing his body against the hard one in front of him, and when Logan’s lips found his neck, Tate hissed out, “Yes.”
Logan sucked the tender skin there, and Tate jammed his hips forward.
Holy hell, I’m burning up.
“I think you really get off on me marking you.”
Tate couldn’t think to talk, so he ran his fingers through Logan’s hair and brought his mouth back to his own.
When the elevator dinged, they didn’t bother stopping. Hell, at this stage, it was a miracle they weren’t undressed. But when a shocked gasp penetrated Tate’s sex-hazed mind, he pulled his mouth away and looked beyond Logan to the person standing in his hallway.
As his eyes collided with wide green ones, not one word came to mind.
But when Logan turned around and saw Diana, he managed to locate one quite easily.
“Motherfucker.”
* * *
Well, Logan had to give the bitch credit. She was the first woman who’d made him thankful that he liked cock.
“Oh my God,” she finally spoke.
Tate stepped around him and raised his arm on the elevator doors, which were shutting. “What are you doing here?” he demanded as Logan moved up behind him.
Diana pulled the strap of her purse up her arm, and Logan noticed a large manila envelope in her hand.
Ahh, divorce papers. Hand-delivered, no less. Maybe she’d been hoping to change Tate’s mind—too late for that.
“Get out of my way, Tate. I came to talk to you. Not to see you and him making out in the elevator.”
Tate stepped into the hall and backed Diana up. “You are at my place,” Tate reminded her in a voice Logan knew well.
They’d had enough arguments that he knew Tate’s warning signs, and this was the calm before the storm. He was also aware that this woman knew Tate just as well, and he fucking hated that.
“And now I wish I were anywhere else.”
“So do I,” Logan muttered, which had Tate looking at him over his shoulder. “What? It’s the fucking truth. She has been nothing but a nightmare ever since I met her. Which was before I met you, I might add.”
He saw Diana peer around Tate’s shoulder and try and glare him to death.
“Is that look supposed to hurt my feelings?” Logan asked.
“Fuck off,” she spat out, and that had Tate turning back to face her.
“Don’t you talk to him like that. He’s welcome here. You are not.”
The satisfaction Logan got from Tate’s words was short-lived as Diana reached out and placed her hand on his arm.
“I just wanted to talk to you,” she said, trying to appeal to Tate’s gentler side, but Logan was fairly certain that side had left the fucking building.
He noticed her eyes kept shifting over Tate’s shoulder, monitoring where he was, and as she started to run that hand up Tate’s arm, Logan decided that it was best to stand still. Otherwise, he might just get close enough to rip her hand off.
“It’s too late to talk, Diana. You gave up that right the second you went to my parents about this.”
“That was when?” she asked incredulously. “Oh come on. Don’t act like he didn’t brainwash you before that.”
Tate put his hand over the one she still had on his arm and brushed it off as if it were an annoyance. “He is Logan. And he didn’t do anything to me that I didn’t want him to.”
Diana’s face had taken on a pinched look, and she had her hands clenched by her sides.
“That’s not true,” she stated in a voice that was barely audible.
Logan watched as Tate took a step away, almost as if he too could feel a storm brewing.
Then Diana exploded. “It’s not true!”
Tate nodded and merely answered, “It is.”
Diana raised her arms, and just as she was about to land her small fists against Tate’s chest, he captured her wrists.
“Think about what you’re doing right now.”
“I hate you. How could you do this to me?”
“To you? What have I done to you? You’re with someone new, and so am I. You destroyed my family. You went and told my mother information she should’ve heard from me.”
Diana struggled and tried to pull free, her fury now grabbing a tight hold of her. “It wouldn’t have made a difference,” she sneered, looking past Tate to him. “The second she knew her precious boy was sucking cock, she would have kicked you out.”
Tate released her arms as if she’d burned him, and Logan bit his tongue hard. He knew now wasn’t the time to say what he really wanted, which was something along the lines of—
“I was about to suck it right now, but you interrupted me.”
Yes, that was it.
“You make me sick.”
“Why? Because I fell in love with a man? You make me sick. Because you’re spiteful, vindictive, and conniving, and you have been for a long time.”
Her mouth clamped shut and she started to shake her head. “Move, Tate. I want to leave.”
“Too bad. I’m not done. You wanted to see me, here’s your chance, because after this, I never want to see your face again.”
Diana’s head snapped up at that, and Logan saw a flash of pain filter in through all the ugly. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yes. I do. Week after week, you’ve insisted on going to my family’s house with the sole purpose of making me uncomfortable. You didn’t care that I didn’t want you there. You just cared about yourself as usual.”
“That’s not true—”
“It is true,” Tate thundered. “And I’m done. You were the one who went elsewhere, not me. But I’ve found someone who’s smart, sexy, and makes me incredibly ha
ppy.”
While trying to keep a watchful eye on the volatile woman in the hall, Logan was also keeping track of the irregular beat of his heart. Tate kept giving it shock after shock—in the best way imaginable.
“Well, I sure hope he makes you happy enough to fill in all the missing people in your life.”
That was when he finally lost his cool and stepped up beside Tate.
“You vicious little bitch.”
“Logan—” Tate tried, but he wasn’t listening.
“How can you be so callous? To someone you say you loved.”
Diana slapped the manila envelope in her hand against Tate’s chest and pushed past them both to march over to the elevator. She jabbed the down button with her perfectly manicured nail and stood there with her arms crossed, but Logan was far from done.
“His family won’t talk to him because of you. Because you didn’t give him the time or the courtesy to tell them on his own.”
That was when all of the poison and all of the hate oozed to the surface and Diana Cline turned on them both. She pinned him with a look that was so nasty it made his skin crawl.
“Oh, no, Mr. Mitchell. You have it all wrong. It’s not because of me that they won’t talk to him. It’s because of you.”
Logan’s jaw clenched as her words slipped behind his defenses to the part of him that knew she was right, but the other part of him, the part of him he’d honed to keep him safe and protected, would not let her leave without getting in the final blow.
He walked forward just as the elevator dinged and whispered, “And it’s also because of me that you will never have him again.”
Her expression flashed from cruel intent to pitiful regret as she stepped back into the elevator and turned her eyes to Tate.
“I mean it, Diana. Don’t come back here again.”
And before she could respond, the doors slid shut and she was gone.
* * *
Logan was quiet. Too quiet in Tate’s opinion.
After Diana left, they made their way down to his apartment and no words were exchanged. They got to his door and Tate unlocked it before pushing it open. He dropped the envelope on the side table, not caring about the contents right this second. He would deal with her in his own damn time. Right now, he wanted to deal with Logan.
