Giving It All

by Christi Barth

  “Obviously.”

  His hand shifted to skim up and down her stomach in a lazy pattern. “Lots of our trips are to Central and South America. It just made sense to buckle down and improve on the solid foundation you gave me. I thought about learning French, too. But I knew it’d be impossible without you tutoring me.”

  “That’s sweet.” Almost as sweet as lying here in the sticky darkness, sharing memories.

  “I’m only half joking. You know you’re the only thing that got me through three years of Spanish class. I should’ve thanked you more. Especially since it was probably torture thumping it into my hard head.”

  Getting him to understand verb tenses definitely had been frustrating. Painful for both of them. But Brooke had never once thought of quitting on him. No matter the reason why they were huddled together, she’d grabbed at every opportunity to do so. “Spending time with you was never torture, Logan.”

  He dropped a kiss on the top of her shoulder. “Ditto.” Then he kept going, raining kisses down the outside of her arm. Lifting it to kiss his way back up the inside of it.

  “This is all making me realize how much I’ve missed you.”

  “Missed this?” He nibbled along the curve of her breast. “Or this?” His mouth latched over her nipple, sucking it instantly into a taut peak. Brooke fisted her hand into his hair, but it was too late to keep him there. Logan surged up to bury his face in the crook of her neck. “Because I’d damn sure remember if we’d done anything like this back in the day.” He finished off by giving her a very loud, very wet raspberry that had her squirming and swatting at him.

  “Very funny. I just mean being with you.”

  “Yeah. It’s comfortable.”

  Brooke couldn’t help it. She stiffened. Sort of froze. Because nothing was less sexy than comfortable. Slippers were comfortable. Jimmy Choo slingbacks were sexy. Flannel jammies were comfortable. And nobody ever got all dressed up in soft plaid pants to kick off a seduction. The only thing worse than comfortable that he could’ve called her was convenient.

  The room got super quiet for a minute. Quiet enough for her to realize that the wind had diminished from a howl to an almost puny little whine.

  Logan’s cheek, with its nearly dawn o’clock shadow, scratched up from her neck to lie right next to her ear. His warm breath puffed at her lobe. “Crap. I said the wrong thing, didn’t I?”

  “It’s no big deal.” No way would she end this magical night by acting like an entitled, pouty girlfriend, of all things. Nope. She’d roll with it. And be grateful for what she’d gotten out of it…until she allowed herself to mope a little over a glass of Riesling with Katrina next week.

  “No, it is.” Logan’s whole body curled around hers in a frontward spoon. It felt glorious. “Christ, I’m sorry, Brooke. I know better, I swear, than to say that to a woman. Guess I’ve been away from civilization for too long. I told you I wasn’t fit to be around people yet.”

  “Really, it’s fine.”

  His hold tightened, every inch of muscle and sinew touching her. “I meant it as a compliment. A big one.”

  The apology was enough. No need to go off the deep end with a fib. That just cheapened it. “Logan, you don’t have to make an excuse. You don’t owe me anything.”

  He levered up on one elbow to hover his face right above hers. Enough hours—and clouds—had passed that the first reverse shadow of dawn lent a hint of light through the slatted shutters. All Brooke could see were the sharp planes of his face. But she felt the intensity of his stare down to her core.

  “Let me explain. I told you that I usually go off on my own after leaving a disaster site. To sort of slough off all the grief and despair that I’ve wallowed in for every damn day of a mission. But it’s also because I’m not comfortable in my own skin. Not comfortable being treated like a hero while I’m there. Not comfortable living my privileged life back home when I know I could’ve done more good if I’d stayed longer, or had immediately gone to another disaster site. Nothing feels right for a while.”

  It sounded painful. Like jamming himself back into a skin that no longer fit. The depth of anguish in his deep voice flayed at her heartstrings. What she wouldn’t give to be able to ease his pain. “You lead two vastly different lives. Contradictory, almost. It must be difficult to go back and forth between them.”

  “It is. Harder every single time, actually. But the surprise of the day is that I feel comfortable with you. Comfortable in a way I haven’t felt in months.” His big, warm hand ran up and down her arm, as if checking to be sure she was really still there. “Like I can say anything. Be myself. Not a hero. Not a savior. Not any label I live with back in D.C., with the expectations of my family, my friends. I can just be me. With you. It’s awesome.”

  He’d turned a perceived insult into one of the best compliments she’d ever received. Romance didn’t always come swathed in chocolates or roses. Moments like this were romance in its most pure distillation.

  “Thank you, Logan.” Brooke pressed a kiss to his lips. One without any heat behind it. Just gratitude and tenderness.

  Easing off her, Logan crossed his arms behind his neck and flopped flat. “I figure—since I’ve come this far—I should cop to the rest.”

  It was impossible to know where he was headed. But she was game for anything. “Okay. Go on.”

  “It was always great with you. So great that I had a major crush on you all through high school. Which was weird because we were friends. But I could never friend-zone you, even though we were dating other people.”

  No way. No. Way. His admission rolled her world inside out. Gosh, he’d better not be teasing. Brooke pushed at his ribs hard enough to roll him sideways. “Are you serious?”

  “Uh, yeah. This isn’t my usual M.O. I don’t go around baring my soul after every orgasm.”

  She snatched her hand back. “Of course not. It’s just that…well…I had a crush on you, too. A huge one. But you were always involved with someone else. Or if you weren’t, I was. And you never made a move.”

  “Because I don’t believe in cheating.”

  “Right. Me, neither.” Still, if he’d given her the slightest hint of interest, she would’ve dropped whatever boyfriend was on the roster faster than a kick twist basket toss to make room for him. “But I always, always wanted you, Logan.”

  “Same here.”

  The silence—the comfortable silence—hung between them for a few minutes. Brooke didn’t know what was going through Logan’s brain. But she was imagining what it would’ve been like to go to prom with him. Did it matter after all these years? Of course not. It was impossible to turn off the what-ifs, though.

  Equally impossible not to blurt out, “Think of all the fun we could’ve had back in high school if only we’d known.”

  In a sensual growl, Logan said, “We wouldn’t have had this much fun, Escarlata.” Then he slid a hand between her legs to prove his point.

  She’d thought another round of sex would be impossible. That her nerve endings had thrown in the towel for the night out of sheer, blissful exhaustion. Something about Logan’s touch, though, perked everything right back up, faster than giving flowers a fresh cut and changing their water.

  “So you think Fate was waiting for us to reach our sexual potential before throwing us together for an optimal coupling?”

  “Sure. That’s better than being pissed at all the time we didn’t have together, right? And it was good for me to have a female friend. I learned from you. Stuff that I passed on to all the other guys. Secret stuff that gave us a leg up on understanding the complex mystery that is a woman.”

  By the way he circled his fingers along her crease, Logan no longer needed any help deciphering how to make a woman happy. “You mean like when I told you not to ask a girl if she was on her period if she got cranky for no reason?”

  “Yeah. That saved us from a whole bunch of misery. You could write a book. How to Speak Female. Teach guys how not to be idiots. It
’d be a public service.”

  “I already have a job. A brand-new one, remember?” Or at least the offer of one. Hopefully the paperwork would be waiting for her when she returned home. Brooke’s principal had refused to let her quit her old job until she had a new contract in hand. Loyalty, though, made her want to give Roosevelt Prep plenty of time to search for her replacement. She felt a twinge of betrayal every day that she didn’t offer her resignation. Not that a single person in the faculty or staff would fault her for leaving at the drop of a hat.

  “That’s right. North Carolina.” In the lessening darkness, Brooke could see Logan take his hand from between her legs to high-five her. She was not happy about either motion, but she dutifully slapped palms. You never left a guy hanging. “The real South, not our watered-down D.C. version. Are you excited?”

  “Not really.” Brooke hadn’t been excited, or even happy, about anything for months. Until today. She’d grieved, and then she’d wallowed, and gotten stuck doing so, no matter how much she wanted to move on. This day and night with Logan felt a lot like Sleeping Beauty finally coming out of her epic doze. One kiss from him and everything that had been dormant in her awakened.

  “Huh?” The sheets rustled as he propped himself on an elbow to stare down at her. “Why would you move away from all your friends, everything you know, if you’re not excited?”

  Geez. Way to undo all that perfectly great distraction. Brooke didn’t want it to be a big deal, though. Not like her stupid meltdown at dinner. So she strove for a breezy, it simply isn’t worth our time tone. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “No fair. I distracted you. Now it’s time for my payment.”

  “Not to brag, but I’m certain you got just as much out of our multiple distractions as I did.”

  After a quick nip to her earlobe, he said, “I did most of the work.”

  “Logan. Come on.” Brooke drilled a finger into his chest. “Besides, I provided most of the condoms.”

  There was heavy silence—not at all comfortable this time—for a long moment. Then he curved a hand along her cheek. “Look, I’m not an idiot. Although, even an idiot would be able to tell something’s wrong when you leave a table in tears. Big-time wrong. Need-to-get-it-off-your-chest wrong.”

  “Maybe,” she offered grudgingly.

  “I’m the safest person in the world to spill to, remember? We’re not going to see each other again once the storm breaks.”

  The thought of not seeing him again brought back the all-too-familiar sadness that weighed her down most days. “I came here to get away from thinking about my problem, let alone talking about it.”

  Laughter burst from his lips. “I’d say your overly dramatic exit is a good barometer of how crappy that plan’s going. Let me at least try to fix it. I’m pretty good at fixing things. You’d have to go three islands over to talk to my nearest reference, but they’d say I’m the man for the job.”

  Pointing at the balcony doors streaked with rain, Brooke said, “You can claim anything. Obviously I’m not trekking out in a hurricane to find out if you live up to your own hype.”

  “How about this, then? I’ll kick things off by admitting something to you.”

  “You drive a hard bargain. I’m intrigued.” Because Brooke wanted to know everything about him she could possibly soak up in the few hours they had left together. “But this has to be a real confidence. Not just something like how you’ve secretly rooted for the Phillies your whole life.”

  Fingers dug into her ribs—specifically, every ticklish spot on her ribs. “Bite your tongue, woman!”

  “Sorry, sorry!” she gasped out in between giggles. “That was hitting below the belt, I admit.”

  “You can go below my belt anytime you want. Just don’t mess with my baseball team’s mojo.” Logan fell back onto the sloppy mound of pillows. “Here’s my thing. I know I should be furious at my father. He’s been lying to me for my entire life. That should be all-consuming.”

  Brooke knew enough about therapy, about letting it all out, to know not to muddy the waters with her own opinion. “There are no rules about how to react to an emotional atom bomb like this. It’s okay if you’re mad at your dad.”

  “I haven’t even gotten there yet. That’s my point. What’s burning up my brain is how fucking pissed I am at Knox. I just want to beat that smirk off his stupid face. But it’s weird. Being mad at my best friend for something he did to a total stranger. I’ve never been mad at one of the guys before.”

  “Never, ever?”

  “Are you kidding? The five of us live together in one house. Sure, it’s a freaking rectory, big enough that we could each have an entire floor to ourselves, but yeah, we get pissy. Bicker over stupid small stuff all the time. A real knock-down, drag-out fight, though? No. Not since the Alps.”

  Brooke knew better than to ask any more about that. When Logan had rescued his friends, there’d been an enormous amount of international press. Every morning show and talk show in America had tried to get them on-air. Reporters hung around their high school for weeks, trying to get reaction and commentary from so-called friends of the Americani Calcio Soprassati—the ACSs as the press had branded them.

  They did exactly one interview. And never spoke of it again. Not to anyone outside the five of them. Not to anyone else on their soccer team, or in their Spanish class, or anything. They shut down anyone who asked. It was a life-changing experience for them that they held so closely, nobody really knew the whole story. The rest of the school had learned pretty quickly that you accepted those terms, or they wouldn’t hang out with you. And their true friends supported that choice.

  Didn’t mean she wasn’t insanely curious to hear the whole story, though.

  Brooke squeezed his hand, currently fisted at his side. “Maybe you don’t start with the beating up. If you’re willing to give your dad the benefit of the doubt, to hear his side of it, shouldn’t you do the same for Knox?”

  “He screwed my baby sister. Knowing Knox, he screwed her in ways that are probably illegal in several states. While we sit here, grounded by this fucking hurricane, he could be breaking her heart right now. I missed out on protecting her for years—but I’ll damn well start now.”

  Awww. His insta-loyalty to this woman he’d never met gave her warm fuzzies. “Did I mention that Madison’s going to love you to pieces?”

  “Cut it out.”

  “Logan, be mad or not at whomever you want. Just don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. That the most important part of this whole revelation is Madison. That she’s in your life now. Take that gift, and let the rest sort itself out.”

  Logan moved over her, capturing her lips in a kiss so sweet, so tender that it stunned her. “You’re pretty smart. And you don’t make me feel dumb as you help me catch up to the obvious. Thanks.”

  “My pleasure. Or at least, it will be if you keep going.” Brooke tightened her arms around his back. Twined her legs around his, too. “The night’s not over yet.” That was a bit of a stretch, with dawn beating back the shadows more every second. She’d use the technicality, though, if it got her more kisses.

  “You think I’m really that easy, Gallagher? I know it’s your turn. To spill. Secrets before sex.”

  “I literally can’t believe those words came out of your mouth.”

  “Me, neither. Don’t tell anyone.”

  The sharp buzz of his phone made Brooke jump. Then Logan lunged for it across her body as it almost vibrated right off the nightstand. “Holy shit.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  He scrolled through the text. “There’s exactly one flight cleared to leave in two hours. Probably. Wind’s died down, and now the storm’s just rain. The plane’s only going to Puerto Rico, but it should be a hell of a lot easier to find a direct flight to the States from there. They’re holding a seat for me. If I leave right now, I might just make it.”

  There was only one thing to say. No matter how hard, no matter how painful
. “Go.”

  Shaking his head, he said, “I can’t just leave you—”

  He’d given her an amazing gift over the last eighteen hours. He’d reintroduced her to happiness, to feeling. It had to be enough. “Logan, you’ve come how many thousand miles already to get home as fast as you can? Don’t slow down now.”

  “It doesn’t feel right.” Logan knelt across her legs, drawing her up into his arms and in a tight embrace. “This…tonight…it was something special, seeing you again, Brooke.”

  “It was perfect.” She took a second to memorize the feel of his skin beneath her hands, the scent of his neck, the adorable shagginess of his hair, and the wide, beautiful mouth that had brought her such pleasure. Then Brooke gave him a gentle push away. “Now go meet your sister.”

  Chapter 6

  Logan shifted from foot to foot on the scarred linoleum. No matter where he landed in the world, going through customs sucked. There was always a line, always a fuck-ton of stupid people, and he always would come close to wishing he was anywhere else, including stuck in quicksand (been there, done that, and escaped before he’d sunk any deeper than his crotch). At least he got a good story out of quicksand to impress chicks. Nobody wanted to sit through his airport bitching.

  Dulles International had air-conditioning. That made it better than at least half the airports he’d visited. But being so close to his destination and yet stopped from getting there was fucking torture. Especially after the two extra countries he’d hit in his leapfrogging flights since leaving Dominica, trying to evade the remnants of Hurricane Danielle.

  He shuffled half a step forward with the rest of the line. Great. At this rate he might get lucky enough to meet his sister before she had grandchildren. Shit. Did Madison already have kids? Just because she was letting Knox poke at her didn’t automatically mean she was rug-rat free.

  Huh. It’d be cool to be an uncle. To take the kids to the ballpark. Teach ’em how to sled down Capitol Hill. Maybe hit one of those giant corn maze things at Halloween up near Frederick. Then he’d have an excuse to eat a candy apple without feeling like a douche.