by Mae Martini
She found out his favorite food was fried anything and he hated sushi and fruity drinks. He found out her favorite food was pasta with anything on it and hated Indian food and beer.
He’d known his friend Richie since they were in kindergarten.
She mentioned her sister and parents briefly.
He told her about Geli and his older brother, Brett, who shares running the ranch with him.
His grandfather retired when he lost his wife of forty-eight years. He said his heart wasn’t in it anymore, so he gifted him and his siblings the whole thing, just taking out some equity to pay for a small home.
The riding stables were Logan’s sole responsibility and the cattle were his brother’s. Everything else ranching, they shared. They had reliable help and it afforded them some down time unlike some other ranchers who were nonstop workaholics.
She wondered if he was going to mention the other night to her. But so far he hadn’t. She wasn’t going to bring it up. Maybe she didn’t want to know.
He noticed she was a good listener but he was doing most of the talking.
“Why are you here?” he asked her.
She tipped her head to the side. “You invited me to dinner and I accepted.” She knew that wasn’t the answer he was looking for.
He studied her eyes and saw something akin to alarm in them. He calmly picked up his beer, tipped it to her, took a swig and changed the subject, for now.
“Geli said to stop by the VFW tonight. We belong to the M&B Club and they’re having a get-together there. Some music, dancing. You want to stop by? You’d get to meet some people from the community.”
“Okay. What’s the M&B club?”
“A hunt club. There are different chapters all over the world. Besides hunting they do some good work, humanitarian, conservation, that sort of stuff.”
He signaled the waitress and gave her the ‘check please sign’ by holding up and touching his thumb to his index finger while shaking his hand back and forth.
After paying the bill and leaving a not so big a tip as he normally would have, they walked out but not before the manager asked how everything was and he told them that their waitress needed to learn manners. The manager apologized over and over and assured him that she would be dealt with.
Logan took Melanie’s hand and they walked to the truck. Before opening the door he moved into her and breathed in her scent at her neck.
“Mmmmm, you smell good.”
“It’s all the onions and steak sauce,” she joked.
He chuckled and then he brought his lips to her mouth while he clasped both her hands in both his hands, leaving no room between them.
The heat of her body up against his body sent shock waves through his. He could feel her breasts against his chest and during their kiss, he could feel her nipples harden. He wanted to touch them in the worst way, to put them in his mouth and suck them but he pulled apart. Between his hard dick and her hard nipples, if he didn’t break away, he surely wouldn’t have been able to control himself much longer. He breathed heavily as he looked in her eyes and saw desire in them.
He backed up, smiled, opened the door for her, closed it and went to the driver’s side and they were off. Each not saying anything but breathing a bit harder than normal. He reached for her hand and put it in his and placed it on his lap.
Chapter 9
Even before they got to the door of the VFW, Logan saw a couple he knew, making out in the parking lot.
He went up to them. “Hey, hey, now. Get a room.”
The couple broke apart and smiled.
“Hey, Logan. And Melanie, right?” It was Doug from the Salty Dog.
“Right,” Melanie said smiling, recognizing him and Donna.
Doug and Logan shook hands and he gave Donna a kiss on her cheek.
“Hey, Melanie, you whup his ass at pool yet?” Doug asked.
“No, I think he’s too chicken to play me.” She laughed.
Logan looked at her and they all laughed.
“What’s going on inside?” Logan asked.
“Not much. It’s crowded in there though. We just came out for a little air.”
“We’ll see you in there,” Logan said as he reached for Melanie’s hand and walked toward the door.
Melanie turned and waved to the duo.
“Trust me, I’m not too chicken to play with you,” he whispered in her ear, emphasizing the words ‘play with you’.
That little innuendo sent a heated sensation coursing through her and she gave him a nervous laugh.
It was loud inside. Flo Rida’s, ‘Whistle’ blasted from speakers around the room.
Logan walked her over to the back where there was a built in bar. He ordered her a rum and coke and himself a beer. After passing her the drink, he walked her over to Richie, who was standing around a tall table with Geli and another guy.
“Hi Melanie,” Geli said with a smile.
Melanie said hi then said hello to Richie.
“Hi sugar.”
Geli then introduced her to the guy next to her. He had dark blond hair with light blond on top. It looked bleached from the sun and it was parted in the middle and came down to just below his ears. He had brown eyes and a tanned face and he was tall. Melanie was reminded of a surfer.
“This is Dalton. Dalton, this is Melanie.” Geli shouted the intros over the music. They both nodded to each other as it was a lost cause to say anything because the music was so loud.
A pretty woman looking to be around Melanie’s age came over to Richie and he put his arm around her. She was average height and had long blonde hair with blonder highlights and light brown eyes. She wore the reddest lipstick Melanie had ever seen. Logan reached over and gave her a kiss on her cheek and whispered something in her ear. The woman smiled at Melanie. He brought his mouth close to Melanie’s ear and said.
“That’s Kara, she and Richie date every so often.”
Melanie nodded her head in understanding and smiled back at the woman.
A club remix of Rihanna’s, We Found Love, started playing and Melanie moved her upper body to the beat. Geli was doing the same thing.
“Come on let’s dance,” Geli shouted as she took Melanie by the arm and looked to Kara and grabbed her arm too. She dragged them onto the dance floor and they started dancing and gyrating and having fun.
Logan was transfixed on watching Melanie’s body shimmying and those hips were sexy as hell when she moved them. Logan got hard thinking about how it would feel if she were moving them on him.
A friend of Logan’s came over to him and shook his hand and began to have a conversation. It was hard to hear, but they were shouting and understanding each other. Logan took his eyes off Melanie for no more than a minute and when he turned back, he saw a guy he knew from the club dancing with her. He moved up and down very close to her. In her defense, she kept backing up but he just kept on moving toward her. Geli and Kara tried to avert his attention by getting in front of him but he kept going around them.
The guy she was dancing with was known to be a dick. Logan had seen him in more than a few fights over a woman.
Logan looked to Richie, who nodded his head. Logan knew he could count on Richie if anything went down. Then he looked back to Melanie. He stormed over to the dance floor and yanked her out of there. The guy she was dancing with grabbed Logan by the arm and stopped him. He bumped out his chest to Logan and Logan made a fist with his free hand at his side.
Melanie caught on to what was happening and reached in and kissed Logan on the cheek, making sure not to block his line of sight of the guy. She’d hoped he wouldn’t start swinging like Michael would have.
When the guy saw that, he threw his hands out in front of his chest and backed away.
Logan walked her off the dance floor and back to the table. Geli and Kara followed them. Once at the table, Logan gently pushed Melanie up against the wall behind them. He brought his right hand up to the left side of her face.
“You can start a war, sweetheart,” he said to her with a smile. Then he brought his mouth down on hers. His fingers moved back and were now in her long tresses as his tongue shot out of his mouth and demanded hers. Then he quickly broke the kiss and stepped back and watched her as he breathe a little heavy.
Feeling breathless herself, she gave him a questioning stare. Holy moly, she thought. Her panties were wet from just that kiss. She hoped no one would notice the scent of her arousal.
Logan couldn’t help but noticed her beautiful, vivid blue eyes become deeper in color. Clearly she was as turned on as he was. He moved in close to her again. His hard-on pressed between her legs. They moaned as one.
“You want to get out of here?” he whispered in her ear. He pulled back to see her face.
“Yes,” she said breathlessly, while nodding her head in case he didn’t hear her.
Without saying a word to anyone, he took her hand and led her out to the parking lot.
“My place or yours?” he asked as they pulled out of the lot.
“Mine,” she didn’t hesitate to say. She just felt safer being in familiar surroundings in an unfamiliar place.
He reached for her and she scooted over to the middle of the bench seat and he put an arm around her and absently played with her hair. He brought his mouth to her ear and whispered.
“I can smell you.”
She was mortified.
“Mmmm, it’s fucking intoxicating. I can’t wait to taste you.”
She felt a sensation from the core of her form tentacles, and they traveled out in every direction of her body.
He removed his hand from her hair and placed it on her exposed thigh. Melanie let out a soft gasp.
She, he noticed, was hot to the touch. Just as he was moving that hand up her soft, smooth thigh, his cell phone, which was in the cup holder, rang. It lit up and Melanie looked to it and saw the words ‘Linda Calling’.
Logan reluctantly removed his hand from Melanie’s thigh and reached for the phone.
“What?” he answered, sounding annoyed.
Melanie could hear the woman’s voice on the other end but couldn’t make out what she was saying.
“How high?” he asked sounding more concerned.
More quiet on his end. He looked over to Melanie then back to the road.
“All right, I’ll be there in about 15 minutes. Without saying goodbye, he hit the end key and flung the phone back in the cup holder. He continued to drive without saying a word. Melanie just sat there not saying anything either.
“I have to drop you off,” he said as he turned onto her block. He said no more.
“Okay.” Melanie was not sure what to think. It was almost 11:30 pm. His ex was calling him and he was dropping her off and running over there. Melanie couldn’t and wouldn’t deal with this shit.
When he stopped the truck, he turned the ignition off. He was just about to open his door with the intent of walking to her side and walking her to her door when she put her hand on his arm, and he stopped to look at her. She wouldn’t look at him. Instead, she swiftly opened her door, jumped down and jogged to her front door. She fumbled with the key but managed to open it and go inside fairly quickly and without looking back.
Logan just watched, even when she was inside, he just sat there a few moments and watched her front door. What the fuck just happened? He thought to himself. Then he drove to Linda’s house.
Inside her house, Melanie leaned against the front door, thankful things didn’t go as far as she first hoped it would. Thinking that she was dumped for Logan’s ex again hurt more than she could imagine. She went straight to the freezer and pulled out a container of chocolate moose track ice cream, then walked to the drawer and pulled out a teaspoon. She spun around, leaned against the counter and ate, uh oh, almost a half of the container. Disgusted, she flung the spoon in the sink, threw the ice cream in the garbage and went to bed.
The next mid morning, the house phone rang. She was in the middle of putting a manuscript she finished working on in an envelope. She was thankful that Charlie had caller ID. She saw it was from Logan and she chose to ignore it.
Dressed in workout clothes, she let the phone ring, sealed up the envelope, picked up her keys and left the house to do some errands. One of them being, going to the post office to drop off the manuscript.
“Hello, Gabe,” she said cheerfully, when she saw him sitting on his stoop.
“Hi, darlin’. It’s gonna be a hot one today.”
“Yeah, sure is. I’m going to run some errands. Can I get you anything?”
“You are truly a sweetheart. I’m good, darlin’, but thank you.”
“Well, you have yourself a nice day, Gabe. I’ll see you later.”
Gabe nodded to her and she was off.
She went to the post office. Then she stopped at Geli’s. She was in need of finding a reliable place for manicures and pedicures as well as a trusting place for Brazilian waxes, she was due. If anyone knew where to go, it would be Geli.
“Hi, Melanie. What a nice surprise. You and my brother left last night without saying anything.” She gave her a knowing look.
“Hi, Geli. It’s not what you think. His ex called and he just dropped me off to run to her,” she said. She hoped she didn’t sound bitter.
“Oh. I wonder if everything is all right.” Geli looked concerned.
“What’s not to be all right with a late night booty call?” Melanie asked, trying to make a joke out of it.
“Yeah, right.” Geli laughed. “Never in a million years. He’s done with her but unfortunately he’ll always have ties to her.” Geli paused to study Melanie. “Oh, is that what you think?”
Melanie shrugged and gave her a crooked smile.
“No, it’s definitely not that. I can assure you. In fact, I probably shouldn’t say anything, but I haven’t seen my brother so, um, happy or interested in anyone, the way he was with you last night, in a long time.”
Melanie thought about what she said. Had she misjudged Logan? Something to think about.
After leaving Geli’s with the names of a couple of places for a waxing and mani, pedis, and a promise to get together for drinks soon, Melanie was off to work out at the gym in San Marcos. She had researched it and toured it the week before and liked that it was clean and had new equipment.
Listening to Ozzy as she ran on the treadmill, Melanie couldn’t help but notice the guy next to her looking over at her often. This was the reason that along with her tight spandex type workout pants that came to just below her knees, she wore a long, large T-shirt over her sports bra. Turning up the speed she began to run faster and tuned him out. Ozzy was good for that.
After 45 minutes on the treadmill, Melanie drained her water and wrapped a towel around her sweaty neck. She jumped off the treadmill to get a wipe. Went back, wiped her machine down then walked toward the back side of the gym to work with some free weights. She passed a cornered alcove and saw a bunch of guys watching a guy boxing a bag. She stopped to watch. She always wanted to do that because it was an effective workout, but didn’t know how and didn’t want to do it by herself in case she was doing it wrong.
The guy boxing had his back to her and there was a guy holding the bag still for him. She noticed it was the guy who was next to her on the treadmill earlier. He made eye contact with her and smiled then said something to the boxer.
“There’s that chick that was next to me on the treadmill before, she’s fucking hot, man,” he said.
The guy boxing paused and turned to get a look at her. He did a double take.
“Melanie?” he said.
“Cody, hi,” Melanie said with a smile.
Cody turned to his friend, whose jaw dropped, grinned, shook off his gloves, picked up his water bottle then walked over to her.
“You belong to this gym?” he asked.
“Yeah, I joined last week.”
“Cool,” he said smiling and then he took a sip of water. He was sweating and
for the first time Melanie got a look at his muscles. He was wearing a sleeveless black shirt. Man, he had defined arms.
“Is that hard?”
“What, the boxing?”
“Yeah.”
“No, not really. Never did it?”
“No, I always wanted to but,” she paused to look around and softly said, “I don’t know how.”
“Come on, I’ll show you,” he said as he took her hand and walked her over to the bag and his friend.
“This is Jason. Jason this is Melanie.”
“Hi,” Melanie said. She figured him to be in his early twenties too and wow, how cute, he looked shy.
“Hi,” croaked a nervous Jason.
“You mind using the gym gloves?” Cody asked her.
“No.”
“Good. If you like it, I’ll help you buy gloves fit for you.”
“Thanks.”
He put the gloves on her. She grinned at how they looked on her. He saw her grin and winked at her and smiled.
“How do you feel?”
“Ridiculous.” She laughed.
He shook his head and chuckled as he put his gloves back on.
“Okay, bring your hands up to just about chin level.” He demonstrated. “Bend the elbows. Tighten up your wrists with each punch and try to maintain control of the bag. You don’t want the bag to be moving too much when punching. You can break your wrist. That’s why it’s always a good idea to have a spotter. Watch me.”
He motioned to Jason who came closer and loosely held the bag. Cody took a few jabs and a hook. He did it again. She nodded in understanding. He paused and looked at her. “Throw jabs and hooks.”
“What’s the difference between a jab and a hook?” she asked him.
“A jab is straight.” He demonstrated. “A hook comes in a round motion.” He demonstrated that as well, then he did a one two punch. “Hooks have more force but the jab is faster.”
