by Lexi Blake
She felt her eyes narrow. She knew the answers to all of her questions but still felt compelled to ask them. Or maybe she simply wanted to stay close to him. Certain body parts definitely wanted to stay close. “And the clothing allowance? Did Bruce get a clothing allowance?”
Bruce had been the last assistant. And as far as she could tell, he’d quit because he couldn’t handle working with Seth. Which hadn’t made sense to her at the time because he was so sweet.
He shrugged as best he could. “Bruce bought his suits on sale and I didn’t care. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the software industry is kind of relaxed. My old version of dressing up was switching out my pajama pants for a pair of sweats. Do you honestly think I cared what he wore?”
Manipulative bastard. “You don’t care how I do my job, do you?”
This job was all she had.
He moved fast, as though he’d anticipated her next course of action and sought to block her as quickly as possible. He rolled on top of her, trapping her under his body. It was pure proof that he was a great tactician because she’d intended to get out of bed, throw something at him, and stomp out. A great exit was totally necessary when she needed to keep her head held high.
He brought his face close to hers, their noses almost touching. “You are the best assistant I’ve ever had. You care about more than just keeping your job. You’ve taught me how to dress and you’ve charmed the world’s nastiest geeks into submission with one smile. You light up my every fucking day, and I have zero intention of letting you go.”
She was so confused. She’d settled into a future where she didn’t get Seth. She’d let go of Logan a long while back, but apparently he was in the kitchen making breakfast. It seemed like a slope she shouldn’t go down again, a long, slow trip to Wonderland where someone would inevitably lop off her head. Because she wasn’t Alice. “It’s not like you can hold me prisoner. It might be better for me to head to California. Win can find a job for me.”
She wouldn’t try the acting route again. It had been a huge bust.
“No.” Seth breathed in, his eyes closing briefly as though he was categorizing the scent. “And I can keep you prisoner. This is my kingdom, Princess Georgia. Consider yourself a hostage.”
His lips were curved up, his gorgeous eyes seemingly innocent. She rolled her own. “Yeah, I’m sure the moose is going to keep watch over me.”
“Nope. He’s completely useless as a watch moose, but I have other ways to keep you here. Let me kiss you. Do you have any idea how much I wanted to kiss you in the limo?”
But the time hadn’t been right. She wasn’t sure she liked being a chess piece in one of Seth Stark’s games. “But the timing is right now?”
He was close, not respecting her space at all. His lips, those gloriously sculpted lips, were hanging right there over hers. She could smell the mint of his toothpaste, feel the heat of his body. “The timing is all screwed up. I meant to take a couple of days, to ease you into the situation, but Logan is a fucked-up asshole and he didn’t follow the plan. Let me kiss you.”
Logan, if he was anything like Georgia herself, had very likely had no idea there was a plan to begin with. Seth had been playing some deep games, maneuvering her into a position, and now cutting in for the kill with ruthless precision and stormy blue eyes. She’d been so stupid thinking he was perfectly nice and kind. He was a billionaire, and he hadn’t inherited it. He’d been smart. There was a wolf under all that fluffy wool, and damn her, it made him that much more attractive. And it made her that much more sure that this couldn’t work.
But her body didn’t seem to be in line with her brain. Her body was turning all bow chicka wow wow and thinking, hey, sex has sucked before, but this could totally be different. Let’s give this penis a try! Her vagina was in full-on cheerleader mode, and her nipples had totally joined the party. Her girl parts were overly optimistic in the worst of times, plain dumb in times like this. She had to shut that shit down before the girls took over and slipped a nipple in his mouth and she was down for the count.
“What did Logan say to you last night?”
Seth rolled off her, and she could have sworn her nipples deflated, their protest obvious. “Nothing. It was nothing.”
Well, at least she could breathe now. He walked back to the window and, for a moment, she wished she’d listened to the girls.
Excellent. Ditch your clothes and throw yourself at him. Call out and ask Logan if he wants to join in. None of your friends has ever had a hot ménage with a moose witness.
Her nipples had perked right back up at the first sign of weakness. She decided to silence her inner idiot. “It wasn’t nothing. You broke a hundred dollars’ worth of Waterford over what he said.”
She could still remember rushing in and feeling the tension between Logan and Seth. The idea that they were fighting because of her had made her stomach churn. She’d quickly figured out that it was nothing more than Logan being his jerkfaced, never-give-a-girl-a-reason-to-love-him normal self. She’d been ready to lay into him when she’d seen the shocked look on his face. She knew that look. She’d had it on her own face from time to time when she said something she didn’t mean to save her pride. It was longing. He’d desperately wanted to take back what he’d said and Seth had been all kinds of cold, and she’d done the only thing she could think of to fix the situation.
It was something she’d done from childhood when her brothers would fight. She hated it, needed calm and peace among the people she loved. When they started fighting, she would do something dumb, and then they would all turn on her and unite to save their idiot sister.
She’d attempted to walk straight into the glass like she didn’t have a brain in her head, and Logan had responded accordingly. She’d known damn well that Seth would try to reason with her and that big gorgeous Neanderthal would do something brutish. Neither one of them would let her walk anywhere near that glass.
It had worked beautifully. She’d seen the moment Seth had thanked Logan, a bit of their peace restored.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He was staring out the window as the moose slowly lumbered away.
It was time to lay a few ground rules herself. She wasn’t going to do whatever he wanted. She couldn’t. Well, she was almost certain that she couldn’t. She would eventually hike out of this town and make for civilization, but just in case she made the horrible decision to stay, she needed to make sure there was a real place for her. She couldn’t be Seth Stark’s china doll, another piece of his collection who didn’t truly mean anything. She was damn tired of keeping her mouth shut and trying to look pretty.
Not his china doll. His fuck doll. They actually make them in Japan, but he seems to want a warm one. And he apparently wants to share you with Logan. Yeah, you could be their sex toy.
She needed a serious therapist. “If you didn’t want me to ask questions, then you shouldn’t have taken a way-too-curious captive. Look, you pulled the rug out from under me, Seth. You say you want me? Well, you can’t keep me around only for the good stuff.”
She’d had enough boyfriends who wanted to have sex and go to sleep and not have a lick of intimacy between them. That was what she’d loved about being close to Seth. She’d felt like she was a part of his world.
He was silent for a moment, staring out the window with nothing but the sound of the river rushing by. “He told me he wasn’t ever going to be my boyfriend and I should stop hoping.”
That was what it felt like to get the breath knocked out of her. Wow. She could hear Logan saying it, his lips faintly cruel. She should have taken that fucking broom to his head. What an ass. And yet… “Do you want Logan?”
A low huff came out of Seth’s chest.
She scrambled and found quickly that she couldn’t stay away from him. She wrapped her arms around his lean waist, and that move had nothing to do with the girls and everything to do with that other stupid part of her. Her heart was every bit as dumb as her girl parts. An
d her brain was working about a million miles a minute. What if Seth really only loved Logan and he thought that bringing a woman into the mix would get him his guy? She hated the idea, but then realized that she didn’t care. She still loved this man. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I wouldn’t think less of you if you did. Sweetie, we need to talk because I don’t think he’s gay. I think that’s a heartache waiting to happen.”
She knew all about heartache when it came to Logan Green. She let her hand rub up Seth’s chest. God, he was lovely. It felt right to be near him, but she was worried that her near lover was about to become her gay bestie, and damn it if her heart wasn’t breaking all over again. This might be the last time she got to hold him like this. The first and last.
His hand came up and covered hers, holding it to his heart. “Logan’s not gay. I can’t tell you how many women we managed to run through after he decided his sex drive was worth risking his moms’ wrath. Sometimes two and three at a time.” She started to pull away, but he tightened his hand. “Don’t. You want me to start being honest with you? You’re going to have to handle the damage. I didn’t share those women with him because I was secretly hoping he’d do me instead. Not even close.”
He didn’t sound like a man who was lying. He pulled at her other arm, gently forcing her to wrap him up. A low growl came out of his mouth. Nope. He didn’t sound like a man who wasn’t interested in women.
“But you do care about Logan?” She was trying not to think about how good this felt. And she was definitely not thinking about what it would be like if Logan walked into the room and took up position behind her. Nope. That was not a vision running through her head at all.
“I love him, Georgia,” Seth replied, his words a confession. His hand rubbed against hers in long strokes. “If I was wired that way sexually, I would have been all over him, but it’s not like that. Sometimes I think it would have been easier that way. Did you ever have that one friend who being around them was like the most peaceful thing in the world? A friend where you didn’t have to be anyone except the person you are deep down? I’ve tried to come up with a hundred different words for it. I’ve called him my brother, my best friend, but it’s not exactly right. He’s my soul mate and I’ll never kiss him. I don’t want to. But I want to share a life with him, and that makes me wrong for a lot of people.”
She blinked back tears. Damn. What he hadn’t managed with his seduction play, a few aching words had done in a heartbeat. Because she’d never had a friend like that. She’d grown up surrounded by prep school girls who wouldn’t let her forget her mother had stripped for a living and she was a piece of trash. She loved her sister-in-law, but she still held back, a piece of her worried that she could wreck something special for her brothers.
You wrecked everything, her mother had said. They’d been the last words she’d said to Georgia. She’d only been five, but she could remember them. She’d wrecked everything by being born because her mother hadn’t wanted to be a wife. She’d wanted to be a lover. Carrying Georgia had ruined her body, and she couldn’t stand to look at her own daughter.
But with Seth, she’d felt like she could help. Seth was the first person she’d felt at peace with, and she suddenly knew that she couldn’t give him up no matter how smart it would be to do so.
“Do you want me? Do you think you could care about me?”
He turned, flipping around and hauling her close like a shark who had finally scented sweet blood in the water. Ruthless bastard. It was deeply sexy, and she needed to call that therapist because her body was already singing again. “I am crazy about you, Georgia. I’ve been crazy since the moment I saw you and that’s true. I want you so bad it hurts, and I want to give you everything you need.”
But she couldn’t be everything he needed. “And if Logan can’t be brought around?”
“Then I’ll be satisfied we tried.” He hugged her close, his forehead rubbing against hers. “I’m going to be so good for you, baby. I’ll take care of you. I won’t let you down.”
She sighed, all of her girl parts singing a happy chorus in her body.
If we’re going to do this, you guys are going to have to get with the diet and exercise program.
And she had to stop mentally talking to her various body parts.
He was about to brush his lips against hers when she heard the door open and the sound of a smoke detector start to go off.
Logan stood in the doorway, a steaming, smoking pan in his hands. Her nose was assaulted with the scent of ruined bacon. “I think I killed the kitchen.”
He paled as he noticed how close they were standing. She started to pull away, but Seth dragged her close again, not putting an inch of distance between them. “I’ll come in and start opening the windows.”
Logan turned back around and groaned. “Dude, put that shit away. What’s wrong with you? You’re a billionaire and you can’t buy towels that cover your junk? You know they make them extra big now, but no. You like slapped a washcloth over it so the girl couldn’t miss it. Do you think I don’t know that play? Fuck, man, I invented that play.”
She’d been totally wrong. Wow. Seth’s rather intensely large and totally erect male member was poking out of his towel.
Told you.
She watched as Seth and Logan started back down the hallway, pushing and bumping each other like toddlers at play.
Yeah. This was going to be a ton of fun.
Chapter Six
Logan looked up at the building that housed the sheriff’s department like it was a damn mountain he was about to climb.
He was dressed in his khakis and boots, a Stetson planted on his head and his stomach somewhere around his knees. He didn’t want to walk into that building. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
What the fuck did he think he was doing? He wasn’t this guy anymore. He’d never truly been. He’d been a dumbass kid playing at being a hero, and he’d figured out real damn fast that heroes didn’t exist. He’d found out how flawed he was. He’d learned how easy it had been to break Logan Green.
“It’s scary, isn’t it? I’ve heard it’s haunted by like a ton of ghosts and shit.”
He turned, and there was the woman he’d first mistaken as Georgia. Blonde hair, blue eyes, but definitely more slender and willowy now that he was really looking at her. She had a big black bag at her elbow, one of those quilted things Georgia used to carry, but there was a more worldly look to this woman. Georgia, when she thought no one was watching, always looked so fucking innocent.
The way she had this morning when she’d looked up at Seth like he was Superman and he’d rescued her from certain death.
What the fuck game was Seth playing? He should have walked out the night before, but Seth knew how to work him. He was staying until he heard the plan. He was staying because he couldn’t do anything else.
“Not a big talker, then? We’re going to get along so well.”
So this blonde could be as annoying as Georgia. “You must be the new receptionist.”
She groaned. “Yuck. He shoots, he fails. Office manager. I’m the office manager and all-around, one-stop lawyer shop. I find it’s the best way to meet new clients. I can help process them in, and by the time they actually make it to the cell, I usually have them on retainer.”
Logan stared down at her. Had Nate lost his damn mind? “Nate hired a lawyer? I thought we had an injunction or something.”
“Oh, I learn fast, buddy. And I had Nell to coach me on how to get through a town hall meeting. The key is once you have the microphone, to filibuster the shit out of Hiram. After an hour or so, he wants a nap, and he’ll give in to anything. So now I can practice law right here in Bliss. Not that it’s impressive. It usually involves me talking Nate out of doing stupid shit. He’s unusually cranky even for a law enforcement officer.”
Well, it was good to know marriage and a couple of kids hadn’t slowed down Nate’s crabbiness.
“Are we just going to stand out here?”
Gemma asked. Jamie had called her Gemma.
“You can do whatever you like. You can walk in at any time.” She was starting to annoy him. “I need a minute.”
“Seems to me like you’ve had more than a minute. More like a year or something. You think another minute is going to make a difference? I don’t think this is about a minute so much as making up your mind. You’re either in or you’re out, and another minute won’t change it.”
“Are you this obnoxious when Nate’s around?”
A brilliant smile curved her lips up. “I am the best office manager Nate Wright’s ever had, and he won’t tell you any different. Now, I’ve been forced to keep that desk of yours just like you left it since Nate and Cam seem to think it’s some sort of shrine. I was actually surprised to find out you weren’t dead, merely on some form of extended vacation.”
“I was in therapy.” Why was he answering her?
She shrugged. “Oh, my bad. I thought people in therapy were encouraged to like call and shit. You know, to update the people who love them on how they’re doing. They don’t usually leave them hanging unless they’re real assholes.”
“You got a problem with me?” It was a dumb question. She obviously had a problem with him.
She was perfectly calm as she started up the steps. “Look, man, I’m fairly new here, but I’ve grown to love this town, and I definitely love Nate and Cam. Consider me a protective and territorial female. You’ve hurt them. Everyone else might want to treat you with kid gloves, but I don’t do the glove thing. I’ll tell it like it is, and I’ve had to watch them stare at that desk every day I’ve been here. It’s like you’re a ghost that hangs over this place, and no one will let me call an exorcist.”
And she didn’t even know the right terminology. “An exorcist is for demons. You need a medium for ghosts.”
She snorted. “Wow, they told me you were a total geek. I thought they were joking when you showed up all big and brawny, but there’s still a dweeb in there somewhere. Maybe there’s hope for you, Green. You like coffee?”
