I swallowed, still keeping my eyes on my canvas as I told the story.
“When I went down there, there was a group of guys playing blackjack. One of them was Randy Kelly.”
“As in, Chief Kelly?”
I nodded. “Yep, the very one. He had just been appointed police chief, like two days before that. He was definitely celebrating that night, too, because he was so drunk he could barely keep upright in his chair.” I pursed my lips, dunking my brush in the paint harder than necessary. “Not that it stopped him from groping me in front of everyone in that room and insinuating that when I was old enough for it to be legal, I should find my way to his bed.”
“What the fuck?” Logan snapped. “You’re joking, right?”
“Nope,” I said, the word leaving my lips with a pop. I finally looked at Logan then, and even though it was cliché and made me want to roll my eyes at myself, I loved that his hands were curled into fists at his side, that his eyes looked murderous as it all sank in. “He even pulled me into his lap, refusing to let go of me until I punched him in the groin and high-tailed it out of there.”
Logan’s mouth fell open, his eyes flicking back and forth between mine in a look of horror. “What did you do?”
“I told my dad,” I said. “Obviously. Because that’s what any fourteen-year-old girl would do. I told my dad.” I swallowed. “And I thought he would fly in like the superhero I thought he was, kick Randy’s ass, save the day.” My lip twitched, something between a smile and the beginning of a sob finding me. “But he didn’t. He said it was nothing, that Randy was drunk, that he was sure Randy didn’t mean any harm, that I was being dramatic,” I spat the word. “And that I should let it go.”
“How could he say any of that?” Logan asked, that wrinkle between his brows again. “You’re his daughter. That man practically molested you.”
“Yeah, well, pissing off the police chief wouldn’t bode well with my father’s underground casino staying in operation, would it?”
Logan shook his head. “And your mom?”
I scoffed. “She’s soft, weak, and does whatever Dad tells her to. She had nothing for me other than a hug and an offer to run me a hot bath.”
“Jesus…”
I nodded, but as soon as the last words were said, I drew in a deep breath, picking up my brush like nothing had happened. “Anyway, I decided then that I didn’t want anything to do with my family or their legacy. And that I was going to be my own person, and I didn’t give two shits what they had to say about it.”
Logan was quiet for so long that I paused where I was painting to make sure he was still breathing. He was, and in fact, it was about all he was doing — just looking at me, and breathing.
“What?”
“It’s just that I’ve been trying to keep my father’s legacy alive, to be everything he’d ever wanted me to be and more. I would give anything to have another moment with him, and meanwhile, you’ve been trying to escape your father for over a decade.” He swallowed. “I can’t imagine being in your shoes when that happened, or what you must have gone through ever since. You’re really strong, Mallory. Really fucking strong.”
My heart squeezed painfully in my chest, but I played off the emotion with a scoff. “Yeah, so strong that I had to come crawling back home to Daddy and take his money to make my dream come true.”
“Hey,” Logan said, reaching over to place his hand on my forearm. He squeezed until I looked at him, and I hated the sincerity I found there.
That The 1975 song was right — sincerity was scary.
“That’s not what you did, okay? You’re making your dream a reality, and doing whatever it takes to get there — that’s a strong entrepreneur. That’s a warrior.”
The way Logan watched me in that moment, I knew he meant every word he said — and he wanted me to believe them as much as he did.
Suddenly, the air around us was too thick, too dense with emotions that I didn’t want to feel. I blew a breath out loudly through my lips, pulling my hand from where it had been paused in front of my canvas. “Alright,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s enough of that. I brought you over here to paint to relieve stress, not make more of it.”
“I’m not stressed.”
“Well, you’re not having fun, either,” I argued. Then, my eyes flicked to the brush in my hand, to the paint on the palette between us, and I grinned. “But I think I know how to change that.”
Logan quirked a brow, watching as I dipped the brush in the mahogany paint on my palette. I lifted the brush, made it look like I was going back to painting, and waited until Logan had turned back toward his own canvas.
Then, I flicked my brush and sent paint splattering all over him.
Specks of the orangish-brown color hit his biceps, the muscles of his rib cage peeking through his shirt, his neck, his eyebrow, the corner of his mouth — now popped open in surprise. He turned his head slowly, blinking several times before he wiped his thumb over the corner of his mouth where the paint had splattered. Logan looked at his thumb, at my challenging smile, and then he dipped his own brush.
“Oh, you’re going to pay for that.”
I squealed, jumping up from my bar stool and running away before he could even dip his brush. I took my palette with me, reloading my weapon before I turned back around. But Logan was there, and as soon as I was facing him, I saw paint flying my way in slow motion.
I closed my eyes just in time to feel the cool liquid splatter all over my face.
Logan laughed as I blinked my eyes open again, charging after him with my brush. He ran behind his canvas, and when I flung another attack, it landed all over the painting he’d been working on.
“Hey!” he said, peeking over the top at the new addition to his work. “You ruined it!”
“I made it better.”
“Oh, yeah?” Logan swiped his brush over my painting, making a haphazard smiley face right over my snow man. “There. I returned the favor.”
I laughed, walking over to marvel at the new addition. “Huh. You kind of did.”
Logan peered over to look at the painting with me, like he wondered if it actually did look better with that smiley face, and it was just the distraction I needed to reach out and run my brush in a line from his ear to his collarbone.
I ran out of his reach before he could react, but he was on my heels quick, chasing me until I was hiding behind one of the chairs in the new pottery section. He hid behind his own barricade, and when I stood and slung another brush full of paint at him, it went everywhere — on the chair he hid behind, the new firing oven, the anvils and bevel cutters and other tools we’d arranged neatly in bins on the shelf.
Logan’s mouth popped open as he stood. “Wait, stop,” he said, putting his hands up before I could fire off another round. “You’re messing everything up.”
I laughed, ditching the brush all together and dipping my hands in the palette. A rainbow of colors stained my fingers and palms as I ran over to him and planted them right in the middle of his chest.
“Who cares! It’s paint,” I reminded him. “It’ll come off.”
“This is one of my favorite workout shirts!”
I shrugged. “Shouldn’t have worn it to an art shop.”
Logan narrowed his eyes, but then he dropped his own brush, hands on a path for the paint on his palette.
I took off screaming, looking for my next shield. Logan rounded the stack of boxes we had yet to unpack before I could hide behind them, catching me in his wet, paint-covered hands just as I slid around them. He wiped them down my arms, leaving multicolored streaks from my shoulders to my wrists.
“This shirt looks better with sleeves,” he said with a grin.
I wiggled out of his grasp, panting and laughing as I sprinted across the shop to get more ammo. But I hit a wet spot, my shoe sliding over the gob of paint left by one of our attacks, and before I knew how to stop it, I was windmilling, the world tilting.
“Oh, shit!”<
br />
I tried to steady myself, but it was useless, and I wrapped my hands around my head to try to protect it from the fall.
But it never came.
Logan slid in like a baseball runner stealing home, catching me in his lap as I tumbled to the floor. It was a loud and awkward contact — me hitting him, him hitting the hard tile, both of us a mess of limbs and paint as we tried to figure out what had just happened.
“Are you okay?” Logan asked, hands framing my arms first, then my face, his eyes searching me for bruises or bleeding. He still had paint all over those hands, but I couldn’t find it in me to care that he was getting it in my hair and all over my cheeks.
“I’m okay,” I said on a laugh, giggling more when the worry didn’t erase from his face as he continued his search.
I reached forward, running my own paint-covered thumb over that line between his brows again. It was like that touch pulled Logan into another room, another time, another world where it was just me and him and the warmth of my thumb on his forehead.
The music faded, the only sound now the steady thumping of his heart and mine.
Logan’s next breath was a shallow rasp, a hard swallow rocking his Adam’s apple as I continued dragging my thumb down, over the bridge of his nose, the tip, slipping down to catch his bottom lip before I dragged it off his chin. I watched my thumb making its descent, and when it fell from his face, my hand rested on his chest, fingers twisting in the fabric of his t-shirt.
I flicked my eyes back to his, but his were locked on my mouth now.
I smirked. “You want to kiss me, don’t you, Logan Becker?” I whispered.
His eyes fluttered a bit, but otherwise, there was no response. There was no effort to deny or confirm, just his golden eyes locked on my lips, his hands still framing my face, my fist in his shirt, tugging him closer.
“Do it,” I whispered, fingers curling more into his cotton t-shirt. I tilted my chin up, seeking him, heart pounding in my ears so loud I couldn’t be sure I’d actually said the words.
A pained sound rumbled somewhere deep within Logan — his chest, maybe, or his soul. Those strong hands slipped farther into my hair, cradling my neck, pulling me closer, his eyes still locked on my lips.
But he stopped himself.
With less than an inch between us, Logan stopped, his lips parting, a shaky breath slipping from the new space. His fingers curled in my hair, and I closed my eyes, pulling his shirt once more until the man wearing it followed.
“I said kiss me,” I urged, the words whispered against his mouth, our lips brushing now, eliciting that same electric charge I’d felt in the storage closet.
Logan took one last trembling breath.
And then he answered my plea.
Logan
I’d fantasized about it for years, what it would be like if I ever got the chance to kiss Mallory Scooter. In each and every scenario, I was timid and nervous, overwhelmed with a mix of fear and excitement. The possibility that I could ever actually taste her seemed so preposterous to me that all my dreams consisted mostly of disbelief.
So, when my lips crashed down on hers, capturing her next breath and a moan inside my mouth, I waited for those thoughts to hit.
Oh, my God.
This can’t be happening.
Holy shit, it’s happening.
I’m kissing Mallory Scooter.
I can’t believe I’m kissing Mallory Scooter.
But none of those thoughts came.
Not when our lips met. Not when her hands slid up my chest, wrapping around my neck. Not when I tightened my grip in her hair, pulling her in, kissing her with such force I was sure I’d bruise both our lips.
There was no disbelief, no uncertainty, no nerves or timidness to be found.
I kept my lips pressed to hers as I waited for the other voices I expected to hear, the ones that would whisper no, stop, you can’t, you shouldn’t.
But again, they never came.
All I felt was a profound sense of right, and the most powerful wave of possession I’d ever experienced in my life.
Yes.
Finally.
Take.
Mine.
Those were the thoughts on repeat in my mind as I left one hand in her hair, the other sliding down to grab her by the hip and move her fully into my lap. Her legs straddled me, the warmth of her thighs surrounding my hips, the heat of her center calling to the growing bulge between my legs.
She gasped for air when I finally broke the kiss, only long enough for each of us to take a breath before my lips captured hers again, hard and urgent. My tongue broke the barrier of her lips this time, seeking hers, the taste of paint and sweet tea mixing on my taste buds.
Mallory didn’t seem to have a single voice in her head warning her to stop, either. Her hands were in my hair, knocking the ball cap I’d been wearing to the ground as she tangled her fingertips in the strands and tugged, owning me in the same way I was owning her. She bucked her hips, rubbing the seam of her leggings over my erection, a lustful moan rolling through her at the contact.
My hands found her hips then, squeezing, locking her in place to keep myself from coming before anything even started. My body was reacting to hers in a way it’d never reacted to any other woman’s in my life. It was like two magnets being held away from each other for years, finally being released and clashing together in the middle, touching for the first time, feeling what it’s like to be whole.
I broke the kiss, biting and sucking my way over her jaw, her neck, up to capture her earlobe between my teeth. I sucked it gently, breathing a hot, wanting breath there that made her shiver, her thighs clenching around me.
“Take me upstairs,” she breathed, and the words were barely out of her mouth before I was kissing her again, lifting us both up from the floor with her still wrapped around my waist.
I stumbled a bit, sneakers sliding over the mess of paint we’d stained the floor with as I blindly made my way to the staircase in the back that led up to her studio apartment. One hand gripped the rail to keep us from falling while the other held her against me, her arms tight around my neck, our mouths bruising each other in an effort to get closer, to taste more, to feel everything.
We crashed through her door at the top of the stairs, the handle swinging back and hitting the wall so hard I was certain it’d left a hole. Dalí jumped from where he’d been on her couch with a hiss, tail poofed as his nails skittered across the hardwood floor. He bolted between my legs and down the stairs into the shop, and I reached back for the door, slinging it shut before I dropped Mallory’s feet to the floor.
As soon as she was standing, I twisted us until we’d traded spots, whipping her around to face the door and pressing her hard into it.
“This is bad,” I warned, running my tongue up the back of her neck until my lips were next to her ear. “You know it. I know it.”
Mallory whimpered, rolling her ass against my erection, her hands planted on the door, lips kissing the wood when she gave her reply.
“So stop, then.”
Her words said one thing, but her body elicited another plea, chills racing from where my breath met her neck all the way to where her fingers intertwined with mine on the door frame. I lifted those hands above her head, leaning my body into hers more, not sure if I wanted to get closer or somehow put so much pressure on her that she’d push back, push me away, tell me to stop — and mean it.
“Stop what?” I whispered, leaving her hands above her head as I trailed mine down her arms, her rib cage, her waist. I slipped one arm between her and the door, holding her to me, as the other hand rounded over her ass, fingertips slipping between her thighs.
She gasped, arching her back, head falling back as she leaned into the touch.
“Touching you?” I asked, sucking the skin on her neck. “Kissing you?”
“No,” she breathed, rolling her hips again, ass up, begging for me to slide my hand between her thighs just a little more. “Stop th
inking.”
Her request might as well have been a spell for how quickly it knocked every negative thought out of my mind in that moment. All the stress I’d felt the last twenty-four hours, all the worry, all the pain — gone with those two words and the roll of her body against mine.
It was only her now, my seductive little witch casting her charm, pulling me in.
And I dived willingly into her incantation.
My hand slipped farther between her thighs, the side of my thumb brushing her seam as she arched into the touch. Her hands flew down from where they were held above her head, reaching behind her, seeking me, but I clamped my hands around her wrists, forcing them up the door again.
“Keep these here,” I demanded, my whisper a soft-spoken command that she whimpered in response to as if I’d whipped her, instead.
I kissed the back of her neck, her jaw, capturing the side of her lips as my hands trailed down again. One slid between her and the door again, holding her to me, but this time, the other dived under the hem of her leggings, fingertips dipping between the sweet swells of her perfect ass.
And my suspicion that she wasn’t wearing panties under them was confirmed.
Her head fell back, lips no longer able to kiss me as they parted. Her neck was elongated, eyes closed, a desperate, shaky breath finding her as my fingers made their descent. I felt her asshole tighten when the pads of my fingers brushed it, and though I never would have even approached that topic the first time with any other woman, I realized quickly that Mallory Scooter was far from any other woman I’d ever known.
I paused my downward climb, circling the tip of my index finger over that sensitive opening, feeling it pucker beneath the touch.
Her entire body froze, but just when I thought she’d pull away, or open her eyes, warning me not to even think about it… she arched, instead. Her lips parted even more, the paint from my own staining those rose-colored swells, and I sucked her bottom lip between my teeth, releasing it with a hard pop as I applied just the slightest bit of pressure with my finger.
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