It was like magic or a chemical reaction. They had that kind of physical attraction that smacks two people hard when they finally connect. They could have known each other for years or be as they are, the two strangers who had met weeks ago—their bodies were magnets for each other.
With the softest of flutters, he kissed her neck, barely touching her, but touching her enough to make her shift her body closer to him. He ran his hands down her shoulder and arm, resting his strong palm on her waist, and she gasped.
He worked his way to her ear, nibbling the earlobe, then kissing her jawline as she said his name in a low voice that gave all her desires away. “Logan.”
Her voice had need. It was full of want, and he grabbed hold of those soft shoulders and pulled her onto his lap, so she could feel how hard he was through his thin shorts. She stiffened at first, then relaxed as he zeroed in on her soft lips, tasting the cherry flavor of her lip gloss at first, then tangling his tongue with hers, crushing her lips to his.
She was feeling the kiss so far. He could tell by how she wriggled against him and pulled him closer. He responded, with a deeper and harder kiss. She was damn near quivering under his touch, letting down her guard to enjoy him.
He longed to slide a hand between her legs and feel if she was as wet for him as he hoped she would be. But somehow that would be going too far. So he let himself exist in the heat of the kiss only.
“Logan,” she said, her voice lusty but also holding a pinch of nervousness.
His voice was just as lusty when he answered her. “What is it, Nikki?”
“Do you think we should stop before we regret what might happen next?”
Logan’s blood chilled. Stop? He cleared his throat. “Maybe. But do you want me to stop?”
“If you want honesty, hell no. But I’m not ready for this; so, I have to say yes, we should stop.” She slid off his lap and covered her legs with the blanket.
He didn’t stop her when she moved. Instead, he reached for her chin, softly raising her face, so she had to meet his eyes. “Okay. I don’t want you to feel forced or obligated to do anything but feel safe with me.”
“Safety is not an issue; I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me,” she said. The look in her eyes he recognized as one she gave when she needed to be in control.
“Don’t worry; you don’t give off the wrong signals,” Logan said. Maybe her pulling back was the reminder he needed, too—they were on the verge of becoming friends, and he shouldn’t fuck it up by expressing his feeling too soon.
It was the curse he couldn’t remove. When Logan fell for a woman, he fell hard for her. He was always quick to fall in love and the first to get hurt. Working long hours at the restaurant kept his heart protected.
He watched Nikki eat. The way she chewed was sexy as hell. He took a bite of food himself and sighed. The blocks around his heart had begun to break. Explaining the relationship to his family would be the next hurdle to overcome.
Chapter Eleven
Just call him. Nikki groaned and dropped her head down on her desk. Logan wasn't a pest by calling her as he had before; what he was doing now was the complete opposite. She hadn’t heard anything from him since their near-sexual encounter on Saturday.
By telling him she wasn’t ready, did that send him a message other than she wasn’t ready to sleep with him? God! Why did he have to be so damn caring? It would have been easier for her to turn her back on him if he’d been the jerk she’d thought he was.
She was ready for Logan physically, but mentally she couldn’t go through with it. Logan kissed like he was made for kissing her. The way he touched her lips, tasted her mouth, and drowned her in kisses was how she’d dreamed it would happen one day. What was best is that he’d seemed to want it too. He seemed hungry for her, like he needed her to feel the passion and desire that kiss unlocked.
She shook her head and tried to adjust her thoughts back to work. She had her work; she needn’t worry about messy things like feelings for a man who admitted she was not his type.
“Nikki. Art wants us to meet with him to discuss the Maximus project.”
She looked up from the computer and saw Gayle glaring at her. The two had not said two words to each other since the Chew event. If she had to choose one thing she disliked about Gayle, it would be the way she held a grudge. She would cut off people like they never existed.
“When does he want to meet?” She asked in the same tone of voice Gayle had delivered to her. She also had a mean streak. When she had enough of being bossed around and treated like a second-class person, that’s when it came out.
“In an hour.”
“Fine,” Nikki replied.
“This is for you.” Gayle tossed an envelope on the desk. “It’s a check from my aunt for your deposit for the cruise.”
Nikki’s brow creased. “Wait, what?”
“You no longer want to go on the cruise because more of my family is going; so, my aunt is taking your place. We talked about this, Nikki.”
“Yeah, it was mentioned; glad you completed it for me. Do you have anyone in mind to complete the application you’re working on since I assume you are no longer interested in that either?”
“You’re capable of developing an app, Nikki.”
She nodded. “I am. You’re mad at me for expressing my opinion. That’s not fair, Gayle.”
“No, I’m mad at what you said about my family.”
“What bad thing did I say about them?” Gayle rolled her eyes like she was replaying the conversation in her mind. “You can’t recall anything, can you?”
“Maybe you didn’t, but you’re upset I’m around them all the time.”
“No, I’m not. I’m not comfortable around all of you. Gayle, the connection you have with your family is great. I’m grateful that you want to include me, but I’m still that oddball sitting in the corner.”
Gayle flopped down in a chair. “I get it, Nikki. I don’t like it, but I get it. The thought of you not having a mom to talk to about your problems or share your successes with bothers me. I want you to have a strong family base even though we aren’t sisters.”
“All I want is for my family to want me the same way yours accepts me.” Tears filled her eyes. Why was she so weepy lately? She was a person who stopped crying as a kid.
Gayle was crying, too. “I’m sorry for the way I acted, Nikki.”
“I’m sorry, too!” She got up from her desk and went to her best friend and gave her a hug. “I love you to death.”
“I love you, too, sister,” Gayle cried.
Nikki and Gayle met for lunch on the patio of the restaurant downstairs. It was another gorgeous sunny day, and getting out of the office for an hour was essential for the soul.
The wind was blowing, and Nikki pushed the unruly curls behind her ear. “Guess what?” she directed at Gayle, who was busy fighting off a fly that was hellbent on having her salad.
“What?”
“I spent the night with Logan Sloan.”
Gayle slammed the plastic lid on her salad and yelled, “Shut the hell up! When did it happen? I want details, and leave nothing out, Nikki.”
A smile curled her lips whenever she thought about Logan kissing her. She had never returned his shirt. In fact, most nights she still slept in it. “It happened last weekend.” As she unfolded the chain of events, Gayle listened intensely.
“Wow; that is big. So, what happens next?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t know where to go next. Should I call him or wait for him to call me, Gayle?”
“One of you has to make the next move, or it dies where it stands.”
“Right. But what if he feels I led him on? I’m not a tease.”
Gayle chuckled. “Clearly, he knows that. But what do you want? Are you ready to sleep with Chef Yummy?”
“I was ready that night, but then I thought about Judith, and that killed it for me,” Nikki said.
“Why do you keep insisting
you are like her? I don’t talk bad about people’s mothers, but you are not evil like her. God, Nikki, let yourself be loved for once. This could lead to a marriage and kids: a life of happiness for you, girl.”
She snorted a rebuff. “Yeah, right; fairytales don’t exist for this chick.”
“See, that right there is why it won’t happen, Nikki. Stop blocking your blessings.”
“Seriously? You feel I’m standing in my way?” Nikki lowered her voice so others sitting around them wouldn’t hear.
Gayle stated, “You won’t call him, because of the doubts of how he might have perceived you. Have you told him about your mom or anything about your life other than work?”
“Not yet. I know he has a loving family. He shared a childhood memory with me. Can you imagine the shock he’d have if I had revealed one of my memories to him?” She could see the happiness written all over his face, the love and acceptance that family stood for. She wasn’t going to bring him down with a story about her life.
“So, you plan to keep everything about your childhood a secret? How many people will notice your life didn’t start until you were twenty-something… not many?”
“It’s not impossible.”
“It’s not practical either. Everyone has a past whether it’s good or bad. To build a solid foundation with Logan, you need to tell him about yourself, Nikki.”
She nodded, agreeing with the advice. “Right, I’m wrong for not doing that, but what if he just wants sex and nothing else?”
Gayle’s eyebrow shot up. “Men have a way of getting that across.”
She sucked the last of the cola from the cup through the straw. “Well, he might have, and that is the real reason I stopped him. Gayle, when I fixed his computer, he was texting with another woman.” Chill bumps crawled up her arms as she talked. “He somehow got confused and sent me a text meant for her.”
“Damn, what did it say?”
“That I wasn’t the type of woman he’d date.”
Gayle frowned. “That asshole? What the hell does that mean, and did you confront him about it?”
“Yup, and he said I took it out of context. He tried for days to apologize, but I wouldn’t return any of his messages. He finally got me to talk to him at the Chew event.”
“I saw his booth, but some woman was cooking.”
“That’s because he was outside with me. Gayle, I want to like him. He seems sweet, but he is headstrong.”
“You want a strong man, trust me.”
“Yeah, but what if he is curious? You know how White men are? They will sleep with us but not take us home to momma,” Nikki said in a hushed tone.
“Girl, if he is that way, then walk away before your feelings get hurt.”
“I haven’t called him because of my doubts, Gayle. I don’t want to be compared to the woman that text was meant for.”
“Honey, talk to him before passing any judgment.”
Nikki took her cell from her purse. “Okay, what do I have to lose but my dignity?”
*****
The restaurant was jumping for the lunch hour. A late afternoon baseball game had the bar and dining room filled. Logan felt his phone vibrating but couldn’t stop what he was doing to answer. Multitasking between the stove and the prep station, he didn’t have time to greet the customers or tend to any personal business.
Ron worked next to him on the grill preparing steaks of various sizes. “I didn’t hear from you the weekend; how did it go at the event?”
“It went well. I don’t think I’ll do it next year unless you want to man the booth.”
“That shit is a lot of work with little reward. The restaurant is established, Logan; we don’t need to go to those unless you want to.”
“We’ll play it by ear. We’ve only been open three years, and I don’t want to jinx it by feeling we’re too big for our britches.”
“I hear ya. Yeah, I meant to ask how it went with the hot blonde Saturday night.”
“Not well,” he said, removing lamb chops from a pan. He hadn’t talked to Summer either. He was striking out big when it came to women lately.
“Damn, man. The way she was dressed, you didn’t score?”
“She came at the wrong time. I had plans with someone else. But that’s how it goes, right?”
“Come on, don’t keep me in suspense,” Ron joked.
“If I tell you, don’t trip, Ron.”
“Why would I trip?”
He plated the lamb chops and put them on the window for the server to pick up. “Nikki came over. We hung out, and I made dinner for her.”
Ron shook his head. “Never saw that coming for real. You gave me that shit about her and then you ask her out? What are you trying to prove, man?”
“It’s about you being right and me being completely wrong. I like her, Ron.”
“I hear a ‘but’ lingering in the background. What happened?”
“I feel she is blowing me off. I don’t know what I did to offend her, but I’ve heard nothing from her since Saturday.”
“Have you called her?”
“No,” he answered with a sigh.
“Y’all didn’t…” Logan frowned. “Nah, man. And not that I didn’t want to; she wasn’t ready to take that step.”
“So, things got heated, and she stopped it? Dude, you have to call her. If not, she’ll feel you don’t want her because she cut you off at the nuts.”
In his defense, he had to prove to Ron that he was not avoiding Nikki intentionally. He felt they needed to get some things sorted out before he let anything else happen between them physically. He needed to set her straight on exactly how he felt about her.
If that kiss was any indication of her feelings for him, she couldn’t keep denying what they had between them. It was too raw. Too powerful. Too real. Having a talk with her where he laid his true feelings was due.
“I’ll call when we calm down. The one time I need to take a break, I can’t.”
Ron pulled the steaks from the grill and said, “Take a break and call her; I got this.”
He went into his office for privacy. Sitting at this desk, he swiped the screen and saw he had a few text messages and emails. He skipped over all of them when the message from Nikki popped up.
NGraham: Hey, if you can, come by my place tonight…
Excited, Logan didn’t need to read any further and replied immediately that he would be there but it would be late, if that was okay. He stared at the phone, hoping she would respond now and not when he went back to the kitchen.
He tapped his foot, anxious for the phone to ring. While he waited, he signed off on the time cards, approved the vendor orders, and partially scheduled the staff for most of next week.
Logan felt if he didn’t keep busy and put the phone out of his mind, he’d go crazy. He could end the suffering and just call her. Smoothing down his facial hair, he negated that option since Nikki was at work, and, as she was the head of a department, her time was valuable.
He had piddled around the office long enough. He couldn’t leave Ron alone too long. Picking up the phone, he noticed it light up with Nikki’s number. He grinned when he read the message stating it was okay to come late.
*****
Later that evening, Nikki’s heartbeat skittered, increased, and then slammed against her rib cage when the buzzer rang. She hit the buzzer and then checked her reflection in the mirror, making sure no makeup smears were on her face. She had fallen asleep watching a movie and woken up ten minutes before he was to arrive. There was no time to reapply a fresh coat.
When she opened the door, memories invaded her brain of how they had been the last time they were together, and of how he had seen her, had touched her. She met his gaze directly when he came to stand in front of her. “Hi, Logan,” she said softly.
“Hey, Nikki. May I come in?”
She swallowed when she realized she had been blocking the door. The last thing she thought she could handle right now was being alone w
ith him again. “Oh, yeah… I’m sorry.” She let him pass. “Make yourself at home.”
He walked in, looking around. Nikki bit down on her lip, wishing she had cleaned better. But her apartment was not that big, and storage was limited. “Nice and cozy place you got here,” he said as he sat on the couch.
She didn’t have fancy furniture like his. It wasn’t because she couldn’t afford it but she didn’t care about material stuff. Her furniture wasn’t cheap, just not coordinated like a showroom in a future store. “It’s not as beautiful as your loft, but it suits me.”
He was quiet for several long moments more before he spoke. “Thank you for inviting me over tonight. Sorry how late it is, but that’s the life of a restaurant owner; I can’t up and leave when I want.”
“I understand. Lucky, I’m off tomorrow, so I can sleep in later,” she said. Although she would be the first to admit this was awkward, she intended to push through it. She had to calm her suspicions about Logan.
“I bought a bottle of wine,” he said, handing it to her.
“Do you think that was wise?” she joked.
“We don’t have to drink the whole bottle: just a glass or two to mellow out. You seem a little tense.”
She was so tense that her teeth were grinding together. “I’ll get the glasses.” Nikki leaned against the counter, willing her heart to stop beating so fast. There was no denying it. The chemistry was powerful when it came to Logan; she felt it. She felt a lot of things around him that she should not be feeling. She had never had such feelings when she had had a boyfriend.
She returned to the living room with a tray of appetizers and the wineglasses. He stood up and said, “Let me help you.”
He took the tray, and she saw him wince at the frozen food that had taken all of twenty minutes to heat in the oven. “Yeah, it looks bad. I’m not a chef like you. You don’t have to eat it. Let me take it away. It looks gross.”
He pushed her hand away. “These are fine, Nikki; see.” He popped a stuffed jalapeno into his mouth. “Good stuff.”
Text 'Yes' if You Love Me Page 9
