A Reputation Dark & Deadly (A Dark & Deadly Series Book 2)

by Heather C. Myers

  "Karla might have mentioned" - Peyton began but Logan cut her off.

  "Of course she did," he said with a roll of his eyes.

  "I don't think Karla was" -

  "Like I said," he cut in, his tone biting. "Karla had her own agenda. There's no reason for her to have shared that with you. Hell, I didn't even fucking tell her." He cocked his head to the side and looked down at her through dark hazel eyes. "What else did she tell you? Just so I can try to figure out what she's getting at and shut that shit down immediately."

  Peyton cleared her throat, her cheeks turning red. She couldn't find it in herself to actually respond just yet. She didn't know what she could do to avoid it and it wasn't as though Logan was trying to be a jerk. He wanted to know for his own reasons.

  "Basically," she finally managed to say, "she told me what it was like to be your TA and what was expected of me. She told me you have a particular set of rules that need to be followed or else I'd be reassigned. You know, that sort of thing. Guidance on how to handle you."

  "How to handle me?" He raised a curious brow.

  "Not in a weird way," she replied defensively. "You're an acquired taste. She was giving me advice so I don't piss you off."

  "Sweetheart, there's no way you could piss me off unless you were trying and I know you're too fucking smart to do that," he told her. "You annoy the shit out of me but you don't piss me off."

  Peyton wasn't sure how she felt about the admission but she'd be lying if she said she wasn't the slightest bit flattered.

  "Anything else?" he asked curiously.

  "Just that you're secretly super romantic and that you loved to be kissed right where your pulse thrums against you skin," she said, pointing to the place on his neck just under his chin. "She also told me I should sleep with you even though you don't like sleeping with virgins."

  Logan nearly choked on his own snot. Peyton suppressed a grin. She hadn't planned on revealing so much about herself and it might not be the best decision in the long run considering she didn't want anyone to know about her sex life, especially not Logan Jeffrey, but she was sick and not thinking clearly, and the look on his face was priceless.

  "Excuse fucking me?" he asked, whipping his head to turn to look at her.

  "I feel as though I've answered your question sufficiently," she responded. "There's nothing left for me to say."

  "I beg to fucking differ, sweetheart," he said but his eyes were gentle and his dimples popped as he smiled at her. "You dropped multiple bombs in that statement and I know you fucking know it. Don't try to weasel out of this."

  Peyton placed her hand over her heart and gave him the best puppy dog eyes she could muster. "I'm under the weather," she told him. "Can't you cut me some slack? I feel as though I've said enough."

  Logan rolled his eyes and stood. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "I should let you get back to sleeping. Don't want you missing out on anymore fucking class. Who the hell else am I suppose to pick on?"

  "I'm sure there are plenty of females just clamoring for your attention," Peyton said as she walked him to the door. "For reasons that boggle my mind."

  Logan turned around, pressing his lips together as his eyes sparkled. He didn't believe her, she realized. He didn't believe she didn't understand why women liked him. Her smile fell from her face and she stilled. The look was too knowing, as if he could see straight into her soul, penetrate her defenses and tear down her walls.

  She needed to avoid that look.

  "Feel better, sweetheart," he told her. "We have a date coming up and I don't do rescheduling."

  Chapter 8

  She was late. Shit, she was so late.

  Peyton was supposed to have left her office hours fifteen minutes ago. Instead, she had gotten caught up in discussing psychological factors that went into crime with Brad that she totally blew through her deadline.

  Logan was not going to be happy.

  Instead of taking care with her outfit, Peyton was forced to take a quick shower and throw on a simple grey t-shirt that scooped in the front. She kept on her pale blue jeans that were a size too small for her. She had her sandals on her feet as she ran a brush through her hair. She had wanted to blow it dry and then straighten it, but that definitely wasn't going to happen so she decided to keep it down and if it looked messy, it looked messy.

  It wasn't like this was a date.

  Keep telling yourself that, Hart, a voice muttered in her head.

  Peyton clenched her jaw and forced it from her mind. She didn't have time to think about it anyway. She needed to get to the North Gate, where Logan was supposed to meet her for their non-date outing seventeen minutes ago. At the last minute, she decided to throw her hair up into a ponytail, deciding to get it out of her face. She threw her purse over her shoulder and locked her dorm door before sprinting in her sandals all the way across campus to the North Gate.

  By the time Peyton reached the gate, Logan was leaning against the black metal, a scowl upon his face. Peyton stopped moving, stood up straight, and swallowed.

  To an outsider, he looked relatively casual, leaning against the Gate with a jut to his hip and a comfortable slouch to his shoulders. However, Peyton noticed the tight jaw and the narrowed eyes. His brow seemed to drop further when he saw her and she held her breath, waiting for his onslaught. Her eyes quickly took him in as she waited, took inventory of the jeans, the belt, the boots, the jacket. His hair was slicked back as usual.

  "Hello there, sweetheart," he said. For whatever reason, he suddenly reminded her of the Big Bad Wolf and she was Little Red Riding Hood, about to be eaten by him. "What the fuck?"

  Peyton clenched her jaw and shifted her eyes away. The sun was starting to set and she had to squint to looks up at him. "I'm sorry," she told him. "I got caught up at office hours. I was going to cut it short but" -

  "Was it that asshole who has a hard on for you?" Logan asked, standing up to his full height so he towered over her.

  Peyton furrowed her brow. "I don't know who you're talking about," she said, genuinely perplexed.

  "You're lucky I'm still fucking waiting for you," Logan muttered, avoiding Peyton's unanswered question. "I have much better fucking things to do than to wait for a girl who's fucking chronically late to everything." Peyton opened her mouth to defend herself but Logan didn't give her a chance to speak. "Let's get this fucking over with."

  Peyton furrowed her brow and felt a spark of anger flare up inside of her body. She clenched her teeth together and he shot his brow up.

  "You have something you want to say to me, sweetheart?" Logan asked, quirking a brow. He seemed angrier than he should be due to her tardiness but he seemed to have a thing against lateness.

  She took up his challenge without blinking an eye. "No one is forcing you to go," she told him in a low voice. "Feel free to stay here and boink some young woman. Please don't let me keep you from whatever else you would have done."

  "I told you I would take you," he growled, starting to move his feet in the direction of the staffing department. For a moment, Peyton wondered if he lived anywhere close by or if he had housing here. Not that it mattered. It wasn't as though Peyton planned to go to his place anytime soon. "I'm going to fucking take you."

  "God, try to enjoy yourself while you're at it," Peyton said.

  "Look, I don't like it when people waste my goddamn time," Logan said through gritted teeth, leaning towards her. His voice was low and dangerous and Peyton ignored the way her body reacted to his voice. She could feel the sandpaper rub against her skin and she suppressed a shudder sliding through her body. "If I'm making fucking time for you, I expect you to make a goddamn effort for me. It's called mutual fucking respect."

  Peyton pressed her lips together. "I'm sorry," she said again.

  He huffed but said nothing and turned away from her. They slid into a somewhat tense silence. Peyton wasn't sure how she felt about it but she tried not to overanalyze the situation. She didn't like the disgruntled feeling she cur
rently felt in the pit of her stomach but she didn't know how to make it better. She didn't even know if she wanted to make it better. She didn't know if she could.

  Peyton hated this feeling. She didn't quite know how to define their relationship so she wasn't sure what she should be feeling or what she wanted to feel. This was confusing and exhilarating and conflicted.

  They reached the staffing parking lot and he headed straight for an older Yukon. Peyton raised a brow at the black SUV, wondering why he needed such a big vehicle when he didn't have a family - besides this younger brother. He unlocked the doors with a click of a button and Peyton walked over to the passenger side of the door and let herself in. She was actually happy he didn't try and open the door for her. It would have made things awkward and tense and made it more like a date than it really was.

  Or maybe that was only Peyton thinking that this anything like a date.

  She slid into the cracked leather seat and clicked on her seatbelt. Logan closed his driver door and started the car, his right wrist resting on the steering wheel casually. He grabbed a pair of aviators from his glove compartment and put them on even though the sun was setting and would be down soon.

  They drove in silence Peyton wasn't quite sure how to define. It wasn't uncomfortable but she wasn't relaxed either, and there was definitely something in the air between them. Perhaps tense was the appropriate word. But there was something about him as he drove away from campus, something in his air that made him seem more... not relaxed but at ease. His shoulders didn't have that firmness and his long fingers hung limp from the wrist resting on the steering wheel. He turned on the radio and Peyton wasn't surprised to hear classic rock coming from the speakers. She could feel his tawny gaze on her profile after he turned on the music, probably waiting for some quick retort about his taste, but Peyton firmly kept her mouth firmly closed and chose, instead, to stare out the window.

  "It's the damndest thing," he muttered. Peyton glanced back at him and found him staring at her. "Out of all the things you could have fucking asked for - an A in the class, being released as my TA - you ask me to take you to Old Newport Jail. I would have assumed with your fucking obsession for Herbert you already would have been."

  "I have," she agreed. "Just never at night. Never on a private tour." She couldn't stop the big, excited smile from blooming on her face if she tried. Whatever that tenseness was that had hung between them, it was gone. She felt much more at ease than she anticipated, and she knew it probably had to do with the fact that they were talking about Alvin Herbert, a topic she was extremely well-versed in.

  Logan's eyes were caught on her mouth. He seemed captivated by something, perhaps a little surprised. She hoped she didn't have anything caught in her teeth.

  "You're fucking weird, you know that," he told her. "You could have gotten a fucking A in class" -

  "What makes you think I won't get an A in your class?" Peyton challenged as the car came to a pause. They were starting to enter Old Newport, a small portion of the beach city left untouched by progress and change. It looked the same it had back at the turn of the century, back in the early nineteen hundreds, just with much more urbanization and less orange groves. Even the traffic lights hung from wires rather than street poles.

  "Probably you're fucking attitude," he told her though there was a teasing glint in his eye she noticed.

  "I thought you liked women who spoke their mind and could have an intelligent conversation with you," Peyton pointed out. "Maybe you're just not used to one who won't put up with your bullshit."

  Logan gave her a sharp look as the light flickered to green and he removed his foot from the brake and pushed it on the drive. "And what that supposed to fucking mean?" he asked.

  "You have a type, Logan," she told him, settling into her chair. "Everyone knows it. I knew about your rules before I even met you, before Karla even sat me down to talk to me about them."

  "A rule you fucking broke," he snapped as he turned.

  "You didn't seem to mind it," she snapped.

  His eyes caught hers even though he was driving. "Yeah, and neither did you," he said.

  It was deja vu, this conversation. Peyton wasn't sure what she was trying to prove and she didn't know what he was trying to prove, either. All she did know was that she needed to push this conversation until she found an answer. The only problem was, she barely knew the question she was asking and had no idea what to expect for an answer.

  "You know what I want to know," Logan continued, shifting his eyes from the road over to Peyton and then back out to the road. "Why are you so fucking interested in my sex life? You don't even like me, sweetheart. Why do you fucking care if I'm fucking someone or not?"

  Peyton felt her brow furrowed and the words came out of her mouth before she could stop them. "You're fucking someone now?" she asked, her voice almost shrill and most definitely sharp.

  Logan immediately pulled into the empty parking lot to the Old Newport Jail. He slid into a parking stall relatively close to the main entrance, which was where Logan's brother would be meeting them within the next ten minutes.

  "What if I told you I was?" he asked as he turned off the car and unbuckled his seatbelt. He shifted in his seat so he faced her, his eyes taking on a darker hue in the shadows. They were bright but not because he was happy. It almost looked like the light pole's bright light was reflecting on them. His demeanor changed from easy and relaxed to intent and tense and Peyton felt her own body shift to match his. "What if I fucking told you I was fucking somebody else? That I made her moan every goddamn night when I went home? That she scratched my back and screamed my fucking name."

  "You never take girls back to your place," Peyton pointed out through gritted teeth.

  "I took you back to my place the night you got shitfaced," he pointed out.

  "I know," Peyton said. She felt her own anger start to rise and she couldn't help but take on a tone as she continued to speak to him. "That's what I don't understand. I kiss you and you don't do anything to me except kiss me back. You take me back to your place when I can barely walk. Hell, the fact that you came for me at all. You aren't making any sense and I don't know how to feel about that."

  "It's not my job to fucking figure out your emotions," Logan said. "That's your fucking job."

  "Yeah, well, you're not making it any easier," she replied.

  He was silent for a moment, taking her in. His eyes dropped to her chest as she breathed in and out before dropping back to her eyes. "You never answered my question, sweetheart," he told her, his voice still possessing an edge but it was much lower making it that much more dangerous. "How would you feel if I was fucking someone?"

  "My feelings don't matter to you," Peyton told him, her voice cold and unflinching. "Don't pretend that they do. You can do whatever you want with whoever you want but I don't care. It's not going to make a difference to me."

  "You're a fucking liar," Logan said, his eyes cutting and sharp, like a knife. "I know you care."

  "If you know, then why ask me at all?" Peyton asked. "Why do you need to hear me say it? Is it supposed to stroke your ego? Is it something you want to hear? Because I'm not going to tell you something just because it's what you want to hear."

  "I want you to fucking tell me because you need to hear the goddamn truth," he said, his voice low, with a jagged edge to it. "That you might actually fucking like me and I'm a lot more fucking charming than you give me credit for. That you want to fucking kiss me again. That, despite your feminist bullshit, you wanted me to notice you in that fucking miniskirt. You wanted to show me your fucking legs because you know how fucking much I like your legs. Stop fucking pretending to be this innocent girl who doesn't fucking care. I know you do. What the fuck are you so afraid of?"

  "Take your own advice, then," Peyton snapped, hoping her voice didn't come at as shaky as it sounded. "You want me to admit to all these things but the truth of the matter is you like me too. Not just that you want to fuck me, which yo
u do, but you actually like me. You like my company. You like being around me. And that's why you've been weird and distant, because you have feelings for me. And you have no idea what you're doing because having feelings for someone goes against your nature."

  There was a heavy silence between the two of them. All they did was stare at each other, neither willing to budge even just a little bit.

  "Fine," Peyton said, rolling her eyes. "I'll go first. To answer your question, I would be a little put off if I found out you were sleeping with someone. But it wouldn't hurt because I know it wouldn't mean anything." His brow shot up in disbelief and Peyton looked away. "Fine. It would hurt a little." Her eyes snapped into his. "Your turn."

  Logan furrowed his brow. "My turn for what?" he asked.

  "Your turn to tell me the truth about you," she said. Logan shook his head.

  "I never fucking agreed to that, sweetheart," he said.

  Peyton's eyes cut him and he flinched. It was subtle and it was quick but she noticed that his face did react to her look, whether he would admit it or not.

  "You're a dick," she said through gritted teeth. "You know what? You can go. I'll take the tour by myself." She unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to open the passenger door when Logan grabbed her wrist.

  "I don't fucking think you know what you do to me," he told her slowly, his eyes burning into hers, making her cheeks flush with heat. "Hell, I don't know why you do to me. All I know is that you fucking scare the shit out of me but I can't not be around you." He reached out and curled an errant strand of hair behind her ear. She hadn't meant to, but Peyton leaned into his touch and his eyes widened just slightly that she would react in such a way. "Am I finished? Can we go?"

  Peyton swallowed and leaned back in her chair. "Was that so hard?" she asked. He shot her a warning look and she couldn't help it when a giggle slipped out of her mouth.

  Logan rolled his hazel eyes and popped out of the car. Peyton followed suit. After closing the door to the car, she shoved her hands in the pockets of her thick hoodie. It was ridiculously cold, the sky already black just after seven o'clock at night. The sky was overcast and dark grey. The rain had finished up a couple of days ago but there was a good chance a new storm was coming. As much as she loved the rain, Peyton didn't want it to prevent her from getting this tour of the jail.