“What has?” she asked huskily, his words spinning deliciously through her head as she tried to make sense out of them.
He cocked his head to the side as he studied her, those sexy baby blues crinkling at the corners. “I don’t know what came down between you two, but he’s got some wild hair up his ass about you only wanting him for some fast, mindless sex. Some kind of one-night stand and nothing more.”
Despite her best intentions to be sophisticated about this highly unusual conversation, Melanie felt her face go hot. She knew she was blushing clear to her roots.
“Er…he told you that?”
A slow, teasing smile played charmingly at the corner of his sexy mouth, so like Mark’s, and yet harder, as if he didn’t smile often enough. “More or less. So it’s up to you, Mel. If he’s wrong, which I’d be willing to bet my di—er, my life on,” he laughed with a slow smile, “then you’re gonna have to let him know what you want out of this thing. But I can tell you that if you want more, it’s there for the taking.”
“I can’t—” she stammered uncomfortably, struggling for the words to explain how she felt. “I just— I wish you were right, Cain, but I don’t know. It all got really messed up somehow and now it’s just…it’s, um, all kinda confusing. Make that impossibly confusing.”
He took a step closer to her, the mischief-made grin playing over his mouth making him look younger, less cynical than she had ever seen him before. “It doesn’t have to be, 76
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Mel. Take my word on it and take a chance on him. Let him know how you really feel about him, because I know Mark, honey, and he’s serious as shit about this. Hell,” he laughed, “if you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me. He’s been driving me crazy these past six months, lovesick over you—and that was nothing compared to what this week has been like. If you don’t put him out of his misery, I’ll have to shoot him just to preserve my sanity.”
“Yeah, right,” she smiled, shaking her head. “You, Cain Logan, are all bluster. No matter what you say, I know you love your little brother.” A mock look of panic fell over his face. “Well shit, Mel, don’t go telling him. I’ll never live it down.”
Laughter bubbled up out of her, but she was afraid to look too closely at the small burst of hope beginning to rise in her chest, making her feel lighter…freer…and unbearably excited. She smiled again, and said, “Thanks for being so sweet.”
“Sweet?” he scowled, his look saying she’d clearly just insulted him. “Shit, I’m outta here before you completely trash my bad-ass reputation, you little witch.” Her smile widened. Oh man, it was just too much fun baiting the bad-ass hunk, and she couldn’t help but get a kick out of his obvious discomfort with her praise. “You know, I never would have believed it, but deep down inside you’re just a big ol’ softie, aren’t you?”
“Not hardly,” he snorted, giving her a suspicious look, as if she’d lost her mind.
Trying to keep a straight face, Mel said, “I can’t wait to tell Kyra.” Cain’s head jerked up as if he’d been clipped on the chin, the look on his face so comical, she couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Do that, Melanie Green,” he growled, pointing one long finger at her, “and I’ll have your devious little ass hauled in for disturbing the peace.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she grinned, not the least bit intimidated by his ferocious scowl.
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“Just try me,” he muttered. “That woman is a menace.” Hmm…maybe it was time to test her suspicions. “Kyra? Really? And here she thinks you’re so cute.”
“Huh?” he grunted, looking like he’d been smacked with a tree trunk between those sky-blue eyes. “She told you she thinks I’m hot?” Melanie had to bite the side of her tongue to keep from chuckling. “Um, I believe I just used the word cute.”
“Kyra thinks I’m hot?” he repeated, still wearing that poleaxed expression that made her snicker under her breath.
“When we first met you, she said cute…but I’m sure hot qualifies if it makes you feel better. Actually, she’s said quite a few other things over the last few months, but I can’t in good conscience repeat them.”
“Damn,” he rumbled, rubbing one hand against the scratchy stubble on his chin, still lost in thought. “I figured she hated me, with the way she’s always ripping into me.”
“Well,” Mel said softly, “I suspect that’s just because she thinks you can’t stand her.”
“S’that right?” he murmured, his mind obviously on a certain sexy little redhead with smoky green eyes. Kyra might kill her for it, but she couldn’t help but wonder if all the animosity between those two wasn’t just misdirected sexual energy and emotion.
He opened his mouth, about to say something else, when the police pager on his belt let out a high-pitched beep that damn near scared her out of her skin. Cain looked down at the number in the display window, then muttered another, “Damn.” He was already walking to her door, pausing only long enough to reach down and press a quick kiss to her temple, sending her a sexy wink, when he said, “I gotta go, sugar, but just think about what I said.”
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As if I’ll be thinking about anything else, she thought. “Thanks for coming by,” she called after him, watching as he flew down the narrow staircase, his long frame looking as out of place there as Mark’s had last week, on that infamous night. They were both so big and broad and full of life, they seemed to take up all the space, no matter where they were. She struggled to find the right word to describe them, finally settling on dynamic, though things like addictive and mouthwatering came in as close seconds. As Kyra would say, the Logan brothers looked like they were born from sin and twice as thrilling.
Lost in reflection, Melanie shut her front door and leaned back on the hard surface, studying the claret-colored polish on her toenails as her mind whirred a mile a minute, emotions and feelings tumbling over themselves so quickly they all too soon became a jumbled, exhilarated mess. She tried to temper her excitement, but Cain’s words kept playing through her mind, tempting and sweet. If what he said was true, what exactly had gone wrong that night? Why had everything that started out so right, gone so off-kilter? And what the hell was she going to do about it? Sit here and make herself dizzy spinning it around and around in her thick skull, or go after Mark Logan’s bad boy ass and set him straight about what she wanted once and for all?
With a tight knot of anticipation in her tummy, she turned and wrenched open the door, and came face-to-fist with a hammering hand as it nearly connected with her forehead. Stumbling backward to avoid the blow meant for her door, she swiped at the wayward curls that had tumbled into her line of vision, and blinked against the sight of Mark filling her doorway, his wide shoulders blocking the bright glare of the sun that shone like a spark of flame behind him. He cursed under his breath at the near miss, at the same time her eyes went even wider when they landed on his still damp, stain-splattered T-shirt.
“What happened to you?” she blurted out, followed quickly by a demanding,
“What are you doing here?”
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“Trying to knock on your damn door,” he muttered, ignoring the first question in favor of the second, before stepping past her the same way that Cain had done not fifteen minutes earlier. “Don’t you know you should never open a door until you’ve looked to see who’s there?”
Mel studied him from beneath her lashes, trying to figure out his mood. The long, wholly masculine lines of his big, hard body were taut with tension, the wide, sensual line of his mouth compressed into a fierce expression of…she couldn’t exactly say. He didn’t look necessarily angry, so much as on the verge of something explosive.
Shrugging her shoulders, Mel closed the door. “I didn’t think anyone was there.”
“Yeah, well, I was there.”
She made a snarling sound of frustration, bl
owing another wayward curl from her eyes. “But you hadn’t even knocked yet,” she pointed out.
“I was getting ready to,” he shot back, “and that door is pathetic. Hell, I could have busted through it without even breaking a sweat.” Melanie took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “Mark, before this turns into a lecture on my home security or a ridiculous shouting match, was there something you actually wanted?”
He jerked to attention, the feral gleam in his eyes stealing her breath. “Yeah, there is.”
She nibbled on the corner of her lip, feeling her heart jolt into her throat at the provocative intent coursing through his expression. “Why are you here?” He took a single step toward her, crowding into her space with his long, strong frame that looked mouthwateringly good in a pair of dark blue running shorts and stained white T-shirt, his silky black hair windblown, the tang of the sea on his sweat-heated skin. He reached out and rubbed the callused pad of his thumb over her right cheekbone, stroking her skin, and in a gravel-filled voice, he rasped, “I’m here to say what I should have said before.”
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She swallowed against her nerves, barely resisting the urge to turn her face and press her lips against the damp heat of his palm. “Do I…uh, really want to hear this?” A small smile played at the corner of his beautiful mouth, green eyes moving over the flushed features of her face like the urgent press of a lover’s lips, leaving the warm thrum of hope in their wake. “I want more, Melanie.” She blinked against the dark, danger-edged flare of hunger that burned there in those seductive green depths, the thick rim of his ink-black lashes casting shadows against the golden brown of his skin. It seemed impossibly warm in her apartment, despite the cool chill of her air conditioner.
“More what?” she asked, unable to draw enough air into her lungs. She watched his lips part, a rumbling, ragged pattern of breaths breaking from his chest.
“Of you.” His voice was deep and dark, an evocative assault on her senses that made her melt inside, going wet and thick like rich, succulent syrup, all gooey and warm.
“Um, after last Friday,” she whispered, “I think you’ve already had more than you deserve, Mark.”
“Not like that,” he muttered, shaking his dark head as he stepped even closer, the hot, muscled slabs of his chest touching the tips of her shirt-covered breasts, making them pull tight with a tingling, clenching sensation. “I want more than that sweet little pussy between your legs, though god knows I’m all but dying for it. And I don’t just want it, Melanie. I need it. And I haven’t…I mean I haven’t ever…” he verbally stumbled with frustration. “Jesus, I want to make you understand what this means—
how different it is for me—but I don’t know how to say it. I’m fumbling here like some kid with raging hormones,” he muttered, breaking off with a disgusted scowl.
“No, keep going. This is finally getting good,” she said with a dazed smile.
“Look, we screwed up. No, scratch that— I screwed up. I was trying to go easy on you, because I didn’t want to scare you away from me. I never— never didn’t want you, Mel, and I’m sorry as hell you…uh, might have got that impression. All I can say is that 81
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I handled it wrong from the beginning, but then I didn’t know how the hell to handle it, all of this, in the first place.” He made a harsh sound of irritation, lowering his head as he ran the long fingers of his left hand through the damp midnight strands of his hair, the musky, delectable scent of hot male coming from his skin in warm, pulsing waves, as if in perfect rhythm with his heartbeat.
“What was I supposed to think, Mark? All you wanted to do was talk to me!” Her words seemed to jar his memory, because his head snapped up and he suddenly gripped her chin with his thumb and forefinger, a fierce scowl pulling the dark lines of his brows together. “Damn it, Melanie. Why the hell didn’t you explain things to me that night, instead of letting me make an idiot of myself by assuming you were just looking for a quick screw?”
Mel nervously nibbled on the corner of her lip, fully aware that her heart had just launched itself into her throat. “Exactly what ‘things’ are you talking about, Mark?”
* * * * *
It was amazing the difference a week of hell, not to mention one pissed off woman and a cup of tea thrown at you, could make to a man’s point of view, but damned if that wasn’t the case. When he’d finally crawled out of bed this morning, Mark had tried to jog off his mounting frustration with a long beach run, even though he’d known it wouldn’t work. Still, he’d needed the grind of the physical activity to keep him from pacing a hole through his floorboards, so he’d pushed himself hard for three miles, and finally found himself sweating in line at Roy’s behind a certain smart-mouthed, feisty redhead.
Thank god for tough-ass best friends, he’d muttered as he’d run up the narrow staircase leading to Melanie’s second-story apartment only moments before, or he’d still be moping around like some pathetic idiot, instead of going after the woman he wanted.
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Now, stroking the lush curve of Melanie’s lower lip with the calloused pad of his thumb, he still couldn’t believe what a mess they’d made out of everything, both of them keeping their true feelings too close to their hearts. “Guess who I just ran into down at Miracles?”
“I haven’t the foggiest,” she answered through lips suddenly tight with tension, her normally glowing face pale with an unease that he longed to wipe away, replacing it with something so much brighter and more vital.
“Kyra.”
Her eyes widened, and he could tell she tried to sound casual as she said, “And just what did Kyra have to say?”
He raised his gaze from the bruised rose of her beautiful mouth to snag her glittering glare. “Stop going all prickly on me and just answer the question. Why the hell didn’t you just explain what you really wanted from me?”
“I tried,” she argued, shrugging her shoulders as she tried to jerk her chin free of his grasp. “But you took it all wrong!”
Damn it, she had him there. “Well,” he muttered, “you could have tried explaining to me about your past.”
“My past?” she repeated in a quiet voice, her brown eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“What difference would that have made?”
“Knowing how you felt about me, and what you thought I wanted from you—or what you thought I didn’t want from you?” He snorted, shaking his head in frustration.
“Fuck, it would have made things a hell of a lot easier to understand where you were coming from last Friday, I’ll tell you that much. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have jumped to my own dumbass conclusions when you started talking about my pain-in-the-ass reputation.”
A sudden spark of recognition flared in her gaze, hot and bright and angry. “Kyra had no right to tell you anything. Just what exactly did she blab about?” 83
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“You mean after she threw her chai tea in my face and told me along with the rest of Roy’s customers what a first-class bastard she thinks I am for breaking your heart?” He sent her a wry smile, holding his hands out at his sides so she could see the full extent of the damage Kyra had inflicted upon his once white shirt.
“Yes…after that,” she muttered, though there was an unholy gleam of humor in her eyes when she looked at his tea-splattered clothing.
“Enough for me to understand that the men you’ve known have been complete idiots.” He kept his voice gentle, wanting to show her tenderness, though it was hard when the need to nail her sweet little ass to the nearest wall was driving him so hard.
Hell, the need to ride her hard and make her come stayed with him twenty-four hours a day.
“Oh my god,” she groaned, covering her face with her hands. “I’m going to strangle her!”
“Why?” he laughed softly, stroking her curls back from her face before trailing his hand down th
e side of her neck, making her shiver with awareness despite her embarrassment. “Because she’s your friend and she cares about you? Because she thinks you deserve some happiness? Because she was willing to make a spectacle of herself to get me to realize what an ass I’ve been?”
“Some things are meant to be private,” she argued, obviously sensitive about the details of her past experiences with the opposite sex, which in Mark’s opinion was ridiculous. It wasn’t her fault they’d been too blind to realize what they’d let slip through their fingers.
“It’s supposed to be some big secret that you’ve known nothing but a string of idiots who weren’t man enough to realize what an incredible, fascinating, sexy-as-hell woman you are?” he grunted. “Tight-assed, snot-nosed little runts in the mud, like that last jerk, Craig?”
Shock jerked her gaze back to his as she peeked at him from between her fingers.
“That’s it,” she growled. “Kyra deserves to have her tongue cut out!” 84
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Mark grasped her wrists and pulled her hands from her pink face, wondering if she was always going to blush in front of him…and almost hoping so, he found it so adorable. “Hey, don’t go getting all pissed about it, angel. If she hadn’t explained things, I’d still be thinking you were only after my—” She immediately cut him off. “Don’t say it,” she groaned, her husky voice stifled, thick with emotion. “I did not just want you for sex, Mark Logan, but it was humiliating when I realized that you didn’t even want to go to bed with me!”
“What?”
She thrust out her precious little chin and glared up at him. “You heard me.”
“Wait a minute. You mean to tell me you honestly didn’t think I wanted to fuck you that night?” he asked, dumbfounded by the truth burning there in that brilliant cinnamon-brown gaze. “Shit, Kyra said as much, but I guess I still wasn’t really buying it. Not even when she told me—”
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