Fighting Fate (Granton University #1)(87)

“She would, would she?”

“Oh, yeah.” She rolled around to face him. Though she could barely see him in the dark room, her lips found his without a problem.

He didn’t break away until her hand smoothed down his bare chest and discovered the waistband of his boxer shorts. “We probably shouldn’t,” he said, his voice strained as he caught her wrist. “You have to be sore. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Wiggling her fingers, she tried to break free to tempt him some more. “I don’t mind. Really.”

“But I do. Please, Paige.” His lashes fluttered against his cheek. “Let me be a gentleman, this time at least.” Then he set his mouth by her ear and whispered, “because I have a bad feeling that after I’m sure you’re healed, I’ll be attacking you every chance I get.”

Though the last part of his explanation heated her to the core, the importance of his wanting to be a gentleman struck her as special, showed her how much he cared and wanted to treat her right. She honestly didn’t mind a little soreness, but she sighed and kissed his chin.

“Oh, all right.”

She let him work her back around until they were spooning again. When he returned to stroking his hand down her arm, she relaxed against him. “What time is it?”

She felt him lift his head off the pillow before he said, “Just after two,” and then he nestled his face back into her hair.

She let out a sad sigh. “I wish tomorrow didn’t have to come so soon. I wish we could stay here like this until…I don’t know. For a long time.”

“All right then. I forthwith suspend time until the lady wishes to move on.”

Wrinkling her nose, she laughed. “Forthwith?”

“What? What’s wrong with forthwith?”

“I’m definitely getting you a thesaurus. No one uses forthwith anymore.”

Logan chuckled with her. “Did anyone ever?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe in the eighteen hundreds.”

“While drinking tea and eating crumpets in the blue salon,” he suggested, affecting a British accent, which made her giggle.

“And talking about dukes and earls who might be attending the upcoming masquerade ball,” she added.

He played along, building to the story. And she felt the need to outdo him until soon they had a ridiculous tale created that no longer had anything to do with the word forthwith.

They talked deep into the night, teasing and whispering, kissing then touching. By the time Paige drifted into a dreamless sleep, she felt happier than she could ever remember feeling in her life. Just before unconsciousness claimed her, a pair of warm lips pressed against the back of her head.

“I love you,” he whispered.

And that was all she needed to feel content.





Chapter Thirty-Three


“PAIGE, YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE—” The bathroom door to Paige’s room flew open and Bailey exploded inside with Tess hot on her heels. “Dorian Wa—oh my God. Paige is in bed with a guy!”

Jerked from a deep sleep, Paige sat straight up, making her covers slide down to reveal the Minnie Mouse t-shirt she’d worn to sleep. Beside her, Logan lurched sideways and tumbled to the floor.

When he landed with a thump, Paige scurried forward to peer over the edge. “Are you okay?”

Lying flat on his back, he groaned and opened his eyes. “Does everyone blow in here like that each morning without knocking first?”

She winced. “Actually, no. I think you’ve just gotten lucky.” She held out her hand to help him up.

As he accepted it, Bailey shifted around them, studying him from a different angle before her eyes flared. “Hey, you’re that hot designated driver guy.”

He grunted out an unintelligible sound and rubbed the shoulder he’d landed on as he scowled at her. “Yeah. G’morning to you too.”

“Pai-aige!” Tess looked pleasantly scandalized as she put two syllables in Paige’s name. Eyes glittering with glee, she rubbed her hands together. “Did you get drunk and need a ride home last night?”

Both Logan and Paige ignored the intruders as they gazed at each other.

Reaching out, he caught a piece of her hair and smoothed it down, his expression full of adoring amusement. “I should probably go.”

She nodded glumly and watched him glance around the room until he spotted his jeans draped over the back of her desk chair. Her greedy gaze gobbled up the muscle tone on his legs and the sleek line of his vertebra as he kept his back to them and jerked his pants on, tugging them up over his boxer shorts.

Paige licked her lips, remembering how she’d clutched that very back last night before she realized she wasn’t the only one taking in an eyeful.

Scowling at both her suitemates as their stares followed every move Logan made, she stepped partially in front of them to block their view and crossed her arms over her chest.

Lifting an eyebrow, she asked, “Do you mind?”

Bailey shifted to the side so she could peer around Paige’s shoulder. “Not at all.”

“Me neither,” a blushing Tess piped up as she dodged to the other side of Paige for her own peek.

Giving up on them, Paige sighed and turned just in time to see the last bit of Logan’s golden back disappear as he slipped on his shirt. When he glanced at her with a nervous, uncertain smile, she melted. His blue eyes asked if she was okay, if she regretted anything, if she wanted to see him again.