Neat (Becker Brothers, #2)(54)

I waggled my finger with every word, and Logan chuckled, shaking his head.

“It’s silly, isn’t it?” he asked. “To let some old family feud define what we can and can’t do.”

“It is,” I agreed, and though it sounded like we’d both just admitted that we didn’t give a fuck about what our parents thought, we both knew it wasn’t true. Logan loved his mother and his brothers more than anyone in the world, and I knew it killed him to disappoint them in any way, to let them down. As for me, I had an art studio on the line — one my father would rip away in the blink of an eye if he ever found out what happened between me and Logan.

“So… I guess we should just be…” Logan swallowed. “Friends?”

The way he asked it, the way his eyebrows bent together, his lips flattening — I knew it was a hollow offer.

I nodded. “Sure. Of course.” A smile that felt like a wave of nausea found my lips. “Friends.”

Logan watched me, and I watched him, both of us waiting for something more. It seemed like there were a million unborn words between us, floating in the air, waiting for us to reach out and grab them and bring them to life. When a long moment of silence had passed, Logan bit the inside of his cheek, picking up his highlighter he’d abandoned on the desk when I’d walked in like he was ready to get back to work.

“But,” I said, and his eyes snapped to mine, the highlighter frozen over the page. “I mean… there’s another option, isn’t there?”

Logan dropped the highlighter, leaning back again. “There is?”

“I’m just saying,” I said, voice shakier than I wanted it to be in that moment. I took a sip of my coffee, shrugging. “What if we kept things low key… casual… just between us?” My eyes found his again. “It is what it is, and it’s not what it’s not. Right? No need for anyone to know.”

“Low key,” Logan repeated, like he was tasting the words, checking them for poison with his tongue. “So, friends… with benefits.”

I snorted. “If you want to be twenty-one about it, sure.”

Logan nodded, over and over, just a slight movement of his chin up and down as he considered it. I watched him as he stood, and I expected him to start pacing the office, but instead, he crossed it, closing his door and turning to face me.

His eyes swept over me, sparking a fire low in my stomach.

He wet his lips.

He took a step.

And then I was out of my chair, meeting him in the middle, the two of us crashing together like magnets.

His hands weaved into my hair when he captured my mouth with his own, both of us sighing on an inhale, moaning on the exhale, leaning into each other like we could somehow melt together completely. All the electricity I’d felt that night came back like a tidal wave, and I surrendered to the waves, letting them drown me. I wanted him to fill my lungs, to conquer every breath, to imprison me.

It was a kiss that told me we were both lying. We both wanted more.

But if it was a choice between this, or nothing at all?

There wasn’t a decision to make — not where I was concerned. It had already been made for us, without either of us having a say, without either of us having an ounce of control to throw this story in another direction.

We were inevitable, me and him.

And maybe we knew it from the start.

Logan backed me up to the desk, and when my ass hit it, I hiked both legs up, wrapping them around his waist and squeezing. He hissed, sucking my bottom lip between his teeth and releasing it with a pop, his hips rolling against mine. I broke the kiss to let out a gasp, and his mouth was on my neck in an instant, sucking and biting, my eyes rolling back at the contact.

He paused with his lips by my ear, breathing heavy. “I think this could work for me,” he whispered, running his tongue over my ear lobe. “This… friends agreement.” His hands squeezed where they held my hips, and the familiar pressure sent flashes of Saturday night barreling through my memory. I gasped, mouth still hanging open when he kissed my neck over to the opposite ear to whisper again. “What do you think?”

Against the voice inside me warning me not to, I ran my fingers through his hair, gripping those dark strands and pulling his lips back to mine.

That kiss was an answer.

That kiss was a lie.

And distantly, I realized that kiss might be the biggest mistake of my life.





Logan


For the first time in my life, I had a new routine, and it went like this:

Wake up early, so I could get in the workout I usually did in the evenings before I walked out the door for work. Then, I’d practically skip through those distillery doors, and wait as patiently as I could for Mallory to slip into my office and into my arms. It was easy to sneak time together under the guise of our “training” — especially when we finished up the storage closet and got back to tours. We ate lunch together, took break together, walked out together after work… and kept all the touching for behind closed doors.

After work, I went straight to the shop with Mallory. She sprung it on me that she wanted to have the grand opening on Friday — less than a week after we’d unpacked that first set of boxes. And though I thought she was crazy and that she needed at least another two months to be fully ready, I didn’t argue — mostly because it gave me an excuse to spend every waking hour after work with her.