Still Not Over You(32)

“You’ve made a lot of enemies,” I say into the silence, speaking slowly, firmly. “Honestly, after the way you’ve been acting, you’re lucky I’ll even do the job. But I don’t want to see you hurt in Dallas’ incompetent hands. That’s the real reason I’m willing to stay on. No pile of money in the world could make working for your entitled ass worth it.” This time, her widened eyes are definitely offended, but I don’t give her time to snap back. “Think about it and make your damn decision,” I bite off.

Then walk away and leave her fuming, sulking, little sputtering sounds chasing after me.

I'm past caring. She can make the right choice that'll leave her alive, or go for the pretty boy who feeds her ego, but I can’t force it on her.

Besides, I have bigger things to worry about, right now.

Like why, with every word I’d said, I could still taste Kenna Burke on my lips.





*



After she’s been trying to talk to me for days, it’s almost laughable that now I can’t fucking find her.

I’ve got two cats trying to wrap around my ankles like leg warmers, but no Reb. She’s not in the kitchen, not in her room. I prowl through a few of the common rooms and find nothing.

Shit.

Maybe I did finally scare her away.

Why does that twist a knife through the pit of my stomach?

As I pass the open French doors leading out to the upstairs deck, though, the fluttering sigh of wind against paper catches my attention. I pause, glancing out. That black book she’d been writing in sits open on the deck table, the pages fanning in the sea breeze.

My eyes narrow. When I’d caught her writing in it, she'd looked almost guilty.

I shouldn’t look, should I?

But if she can pry on me, ripping my damn soul out in the process, turnabout is fair play.

Even if it's not. Deep down, I know it’s not. I know it’s not fair. I know it isn't justified.

But I’m also painfully curious, and I’m only fucking human.

Human enough to want to know what’s in those pages, that she might feel so guilty about. It’s just a book, right? Fiction?

Oh, fuck yes, it's hers. I find that out when I drop myself in a chair and flick the pages open.

It’s her book, her story, her make believe...but it’s also an ode to my body, and I don't know whether to be confused or hard.



Some men weren't meant to be men. They were born beasts, powerful and primal. Every time they move, thick muscles bunching and slinking, you know them for what they are: the wild, chafing against their human skin, ready to break out any moment with flashing eyes and bared teeth and hackles raised. All growls and sensuality, raw feral power.



That’s Logan Kane in a nutshell, the asshole next door in his cabin, secluded from the world. It’s why he’s so unpredictable. So frightening. So frustrating.



And so desirable.



I shouldn’t be watching him like this. I was supposed to get the laundry in off the line when I heard a splash in the river behind our house, bigger than the sounds usually made by fish or small animals. We’ve had park ranger warnings about bears getting too close to people’s houses lately, so I was worried there might be one on our property.



I’d peeked out past the fence just to be sure, in case we needed to call animal services.



Instead, I found Logan Kane. Stripping down on the shore, boldly and gloriously naked, erasing any questions about what he was even doing on our property, when he’s been sneaking away from his awful family to swim in our river since we were children.



But he’s definitely no child now.



Somehow, Logan grew up when I wasn’t looking. He’s hardened, bronzed, his body a litany of battle scars telling a tale I don’t know how to comprehend.



Those scars blend seamlessly into the stories written across his body in raging ink, darkly spiraling and swirling designs like spells cast in flesh. They cast a spell on me, winding down his arms and over his chest, darkening his already bronzed skin to a point of sin. There’s a bruise on his shoulder, as if he’d been in some kind of brawl recently, but it only adds to the raw, primitive edge of his feral beauty. He’s breathtaking, with his dark hair falling across his lightning blue eyes, and that pensive blue gaze staring across the water.



Breathtaking, magnificent, and someone I…



I can never have.



Logan? Logan. Like that’s really such a stretch from Landon.

Fuck my life, McKenna Burke is writing a romance novel about me.

Those are my tattoos she’s talking about. Black hair. Blue eyes. Even the bruise that even now makes my shoulder hurt like a motherfucker even though it’s starting to fade into tinges of green and yellow.

It's me. Obviously.

And the girl in this story, the one I flip through, reading about the trademark frames on her face and the day she found this Logan asshole's diary...

I don’t even realize my mouth has been hanging open half the time I’ve been reading until I realize how dry my tongue is. Or how my heart has gone straight to my cock, beating like it's ready to tear through my pants.

I swallow, closing my lips forcefully. My face feels like I just stuck my head in a damn oven, my chest is tight, and my balls burn molten.