Logan (Wild Boys After Dark, #1)(43)

This love stuff hurt like hell, and if he had to hope for her love, there was no way he was going to put himself through that sort of torture.

Then why did every ounce of him hope she was telling him the truth?





Chapter Sixteen


“DUDE, I DON’T know what you have going on with Stella, but if you’re not going to hit that, I want a shot,” Jackson said over Logan’s shoulder.

Logan grabbed his younger brother’s arm and squeezed his muscle. They were cooking spaghetti in his mother’s kitchen. He and Stella had hardly spoken since she told him she’d love-f*cked him. After a long, tense afternoon, and with the timeline on Kutcher’s release closing in on them, Logan was in no mood for a pissing match over Stella. Logan eyed the entryway into the living room, where Stella and Heath were talking with his mother.

“Don’t even think about it,” Logan warned.

Jackson put his hands up in surrender. “Get a grip. What’s gotten into you?”

Logan released him. “Sorry,” he ground out. He knew Jackson was just messing around, but between waiting for the news on Kutcher and Stella pulsing hot and cold, Logan’s nerves were threadbare.

Jackson lowered his voice. “Hey, man, I’d never make a move on your girl. I was just feeling you out.”

“Not a good idea.” He paced the small room. “She’s got a lot of shit going on right now.”

“She does, or you do?” Jackson held his stare.

“We both do.” He stopped talking when Stella appeared in the doorway.

Her eyes darted between the two men. She fidgeted with the seam of her jeans. “Want some help?”

“Sure.” Logan gave Jackson a stare that he knew he’d read as, Get the hell out of here.

Jackson pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “I’ll go talk with Mom.”

Stella stood close enough that Logan could smell her fruity shampoo. “Your family’s really nice.”

“Thanks.” He focused on stirring the spaghetti sauce, still trying to figure out how to handle things with her.

“Do you cook for your mom often?”

Logan shrugged. “We take turns throughout the week.”

“Every week?”

He met her surprised gaze. “Yeah, well, since my father…”

Her eyes filled with empathy as she touched his arm. “I’m sorry, Logan.”

Sorry for what? Breaking things off with me, or sorry about my mother? He wished he knew the answer.

“Yeah, well.” He lifted a piece of spaghetti from the pot and plopped it into his mouth. It needed another minute.

“Your mom said the police gave up looking for the guy who broke in.”

Logan shifted his eyes away, remembering the night he’d taken his parents’ assailant’s life and realizing that she wasn’t sorry for breaking it off with him. He didn’t want to talk about his father’s death. He was having enough trouble trying to navigate their relationship. “Yup.”

“Aren’t you worried for her with him still out there?”

Logan hadn’t told his mother that he’d killed her attacker, but she’d believed Logan when he’d told her the guy had been taken care of. He didn’t know what his mother thought that meant, and he had no desire to find out. She was safe, and that was all that mattered. As for Stella, he was done *footing around. He was no better at feigning his emotions than she was at it, no matter how hard she tried to play it cool.

He slid his hand around her waist, ignoring the way her body tensed against his.

“I don’t want to talk about my father.” He held her gaze. “Stella, you can resist me, but I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Logan.” She turned away and lowered her voice. “You don’t need someone like me in your life. You have a great family, a great life, and I have Kutcher.”

He turned her in his arms again and touched her cheek, guiding her eyes back to his. “I want you, and I feel like you want me, too, but you’re fighting it.”

“Am not.”

He smiled at the adorable way she said the lie. “You can fool yourself, sweetheart, but you’re not fooling me.”

“You see what you want to see,” she snapped, but her body belied her tone. Her hips pressed into his. He splayed his hands across her lower back and noticed the pulse at the base of her neck quickening.

“I like what I see, but I don’t see how you feel about me,” he said. “I feel it.”

She rolled her eyes, but Logan refused to be dissuaded. This love was real; he’d bet his life on it. He pressed a kiss to her cheek and whispered, “You feel it, too, darlin’, and I’ll be right here waiting when you can no longer fight it.”

Heath appeared in the doorway, and Stella quickly disengaged from his arms with a look of a guilty teenager caught necking on the couch.

“Sorry to interrupt. Just thought I’d grab the plates.” Heath reached into a cabinet.

Logan enjoyed watching Stella squirm. She looked cute as hell, all pink-cheeked and flustered.

“Thanks, Heath.” Logan arched a brow at Stella, who widened her eyes as if to say, Now look what you did.

He drained and rinsed the pasta and coughed to muffle a chuckle.