“I don’t need babysitting, sweetheart. I’ll be fine on my own.”
Staring into his eyes, I said, “Maybe I’m not fine on my own.” Truth was, I was terrified of leaving him alone. I wouldn’t be able to settle properly if I was worrying about him finding a bottle of whisky and drinking until he drifted off to sleep.
My words were all he needed to hear to pull his t-shirt over his head. I laid down and rolled onto my side, giving him some privacy while he took his jeans off. We’d spent the night in the same bed before but that was when one of us – usually me – was a complete mess and the other stayed to comfort. I’d never shared a bed with him where I was wearing little shorts and a spaghetti strap top and he was just in boxers.
I had a huge moment of doubt but then he slipped beneath the covers and wrapped me in his arms. I felt safe and protected and prayed that he felt that, too. It would be fine, no different to all those other times I’d fallen asleep in his strong arms as he held me together.
“I’m the one that should be holding you.”
“Nah, more manly like this,” he said.
Completely back to pretending he was okay. The boy drove me nuts! Why couldn’t he just open up without thinking of it as a weakness?
Resigning myself to the inevitable, I snuggled back against his chest and let it go – he wasn’t going to talk anyway.
“Are you going to see him again?”
“He asked me on a second date,” I replied.
“To which you replied…?”
“I said yes. We’re going to the comedy club next weekend.” Logan stilled and I felt his muscles tense around me. “What?”
“That’s our thing. Me, you, Cassie, and Rick the Prick before he was the prick.”
And Jace before he died.
“Do you not want me to go there with Rhys?”
“No, you can go with who you like, Chlo. It’s just weird you doing a Scott thing with someone else. I’m being an idiot, ignore me.”
I didn’t realise it would be weird before Logan said it. I was taking a date somewhere I used to go with my boyfriend and his siblings. “No, it is weird. I’ll tell him I want to go somewhere else.”
His arms loosened but didn’t relax and he started tracing patterns on my arm with his fingers. It felt really nice. I closed my eyes and unconsciously snuggled back against him. I felt his touch everywhere, from the top of my head to the very tips of my toes. It was the most comforting thing I’d felt in a very long time and didn’t ever want him to stop.
“Don’t do that. I don’t own the comedy club. You can go with whoever you want. We can go with Cass next month,” he said against the back of my head. His breath tickling the sensitive skin at the back of my neck.
“That sounds good,” I whispered, flicking off the lamp and closing my eyes again, enjoying having him slowly sending me to sleep with his magical fingers.
I yawned. “I’m exhausted and need sleep. Night, Logan.”
“Night, sweetheart,” he whispered in the darkness.
Chapter Nine
Logan
I woke up with a human on my chest and it took me a few seconds to realise it was Chloe; I was in her room and hadn’t left last night like I’d planned. Out of all the women I’d woken up next to this was by far the most pleasant. The least being the charming woman that stumbled to the corner of her room, crouched down and pissed on the floor. She was still off her face drunk, but still, I was out of there before she’d pulled her thong back up. Waking up to Chloe felt about a million times better every time it’d happened, which wasn’t a lot. We’d fallen asleep in the same bed or on a sofa but this was different. There were no tears or anger. Neither of us was really there for comfort. Well, maybe I was after her fucking date.
She spent the evening with him but the night with me. I needed that night. I wondered what he’d think if he knew we’d shared a bed – not doing what I was desperate to do in it. She wasn’t his but I wanted to tell him and it’d be a deal breaker for him.
Fuck, I was a selfish bastard.
Chloe breathed heavily and balled her hand in a loose fist, dragging her fingertips over my chest before they curled under her palm. I closed my eyes and counted to ten, slowly. The bottom half of her was beside me on the bed but the top half was almost completely on me. Her breasts were pressed pretty firmly against my chest, which made calming the fuck down almost impossible.