Chapter 14
Brett was serving like a champion, pouring three drinks at once while taking cash and using his hip to close the cash register. I waited patiently to catch his attention. I was in no hurry, Kat and I had been dancing for an hour already, and I needed a break and another shot. We’d chugged back three tequilas when we arrived, and I was due for another.
A hand slammed down in front of me. “Emily, been a while. Where’ve you been, hot stuff?”
For all the commotion, Brett looked damn calm. His blue eyes flickered with amusement as he poured a Stella from the bar tap and slid it down the bar, all the while his attention never wavered from me.
“Still recovering from our last night out.” Kat and I were here a couple weeks ago, and the tequila shots didn’t sit so well the next day, especially when having to ride Havoc and working with four rescue horses. We made it a habit to come to the bar twice a month and stay at the condo, so we could see Matt. Matt was so busy with Avalanche that we rarely saw him now. We’d also go see Georgie who recently wasn’t making it out to the farm as often to see us.
“So, you saying no more tequila tonight, sweetie?”
I tilted my head and raised my brows. Brett laughed and poured me a shot. He was nearly always serving at Avalanche. Kat swore Brett only worked there to pick up chicks, as during the day he was a real estate tycoon. It was hard to imagine the blond with the unruly curls and dashing blue eyes wearing a business suit.
I put down a twenty. “Nice try, Emily.”
“It’s a tip.” Matt insisted we get our drinks for free, but I still tried to pay whenever I was here. The bar was kind of like therapy for me, being around men, dancing and losing myself to the music. The first dozen times we’d come here it had been disastrous. The second I felt a man near me I felt the fear, the terror that I’d be kidnapped and then forced into that world again. I’d have given up if Kat hadn’t continued to push me to come back again and again. We’d dance and she’d keep close to me and talk to me or sing and make me laugh. Slowly over time the terror lessoned until I began looking forward to going out and dancing again.
“Don’t need the money. Where’s Kat?”
I gestured to the dance floor, and Brett glanced over then rolled his eyes and shook his head which unleashed a curl that dangled in front of his face. I followed his gaze and saw Kat rubbing erotically against some guy, his hands up under her shirt.
“She’s going to land herself in deep one of these times. And I’m betting it’ll be tonight.”
“Why’s that?” I asked. Kat was always a flirt, but there was something in the way she treated men that I thought was different in the last couple years. It wasn’t like she enjoyed their attention, although she certainly looked like she did. It was more ... like she needed it and yet hated it at the same time.
Brett shrugged while pouring a rum and Coke. He plopped a lime in it then slid it to a young guy a few seats away from me. “Just a feelin’ is all.”
I noticed he was still watching Kat. “Why don’t you date her?”
Brett threw his head back and laughed. “Not touching that sweet ass. Number one, don’t want or need a relationship. Number two, overprotective brother, and number three, she belongs to Ream. And he’s back. I’d like to keep my teeth.” What? Ream? The guy from Logan’s old band? I’d never met him, but had heard his name when I researched Logan on the Internet back when we met and Logan had mentioned Ream was a friend of Deck’s.
Brett leaned forward, propping his elbows on the bar. “Better keep a close eye on your girl tonight. She stirs up too much trouble with Ream here ... He won’t like it. Don’t think she even knows he’s back yet. The band has kept it hush-hush.” The band used to have a large fan base in Toronto a few years ago, but she’d thought they’d stopped playing when Logan went to Mexico. Maybe they’d found a new lead singer. Brett took another order and moved down the bar.
Before I had a chance to ask, Kat bumped me with her hip and grabbed the guy’s beer next to us and chugged half of it. She ran her finger down his shoulder as he stared at her open mouthed. “Thanks, babe.” Her voice was sultry and sweet, and it was enough to have the guy drooling instead of complaining.
“Ream? You’ve been seeing Ream?”
Kat’s face fell for a brief second before she covered it up with a half-smile. “We hooked up, Emily—briefly, really brief, like not-even-worth-mentioning brief. When you and Sculpt ... Well, when you were gone he was around. Helped out, you know with moving to the farm and shit. I was upset, and he listened. Then you came back; I wasn’t freaking anymore, and we hooked up then unhooked. End of story.” She threw her arm over my shoulders. “Come on, let’s dance. It’s lonely out there.”
“Kat? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It was nothing, Eme. Besides, you didn’t want to talk about anything to do with Sculpt.”
She was right. I would’ve freaked if she’d mentioned Logan or anything to do with Logan. “Did you sleep with him?”
I knew immediately she had, because she completely ignored me and started jumping up and down dancing. Kat handled problems like a kid. You know when a parent is telling their kid to stop doing something or to put their toys away and the kid just sits their pretending not to hear them, but you know damn well he or she does? That was Kat.
“Come on, missy, we need to let loose tonight,” Kat grabbed my hand and yanked me through the crowd to the dance floor.
I liked to dance, and I was good at it. I could close my eyes and let myself go. The music thrived in me, and my body moved easily to the beat. Kat was more of a wild dancer, jumping around, swinging her arms and singing out loud. And if that wasn’t enough to draw attention the slinky, red dress certainly did.
My eyes closed as my body moved back and forth, hips swaying, hands sliding up and down my sides as I lost myself to Avicii’s new song. Heat surged into my back and I was about to turn around when hands settled on my hips. It wasn’t unusual to have a guy come up behind and start dancing with you, and if he could dance and didn’t push the boundaries then I was okay with it—well that was a lie. I still felt uncomfortable, but the images of what happened at Raul’s dining hall had faded and I no longer freaked out when a guy touched me from behind thinking he’d suddenly strip me down.
His thighs brushed against me as he moved closer, placing his hands on top of mine and sliding them up the curve of my hips to my ribs then back down again to my thighs. I bit the inside of my cheek to stop from pushing him away. I could do this. This was my therapy, my way to convince myself that I was getting over what happened. I used to dance with strange guys all the time, but that was before Mexico. Now the feeling of a strange man against me so intimately was constricting, suffocating.
The guy pressed closer, his chest against my back as we moved in perfect rhythm to the beat. I could smell the alcohol on him as he leaned in, his heated breath sweeping across my bare neck. My stomach churned, and I swallowed back the bile.
I needed this, damn it. Logan coming into my life again had put me back down into a feeling of uncertainty and confusion. I just wanted to feel confident and free of all the emotions that came with Logan.
His finger pushed aside my hair so that it lay over my shoulder, and then his hands went back to my hips. When his tongue touched the tip of my ear I jerked away, but his hands were ready, and he tugged back.
“Tease,” he slurred and chuckled.
“Let me go.” My heart rate tripled as I struggled to escape his arms. “Stop. No.”
Suddenly, his hands were torn from me and I whirled around to see Logan shoving the guy backward.
“Hey. F*ck, man.”
That was the last word my dance partner got out before Logan hauled off and punched the guy in the face.
He went flying through the crowd landing on his back on the tiled floor. Logan stalked toward him his face red, lips pressed together, eyes narrowed, and brows drawn over them. Oh, God, Logan looked like he was going to kill him. And he could. Logan was a fighter; his hands were weapons and ...
“Sculpt, no,” I shouted as he picked the guy up by the front of the shirt. I frantically shoved through the onlookers, forcing my way to him. My hands yanked at his arm. “Let him go. Sculpt.” He’d kill him. I’d never seen this side of Logan. Even when he was in the ring, he’d been in complete control. This was out of control and so unlike him. “Logan, please.”
The use of his real name seemed to work as Logan turned toward me. I gasped when I saw the steel, cold look in his eyes. He looked dominant, unyielding and furious.
He dropped my dance partner to the floor. Three security guys pushed forward and picked up my dance partner taking him away, but I kept my focus on Logan.
“What are you—”
Logan grabbed my hand and pulled me through the gawking crowd to the bar. He pushed up the bar flap, then slammed his palm into the swinging back door then dragged me halfway down the hall. He stopped, backed me into the wall, and then trapped me, his hands over my head, him towering over me.
“Logan—”
“No.” He abruptly cut me off. I jumped, and he noticed. It was then I saw the fury slowly dissipate from his eyes. The lines around his mouth eased, and he drew in a deep breath. “Tell me you’re not seeing that a*shole.”
“No. But he didn’t deserve—”
“He had his tongue in your f*ckin’ ear.”
“No, he didn’t.” Well, not technically anyway, but even if he did, the guy certainly didn’t merit a fist to his face for it. “And even if he had, it has nothing to do with you.”
“It f*ckin’ does, Eme. I didn’t wait two years to get to you only to watch some dick with his hands and tongue all over you.”
Oh. My. God. He’d lost it. Mr. Cool and Calm had literally blown a gasket. He was always in control of his emotions, even before Mexico. He’d hid them well, except maybe his desire. “Sculpt, I was dancing. With a guy. It wasn’t a big deal.” But it was. God, it was, because I hated a stranger’s hands on me. “I can dance with whoever I want.”
He grabbed me by the shoulders and leaned in, his eyes dark, pulse throbbing in his neck. “Not while I’m still breathing, you can’t.”
We stared at one another, emotions rocketing with anger, and yes, there was desire. We’d always had that between us, and even years later it pulsated.
“Why are you being like this?” I tried to keep my voice steady, but it quaked under his intensity, and Logan knew how to do intensity. “What right do you have to come here and start punching a guy I’m dancing with?”
He growled then backed away while running his hand through his hair before he came back and cupped my chin. “Mouse.”
“And don’t call me that.”
A quiet calm came over him. I saw the change as if a shield lowered. I’d recognize that familiar coldness anywhere. “I will smash through them.”
“Smash through what?”
“The Legos, Emily.”
“And I told you it’s not happening.”
Kat came careening through the door. “Shit, there you are. Sculpt, what was that? Matt’s furious. That guy you punched wants to press charges.”
Logan pushed away from the wall and shrugged.
“Everyone saw what you did. Matt is trying to calm him down, luckily you didn’t break anything. Otherwise the police would have to be called.”
“Sculpt!” A guy yelled. I looked down the hall and saw three guys coming out of a back room. “We’re up.”
“Yeah. Coming.” Logan chin-lifted to them and then turned back to me. His expression softened, and I felt myself melt just that tiny bit.
Logan being here was making my resolve to keep my emotions under control to fail miserably. His fingers slid across my collar bone back and forth, soft and slow.
“You still play?” I asked.
He moved in. My butterflies I hadn’t felt in two years started to cheer when a slow smile formed lighting up his eyes. God, why did he have to smile? When he smiled like this I saw the man I fell in love. It plowed over me, and I felt everything he’d once meant to me.
The back of his hand brushed across my cheek. It was a fleeting moment, but still it sucked the breath right out of me. I put it off to the alcohol, but I knew Logan could make my body lose itself to him with a mere touch.
“We’re called Tear Asunder now.” He ran his finger over the cleft on my chin. “We’re finally touring.”
This time my breath did leave as I stared. His dream. All those days we’d spent sitting in the horse fields, him with his guitar, me watching the horses. “The band is still together?” With everything that had happened, he was still following his dream. Logan never let anything stop him; he was determined and relentless. It was one the reason I’d been attracted to him.
“Yeah, Eme. I needed to do something to keep from coming for you.” He leaned in so close that his mouth touched my neck just below my ear. “God, you smell the same.” He sighed. “Let me in.”
Memories like ours lived with you forever, and I’d managed to numb them out. Now, with Logan back, they hit full force. “Sculpt, you gave me my dream. I ... I can’t even find words to tell you what that did for me after ...” I closed my eyes and felt him stiffen. “But I can’t.” The words were soft, and I didn’t even know if he heard me.
Kat cleared her throat, and it took him a second before he moved away and turned to Kat and said, “Matt reserved a table for you both near the stage.” Then he looked at me again. “Stay and hear me sing, Eme.” He paused briefly as if waiting for a response from me, then turned and strode down the hall, and disappeared around the corner.
“Shit. What was that?” Kat said.
I needed escape. Fast. With tequila in my blood and my head filled with Ping-Pong balls smashing around, I was a mess. I had to get out of here. Away from him and what he could do to me.
“Kat. I have to go.”
Kat took my hands in hers. “You’re emotionally f*cked up. I get it, and this is my fault. If I’d known they were here, I’d have never suggested we come. I didn’t even know the whole band was in town. Come on. Let’s go before they rock the stage.”
Logan playing the guitar and singing was the last thing I wanted to see. I knew what he could do to me with his voice. He could wrap me up inside him with a pretty little bow and then with one pull unravel me into his arms. “You stay. Hang with Matt, calm him down. I’ll grab a cab.” Since we’d decided to stay at the condo tonight, which we usually did on our nights out, it was only a ten-minute cab ride.
“No way. I’m coming with you.”
I squeezed her hands. “Kat. You’re my bestie, I love you, but I need some time ... Sculpt ...” F*ck. How did I say that I just wanted to be alone?
“Let me call Deck. He can take you to the condo and hang with you for a while.”
“Kat. No.” Deck wasn’t a babysitter. Jesus, the guy had been part of the most elite task force for counter terrorism.
Her eyes narrowed, and I tried my best to give her a half-smile. She nodded. “You want to be alone and don’t want anyone pestering you.” I nodded. God, she knew me too well. “Fine, but I don’t like it. And text me as soon as you get home.”
“Tell Georgie I’m sorry. I’ll see her tomorrow for brunch.”
“Georgie hasn’t even left her place yet. She texted me ten minutes ago, said Deck stopped in to check in on her.” Kat lowered her voice. “Her words, Emily, ‘Deck needs a f*cking army of red ants shoved up his ass.’ Then she told me she had to go change her outfit. I swear Deck should just f*ck her and get it out of both their systems.”
I liked Deck, but I suspected he was the type who needed complete control and Georgie ... Georgie letting a guy like Deck tell her what to do ... well, that was an explosive overload.
We weaved our way through the crowd. I had just ducked under a guy’s arm when I heard him speak into the microphone.
I sucked in air, closed my eyes, and stopped dead. I knew without looking it was his voice. It made my pulse leap and my stomach drop as if I was in a free fall. It felt like his words were drawing across my skin.
Logan.
I slowly turned and saw him on stage.
I was locked on him.
His presence was captivating. He dominated as if nothing could touch him up there. He was sexy with his half-smile and messy hair yet still dangerous and unapproachable.
God, he was confident, always had been, and now looking up at him on stage I realized that this was where he belonged. Not in the ring beating his opponent to a bloody pulp, but up there with a guitar slung over his shoulder.
I knew why this band without even singing a single note would hit the big time. Him. Logan. His magnificence on stage drew you to him. That ease in his stance, how he held the microphone as if he was holding a woman in his arms.
Jealousy bit a chunk out of me as I thought of Logan with another woman. It was a lead weight in my stomach, and I never wanted to picture him with his arm slung over a girl again.
As he spoke to the crowd, I was mesmerized ... lost to the sound of his voice that trickled down my spine and heated my entire body. If felt like he was next to me, his breath wafting over my ear, his hand pressed to the small of my back. Oh God, he was in me.
“Damn, he looks smoking. Matt told me they’ve been touring small-time gigs for almost a year and just got noticed by some manager who’s taking them on,” Kat said.
Yeah, they were going to be big. I’d known that since the day I first heard Logan sing. And listening to him sing tonight would undo me like it had before.
Did he think he was absolved because he let me go? Because he gave up his tour money? Because he did it to protect me? Because he was a victim of Raul too?
Yes. God, yes. He did deserve forgiveness, but I couldn’t forget the image of him looking so cold and heartless at me. Was that inside him? Was there a part of him that could walk away if someone held a gun to my head?
I remembered him staring at me, expressionless, as I fell to my knees after being whipped. He watched it happen. He let it happen.
But Logan had saved me. Logically I knew that, but finding that trust again ... it was like reaching for an apple too high up in the tree.
Logan said something to the crowd, and then he laughed. It was the most magical sight. Logan rarely laughed, but when he did it was captivating. I couldn’t look away from his bright smile, his sexy bedroom eyes. I swear I could hear the women in the bar moan, and I was among them.
I was about to uproot my feet and stop gawking at the man who made my body ignite when he found me.
He found me with his eyes and didn’t let go. He was still talking to the crowd, but his eyes remained on me. His smile was gone, and even from a hundred feet away I noticed his hand tighten on the microphone.
Then he stopped talking and just stared.
My heart pounded at its cage. My blood pumped so quickly through my veins I thought I might combust. Logan was caressing me with his eyes and pulling at me to run to him.
And I did run—in the opposite direction—pushing my way through the crowd, ignoring Kat’s shouts. I was out the door before Logan sang his first note.