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.
As soon as Heath left the room, she whispered, “Stop touching me.”
“Okay.” He shrugged like it was no big deal and transferred the pasta into a bowl, then poured the sauce into another serving dish.
“I mean it,” she snapped.
“I said, okay.”
The back door swung open and Cooper sauntered in. “Logan, my man.” He pulled Logan into a manly embrace, which included a hard slap on the back, then zeroed in on Stella. “Well, well, well. Who is this?” He extended a hand, turning on his Wild charm. “Hi. I’m Cooper.”
“Hi, I’m St-Stella.”
Logan glanced over at her hesitation. Had she been about to say Stormy out of habit, or was she momentarily caught in his brother’s midnight-blue eyes?
Cooper lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. “You should let me shoot you sometime. You have great features.”
“Down, boy,” Logan teased. “Coop’s a photographer. He and Jackson own a photography studio.”
“I could make you a star.” Cooper raked an appraising eye down her body, and Logan picked up on her discomfort.
“Coop,” Logan warned with a narrow-eyed stare.
“Sorry. Industry hazard.” Cooper ran his eyes between them. “So, you’re with Logan?”
Logan said, “Yes,” at the same time Stella said, “Sort of.”
“She’s here with me, Coop.” He shook his head, refusing to be dissuaded. “The jury’s still out on what with means.”
“Got it. Thanks for cooking. Need me to grab anything? Forks? Glasses?”
“Nah, we’ve got it covered. Thanks.”
“Cool. Where’s Mom?” Cooper followed Logan’s nod toward the living room.
“It’s like I walked into a GQ fashion shoot,” Stella said quietly.
“Coop’s pretty handsome,” Logan admitted.
“Oh, please. Like you don’t know you’re even better-looking than him?” Stella lifted her chin with the challenge.