Wild

  “Well, thanks. You didn’t have to do that. It was nice of you.”

  “Least I could do. Your brother is letting me stay here rent-free.”

  “Your best friend is his girlfriend. I think that kind of makes you family in Reece’s book, and if you haven’t noticed, family gets to stay the night in the loft.” His mouth kicked up at one corner, and I resisted reminding him that he wasn’t spending the night in the apartment anymore.

  “I’m not true family,” I mumbled. “Picking up is the least I can do.”

  “Why can’t you just admit you’re a nice person, Georgia? The kind of person who distracts a mean drunk with sandwiches and cleans up broken beer bottles.”

  I flushed at the compliment and started to move around him. “You don’t know me—”

  “You don’t think I see you?” His gaze cut into me. Emotion cracked through his voice that sounded suspiciously like anger. “I see you. I see you now like I saw you then. Months ago. When you were still with that asshole, I knew what kind of girl you were.”

  I froze, those words sinking in. Heat crawled up my neck like swarming bees.

  I gaped at him, unable to look away.

  I had wondered if he’d noticed me all those times we were within each other’s radius. We spoke little, but of course I had noticed him. Just like every other red-blooded female with a pulse. I felt his energy like electricity on the air. Apparently he had noticed me.

  I was almost afraid to know . . . to ask what he saw in me all those months ago when I was still with Harris. I had been a shadow of myself then, around Harris, swallowed up like a sparrow in a storm.

  “I saw you.” He nodded. “At first I thought you were some princess, indifferent to the fact that your boyfriend was a dick.”

  I flinched, not liking this description of myself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Reece’s birthday dinner. We went to Gino’s, remember? We all sat at a big table. It was really crowded that night and they were understaffed. The waiter was stressed, trying his best to get orders out. Harris treated him like some fucking peon.” He shook his head, his lip curling. “The way he talked down to him . . . you were uncomfortable. I could see it in your face, the way you would touch his arm trying to calm him down.”

  I inhaled as he painted this image, filling in my memory with strokes of color. I remembered that night as one of several uncomfortable instances when Harris’s superior attitude boiled over onto some unfortunate soul. I knew Logan had been there, but I didn’t remember him even talking to me then, much less watching me. But then I’d been preoccupied. Harris had been in a mood. He wasn’t especially a fan of my friends, and the waiter suffered for that. It embarrassed me now that I could be with anyone like that.

  Logan continued, “When we got up to leave he didn’t tip him. Remember? You questioned him and he said he didn’t tip for shitty service. Right there in front everyone. No regrets for stiffing the waiter.”

  I nodded, a lump forming in my throat. God. Harris really was an entitled ass. I inhaled. “You must have thought I was pathetic . . . dating a guy like him.”

  “Maybe for a minute there I did, but then you said you had to go back to the restroom. I had to go, too. I was a few feet behind you and I saw you”—his voice dipped to a quiet murmur—“I saw you go back and dig in your purse and drop that money on the table.”

  I remembered that. I’d been relieved I had cash on me. “So you saw that. So what?”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard that saying. ‘Character is what you do when no one’s looking.’ Well, I was looking, Georgia. And I’ve been looking ever since. The same girl who wouldn’t let Harris stiff that waiter is the same girl who cleaned up this mess last night. You did it for me.” His gaze locked on me then with an intensity that made my chest swell. “Because you like me.”

  A thousand butterflies took flight in my stomach at the way he looked at me. I felt like a deer caught in headlights. Denial was impossible. I didn’t have it in me to lie. “I have to meet someone,” I said hurriedly, suddenly overwhelmed at the idea that I’d been on his radar all this time. Even before I kissed him outside the kink club.

  “Sure. Don’t want to be late.” He stepped aside and waved me through the kitchen.

  My fingers nervously flexed on the strap of my messenger bag. Something had changed. He wasn’t the same. There was a new resolve in his eyes, a firmness to his voice that made me uneasy.

  Suddenly his previous promise to leave me alone didn’t feel like such a promise anymore. At least not one I believed. No. As I walked past the counter toward the exit, I felt his stare on my back and didn’t feel safe with the assurance that it was “all on me.” For some reason, I felt certain that Logan was done waiting for me to make the first move.

  Chapter 12

  THE FOLLOWING WEEK WE had an honest-to-God heat wave. Girls who stayed on campus through the summer could be found spread out on towels in the quad in tiny shorts and tank tops. Some wore bikinis. And where girls in bikinis were, guys could be found hovering close by.

  Walking past the quad on the way home from the library, I thought about Emerson and how she would have been one of those girls last summer, happy to flaunt her body in a bikini and flirt with hovering guys. Now she was busy with her new life—Shaw and their bikes and her art.

  I hadn’t seen her since the night I moved out, so I was eager for Pepper’s birthday party tonight. It was at the new house. Just a small group. Mostly couples, so I had asked Connor to go with me. I didn’t know if we would ever be anything more than friends—okay, so I knew we would never be more than friends—but he was a good guy and seemed excited to go.

  Of course, Reece went all out and splurged on Pepper. He catered the party, so the delicious aroma of char-grilled meat greeted us when we stepped inside the house. Pepper let us in, hugging me and whispering in my ear. “He’s cute.”

  I smiled in acknowledgment and accepted the margarita placed in my hand.

  “For you,” Emerson said, then turned to meet Connor. She didn’t treat him to the same bubbly welcome that Pepper had, and instead regarded him with the icy reserve of an overprotective father—but then that was Em. Trust wasn’t given but earned.

  We soon split off into boy-girl groups, Connor joined the guys and Emerson, Pepper, Suzanne, and I stood in a tight circle.

  “You always go for the uptight ones,” Emerson accused around the salted rim of her margarita glass.

  “He’s cute,” Suzanne offered. “And looks nice.”

  Nice: aka, boring. “He’s not uptight,” I insisted, knowing this much was true at least. He was not like Harris.

  Em lifted a dark, finely arched eyebrow. “He’s a grad student. In the Business School.”

  “Stop it. You’re being judgmental,” I snapped.

  “Be nice, Em,” Pepper chided. “She brought a date to my birthday. She must like him.”

  I smiled and hoped it didn’t look like the wince it was. I didn’t like him that much. To be fair, when he’d tried to kiss me yesterday at the Java Hut, I dodged his lips. Not a good sign. Deep down, I knew the reason I brought him with me tonight. He was meant to be a buffer. If Logan showed, which was very likely, then I would have a date to keep him at bay. Not that I expected Logan to misbehave. This was Pepper’s party . . . at his brother’s house. It would be fine.

  Especially after the other night. I’d seen him twice from a distance: Once inside the bar as I was heading to my room. And another time as I was in the parking lot getting into my car and he was heading across the parking lot to start his shift. I felt his gaze even though I pretended to be looking somewhere else beyond him each time. Yeah, I knew he had seen me. He’d made no attempt to speak to me. Not even a wave. I had effectively killed things between us—just as I’d intended. And if I felt a tiny bit like crap over that realization, I’d
get over it. It wasn’t the first disappointment of my life. It wouldn’t be the last. Mom had taught me that lesson well. Life was full of disappointment.

  My real father had been one of her biggest disappointments. The few times she spoke candidly with me on the subject of him, she had been clear. He was the greatest mistake of her life. She regretted it. Him. Me. She didn’t say it but what else was I to interpret? Some mistakes were like that. Colossal and irreversible. Logan Mulvaney would not be that mistake for me.

  There was the right path and the wrong path, and if I ever had any doubt which was which, I need only ask my mother. She always had an opinion, and I knew she would want me to avoid guys like Logan Mulvaney.

  I think you want me to say dirty things to you.

  I cringed. Some guys were impossible to forget though.

  “Georgia knows I’m just messing with her,” Em said, snagging my attention back to the here and now. “If she really likes this guy, then I’m going to love him. You know that, right, Georgia?”

  I nodded reflexively and then froze as the front door opened and Logan stepped inside. A thousand prickles rushed over my skin. He wasn’t alone either. Rachel was with him. I was never so relieved in my life than at that moment. I had a date. He had Rachel with him. I took a big gulp of my margarita.

  Pepper clapped her hands and made it across the room to hug him. Even as tall as Pepper was, Logan easily folded her in his arms. Pepper hugged Rachel, too—an embrace the girl accepted awkwardly. His gaze did a quick sweep of the room before landing on me.

  We stared at each other across the living room. The moment struck me as so strange. This guy had been in my sphere for a long time, but I’d only thought of him as Reece’s impossibly beautiful, shallow kid brother. Never considered him beyond that. Never thought of him as more. Never been tempted.

  And now, in this room, he was the center of my universe. Everything in me prickled with awareness of him.

  A hand brushed the small of my back and I sucked in a sharp breath. Connor stood beside me. “You okay? Can I make you a plate of food?”

  “Not yet.” I shook my head and took another sip of the margarita Emerson had placed in my hand. “Thank you.”

  Connor looked longingly at the spread of food across the room.

  “Go ahead,” I encouraged. “Make yourself a plate.”

  “If you don’t mind—”

  “No, go. Shaw is already eating.”

  “Okay.” He dropped his hand from the small of my back and headed for the table of food. When I looked back across the room to where Logan had stood moments ago, he was gone. I scanned the room, skipping over the dozen or so people mingling. Some standing, some sitting. He was gone. But then so was Pepper and Rachel. She must be giving them the tour of the house.

  “Not hungry?” Emerson asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Well, that guacamole is calling my name. I’ll be back.”

  I stood there by myself for a moment. An old Johnny Cash song played low on the air. Connor’s gaze met mine as he listened to something Shaw was saying. He sent me a nod and angled his body as though he was on the verge of breaking away to join me. Like a good date should do. Only I realized I didn’t want to get trapped in small talk with him just yet.

  Before he could reach me, I moved out of the living room and stepped into the hall that led to the guest bathroom. It was past the study with the French doors and guest room. I heard footsteps behind me and hurried, half-afraid it was Connor following to check up on me. Fortunately, the bathroom was unoccupied. I slipped inside, but didn’t have a chance to shut the door all the way behind me.

  It swung inward, and Logan slid inside before I fully realized what was happening. He locked the door behind him and leaned against it, crossing his arms over his chest. He loomed there, staring at me almost expectantly.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded. “You can’t be in here with me!”

  “What are you doing with that tool?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me, Pearls. Did you bring him to make me jealous?”

  I laughed, but the sound rang brittle, so I cut it short and just stared at him in my best imitation of my mother’s cool, principal glare.

  “Hardly.” Studying his face, I could see that he was serious. For once that mocking humor was nowhere in evidence. “There is no reason for you to be jealous. We’re not a thing.”

  He said nothing, just stared at me with those bitter-hard eyes. The blue was like some kind of frozen marble.

  “Not a thing,” he echoed, his lips unsmiling. He usually always smiled. Even on those rare occasions when he was serious, he had that derisive smile on his lips. But not tonight. Not now.

  Suddenly the bathroom felt claustrophobic. “Look. We don’t really know each other. And you agreed to back off—”

  “Maybe I changed my mind.”

  That made me take a step back. I laughed nervously. “Don’t be ridiculous. I have a date out there. You have . . . Rachel.” So they were just friends, but she had come here with him. “Nothing is happening here.” I motioned between us. “Nothing is going to happen here. You need to step away from the door.”

  “Don’t pretend like there isn’t something here. Like we haven’t been dancing around it for weeks now, Georgia.” He jabbed a finger toward me, coming off the door, advancing. “You started this.”

  I backed up, swallowing, miserable. Yeah. That night at the kink club. That kiss. And then I showed up at his baseball game like some kind of groupie.

  I sucked in a deep breath. “I admit we have chemistry, but that’s not anything either one of us can’t find with someone else. Someone more appropriate.”

  He tossed his head back and let loose a harsh laugh. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

  I blinked, itchy heat flooding my face like swarming ants. I didn’t like being laughed at. Not like that.

  He lowered his gaze back to me. “You’re fooling yourself if you think chemistry is an automatic thing you can find with anyone . . . It’s not something you can find with that asshat out there.” He looked me up and down. “I doubt you had it with your last boyfriend either. You always looked too bored when you were with him.”

  I looked too bored? That was an interesting description considering Harris dumped me because he claimed I was boring.

  “You have chemistry with me,” he added, “because we’d be good together.”

  The air fairly crackled around us, jammed full of his provocative words.

  I shook my head, marveling, “Where do you get off being so arrogant? How do you know I don’t feel it with Connor out there—”

  “Because you’re in here having this conversation with me. You haven’t walked away.”

  Damn. Good point. I hadn’t even tried to leave the bathroom.

  “I didn’t want to cause a scene.”

  “I’m not stopping you from leaving.” He waved a hand past himself.

  “You want to see me walk away?” Bravado rang out in my voice and my chin went up a notch. “Watch. I know it might be a new experience for you . . . girls giving you their backs but here goes.”

  I strode right past him, dodging around him, my wedge heels biting hard into the floor.

  I felt as much as heard him come after me. The rush of movement sparked the air all around us like electricity, and my heart actually hurt for a second in my chest, squeezing so tightly with awareness, anxiety, and I don’t know . . . something else.

  When he grabbed me and whirled me around, I started to tell him just what I thought about his inability to keep his hands to himself, but I didn’t get very far before he released my shoulder and grabbed my face. Words died in a sputtering choke as I stared into those dark blue eyes inches from mine, his big hands holding my face.

  “You’re righ
t.”

  “About what?” I said distractedly, focusing way too much on that mouth of his with the deep indentation right there in the center of his top lip. God. I had tasted that mouth. I ached to do it again, only this time I wanted to run my tongue over the indentation. I didn’t do that last time. I wanted to lick and savor and nibble at it. Need for him strangled me and I knotted my hands at my sides.

  “I’m not used to girls turning their backs on me.” He studied me in the hazy orange glow of the bathroom’s light.

  “B-but you said I’d have to ask for this . . . for it from you. You said you wouldn’t touch me,” I reminded him, needing him to keep that promise now more than ever.

  “Sometimes plans change. They have to . . .”

  He brought his mouth close, his nose the barest brush on my cheek, our lips not touching, but I felt the puff of his breath as he spoke. “Do you know what you do to me, Georgia?”

  “I have a d-date,” I sputtered.

  Something dark glinted in his eyes, and I was struck with the knowledge that I was way out of my depth with this guy. He knew more. Had seen more. Done more.

  “Wrong answer,” he growled.

  “What do you want from me?” I bit out, frustration bubbling up inside me. I gazed at him helplessly, shaking my head.

  “You haven’t figured that out yet?” He stared at me, his eyes sliding from my eyes to my mouth, down my body and then up again. Alarm bells went off in my head.

  His hand circled my neck. “Fuck,” he growled. “Then I haven’t been clear enough.” His mouth slammed over mine.

  Chapter 13

  HE CLAIMED MY MOUTH in a bruising, teeth-clanging kiss. I tasted lime and salt, and I felt like I was drowning in the sea. My hands flew to his shoulders for balance, then in desperation, I was clinging to him when I should have been pushing him away. He knew this though and wanted to prove a point evidently.