“I’m sorry, Gabriella. This is the most difficult decision I’ve ever made in my life and trust me, you have been a big part of my indecision.”
She looked up into his eyes. She could see his tormented expression and the hurt she’d caused him by telling him her feelings. “I am? I was?”
“Hell, yeah. You know me better than anyone and we’ve been friends for a long time. I don’t want to ruin our friendship, Gabriella. You and I both know there’s something—I don’t know what it is or why it’s happening—but something is changing between us. You can’t deny the tension that’s been surrounding us lately. Can you?”
He’d felt it, too. Was this really happening? Miles away from home, where she had nowhere to run and hide from Logan. At least at home, she could hide behind her store, pretend she was asleep at home, but here, with him sharing the same bed with her—she couldn’t hide.
And she knew Logan and knew he would want answers. He would expect answers. What could she say? She could deny what he just said and tell him he was wrong. But... he could see behind her lies, even though she tried to, sometimes. Yes, she has been feeling something weird going on between them. Even though she has been extremely confused about it and has for the most part, successfully blocked it out of her mind.
A few instances flashed through her mind as Logan stared into her eyes. When she stepped out of the dressing room at Lolita’s and his eyes roamed all over her body, giving her that feeling deep and low in her tummy. When she had kissed him at his house and the heated way he’d kissed her back.
Then, there was the moment between them when they had been at Blake and Marilyn’s house and he’d grazed her chest with his fingertips. Goosebumps had coated her arms and sent a wave of desire shooting through her core as she stood looking into his desire-laden eyes. There was also the last moment inside their hotel room, when he was standing behind her, the mixture of heat from his body and how the window had reflected the erotic moment.
All of those moments, each sending shivers of arousal through her core all on their own, had made for one big moment between them, right here and now.
She sensed it coming just before it happened. He tightened his grip around her body, bowed his head and his lips touched hers. It was a soft, tentative kiss at first. As if he wasn’t certain he should be doing this. But oh gosh, the second his mouth touched hers, she was lost. His lips were feather light. He lingered slowly before she parted them, hoping to feel his tongue as their kiss deepened. His mouth moved intoxicatingly slow as she heard herself whimper in delight—still praying for his tongue to seek entrance.
It finally did.
He moaned into her mouth as their tongues met and she couldn’t help that her body kept vying to get closer to his. The surrounding sounds she had heard before—the people, the announcer, and the carousal music—were all drowned out as she let herself be taken by Logan’s passion. His erection pressed against her pelvis and she threaded her fingers through his hair as she succumbed to his drugging kiss.
I like this.
He was so good at this. How had she never kissed him before in her life?
He pulled away abruptly. Her mouth was still open, wanting more, and her eyes were closed when his husky voice invaded her cloud of arousal.
“You can’t deny it. That kiss proved it. Come on, Cinderella, follow me.”
Chapter Eighteen
This was going to be the worst night ever. He wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink with the smell of Gabriella’s vanilla-scented skin this close to him in bed. Not when he knew she was lying there in the dark next to him wearing a skin-tight, barely-there t-shirt and the tiniest gym shorts he’d yet to see her in.
She walked out of the bathroom. Her dark hair hung down, parted around her face and—Oh, fuck. No bra. Her hair came to just above her nipples. Hard nipples, as far as he could see. He turned his back to her and walked around their bed into the bathroom so she couldn’t see his instant hard-on.
“Ready for bed?”
He swallowed. He was ready, but for something else entirely. “Ahh, yeah.”
They parted the sheets. He pulled off his shirt and dropped his shorts. He didn’t dare even peek at the braless goddess across the mattress.
He climbed in and specifically lay on his side facing away from her. He didn’t trust himself not to crawl over to her side of the bed and pin her down while he took his sweet time enjoying every delicious curve of her body. He wanted to though. He desperately wanted to, and he normally wasn’t a betting man, but he’d bet she wanted to, too.
After their kiss inside the station, they’d gone to the temple where Gabbie had taken an obscene number of pictures. They’d walked around the neighborhood and had gotten a recommendation for a great restaurant that served ramen noodles. Every now and then, he’d caught Gabriella staring at him and it was all he could do but smile and carry on.
He had it bad.
He was going to lie there with a hard-on all night.
In the quiet, he was able to make out sound from the traffic below. He strained to hear her. Was she asleep? Did this tense situation have her lying awake too? Her breathing sounded normal, but he didn’t know if that was awake breathing or asleep breathing. He longed to find out.
