Page 78 of Perfect Playbook

“It was PR.” He places his foot between my legs and presses into me. His muscular thigh brushes against the apex of my thighs.

The heat of his body is hypnotic. My body melts. Relents. My nipples peak. Why is he this close? His forearms flex as he holds on to the counter on either side of me. He’s emotional and bracing himself like a man who’s on the edge. But I’m on the edge, too, totally derailed by my own confession… and his.

I swallow thickly. “PR, huh? What happened to your integrity?”

He leans over me, and I have to arch my back so ourchests don’t collide. “I lost it somewhere in the time I was waiting to get over you.”

Angry tears burn at the backs of my eyes. “You didn’t wait long.”

“I fucking did.” His large hand wraps around my rib cage. “I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I wondered how on earth I’d even keep on playing, and Shay? I’m not even afraid to admit it. I cried into my pillow some nights. Without you, I went back to being a man on the run, only this time it was like I chased absolutely nothing.”

I suck in a sharp breath but don’t pull away, allowing the distance to close between us. His hand slides up my torso, and he grazes my pebbled nipple with his thumb. He stares down at me with wild amber eyes; near enough for me to taste his cologne.

“I did the best I could with what I had.”

I devour his vulnerability.

“And now, you push me away…”

His touch is so familiar. His hands on my body make me forget for just a moment, but somewhere inside, rumination from so many years returns and reminds me why we can’t be. “I missed that man for so many years, Logan. I blame you for taking him away from me.”

He swipes his thumb tenderly along my bottom lip, igniting every cell of my being. “I’m still here.” He drops his lips to mine. “And I never got over you.”

He slips his hand up over my breast and pulls my dress off my shoulder. My pulse rages underneath my panties, and a rush of heat has me heavy in all the wrong places.

I swallow hard, tell myself to stop this even though I want his hands all over me exactly as they are. And more than that, I never want him to stop looking at me the way he does right now. Like he did when he told me he loved me.

I mutter, quietly, almost as if I don’t want him to hear, “What are you doing?”

“I’m touching my wife.”

He makes circles with his fingertips over the bare sensitive skin. It feels so good that it even feels right. He grinds his leg between mine, and the much-needed touch has me letting out an audible breath. My head falls back, as if allowing him access to more. My hips rock against him, my body is so immediately hot for this man, but I still have a few more words of resistance.

He lowers his mouth toward my neck, and I ease away from it; like a dance I float back, arching away from his lips until my shoulders hit the cold surface. I’m breathless. “I can’t do this…”

But when I gaze into his electric brown eyes my heart hammers. I don’t mean a damn word I said.

In an instant, I take the sides of his face in my hands and crush my lips against his. In no time at all, I part my lips and let him sink his minty tongue inside my mouth. Our tongues twirl, searching the moment and at the same time reclaiming the past.

I moan softly into his mouth. “Logan…”

“Fuck, Shay… I fucking need you…”

Haste possesses our mouths, our hands, our fingers as the tension splits like an atom. We burst with wanting, yearning; pent-up desire consumes our thoughts, obliterates our self-control.

He ravages my neck while I pant in his ear and somehow hoists me up onto the island until I’m lying down fully, his tall frame bent over me, devouring my skin, kneading my breast with his greedy palm.

His kiss sinks into not only my mouth but my soul. Just like when he kissed me all those years ago, his lips make mefeel wanted. Desired for everything I am. Damn, this man knows exactly what a kiss is about.

But in this present-past collision, somewhere inside, a voice warns me… I’m not that college girl anymore. I’m a mom and a brand-new entrepreneur. I don’t need the only man I truly loved, especially who he’s become, sauntering back into my life and under the bedsheets… IsmyLogan really still here?

His tongue dives in my mouth, owning me. My questions are drowned out by my panting and the dull, thrumming sound of my pulse in my ears. He holds himself up but presses the hard bulge in his pants against me, and it does nothing for my resolve to pull away. My hips start to ache and call out for relief.

As if reading my mind, he slides his hands down and massages his thumbs deep and hard into the crease of my hip bones, following the gorge right down, and the pressure causes an absolute ache for his touch between my legs.

"Fuck Shay, your body makes me weak…” he growls.

Still kissing him with manic need, I hoist my leg around him, securing him against me, willing him to rub harder, urging some sweet relief for the ache I’ve had there since last night, seeing his soulful eyes in the dim light of the hotel room.

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