Page 50 of Unmistakably Us

Wanting more was the beginning of the end. This was a truth he was well acquainted with. People like him didn’t deserve more, so they never got more. Wanting it to be so just caused more heartache in the end.

“Hey, Logan. January’s not working here anymore. I figured you’d know that.” The deep voice startled Logan. He was so tied up inside his own head, he didn’t notice he had entered Pole Position. Hell, he didn’t even realize he’d driven there.

Good thing he made it there in one piece, considering he didn’t remember getting in his car at all. Logan mumbled a response to Ruger as he made his was to his preferred seat. Of course, he really had no reason to be there other than cold beer and a warm distraction.

He knew if nothing else, Platinum would be more than willing to offer him the distraction. The other girls loved Domino too much to even give him the time of day once they figured out where his interests laid, but Platinum had no loyalty to anyone but herself. She’d be more than willing to bad mouth Domino if she thought it would get her in his pants.

Logan wasn’t the best looking man around, but some types of ladies seemed to really love him, and he was not above exploiting that right now.

Of course, there would be no way he could sleep with her; his body belonged to January, and even if he hated the fact, it didn’t change it. The pathetic part was, even after everything she’d done, he knew he still loved her. You’d think after fighting it so hard, that truth would be the most devastating, but it isn’t. No, the most soul-shattering realization was, she had brought a part of him to life only to viciously murder it. And it was ripping him apart.

The brunette waitress—he could never remember her name—sashayed up to his table for his order.

“Bring me a Ghost Crab and a double shot of Cabo.” With a smile, she turned to do his bidding, but Logan stopped her with a shouted amendment. “Fuck the shots, bring me the bottle.”

“Are you sure?” she turned and asked half way to the bar. Logan didn’t say a word, just slammed his hand on the surface and gave a curt nod. Of course he was sure, he needed to erase a memory or fifty, and tequila was good for that.

Amber—that’s her name—Amber returned with his beer and the bottle, along with a shot glass, lemons, and salt. She shouldn’t have bothered; he didn’t need or want anything to cut the burn.

Logan gave her a couple of bills and waved her away. He took a healthy pull from his beer and chased it with a gulp or two of Cabo. He shook his head and grunted but embraced the burn. Rinse and repeat.

Logan was halfway through the bottle and on his third? beer by the time he paid any heed to what was happening on stage. Finally, a dancer who will look at me like I’m a whole fucking man. All January’s friends just stared at him with pity while they danced. They must have known what a lying deceiving bit— “Fuck it!” he shouted and sent the plastic bowl of lemons to the floor. I can’t even think the word in my own head. She has robbed me of the ability to control my own fucking thoughts.

Ruger appeared at his right. “You good, man, or do I need to cut you off?” A large hand landed on his shoulder awaiting an answer to the whispered question. Logan wanted to throw the man’s oversized mitt off him and take a swing. A broken nose would feel so good right now. But the tequila craving part overrode the suicidal part.

“Nah, man, I’m good. Just slipped is all.” A skeptical brown gaze met his. Ruger wasn’t buying it, but fuck it. He didn’t need him to. Logan just needed him not to cut him off.

The sympathetic squeeze almost did him in. “I don’t know what’s happened between you two, but it’ll work out. Jan’s a good girl. One of a kind, and if she’s got you in these kind of knots, you must already know that.”

Before Logan could respond, the big motherfucker gave him a pat and was back at his post. Good thing too, because Platinum was practically salivating while heading his way.

She had stepped off the stage and come around to his chair. Logan turned his seat for her, and she stepped right up into his personal space and practically gave him a lap dance right there. Logan allowed one hand to rest on her hip, but it didn’t feel as good as he’d hoped it would. The other hand was occupied with a dwindling bottle.

Platinum’s eyes bore into his with promise. A promise he cursed himself for not being able to collect on. Leaning into his face, she practically licked his ear and purred. As he was ready to recoil, a familiar scent hit him square in the gut.

January.

Turning his head to observe the whole of the club did nothing to make her appear. Platinum’s words commanded his attention. “Meet me in the office after my set and I can make you forget all about the mousy little blonde. I promise,” she purred in his ear before spinning around and rubbing her ass into his dick.

Even though the friction did nothing for him, that smell was attacking him on a basic animal level. Platinum wound her arms around him from behind, threw her head back on his shoulder, and moaned like she was having the time of her life. Logan turned into her and drew the scent into his lungs and held it there. It was coming from her. She smelled like…

“You like it? Domino gave it to me, said it was your favorite.” She spun once again, straddled his lap, and leaned in like she had some great secret to impart. By now, Logan’s body was reacting slightly to the combination of the friction and the scent, but her words stopped that in its tracks.

“Domino wanted us to be together, don’t you see that? She’s moved on and so should you.” Logan wanted to hurl, both the alcohol and Platinum. January really was over him. Hell, for all he knew, she was never into him to start with. Maybe she really was just slumming it with a low life before her fairy tale wedding.

He wanted to punish her and himself for ever caring. He grabbed both of Platinum’s hips roughly and ground her body down on his barely attentive dick. She moaned in pleasure and he in frustration. He did it again and again, just wanting to feel something, but there was nothing. There was not only a black hole where his heart should be, that abyss had claimed his dick as well.

Just as he was about to thrust Platinum away from him and finish the bottle, he was frozen by a voice.

“That’s quite enough of acting like a spoiled child. Let the stripper go and man the fuck up.”

John.

Whoa, John said fuck, and angrily too. Wait, John’s in a strip club?

Logan tried to focus on his never-would-be-brother-in-law when Stacy passed into his line of vision and removed Platinum from his lap. “Time for you to go, skank. Oh look, there’s a nice trucker over there with a five-dollar bill and at least two STDs. He’s perfect for you.”

Platinum started to protest, but Stacy was having none of it. “It wasn’t a suggestion, and if you don’t get to stepping, I will shove my Loub so far up your ass, the heel with knock your molars out.” Stacy shooed her away with her hands, and Ruger nodded her direction. That’s when Logan realized that pretty much the entire Reid clan was standing there in the strip club, like some sort of twisted redneck family intervention.

Shit.

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