Page 29 of Target Me
The tingling receded from my fingers, and I took a moment to breathe before straightening to look into Logan’s worried eyes.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you like that. I’m fine…. Well, maybe fine as an acronym? You know… fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional?” I huffed a half-hearted laugh, but clearly Logan wasn’t interested in dark humor at that moment.
“What just happened?” he asked, his hands tightening on me subtly.
“So… I came down here with a suspicion, and then that guy pretty much cemented it. But I don’t know how it’s possible, and why now, because it doesn’t really make sense… you know?”
“I’m going to need a noun here, hen,” Logan said with the slightest lift of his lips.
“Right. Sorry.” I huffed a laugh.
“I just received a phone call from a private number. The caller said my name, and I’d swear it was my mother’s voice. Then the woman that guy just described… it’s her. I haven’t seen her in a decade. I’ve looked for her. My father has looked for her. Neither of us ever found anything. And now she turns up and things start going wrong? What’s her motive? Why me?”
A soothing weight settled on my head and slid down my hair until it reached the center of my back and lifted. It resettled on my head and repeated the motion in a slow stroke that made me want to close my eyes against the world and sleep. Giving in to the impulse, I dropped my head to his collarbone and listened to him breathe as he thought through what I’d told him.
The subtle tick of my father’s Thomas Tompion clock was the only sound in the room, making it easy to focus on the vitality of the man beneath me. The thump of his heart, the whoosh of his breath. Our encounter in this office less than an hour ago now seemed like a lifetime away. Had it happened? Or had my vivid imagination invaded an impromptu nap I was unaware of taking?
I hated to admit how desperately I wanted Logan to want me, because then I’d also have to acknowledge how painfully lonely I had become. It wasn’t entirely about companionship, though. Logan called to a part of me that had been buried for years. A part that wanted to be safe enough to let go. I trusted Logan.
Shit.
“Are you all right?” His deep voice vibrated through my head where it lay on his chest.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
Logan hummed.
“I think there’s only one important thing we need right now. Do you feel up to making a life-changing decision?”
I sat up, enjoying the way his hands tightened to keep me from leaving. His sherry eyes were wide, his ball cap sitting slightly askew on his head.
“What decision?”
“Chocolate? Or vanilla?”
A grin broke across my face, turning into a shrieking laugh as he stood, keeping me firmly in his arms. Swiping the cap from his head, I propped it over my own hair, backward.
“Dude, I’m anything but vanilla. I thought you’d have worked that out while I was gagging on your dick before.”
Logan’s eyes narrowed, but I didn’t miss the twitch in his cheek.
“Don’t make me spank you again, hen.”
I was going to enjoy being his brat.
* * *
Armed with a spoon each,we took our meal in the media room, the closest thing we had to a comfortable room on the premises. Logan offered me the first scoop of the tub of chocolate fudge ice cream we’d brought with us.
“If you weren’t here with me, having car accidents and generally holding me captive on my father’s orders, what would you be doing?” I asked, licking the bottom of my spoon before sucking the ice cream into my mouth.
He watched closely, eyes tracking every lick as his spoon hovered above the ice cream tub, forgotten mid-strike.
Taking advantage of his distraction, I leaned over and stole the next scoop with a grin. Logan caught my wrist and guided the laden spoon to his mouth, eyes locked on mine until he’d sucked it clean. Damn, that was hot.
Scooping his own spoonful, he offered the tub to me once he was good and ready.
“Renovating my farmhouse. That was my plan before this, and it’ll be my plan once we know you’re safe. How about you? Any people you should be seeing? Places to go? You still haven’t told me where you ran off to the other day.”
