Page 24 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

The thought of her wiped the almost smile off my face. The woman I tried wanted to scrape out of my brain with a rusty spoon. But she’d burrowed in like a burr.

Logan might have seen the light when it came to choosing Bella over her that summer, but I had never forgotten seeing them together. Logan and Lindsey York. Her soft, sweet features so open and guileless. The kind of woman who matched Logan.

Not the kind of woman I should touch.

My darkness would stamp out her light like tar-tinged ink. I’d known it the moment I met her in rehearsals for Logan’s summer festival. Yet I’d wanted her.

God, I’d wanted her.

She’d only seen one more man who would sniff after her and beg for the scraps she left in her wake. There’d been an abundance of us right here in Winchester Falls eager to do her bidding. The moment between us had been just one of many for her.

And yet, in an instant of weakness weeks after the festival chaos, I’d let my dick do the thinking. She’d walked into the piano bar I’d holed up in. That halo of curls and those huge fucking eyes had nearly killed me.

Losing myself in Logan’s castoffs had never been my style. Not until her.

At least I’d gotten that mind-fuck out of my system.

Liar. You haven’t touched another woman in three years.

“Are you listening to me?”

I blinked back into the conversation. “Honestly?”

Bella folded her arms in the doorway. “I should send you home.”

“Please do. I’m willing to go home. Right now actually.” I jogged up the paver steps of the patio around the pool to the bottom of the stairs to the deck. “Just let me get my suitcase. Maybe take a piss.”

“No.” Logan smacked me in the back of the head. “We have one more song to figure out. Your protégé crashed and burned. Now we have to clean up the mess.”

Bella frowned and the two of them spoke in some sort of silent language I didn’t understand.

I turned around. “What?”

Logan mirrored his wife with his arms across his chest. “Tell Izzy you’re sorry.”

“Sod off.”

The sliding track of the back door had me climbing two steps at a time. “Izzy. Isabella, wait. I’m sorry.”

She leaned on the door, her eyes unflinching. “And?”

“I didn’t mean to disrespect your house or scare the gremlins.”

Her dark brows snapped down.

“My favorite gremlins?”

She squinted at me. “The hole in the door to the studio will be fixed before the two of you find your beds tonight.”

“Iz.” Logan came up behind me. “Can we talk about that?”

“Nope. You’ll be heading into town to get a new door and I expect it fixed before the morning. Don’t even think about coming to our bed until it’s finished.” She tossed Logan’s wallet and keys at him and shut the door again.

I grinned at him. “At least the heater in your car works.”

“Fuck off, Nash.”

“I love when you speak to me so sweetly.”

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