Page 107 of Whenever You Call

“Damn.”

“Sorry, but you’ll always be second place.”

“Who cares when it feels like first anyway?”

He came to a stop beside me and looked all around us, still trying to figure out where she could be. I was desperate to slide my palm over the muscles in his thighs or run my hand up the inseam of his shorts, but I couldn’t touch him, and he wouldn’t touch me. Not until we both knew Bella would be comfortable with us havingthatkind of relationship. The last thing I wanted her to do was think I was trying to replace her father or what he meant to her. He may not have been a saint, but he’d always be her hero, and I wouldn’t deny her a day of that for as long as I lived.

That didn’t stop me from staring up at Logan’s profile as he surveyed his surroundings.

“I really want to kiss you,” I whispered, unable to keep it to myself a second longer.

“Hannah,” he warned.

“But I do.”

He slowly turned my way, his eyes finding mine. “You have no idea how hard I’m finding it not to reach out and touch you.”

“Where would you touch?”

“Everywhere. Everything,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Ten times over, and that would be the warmup.”

My chest rose and fell. I drew my knees up, squeezing my thighs together at the thought of what pleasure we might find in each other later that night once Bella had drifted into a deep sleep and we couldn’t be heard.

Logan snapped his eyes shut and dragged a heavy palm down his face, turning away from me. “Jesus, Hannah. I can’t think about that stuff when I’m meant to be playing hide and seek with your daughter.”

“Sorry,” I lied, picking up the paperback book again and opening it up to the page I’d been reading. “My bad. Go. Finish your game. But I’m warning you, later it’s my turn to play, and there’s only one place I want you to hide.”

He threw his head back and covered his face with both hands this time before groaning into them. I couldn’t help but laugh at how uncomfortable he looked. I felt sorry for men. When they were aroused, they struggled to hide it. Us women could be as hot as an inferno, and the world would never know.

We’d always been better at keeping secrets.

“Oh, and Logan? Keep your wits about you. Bella’s good at those sneak attacks.”

“I’m not worried.”

He turned to leave, walking close to the bright blue waters of the pool, but he didn’t have time to stop what was about to happen. Bella’s war cry rang out around us all for only a second before her little figure appeared out of nowhere in her purple bathing suit, and she charged toward Logan with a laugh that filled up my heart. By the time he’d turned to see which direction she was coming from, her hands connected with his torso, and she pushed him straight into the pool, his body landing in the water sideways with a splash.

Bella squealed in victory, her arms above her head, while I sat forward with a smile on my face, waiting for Logan to resurface. It only took two seconds before he did, gasping for air, his eyes scrunched together as he pushed his hair away from his face. He blinked furiously, trying to get his bearings before he turned to find Bella dancing over him, wiggling this way and that, taunting him in her sing-song voice.

“You lose!” she cried. “Loser!”

“Hey, now! That wasn’t part of the game,” he protested, pushing his fingers into his eyes before looking up at her again. “You can’t just change the rules on me without telling me.”

“I can, and I did.” She giggled.

“Oh,” Logan said, shaking the water out of his hair and bringing his strong, tanned arms to the surface of the pool, his palms skimming over it as he stalked toward my daughter. “It’s on, little lady.”

“I got yousogood.”

“You may have won this battle, but the war rages on.” His eyes challenged her, despite his smile growing wider. “You know how to swim, right? Because if I’m going down, you’re coming with me.” He turned his hands into claws as he moved toward her like a predator on the hunt.

“You’ll have to catch me first, Mr. Logan,” she said with a giggle, quickly taking off on bare feet to escape him.

His hands found the edge of the pool, and in one swift move, he hoisted himself up and onto it, revealing a sun-kissed, toned back with beads of water dripping down into the band of his swim shorts. Logan ran a hand down his face, shaking off the water before he rose to his feet and watched Bella disappear inside the house. When he turned to me, soaking wet from head to toe, standing under the midday sun, he looked like a dream I hadn’t thought to dream as he twisted the edges of his shorts in both hands, trying to wring out the excess water.

My heart skipped a beat just from looking at him.

“What?” he asked with a smile, his brows pinching together.

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