Lori Foster - Run the Risk

“What are you doing here?”

Logan jerked around and found Pepper standing there, a hand shading her eyes from the sun, a soft breeze playing with a few loose tendrils of her dark blond hair.

When he pulled off his sunglasses to greet her, he noted her look of unease.

Logan knew her damn brother was the most likely threat to him…but was he also a threat to her? “I had to get stuff for dinner.” To make it more difficult for anyone with a rifle scope, he maneuvered her between his body and the grocery store entrance. He had his own truck at his back. “What are you doing here?”

“I needed some groceries myself.” Looking beyond him, expression wary and anxious, she scrunched her face against the glare off the blacktop parking lot. “I could have gotten your stuff for you, but since you’re here anyway—” she took his arm and began hauling him back toward the store “—you may as well give me a ride home when I’m finished.”

That attitude was so different from what she’d expressed back at the apartment that his suspicions darkened. Was she hoping to protect him from Rowdy?

He said only, “Glad to.” And he freed his wrist from her grip so that he could put a hand to the small of her back.

The rain from the night before had ramped up the humidity, but it also left behind that stirring breeze that plastered her skirt to her legs. The skirt kicked up with each hurried step she took.

“Stop staring,” she said. “You’re embarrassing me.”

He’d been about to ask her why she was rushing him, but she effectively sidetracked him. “I find it hard not to watch you.”

“Why?” she asked.

Before, he’d studied her to make her aware of him, not out of any real intimate interest of his own.

Now…her every move enthralled him. He needed to see her body, to touch her all over. At every moment, some part of his brain churned over the body hidden from him. In a very short time, he’d become obsessed.

“You have long legs,” he mused aloud.

She missed a step, then moved ahead of him, out of his reach.

Knowing he had her on the run, Logan smiled. “Slim hips, too.”

She charged forward, grabbed a cart and shoved her way down an aisle. Hanging back a little, aware of the concentrated way she resisted any sway to her walk, Logan watched her.

Suddenly she stopped and turned to glare at him.

And it was a glare of pure fire, taking him by surprise.

“Stop it,” she ordered him, “or leave.”

Mesmerizing, that small sign of her temper. “You asked me to give you a ride home.”

“Yes, but if you can’t behave in a civilized way, I’d rather walk. In fact, I like walking. It’s good exercise and—”

“Forget it, honey.” Logan put his arm around her and started her forward again. “I’ll pretend you’re not hiding a sweet body, okay?”

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. She clung to the cart, almost using it for support as he urged her down the bread aisle.

As she shopped, Logan stayed attuned to their surroundings, but he no longer felt the scrutiny of prying eyes.

Come out, you bastard, Logan thought to himself. Come out so I can get to you.

But he didn’t see Rowdy Yates anywhere around, and he didn’t feel that burning gaze, either. His disappointment would have been more pronounced if he weren’t so fascinated with Pepper. The no-nonsense way she shopped, how she moved, even her junk food choices were a source of interest.

Add to all that her awareness of him, which he felt in spades.

Even in the middle of a grocery store, that damned sexual chemistry arced between them, live, hot and alarmingly real. Possibly the most real thing he’d felt in two long years.

* * *

“TURN IN HERE.”

Logan glanced at her. “What?”

“I need to go to the department store, too. Turn in here.” He’d been silent too long, and she didn’t know if it was because he’d sensed her brother’s nosiness, or his curiosity about her body that kept him brooding.

Neither possibility boded well for her peace of mind.

As he pulled into a parking spot, she opened her seat belt. Already preoccupied with thoughts of her brother and his domineering presence, she said, “You don’t need to wait. Thank you for the lift, but I’ll walk the rest of the way after I’ve finished.”

Before she moved an inch, he caught her arm in a gentle but unbreakable hold. Far too seriously, he said, “I don’t mind waiting.”

He had such big, strong hands, but she couldn’t imagine him ever hurting her. “What happened there?” She nodded at his left hand, braced on the steering wheel. The nail gun had left behind some grisly bruising.

As if he’d forgotten the injury, he looked at it. “I screwed up at work, that’s all.”

Pepper couldn’t resist reaching for his wrist, drawing his hand toward her. At the base of his thumb and halfway up his index finger, purple, blue and green colored his skin. At the fleshiest part of his thumb, where it webbed, she saw a puncture.

“What did you do?” she asked softly, pretending she didn’t already know.

“Drove a nail through it.” He curled his fingers around hers. “It’s fine.”

“Ouch,” she said in sympathy. The urge to kiss his hand nearly overwhelmed her. But she didn’t know for sure if Rowdy had followed them, and she didn’t want to do anything to set off her brother’s temper. When it came to her, he had enough anger for ten men. “Did you go to the hospital?”

“No need. I already had a tetanus shot and I didn’t hit anything vital—just my pride.”

She smiled with him.

Almost as a suggestion, he said, “I’ll be off work for a few days.”

She waited…for what, she wasn’t sure.

“I was hoping we could spend more time together.”

And there it was, the reason for Rowdy’s suspicions. She tried to think of what to say, tried to muster up the conviction to turn him away.

He didn’t give her a chance.

“I have so many things to ask you.”

Alarm took her breath. “Like what?”

Teasing, he kissed the end of her nose, then her cheek and finally her mouth. He lingered, a soft press of lips, breath mingling, heartbeats accelerating. Finally he sat back. “How is it a woman as shy as you are has a rubber handy?”

Oh. Not a horrible question. “I, um…”

“Why don’t you run in the park instead of on a treadmill?”

She winced. She knew sooner or later he’d ask about that. “The thing is…”

He put a finger to her lips. “And why don’t you realize how pretty you could be.”

Could be. Out of all the people who’d looked past her, even through her, did Logan actually see her, not a disguise, not the bland facade, but a real woman? The tension left her shoulders. “Logan.”

“Not that you aren’t cute now.” He ran the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “It’s there, even though you don’t want it to be.”

“It?”

“Your physical appeal. I know you’d rather I didn’t notice, but I can’t seem to help it.”

No, she didn’t want him to see much of anything at all. “I’m not cute.” She really wasn’t. Not like this. “I have mirrors.”

Leaning in for another kiss, he murmured, “If you give me a chance, I can convince you.”

He was soooo tempting. “A chance…how?”

His mouth brushed the corner of hers. “Spend some time with me. We can do dinner out and a movie, or nothing at all. Your choice.”

“But you want to have sex again?” She could care less about the other stuff, but the physical intimacy—she craved a repeat performance.

His mouth quirked. Then he laughed. “Yeah, I wouldn’t object to it.” He traced a fingertip over her jaw, her chin and down her throat. “It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, you know. We can mix it up a little.”