Stefanie London - Mr. Dangerously Sexy

“Yeah.”

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

He’d been dismissed, apparently. By trying to do the right thing, he’d screwed up again. It seemed to be his lot in life.

“Probably for the best,” he muttered to himself.

He wasn’t cut out to care about people, because loss was inevitable and it turned him into a wild beast. Losing his mother had ended his military career, losing Daniel had sent him straight into Addison’s arms, and if he lost her...who the hell knew what he’d do.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t want her. Far from it. He just knew that he couldn’t act on his desires.

4

LOGAN SET HIMSELF up on the couch with his laptop and a cup of decaf. He was far too wired to sleep, and his vantage point allowed him to watch the thin beam of light from under Addison’s bedroom door. Every so often a shadow flickered, telling him she was unpacking and setting up her room.

Being run off the road wasn’t enough to deter her from organizing every little thing the way she liked it.

He smiled to himself. She’d always been that way—needing to have everything just so. Teenage Addison had been a straight-A student with neat-freak tendencies. She used to visit her dad at the office after school and would happily spend hours reorganizing his filing system and making sure the staff kitchen was clean and tidy. Logan had always pretended not to notice her, of course.

Daniel had once told him that Addison developed her organizational habits after her mother died. A sense of order in her physical environment had helped her sift through the pain and confusion in her head, apparently. Her father had encouraged her to take those skills and turn them into a fruitful career, which she had. Addison was the reason Cobalt & Dane had been able to grow as a company. Without her, they’d still be a couple of scruffy guys too focused on the security side of things to get the rent paid.

He envied her ability to turn her loss into something useful. His pain never seemed to cause anything but pure destruction.

Sighing, he raked a hand through his hair and stared at the laptop screen. Going through his emails might help him relax. Daniel had set up an extensive security system when he’d first bought the cottage, so the chance of anything happening without Logan’s knowledge was slim.

Eventually the light under Addison’s door disappeared, but that didn’t stop Logan’s gaze from wandering there every few minutes. This weekend would be torture. Bittersweet torture.

“Lucky you’re a natural-born masochist,” Logan muttered to himself.

After an hour of trying—and failing—to get any work done, he snapped his laptop shut in frustration. If he wasn’t going to be productive then he’d go to bed and attempt to sleep. A few hours of shut-eye might help his concentration.

“Yeah, ’cause sleep is the problem,” he grumbled as he walked past Addison’s door to the linen cupboard.

It was packed with clean sheets, towels and blankets and smelled musty in a way that brought a rush of memories to him. He’d come to this cottage often, spending Thanksgiving weekend with Daniel and Addison since his own father had made it clear he wasn’t welcome with the shiny new family he’d acquired. Those long weekends had been filled with fishing, eating and letting Addison beat him at poker until she got good enough that she whipped his ass all on her own.

His fingertips brushed a piece of floral fabric sandwiched between two plain blue sheets. The flowers had faces, but the pattern had faded over the years. Time, the cruel mistress that it was, had robbed them of their smiles.

A noise caused Logan to turn. He tiptoed to Addison’s door and pressed his ear to the wood. The muffled sobbing caused pain to wrench in his chest. He touched his palm to the door and sucked in a breath. What the hell was he supposed to do in this situation?

If Addison was in danger, he wouldn’t hesitate to act, because protecting her came second nature to him. But a tearful Addison was totally outside his experience. The only other time he’d seen her cry was at her father’s funeral...and look how that’d turned out.

He should walk away. Let her cry it out and emerge in the morning with her mask intact. Isn’t that what she’d want?

Walk away, you useless son of a bitch. Be a deserter. Isn’t that what you do best?

Logan gritted his teeth and eased the handle down on her bedroom door. The room was dark, with only a thin shaft of moonlight illuminating the bed. The cool bluish light showed the outline of her sleeping form. The curve of her hip and the gentle dip at her waist. The soft gleam of her blond hair.

“Addi?” He let the door shut behind him.

She was crying, more softly now. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could make out the tremble in her curled-up form. She was facing away from him, her body so small and vulnerable in the center of the large bed.

“Addi? Are you okay?”

She muttered something under her breath and then sighed, but he couldn’t make out the words. For years he’d teased her about the way she talked in her sleep—he’d witnessed it on the few occasions when she’d fallen asleep on his couch after having an argument with her dad. Sometimes it was a soft jumble of syllables and other times it was full sentences. Often the words had no meaning.

“Logan,” she sighed.

He tiptoed over to her bed and knelt on the mattress with one knee. Both her eyes were shut and her cheeks were damp with tears. The wet skin seemed to shimmer in the bright moonlight. But she slept on.

And dreamed about him, apparently.

He brushed his knuckles along her arm, his breath sticking in his throat when she shivered at his touch. Her body was covered by a white sheet, but a spaghetti-thin strap of black silk curved over her shoulder and a hint of lace peeked out from the top of the sheet.

Sweet mother of—

“Logan?” She shifted on the bed, her voice groggy.

“It’s just me, Addi. I heard you crying.” He brushed the hair away from her face.

“I was sleeping.”

“I didn’t mean to wake you. I came in to check that you were okay.” His heart thudded in his chest so hard it felt like the organ was trying to punch its way out of his rib cage.

“Oh?” She touched her fingers to her cheek. “I must have been dreaming.”

“I’ll let you sleep.” He pulled away, but she rolled and reached out for him. The movement caused the sheet to slip farther down, revealing a black silk camisole gleaming under the moonlight. The glossy fabric looked almost wet.

“Stay for a minute,” she said sleepily.

Maybe he was the one dreaming. Addison never asked him to stay with her for anything, not these days. The car accident must have shaken her worse than she’d let on.

“Lie with me. Just until I fall back to sleep.” She tugged him to her and he lowered himself onto the bed. “I had trouble drifting off before.”

Propping himself up on one elbow, he rubbed his hand up and down her arm. Her skin was clammy. Damp.

“Hmm.” She mumbled under her breath and turned so she was facing the wall again. “That’s nice.”

He tried to pull the sheet back up, but she swatted him away with a protest about being hot. Little did she know it was more for him than it was for her. The sight of her bare skin against the black silk was jacking up his pulse. Not to mention he was fighting off the beginnings of a rock-hard erection.

All you have to do is get her to drift off, then you can back away. Tomorrow, you’ll pretend you never came in here.

He kept a few inches between them as he lay down beside her, but she wriggled until her back lined his chest, the curve of her ass cradled perfectly in his lap. A jolt of arousal shot through him, but he held his breath and forced down the excitement. It was like trying to swallow a pill without water.