Torn from You (22 page)

“Shit. What
was that?” Kat said.

I needed
escape. Fast. With tequila in my blood and my head filled with
Ping-Pong balls smashing around, I was a mess. I had to get out of
here. Away from him and what he could do to me.

“Kat. I have
to go.”

Kat took my
hands in hers. “You’re emotionally fucked up. I get it, and this is
my fault. If I’d known they were here, I’d have never suggested we
come. I didn’t even know the whole band was in town. Come on. Let’s
go before they rock the stage.”

Logan playing
the guitar and singing was the last thing I wanted to see. I knew
what he could do to me with his voice. He could wrap me up inside
him with a pretty little bow and then with one pull unravel me into
his arms. “You stay. Hang with Matt, calm him down. I’ll grab a
cab.” Since we’d decided to stay at the condo tonight, which we
usually did on our nights out, it was only a ten-minute cab
ride.

“No way. I’m
coming with you.”

I squeezed her
hands. “Kat. You’re my bestie, I love you, but I need some time ...
Sculpt ...” Fuck. How did I say that I just wanted to be alone?

“Let me call
Deck. He can take you to the condo and hang with you for a
while.”

“Kat. No.”
Deck wasn’t a babysitter. Jesus, the guy had been part of the most
elite task force for counter terrorism.

Her eyes
narrowed, and I tried my best to give her a half-smile. She nodded.
“You want to be alone and don’t want anyone pestering you.” I
nodded. God, she knew me too well. “Fine, but I don’t like it. And
text me as soon as you get home.”

“Tell Georgie
I’m sorry. I’ll see her tomorrow for brunch.”

“Georgie
hasn’t even left her place yet. She texted me ten minutes ago, said
Deck stopped in to check in on her.” Kat lowered her voice. “Her
words, Emily, ‘Deck needs a fucking army of red ants shoved up his
ass.’ Then she told me she had to go change her outfit. I swear
Deck should just fuck her and get it out of both their
systems.”

I liked Deck,
but I suspected he was the type who needed complete control and
Georgie ... Georgie letting a guy like Deck tell her what to do ...
well, that was an explosive overload.

We weaved our
way through the crowd. I had just ducked under a guy’s arm when I
heard him speak into the microphone.

I sucked in
air, closed my eyes, and stopped dead. I knew without looking it
was his voice. It made my pulse leap and my stomach drop as if I
was in a free fall. It felt like his words were drawing across my
skin.

Logan.

I slowly
turned and saw him on stage.

I was locked
on him.

His presence
was captivating. He dominated as if nothing could touch him up
there. He was sexy with his half-smile and messy hair yet still
dangerous and unapproachable.

God, he was
confident, always had been, and now looking up at him on stage I
realized that this was where he belonged. Not in the ring beating
his opponent to a bloody pulp, but up there with a guitar slung
over his shoulder.

I knew why
this band without even singing a single note would hit the big
time. Him. Logan. His magnificence on stage drew you to him. That
ease in his stance, how he held the microphone as if he was holding
a woman in his arms.

Jealousy bit a
chunk out of me as I thought of Logan with another woman. It was a
lead weight in my stomach, and I never wanted to picture him with
his arm slung over a girl again.

As he
spoke to the crowd, I was mesmerized ... lost to the sound of his
voice that trickled down my spine and heated my entire body. If
felt like he was next to me, his breath wafting over my ear, his
hand pressed to the small of my back. Oh God, he was
in
me.

“Damn, he
looks smoking. Matt told me they’ve been touring small-time gigs
for almost a year and just got noticed by some manager who’s taking
them on,” Kat said.

Yeah, they
were going to be big. I’d known that since the day I first heard
Logan sing. And listening to him sing tonight would undo me like it
had before.

Did he think
he was absolved because he let me go? Because he gave up his tour
money? Because he did it to protect me? Because he was a victim of
Raul too?

Yes. God, yes.
He did deserve forgiveness, but I couldn’t forget the image of him
looking so cold and heartless at me. Was that inside him? Was there
a part of him that could walk away if someone held a gun to my
head?

I
remembered him staring at me, expressionless, as I fell to my knees
after being whipped. He watched it happen. He
let
it happen.

But Logan had
saved me. Logically I knew that, but finding that trust again ...
it was like reaching for an apple too high up in the tree.

Logan said
something to the crowd, and then he laughed. It was the most
magical sight. Logan rarely laughed, but when he did it was
captivating. I couldn’t look away from his bright smile, his sexy
bedroom eyes. I swear I could hear the women in the bar moan, and I
was among them.

I was about to
uproot my feet and stop gawking at the man who made my body ignite
when he found me.

He found me
with his eyes and didn’t let go. He was still talking to the crowd,
but his eyes remained on me. His smile was gone, and even from a
hundred feet away I noticed his hand tighten on the microphone.

Then he
stopped talking and just stared.

My heart
pounded at its cage. My blood pumped so quickly through my veins I
thought I might combust. Logan was caressing me with his eyes and
pulling at me to run to him.

And I did
run—in the opposite direction—pushing my way through the crowd,
ignoring Kat’s shouts. I was out the door before Logan sang his
first note.

I woke to Kat
jumping onto the bed.

Kat landed on
her stomach beside me, alcohol wafting off her skin. Her face was
flushed, and she was smiling ear to ear. I groaned, flinging my arm
over my eyes.

“What time is
it?” I mumbled.

“Two. Nope,
hmm, maybe fourishy. And you need to get up.”

I pulled the
duvet up over my shoulders and turned on my side. “Kat. Four in the
morning? Not a chance. I have Georgie’s brunch tomorrow morning
then five horses to ride.”

“
It’s
tomorrow, and you
really
need to
get up.” She yanked on the covers.

“Kat,
seriously. Whatever it is can wait til morning.”

“Um, no. It
can’t.”

I groaned and
pried open my eyes. “Hope I’m waking up to some hot story about you
and that guy Ream.”

Kat barked
out, “Bah. Fantasy fuck denied. Nope. Ream won’t touch me with a
thousand-foot pole. Actually, when he saw me tonight, he looked
ill, then he walked away. So, I partied with Crisis. Jesus, that
guy is crude, but hilarious. Man-whore and totally fuckable.” She
put her finger to her lips. “Why did I come in ...? Oh yeah, your
man is here.”

I bolted up.
“What?” Holy shit. Oh my God. At the condo? “What? You mean here?
In the condo here? Or downstairs and wants buzzed up?”

Obviously
drunk and unconcerned over my panic, Kat shrugged. “In the kitchen
here.”

“What?” I
repeated then pressed my head into the pillow mumbling every swear
word I could think of.

Kat fluffed
her pillow and plopped her head down, closing her eyes. “I think
he’s hurt you didn’t stay for the show. I saw him looking for you
while he sang. He looked sad. Shit, I’m drunk.” She moaned and
curled onto her side. “I tried to stop him from coming here, but
... I’m drunk, and well ... even when I punched him and told him
you wanted nothing to do with him ... he kept coming. Did you know
that he has abs like a damn brick house? Shit. Yeah, of course you
do. I think I broke my hand punching him.” She lifted it up then
let it flop back down on the bed.

“You didn’t
break your hand.”

Kat mumbled
something unintelligible. I think it was some sort of apology.

I heard a
cupboard closing and then the fridge opening and closing. Then the
sound of something being poured into a glass. He was here. Logan
was in the kitchen. I shoved the covers aside, shaking my head at
the passed-out Kat sprawled face first on my bed, her hands and
legs spread-eagle.

Logan looked
up the moment I appeared. It was an open-concept condo, and the
only walls that existed surrounded the bathrooms and three
bedrooms.

Time was in
slow motion. His eyes started at my face, dipping down my body to
my bare feet then back up again to meet my eyes. He leaned back
against the counter and took a sip of his orange juice. A wave of
desire hit me as I remembered him leaning against his truck eating
ice cream and looking so ... so sexy. Like nothing in the world
could touch him. I didn’t know why, but his confidence was a huge
turn on for me.

Suddenly I
felt naked in my pink flowered boxer shorts and white camisole. His
eyes taking me in, it felt like his fingertips were reading brail
across my flesh.

But anger
could undo my embarrassment, and it did as I stopped a few inches
away and glared. “Not cool, you being here.”

“Not cool, you
taking off alone at midnight, drunk.”

“I wasn’t
drunk exa—”

“You drink
four tequila shots?”

How did he
know that? “Well, yeah, but—”

“Then you were
drunk. You should’ve had Kat or Matt bring you back here, Eme.” He
set his orange juice on the counter, and the sound made my pulse
jump. His eyes remained on me, never once wavering. It’s what he
did well. He could make someone quiver in fear without even opening
his mouth.

He nodded
toward the bedroom. “Kat?”

I huffed.
“What do you think? Passed out. It’s four in the morning, and she’s
drunk as a beaver.”

“Beaver.” He
frowned as he thought about it. “Your dad used to say that about
your mom.”

He remembered.
I’d told him that one afternoon while we sat and had ice cream on
the way back from the horses. My dad said beaver, because my mom
used to move shit around in the house whenever she got drunk. I
told Logan how my father tried to help my mom get sober, but then
he got lung cancer and within six months he was gone. I’d been ten
years old, and he died around the same time Kat and Matt lost their
parents. I think that’s why we all connected so well. We needed one
another. “Yeah.”

“Why’d you
run, Mouse?”

“I have horses
to ride tomorrow ... today and—”

“Stop biting
the inside of your cheeks and tell me the truth. Why’d you
run?”

Fuck. I so
wasn’t ready for this conversation. He didn’t deserve to know that
his voice lit me up like a firecracker, that staring up at him on
stage undid me, and I couldn’t control the want inside me.

Then Logan did
something I hadn’t been prepared for. He snagged my hand, jerked me
up against him, and caressed my hair. “I like the bed look. And the
pink boxers ...” He trapped my hand behind my back. “Liking those
too.”

Anger, where
are you? This guy hurt me. He shredded every single part of my
dignity and stomped on it. But Logan’s words were erotic. Sensual.
Just like when he was up on stage. It reminded me of how he was
before. He wove through me, made my body sing. Logan was in my
kitchen drinking my orange juice at four in the morning, and for a
second I wanted him here.

“Sculpt. Let
me go.” That was all I could come up with; chicken.

“You left a
bar alone looking beautiful and drunk. Don’t do it again.”

“Sculpt—”

He
interrupted, his voice hard and unrelenting “No, Emily. Matt should
know better. You don’t take drinks from guys, never leave a drink
unattended, go to the bathroom in pairs, and never fuckin’ go home
alone drunk. Jesus.”

Was he
serious? He pops back into my life after two years, stirs up the
past, blows up everything I thought about him, and then makes
demands of me?

“I see the
Legos building. Stop thinking, and promise me you’ll be more
careful.”

Okay, it was a
little stupid. Drunk and cabbing it home alone was not smart, and
despite wanting to tell him off, I nodded. Because fighting him on
this was just making it harder on myself when all I could think
about was him kissing me.

Shit, I
seriously needed a loony bin.

“I wanted you
to hear us play, baby.”

“I don’t want
to hear you play.” There was no chance I was going to torture
myself listening to him sing. “You have to leave.”

“Eme.” His
free hand came up and traced the curve of my neck. I swallowed. He
watched. “Give us a chance.”

“Log ...
Sculpt, please ... don’t.” I pushed his hand off my neck then
stepped back so I could take one breath without having to breathe
in his delicious scent. He wasn’t going to leave, and I needed him
to—fast.