My voice husky, I tell her, “Come over here.”
She gasps. “What did you say?”
I groan. “You know what I said. You want to sleep, come over here and let me hold you so you can sleep.”
She looks at me. “You want to hold me?”
Fuck, I wish I could say no. I shouldn’t want to hold her. Hell, I shouldn’t even want to be near her, but knowing she was here, hurting, scared, or whatever she’s feeling was driving me nuts, and I couldn’t just sit at my house and do nothing. “I want to help you sleep, that’s all. You work for me, and you’re no use if you’re exhausted all the time.”
She gasps, offended. “I’m on time every day. I work overtime most days. I’m heading off problems before they happen and?—”
I cut her off. “I get it. I know. You work hard, and you’ve taken my dreams for my business and helped make it a reality. I owe you. So come here and let me hold you so you can try and sleep through the night.”
CHAPTER 10
BREE
I shouldn’t do it. I shouldn’t have even let him in the house, but I can’t resist him. Heck, if he wanted me, I would give in to him in an instant. But he doesn’t want me. He’s just here out of guilt—and the fact that he’s a good and decent guy probably has something to do with it too. But if I let him hold me, I just know I’m going to be hurt… again. And hell, it’s been two years, and I’m still trying to put my heart back together again.
“This is a bad idea, Logan.”
He sighs. “I don’t have any ulterior motive here, Bree. I know you’re tired, you’re scared… and if you won’t tell me why, this is the only way I know I can help.”
I’m staring at his bare chest, remembering what it was like to touch him and feel his warmth. He’s right here, waiting for me to make the move, and I’m not strong enough to resist what he’s offering. Slowly I slide across the bed, and almost shyly, I lean into him.
On contact, he sucks in a breath and tenses. I freeze with my cheek pressed against his chest. It’s awkward with my body half against him, and I’m not sure what to do from here.
“Oh fuck,” he groans. He fixes the covers and moves underneath them, and then he hauls me toward him, wrapping his arms around me, threading our legs together like he used to, and I can’t help it. I melt into him, reveling in the feel of his arms around me. My mind quickly goes back to the past, lying in bed in my apartment in New York City with Logan by my side. He held me like this every night we were together, and I remember thinking that I never wanted him to let me go.
His voice is hard. “Are you okay?”
I nod against his chest, unable to form the words for what I’m feeling, not that he’d want to know anyway. If I thought he would listen, I would tell him everything, but fear stops me. I don’t want himto get mad and walk away. I need this night in his arms. I have been numb for so long, I just need to feel something right now.
“Bree, if this bothers you, I can leave.”
My arms tighten around him. “No, don’t go. Please don’t leave.”
I am not one to beg, but I would go down on my knees right now and plead with him to stay. If I can only have this one night, I’ll take it. There are so many things going through my head, and even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m not going to turn him away. “I know I don’t deserve this, Logan, but I don’t want you to leave.”
His tense body softens into the mattress, and he holds me to him. I can feel and hear everything. His soft sigh, the thud of his heartbeat under my cheek, the warmth of his body, the way his fingers caress my back through my shirt. They’re all tiny reminders of what I had and what is no longer mine.
His chin caresses the top of my head. “You going to be able to sleep?”
“Honestly?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah, honestly. That’s all I want from you, Bree. No more lies.”
I clench my eyes together. He’s right. I lied to him two years ago. There’s so much he doesn’t know about me, and I’m afraid even if I told him all of it, he wouldn’t care. He’d still want nothing to do with me. So I go with the here and now. “I want to sleep. I really do. I want to be able to just close my eyes and go off to la la land, but another part of me doesn’t want to.” I suck in a breath and then blurt out everything I’m feeling right now. “I don’t want to miss lying in your arms or feeling your body against mine. I don’t want to miss that soft cooing noise you make right before you drift off to sleep. I don’t want to miss any of it, Logan… because I know that this is it. Tomorrow, we’ll both act like you weren’t in my bed, that we didn’t sleep in each other’s arms. I just… I don’t want to miss it. Ya know?”
He sighs softly and hugs me to him. “I know, Bree.” He’s silent for a few seconds, and then his deep voice fills the room. “I wish things were different for us, but there’s no going back. The only thing we can hope for is some kind of friendship, honey. That’s all I can offer you because you broke me.Fuck, you broke me so badly that I’ll never be the same, and I can’t do that to myself again. I won’t.”
My heart hurts. This is pure fuckin’ torture, but I don’t care. Instead of pulling away or guarding my heart like I know I should, I lean into him even more. I commit it all to memory. Every feeling, every thought, every way he makes me feel because if this is the last time he holds me, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to relish it. I put my hand to his chest and start to ramble. My fingers trace across his skin, and little goosebumps pop up. “I know you don’t want to hear it. There’s things you don’t know about me, and it’s not an excuse, but if you knew them, it might make my betrayal easier to understand.”
His voice is grave. “You kissed another man, Bree, and for the rest of my life I’ll have that image in my head.” He sucks in a deep breath and slowly blows it out. “Go to sleep, okay?”
I close my eyes and think back to our past. We were so good together. From the instant I saw him in that bodega, I felt a special bond with him. We dated for months. He was on a mission there, and we were lucky because we were able to spend so much time together. We knew it would end, but when his mission was over, he didn’t leave. He stayed intown, and we continued to date. At that time, I couldn’t leave the city, but I knew eventually, when I was able, I would follow him wherever he wanted to go.
I yawn and feel myself falling into slumber. I fight it hard, but so many sleepless nights are catching up with me, and when I finally do go to sleep, tucked into Logan’s arms, I’m ready for it.
