“Then why aren’t you letting me in behind those walls? Every time I think I climbed over one, you throw up a new one in its place.”
“Logan, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to.” Harper twirled food around with the chopsticks.
“I didn’t ask for an apology. I asked for honesty,” Logan said.
The piercing look he sent her made her blood race and her pussy throb.
“Xander and you had sex, that’s what’s upsetting you?”
“I know, but it… didn’t go well,” Harper said, biting her lip.
“Spell it out for me, Kitten, before I come to my own conclusion.” Logan danced his fingers along her arm.
Harper took a deep breath and told him the story of how she threw herself at Xander. Logan listened to every word, his face expressionless. When she finished speaking, she drew in a deep cleansing breath.
“He could have marched you out of there. He chose not to,” Logan said quietly.
Harper shook her head. It sounded so simple coming from Logan but in the moment, it hadn’t been. “I don’t think either one of us wanted to stop. I was dumb, Logan. He told me to stay away, and I didn’t. He fucked me and told me to go and ever since then, it’s been icy between us. I feel strongly for him, and I can’t change that.”
“You are not ‘dumb,’ and if I hear you talk like that about yourself again, you won’t sit for a week. Got it?”
Nerves fluttered in her stomach. “Yes, Sir.”
“He chose to fuck you, and he was an asshole for not walking you out and not looking after you.”
As the events of that evening played in her mind, Harper gasped and dropped the chopsticks on the plate, her stomach in knots.
“Harper?” Logan leaned over and flicked her hair off her shoulder.
“He fucked me without protection.”
The fierce look in his eyes made her lean back. He clenched his hand into a fist and shook his head.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Logan, no! This is what I didn’t want, to come between you and him. And I’m to blame too.”
He reached across the table, gripping her shoulder. “No, you’re not to blame. He is supposed to be in charge. It’s his fuckin’ job to look out for you, Harper, and he didn’t.”
Harper stared down at her plate, wishing the floor would swallow her up. That was true, he hadn’t looked after her that evening. But he had for all the other nights.
“If something comes from that night, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. He’s an ass for giving you the cold shoulder after the fact. Obviously, you feel strongly about him. He got you out of a dangerous situation, and you’ve depended on him for years. Let me ask you this. Are you ready to move on?”
“What do you mean?” Harper asked, trying to swallow.
“Move out of their house, find a new job, commit to me.”
Harper shook her head. “I love my job. But the time probablyhascome for me to move out.” She stared at Logan, his beautiful strong jaw, the love in his eyes. Her pulse raced but she made her mouth spit out the words. “And Logan, I want to commit to you but that would be unfair to you, knowing that I have feelings for Xander. He told me I am not the submissive he needs. He...” her voice trailed off, seeing Logan’s eyes turn a shade darker.
“I think you need to walk me through it, Kitten.”
Not meeting his gaze, Harper did, telling how Xander made her kneel, the things he hurled at her and how she insisted she could be all those things and then how he’d fucked her and afterwards told her it was a mistake.
“Harper.”
The sharpness of his tone caused her to look up. She wiped away the fresh track of tears that had fallen on her cheeks.
“Yes?”
