Chapter 15 Logan
Rose is panting and holding me off with one small palm flat on my chest.
“That all you got?” I tease. I have no idea where the confidence comes from. I’ve never had this much sex, this frequently, in this short a window of time, in my entire life. My recovery time alone deserves a write-up in a medical journal.
“Don’t act like you can get hard again.” She’s on her back, skin glistening with sweat, her tits falling away from her sternum in soft teardrop shapes.
God, she’s beautiful. “Besides, I still need to shower before the rehearsal dinner. Rinse all this sex off me.” Rolling onto her side to face me, she adds, “You never answered me.”
“What was the question?”
She laughs a little. Then something darker moves across her face, and I reach out and lay my palm over her hip. “I just… Look, I don’t need to know what happens after this. I just need to know you’re not going to go cold on me again.”
Shit.
I managed three hours without thinking about how badly I fucked her over. And now, after what we just did, how quickly I’ve become attached to making Rose smile, laugh, come—I’m not sure how to compartmentalize it. If I even should.
She watches my face. I keep my expression impassive. “I don’t know what things look like when we get back to New York. But we have right now. The rest of this week. Can we just… is that enough? For now? I won’t go cold on you again.”
For just a second, something in her face falls. Then it clears. “Yeah. That works. Vacation sex.”
I wince at that, even though it’s more or less what I just said.
Rose slides off the bed first and drifts into the bathroom.
I lean back and watch her dab that balm onto her face.
A small knot tightens in my chest. I was being an ass about that.
I never actually thought she smelled bad.
And I sure as hell never thought Pearl would show Rose that message.
Rose peeks out from the bathroom. “The rehearsal starts in half an hour, and I’m supposed to find Pearl first so I can be up there with her when she announces Jo and Dad.”
“Is this your way of telling me to get the fuck out? You’ve never had a problem with honesty before.”
She grins. “Logan. Get the fuck out.” Then ducks back into the bathroom.
I laugh. I still need to run back up to my suite to change, so I relent.
I get up and follow her to the doorway, but she’s still naked, and I feel my dick rising, miraculously, to the occasion.
Rose laughs and pushes at my shoulders. “No more sex. It’s bad enough I’m going to be walking bowlegged.
I can’t also have cum dripping down my thighs. ”
I drop my head into my hands. “You can’t say shit like that and expect me to leave this room.”
She laughs, and her smile is so bright and genuine, it lights up her whole face. She grabs a towel and tries to put some distance between us, but half-naked or not, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I keep getting blindsided by it.
“Okay. I’m going.” I steal one more kiss before I get dressed. “But you better be ready for more after dinner.”
I’ve been thinking about just telling her to pack a bag, that she’s coming to stay in my room.
I will later. But she’s in a good mood right now, and I don’t want to be the one to kill it—don’t want to watch her face when she walks into my suite and realizes Pearl put her in a broom closet.
I suspect this room is reserved for employees and used for overflow.
But I can’t get into it now. Later, after dinner, after a drink, I’ll bring Rose back to my room with me. It won’t surprise her, I realize, which just pisses me off even more.
Marco, at the front desk, gives me a look as I pass through the lobby that tells me he has a very good idea of how I’ve spent the last two hours.
I’m turning up the staircase when I hear my name.
At the top of the stairs stands one of my oldest friends—Dash, Dashiell Vanderbilt—wearing a grin I almost don’t recognize on him, the kind that reaches his eyes.
Beside him is a woman I’ve never met. She’s tall, tan, freckled, with sun-streaked blonde hair.
Her dress is some loose floral thing, soft yellow, pink and white, billowing slightly in the draft.
It’s an odd sight beside Dash, who always looks like he was iron-pressed into his suit. It’s not an unwelcome sight, though.
We clasp hands and pull each other in. They’re both dressed for the dinner. I am not.
“Heard you had a hell of a time getting here,” Dash says, eyes dropping to my rumpled shirt. “Running late?”
“Something like that.” I hook my thumb vaguely down the hall. “I’ll explain at dinner.”
“Alright, you can give me the sordid details of the plane crash and the harrowing tale of having to spend three days in a car with Pearl’s awful sister later.”
“Don’t call her that.”
He raises both hands. The woman beside him tilts her head against Dash’s shoulder.
“I’m Sunshine,” she says, cutting through the awkward silence. “Dash’s date.”
“Logan.” I extend my hand and she shakes it.
“Pearl’s been calling her the evil stepsister all week.” Her accent is sweet, slow, and southern. “Sounds like she’s not so evil after all.”
“Not so evil, no.” If there wasn’t something so disarming about Sunshine, I might put more effort into defending Rose, but something tells me she gets it. “They’re not even stepsisters. They’re half-siblings. Roger is her father.”
“Mm.” She nods slowly. “Interesting.” Then, brightening, “See you at dinner, darlin’. Nice to meet you. And glad that plane didn’t kill you.”
I let out a low laugh. “Yeah, me too. See you in a bit.”
Dash pats my arm as we pass, and I take the stairs back up to my room. I pass a few guests dressed for dinner but no one I know, which is a relief.
I’m down to twenty-two minutes. I think about showering and decide against it. I don’t want to wash Rose off me. I change into a white oxford and dark navy suit, swap my belt, pocket my room key, and head back down with time to spare.
I’d sent my gift for Roger and Johanna ahead of time.
Pearl once told me bringing gifts to a wedding was tacky, and since I’d been to so few of them, I’d taken her word for it.
None of my friends are married—Dash’s thing with Sunshine is new, and whatever Pearl and Tommy have going on sounds like a disaster.
I come in through the reception hall and take the corridor toward Rose’s and the restaurant. I’d offered to walk her over before I left her room, but she told me she’d meet me there.
I don’t know when it happened—when barely tolerating her became needing her close—but it has, and I feel nearly anxious without having her near.
My friends are already at the bar. I make my way over, nodding to Dash and Sunshine.
Sunshine pulls me in and kisses my cheek before I can offer a hand.
She’s warm in a way that seems to catch people off guard, especially standing next to Dash, who looks like he was assembled by a robot, with a pocket square and a scowl.
That’s the Dash I know. Though when he glances at Sunshine, something in him loosens in a way I’ve never seen before.
“We stopped by your room,” Harlow says, hugging me. “Even on vacation, you’re impossible to pin down.”
“Sorry about that. What are you drinking?”
“Oh. A champagne would be lovely.”
I flag down the bartender and order for her, then a whiskey for myself. Griffin shoulders into the space beside me and drums his fingers on the bar.
“You coming off a bender?” I side-eye him.
He snorts and elbows me. “No. Ass. I’m just…” He exhales and turns, leaning back against the bar, surveying the room. “Bored.”
“Hmm. You want anything?” I ask while I’m ordering.
“Order me an old-fashioned, would you?”
I do, and when I hand it to him, I notice his eyes moving across the room. “Who are you looking for?”
He shrugs innocently. “Nothing.”
“You’re on the prowl, aren’t you?” I grab my drink and Harlow’s champagne, and we rejoin our friends.
“It’s a wedding,” he shoots back. “You’re supposed to be on the prowl. Desperate, lonely women, open bar.”
“You’re such a cliché,” Harlow says flatly. “If you spent half as much time working on your abrasive personality as you did sleeping around, you’d have a girlfriend by now.”
“I don’t want a girlfriend.” Griffin shudders. “I actually want to get laid.”
Sunshine grins. “Honey, those aren’t mutually exclusive. Unless you’re terrible in the sack, in which case, you’re better off playin’ leap frog.”
Harlow laughs into her champagne. I’m smiling when movement at the edge of the room pulls my attention.
“Damn. Baby sis is fucking fine tonight. Maybe I will get laid,” Griffin whistles.
I’m already shoving my way past him, but not without a backward slap against his chest and a low warning. “Don’t.”
I cross the room toward her. She hasn’t seen me yet—she’s scanning the crowd, uncertain, looking for a familiar face. Then her eyes land on mine and her lips pull into a grin, and my pace picks up, needing to get to her faster. As if it hadn’t been merely half an hour since I’d seen her last.
The closer I get, the more of her I can take in. The dress is sheer pink, rhinestones catching the light as she moves, fitted like it was made specifically for her. Hugging her gratuitous curves, she looks ethereal, and I stumble into a chair before I reach her.
The second she’s close enough, I get my hands on her waist and pull her in.
“This dress is un-fucking-real,” I say against her temple, trying to make my hands behave.
She nudges my chest. “So much for subtle.”
“Subtle? Did we agree to subtle? If so, I take it back. I can’t do subtle with you in this dress.”
She huffs self-consciously. “I thought we were keeping our little tête-à-tête to ourselves,” she says through a fixed smile, eyes cutting sideways.
But fighting is what we do.
“I changed my mind. I need my hand on you at all times. Preferably on that ass.”
“You’re ridiculous.”