Chapter 8 Logan
I don’t know what’s come over me. One minute, she’s the parasitic succubus stealing all my attention, and the next…
The next, I’m watching her from across the table and thinking I may have had her completely wrong.
Pearl told me Rose cheated on her boyfriend. Add that to everything I learned about Easton, and I don’t know what’s true anymore. Whatever is happening between the two sisters, I don’t understand it and don’t want to be in the middle of it.
But right here, right now, Rose and I are two people, stranded in a rainstorm in the middle of nowhere, and none of the other bullshit matters.
I can’t stop watching her mouth—the way she licks her lips after every sip of cider.
The way her throat moves when she swallows.
I’ve been trying not to stare at her across this table for the better part of an hour and failing.
Warring with myself as my thoughts turn darker.
To the way her t-shirt pulls across her chest. What her tits would feel like in my hands, how they’d look, bouncing with her on my lap.
After holding my hand out for a beat too long as she likely runs through all the reasons this is a bad idea, Rose’s hand folds into mine.
I pull her up and lead her to the dance floor, where the song has changed again to something slower.
The tension building between us for days hasn’t let up. If anything, it’s only gotten sharper.
She’s nothing like I thought she’d be.
Her hand is warm. Small. I like the way it fits.
She follows me to the edge of the mostly empty dance floor, and I slip my hand around her waist, pulling her close.
I’ve always watched her—the way she moves, the sway of her hips, the confident set of her shoulders despite how small she is.
She’s the most beautiful woman in any room she walks into, and yet, that’s the least interesting thing about her.
It takes her a moment to relax. Her hand slides up around my shoulder. I have to lean slightly for her to reach, which only pulls us closer together. She feels so warm and soft in my arms.
We fall into an easy rhythm—back a step, she follows, to the side and forward—like two lovers who have done this a hundred times before.
Somewhere between the crash, the diner, the long hours in the car, the storm, the truck that nearly killed us, the motel room with only one bed—something’s shifted. We’ve unlocked what feels less like an easy alliance and more like a dare.
Tomorrow we’ll be at the resort, and that’ll be the end of it.
Whatever Rose is or isn’t, whatever’s true or not—it changes nothing.
We live in different worlds. Not because of the money—whatever she might assume.
It’s the ambition. Nothing has ever derailed my career, and I can’t be with someone who doesn’t have that same drive.
Rose told me herself she’s broke, and I know she isn’t working.
So she lives in Easton’s penthouse, and does what all day, exactly?
But what she and I do have is right now. Here, away from all the things that matter.
Rose’s fingers find my nape and slip into my hair.
The sensation moves through me like rainfall, and I pull her closer, my hand sliding past her waist to her hip, gripping the way I’ve thought about for years.
I fucking love the way she feels. Warm and soft.
Thick. If I moved further down, I’d get a palm full of her ass, but that’s a bad idea in public because the next thing I’d be doing is lifting her clear off the floor and shoving her against the wall.
“You’re not what I thought you’d be,” Rose says quietly. I love her voice. Low and raspy, like she’s just woken up. I could listen to her read a weather report, and it would probably give me a hard on.
“Funny. I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
She goes quiet for a moment as we sway. The song changes, but neither of us moves apart. And then, “What are we doing?”
“Hell if I know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” I agree, my hand tightening at her hip. She lets out a soft sound and turns her head away, like she didn’t mean to let it escape.
“We probably shouldn’t be doing this,” she says. I like that about her. That she’s not playing games right now or making me guess, just says what she’s thinking, even if her honesty costs her something.
“Probably not.”
She pulls back just enough to look up at me. “You’re not going to argue with me?”
“We don’t have to fight about everything,” I sigh, half-teasing.
Her mouth curves, just barely. “So, we’re just two people dancing.”
Rose and I could do this all night, this back and forth.
But then it occurs to me—we have two more days after the wedding before we’re back in New York.
Four more days in total. A finite window to burn through whatever this is.
Whatever’s been brewing between us for days, years if I’m honest. The idea sparks like wildfire.
“Rose,” I start.
“Hmm?” She tilts her face up to mine. Her dark eyes shine, lips flushed. Her hair falls loose around her face, and something urgent moves through me—possessive, almost violent. It’s like she’s erasing everyone who came before her, and all I see is her. She swallows. Her eyes drop to my mouth.
“We could be two people dancing.” I hold her gaze. “Or we could go back to the room.”
I watch her take it in. Pink floods her cheeks, and she blinks a few times, slow, dark lashes fanning. But her hands go slack at my shoulders, and she steps back, just slightly, just enough. “Let’s stay for one more drink.”
Disappointment moves through me. Maybe I’m alone in this. A petty part of me wants to call her on it, like an old reflex, like I would have before. Before I got to know her, before we built this small amount of trust.
Instead, I nod and let go of her, and the absence is immediate. We drift back to the table. I collect the glasses. “Would it be alright if I bought you the next round?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes. Thank you for asking. That would be lovely.”
I snort and head to the front. The walk through the dingy bar helps cool me off, get my head on straight.
I notice a clock on the wall and see that it’s barely seven.
I order two more drinks and, on impulse, a couple of burgers and a basket of fried pickles.
I’ve never had them, but something tells me Rose will like them.
Back at the table, drinks in hand, I find Rose with her chin propped on her fist, eyes on the dance floor, a small smile on her face.
The music has shifted, a twangy country song about trucks or freedom, or both maybe, I can’t really tell, but it riles the crowd up and the dance floor beside our table begins to fill.
I set her cider down and drop the numbered flag beside it. “I ordered food. They’ll bring it over,” I have to almost yell over the noise.
She looks relieved. And I feel like an ass. Just because I want to fuck this woman into oblivion doesn’t mean I can ignore all her needs.
I scroll through my phone while we wait for the food.
A few messages from my parents—my dad letting me know Henry made it back to New York, no hesitation getting back on a plane, which is a relief given he’s a pilot.
There’s a longer message about compensating the farmers and an ongoing investigation into the plane itself, though the early read is a mechanical fluke.
I fire back a quick reply and set my phone on the table.
“I’m gonna run to the bathroom. Be back in a minute.”
I glance around the room, and Rose says, “I saw it over there, past the pool tables.” She points, and I nod in thanks and walk off.
The bathroom is single-occupancy. I take a leak, then wash my hands, careful not to touch more than is necessary.
When I return, the food has arrived. Rose is munching on a fried pickle, which makes me grin, but it’s her expression that gives me pause—something shuttered behind her eyes. Like she’s pulled a door closed.
“Everything alright?” I ask, sliding back into my seat.
“Mmhmm,” she hums, not looking up. Her shoulders have gone tight, her whole body angled just slightly away, like she’s building her walls back up. I run through the last few minutes in my head and come up empty.
I try to make more small talk, but she brushes me off, won’t make eye contact.
And it pisses me off because this is the Rose I always thought I knew. The cold shoulder, the manipulation, mind games. Maybe I was wrong tonight. Wrong about her.
As we eat, the silence between us thickens. She finishes her cider, then gets up without a word and returns a few minutes later with two more ciders and a bourbon. Sets them down without looking at me. Takes a long pull of one of them and stares out at the dance floor like I’m not even here.
“You want to tell me what happened?”
She shakes her head, just barely.
A band takes the stage and the lights flare brightly, strobing up toward the ceiling, as the crowd doubles in size beside our little table.
Rose drains her second cider, then strides out onto the dance floor.
Neon red and electric blue from the beer signs slice across her white t-shirt, outlining every movement as she loses herself to the music.
She’s radiant—careless—and it infuriates me.
She’s manipulating me. That’s what this is. Eyes shut, hips swaying, fingertips tracing her waist then ribs as the fiddle tears through the room and the drum pounds the floor beneath her feet. She dances like she’s completely forgotten I’m here. Like she’s all alone.
Every man in the room has noticed her. I notice them.
Agitation crawls beneath my skin. One cowboy in scuffed jeans and a dusty hat notices her from across the floor.
He pounds his beer, says something to his buddy, slapping his chest with the back of his hand like they’re sharing a joke, then drifts over with a cocky swagger, eyes locked on Rose.
Rose stays lost in the music. When his hands settle on her waist, a furnace ignites in my chest and blood drums in my ears. I storm forward, seeing fucking red.
I get between them and shove him off her.
“The fuck is your problem, man?” he shouts, shoving me back.
“Back the fuck off,” I growl. Rose’s eyes cut to mine—wide, furious, her perfect lips parting in shock. “She’s mine,” I hear myself saying.
“She doesn’t look taken, buddy,” he sneers, stepping closer. My fist curls into his shirt before my mind can stop me.
I’m a surgeon, for fuck’s sake. I don’t fight. Ethics aside, my hands can’t get fucked up. But I can’t seem to think straight when it comes to Rose.
His answering laugh and sour beer breath rattle my skull. My fist tightens in his shirt. I watch his smirk falter until his friends materialize behind him.
I ignore them, and we stand chest-to-chest, but when I turn to tell him exactly who Rose came here with, she’s not there. Just the crowd closing in where she stood just a second ago. The cowboy clocks it before I do, and his smirk returns. I let go of him.
“She still don’t look taken,” he jokes, and he and his friends saunter off.
I find Rose at our table, third cider already at her lips.
“Come on. Talk to me.”
She sets the glass down and looks at me for the first time since she went cold, and there’s something in her expression I can’t quite read—not anger, exactly. Hurt. But I can’t place where it’s coming from.
“What’s your problem, anyway?” she snaps.
“My problem?” I shout over the noise of the band.
Her eyes water. Then, “I’m getting another drink.”
I grab her forearm, but she rips it out of my grasp. I hold my hands up. “We have a long day tomorrow.”
She opens her mouth to argue, but I take her hand, tugging her through the bar, then out into the downpour. Rain hammers down, cold and frantic. I try to keep my arm around her, but she twists free and bolts ahead.
My heart stutters. She’s too drunk for this.
I go after her, rain lashing my face. Just as we hurry across the parking lot to the motel, her foot catches on a stray lawn chair that had been blown into the walkway by the wind.
I reach out, grab her around the waist, and pull her back towards me, stopping her from tumbling into the pool.
She gasps against my chest, hair and clothes soaked through, her jagged breaths mixing with the storm. I cradle her, relief crashing through me.
She shoves me off. “I’m fine!”
“You almost fell in!” The storm swallows half my words.
“Like you care!”
“What are you, twelve? The fuck is wrong with you?” I grab her elbow and steer her toward the room. She jerks free and hurries ahead of me. I get the key out and open the door. “Get inside.”
She shoves through, a gust of damp air following her in.
She makes straight for the bathroom. A second later she’s back out, snatching her bag off the floor, crouching to scrape her scattered things back into it—clothes, toiletry bags—before retreating again.
The bathroom door closes with a soft, deliberate click. I’m surprised she doesn’t slam it.
Fucking petulant. We were having a good night—a genuinely good night—and then something happened, and she gets drunk and acts like a childish asshole for no goddamn reason. Whatever. Apparently, I dodged a bullet.
Letting out a frustrated grunt, I take a seat at the edge of the bed and pull out my phone. There’s an unread message from Pearl. The screen lights up the dark room.
Pearl: You promised you’d tell me what you thought of my dress before the rehearsal dinner tomorrow!!
Jesus, Pearl. I remember her asking, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. Tommy’s going to lose his mind regardless of what she wears—she’s a beautiful woman.
But the picture is… a lot.
The dress is cut so low that the straps are doing most of the work. She’s not particularly busty, but the dress makes the most of what’s there. It’s not unlike things she’s worn before.
But the pose.
One hand cupping her breast, fingers hooked into the neckline, fabric pulled just to the edge, exposing a partial nipple. The other hand raised to her mouth, one finger hooked between her parted lips, like she’s sucking on it. She’s looking directly into the camera.
I close my phone. Set it face down on the mattress. Sit there.
Pearl sent me this.
An uncomfortable line of dread works its way through me. What the fuck was that?