Chapter 15
Logan
Iwoke to Lachlan's head between my legs and moaned, wrapping my fingers into his messy hair as his tongue worked me like I was an instrument he had mastered. He wasn’t wasting any time.
I was unraveling quicker than I ever had in my life at the sight of him.
It was every girl’s dream to wake up to this.
The only thing missing was breakfast in bed.
Well, I guessed he was getting breakfast.
I couldn’t stop myself from bucking and grinding against his face.
The pleasure was building, and soon I was panting his name like a prayer as my orgasm crashed over me in waves that seemed to just keep rolling as he continued to tease my pussy with his tongue.
He started kissing up my body until I grabbed the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled him to my face.
He opened for me, and I could still taste my release on his lips. It only made me needier for him.
“I want you now,” I whispered between kisses. I was physically aching to be filled with him. But just as he was about to say something, a knock came from the front door. Lachlan’s brow furrowed. No one ever came out here. Who could it be?
He kissed me but then stood and tossed on a pair of pants without his boxers in his haste, tucking his cock away, and I frowned as I got up and threw on a pair of his boxers and one of his plaid button-ups. I only half-buttoned it. I wasn’t planning on keeping it on very long.
I followed Lachlan to the door, and he opened it and my jaw went slack.
It was my parents.
“Logan! Hey, baby, how are you!” My mom barged into the house, my father, all smiles, walking in behind her. Lachlan eyed me, but he gave a polite smile as my mom wrapped me in a hug.
“Sorry for the short notice”—you mean no notice—“but there were a couple cops that showed up at our house and told us about Doug. Gosh, what a mess that is. Anyways, they told us you had a boyfriend, and we went along with it because what kind of mother would I be if I didn’t know who my only daughter was dating!
? So then I did some digging after we talked to them, and I noticed the event you guys are going to be having at the Christmas tree farm together next week, so we decided to fly in and surprise you as an early Christmas gift!
And oh my gosh, this must be Lachlan. Hi, I’m Deloris, but you can call me Lori—or Mom! ”
“Mom!”
“What!? I can already tell you guys have the chemistry! Look at’cha, you’re still flustered! We must have interrupted.” She muttered the latter to my dad, who just chortled under his breath.
“Oh my god, please stop talking.” I pinched my nose. This couldn’t be happening right now.
Lachlan lightly chuckled then, and I glared daggers at him. My dad stepped forward.
“Sorry, my wife means well. I’m David, Logan’s dad. You must be Lachlan.”
Lachlan shook his hand with a charm I’d never seen him use before.
He even used his full smile—God help me.
Where did my grumpy, murdery, lumbersnack go?
This was not what I’d seen coming. I’d just told this man I wanted no-strings-attached sex, and now he was shaking hands with my parents like we were newly engaged.
It wasn’t even nine in the morning and I needed a drink.
“And look at this place! Cozy! Are those your boxes? When did you move in, Logan?” my mom asked with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
“Uh—” I started, but Lachlan, the bastard, smiled like this was the best day ever.
“They are. I insisted. I just couldn’t spend a day away from her,” he said, cool as a cucumber, with a soft glance toward me like we were sharing some tender, secret moment. I nearly choked on my own spit. It had been my idea. He was stealing all the thunder from my plan.
“Oh, how romantic.” My mom beamed at me like I’d just won an award for finally finding a decent man, and to her defense, she wasn’t wrong, I had terrible taste in men.
But was Lachlan any better? The man was a serial killer.
“Well, good! It’s about time you settled down with someone who looks like they eat protein and use conditioner. ”
“Do you just let all of your impulsive thoughts slip out?” I muttered.
“What!? It’s true. Doug the douche didn’t deserve you, that string bean of a man. Part of me is glad he’s missing after some of the things I heard him say about you. Maybe someone taught him a lesson.”
“She’s not wrong,” Lachlan said, still smiling, clearly enjoying every second of this psychological torture.
“Oh, I like him,” my mom announced, setting her purse and bags down like she was planning to move in.
I turned to Lachlan, eyes wide with panic. He just raised his eyebrows at me as if to say, You wanted fake dating—this is fake dating.
I mouthed, I will kill you.
He winked.
My dad took a slow walk around the living room like he was evaluating our space for how many babies could hypothetically crawl across the floor. “So, how serious is this?” he asked, folding his arms.
And just like that, my soul left my body.
“It must be serious if she kept it from us. There are no secrets between us. We’re three peas in a pod,” my mother chimed in.
Lachlan didn’t miss a beat. “Serious enough that I gave her the closet in the main bedroom.”
“Ohhh, I really like him.” my mom singsonged.
I blinked at him. Who are you, and what did you do with the grumpy, standoff-ish man who chops wood and kills unsavory men?
My mother started taking off her coat.
“I’ll take that,” I said, already reaching for my father's too.
“I’ll show them around, sweetheart, and then I’ll make us breakfast,” Lachlan offered with the smug warmth of an insufferable man. He was really laying this on for someone faking everything.
I turned to hang the coats and opened the closet door, only to immediately regret every decision that had led me to this exact point in my life.
There was a man in the closet. It was the guy dressed as Santa!
Hog-tied. Slumped like a sad sack of flour against the wall.
His head was so swollen, it looked like someone had tried to inflate it with a bicycle pump and then lost interest halfway through.
One eye was sealed shut; the other one, well, I didn’t know where it was under all the swelling, but I was sure it was there somewhere.
I clamped a hand over my mouth before the scream could come out. My parents finding a man in the closet definitely wouldn’t help our case.
Lachlan, oblivious—or maybe just Lachlan—slid open the glass door and gestured for my parents to follow him outside like this was House Flippers: Homicide Edition. I could see it now.
I caught his eye over my mother’s head and did the only reasonable thing: I pointed to the closet like I’d just discovered a raccoon in there and mouthed, What the fuck?
Lachlan glanced at the closet then back at me and had the audacity—the audacity—to shrug. The man shrugged. Like keeping a half-dead man tied up next to your winter coats was a quirky personality trait and not, you know, a felony.
I shut the door slowly, like maybe if I closed it gently enough, the guy would disappear and so would my growing criminal record.
Lachlan showed my parents around the cabin, took them to the office, and was joking around with them as if he’d known them his whole life.
At this point, I was sure they would still come out to his place for the holidays once all of this was over because of how much they seemed to like the guy.
I took a long sip of my beer, watching him pour my mother another glass of wine like a gentleman.
He had cooked dinner, and now we were all seated around the table, chatting about the next event we had planned: The Evergreen Haven festival.
There were going to be sleigh rides, games, live music, and plenty of Christmas tree sales happening.
It was our last hurrah of the season, and based on how well the Santa photos had gone sales-wise, I was hopeful.
“So, tell me more about these sleigh rides?” my mom asked, swirling her wine with entirely too much enthusiasm. “Do you guys already have a path?”
The moment she asked, there was a muffled groan from the closet.
My eyes went wide. Lachlan’s did too, but he recovered quicker. He cleared his throat, lifted his beer, and gave me a look over the rim of the bottle.
“Oh, it must’ve been Tony,” he said with an overly casual laugh. “Poor guy’s had some serious gas lately.”
My father frowned and looked toward the hallway. “Damn, it sounds like someone’s dying over there.”
“Oh no, he just—he moans when he’s bloated,” Lachlan added, and I couldn’t believe how smoothly the lies rolled off his tongue.
Tony, bless him, barked in agreement from the corner of the room, where he’d been curled up.
“Actually,” I jumped in, standing quickly enough to rattle my chair. “Why don’t I show you guys the trail we’re planning for the sleigh rides?! It’s just out back, and Tony needs a walk anyway. Walking after a meal is always good, right?”
I was talking a little louder and more excitedly than I needed to, already halfway around the table, pulling my mother’s chair out before she had a chance to argue. She blinked up at me, confused but obliging, her wineglass still in hand.
“Oh . . . Well, sure, I suppose a little walk wouldn’t hurt.”
My father stood with a grunt, rubbing his stomach. “I’m in.”
I gave a tight laugh and avoided looking toward the closet, where another faint thump echoed. I kept my smile pasted on my face.
“C’mon, Tony,” I said, grabbing Tony’s leash off the hook and clipping it to his collar with one hand while the other firmly gripped the sliding door.
I glanced over my shoulder. Lachlan leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, sipping his beer with maddening calm, that familiar wicked grin tugging at his lips as he eyed me. He looked like sin, and fuck if I didn’t desperately want him. He made my knees weak. I shook him from my thoughts.
Get rid of him, I mouthed, eyes darting toward the closet.
He nodded slowly and then took another long swig. The lean cut of his body, his corded forearms, the dark lighting, if my parents weren’t here, I’d jump his bones right now. He noticed me looking at him because when my eyes caught his again, he winked and set down his glass with a grin.
My knees actually buckled. The nerve of this man.
“It was lovely meeting you, Mister and Misses Roark. I have a lot of chores to catch up with on the farm, so don’t wait up for me tonight,” Lachlan informed as he approached me, lifted my chin with his thumb and forefinger, and placed a gentle but long kiss on my lips that practically had me levitating from the amount of butterflies in my stomach.
He pulled away and held my gaze for a moment before I turned away and slammed the door behind me before I could catch another glimpse of that smug expression, herding my parents and Tony out into the cold night.
God, this man was really selling our fake-dating situation.
The forest by the office was lit by string lights Lachlan had hung earlier that week. I kept up the chatter, pointing out the sleigh ride path.
“You two really seem to be happy.” My mom nudged me with her elbow as we stepped over a root.
“We’re . . . working on things,” I offered vaguely, trying not to picture what “things” currently meant.
My dad grunted again. “Well, I like him. Anyone who can grill a steak like that and get along with your mother is a winner in my book.”
I didn’t say anything. I was too busy mentally calculating how long it would take Lachlan to handle the situation before I could bring my parents back inside without a possible blood trail leading from the closet.
And what exactly did handling it entail?
Beating him up and letting him go? Killing him?
He wasn’t one of Lachlan's targets, so I wasn’t sure how this would work in the long run.
Finally, we reached the mouth of the sleigh ride trail.
A little wooden arch stood over the entry point, decorated with pine garlands and twinkling lights.
Motion sensors were rigged up just past it, Lachlan’s idea, which only seemed to make the guy more attractive.
He thought it would be cute if it played instrumental Christmas music whenever someone started down the path.
For a grump, the man was way more romantic than he made himself out to be.
“Well, this is it,” I said, sweeping an arm out. “Still a work in progress, but we’ll have hay bales along the edges and lights all the way through.”
Before my mom could respond, a low, mechanical rattle tore through the stillness.
What the hell was that? It came again, louder this time, a grinding, growling clatter I realized was the woodchipper in the distance.
Lachlan had started the goddamn woodchipper.
Damn, he was really selling this whole working at night thing too.
“Oh! Look!” I blurted, waving my arms in a wide motion like a magician mid-trick, stepping forward quickly to cross the motion sensor line. “The trail has music! Watch this—ta-da!” I’d rather them keep their attention here than get curious about anything Lachlan was doing.
The speakers hidden in the trees clicked on and exploded into tinny, overenthusiastic Christmas music. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” blared out into the woods.
I smiled so hard my face hurt.
My mom gasped in delight and clapped her hands. “Oh, this is adorable! It’s like being in a Hallmark movie!”
The rattling in the distance continued, but it was barely audible now.
My dad chuckled. “Well, that’s one way to get into the holiday spirit.”
“Yup,” I agreed, voice tight. “Just pure holiday magic.”
Tony barked again, confused by the commotion, and tried to chase a squirrel into the trees, but I held onto his leash.
I stood there for what felt like forever, praying that by the time we made it back, Lachlan wouldn’t be in the middle of whatever “get rid of him” meant.