Magic Kiss (Hope Falls Book 11) (21 page)

She was adorably sexy, and Logan had to brace his hand on the doorframe to prevent himself from reaching out and accepting the perceived invitation.

“Hey,” he rasped. His voice tended to get scratchier and scratchier the more turned on he was. Right now, he sounded like sandpaper.

“Hi.” Emma opened her hand—which was still closed and set to knock—and waved. Her chest was rising and falling, and her eyes darted from his face to his chest, back to his eyes again, and then straight back down to his chest.

She was nervous.

Shit
.

Dread clenched in his gut. She was there to tell him that she was leaving. That she didn’t feel comfortable staying after what he’d done.

His first instinct was to try to talk her out of it. Tell her that he was so sorry for his behavior. Promise her that nothing like that would ever happen again.

But when she licked her lips in a gesture he was sure was borne out of anxiety and not arousal, he had to suppress the urge to do exactly what he would be promising would never happen again.

“Were you sleeping?”

The timid tinge to her voice was like a punch in the gut. He never wanted her to feel anything but safe and comfortable around him.

“No.” He released his hands from the doorframe and tried to project calm and relaxed energy instead of a predator poised to pounce on his prey.

“I wanted to talk to you, if you have a minute.” Her voice shook.

“Sure.” He felt like he was walking the plank to his death as he started to take a step out of his room. The last thing he wanted was for Emma and Drew to move out. But he had no one to blame but himself.

Before he made it past his doorway, Emma pushed past him to stand in his room.

“Don’t you want to talk?” he asked, motioning towards the living room.

“Can we talk in here? Drew’s sleeping, but just in case he wakes up…” She wrung her hands.

Logan wanted to kick his own ass for not only having put her in the position where she was this nervous about being alone with him, but also that she had to deliver news she didn’t want her son to overhear.

“Sure.” He nodded.

“Can you close the door?” she asked as she shifted from one foot to the other.

“Yeah.” He held the knob as the door latched and turned it so it made as little sound as possible to not wake Drew up.

Turning towards Emma, he started, “Emma, I’m so sorr—”

At the same time, she blurted out, “I was wondering if you would—”

Then they both stopped speaking at the same time.

“Go ahead.” Logan stepped to the left, away from the door so that she knew she could leave at any time.

“No, it’s okay.” She shook her head and bit the inside of her lip.

He knew that this conversation was like a Band-Aid. Instead of him groveling and her awkwardly accepting but still insisting she needed to go, he figured it would be better if she just ripped the sucker off.

“Ladies first.” He forced himself to grin even though the thought of Emma and Drew’s not being there anymore felt like a knife twisting in his chest. Instead of a Band-Aid being ripped off, he had a feeling this was going to feel more like a blade getting ripped
out
.

*

Oh boy.

Emma’s heart was beating so fast that she wondered if this was what people felt like on speed. She’d never done any drugs, and if this was what it was like, she was happy she’d been too busy being a wife and a mom when her friends had been experimenting with them.

Her palms were damp with perspiration. Her mind was spinning like a tetherball being unwound. Her legs were so shaky that she was surprised that she was even standing. She needed to speak, but she couldn’t find the right words.

When Drew and Logan had gone to bed, she’d gone to her room and finished the scene she’d been working on earlier. And just like with the scene in the office, the words had poured out of her. Logan’s dominating attitude had been the first writer’s block demolisher, and that lip-lock had been so passionate that inspiration had more than struck. It had consumed her.

She was able to describe, in detail, what “Tina” was feeling during her kiss. The tingle running down her spine when “Sean’s” fingers fisted in the hair at the base of her neck. The bolt of bliss that shot between “Tina’s” legs when “Sean’s” tongue swept inside her mouth. The need building with hurricane force low in “Tina’s” belly when “Sean” sucked her bottom lip between his and nipped it roughly before running his tongue along it and soothing the sting.

Yep. She’d had inspiration flowing out of her like Niagara Falls.

Logan was opening up sides of her that had lain dormant for so long that she hadn’t been sure they would ever come to life again. She had one and half more books to write, and she needed more from her muse. Sure, she could sit around and wait for things to happen organically. He’d kissed her. Really kissed her. She’d felt the evidence that—contrary to her prior belief—he
did
find her attractive.

When he’d hightailed it out of Seattle, so fast that the Road Runner wouldn’t have been able to keep up with him, the morning after their uncomfortable kitchen encounter, then proceeded to stay away from her for the next five years, she’d figured she wasn’t his cup of tea. But his body had sure told a different story during that kiss.

So the question was: would he let her use that body for
research
? Inspiration. Which, in her room five minutes ago, had sounded like a perfectly reasonable proposition. Now, standing in his room, while he stood several feet away from her, mouthwateringly shirtless with low-riding sweats that highlighted the sexy muscle that made the V inside his hips, she was seriously rethinking her request.

Every muscle in his body was chiseled. From the indentations on his abs, to the pectorals on his chest, to the triceps and biceps of his upper arm—heck, even to the prominent vein that ran down his forearm. She felt like another Emma right now. Emma Stone in
Crazy, Stupid, Love
when Ryan Gosling takes off his shirt and she says that he looks Photoshopped. Logan Dorsey was definitely Photoshopped by a graphic design master.

Logan looked like he belonged on the set of
Magic Mike
. He was her own personal
Magic Mike
muse. Well, she
hoped
that he would agree to be her own personal
Magic Mike
muse.

“Emma, it’s okay. You can just say it.” Logan’s soothing and soft voice made him sound like he was talking to a scared animal.

Which, she guessed, he kind of was.

Standing up straighter, she inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. Time to pull up her big girl panties and…well…ask Logan if he would pull them down.

Preferably with his teeth.

Whoa. She blinked as a small grin lifted on her face. She wasn’t sure where that thought had come from, but she liked it. Apparently, her
Magic Mike
muse unlocked her inner freak.

“I was wondering if…well…if you would help me. With my book. For research purposes only. I know it’s a lot to ask, but—”

“Wait. You want me to help you with research?” Logan looked more confused than a boy ladybug.

Not exactly the reaction she’d been hoping for, but she wasn’t going to give up all hope yet. “Yes,” she replied. Just because she wasn’t throwing in the hope towel didn’t mean she was willing to beg. At least, not yet.

“I can’t,” he said as if she’d asked him if he could fly. He’d made it crystal clear in two words that the entire proposal was out of the question.

“Oh, okay.”

Hope towel officially thrown in. She ducked her head and started towards the door. Embarrassment was rising in her faster than a cake in a pressure cooker, and she wanted to get the heck out of there.

“I mean, I would if I could.”

Logan’s voice stopped her mid step, and she looked back up. He’d moved closer to the door, and there was only a foot between them now. When their eyes met, he continued.

“But I’ve never been in love.”

“What?” Not to quote Tina Turner, but
What’s Love Got To Do With It
? Emma couldn’t imagine that he was really that old fashioned.

Logan’s eyes narrowed, and he gave her the same look she gave Drew when he was saying something crazy, usually before she pressed the back of her hand to his forehead to check for a fever.

“At dinner, you said that you interview people about falling in love. I’ve never been in love,” he explained, speaking slowly.

Ahh. There it was. A classic misunderstanding. She’d thought she’d been so clear, but nothing she’d said had actually explained what she was asking. And of course he thought, because of their talk at dinner, research meant talking about love when she’d actually meant “Let’s Talk About Sex” Salt N’ Pepa style.

Now, she just had to figure out how to explain that.

“Oh that’s…um…not the research I was talking about…” She had so much more to say, but the words were caught at the lump in her throat. Stuck words, that’s all. It wasn’t like she was choking on lust from being this close to a perfect specimen of half-naked man…

“Oh.” Logan still looked like he was smack dab in a cloud of confusion, not knowing what in the heck she was talking about.

Biting the inside of her mouth so hard that she was surprised she hadn’t drawn blood, Emma tried to unjumble the thoughts that were crashing around in her head like bumper cars. It wasn’t working.

She figured she would do what she always did when she wrote: hope that, like what usually happened with her characters, everything would fall into place. Staring up into the deep pools of his chocolate-colored eyes, she dove right in.

“I haven’t been able to finish a book in the last two years. I thought it was because I was busy with Drew. And that was part of it. But the other part was I haven’t dated or been with anyone since Andrew and I think I…lost my…mojo.”

He no longer looked confused. Now, he just looked pensive. She still wasn’t doing a good job. So she decided to try a different tactic.

“Do you remember the other day in the kitchen, when you told me that I was staying?”

He nodded. Just once. On paper, it shouldn’t have been sexy, but for the love of Judy Blume, it
was
. The authority and confidence he exuded from one small gesture was enough to make Emma’s ovaries explode.

If a nod from a shirtless man could get her this worked up, she was in worse shape than she’d thought.

“Well, it
inspired
me. I’d been having a really tough time figuring out my way into a really important scene, and the way you were, so
dominant
, just opened the floodgates. I wrote like the wind.” She chuckled, happy to see Logan’s lips turn up in a small, yet disarming, smirk.

Drawing on the confidence his reaction had given her, she pressed forward. “Then, tonight, when I wasn’t able to write the kissing scene, you kissed me, and talk about inspiration. Oh boy, it was… Yeah.
In-spir-a-tion-al
. I just finished the scene, and just like before, it poured out of me.”

Something was going on behind his swoon-inducing gaze, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

Figuring she’d come too far to turn back, but scared she was going to lose her nerve, she spoke fast as she explained, “So I have one and a half books to finish in the next six weeks. And to do that, I need to reawaken a part of me that has been sleeping so long that its best friend is Rip Van Winkle.
Annnd
I was hoping that you could help me do that.”

Emma held her breath. Her throat felt so tight while she waited for the jury to reach its verdict, that there was no way she could breathe even if she’d wanted to. Which she didn’t. She’d just propositioned a man for sex; oxygen seemed insignificant compared to that.

Logan didn’t answer right away. Every part of her wanted to run, not walk, out of the room. To laugh and say, “
Ha ha, just kidding. You thought I was serious? Come on. Who would ask someone something like that?
” But she didn’t do either of those things. Instead, she stood her ground and waited. Because the truth was this was what she wanted. This was about her and only her. Or…her and Logan.

After a long, awkward pause, he tilted his head to the side, his expression still unreadable. “What exactly are you asking me?”

Wow. Okay. So it looked like she was going to have to
really
spell it out for him.

“I don’t remember what it feels like to be with someone. To feel the weight of their body on top of mine. To feel their hands on me. To feel their breath against my neck while we make love. To feel someone so deep inside, to not know where they start and I end.”

A twitch of his jaw wasn’t the only reaction he had to her explanation—she saw that his sweats were tented from a very
large
, very
impressive
boner. A small amount of relief washed over Emma because at least part of him, a very important part, was on board.

“Emma.” Logan’s voice was so deep that it vibrated through her, causing her core to pulse with need. “I don’t think…I don’t know…”

“Never mind,” she said, not wanting to upset him. “It was stupid. I’m stupid. Sorry. Forget I said…anything. It was crazy to think that you and me… I mean, I just haven’t
dated
in so long… I just need to date someone… Not you…but…”