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  Logan’s brows rise in amusement as he observes me nonchalantly. I need to get away now, so I turn to leave, but he grabs my arm, casting a deviant smile in the direction of my scowl.

  “Everything’s perfect,” he answers. “See, Rosa just needs someone to, how do I say this? Keep her on the right path.” He jerks me close, invading my personal space yet again, but the spell he wove a minute ago has been broken. Carelessly, he drapes his arm over my shoulder, tucking me into his side.

  “What are you doing?” I grumble.

  He cups my chin, forcing me to face him. “Stop playing with fire. You might get burned when I decide to quit being a gentleman.” His tone is different, commanding – there’s no room for argument.

  I swallow and wriggle my shoulders, irritated that he can be so freakishly casual about us now, as if he has these moments with every female that crosses his path, yet he’s so strong that he easily keeps me captive with one arm. Annoyance regarding the reason why I never liked him in the first place returns with a vengeance.

  Meanwhile, the girl has taken off since Logan basically ignored her.

  Unfortunately, my coke infused brain is overactive so I spew, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I want to enjoy my night and forget what happened over the weekend. What the fuck do you want? Did the Syndicate order you to come get me or not?”

  Instead of a confident reply or a smirk, he skims a light touch over the dimple in my cheek. I can never prepare myself for his reactions.

  “Always so many questions.”

  “It’s my worst fault,” I fire back.

  “I agree,” he whispers, insulting me – I think.

  I jerk away from his touch and forcefully attempt to dislodge myself from him, but he doesn’t move a muscle, so I have to bend and make a half-circle like a monkey.

  “Seriously, dude!” I stand upright again and pull up the neckline of my strapless dress so that my breasts don’t spill out. Still feeling that ridiculous high from the coke, I squeeze them.

  The corners of his eyes crinkle. “You think this fazes me? Sorry, you’re going to have to try harder to get a kiss from me.”

  “Ooh, you’re so arrogant—”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” he says derisively. “Shall we go back to the Loop now? Are you done here?”

  “Um, no,” I throw back. “I just said that I want to enjoy my night.” I stop when my nose tickles, and while scratching the tip, I snort.

  Logan snares my wrist. Inspecting my index finger, he finds a bit of white residue on it. “Are you high?”

  “Yes,” I reply with a smile.

  He seems to be dumbfounded, as if I’ve just confirmed that I own slaves.

  “What did you take?” he demands, gripping my wrist with the force of his fury, astounding me with his palpable anger.

  “A little coke. I’ve done it before,” I answer defensively. Why did I just out myself?

  “Does your father know?” he snarls, yanking me closer. Then he halts, glowering at me while he seems a million miles away. Abruptly, he frees my wrist, causing me to stumble backward as he runs his hands through his thick blond hair. “Fuck!”

  What’s the sudden reason for his moodiness?

  Of course my father doesn’t know. “Yes,” I lie.

  He flashes me a disappointed look – he knows I’m lying – and for an excruciating, long moment, he scrutinizes me while visibly calming down. His chest is no longer heaving when he commands, “Let’s go. I’m taking you home.”

  “No. Tell me first, did you receive an order from either the Syndicate or my father to come get me?”

  He exhales an impatient sigh. “No.”

  Fuck! I can’t tell whether or not he’s being honest, but my instinct screams that he isn’t. Regardless, I need to convince him to keep my secret from my father; finding out that I’ve done any type of drugs won’t go over well with my parents. Plus, my mother would freak out, concluding that I’m an addict. Shit, I need to obey Logan to sway him.

  “Fine, let’s go.”

  He’s amazed by my compliance and extends his arm, wordlessly urging me to begin walking before escorting me out of the house. As we cross the lawn, I’m stopped by two girls while Logan determinedly carries on to his white convertible parked on the street.

  Since we’re all high or drunk, we keep talking.

  I hear Logan instruct from behind me, “Rosa, let’s go.”

  “Be right there,” I assure him. Yet I continue my conversation, even though I’m shivering from a blast of wind stroking my bare shoulders.

  “Rosa, get in the car,” he insists louder.

  “I have to go,” I say, disappointed, since the coke has me energized.

  One of them looks over my shoulder. “He’s fucking hot. Who is he?”

  “He’s an ass.”

  Which Logan proves by ordering, “Rosa Calderone, get in the goddamn car. Right now.”

  I see him tersely holding open the door and gesturing inside.

  Aggravated, I advance toward him. “Do you need to bark at me in front of my friends?!”

  “Yes, I do, because you’re too easily distracted.”

  “That was a rhetorical question.” I drop into the passenger seat.

  He simply slams the door closed.

  Oh, shit, he’s still angry, and I need to win him over to get him to keep his mouth shut.

  For the second time, I’m alone in the car with Logan. Although it’s less uncomfortable since I’ve been chattering on and on about everything I see. I’m unable to shut it and even notice it myself when Logan hasn’t spoken a word in five minutes.

  “You’re quiet,” I muse out loud.

  “You talk enough for the two of us.” He maneuvers his car through traffic with ease. One hand guiding the steering wheel.

  Smiling, I observe him unashamedly and wonder why he’s occasionally so pensive. I wave my hand up and down, gesturing to the length of him. “Why are you so withdrawn sometimes?”

  “Why are you so damn lively all the time?” he answers my question with a question.

  “Well, being lively is the thing that keeps me going, or else I’d go crazy with all these brooding men around me. Case in point,” I add, giving him a piercing look after he finally glances at me.

  Suddenly, I feel my strappy sandal clasp has come loose. As I fasten it, I pull too hard and break it. Kicking it off, I sit back.

  Logan’s focused on the road, deeming this chat over. Slowly, I take in his wicked physique, staring downward to the firm muscles in his thighs. His allure is strong and my thoughts are flying wild. I’m freaking high.

  “Why are you always with different women, Logan? Do you have commitment issues?”

  His gaze shoots to me. “Where did that question just come from?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” I answer with a huge grin. One second I’m mentally undressing him, and the next second, I want to unleash Freud on him – that’s how much he’s beginning to intrigue me.

  His lips twitch with a smirk. One of my arrows has broken through his armor.

  My eyes stay glued on him, and he sighs and relents, “I don’t have commitment issues. I’m closed off.” He brakes when we’ve arrived at the pool house, unclicking his belt and then mine. “But I don’t need a woman to save me, so forget whatever you’re thinking.”

  “Um, Mr. Arrogant, that was the last thing going through my head. You make too many assumptions, Logan.”

  The silence stretches on as he watches me and then remarks, “No one calls me Logan except my grandmother, you know.”

  This is the first personal thing he’s offered about himself, and I’m oddly glad he did since he seems to know so much about me. “Now I feel special.”

  “Don’t,” he retorts blandly.

  “See, that’s why I think you have commitment issues.”

  “This has nothing to do with commitment issues but rather my issues with you.”

  Smiling, I retort, “Fuck y
ou.”

  “I’m just being honest. What’s the point in not saying what I think?” he imitates my voice, reminding me of my own words.

  “Touché, Logan. But did you just imitate my voice? Because it sounded like you were dying,” I tease.

  At last, he barks out a real laugh. “Go inside,” he says, shaking his head.

  He’s less moody, but I’m not going to take the chance and outright ask him to not tell my father that I snorted coke. I grab the one sandal I kicked off and open the door. When I step outside, I gasp from the cold concrete, and something stings the sole of my bare foot, so I jerk it up. “Ow!”

  “What’s wrong?” he asks impatiently.

  I inspect my foot and flick off a pebble stuck in there. “Nothing.” And I hop out on one sandal, balancing against the car door.

  Logan curses and, before I know it, he’s out of the car and at my side. He scoops me up under my arms and legs, as if I’m featherlight, and with a bump of his hip, he shuts the door.

  My arms twine around his neck, and I lean closer, what he always does to make me uncomfortable. “This is very romantic,” I joke.

  He grumbles and closes the distance to the glass door of the pool house. “Keys?”

  I rummage around in my purse for them and unlock the door. With one hand, Logan slides it open. A wall of warmth settles on us.

  “Fuck, it’s hot in here,” Logan mentions, taking a few steps across the oak floor toward the left to my white leather bed with a padded headboard and sleek footboard that accommodates my LED widescreen TV.

  “I think I forgot to turn off the heat,” I say with one arm still around his neck.

  While my limbs are igniting from our closeness, he appears unaffected and deposits me on the pristine, white duvet, right onto the turquoise pillows. I dramatically spread my arms wide and smile as he looks down at me. Then I sit up and remove my other sandal while he goes into the stainless steel kitchenette on the far side of the room. I also have an adjacent bathroom and walk-in closet, so I pretty much have my own house on my father’s estate. The main mansion is visible with only the garden and pool separating the two houses.

  “Do you have any juice?” he asks.

  “Yeah, in the fridge.” Standing up, I wriggle my zipper down to undo my dress, due to the heat, and fling it over my head, exposing the white strapless slip dress I’m wearing underneath it.

  “Why are you taking off your clothes?” Logan asks, appearing before me suddenly with a glass of orange juice in his hand. I didn’t even hear him move.

  “I’m not naked. It’s super hot, and the dress was too tight.” I walk to the headboard, and he backs up. Going to my nightstand, I switch on spotlights in the ceiling for more light.

  When I turn back around, Logan’s standing eerily still. Then he hands me the glass. “Drink it.”

  Without thinking, I gulp it down, since I am thirsty, as he claims a seat on the lounge chair next to my nightstand.

  “Do you want a drink too?”

  “No.” He looks outside for a second, and I frown at his sudden strange behavior.

  Setting the glass on the nightstand, I open the drawer to take out an elastic band so I can pull my hair up into a ponytail, all the while noticing Logan’s dark eyes watching my movements closely. “Can you not tell my father?”

  “You’re a grown woman. I’m not going to tell on you.”

  I’m sure there’s a but coming; he was quite angry, so I wait.

  “But...”

  There it is.

  “...you don’t tell anyone that my first name is Logan.”

  Very clever. “Fine, but why don’t you want anyone to know?”

  “Personal reasons,” he answers and adds, “And cocaine is so addictive, Rosa. You shouldn’t use it, not even occasionally.”

  “What are your personal reasons?” I pry, wanting to know more about him and grabbing this chance.

  “My sister, Jenny, died from a drug overdose at sixteen,” he reveals.

  Sadness dawns on me.

  “I found her unconscious at home and she died in my arms. You don’t want to do that to your family.”

  I begin to realize that there are so many more layers to Logan as my heart breaks for him, and I also feel a flare of guilt. “I never knew about your sister, Logan. I’m so sorry,” I offer, confounded that he’s talking about his personal life.

  “It was a long time ago,” he says and changes the topic back. “How often have you snorted?”

  Since he undoubtedly doesn’t want to talk more about Jenny, I answer, “This was only the third time I’ve ever done it, and I really just wanted to escape.”

  “There are many methods to escape your life that don’t involve drugs.” He crosses one ankle over his knee, and his imposing presence in my house is enthralling.

  “Like what?” I retort, pulling my ponytail tight and sinking down onto the edge of my bed.

  He tilts his head to the side and lets his eyes rove down the curves of my body and back up before he arcs a brow.

  Then I grasp the innuendo in his statement: sex. Of course. A man’s answer.

  I truly don’t understand who he is. With every second that ticks by, I’m heating under his scrutiny while he’s unaffected.

  I’m never doing coke again; it makes me too horny. I can’t exactly say what it is about Logan, yet I can’t deny that I’m irrevocably drawn to him. I guess I’m not immune to the infamous Logan charm.

  CHAPTER 6

  Logan

  I sit as motionless as possible while struggling to concentrate on Rosa’s face. Jesus Christ, I can see everything through that flimsy material of her dress as she’s perched on the mattress under the spotlights.

  Focus on the eyes.

  No, not that pair of eyes.

  I look up from her chest – I’m a man who thinks with his dick first. Not that complex.

  Of course, I had to retrieve her from that party because some Ukrainians we still need to capture were spotted in the same area. If she gets a scratch on her, I’ll have failed the Syndicate’s test. Henry’s tracking her phone, and he told me she’d left the Loop.

  However, she’s becoming quite the distraction, filling me with a new set of emotions. While I’m furious she used drugs – I’ve lost too much due to coke, and I’ve seen what it can do to a person – I can’t reprimand her and am undeniably derailed by her appearance. Normal Rosa talks a lot, but coked-up Rosa is loud enough to burst both of my eardrums. Although I’m having a hard time absorbing her words when her rosy and firm nipples are staring right at me. And I can also make out the contours of her provocative hips and long, smooth legs. It’s arousing that she’s unaware of the havoc she’s wreaking. My slacks are getting constricted. Inconspicuously, I shift in my seat.

  I’m disclosing much more about myself than I ever have with anyone else, even mentioning Jenny.

  This. Is. Not. Good.

  Rosa’s twenty-one, still in college, and so damn innocuously reckless. Besides, she’s James’s daughter. I’m a man who takes what he wants the second he realizes he wants it, but she’s not someone I can take that risk with. I reject the immediate pleasure of the woman I’m lusting after.

  “Like what?” she repeats.

  I gawk at her in reply, letting the insinuation linger. She licks her lips in a gentle manner, so I steer the discussion back on course.

  “I won’t tell anyone I found you high if you promise not to use again.” This evens the score. Rosa knows my true name; I know about her secret coke use.

  She leans one palm beside her hip and crosses one leg over the other seductively.

  For the love of God, she’s so unintentionally sexy. Or is she? She’s evaluating me as well.

  “Fine. I promise,” she agrees.

  Something tells me she’s just pacifying me to avoid an argument. Nonetheless, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, needing her to go to sleep before I snap and kiss her senseless in that sheer dress that’s me
ssing with my thoughts.

  Leisurely, she traces her toe over the lines in the hardwood floor. With that movement, a few of the decorative turquoise pillows drop to the floor. She rises and bends to pick them up as my gaze rakes over her spine.

  God, how would it be to trace my tongue down her curving back, finding her silky warmth? To grip her hair while I thrust inside her from behind, fast and furious—

  “I should go,” I grind out and surge up. I should get a fucking medal for walking away from this sweet temptation.

  She smiles shyly at me over her shoulder and tosses the items smoothly onto the bench at the foot of the bed, and I’m starting to believe this girl is intentionally fucking with my mind. Her bed is looking too inviting, immaculate with white sheets. So virginal. Way too inviting.

  Walk away, Logan.

  “Something tells me I’ll see you soon,” she pipes in.

  Is she referring to this sensual game or the fact that she’s onto me following her? Either way, I need to keep control of this situation, so I reach for the door.

  With my hand on the handle, I say, “Goodnight, Rosa. FYI, I can see through your dress.”

  Her cat-tipped eyes round, and then she peers down her body. “What!”

  She meets my smirk and grabs a pillow, flinging it toward my head, but I duck swiftly.

  “You could’ve mentioned that a little sooner!” she points out.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” I reply and add, “I’m guessing you’re a full C cup...”

  Her mouth flattens and she dives down to snatch another pillow. Rapidly, I slide open the glass door and step out, skating it closed just as the cushion hits the glass, and with a wide smile, I mock salute her while she’s angrily grinning back.

  Rounding the corner, I blow out a harsh sigh and let my blood flow back up north, though I can’t resist stealing one more glance as she gracefully topples back onto her mattress, propping one foot on the edge.

  Then I take off before making a foolish choice and drive to my grandmother’s private nursing home in the West Loop where I come upon another problem. The home I’ve moved Nana to is costing me a fortune, and I’m informed that the next payment shouldn’t be late again. My funds are limited since I make shit money as a CIA agent and have to live off the sporadic Syndicate payments. The need to pledge in soon increases.