“I had stuff to do. I couldn’t take her with me.” Seth’s face became a grim mask as he opened the door.
“And you wanted to figure out just how to handle her before you shoved her out into Bliss,” Logan surmised.
“She’s very city,” Seth said quietly as he walked out onto the deck.
He knew it. Damn Seth. “She’ll be fine. She can talk shoes with Laura and art with Stef and Jen. Tell me something, were you going to let her talk at Trio? Or were you going to pick the booth in the back and hide her away?”
It really pissed him off. If Georgia was his, he would show that fine woman off everywhere. He would even sic her on some of the other women when they got too aggressive. Rachel and Laura could flay a man alive at times and he wouldn’t even go into what his mommas could do. If Georgia was his, he would hide behind her designer skirts at every given opportunity. Conversely, he would beat the holy living shit out of any man who treated her poorly.
Like he and Seth just had.
Seth’s brows came together in a frustrated V. “I thought I would give her some time to adjust. I wasn’t ashamed of her, damn it. I have to go get her. Where the hell does she think she’s going? And I told her the food was good.”
Logan followed Seth across the back deck and caught sight of her stomping across the yard. She was actually making good time in those boots of hers. And she was going the wrong way. She was about to pass Nell and Henry’s and make her way up to Hell on Wheels. He would die before he let her walk into that bar. But he had a couple of minutes to tell Seth a thing or two before they went after her.
“I want you to think about it for two seconds, Seth. God. This is how you work, you know. You make a person feel like they’re the most important thing in the world and then something else comes up and you just expect us to be sitting around waiting for you to come home. She’s not a puppy. You can’t lock her up for the day and expect her to wag her tail and be happy to see you. You have always fucking done this. She got prettied up. She cooked dinner. She made dessert. And we both treated her like it didn’t mean shit. We both thought there was no way she could cook, and then we told her what she was good for.”
Seth went pale. “Sex. Shit. We told her she was good for sex.”
“Yeah. And you’re surprised she’s walking out.”
Seth turned. “I have to stop her. I have to make her understand.”
“Let me get her. If this thing has half a chance of working out, we need to set ground rules now.” Seth had no idea what he was in for. Georgia wasn’t going to listen to sweet reason. They had passed that point. Now that he was looking back on the last ten minutes, he could see just how patient she’d actually been. They’d had a couple of chances to avoid Hurricane Georgia. Now they just had to deal with the winds.
“No. I have to apologize.” Seth took off after her.
Logan groaned. An apology wouldn’t work at this point. Seth should be ready for a full-on brat attack, with flying nails and screams. It was just how Georgia dealt with this level of hurt. It actually didn’t bug Logan all that much. He kind of understood it. Georgia had never had real boundaries. She’d had land mines, but no firm and loving boundaries. She’d had men she worshipped like her brothers, and every other damn man in the world had been a douchebag asshole who let her down, including her father, according to Ben. Georgia was a textbook case of needing a firm but loving hand. He was sure Seth could give her loving, but he wasn’t so sure about the firm part.
Logan stopped at the edge of the deck, his boots hitting some encrusted dirt. Someone had been all over the deck the night before. Had he made that mess?
“Go to hell!” Georgia’s voice carried over the sound of the river.
Logan looked out just as Georgia rounded on Seth, taking him down with one swing of her ridiculously oversized handbag. What the fuck did she carry in that thing? She said something he couldn’t hear but probably questioned Seth’s parentage, and then turned right back around and started across Henry and Nell’s yard.
Seth sat on his butt for a minute before getting up, obviously willing to give it another go. “Georgia, baby! Come on.”
Oh, he was asking for trouble. When Georgia got wound up like that, she was just begging for some boundaries. She was desperate for someone to stand in front of her and say “no.” She wouldn’t feel safe with some weak apology. He would bet she’d heard a million of those lame-ass, “I won’t do it again, baby” apologies. What she hadn’t heard was her Dom telling her to stand down and act like the intelligent woman she was.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t her Dom. Seth was her Dom-in-training. Damn it.
He should let this play out. Georgia would very likely leave, and then all of his problems would be gone. Well, all the ones he had tattooed on his chest.
Georgia turned, a look of unholy rage on that gorgeous face. Seth nearly tripped on his own feet.
Fuck. They needed him. Seth was being an idiot, and Georgia was too stubborn to let go of her anger. If he didn’t get involved, she would walk away and Seth would lie around like a mopey-ass billionaire.
And he would never know what it felt like to sink into Georgia Dawson’s body and lose himself there. He would never know what it felt like to share a woman who mattered with his best friend in the world. It hadn’t gotten past his brain that Seth was opening a door. He was letting Logan in without a real commitment beyond the training. The training could last as long as Logan said it did. And they would always need follow-up sessions. And play sessions. He could be fucking Georgia on a regular basis for the foreseeable future. They were young. Even if Seth married her, they probably wouldn’t have kids for a while. As long as there weren’t kids, Logan could come to their bed.
He would go back to Dallas because he wasn’t good for anyone, but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about Georgia. Seth could take care of her. At least financially. He’d done a shitastic job on the emotional stuff today.
“Georgia! You stop this right fucking now!” Seth shouted as she swung her purse around again. But he did a sissy thing where he ducked and tried not to let her hit him.
Logan growled. Yeah, he couldn’t watch another minute of this. Georgia was hurting, and she would lash out at anyone she could because she didn’t know how to handle it.
He was going to show her.
“You’re trying to make me into a prostitute!” Georgia screamed. Nice. She was going there. It was a good play. Especially since Logan just realized they had an audience.
Henry and Nell were sitting in lawn chairs. Each had a glass of what Logan suspected was organic wine in their hands, and they were watching the action. Nell sat forward the minute she heard the word prostitute.
“I’m not going to pay you, Georgia.” Seth’s voice held the kind of horror Logan had heard before in victims of terrible crimes. “God. What do you think of me? I mean, I’ll pay your living expenses and you’ll have a credit card you can always use and you won’t have to work, but you’re not a prostitute.”
Yeah, that had been the right thing to say. God, Seth had gone to all the right schools, but they hadn’t taught him a damn thing about not pissing off a chick.
Georgia sort of primal screamed and started swinging her bag in a hard arc.
Logan took two steps and managed to do what Seth hadn’t. He caught the bag and pulled it away in one neat twist, leaving her without a weapon to beat them with. He tossed it away before she could protest. “Stand down, Georgia.”