His hips were moving now. She didn’t think he was even aware of it, but he was rubbing his erection against her, and all of her girl parts were singing. Her skin flushed, nipples peaking to life, pussy softening right up. And it was okay because Seth was cool with it. Hell, Seth would be thrilled. “I like it here. I wouldn’t have told you I would be all nature girl, but here I am. Well, I could do without the moose. And the like nature sounds and stuff, but it’s pretty.”
He tilted her head up. “Oh, wait until you see the bears, baby. And don’t forget all the deer.”
Bears? She was pretty sure she didn’t want to meet any bears, but a few pretty deer would be nice. “Deer are sweet. Like Bambi.”
He snorted a little. “Yeah, darlin’, sweet things. Baby, you don’t know much about nature. Those sweet little deer will eat a dead body. Actually, they’ll eat a live one if it’s not moving too much.”
“Ewww. That’s horrible.” And hopefully not true.
“Just about any animal will eat you if you let them.” His smile faded and his eyes trailed back to that spot he’d been staring at before.
She turned her head slightly. “What is it, Logan?”
He let her go, taking a step back before sitting down in his chair. He was quiet for a long moment, and Georgia missed their intimacy. “A little over a year ago, I was working right here. We had one overnight prisoner. He was a Russian mobster, and his boss came for him. Nate wasn’t here. It was just me and Holly and Alexei. You have to understand that Alexei had infiltrated the mob in order to kill the boss. Pushkin had killed his brother, you see. Anyway, when they came for him, we were outnumbered and outgunned, and Alexei needed to buy some time and there was only one way for him to do that. He told Pushkin that I had the information he needed.”
She sort of knew the story, but hearing it come out of Logan’s mouth in flat, unemotional tones made her stomach turn over. “They beat you up, didn’t they?”
“Oh, baby, that is a term you use for a bar brawl. This was so much more. This was an artist at work. A brutal artist, but a master all the same. He kept bringing me right to the edge of death, right where I was certain it would be over and I would be free, and then I would realize there was no freedom. There was only more pain and more loss. He took me into that office right behind you and he showed me how weak I am.”
She really didn’t like the way he was talking. Like he was still in the moment, a piece of him trapped there forever, a sort of purgatory like that never-ending poem she’d been forced to read in college. “Logan, you’re not weak.”
“You don’t know everything, Georgia. I don’t know that I want you to know everything. I just know that I have a lot of trouble being in this place. I used to love it here. I know that sounds stupid, but this job was the first time I felt like I was an adult. It was the first time I was on my own, even though I went home at night. I loved walking in here because I felt like a man. Now I hate it. This is my hometown, and I can’t stand being here because of that office.”
She looked back. It was a totally innocent-looking office, just a wooden door with an opaque glass inlay that announced Sheriff Nathan Wright worked in there. The door was slightly open, and she could see a bank of bookshelves and the start of a desk. “Is that where it happened?”
He nodded. “They took me in there and worked me over.”
And he couldn’t get it out of his head. She could see that plainly. Seth had once told her she was his business muse. It was a silly thing to say, but she’d loved the title. Muse. A muse inspired creativity and pushed an artist forward. Logan needed a push. What if he needed a muse, too? She had a stupid plan. It was so dumb, and it just might work if she was willing to open herself up to complete and humiliating rejection, but then sometimes the muse just had to take a chance.
Georgia kicked off the sneakers she’d been wearing.
“What are you doing?” Logan asked, his eyes widening as though he expected her to do something totally terrible.
“When I was a kid, I ended up getting stuck in my closet while my mom and her boy toy played around all over the house. My dad was gone and my brothers were in school, and the whole thing scared the crap out of me. By the time Drew found me, I was shaking and I wouldn’t go back in my own closet for weeks. It was a pain in my nanny’s ass because I wouldn’t dress myself or even pick up my own shoes.”
“Georgia, this is not the same. Are you taking your shirt off?”
She was. She unlaced the top of her blouse and slipped it off. She was lucky she’d selected a halfway pretty bra. It was pink and pushed her boobs up, and Logan suddenly wasn’t staring at the sheriff’s office door. Yes. This could work.
“Let me finish my story.” She started working on her jeans, praying no one needed justice or saving for the next little bit. “So Win finally decided he’d had enough and he came up with a plan. He threw an ice cream party in my closet. I loved chocolate ice cream and I never got any because my mom didn’t like fat kids, but she was scared of Win. He was a formidable teenager. He and Ben and Chase and Mark and Drew were eating ice cream in my closet one day, and they wouldn’t give me any until I came in. So I got mad and I threw a fit, but they were already really good at ignoring me when they needed to. And finally I went in and I sat on Win’s lap and I had a chocolate ice cream sundae with pink sprinkles and three cherries. Best ice cream I ever had, and my brothers played with me all afternoon. We had a tea party. You should have seen them, big brawny kids playing with dolls. And I could go in my closet again because I didn’t hear my mother screaming. I heard my brothers laughing, and I tasted chocolate ice cream.” She pushed her jeans off her hips and tossed them Logan’s way. She was down to cotton pink panties and her bra. She knew she was big, but Logan hadn’t liked her Spanx, so here she was in her glory. “I’m your chocolate ice cream, Logan. Come and take a bite.”
She turned and walked into the sheriff’s office and wondered if she could get arrested for being naked in here. Actually, now that she thought about it, she should be damn glad the office was unoccupied. She hadn’t been thinking. Oh, god, she was nearly naked in a law officer’s inner sanctum. She was going to get thrown in jail. She was going to get laughed out of town.
What was she doing? Chocolate ice cream sex. That was what she was trying to do, but it was dumb. Logan was right. They weren’t the same thing at all. Georgia took a deep breath and turned, ready to run, but a big body blocked her way.
Logan stood in the doorway, his eyes hard and his hand twitching, but he closed the door and locked it behind him. “Take off the rest. I want to see what you’re offering me.”
She took off the bra and shoved the panties aside because he should know what she was offering him.
Absolutely everything she had.
Logan let his back rest against the door as he watched Georgia undress, her hands pushing the little pink cotton panties down her curvy legs. He was glad she wasn’t wearing that same torture device she’d had on the night before. She didn’t need it. She was gorgeous the way she was. She was so fuckable, his dick actually hurt as he looked at her. He could feel his cockhead already weeping because now he didn’t have to guess at what it would feel like to slide inside Georgia Dawson. He knew now, and it was heavenly.
And he still didn’t want to be inside this office.
Georgia started toward him. She wasn’t as confident as she wanted him to believe. He could see it in the tightness of her mouth and the set of her shoulders. Her smile, usually vibrant and generous, was strained. He was only now starting to really understand her, to see past his own shit and get to know what made Georgia Dawson tick. She was Hurricane Georgia, an outrageous brat, but she was also a woman who had reached out to Kitten and been a friend. And now she was so scared she wouldn’t be enough for him so he couldn’t walk out of this damn office, no matter how much he wanted to.