Page 18 of Alone With You
Logan ended the call and strode into the cabin through the back door before he could change his mind. He made a beeline to the downstairs lab, where Jenny stood in a white lab coat, peering at computer screen next to a box that blinked and hummed on the workbench. Under the industrial hood behind her, something burbled in a round-bottomed glass set just above a gas burner. The whole room smelled of crushed greenery.
She raised her head and pinned him through a pair of safety glasses. She looked like she’d been bracing for his arrival all day.
He gazed around the room. “Impressive hideout.”
One sleek brow raised above the edge of the glasses. “It’s not a hideout. It’s a lab.”
“It’s serving double duty.”
“I’m not hiding from anybody, Logan. I’m working.”
“You work too much.”
“I enjoy my work. I always work this hard. I’m good at it. And I’d like to get back to it.”
“And get rid of me.”
She didn’t have to say it. It was written all over her, like letters scratched in window ice.
He tried for a charming smile. He used to have one, but this was rusty.
“I have a solution to our problem, Red.”
“We don’t have a problem. I’m working here. You’re working in the shed. We’re staying out of each other’s way.”
“That didn’t work the other day.”
“Logan.” She closed her eyes and then opened them again. “I’m busy.”
“Keeping busy used to work for me, too. It distracted me from whatever I didn’t want to think about.” He stepped down to the basement floor and leaned a shoulder against the concrete wall. “But these days, I just can’t get my mind off you, Red.”
She looked away with a catch of breath, tucked a tress back into her chignon, and then fiddled with a knob on the humming machine.
“Jenny,” he said. “How would you like to go out on a date?”
The machine hissed and hummed but she didn’t move a muscle.
“Nothing fancy,” he continued. “Pizza, maybe a movie. There’s nothing much else to do around here, anyway.”
Jenny swept the safety glasses off her face, dislodging the stray curl from the messy way she’d tied it up. She clanked the glasses on the table and took a breath that made her breasts strain against the buttons of the lab coat.
He remembered what those breasts looked like, glazed with steam, in the light of the master bedroom.
“Logan,” she said, in an uneven voice. “I’m not offended by anything you’ve done or said, okay? It’s clear that I’ve been a willing participant in the…difficulties between us.”
Willing participant.The words made his balls tighten.
“We don’t have to be friends,” she said. “We just have to live together for ten more days. That requires discipline.”
His mind leap-frogged to blindfolds and leather restraints. Would she be game?
“I admit,” she said, “that I’m not very good at being around people. I haven’t had a roommate since boarding school.”
Logan filed that little insight away.
“And certainly not a male roommate,” she continued. “Not since—well, not for a while.”
His curiosity kicked up. How long had it been since she’d been properly aroused?
