Page 71 of Turn the Tide
Tomato sauce on pasta and pizza, sure. Tomato soup was a hard pass—as in, he’d rather get hypothermia. “Good choice.” His voice had softened, sleepiness seeping in.
They needed to hurry before the cold got the better of them.
“What are you doing here getting yourself caught up in my trouble?”
“How about ‘Nice to see you, Logan. Thanks for jumping off a bridge with me like a lunatic and freezing your nuts off to save my ass.’”
“Thanks.” Stopping at a traffic light, she gave him an arrested glance, her gaze skimming his face. She reached for him. As she wiped soup from the corner of his mouth with the soft pad of her thumb, he held his breath. “How did you find me?”
When Ashley got nostalgic, she reminisced about summer vacations and Christmas markets in Berlin. He paid attention. To the way her cocoa-brown eyes twinkled, the type of smiles that curled on her lips, if she played with her butter-blond hair when she spoke about certain people.
“I went to see some of the folks you’re still close to here. Franzi was the hardest to find. But you described the Alexanderplatz near where she lives and the view from her window so well.”
“And she just told you where I was?”
The racetrack-style traffic light went from red, to red and yellow simultaneously, to green. Ashley drove, keeping under the speed limit. Cool air whistled in the car from the broken window.
“Franzi wouldn’t talk in front of Knox.” Logan gulped the last of the soup. “But she recognized me from your description of mygorgeousface. She said you told her that you love me. Like a brother.” Hearing the words then and repeating them now stung his gut like battery acid.
A brother was worse than a friend, with no chance of anything more. Made complete sense why Ashley had rejected him the one time he’d kissed her—a kiss he’d replayed over and over, hoping for a different outcome in his memory. Years before the car bomb had demolished the long-shot hope of being with her.
“Franzi was worried about you dealing with Hans alone. I sent her into full-blown panic mode, and she spilled her guts.” Logan dug in the shopping bag and took out two burner phones.
Ashley sighed, setting down the empty cup.
He saved the number of each phone in the other and gave her one. “The Agency thinks you’ve gone rogue.”
She took the phone. “I guess I have.”
Logan stared at her in stunned disbelief, waiting for her to give an explanation he could wrap his head around. “What? Are you trying to run so you can sell what you stole?”
“Of course not.” Ash shot him an offended look. Her nose was red from the cold, but her lips were no longer blue. They were a sweet, rosy pink. “You know me better than that.”
“I thought I did. Why are you running?”
“I’m trying to do the right thing.” She parked the car. “Come on.”
They schlepped a block to a squat low-rise of orange brick and hustled inside to a second-floor apartment.
“A friend owns the building.” She unlocked the door. “This floor is vacant.”
There appeared to be only two other flats on this level.
Once Ashley opened the door, old instincts kicked in and Logan did a quick sweep of the studio apartment to be sure it was secure. A kitchen devoid of appliances. Thin curtains on the windows let in a flood of moonlight. A mattress made up with rumpled sheets and a heavy blanket sat on the floor of the two-hundred-square-foot place.
She dumped her sodden coat on the radiator in the short hall, and he did likewise.
“We’ve got to warm up.” She led the way to the tiny bathroom and started the shower.
Ashley peeled off her shirt and black lace bra. Logan lost his gaze somewhere along her bare skin. The sight of her toned belly and firm breasts with tight, pointed nipples imprinted on his brain and had his one good eye crossing. The oxygen in the room thinned.
“Take off those wet clothes. You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.” She unbuttoned her jeans and shimmied them past her slim hips. His breath caught in his chest.
Logan had fantasized about getting Ashley naked more times than he could count, but not once in his vivid imagination had it been with him scarred, shivering, and flaccid.
Holy hell. A raging hard-on wouldn’t improve the situation, numb nuts.
He turned around and undressed, his clothes landing in a sopping smack.
