“Thank you.” She leaned over and tugged her abandoned silk pajama shirt off the chair she had tossed it on last night.
Logan couldn’t help noticing that she turned her back to him while she buttoned it up, and she kept the sheet pulled up to her waist as she scooped her underwear off the floor.
He had an exquisite sensory memory of kissing her through her panties, tasting where her arousal had soaked them, knowing that he was making the damp cloth rub against her enticingly.
That ... was not something he could afford to think about right now, especially since he could tell Iz was trying to reclaim a little bit of modesty.
Maybe she felt like last night had been a mistake. He couldn’t really argue with her, either; he had handled it sobadly.
“Do you—” He cleared his throat. “Do you want me to get your pants?”
Iz looked around until she located them flung across the TV. Her mouth quirked, which was a little bit of a relief.
“No, thank you,” she said with draconian loftiness. “I’ll just take them into the bathroom with me. I could use a shower, if you don’t mind guarding the door a little longer.”
“Definitely not,” Logan said, wondering how he was going to survive the thought of Iz in the shower.
He narrowly resisted the urge to check out her bare legs as she walked over to the TV. But it felt rude to look away completely, so he wound up watching the tail of her too-big ivory silk pajama shirt swing and brush against her thighs, which ... wasn’t much better. He crossed his legs.
Iz removed the pajama pants from the TV and laid them over the back of the other chair, and then she took her clothes from last night—neatly folded—out of a drawer. They looked fine to Logan, but she wrinkled her nose at him. It was a pert, cute gesture that turned her from stunning to adorable, and Loganhurtfrom wanting to sweep her up in his arms and kiss her scrunched-up nose. It was starting to take a lot of willpower to stay in this chair.
“I hope Theo will be here soon with my fresh clothes,” she said as she picked up the bundle to carry it to the bathroom with her. “I know these were in shift-space, not in Sebastian’s cave, but I still wouldn’t mind burning them.”
Logan could understand that. If he hadn’t been wearing his old, beaten-up leather jacket that had been with him for so many years, he might feel the same.
“Your cousin might be here already,” he offered. “Once you’re dressed again, we can head over to Cooper’s room and get the morning report of what’s going on.”
Iz nodded and disappeared into the bathroom.
He should also get her breakfast, not that there seemed to be a lot of options around here. Iz deserved warm, buttery croissants and farm-fresh eggs and crème brûlée French toast and ... other fancy foods that he couldn’t think of right now. (He was amazed he’d come up with “crème brûlée French toast,” honestly. Good for him.) She was probably going to be stuck with stale blueberry Pop Tarts from out of the vending machine or, in a best-case scenario, gas station donuts.
Actually, gas station donuts sounded pretty good to him right now.
There was a gentle rap at the door, right behind his head.
No matter what had happened to the rest of his humanity, his reflexes in this body were still perfectly intact—even a little on-edge. He reflexively turned, dropping his hand to just above his sidearm in case he would need to pull his gun.
In the world’s most brilliant greeting, Logan called out, “Yeah?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” a man said on the other side. He had a smooth voice that was instantly reassuring and about as un-Sebastian-like as you could get. “I thought Cooper said this was Cousin Izzie’s room.”
Cousin Theo. Logan pushed the chair back and opened the door.
Theo was tall and rangy andmostlywell-dressed, with an elegantly tailored dark suit and an open-throated shirt, but his pocket square was a gaudy rainbow paisley. Theo followed Logan’s gaze and sighed ruefully.
“It was a birthday present from my daughter,” he said. “I promised her I’d wear it today so I could show it to Izzie.”
And he could have just kept it in his pocket until then, Logan thought, but he had worn it for real, even knowing how clownish it looked. He took his (hopefully young, possibly color-blind) daughter’s token of love in the spirit it was intended.
Logan liked the guy immediately. Plus, the bulging suitcase at his side probably held all the fresh clothes Iz could possibly want.
“You must be Logan Vega,” Theo continued. He held out his hand. “It’s good to meet you.”
They shook, and Logan said, “You too. Iz is just in the shower,” before his brain had a chance to catch up with his mouth.
Theo looked suddenly flustered. “In the shower ... in the room you just came out of?”
“Her door’s broken,” Logan improvised. It was true, even if it wasn’t the whole story. “I said I’d make sure nobody came in while she was in the shower.”