His thighs brushed against me as he moved closer, placing his hands on top of mine and sliding them up the curve of my hips to my ribs then back down again to my thighs. I bit the inside of my cheek to stop from pushing him away. I could do this. This was my therapy, my way to convince myself that I was getting over what happened. I used to dance with strange guys all the time, but that was before Mexico. Now the feeling of a strange man against me so intimately was constricting, suffocating.
The guy pressed closer, his chest against my back as we moved in perfect rhythm to the beat. I could smell the alcohol on him as he leaned in, his heated breath sweeping across my bare neck. My stomach churned, and I swallowed back the bile.
I needed this, damn it. Logan coming into my life again had put me back down into a feeling of uncertainty and confusion. I just wanted to feel confident and free of all the emotions that came with Logan.
His finger pushed aside my hair so that it lay over my shoulder, and then his hands went back to my hips. When his tongue touched the tip of my ear I jerked away, but his hands were ready, and he tugged back.
“Tease,” he slurred and chuckled.
“Let me go.” My heart rate tripled as I struggled to escape his arms. “Stop. No.”
Suddenly, his hands were torn from me and I whirled around to see Logan shoving the guy backward.
“Hey. Fuck, man.”
That was the last word my dance partner got out before Logan hauled off and punched the guy in the face.
He went flying through the crowd landing on his back on the tiled floor. Logan stalked toward him his face red, lips pressed together, eyes narrowed, and brows drawn over them. Oh, God, Logan looked like he was going to kill him. And he could. Logan was a fighter; his hands were weapons and …
“Sculpt, no,” I shouted as he picked the guy up by the front of the shirt. I frantically shoved through the onlookers, forcing my way to him. My hands yanked at his arm. “Let him go. Sculpt.” He’d kill him. I’d never seen this side of Logan. Even when he was in the ring, he’d been in complete control. This was out of control and so unlike him. “Logan, please.”
The use of his real name seemed to work as Logan turned toward me. I gasped when I saw the steel, cold look in his eyes. He looked dominant, unyielding and furious.
He dropped my dance partner to the floor. Three security guys pushed forward and picked up my dance partner taking him away, but I kept my focus on Logan.
“What are you—”
Logan grabbed my hand and pulled me through the gawking crowd to the bar. He pushed up the bar flap, then slammed his palm into the swinging back door then dragged me halfway down the hall. He stopped, backed me into the wall, and then trapped me, his hands over my head, him towering over me.
“Logan—”
“No.” He abruptly cut me off. I jumped, and he noticed. It was then I saw the fury slowly dissipate from his eyes. The lines around his mouth eased, and he drew in a deep breath. “Tell me you’re not seeing that asshole.”
“No. But he didn’t deserve—”
“He had his tongue in your fuckin’ ear.”
“No, he didn’t.” Well, not technically anyway, but even if he did, the guy certainly didn’t merit a fist to his face for it. “And even if he had, it has nothing to do with you.”
“It fuckin’ does, Eme. I didn’t wait two years to get to you only to watch some dick with his hands and tongue all over you.”
Oh. My. God. He’d lost it. Mr. Cool and Calm had literally blown a gasket. He was always in control of his emotions, even before Mexico. He’d hid them well, except maybe his desire. “Sculpt, I was dancing. With a guy. It wasn’t a big deal.” But it was. God, it was, because I hated a stranger’s hands on me. “I can dance with whoever I want.”
He grabbed me by the shoulders and leaned in, his eyes dark, pulse throbbing in his neck. “Not while I’m still breathing, you can’t.”
We stared at one another, emotions rocketing with anger, and yes, there was desire. We’d always had that between us, and even years later it pulsated.
“Why are you being like this?” I tried to keep my voice steady, but it quaked under his intensity, and Logan knew how to do intensity. “What right do you have to come here and start punching a guy I’m dancing with?”
He growled then backed away while running his hand through his hair before he came back and cupped my chin. “Mouse.”
“And don’t call me that.”
A quiet calm came over him. I saw the change as if a shield lowered. I’d recognize that familiar coldness anywhere. “I will smash through them.”
“Smash through what?”
“The Legos, Emily.”
“And I told you it’s not happening.”
Kat came careening through the door. “Shit, there you are. Sculpt, what was that? Matt’s furious. That guy you punched wants to press charges.”
Logan pushed away from the wall and shrugged.
“Everyone saw what you did. Matt is trying to calm him down, luckily you didn’t break anything. Otherwise the police would have to be called.”
“Sculpt!” A guy yelled. I looked down the hall and saw three guys coming out of a back room. “We’re up.”
“Yeah. Coming.” Logan chin-lifted to them and then turned back to me. His expression softened, and I felt myself melt just that tiny bit.
Logan being here was making my resolve to keep my emotions under control to fail miserably. His fingers slid across my collar bone back and forth, soft and slow.
“You still play?” I asked.
He moved in. My butterflies I hadn’t felt in two years started to cheer when a slow smile formed lighting up his eyes. God, why did he have to smile? When he smiled like this I saw the man I fell in love. It plowed over me, and I felt everything he’d once meant to me.