Page 89 of Sin for You

He rested his hands on the island, leaning forward a little. “Not if they involve me.”

I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t. “What I do or how I feel has nothing to do with you.”

“Except that it has everything to do with me.”

I planted my hands on the island as well. “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here, Logan. You said it was over between us, and now you’re here to what? Force me to confess my feelings for you? I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t know—”

“I made a mistake,” he said, his words cutting me off like the crack of a bullwhip. “I thought I was doing the right thing…for you, but I…I made a mistake.”

I started shaking my head as soon as I heard the M word. “It wasn’t, you didn’t…it was the right thing to do.”

“I hurt you, Quinn. I feel sick to my stomach that I hurt you. That is the last thing I wanted.”

His words said it all, really. Bull was a nurturer. A protector. He didn’t feel anything for me beyond that. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t. He thought he hurt me, that was all and that wasn’t something he could tolerate. But to the point he’d start sleeping with you again just to protect your feelings?

I ignored the voice of logic trying to take over.

No, this wasn’t about me; this was about his own issues, with his mother, with his gran and Cal and Dane.

Maybe it was as simple as Logan looking for a connection, someone to take care of when he felt like he’d failed everyone else in his life.

But I couldn’t be his Band-Aid, his emotional fix, until he woke up one day and realized he was with me for the wrong reasons.

He’d leave.

Like Bevan, like the rest.

“That’s not a good enough reason to carry on seeing each other,” I said, doing my best to keep all traces of emotion out of my voice, and failing. “This was supposed to be casual, sex only. It was supposed to be fun. I’m not having fun anymore, Logan.”

“Hang on a minute—”

“No. The rule was: when one of us ended it, the other didn’t make a fuss; we parted ways.” I rounded the kitchen island and headed for the front door.

“Dammit, stop.”

The heavy thud of Bull’s boots followed me. I opened the door as soon as I reached it and walked out onto the porch into the freezing wind and sleet in only my pajamas. But I needed Bull out of my house before I caved.

He followed me out, cursing and yanking off his jacket, and threw it over my shoulders before I realized what he was doing.

“Bull…”

He grabbed the front, pulling it closed around me, and tugged me forward so I was pressed up against him, trapped, surrounded by his heat, his scent.

“I don’t give a fuck about the rules. I want you. I want to be with you.”

Why was he making this so hard? He didn’t, not really. “You were happy enough to walk away a week ago. You had no trouble staying away. Why are you really here, Logan?” I said, pain like a blade to the sternum striking over and over again.

He searched my eyes. “Because I missed you, because I want to be with you, because I—”

“You heard I was upset.” I shoved his hands away and tugged off his jacket to hand it to him. The cold hit me immediately, biting right through me. “You’re charging in to save the day again. It’s what you do. You don’t want me. You want to save me, that’s all.” I was starting to sound a little hysterical, but I had no control over it. I felt like I was being pulled in a million different directions.

“Bullshit,” he said, looking frustrated as hell. “You’re wrong. So damn wrong.”

“I’m not,” I said, shaking, my voice pitched high. “It’d only be a matter of time before you’d get bored, before you ran off to Costa Rica with your own Tonya.”

“What the fuck?” He frowned. “Who’s Tonya?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, throwing up my hands. I was shaking and hoping like hell he didn’t see it. “In the end, none of it does. What matters is what I want, and I don’t want…this,” I said, lying because I wanted Bull, but having him, all of him, then losing him again was more than I thought I could survive. I couldn’t risk it. Not again. “And if you took a moment, if you thought about it, where this, these feelings, your…declaration, was really coming from? You wouldn’t want this. You wouldn’t want me either.”