Logan Kade (Fallen Crest #5.5) (24 page)

My smile faded. I’d been teasing. He knew that, but I could hear the anger from him. It sounded deeper than mine, and I wondered how long it had been there. “You said before that your dad and Samantha’s mom are together?”

“Yep.” He shook his head. “If you think your dad’s bad, you should meet Analise. That’s Samantha’s mom. She’s a piece of work.”

I frowned. He wasn’t angry with her; it was all directed at his dad. I wanted to ask more. I wanted to
know
more, what was hurting him, but I held my tongue. We weren’t—I didn’t know, but I didn’t think we were there. I hadn’t told him my own hauntings, so I had no place asking his.

“Good. The guy’s here.”

A car pulled up next to us. Logan opened his window and leaned over to talk, then a guy got out of the other car and went over to the gate. After a moment, it rattled open for us. He handed something to Logan through the window before getting back in his car. With a short wave, he drove off, and Logan pulled inside.

The buildings were all there, just like I remembered, but they had aged like the houses outside. Paint had peeled. Doors were rotted. Windows. Panels. The foliage had started to grow over things. The ticket booth was encased in a bunch of bushes. Trash blew over the ground.

I was entranced.

“My mom—” My voice hitched on the memory. “—she took me here a lot. Me and Claire. Jason came with us once in seventh grade, but that was it. It closed the summer after that.” I shook my head. “I never heard what happened to it. It’s been empty this whole time?”

Logan pocketed his keys as we got out. “I guess. My dad brought in some people. They cleaned up some of the graffiti.”

The old paintings were still there, but after he said that, I could see where white had been painted over parts of everything. “This is surreal, Logan. I can’t believe your dad owns this place now.”

He snorted. “He’ll build something, and then he’ll probably sell it. He won’t have it for too long.”

“Are the buildings safe to go into?” I started forward, moving past the bumper cars, the arcade, the kissing booth, the haunted house, the animal barn. I remembered everything. A large tiger had been painted on top of the building, but the middle of its face was whited out now.

Logan stopped beside me. “Some asshole painted a cock up there.” He was holding back a grin. I saw his mouth twitch.

“Don’t laugh. That tiger was gorgeous.”

“Sorry. I don’t get sentimental about places anymore.”

“This was part of my childhood.” I couldn’t stop taking everything in. The pink flamingo statue was covered with vines. “How can you not get sentimental about places like this?”

Logan shrugged. “I don’t get attached to places. I was always moving and living in different places in high school.”

“You were?”

He nodded, and suddenly he was the one looking around, and I couldn’t look anywhere but at him. “We were at the house in Fallen Crest when my mom left. I stayed with my aunt and cousins for that summer. Then Sam’s mom moved in, and everything changed. We lived in a hotel for a while, then Nate’s parent’s house. I think we lived somewhere after that too. My mom moved back to town—oh, I was in Paris with her for a month. When she moved back, I went to live with her. Sort of… I felt like I was half living with her and half living at Sam’s house our senior year. I guess that was the last place I lived before going to Cain. And we had a different house my freshman year.”

“That’s a lot of moving around.”

“Like I said…” He raked a hand through his hair, grinning at me. “I don’t get attached to places. I go the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

“I get attached to people.”

He looked right at me as he said that, and my entire body warmed. I swallowed over a knot in my throat. “Who are you attached to?”

“Nope.” He laughed softly and grabbed my hand.

I held my breath at the touch.

He pulled me forward. “That’s enough reveal talk for now. Come on. I want to show you my favorite place.”

He led me through the rides until we came to the roller coaster. When he started through the gate toward the track, I stopped. “Nope. No way.” I shook my head.

“It’s safe.”

“Doesn’t matter. No way.” I held my hands up and took a step backward. “I escaped death once. I don’t want to revisit that feeling.” Logan’s eyes widened at my words, and I could’ve hit myself. I cringed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that, but—”

He waved that away. “I said some stuff. You said some stuff. We’ll have sex and cuddle later. Everything’s good.”

I laughed. “You’re pretty damn sure.” His gaze sharpened, and I got the distinct feeling he was looking into me. He was seeing past my walls.

“We both knew where we were going to end up tonight when you opened the door,” he murmured. “I saw the look on your face, too.”

The air shifted. I’d been aware of him since he got to my house, and he was right. As he said those words, everything got hotter. I always felt pulled to Logan—I had since I first met him—and that pull was almost irresistible right now.

I coughed, forcing myself to look away. “Maybe.” I moved ahead of him, going through the gate toward the roller coaster track.

“Maybe?”

I grinned over my shoulder. “I just don’t want you to get too cocky.”

He groaned, tipping his head back for a moment. “Too cocky? Taylor, I’m not being cocky. I’m just stating the fact.”

“You’re not cocky?”

He came over, holding my gaze, and leaned close. I stood firm, holding my breath, as his lips came close to mine. He stopped an inch away, but I could feel his body heat, and I fought the urge to grab hold of him. This guy. I was almost panting for him, and he knew it. I saw the smug look in his dark eyes, and that made me want him even more.

He grinned. “You think I’m too cocky?”

“I
know
you are.”

“That just means I’ll have to prove myself all over again tonight.”

My blood began to sizzle. It was coursing through me, and I bit my lip. I had forgotten what we were even talking about. I leaned toward him. My body rested against his, and those lips—I grew closer and closer. Just a few centimeters held me away. My lips brushed his, but I caught myself.

He was going to prove himself tonight?

I gulped. God, yes.

“Firecracker,” he whispered.

I loved how he said my nickname. I had, all month long. I felt drunk as I asked, “Yeah?”

His eyes went from my lips to my eyes and back, again and again. My brain shut off. The nightmare had taken away so much of my strength, and right now, being with Logan, feeling him so close, I wanted to completely turn off. The need to be in his arms again was burning me up, consuming all of me, and I didn’t give a damn.

“Logan,” I said. My voice was little more than a whisper.

He groaned and pulled back.

I felt him leave, and it hurt. My body actually ached, but I caught myself and held firm.

He laughed, his voice shaky. “I was two seconds from taking you here.”

“I was two seconds from letting you.”

He turned and shook his head. “I didn’t come over to your house for a sex marathon, I swear. But I’ve got a feeling that’s where we’re going.” It was where we always went.

His eyes darkened, skimming over my face and falling to my lips once again. A guttural groan left him.

“Why did you?”

“What?” He met my eyes again.

“Why did you come over?”

“Oh.” Somehow, the heat cooled. My question put a damper on him. I tried telling myself that was for the best.

I tried…

He cleared his throat, glancing back to the roller coaster. “Honestly? I came to make sure you were okay. You didn’t respond to my messages.”

“Oh, yeah.” The nightmare. I shoved that away.

“But you slept late.” His eyes narrowed, seeing through me again. “Right?”

I nodded. I had. That was the truth. I just didn’t tell him the reason why. I’d already slipped too much, though I’d begun to feel I could say anything to Logan. The thought of letting it out, talking about it for the first time without being forced, had my throat swelling with emotion. Did I even want to talk about it? It had been locked away for almost a year. My dad had read the report. He knew what had happened, but we hadn’t discussed it. Claire. Jason. They didn’t know.

Unless they talked to Eric,
a voice said in my head.

Eric.

Everything went flat inside of me. The heat simmering and brewing in me from Logan went cold—as if a pot of water had been poured on it. I was left with bitter smoke instead. It filled my mouth with a sour taste.

“We’re going in there?” A car sat on the track, its door open and waiting for the next passenger.

“No, no.” Logan caught my hand before I could touch the car to get in. He pointed to a narrow walkway alongside the track. “We’re going up there.”

“Up there?” The roller coaster wound in circles, and the tallest point was the highest place in the entire park. “I thought we were just going to sit in the car or something. What about a plain boring warehouse? Or haunted house? Up there looks dangerous. Does that work? Is that safe?”

“It doesn’t, but my dad had a crew come out here. It’s safe to walk on. He can’t get sued, even if there are no trespassing signs.” He pointed to one pinned on the animal barn behind us. I could hear the chuckle in his voice. “You never know what idiots might come out here, scoping to see if they could throw a party.”

I turned back to him. “Is that why you come here?”

He hopped down onto the path and held his hands up for me. I went to him, and his hands rested on my hips as he lifted me and placed me on the path behind him.

“Yeah, the first time,” he said with a nod. “Then I realized the place is too big, too dangerous for a party.”

I didn’t want his hands to leave. “And since then?”

They did, but then his hand found mine. It fit perfectly. “And since then, it’s just for me. I rigged something up here. I don’t come here often, but sometimes I do when I want to be alone. Don’t start thinking I’m a pansy. It’s a new place for me. Trust me, my usual place to go think is the bar, but I don’t know. You can see all of Cain up there. A warehouse is easy to find, but not this. Come on.” He started forward. “I want to show you something.”

BUCKET LIST

#SEXONAROLLERCOASTER

TAYLOR

We were in another world.

That was what it felt like as we climbed to the highest part of the roller coaster. I refused to look down, and thankfully the path didn’t loop-the-loop when the tracks did. My stomach couldn’t have handled that. Once we reached the top, I saw what Logan was talking about. A solitary car sat at the crest of the biggest drop. It was clean and shiny. Logan’s must’ve wiped it down. When he opened the door so I could climb inside, I saw a blanket folded neatly in the back of the two-seater.

“Nuh-uh.”

“What?”

I pointed at the car. “I’m not getting in that thing. We’ll die.”

He laughed and shook the car. It rattled against the track, but it didn’t move. He shook it a little harder, and it still didn’t go anywhere. “I rolled it up here and bolted it down. This baby won’t go anywhere, and it can’t come off the track. Only way it’ll fall is if the track goes with it. It’s safe. I promise.”

My stomach had been clenched in knots the whole trek up here. They weren’t going away, and we still had to get down. “Logan, I don’t know.”

“Come on.” He patted the car. His tone gentled. “Please?”

“Did you bring me up here to kill me?” I plastered myself against the railing.

“I brought you up for a reason, but that’s not it.”

“You rolled this car all the way up here?”

“Yeah.”

I took a step forward, then thought better of it. I pointed at him. “You go first.”

He frowned, but hopped in. The way he moved, so lithe and agile, I gasped. My stomach leaped, and I reached for him. It was reflex, but I swear, I thought he was going over. “Logan!” My heart pounded, fast and furious.