Off Limits (Sparks in Texas Book 4) (3 page)

Lacy had been equal parts horrified and
turned on. At seventeen, she’d only just begun to truly discover
her sexuality. That day had molded her fantasies, sparked feelings
she had never had the opportunity to explore, and ignited cravings
she had never wanted to indulge in with anyone other than
Logan.

The deejay announced the last dance at the
same time Evan’s phone rang. “It’s Annie. I need to take this.” He
stepped outside to take the call from his wife, leaving her alone
with Logan.

“Want to dance?” she asked.

He shrugged good-naturedly. “Sure. Why
not?”

She fought down her annoyance at the
realization he was just humoring her.

Then she decided it was time to set the
record straight.

Maybe he was determined to cast her in the
role of little sister, and maybe he was determined to keep his
hands off her because of some stupid teenage vow, and maybe he was
still getting over his last girlfriend—but enough was enough.

There was no way Logan Grady was leaving here
tonight without the knowledge that she was an experienced,
available and completely fuckable woman who was more than capable
of keeping up with him in the bedroom. She refused to take one more
second of his condescending pats on the head that made her feel
eternally eight years old.

He took her in his arms, maintaining a polite
distance that she instantly broached. He stiffened briefly as she
pressed her breasts firmly against his chest. His hands rested
lightly on her waist, the touch platonic, boring. She didn’t follow
suit as she wrapped her hands around his neck, letting her fingers
play with his hair. It was even thicker than it looked.

Lifting up on her tiptoes, she lightly ran
her lips along his neck. Logan’s hands tightened, and for a moment,
she expected him to push her away. Instead, he surprised her,
letting his fingers drift around her back until he’d managed to
split the difference between touching her waist and her ass.

Then he used his grip to tug her closer,
letting her feel his erection pressed against her stomach—and it
occurred to Lacy her plan was backfiring. She hadn’t anticipated
Logan returning her touches. In her mind, she would leave him hot
and bothered, his punishment for failing to acknowledge her as a
woman.

So much for that idea.

Her pussy clenched and her nipples tightened
when his hands drifted even lower, his palms molding themselves to
her ass.

Unable to resist, she glanced up and found
him looking at her curiously.

“How much have you had to drink?” he
asked.

“Not much.”

Not enough.

She’d been relatively sober when they’d
stepped on the dance floor, but now she felt wasted, her legs
stumbling, barely able to hold herself upright under his sensual
touches, and her brain was fuzzy from a system overload of
arousal.

She kept one hand in his hair as the other
traveled along his chest, her fingers digging into the muscles she
found along the way. She didn’t stop until her hand rested on the
buckle of his belt, less than an inch away from his cock.

His hands tightened on her ass and she
released a soft sigh.

“You know what you’re doing?”

She nodded, though she wasn’t so sure
anymore. Originally, she’d thought she was seducing him. Now it
felt like
he
was seducing
her
. And she was responding
to it.

He left one hand on her ass as he lifted the
other to the side of her neck. He lightly ran one fingertip along
the neckline of her top. The shirt dipped low, revealing a healthy
amount of cleavage. Macie had taken one look at her when she’d
arrived at the party and wolf-whistled at what she’d jokingly
referred to as Lacy’s hootchie-mama shirt.

Logan paused when he hit the cleavage. “Nice
shirt.”

For the first time in her life, it felt like
Logan was looking at her.

And really seeing her.

Reaching up, she grasped the hand still
hovering above her breast and pressed his palm against it. She
didn’t have a clue where she’d found the outright boldness, but
opportunities like this had been too few and far between. She
couldn’t run the risk of Logan finding another girlfriend and
moving her in for three long-ass years before she took her
shot.

He squeezed her breast roughly. The touch
sent a jolt of electricity along her spine and straight to her
pussy.

“Lacy,” he whispered, his hot breath sweet
from the soda he’d been drinking. “I—”

The song ended and another couple jostled
against them as they left the dance floor. It forced them to break
apart before he could finish his statement.

Rather than continue, he grasped her hand and
led her back to the table. Mercifully, Evan hadn’t returned. God
only knew what her brother would have done if he’d caught sight of
her and Logan fondling each other on the dance floor not three
minutes after he’d reminded them of the bro code.

The waitress was at the table with their
bill. Logan handed her his credit card. She resumed her seat, her
legs still unsteady. It had only been a dance, but it had shaken
Lacy to the core. She’d had sex before and she’d certainly
experienced desire, but what she felt now seemed eons away from
mere want. She was ravenous, predatory. Her whole body ached with a
need so intense it took her breath away.

She searched for something to say, but her
brain wouldn’t function. Words wouldn’t form.

Evan returned before she could gather her
wits. “Hey, I gotta run. Eryn’s got a fever.”

“Is she okay?” Lacy asked, concerned about
her adorable little niece.

“She was tugging at her ears earlier, so
Annie thinks it’s probably an ear infection. We’re out of baby
Tylenol and Annie asked me to pick some up on my way home. I need
to get going. Do you mind driving Lacy home, Logan?”

Logan shook his head, but it seemed pretty
clear that he wasn’t exactly pleased by the prospect. “Not at all.
I’ll take her. You need to get home to your baby.”

Logan’s chilly expression went through her
like a bucket of cold water. While his body had responded to
her—and really, what guy’s body didn’t react when a woman threw
herself at him?—it was obvious he didn’t want to be alone with
her.

Unfortunately, she was stuck without a car.
She’d ridden to the party with Amanda and Brandi, but had elected
to stay when Evan said he’d drop her off.

“Great. I’ll catch you guys later,” Evan said
as he passed the waitress on her way back to the table.

“I can call a cab,” she offered.

“Don’t be silly.” Logan signed the credit
card slip, and then gestured toward the exit. “You ready?”

She nodded, draping the sweater she’d brought
with her over her arm as they stood to leave. It was early spring
in Texas, which meant warm days and chilly nights. When Logan
placed his hand against her lower back lightly, she knew she
wouldn’t need the extra layer for warmth. He’d lit a fire inside of
her that was going to take a few rounds with her vibrator to
smother.

He helped her into his truck, the door panel
plastered with the Grady Furniture logo, before circling to the
driver’s side.

She hadn’t spoken a word to him since leaving
the dance floor. Lacy feared she’d open her mouth and beg him to
fuck her—right here, right now—in the parking lot of Cruisers. So
she kept her lips pressed shut. Clearly he wasn’t interested in
following through on what they’d begun on the dance floor.

Logan fiddled with the radio as he turned
onto the highway and stopped when he found a country station.

“Haven’t heard this one in ages,” he said as
Glen Campbell’s “Gentle on my Mind” played.

She loved the song too and tried to
concentrate on the music, but all she could think about was Logan’s
hand on her ass, on her breast.

He lived in a studio apartment above his shop
on Main Street, while she had a smaller place three streets over.
For the past few years, she hadn’t lived or worked more than a mile
away from him. They saw each other almost daily, simply because
they occupied the same small space and shared similar friends and
interests. And while she fantasized about him a little bit too
much, for so many years she’d never indulged the idea that they’d
have anything more than a platonic relationship because, number
one, he had been dating Jane, and number two, that stupid bro code
thing was apparently still in effect.

Lacy had just about convinced herself that
her actions on the dance floor had been ill-advised when Logan
pulled up in front of her apartment building, parked and turned the
truck off.

In fact, she opened her mouth to apologize to
him for sending the mixed signals and for coming on so strong.

However, the words “I’m sorry” never came.
Because the second her lips parted, Logan covered them with his
own.

* * *

Five years earlier…

“Lacy? What the hell are you doing?”

“Walking home.” She was still in a fury, and
not even Logan’s arrival was enough to calm her down.

He pulled over to the side of the road in
front of her. “Get in the truck,” he called out through the open
passenger window.

“I’ll get the seat wet.”

“I don’t give a damn about that. Get in.”

She climbed into the front seat of his truck
and gratefully accepted the jacket he handed her. Until that
moment, her rage had been keeping her warm, helping her ignore the
cold rain. Now that she was inside, she was struggling not to
shiver.

“It’s pissing down, getting darker by the
minute and you’re two miles out of town. I almost didn’t see you.
How the hell did you get out here?”

“I was on a date.”

Logan hadn’t put the truck back in drive.
Hadn’t bothered to start moving again. “A date?”

“With Bucky Largent. We got in a fight on the
way home and I told him to let me out of the car. He did.”

“That fucking asshole.”

“Wasn’t raining at the time.”

“Doesn’t matter. He knows he left you out
here. Did he come back?”

She lifted her hands in a silent
duh
.
“Would I be sitting here if he had?”

“Guess that depends on how pissed off you
were.”

“Not
that
damn mad.” She sighed.
“You’re right. He’s a fucking asshole.”

“What happened?”

“We went to Cruisers together. I excused
myself to go to the ladies’ room and when I came back, the jackass
was kissing someone else. I told him to take me home. We got in a
big fight on the way to town and I decided I’d rather walk home
than spend one more second with the idiot. He stopped. I got out.
He spun tires when he pulled away. Big dramatic scene. And now
I
feel like the idiot.”

“Didn’t realize the two of you were a
thing.”

She shrugged. “We weren’t really. We’ve gone
out to dinner a few of times. Gotten pizza and watched movies at my
place once. Tonight was our fifth date. And our last.”

“I didn’t think you liked the guy.”

“When did I say that?” she asked.

“That day you were crying. When you told me
that Missy kissed him.”

She laughed. “Jesus. I was thirteen,
Logan.”

“Sounds like your first impression was the
right one.”

Lacy couldn’t argue with that. “Yeah. I guess
it was. Thanks for stopping.”

He looked at her incredulously. “As if I’d
right drive past you.”

They chatted for a little while about the
weather and a Christmas concert Ty’s Collective was going to play.
It took her a few minutes to realize Logan wasn’t headed back into
town.

“Where are we going?”

“Pit stop.” She didn’t question him. After
all, he’d saved her from a very long, very wet walk home. It wasn’t
until they turned onto the lane to Bucky’s house that she figured
out what Logan intended.

“Uh, Logan—”

He raised his hand to cut her off. “Won’t be
a minute,” he said as he put the truck in park outside Bucky’s
house.

Lacy watched as he got out of the vehicle,
walked to the front door and knocked. The front porch light turned
on as Bucky walked out. Though she couldn’t hear a word that was
said, she could read the body language just fine. Clearly Logan was
explaining a few things to Bucky, who still seemed to think he was
in the right. The conversation ended when Logan punched Bucky in
the stomach. Bucky didn’t bother to return the favor. Clever man
just remained bent over at the waist as Logan walked away.

“You hit him?” Lacy said when Logan returned
to the truck.

“I didn’t like some of the things he was
saying about you.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m not repeating them. Stay away from
him. He’s an asshole. Find yourself a nice guy.”

Lacy smiled. She already had.

Logan hadn’t planned to kiss her. That was
his first thought the second his mouth pressed against hers. Her
silence on the ride home had bothered him because Lacy was never
quiet.

She’d been flirting on the dance floor. At
first he’d assumed she was tipsy and feeling playful. So he’d given
her a dose of her own medicine, teasing her back.

Then he realized she was relatively sober,
and her touches took on a much different meaning.

It had been no secret that Lacy’d always had
a crush on him. That idea had been cute when they were younger. He
was eight years older than her and she’d only been a kid. Her
doe-eyed devotion had fed his teenage pride, but that was all it
had done.

Once she had grown up, she’d started looking
in a different direction. She’d had a couple of serious boyfriends
and she didn’t seem to lack for dates. Whenever they ran into each
other, they were cordial, friendly, and Logan had worked damn hard
to make sure it was nothing else. He hadn’t always succeeded, but
for the most part, he’d kept his thoughts pure.