Take (Temptation Series) (33 page)

Tate’s lips parted instantly for him, and Logan wasted no time pushing his tongue inside. He groaned deep in his throat, and Logan’s cock pounded in time with his heart as Tate’s hand left his lap and speared through his hair. The erotic sounds inside the car were just a prelude to the act Logan knew would come.

Then Tate pulled away and whispered, “Upstairs.
Now
.”

* * *

An aroused Logan plus an elevator equaled one hell of a ride. As Tate stood with his back against the wall and Logan against his front, he wondered if they would make it to his apartment.

The second the doors had shut, Logan pinned him to the wall and moved a leg between his own. Tate grabbed his ass and pulled him forward, rubbing his body against the hard one in front of him, and when Logan’s lips found his neck, Tate hissed out, “
Yes
.”

Logan sucked the tender skin there, and Tate jammed his hips forward.

Holy hell, I’m burning up.

“I think you really get off on me marking you.”

Tate couldn’t think to talk, so he ran his fingers through Logan’s hair and brought his mouth back to his own.

When the elevator dinged, they didn’t bother stopping.
Hell
, at this stage, it was a miracle they weren’t undressed. But when a shocked gasp penetrated Tate’s sex-hazed mind, he pulled his mouth away and looked beyond Logan to the person standing in his hallway.

As his eyes collided with wide green ones, not one word came to mind.

But when Logan turned around and saw Diana, he managed to locate one quite easily.

“Motherfucker.”

* * *

Well, Logan had to give the bitch credit. She was the first woman who’d made him thankful that he liked cock.

“Oh my God,” she finally spoke.

Tate stepped around him and raised his arm on the elevator doors, which were shutting. “
What
are you doing here?” he demanded as Logan moved up behind him.

Diana pulled the strap of her purse up her arm, and Logan noticed a large manila envelope in her hand.

Ahh, divorce papers. Hand-delivered, no less. Maybe she’d been hoping to change Tate’s mind—too late for that.

“Get out of my way, Tate. I came to talk to you. Not to see you and him making out in the elevator.”

Tate stepped into the hall and backed Diana up. “
You
are at
my
place,” Tate reminded her in a voice Logan knew well.

They’d had enough arguments that he knew Tate’s warning signs, and this was the calm before the storm. He was also aware that this woman knew Tate just as well, and he fucking hated that.

“And now I wish I were anywhere else.”

“So do I,” Logan muttered, which had Tate looking at him over his shoulder. “What? It’s the fucking truth. She has been nothing but a nightmare ever since I met her. Which was before I met you, I might add.”

He saw Diana peer around Tate’s shoulder and try and glare him to death.

“Is that look supposed to hurt my feelings?” Logan asked.

“Fuck off,” she spat out, and
that
had Tate turning back to face her.

“Don’t you talk to him like that.
He’s
welcome here.
You
are not.”

The satisfaction Logan got from Tate’s words was short-lived as Diana reached out and placed her hand on his arm.

“I just wanted to talk to you,” she said, trying to appeal to Tate’s gentler side, but Logan was fairly certain that side had left the fucking building.

He noticed her eyes kept shifting over Tate’s shoulder, monitoring where he was, and as she started to run that hand up Tate’s arm, Logan decided that it was best to stand still. Otherwise, he might just get close enough to rip her hand off.

“It’s too late to talk, Diana. You gave up that right the second you went to my parents about this.”

“
That
was when?” she asked incredulously. “Oh come on. Don’t act like
he
didn’t brainwash you before that.”

Tate put his hand over the one she still had on his arm and brushed it off as if it were an annoyance. “
He
is Logan. And he didn’t do anything to me that I didn’t want him to.”

Diana’s face had taken on a pinched look, and she had her hands clenched by her sides.

“That’s not true,” she stated in a voice that was barely audible.

Logan watched as Tate took a step away, almost as if he too could feel a storm brewing.

Then Diana exploded. “It’s not true!”

Tate nodded and merely answered, “It is.”

Diana raised her arms, and just as she was about to land her small fists against Tate’s chest, he captured her wrists.

“Think about what you’re doing right now.”

“I
hate
you. How could you do this to me?”

“To you? What have I done to you? You’re with someone new, and so am I. You destroyed my family. You went and told my
mother
information she should’ve heard from me.”

Diana struggled and tried to pull free, her fury now grabbing a tight hold of her. “It wouldn’t have made a difference,” she sneered, looking past Tate to him. “The second she knew her precious boy was sucking cock, she would have kicked you out.”

Tate released her arms as if she’d burned him, and Logan bit his tongue hard. He knew now wasn’t the time to say what he really wanted, which was something along the lines of—

“I was about to suck it right now, but you interrupted me.”

Yes, that was it.

“You make me sick.”

“Why
?
Because I fell in love with a man? You make me sick. Because you’re spiteful, vindictive, and conniving, and you have been for a long time.”

Her mouth clamped shut and she started to shake her head. “Move, Tate. I want to leave.”

“Too bad. I’m not done. You wanted to see me, here’s your chance, because after this, I never want to see your face again.”

Diana’s head snapped up at that, and Logan saw a flash of pain filter in through all the ugly. “You don’t mean that.”

“Yes. I do. Week after week, you’ve insisted on going to my family’s house with the sole purpose of making
me
uncomfortable. You didn’t care that I didn’t want you there. You just cared about yourself as usual.”

“That’s not true—”

“It
is
true,” Tate thundered. “And I’m done. You were the one who went elsewhere, not me. But I’ve found someone who’s smart, sexy, and makes me incredibly happy.”

While trying to keep a watchful eye on the volatile woman in the hall, Logan was also keeping track of the irregular beat of his heart. Tate kept giving it shock after shock—in the best way imaginable.

“Well, I sure hope he makes you happy enough to fill in all the
missing
people in your life.”

That was when he finally lost his cool and stepped up beside Tate.

“You vicious little bitch.”

“Logan—” Tate tried, but he wasn’t listening.

“How can you be so callous? To someone you say you loved.”

Diana slapped the manila envelope in her hand against Tate’s chest and pushed past them both to march over to the elevator. She jabbed the down button with her perfectly manicured nail and stood there with her arms crossed, but Logan was far from done.

“His family won’t talk to him because of you. Because you didn’t give him the time or the courtesy to tell them on his own.”

That was when all of the poison and all of the hate oozed to the surface and Diana Cline turned on them both. She pinned him with a look that was so nasty it made his skin crawl.

“Oh, no, Mr. Mitchell. You have it all wrong. It’s not because of me that they won’t talk to him. It’s because of
you
.”  

Logan’s jaw clenched as her words slipped behind his defenses to the part of him that knew she was right, but the other part of him, the part of him he’d honed to keep him safe and protected, would not let her leave without getting in the final blow.

He walked forward just as the elevator dinged and whispered, “And it’s also because of me that you will
never
have him again.”

Her expression flashed from cruel intent to pitiful regret as she stepped back into the elevator and turned her eyes to Tate.

“I mean it, Diana. Don’t come back here again.”

And before she could respond, the doors slid shut and she was gone.

* * *

Logan was quiet. Too quiet in Tate’s opinion.

After Diana left, they made their way down to his apartment and no words were exchanged. They got to his door and Tate unlocked it before pushing it open. He dropped the envelope on the side table, not caring about the contents right this second. He would deal with her in his own damn time. Right now, he wanted to deal with Logan.

Logan stepped past him and Tate followed as they made their way farther inside.

“What’s going on here?”

Logan turned to stare at him, those blue eyes full of...doubt.

Doubt in me? Or himself?

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” Tate said, calling his bluff. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Logan licked his top lip and then shrugged. “She isn’t wrong, you know.”

Tate narrowed his eyes and walked over so they were standing face to face. “She isn’t wrong about what?”

Logan spun away from him, but Tate wasn’t about to have that. He reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him back around to face him.

“She isn’t wrong about
what
, Logan?”

He could feel the tension rolling off Logan in waves, but not like it’d been in the elevator. He was now irritated and apprehensive, and Tate couldn’t tell where it was directed.

Diana? His family? Himself?

“That
I’m
the reason your family won’t talk to you.”

Tate dropped his hand and took a deep breath then started moving. He took several steps forward until he had Logan’s back up against the wall of his foyer.

“No. You listen to me.
They
are the reason they won’t talk to me. Not you.”

Logan grimaced. “Tate—”

“Logan. Shut up.” He placed his hands on the wall on either side of his head. “I know I need to deal with them, and I will, but not right now.”

Logan closed his eyes as if trying to block out everything that had happened.

“I’m sorry...I just can’t think about anything else.”

Tate dropped his hands and took a step away. “Fucking Diana—”

“Is enough to ruin any good hard-on. Even mine,” Logan pointed out and kissed his lips. “You have papers to sign, and I need to…”

“What?”

“Punch something?” Logan suggested.

Tate shook his head, frustrated that they’d even had to deal with her. “I’m sorry she was here.”

“So am I. But maybe she was exactly what we needed.”

“How do you figure that?” Tate asked as Logan walked toward the front door.

When he got to it, he looked back and said, “She made us realize what we
do
and
don’t
want.”

Tate glanced in Logan’s direction, but he just opened the front door.

“Logan?” Tate waited until Logan stopped and faced him. “I want you. Seeing her doesn’t change that.”

The smile that split Logan’s full lips was worth a million run-ins with Diana, because right there, Tate knew that Logan really believed him.

“I know.”

26
.

By midmorning on Sunday, Tate was slowing his bike to a crawl and making his way down his childhood street.

After Logan had left the night before, he’d had a lot of time to think. He’d signed the papers Diana had once again issued through her
new
lawyer, and then he’d come to the conclusion he needed to try and see his family.

It’d been a week since he’d seen or heard from them and he still couldn’t bring himself to believe that his own parents, the people who’d raised him, had actually...disowned him.