Back in Bliss

Chapter Five

Georgia came awake to the heavenly smell of breakfast cooking. She yawned, thanking god that it had all been a terrible dream and she was back in Manhattan. Yes, she could stumble out of her room and join Seth on the balcony for coffee. She hadn’t made a complete idiot of herself. She would open her eyes and see her Upper East Side bedroom.

She opened her eyes and screamed because something horrible was staring in her window. It was big and brown and had monstrous nostrils that steamed up the window.

The door opened in a flash, Logan slamming into the room, a gun in his hand. God, when had he gotten so damn familiar with firearms? He was wearing what he’d worn the night before, those low-slung jeans that looked about a size too small because they molded to his every muscle, and a ridiculously hot white muscle shirt that just proved he was a meathead who worked out. Like a lot. God, he was so hot.

“What is it?” He looked ready to kill anything that had invaded.

“Monster.” Nature could be like that. And there was lots of nature out here. She was really more comfortable in the city.

Sure enough, the massive alien thing was pressed against her window, its enormous nostrils leaving gooey stuff all over the glass.

And Logan, rather than killing the thing like she kind of thought he should, laughed. A wide smile spread across his face and he looked young, so much younger than she could ever remember seeing him. Logan always looked like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, but just then, in that moment, she could believe he really was twenty-five.

“Holy shit.” He practically beamed at the thing that looked like it could eat her. “Seth! Damn it. Seth, get in here!”

He went to the door and yelled for Seth again.

Seth ran in, his eyes wide and his body covered only in a towel. A little towel. A tiny little white towel that contrasted with his tan skin and had been wrapped over ridiculously muscled hips. He had those notches at his hips, the ones she’d always been sure some artist Photoshopped onto male models because no one could be that perfect. His dark hair was wet, curling just above his shoulders. Moisture clung to his every muscle and, holy hell, he had a lot of them. They hid underneath his perfectly tailored suits.

She forgot about the crazy-ass creature that had come straight out of some danger-in-the-wild documentary and just watched the two gorgeous predators who had invaded her room.

She pulled the covers up to her neck, deeply aware that she didn’t look anything like they did.

“Maurice.” Seth took a step forward. “Wow. How the hell long do moose live, man? It’s totally Maurice. You can see where Hiram tried to take him down. There’s a scar on his nose.”

Logan moved in, too, and she could see the easy way the two men related. Just for a moment she saw the kids they had been, friends forever. God, she’d never had a friend like that.

Logan opened the window and she heard a loud chuffing noise. “He kicked Hiram in the groin. It was a damn lucky thing the man already had three kids because I heard nothing worked the same after. Hey, boy. You remember me?”

Another huff and she was about to believe the thing knew how to communicate.

Seth looked over at her, his eyes glinting. “We don’t get a ton of moose around here. Maurice is a legend. The people of Bliss say that if he shows up at your place, you’re blessed. Meant to be here. He’s the welcoming committee.”

Logan laughed a little. “What no one will tell you is he’s a total snack whore. Man, if you leave a Snickers bar on the porch, he will show up lickety-split. When Laura finally got comfy, I snuck some chocolate onto her porch so she would feel welcome.”

“I’m glad she stayed. I heard she got married,” Seth said.

Logan nodded. “Got a kid now. That’s why I’m here. Her husbands need some paternity leave. I heard it’s a girl. A sweet baby from China.”

Their shared history was right there, a palpable thing between them. It was almost as though she could reach out and touch it, feel the warmth of it. Logan and Seth felt like a family.

What was she doing here?

Once again, like most of her life, she felt like the outsider. Even among her brothers, she’d felt it. Chase and Ben had each other. Mark and Drew had been so close. And she and Win had been so far apart in age that they couldn’t connect on a brother-sister level. She’d been alone. The only child whose mother wasn’t up to snuff. The only one without money when the tide had turned.

Logan looked down at her, his eyes softening. “Georgia, I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean a word of what I said. To either of you.”

She nodded, feeling awkward. They were here in her bedroom. It was a little surreal. She turned her attention back to the moose.

“So it’s not something that’s going to attack?” She kept the blanket around her neck. Yeah, that was another way she was different. She wasn’t gorgeously perfect like them. She’d tried the whole diet thing, and she wasn’t cut out for it.

“Maurice is a sweetie, but I won’t lie. The first time I saw him, I peed my own damned pants and ran screaming for my mommas,” Logan said on a laugh. He reached a hand out, pressing it against the screen, his eyes misting like he was reaching for his past. “He won’t hurt you. He just wants to say hello. And he probably smelled the bacon. Shit. My bacon.”

Logan turned and took off at a dead run for the kitchen.

Seth touched the screen, too. “Hey, Maurice. Thanks for the welcome, boy.”

When he turned back to Georgia, he sported the sweetest smile. He jumped onto her bed, not a hint of self-consciousness on his face as he settled in beside her. “How did you sleep? My bed’s better, by the way. It’s huge. Built for three.”

“Good for you and whatever ménage you choose to invite. Could you go away so I can get dressed?” Last night seemed a little like a dream and more than a little like a nightmare. God, what had she been thinking? Seth wanted her to tempt Logan into a ménage? He was insane. She was insane for not immediately walking out of the cabin and hoofing it to Malibu and the safety of Win’s minicastle where she could just make like Rapunzel. She would barricade herself in and then keep her hair cut because she was just done with men.

He smiled, an intimate thing that threatened to curl her toes. “I thought we settled that last night, Georgia.”

She sighed and really wished she was strong enough to not look at that towel, just praying it would flop open a little and she would get a good view of what Seth had down under. Maybe it was small. Like really tiny.

Did it matter? He was the sweetest man she’d ever met. He was kind and good. She wasn’t about to reject him because he had a small penis. It wasn’t like sex was all that awesome anyway.

Logan had a really big penis. She’d felt it rubbing against her when he’d kissed her like there was no tomorrow. She thought about Logan’s penis a lot. More than a lot.

Nope. She wasn’t going to reject anyone based on penis size. She was going to reject them because she wasn’t about to get her heart broken again.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Seth. It just can’t work.”

He was lying right next to her, his head propped up on his hand, laid out like a centerfold, but he stared at her with his all-too-intelligent eyes. “It can work. You’re just scared. I told you, Georgia, we’re going to be together. I have no intention of taking you back to New York as my assistant.”

She didn’t exactly understand that either. “Am I supposed to go back as your girlfriend? I don’t know how that would work. We would have to keep it quiet because my brothers would get really upset if they decided I was some rich guy’s mistress.”

“I’ll handle your brothers. And girlfriend is such a juvenile word.” He scooted closer to her, his free hand reaching out over the blanket that covered her. “I’m crazy about you.”

“You haven’t been.” Except she knew the minute she said the words that she’d been fooling herself.

“Really? You think I had my other assistants move in with me and have breakfast with me and dinner every night? You think I bought them gifts once a week and brought them their favorite latté every afternoon? I hired a barista to be on call just for you.”

Yeah. She’d been kind of dumb on that one. And the whole complete redo of her bedroom. He’d claimed it was in their contract. Which, of course, she hadn’t read. She really could be a dumbass. Maybe her brothers had a point about her not thinking things through. “I thought you said you love coffee and needed your fix.”

His hand moved up and he touched her cheek, his eyes roaming her face. “Hate it. I’ve never liked coffee. It seriously makes me want to vomit, but you love it so I made sure you could have it.”

She felt her eyes narrow. She knew the answers to all of her questions, but she felt compelled to ask them. Or maybe she just wanted to stay close to him. Certain body parts definitely wanted to stay close. “And the clothing allowance? Did Bruce get a clothing allowance?”

Bruce was the last assistant. And as far as she could tell, he’d quit because he couldn’t handle working with Seth. Which hadn’t made a lick of sense to her at the time because he was so sweet.

He shrugged as best he could. “Bruce bought his suits on sale and I didn’t care. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the software industry is kind of relaxed. My old version of dressing up was switching out my pajama pants for a pair of sweats. Do you really think I cared what he wore?”

Manipulative bastard. “You don’t care how I do my job, do you?”

This job was all she had.

He moved fast, as though he’d anticipated her next course of action and sought to block her as quickly as possible. He rolled on top of her, trapping her under his body. It was pure proof that he was a great tactician because she’d intended to get out of bed, throw something at him, and stomp out. A great exit was totally necessary when she needed to keep her head held high.

He brought his face close to hers, their noses almost touching. “You are the best assistant I’ve ever had. You care about more than just keeping your job. You’ve taught me how to dress and you’ve charmed the world’s nastiest geeks into submission with one little smile. You light up my every fucking day, and I have zero intention of letting you go.”

She was so confused. She’d just settled into a future where she didn’t get Seth. She’d let go of Logan a long while back, but apparently he was in the kitchen making breakfast. It seemed like a slope she shouldn’t go down again, a long slow trip to Wonderland where someone would inevitably lop off her head. Because she wasn’t Alice. “Seth, it’s not like you can hold me prisoner. It really might be better for me to head to California. Win can find a job for me.”

She wouldn’t try the acting route again. It had been a huge bust.

“No.” Seth breathed in, his eyes closing briefly as though he was categorizing the scent. “And I can keep you prisoner. This is my little kingdom, Princess Georgia. Consider yourself a hostage.”

His lips were curved up, his gorgeous eyes seemingly innocent. She rolled her own. “Yeah, I’m sure the moose is going to keep watch over me.”

“Nope. He’s completely useless as a watch moose, but I have other ways to keep you here. Let me kiss you. Do you have any idea how much I wanted to kiss you in the limo?”

But the time wasn’t right. She wasn’t sure she liked being a chess piece in one of Seth Stark’s games. “But the timing is right now?”

He was close, not respecting her space at all. His lips, those gloriously sculpted lips, were hanging right there over hers. She could smell the mint of his toothpaste, feel the heat of his body. “The timing is all screwed up. I meant to take a couple of days, to ease you into the situation, but Logan is a fucked-up asshole and he didn’t follow the plan. Let me kiss you.”

Logan, if he was anything like Georgia herself, had very likely had no idea there was a plan to begin with. Seth had been playing some deep games, maneuvering her into a position, and now cutting in for the kill with ruthless precision and stormy blue eyes. She’d been so stupid thinking he was perfectly nice and kind. He was a billionaire, and he hadn’t inherited it. He’d been smart. There was a wolf under all that fluffy wool, and damn her, it just made him that much more attractive. And it made her that much more sure that this couldn’t work.

But her body didn’t seem to be in line with her brain. Her body was turning all bow chicka wow wow and thinking, hey, sex has sucked before, but this could totally be different. Let’s give this penis a try! Her vagina was in full-on cheerleader mode, and her nipples had totally joined the party. Her girl parts were overly optimistic in the worst of times, just plain dumb in times like this. She had to shut that shit down before the girls took over and slipped a nipple in his mouth and she was down for the count.

“What did Logan say to you last night?”

Seth rolled off her, and she could have sworn her nipples deflated, their protest obvious. “Nothing. It was nothing.”

Well, at least she could breathe a little now. He walked back to the window and, just for a moment, she really wished she’d listened to the girls.

Excellent. Ditch your clothes and throw yourself at him. Call out and ask Logan if he wants to join in. None of your friends has ever had a hot ménage with a moose witness.

Her nipples had perked right back up at the first sign of weakness. She decided to silence her inner idiot. “It wasn’t nothing, Seth. You broke a hundred dollars’ worth of Waterford over what he said.”

She could still remember rushing and feeling the tension as she walked in. The idea that they were fighting because of her had made her stomach churn. She’d quickly figured out that it was just Logan being his jerkfaced, never-give-a-girl-a-reason-to-love-him normal self. She’d been ready to lay into him when she’d seen the shocked look on his face. She knew that look. She’d had it on her own face from time to time when she said something she didn’t mean to save her pride. Logan had wanted. He’d wanted to take it back and Seth was all kinds of cold, and she’d done the only thing she could think of to fix the situation.

It was something she’d done from childhood when her brothers would fight. She hated it, needed calm and peace among the only people she really loved. When they started fighting, she would do something dumb, and then they would all turn on her and unite to save their idiot sister.

She’d attempted to walk straight into the glass like she didn’t have a brain in her head, and Logan had responded accordingly. She’d known damn well that Seth would try to reason with her and that big gorgeous Neanderthal would do something brutish. Neither one of them would let her walk anywhere near that glass.

It had worked beautifully. She’d seen the moment Seth had thanked Logan, a bit of their peace restored.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He was staring out the window as the moose slowly lumbered away.

It was time to lay a few ground rules herself. She wasn’t going to do whatever he wanted. She couldn’t. Well, she was almost certain that she couldn’t. She would eventually hike out of this town and make for civilization, but just in case she made the horrible decision to stay, she needed to make sure there was a real place for her. She couldn’t be Seth Stark’s china doll, another piece of his collection who didn’t really mean anything. She was damn tired of keeping her mouth shut and trying to look pretty.

Not his china doll. His fuck doll. They actually make them in Japan, but he seems to want a warm one. And he apparently wants to share you with Logan. Yeah, you could be their sex toy.

She needed a serious therapist. “If you didn’t want me to ask questions, then you shouldn’t have taken a way-too-curious captive. Look, you just pulled the rug out from under me, Seth. You say you want me? Well, you can’t keep me around only for the good stuff.” She’d had enough boyfriends who just wanted to have sex and go to sleep and not have a lick of intimacy between them. That was what she’d loved about being close to Seth. She’d felt like she was a part of his world.

Seth was silent for a moment, staring out the window with nothing but the sound of the river rushing by. “He told me he wasn’t ever going to be my boyfriend and I should stop hoping.”

That was what it felt like to get the breath knocked out of her. Wow. She could hear Logan saying it, his lips faintly cruel. She should have taken that fucking broom to his head. What an ass. And yet… “Do you want Logan?”

A low huff came out of Seth’s chest.

She scrambled and found quickly that she couldn’t stay away from him. She wrapped her arms around his lean waist, and that move had nothing to do with the girls and everything to do with that other stupid part of her. Her heart was just as dumb as her girl parts. And her brain was working about a million miles a minute. What if Seth really only loved Logan and he thought that bringing a girl into the mix would get him his guy? She hated the thought, but then realized that she didn’t care. She still loved this man. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I wouldn’t think less of you if you did, Seth. Sweetie, we need to talk because I don’t think he’s gay. I think that’s just a heartache waiting to happen.”

She knew all about heartache when it came to Logan Green. She let her hand rub up Seth’s chest. God, he was lovely. It felt so right to be near him, but she was worried that her near lover was about to become her gay bestie, and damn it if her heart wasn’t breaking all over again. This might be the last time she got to hold him like this. The first and last.

His hand came up and covered hers, holding it to his heart. “Logan’s not gay. God, not even close. I can’t tell you how many women we managed to run through after he decided his sex drive was worth risking his moms’ wrath. Sometimes two and three at a time.”

She started to pull away, but he tightened his hand. “Don’t. You want me to start being true with you? You’re going to have to handle the damage. I didn’t share those women with him because I was secretly hoping he’d do me instead. Not even close.”

He didn’t sound like a man who was lying. He pulled at her other arm, gently forcing her to wrap him up. A low growl came out of his mouth. Nope. He didn’t sound like a man who wasn’t interested in women.

“But you do care about Logan?” She was trying not to think about how good this felt. And she was definitely not thinking about what it would be like if Logan walked into the room and took up position behind her. Nope. That was not a vision running through her head at all.

“I love him, Georgia,” Seth replied, his words a long confession. His hand rubbed against hers in long strokes. “If I was wired that way sexually, I would have been all over him, but it’s not like that. Sometimes I think it would have been easier that way. Did you ever have that one friend who being around them was like the most peaceful thing in the world? A friend where you didn’t have to be anyone except the person you are deep down? I’ve tried to come up with a hundred different words for it. I’ve called him my brother, my best friend, but it’s not exactly right. He’s my soul mate and I’ll never kiss him. I don’t want to. But I want to share a life with him, and that makes me wrong for a lot of people.”

Georgia blinked back tears. Damn. What he hadn’t managed with his seduction play, a few aching words had done in a heartbeat. Because she had never had a friend like that. She’d grown up surrounded by prep school girls who wouldn’t let her forget her mother had stripped for a living and she was a piece of trash. She loved her sister-in-law, but she still held back, a little piece of her worried that she could wreck something special for her brothers.

You wrecked everything, her mother had said. They’d been the last words she’d said to Georgia. She’d only been five, but she could remember them. She’d wrecked everything by being born because her mother hadn’t wanted to be a wife. She’d wanted to be a lover. Carrying Georgia had ruined her body, and she couldn’t stand to look at her.

But with Seth, she’d felt like she could help. Seth was the first person she’d felt at peace with, and she suddenly knew that she couldn’t give him up no matter how smart it would be to do so.

“Do you really want me, Seth? Do you think you could care about me?”

He turned, flipping around and hauling her close like a shark who had finally scented just a little sweet blood in the water. Ruthless bastard. It was deeply sexy, and she really needed to call that therapist because her body was already singing again. “I am crazy about you, Georgia. I have been crazy since the moment I saw you and that’s true. I want you so bad it hurts, and I want to give you everything you need.”

But she couldn’t be everything he needed. “And if Logan can’t be brought around?”

“Then I’ll be satisfied that we tried.” He hugged her close, his forehead rubbing against hers. “Georgia, I’m going to be so good for you, baby. I’ll take care of you. I won’t let you down.”

She sighed, all of her girl parts singing a happy chorus in her body.

If we’re going to do this, you guys are going to have to get with the diet and exercise program.

And she had to stop talking to her various body parts.

He was just about to brush his lips against hers when she heard the door open and the sound of a smoke detector start to go off.

Logan stood in the doorway, a steaming, smoking pan in his hands. Her nose was assaulted with the scent of ruined bacon. “I think I killed the kitchen.”

He went a little pale as he noticed how close they were standing. She started to pull away, but Seth dragged her close again, not putting an inch of distance between them. “I’ll come in and start opening the windows.”

Logan turned back around and groaned. “Dude, put that shit away. What’s wrong with you? You’re a billionaire and you can’t buy towels that cover your junk? You know they make them extra big now, but no. You like slapped a washcloth over it so the girl couldn’t miss it. Do you think I don’t know that play? Fuck, man, I invented that play.”

She’d been totally wrong. Wow. Seth’s rather intensely large and totally erect male member was poking out of his towel.

Told you.

She watched as Seth and Logan started back down the hallway, pushing and bumping each other like toddlers at play.

Yeah. This was going to be a ton of fun.