Page 18 of Bulletproof Weeks

He lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was gentle this time. Desperation had blown through both of them, but she wouldn’t be sidetracked by how good he felt. When the kiss deepened, as it always did, she turned her face. He rested his forehead against her temple, brushed another lingering kiss there before he drew her up to sit in front of him.

He coasted his hand over her shoulder, pushing her hair back. “It’s gotten really long.”

She tugged lightly on his beard. “Ditto.”

; The corner of his mouth kicked up. He stood and she forced her eyes down. Smooth skin, freckles and the abundance of bunching muscles would not get her the explanation she needed. He opened a slim, built-in cabinet and tugged on a pair of jeans and white thermal shirt. When he came back to her, he held a familiar blue Henley out to her.

“I’ll make some coffee.”

She nodded and tugged the worn, soft material over her head. Her dress pants were a soggy wrinkled mess. Instead of following him, she wandered to the huge window that overlooked the Village. Cobblestone roads intersected with paved, motorcycles and cabs fought for control of the narrow roads, but it was the pedestrians that ruled this area.

Sightseers, shoppers, the party set, the trendy. All of it was such an interesting mishmash of New York. SoHo had always been one of her favorite parts of living in the city. She’d been a member of the trendy and partiers. It seemed like a lifetime ago, though it was only two years.

As much as she loved this view and the life of the city, she missed Winchester Falls.

Bella followed the sound of Logan puttering around in the kitchen and the glorious scent of coffee. He was pouring from a French press into two huge steaming mugs. He held one out to her. “Sorry I only have milk.”

“It’s fine.” The warmth seeped into her hands and she took her first sip. “You make one helluva cup of coffee.”

“It’s what I live on lately.”

She looked at the frozen peas thawing on the counter, then at him. “You deserved that.”

“Yeah, I guess I did.” He took the peas and his coffee. “Let’s sit.”

She snagged the thick throw blanket off the back of his couch and curled into one end. “What’s going on? I don’t want the press release version. I want all of it, or I walk out that door.”

He pressed the peas to his eye with a wince. “Who taught you that right hook?”

“Living here.”

“Yeah?”

“I went to school here and ended up staying. All smart women know self-defense.”

“Well, your teacher should be proud.” He tossed the bag on the glass-topped end table. “Okay.” He blew out a breath. “I don’t even know how to tell you this story.”

She turned to him and balanced her mug on her knees, hugging them close to her chest. “Start at the beginning.”

“Ugly truth is that I got involved with Aimee Collen a few years ago. We were at some party and both of us were getting a lot of paparazzi attention. Every celebrity deals with them, it’s just part of the job.” He shrugged. “I was tired of tripping over them every time I walked out my door. At first we hatched a plan to send them all over the place. We called in anonymous spottings so they’d leave us alone.” He sighed. “She was fun and beautiful, and I was a mess. The album was doing well, but I hated every fucking song.”

“Really?”

“I’m not in my twenties anymore. The record label was worried that we were starting to slide so they set me up with songs that weren’t mine. Oh, I got half of my own on the album, but they pushed the young songwriters and working with other artists. It was either that or go on those music shows.”

Her eyes widened.

“Yeah. Not happening.”

“So…” She tried to remember the things she’d read about him a few years ago, but once she’d gotten the idea to advance Between the Lines into a storefront, she’d lost interest in the club and party scenes and the gossip rags. “You were in the party scene?”

“Yeah. Los Angeles and London at the time. It was a haze of booze and shows. We kept bumping into each other at parties and we had a thing. Give the papers something to write about, we thought. She was outrageous and I was too fucking gone to care.” He hooked his middle finger into the handle of his mug and gulped down coffee. “The label loved it. They left me alone. I didn’t think it was serious. She liked the attention way more than she liked me. I was usually just an afterthought. Until Vegas.”

Her eyebrows rose. “You married her?”

“God, no.” He sat forward, his hand outstretched to her side of the couch. “I swear I didn’t marry her. But we were fucking around outside The Graceland Chapel and she posted something on Instagram or whatever.”