Irreplaceable

My head was spinning, focusing on only one thing: his unrelenting and demanding kiss. It matched mine with every move, every prod of his tongue.

“Logan?”

I pulled back, panting, head dropped.

What?

Blinking once, twice, three times slammed me back to reality. I straightened, letting my hair fall down to block my flushed face from the room—the bar full of patrons getting a free show.

“Excuse us, ladies, we were in the middle of something,” Logan said to the female voice that had interrupted us.

I didn’t dare look back, though her voice was much too squeaky to belong to Natasha.

“Wow, forgotten already,” another girl chimed in as I held up my hand to the bartender for another shot.

The weight of Logan’s stare boring into my side grew unbearable as I sat in silence. I blocked him out and downed the shot that was in front of me instantly.

When his fingers slid through my hair, tucking it behind my ears and revealing my hidden emotions, I stiffened.

“Let’s get you home, sweetheart,” he leaned in and whispered, placing a soft kiss on the corner of my jaw. I bit my bottom lip and closed my eyes, struggling to collect my thoughts.

“Come on, there’s no way you could forget about us. The fun on the airplane? Come on, it was just the other week.”

The other week? My eyes closed, gut churning.

I felt Logan move back from me. “Leave!” he demanded, his voice taking on a stern edge.

The girl scoffed. “Really?” She giggled, then lowered her voice to a seductive purr. “Since when do you like privacy?”

I swallowed hard, my icy veins flooding with rage, chilling me to the bone and extinguishing the fire Logan had lit seconds earlier. I wouldn’t let this break me. I was going to sit right there and hold it together. Logan was a free man who could do whatever or whomever he wanted. As much as it hurt, I feigned indifference. My eyes were set on the bartender as he walked past with a bottle in hand. I threw up my hand, requesting one more.

“We’re leaving,” Logan snarled, yet the girls didn’t seem to hear him. One of them leaned in behind me, snickering.

“Word of advice: the man likes it rough and he prefers two at once, so why don’t you let us take over and you can go find yourself some nice boy next door to take home?”

I heard and felt Logan stand, but I was already out of my seat.  That was too much.

“He’s all yours,” I shot back, walking out.

There it was—yet another item on the endless list of reasons Logan was off limits. Why men sucked. Why he was nothing more than a man I was attracted to. I had to get out of my head. I wouldn’t let it happen. Not again.

He likes it rough. Two at once.

The words replayed through my thoughts as I pushed open the front door, heading to the parking lot. My day was bad enough discovering my dad had run off with my nineteen-year-old babysitter, and now this?

“Cassandra! Stop!”

“You should go back in, Logan. I’d hate for you to miss out on a sure thing tonight!” I yelled.

“Cassandra!” he threatened.

“Go! They know what you like, and for the record, I could never share a man, so why waste your time?”

“Stop!” Logan grabbed my arm and whirled me around. “I’m not that man anymore! Now listen to me!”

I yanked my arm free, standing off the sidewalk in the freezing night air, snow flurrying down over us.

“But you were that man a week ago for them?”

His expression softened. “Sweetheart—”

“When? When were you with them?”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, tell me when. That night Luke drove me home? I saw you head back into town.”

Logan’s eyes never strayed from mine as he spoke. “I did come back to Haven that night. Natasha had left the bar and I needed a drink. I was angry, and those girls approached me. I told them I wasn’t interested, but they gave still me their numbers.”

“And you kept them?”

“I put them in my coat pocket and didn’t think about it again until the next morning after our conversation at your house. When I left for my business trip, my head was a mess. I thought I just needed to give up and go back to my old life—let you go so you could find someone to make you happy.”

“I don’t understand. When did you call them?”

His head ticked slightly to the side, reluctant to say more.

My eyes closed, and I inhaled a breath as realization sunk in. “You took them with you.”

“I wanted to move on. Not for me, but for you. To leave you alone, and I thought—”

“You took two women on a business trip for sex minutes after you left my door.”

“They didn’t mean anything. I regretted it the moment it happened, but it was too late. I just wanted to get you out of my head. You were never going to give me a chance. ”

“You’re right. It’s better this way. You’ve solidified my belief that there is no future for us.”

“No, you didn’t want me, and I just needed to see if—”

“If you could forget me by having sex with strangers? I got loud it, and clear!”

“I know how it sounds, and I wish it’d never happened, but it did. I had a moment of weakness because the woman I love wouldn’t even allow me to drive her home! I haven’t wanted to sleep with anyone but you for months, and those girls were no different. I hated myself every second I was with them.”

“Yet you still gave them a time to remember.”

His expression lost its remorseful softness. “I’m through talking about them. This is about us!”

“Don’t you get it yet!?” I shouted with a ridiculous cackle as he regarded me with a tight expression. “There is no ‘us’! We won’t work, Logan. Ever! We’re different people. I want a completely different life than you.” I nearly screamed it out, not only for him to understand once and for all, but for myself as well.

I turned and began walking again. It felt good—liberating—to release it from my body. We would never have a happily ever after. It wasn’t in the cards for us.

It took only a second or two until he was there, jogging over and stepping in front of me.

“You don’t know what I want because you won’t give me a chance to—”

“A chance to what, Logan? Even if I forgot about those girls, you’d be miserable with me after the first week. You’re not exactly the monogamous type, so why are you pushing this?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it.

“I’m not into women,” I said with unwavering confidence. It was time he saw exactly what he was working so hard to obtain. “Never been with one, and never plan to. So you and me?” My finger flipped between us. “This is just some irrational attraction that has gone on for too long. I’m done feeling like this—enduring this connection based purely on lust. That’s it. Bottom line: we have no future together. Why can’t you see that?”

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do, sweetheart.” His jaw was clenched, hard eyes on me.

“I know you spent weeks trying to be my friend just so you could sleep with me!” I blurted out. “And I know the longer you keep reeling me in, the harder it’s going to be to put myself back together when you toss me aside like all the rest. Like the girls in there. I can’t.” My head dropped, eyes slamming shut. “I can’t be one of those women, Logan. It would destroy me.”