“Okay.” She giggled nervously, and she stumbled as we moved down the hallway. My hand went to her waist to steady her. As she weaved through the crowd with her head down, I watched her. If she were drunk, I’d have to find someone else. I didn’t like the wasted girls. I grabbed ’em before they got there, while they could still make decisions. A minute later, another girl fell backward, and Asscheeks ducked away from going down with her like a pro. She was fine. She’d stumbled from nerves.

She was about to sleep with Logan Motherfucking Kade. Why wouldn’t she be nervous?

My chest swelled. Girls wanted me to screw them. They’d line up if they could. Guys either wanted to hang out with me, or they wanted to get their faces ripped up by my fists. This was my life, not taking some broken chick to my spot, not pseudo kidnapping her ex-boyfriend and interrogating the shit out of him, not working so damn hard at making her smile, and certainly not loving it when she did, thinking it made everything worthwhile. Fuck no. That guy was a sap.

I’d learned a lesson with my first girlfriend, and if Nate thought I was hardened before, he had no idea how thick the wall was now. As I followed the blonde up the stairs and into a room at the end of the hallway, I told myself this was what l’d be doing with girls now. Dick only. No emotions. No heart. No nothing. Just sex.

The girl turned and started to undress.

I couldn’t close my eyes. If I did, I knew I’d see Taylor.

“Feel better?” Nate asked two hours later when I joined him at a table out in the backyard.

I glared at him, a drink in my hand. I didn’t want to think about it. It had been Taylor in front of me. Taylor I was kissing. Taylor I slid inside of. Taylor making those sounds. Thinking of it now, I downed half of my drink. It burned my throat, but that was good. I needed some searing pain to erase some of that shit.

“Oh, joy.” Nate’s sarcasm was not subtle. “Look! Another girl’s coming over with sex eyes. You going to bang her, too?”

“Fuck you.”

“No, Logan.” Nate shot forward, glaring at me across the table. “Fuck you.”

There were others at the table with us, but whatever they said fell on deaf ears. I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t there to be social and joke, or play the happy Logan Kade. I was there for one purpose: to get Taylor Bruce out of my head. And it wasn’t working. She was still with me. I could feel her beside me. I could see her eyes, and I knew how hurt she would look when she realized what I’d done. I could already feel the disappointment.

Fuck. I finished my drink and shoved back from the table. I needed another one. Knowing the rest of the night would be a drunken stupor, I took out my keys and tossed them to Nate. “You’re going to have to drive.”

He pocketed them, giving me that knowing look Mason always wore. “Sure,” he said. “If you actually go home with me.”

“Hey, Logan!” The sex-eyes girl got to the table and leaned her chest toward me. She wasn’t there for anyone else—that was obvious. As I looked at her, she tugged her shirt down and licked her lips, the invitation more than clear.

I grinned at her, not even looking at her face. My gaze was trained solely on her rack. They were full. A good C cup, bordering on a D. And even though I wasn’t touching them, I knew they’d have good bounce. They were probably fake, but I didn’t give a shit. They’d be nice to look at if she rode me.

“Look, I don’t know if I can go another round right now,” I told her, thinking about that image. “But find me in a couple of hours. Then I can make some magic happen.”

She giggled. “Sounds good.” She leaned close and whispered, her hand running down my chest. “You can just come home with me. You can have me all night and any way you want. How about that?”

That sounded...empty. Why would she want that? But I flashed her a grin. “Sounds like a plan.”

Her hand dropped to my dick, and she pressed against it through my jeans. It was quick, but enough to give me a good preview of the night to come. As she turned to leave, her breasts grazed my arm, and I was right. Firm. They were possibly my new favorite thing after asscheeks. Once she headed back inside, I could feel Nate’s gaze on me, and I ignored him.

He knew I was pissed, but he didn’t know about what, and he didn’t know how deep this burning pain went. It went all the way to the core. That was how far Taylor had gotten in.

“Like I said…” Nate stood up. “That’s if you’re going home with me tonight.” He brushed past me, tossing his beer bottle into the trash and heading back inside the house.

I glanced around. Still feeling Taylor—smelling her vanilla scent and hearing the last thing she’d laughed about—I gripped the glass in my hand. I needed shots, and a lot of them.

TAYLOR

After Logan left, I sat up there on that roller coaster for another hour. I stayed until I could finally feel the cold. Before that, I felt nothing. I welcomed something finally slipping inside of me, something other than emptiness.

I climbed down, and I was able to squeeze back through a hole I found in the fence. I sat on the curb, wrapped my arms around my knees, and bent my forehead to rest on my legs. If I could have closed in on myself, I would have. But that position warded off some of the night’s chill, so I sat back up. I wanted to feel that. I sat and shivered and waited for the cab I’d called.

I wouldn’t be the type of girl who clung to a guy when I was hurting. I wouldn’t be that person. Nothing good could come of it. I was broken inside, and even though Logan’s Fuck you still echoed in my head, I knew this had been the right thing to do.