Arms and legs flailing she tried to get off him, but she was no match for his superior strength. He trapped her legs between his, and holding both of her wrists in in his uninjured hand behind her back, he used his bandaged one to rain a series of swats on her ass.
“Let me go, dammit, no.”
Each swat turning her backside red sent a shockwave of pain up his hand, but he was determined to get answers, and this seemed the most expedient way for him to get those answers.
“No, I will not. Not u
ntil you tell me what all those tears were about earlier.” Another few swats on her behind stopped her struggles, and he knew the minute he got through to her, because she went limp across his lap. The sweet scent of her arousal perfumed the air between them, and he breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t gotten this all wrong. Logan stopped to massage the by now red-hot globes of her ass, and a sniffle came from the woman across his lap.
“Please, enough, I’m sorry, I’ll tell you.”
Logan delivered one last playful swat across both cheeks, and then helped her to sit on his lap. He tucked her hair behind her ears better to see her expression, and dropped a kiss on her nose.
“So, talk, what the hell was that about?”
Hannah shrugged. “It was nothing, I told you. I was just being silly.” Logan didn’t even try to hold in his irritated grunt, and Hannah jumped and shot him a wary look.
“Don’t give me that whole lot of BS. We agreed we would be honest with each other, did we not?”
“Yes.” He had to strain to hear her whispered answer.
“So, it wasn’t just nothing, was it? Or if it was then it was a much of a nothing as my punching that damn wall over there.”
He gestured to the offending part of the tower, and Hannah smiled and shook her head.
“That was just plain stupid, Logan.”
He grunted a noncommittal reply and grasped her chin to make her look at him. Some incredibly raw emotion flitted across her expressive face—one he couldn’t put a name to—before she blinked and the moment passed.
“It really was nothing, bar my silly hormones.” She dropped her gaze to his collarbone and kept it there. “I’m due on soon, and I always get tearful around that time, and you know, it just hit me. This is our last day here, and we have to go back to reality, and I guess I’m just worried how that will all go. And then there is the looming set of hearings about Rhia, and yeah.”
She briefly glanced up at him and offered him a wobbly smile. It didn’t reach her eyes, and Logan got the distinct impression that she was not telling him everything. Oh, he believed her worry about Rhia, sure enough. How could he not when it was a constant bile inducing twist in his own gut? Not winning permanent custody of his niece didn’t bear thinking about, but it became harder and harder to stuff that thought back in the box where it belonged.
The truth of the matter simply was, that he could. That all this could be for nothing and there was nothing he could do about it. Being this helpless went completely against his nature, but he could no more force the judge to vote in his favor than he could coerce the truth out of his wife.
He was missing something here, and until she told him what that was, he would have to pretend he believed her. As tempting as it was to pummel her backside until she told him the real reason for her tears, he wasn’t that guy.
He wasn’t his brother, dammit.
Hannah still wouldn’t look at him, and Logan sighed.
“Fine, if you insist that’s all it is. Talking of Rhia we best get going. That way we might make it home on time to pick her up from school.”
That suggestion brought Hannah’s head up in a genuine smile that made his chest feel tight.
“You think we can?”
At his nod, she clapped her hands together and scrambled off his lap.
“What are you waiting for then? Let’s get packed, come on.”
She dragged him back to the bedroom, and the irony wasn’t lost on him. Still, a man couldn’t be jealous of his niece, right?
****
Logan discovered several things over the next few weeks as they settled into married life back home. It was perfectly possible to be jealous of one little human dynamo cock-blocker. After the third morning in a row, when his preferred method of greeting the day—making love to his wife—was interrupted by Rhia bouncing into the room, he stopped trying.
Attempts to convince Hannah to install a lock on their bedroom door were vehemently opposed by his wife.