by Kadie Scott
“I’m not relationship material,” he said.
“Then walk away,” she whispered back.
He tensed, determined to do just that, then changed his mind and captured her lips in a kiss that had everything inside him clenching in anticipation. He swept his tongue across the seam of her lips, asking for and receiving entrance, her taste now familiar to him.
Somehow, her arms snuck up around his neck as each kiss led to another, and another, until his heart was pounding to the rhythm of their panting breaths. Small hands snuck under his shirt and his stomach muscles jerked at the feel of them against his skin. With one arm hampered by the computer he still held, Logan kept her against him with the other arm. He managed to slip a leg between her thighs, pressing up into the hot, quivering core of her.
Carter broke the kiss on a gasp, looking up at him with feverish eyes, a pink stain across her cheeks.
In the same instant, a door slammed somewhere in the house. “Hey! Anyone home?”
“Damn.” Carter dropped her forehead against his chest, seeming to have to catch her breath.
She wasn’t the only one.
Then she lifted eyes sparkling with humor and a smile that dared him to find this funny with her. “We really need to stop meeting like this.”
That surprised a choked laugh from him. “You’re the one who insisted on a hug.”
Stepping back, Carter righted clothes he hardly remembered mussing. “As Mae West would say, ‘When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad… I’m better.’”
On that line, she winked and walked around him, calling out loudly, “We’re here.”
Chapter Six
Carter hadn’t ever had the pleasure of feeling self-conscious in a kitchen in her life. But with Logan sitting on one of the stools at the island, she felt as though he was watching her every move. Not that he was. Any time she glanced over, he had his head buried in his computer, thick brows crinkled together in the cutest way.
A word she never thought she’d associate with the serious lawyer until just lately.
At the kitchen table, her sister-in-law, Ashley, cradled the newest addition to the Hill family. Rogers Hill, carrying on the family tradition of country singer names after Kenny Rogers, bounced on her knee with a happy grin.
“He’s definitely a Hill,” Carter said. A shock of jet-black hair and the Hill blue eyes. “No doubt he’ll be a magnet for the ladies.”
Ashley snorted. “He already is. The other day Jennings walked him around the square downtown while I did an errand. I came back to find them surrounded by ladies.”
“Like two,” Jennings muttered, except his neck turned a bit red.
“Like five,” Ashley corrected.
“Agree to disagree.”
Ashley grinned. “You just don’t want to get in trouble.”
She and Jennings had come over for dinner since their house wasn’t too far away. Plus, with Dad still in town, Autry and Jennings had to divide up his chores.
Ashley took pity on her husband and changed the subject. “I feel like a lazy bum, sitting here while you do all the work, Carter.”
“You,” Beth squeaked beside her. “I feel like a lazy beachball bum.” She ran a hand over her swollen belly. The girl looked stretched to the max and ready to pop and she still had a month to go.
“At least it’s not twins,” Carter offered. “I swear Holly was twice your size with hers.”
“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Ashley said with a grin.
Carter chuckled. “She’s back to her pre-baby weight, so I’m sure she’s fine. Anyway, I think I can handle a casserole.” So saying, she popped it into the preheated oven then dropped into a chair beside Ashley with a sigh.
“You sure about that?” Beth teased, dimples showing. “You look exhausted.”
Out of the corner of her eyes, she caught Logan’s quick glance.
Don’t look at Logan. Don’t look at Logan. “I… had trouble sleeping last night.” There. At least that sounded vaguely plausible.
“I thought you stopped getting so nervous about testifying,” Beth commented.
Logan raised his head at that. “You get nervous?”
Carter made a face at Beth who grimaced apologetically. “I used to. Not as much anymore.”
He cocked his head. “What changed? Doing it so often?”
She was tempted to let him think that. “Actually…” She drew a pattern on the smooth wood tabletop with her finger. “You made it easier.”
Those sexy brows shot up. “Me?”
Carter grinned at the wary surprise in his voice. “Yes. You were so prepared and so confident in court. You made sure I’d done more than my due diligence. The questions you’d ask when prepping for a case guaranteed I’d covered every base.”
Logan said nothing, but the way his dark gaze homed-in on her—the man had intensity dialed to an eleven—had butterflies the size of Texas taking flight in her stomach. Unbidden, her cheeks warmed, and Carter scowled. She never blushed.
The quirk to Logan’s lips told her he’d followed the train of her thoughts, so she scrunched up her nose at him.
“You know,” she said. “This might be only the second or third time I’ve seen you nervous about a case. You get picky, and grouchy, but not nervous.”
That made the smile disappear. Not the butterflies though. “I’m not nervous about this one,” he denied.
“You are. You get this divot between your eyebrows when it comes up.”
Ashley and Beth watched their back and forth like their heads were on pivots.
“I’m just focused,” Logan insisted.
“Not the same. The only other time I remember this particular look was the week before I met you.”
His frown deepened, but he didn’t stop her, so she kept going.
“You worked a case involving one property drilling a well sideways at a property line to access his neighbor’s water. Do you remember?”
Logan nodded slowly. “It was difficult to prove because they’d hit such a thick pocket of limestone, they claimed they had to adjust to go around instead of through.”
“That’s the one.”
“I won that case,” he pointed out.
“I know. But you really wanted to, didn’t you? And you had particular trouble with the defendant’s attorney.”
He crossed his arms, staring at her. “How’d you know that?”
“I told you. The eyebrows.”
Now those brows pulled down in an irritated glower and she laughed. “Don’t worry. It’ll be our little secret.”
Logan grunted. At the same time, the door to the mudroom slammed. “We’re back, and we’re hungry,” Autry called out.
“Dinner’s in twenty minutes,” Carter called back.
Her brothers came loping inside in socks, having left their work boots in the mudroom, and went to the sink to wash their hands.
Which reminded her. She hopped up and opened the refrigerator, pulling out the fresh green beans she’d bought to go with her casserole. After washing them, she sat down in the stool beside Logan and started snapping the ends off.
“What’s for dinner?” Jennings sniffed the air appreciatively. “Smells good.”
“King Ranch chicken,” Carter said.
He perked up. “Mom’s recipe?”
“Of course.”
“Yes.” Jennings and Autry both high-fived.
She glanced at Logan to find him actually smiling at her brothers. Then he turned to her and a light entered his eyes that she didn’t trust. “My eyebrows may give me away—”
“Are you still stuck on that?” she teased.
He kept talking like she hadn’t interrupted. “But your hands give you away.”
“My hands.” She looked down at the two offenders, currently busy with the green beans. “How so?”
“You talk with your hands.” He tossed the words down like a winning hand at poker.
“I do not—”
“You totally do,” Jennings hooted.
“Oh, my God, yes,” Autry said and the two set to laughing.
“I think you’re in cahoots and making it up,” she said primly.
“Oh?” Logan stood up from where he was seated at the counter.
She could see the challenge in his dark eyes, but the grin was what held her captive. Her serious lawyer never grinned. For that reason alone, she could hardly hold in laughter for the good-natured roasting she knew was coming her way.
Sure enough, he pretended to twist a nonexistent ring on his pinkie finger in an imitation of the gesture she already knew she made. “Nervous Carter.”
“Excited Carter.” He flapped his hands like a chicken flapping its wings.
Autry threw his head back, rolling with laughter. “She totally does that.”
Even Ashley and Beth were laughing, though they at least tried to hide it behind their hands.
“Do more,” Jennings encouraged.
Logan canted his head at her in obvious question, and Carter, deliberately taming her hands, nodded. “Go ahead,” she dared.
“Angry Carter.” He fisted and unfisted his hands at his sides a few times.
Then he put both hands up in the air. “Happy Carter.”
Carter put one hand over her mouth, watching the show in chagrin.
Logan mimicked her pose. “Embarrassed Carter.”
Still laughing, she took the offending hand and smacked his arm with it. Which only made him chuckle. “Irritated Carter.”
Oh Lord, I do use my hands. She shook her head with a rueful smile. “I guess I’ll have to watch that in the future.”
Logan sobered, though his eyes still smiled. “Don’t do that.”
“Why not?” Seemed like an advantage she shouldn’t give other people.
“I like it,” he said softly.
Oh.
Carter stared at him, green beans forgotten.
“Let me help you with those,” he said. And reached for the bowl, putting it between them.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Carter speechless.” Jennings got up and slapped Logan on the shoulder. “I’m impressed.”
“See if I help you next time you call with a drunk girlfriend,” Carter taunted her brother.
“Hey!” Ashley protested laughing. “I wasn’t his girlfriend at the time.” Then she glowered up at her husband. “And there better not be any others.”
“Honey, you’re more than a cowboy like me can manage anyway.”
Ashley gave a happy little nod. “That’s true.”
At least they’d stopped focusing on her and Logan. With a jerky little motion, Carter resumed her bean snapping.
“Remind me to keep my hands still in the future,” she murmured under her breath to Logan.
“We should probably develop a signal for when my eyebrows give me away in court,” he answered back in a low voice.
*
Logan lay in bed, his hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. Dinner had been more of the same with the three Hill siblings present doing their best to needle each other in silly ways.
“You’d think my brothers would have matured after finding such wonderful wives,” Carter had grumbled at one point.
Except Logan had no trouble seeing that they loved each other, and all the teasing was in good fun. What he didn’t like was the way Carter’s eyes would darken when she’d look at her brothers and their families when she thought no one was looking. Her hands would settle in her lap, and he somehow knew she was thinking of the family she’d passed up when she’d broken off her own engagement.
He preferred to think the lawyer in him, trained to read people well, was what recognized that. But he suspected it was more the part of him that just couldn’t seem to stop touching her or watching her.
Regardless of how he knew, he could see that must’ve been a hard decision for her. Torn between two worlds—her goals in life and what she’d worked for facing off against the type of life she’d grown up with. Obviously quite happily.
The unexpected part was the slither of jealousy that ran through him at the thought of her being married now. She would’ve gone off and started a life, and he would’ve gone on the way he had been, probably annoyed that he’d lost her as an expert.
Now… now he flipped over in bed to lie on his stomach, trying to get comfortable and shut down his thoughts.
The glowing green numbers of the clock provided in the room they’d put him in told him that sleep might be an elusive goal tonight.
The soft click of a door had him turning back over, scanning the dark shadows of the room. A sliver of light from the hallway beyond illuminated a female figure with mouthwatering curves for a second before the light disappeared as she closed the door with a snick.
On silent feet, she crossed the room, like a wraith in the moonlight.
Carter paused at the edge of his bed, looking at him as he looked back at her. Eyes wide, she seemed to search his expression for God knew what.
Logan said nothing, but every part of him willed her to finish what she’d come here for.
Relief punched from him in a sharp breath as she climbed on the bed and straddled his hips. The hard ridge of his erection pressed into her soft heat, and Logan groaned into her mouth as she leaned over to kiss him.
Possessiveness, exhilaration, need. All of those were there. Along with a strange sort of satisfied acceptance that she needed him as much as he needed her.
His hands went to her hips so he could hold her there as he ground into her, and she pulled away to moan at the sensation.
They both froze, staring at each other, the harsh rush of their breaths filling the room. “Don’t say we shouldn’t,” he urged. Begged almost.
A soft smile made it to her eyes. “I lost that battle a while ago.”
He reached up, tangling one hand in her hair and tracing the plush softness of her lips with his other thumb. “This doesn’t feel like a one-night thing.”
Where the hell did that come from?
“What is it then?” she whispered.
“Fuck if I know.”
A laugh huffed from her. “I’m not your usual type.”
She’d paid attention enough to know his usual type? “My usual type is… safe,” he said.
Carter turned her head to capture his thumb, sucking on it as she canted her hips. Then released him, blue eyes daring. “I’m not safe?”
Minx.
He surprised a squeak of shock from her as he suddenly rolled them so that she lay beneath him. He settled between her legs. “You, Professor, are trouble with a capital T.”
“Good.” She gave him a smile that shot blood straight to his cock. “I hate being boring.”
Logan could only shake his head, even as they lost themselves in each other. Carter Hill was so far from boring, the idea was laughable.
Except he wasn’t laughing as he buried his body in her soft, wet heat and she wormed her way a little deeper into the impenetrable wall of his heart.
Chapter Seven
“Is Aunt Carter awake yet?” a voice asked just outside the bedroom door.
Carter snapped her eyes open and sort of froze. That had been Dylan, Beth and Autry’s adopted son. He sounded so much older. In middle school now.
Her surroundings, and what happened the night before hit her all at once.
She’d stolen into Logan’s room in the middle of the night after hours of debating with herself. Without words, they’d made love with an intensity that had almost scared her. He’d said it didn’t feel like a one-night thing, but at the same time she knew him. Mr. Control would regret those words today. She couldn’t assume this was heading anywhere. Logan wasn’t the relationship type.
She was laying in his bed, her head on his chest, and no doubt he was awake, too. His body had stiffened at the sound of Dylan’s voice.
This was going to be awkward.
Slowly, Carter lifted her head to
encounter serious dark eyes. They’d stared at each other for a long moment. No way was Carter making the first move here.
Suddenly, Logan’s eyes crinkled with a smile that didn’t quite reach his mouth and he kissed her on the tip of her nose. “Morning, Professor. Unless you want your entire family aware of what we got up to in here…” He raised his eyebrows.
“Um… yeah.” She’d been expecting another round of “this was a bad idea and won’t happen again” or at least a more serious attitude. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with this lighthearted—for him at least—version of Logan.
Scrambling, she threw back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed with her back to Logan as she pulled on her T-shirt and shorts.
She took what she hoped was a silent deep breath, then stood and faced him. “See you at breakfast,” she whispered.
She was at his door before his own whisper stopped her. “Hey.”
Carter glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows raised to find him sitting up in bed, sheet down around his hips, looking about as delicious as anything.
“This isn’t over.” No teasing light in his eyes now.
Carter’s stomach clenched with a sensation she reluctantly identified as an excited sort of hope. Just like that, all the awkward disappeared. “Duh.”
His low chuckled followed her out of the room into the thankfully empty hallway. She scurried back to her own room and set a new land speed record for getting showered and dressed. Today, they were going to visit the ranch for Logan’s case, which, for her usually meant walking or riding a horse through Texas back country. So, she went with jeans and boots but paired them with a feminine yellow blouse that would be fine for riding, but also presented a more “official” face to the owners.
As soon as she rounded the corner in the kitchen where Beth was already at the stove, working around her large belly to fry up eggs and bacon, Dylan lit up.
“Aunt Carter!” He rushed to give her a hug. “Grams crashed her car, and they made me go stay with my friend Buck, but I wanted to be here so I could show you my science project.”
“Morning.” A low voice interrupted them and Dylan stopped talking as Logan came in the room.
