Pursuit

by Chance, Lynda

  He sucked in oxygen and blew it out slowly. Shit yeah, he needed to calm the fuck down. Not only would it scare the shit out of her, it was beginning to scare the shit out of him.

  Chapter Four

  An hour later, they’d eaten together, mostly in silence, and Lauren moved around the compact kitchen cleaning up the mess. She glanced at Logan, feeling a subtle ache between her legs. Not so much of a sexual need, but an actual ache from where he’d been just a little over an hour ago. Her inner muscles had been stretched and exercised, and Lauren was feeling the effects already.

  As she leaned over the counter, scrubbing at an invisible spot, her mind working feverishly, Logan came up behind her and she felt the hair pulled from her neck and his hot mouth on her skin.

  Her hand stilled as a wave of heat transmitted itself from his body to hers.

  She sucked in a breath as she felt his teeth sink into her skin as his hands reached around and enclosed her breasts.

  She jerked in his arms and moaned softly. He tweaked her already tender nipples, and his mouth on her neck, just short of pain, was inducing a flood of moisture between her thighs that begged her to let him have his way in this. Lauren tried to capture a thought, any thought, but couldn’t and only fell into the pleasure that his embrace induced.

  After the episode in the bedroom, she’d dressed in t-shirt and shorts, and now, she felt him drag her shorts and underwear down her legs. There was no need for him to seduce her; she was way beyond that.

  Her clothes pooled around her ankles, and when he instructed her to step out of them, she did as he said without question.

  She heard his zipper come undone, and the rustle of a condom, and within seconds, he was pushing into her from behind. He held her hips in his hands, and instantaneously, she flooded with wet heat. Seconds after he bottomed out within her, she contracted around him, and he groaned, and then began sliding in and out in a rhythm that sent ecstasy shooting through her body.

  It took only a minute of his hard strokes, and Lauren felt the wave sweep over her and she began coming. His teeth bit into her neck harder, and as his hands stilled on her hips and he held her grasped to him in a merciless grip, Lauren knew that they were coming together.

  ****

  Fifteen minutes later, Lauren sat on the sofa in a daze. She’d cleaned up quickly in her small bathroom, and then moved out of his way so that he could do the same.

  She picked up the remote while she waited for him, and absently began surfing through the channels, paying absolutely not a whit of attention to what was playing. Her heart was beating loudly in her ears, and no matter how much she tried to focus, she couldn’t believe that they’d had sex so soon after meeting each other, and to top it off, twice within a matter of an hour or so.

  And not only that … she had the feeling that she hadn’t been just another notch on his proverbial bedpost. She wasn’t worried that he’d never want to see her again. In fact, it was just the opposite. She was getting the vibe that after what they’d done together, his arrogance and his alpha tendencies were only going to grow.

  He came to stand in the threshold between her bedroom and the living room, and as he remained there in silence, Lauren had no choice but to glance up. She found his expression foreboding as he studied her.

  The look on his face put her back up. “What’s wrong? What did I do?”

  He frowned at her and shook his head. “Nothing,” he replied in a voice that was, by far, the gentlest tone she’d ever heard from him.

  He continued to study her intently and Lauren swallowed. “Then what’s wrong?”

  He flattened his lips and put one hand to his mouth in a fist, working it as if he didn’t want to voice his thought out loud. He looked away and finally, with resignation, back to her. “The condom busted.”

  Lauren was already more than a little disconcerted, and all she had was an automatic response, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault, sweetheart,” he said gently.

  He continued to watch her, almost carefully, and Lauren began to feel light-headed as the implications of his words began to register. A busted condom. A busted condom. A. Busted. Condom.

  “You don’t seem worried,” he said, matter-of-factly, noticing the lack of expression of her face. “You’re on birth control, then?”

  All at once a roaring began in her ears and the residual shock she was feeling from having sex with him disappeared in a flash as another worry took precedence. She tried to speak, but the oxygen snarled in her lungs as she felt the blood drain from her face.

  There was no question that he saw her reaction. “Honey, I’m clean, I swear.”

  She began shaking her head, and she stood to her feet and covered her mouth with both hands and spoke through them, her voice muffled. “No.”

  Her stance probably reflected her horror and he left the doorway where he stood and walked swiftly across the small room and put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m clean, baby. Calm down.”

  She tilted her head and looked up at him. “I’m not on birth-control.”

  The horror she was feeling was now reflected on his face. “What? Why?”

  She broke away from his hold and paced a few feet away from him toward the kitchen area. Her panic was fast blending with anger. “What do you want me to say here, Logan?”

  “Okay, I’m sorry. So you’re not on anything.”

  “No, I’m not,” she said.

  He studied her silently from across the room. “What do you want to do?”

  Logan seemed so adamant that he was clean that Lauren was going to trust him on that for the moment and think about the risk of pregnancy and whether or not she should go buy some emergency contraceptives. She wasn’t enthused about the idea, as the last time she’d tried the pill, it had made her so nauseous that she’d thrown up and been out of commission for a couple of days. And emergency contraceptives were probably about ten times as strong.

  She didn’t want to panic. She began counting and realized almost immediately that she was probably okay.

  She glanced up at him and shook her head.

  At her silence, he asked, “What does that mean?”

  “I think it’s going to be okay.”

  “Are you sure?” he questioned quietly, but no less intently.

  “No! But I think so.”

  “You’re not mad at me?” he asked.

  The turmoil in her head was about to make her brain split in two. “Why would I be mad at you?”

  “I don’t know. The condom splitting. It was my responsibility and I fucked it up.”

  “You had no control over that, right?” she asked, trying to breathe, trying to think.

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay, well, I think it’s going to be okay. I’d rather not panic and put a bunch of hormones in my body that I know will make me sick.” She shook her head. “But I don’t know for sure, I’m going to Google it after you leave.”

  “All right, sweetheart.”

  “You seem pretty okay with trusting me on this,” she said, trying to figure out what was inside his head.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I trust you not to lie to me. And I’ve got your back on this, Lauren. If you get pregnant, we’ll deal with it together.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Lauren felt her stomach tighten in rejection of his possible meaning. What was he going to do, pay for her to terminate the pregnancy?

  “What the hell do you think it means? It means I’ll help you raise the kid. Marry you. Support you financially. Learn to love a baby. Whatever you want, I’m here.”

  Lauren was all at once ashamed of what she’d just mentally accused him of. So maybe the guy wasn’t all macho jerk with only fantastic sexual charisma.

  “How soon will you know?” he asked her.

  “Not soon.” Lauren didn’t want to have a conversation this intimate with a guy she hardly knew, but she’d forfeited that when she’d chosen to have sex with him.
“I’m safe because it’s so early in my cycle.”

  “So, like what? Three weeks?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” she agreed.

  “You can buy a kit thing and find out sooner, right?”

  “A kit thing?” she repeated with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Test. Whatever,” he growled.

  “Yeah, and I will,” she said.

  He watched her for a long moment and then crossed the room and slipped his hand under her chin and lifted until her eyes were on his. “Whatever you do, it doesn’t mean we’re not having sex for three weeks.”

  “You want to take another chance?” She almost shrieked.

  “I don’t think I have a choice, darlin’.” He leaned down and kissed her ear and then breathed softly into it, his arms wrapping all the way around her. “You’ve got me well and truly addicted.”

  She shuddered softly and his voice in her ear held a questioning tease. “I’ll toss the rest of the condoms that came in that box, of course.” His hand slid down and gripped her gently at the vee between her legs. “You’ve got some here we can use later tonight, right?”

  She pushed against his shoulders and after a pause he reluctantly released her. “I can’t believe that’s all you think about! And no! I don’t have any here.”

  The look in his eyes was remarkably mild as he studied her. “Sweetheart, I’m only human.”

  “I—I want to be alone now.”

  His eyes narrowed on her. “Only if you promise you forgive me and that you’ll see me tomorrow night.”

  Lauren desperately needed time to regroup, but she couldn’t deny that his unwavering interest was almost hypnotic to her senses. She knew she shouldn’t feel that way. He was too arrogant, too macho, too much entirely. “Yeah, I promise.”

  ****

  Logan climbed in his truck and drove home, all the while thinking about everything that had just taken place. He’d wanted to stay with her, but she’d kicked him to the curb without so much as a qualm.

  He guessed he couldn’t blame her.

  She wasn’t on birth control.

  The meaning behind that sank into his brain. So maybe it was true that the hormones made her sick, but she had other options. And the fact that she had no condoms in her apartment was telling.

  It was just as he’d suspected; she was sweet.

  Damn. He wasn’t supposed to want to bang a sweet girl.

  Sweet girls meant trouble. They were a threat.

  He took a stabilizing breath and acknowledged the truth.

  Too bad he had no damn choice in the matter.

  ****

  As arranged via text message, Logan knocked on Lauren’s door at seven o’clock. Somehow, he had no idea how, more than a week had slipped by and they’d seen each other almost every night.

  She’d texted him a few days before that she’d taken a pregnancy test and it was negative. Thank fuck. Shit, he was relieved. That congealed ball of emotional crap banging around in his stomach was relief, right? What the hell else could it possibly be?

  He’d had a presentation the night before and hadn’t been able to see her, so the forty-eight hours without her was about to drive him insane. He’d thought this shit would have cooled down by now, but it hadn’t.

  He tried to suppress the arousal seemingly caused by just standing in front of her door, but it was damn near impossible. She was all he’d been able to think about all fucking day. How fast could he get her little ass naked?

  She answered right away and held the door open for him, but her cell phone was glued to her ear. She ushered him in with a vague smile as she spoke into the phone but her words made his mood deflate. “Yes, sir. We’ve got it covered. John arranged for ten tickets to the Lakers game. My flight gets in at noon. I’ll grab a rental and see you at the office.”

  Logan hung back and observed her with his mouth flattened. As she listened to whomever she was talking to, she shut the door and motioned him toward the couch. “Yes sir, I’ve worked on it and the amortization of the two properties combined will easily turn a substantial profit. We’re going to make money off the deal, no problem.”

  Logan sat down as a tension he couldn’t explain stabbed him between the shoulder blades. Lauren’s soft voice continued as she walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “I don’t mind.” As Logan listened to her soothe the man on the phone with her feminine tones, his head began pounding. “It’s actually really interesting for me to see how the sales side of the operation works. If it eases your worries to have me there, it’s no problem.”

  Logan spread his legs out, lifted his hands behind his head and laced his fingers together as Lauren laughed into the phone. “No, that’s true. I don’t know the first thing about basketball. Now football … I’m your girl.” She paused. “Yes, sir. You, too. I’ll see you in a few days. Goodnight.”

  Logan sat back against the couch cushions, his temples throbbing, and watched as Lauren walked toward him with a beer in one hand and a Diet Coke in the other. He leaned in and took the bottle, as she sat down in the chair that was at a ninety-degree angle to the couch.

  ****

  Lauren couldn’t read the hooded expression in Logan’s eyes, but it made a quivery feeling run down her spine. “I’m sorry I’m not ready yet.” She indicated the shorts and t-shirt she was wearing.

  He seemed to ignore that statement. “So, you’re going out of town?” he asked in a voice that sounded casual … too casual.

  “Yeah,” she said as she sipped her drink.

  “Where?”

  “Los Angeles.”

  “When?”

  Lauren took another drink while she digested his terse, one-syllable questions. “Friday.”

  “You’re leaving for a business trip on Friday? When will you be back?”

  “Sunday night, late.”

  “What’s up with the weekend travel?”

  She licked her lips and maintained a casual tone. “A couple of things. One … we got some good airline rates and two, the clients we’re working with requested tickets to this particular Lakers game.”

  “So, why you?”

  “Why not me?” She took a sip and raised her eyebrows at him with a challenging smirk. “You don’t think a girl can handle it?”

  He twisted his head from side to side as if relieving tension. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” she replied neutrally. “I fly to different regions of the country fairly often. My job title is discretionary, if my bosses want me to wear a different hat, I wear a different hat.”

  “I thought you said your job was boring and tedious.”

  That almost sounded like an accusation to Lauren, as if he wanted her job to be boring. “It is boring and tedious. It’s boring about seventy-five percent of the time, and for me, traveling is tedious. But a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do, you know?”

  “Yeah.” He took a drink and set the beer on the coffee table and then leaned back and laced his hands behind his head, the same pose he’d been in earlier.

  He didn’t look happy, but there wasn’t a damn thing Lauren could do about it. It was a fact. She didn’t like to travel, but she did like to eat. Her job paid well and she planned on keeping it. But she tried to steer the conversation away from her and onto him. “Do you travel much?”

  “Not usually,” he answered flatly.

  “What, like, a couple of times a year?”

  “About that,” he said.

  “Lucky you.”

  “So, you don’t care for basketball?” he asked, his tone colored in neutral shades.

  “Not really. Football’s my game.”

  “So why do you have to go?”

  “Ostensibly to make sure John doesn’t promise the farm after he’s had too many beers. But they like me to interact with the clients, as well.”

  “The clients being men?” He asked in an almost bored t
one, a tone that Lauren didn’t believe for a second.

  “This trip will be comprised of men, but they aren’t always.” She spoke the truth, and why not? There wasn’t anything she could do about it.

  Lauren felt the impact of her answer hit Logan as his nostrils flared and a subtle tension corded the muscles in his neck. As she assimilated the hostility that he tried unsuccessfully to hide, her nerves shifted restlessly. Thank God she was only messing around with this guy, and didn’t see him as a husband prospect. She didn’t see him as a husband prospect, right? That would be insane. Heidi was absolutely right, a guy like this was only meant to be enjoyed, and Lauren had absolutely no intention of trying to tame him. She doubted she’d have any success even toning him down.

  He was just so freakin’ male.

  As she sat in silence, trying damn hard not to be titillated by his purely male responses, because that was just wrong, he stood to his feet in a rush of movement and grabbed her by the hand.

  Lauren almost lost her grip on the can she held, and he took it from her and slapped it to the coffee table next to his beer. With one hand wrapped around her wrist, he leaned down to take her mouth, but Lauren reared back from him, caught off-guard by his sudden move and her inappropriate sexual response to it.

  He stopped the forward motion of his head and his eyes caught and held hers. He bared his teeth and Lauren sucked in a breath. There was a warning in his eyes, and Lauren had the unmistakable feeling this was about to be an exercise in dominance.

  His, over her.

  A shivery feeling hit the pit of her stomach and moisture bloomed between her legs, much against her will.

  He lifted the hand he had wrapped around her wrist until it was mid-air and he took one step forward, propelling her backward, while his eyes, raging with an inner fire, held hers imprisoned. His expression was stamped with authority, and although Lauren’s nerves were jolted, she couldn’t deny that his aggressive force was intoxicating.

  Dangerously so; she could barely breathe.

  “Did you just turn down my kiss?” His question was a challenge, and Lauren struggled to understand his exact purpose. He was lethally intimidating, standing over her with his height and strength, and yet, no part of her was afraid that she couldn’t control the outcome of this encounter.