He skimmed his knuckles over nipples which hardened immediately and tried their best to poke holes through the sheer fabric.
“Now eat, the night is young, and I have every intention to make love to you again right here in front of the fire.”
And that was exactly what they did. It set the standard for the rest of their honeymoon. As Hannah woke up on the last day of their stay at their tower, she left a softly snoring Logan in the bed. She made her way to the kitchen and smiled to herself, as she passed all the various places they’d made love over the last fortnight. Logan had proven himself to be an inventive, passionate, and generous lover. While dominant in the bedroom he let her take the lead in other things, namely the excursions outside of the tower. From bike rides to hikes around the countryside, and a shopping trip to Edinburgh they’d done it all. They’d bought some truly Scottish mementos in Edinburgh to bring home to Rhia, Sarah, and George. A little kilted doll for Rhia. Shortbread, toffee, and a tartan shawl for Sarah, and a dram of whisky and more haggis then he’d ever be able to eat for George.
Just like they’d promised FaceTiming with Rhia every night had become a daily ritual. Seeing the easy interaction between Logan and his niece, and how much the little girl seemed to be coming out of her shell, had made Hannah fall a little more in love with the wee bairn, as they said over here, and her impossible uncle, too.
Hang on, what?
No, no, no, that wasn’t part of the plan. She couldn’t have fallen in love with her husband, could she?
She set the coffee machine to work while staring out of the window, desperately trying to talk herself out of this sudden and most unwelcome insight. It was useless however.
“Ah, here you are, up early, my sweet. I clearly have to work on my technique, if you have this much energy in the morning.” Logan’s strong arms came around her, and her breathing hitched when she realized he was naked and very much aroused. He nuzzled into her neck, and his warm breath raised goosebumps on her skin as he whispered in her ear.
“Morning, Mrs. Bryce, you robbed me of our morning cuddles, but here will do just as well.” He dropped his voice, and her traitorous body simply melted for him. She could never resist him, even less now that her heart beat only for him. He nudged her legs apart, and slowly ran his hands up her inner thighs taking the hem of her negligee with him. He groaned when he found her slick folds, and Hannah shut her eyes and gave herself up to the instant tingles his fingers created as he played her body like the craftsman he was.
More of her arousal coated his fingers, and his breathing grew harsh. Hannah, too, had a hard time pulling oxygen into her lungs as she felt the silky tip of his erection slide through her sensitive flesh. A gasp escaped her lips when he pushed into her body, claiming her in one smooth, long thrust, which filled her utterly. A hand between her shoulder blades pushed her forward, and she rose on tiptoes as he started to move. In this position he went deep, awakening nerve endings in over sensitized tissues, still swollen from their nocturnal activities. Logan wrapped his hand in her hair and tugged her head back, his mouth next to her ear, as he whispered dirty words, which shouldn’t be a turn-on, but were nonetheless.
The soft sounds of their bodies slapping together as he upped the pace added another layer of sensory overload, which meant she flew into the pleasurable abyss, at record time. Logan, too, groaned and stiffened, his head resting between her shoulder blades as he pumped his essence inside her body.
“Fuck, yes, that’s what I’m talking about.”
Hannah couldn’t help the tears from falling, as he pulled out of her, and reached across for the tissues to clean her up. His gentle ministrations did her in, and she couldn’t hide the fact she was now openly crying.
“Shit, did I hurt you?”
Logan spun her around, and the concern on his handsome face was too much.
“No. It’s nothing. I just need to…”
She pushed him away and fled to the relative sanctuary of the bathroom. Not that it lasted long, because Logan followed her, and the door fair shook under his fist pounding against it.
“Damn it, woman, let me in. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, please, just go. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Another, much louder thump made her jump and fear for the hinges, before he withdrew.
“Fuck this.”
The fury behind those two words twisted her insides, and she clamped her hand over her mouth to stop the sobs from escaping.
How on earth was she ever going to survive the next few weeks, knowing that she loved him? It made her want so much more, so much that she knew he wasn’t prepared to give.
Chapter Ten
Logan scowled at the locked door, stalked back downstairs, and planted his fist into the wall. Not that the act of violence achieved anything, other than bloody his knuckles. The tower’s walls were ancient and had withstood much more than one man’s fury.
What the ever-loving fuck though?
Just when he thought he had his wife all figured out and they were getting along swimmingly, she pulled this stunt on him. Logan snatched a pair of his joggers of the back of the kitchen chair and grimaced as his injured hand protested yanking them up his legs. He trotted over to the kitchen sink, turned the water on and held his hand under the stream. Rivulets of crimson water collected in the sink, the evidence of his own stupidity not helping his mood one little bit.
A soft gasp behind him alerted him to the presence to his errant wife.
“What on earth did you do?” She was next to him in seconds, the weight of her breast resting on his arm, as she pulled his hand out from under the water, and bent over it to examine it. He tensed when she probed his knuckles—that fucking hurt—but he made sure none of that showed in his face while he ground out a surly answer.
“It’s nothing. Leave it be, woman.”
Hannah flinched, but whatever had possessed her to burst into tears like that must have passed, because she glared up at him in way that she hadn’t done since the early days of their strange relationship. While a part of him was glad to see her ire, the other, confused, wanting to make this better for her part—and what the fuck was that impulse about?—ached to hold her in his arms and for her to open up to him. He liked it far better when they were on the same page. He should have known that easy rapport wouldn’t last. Jeez, two weeks into their marriage and they were at loggerheads already.
Hannah gave him an unexpected shove that forced him to take a step back.
“This.” She deliberately poked at the broken skin, and smiled grimly at his wince. “This is not nothing. Now sit your impossible ass down and let me bandage that up for you. What on earth were you thinking? Oh, let me guess you weren’t thinking. Damn stupid oaf a man.”
There were other words he didn’t catch, his attention too taken up by the high color in her cheeks, as she kept on berating him and the stupidity of men in general. At least, she’d lost the haunted, fragile look she’d had earlier. The one that even now made his cock shrivel and want to hide. A novel experience around her, for sure. That part of his anatomy was usually raring to go at the mere whiff of her perfume in the air. A damned nuisance it was, too, but nothing, nada, zilch, just this ache in his gut he didn’t know what to do with.
When she’d finished her first aid, she glanced at him, and would have left him sitting on the kitchen chair has he not grasped hold of her wrist and tugged her down and over his lap.
“Logan, no.”
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.
“We can’t do that. What if she has one of her nightmares and sleepwalks? What will she do with a locked door? She’s only just starting to feel secure.”
Logan had grudgingly conceded Hannah had a point. Besides there were new joys to be found in simply spending time with Hannah and Rhia. Much to his surprise, he enjoyed their family get-togethers immensely. They were a welcome balm to the shit that Lord and Lady Franningham threw his way on an almost daily basis.
At least the courts had agreed for now that granting the couple access and introducing a still traumatized Ria to grandparents she’d never met before were not in her best interest.
Hannah had been by his side at that particular hearing, a quietly seething tower of strength who had torn a strip off the Franningham solicitor when he’d dared to call into question the validity of their marriage and her own introduction to Rhia.
“With all due respect, that is entirely different. And more to the point, where are your precious clients? If they’re that concerned about their granddaughter, then where have they been for the last four years of her life? Tell me that. Why aren’t they here, pleading their case in person, huh? The truth of the matter is they don’t know the first thing about Rhia. They were never interested in her or her mother. They don’t even bother to visit the hospital, and throwing money at the situation is not going to help. Being there is what counts. If that was my daughter in a coma I’d be there every day, trying my utmost to bring her out of it, like Logan has done, and he continues to do, even though it looks increasingly doubtful that she ever will, and they have the audacity to question his ability to be a father to Rhia. They—”
“Enough, Mrs. Bryce,” Judge Hanson had interrupted her. “While I applaud your spirited defense of your husband, this hearing isn’t about his suitability, but what is in the child’s best interests. I’ve read the psychological assessment on her, and on this occasion, I concur with her counsellor’s recommendation that it would set Rhia’s recovery back, if she were to be subjected to the stress of being introduced to her grandparents.”
Hannah had breathed a sigh of relief, and Logan had barely resisted the urge to fist pump the air.
“That doesn’t mean the situation isn’t fluid. I’ve yet to receive full evaluations on Mr. Bryce and indeed you, Mrs. Bryce, and until I have them and can consider all the evidence in front of me this matter is far from settled.”
Those ominous words came back to haunt him now, when he saw the strange car on the drive. They’d been warned that an unannounced home visit was imminent, and Logan had sworn down the phone when Hannah had called him at work. Having caught the same nasty virus that had kept Rhia off nursery for the last few days, she’d sounded exhausted and on the verge of tears. He hadn’t wanted to leave either one of his girls that morning, but the meeting he’d now been called out of anyway, had been too vital to miss.
Now, well now it would cost him a shit ton of money, as the deal would go to the competition.
Of all the days, they had to send someone to investigate the home environment it had to be today, when neither one of them was in best form. He forced himself to not slam the front door shut behind him, and scowled when the little munchkin didn’t appear to wrap herself around his legs like she usually did. As she was much better than she had been, she must be taking a nap, which was probably just as well, because the words drifting into the hallway made his blood boil.
“I see. I’m very sorry you’re not feeling well, but this really cannot wait. What is taking Mr. Bryce so long? I have to say I’m surprised he went to work at all with you in this state. I take it work comes before all else?” The ingratiating tone of what sounded to him like false sympathy set his teeth on edge. He forced himself to unclench his fists and take several deep breaths, while his little dove intervened.
“Not at all, I mean, yes, he can be ruthless in business. He has to be to be successful, but he’s not like that in his private life. He had to attend this meeting. The whole takeover of a new company d
epends on the outcome, and if you must know I insisted he went this morning. I…” A coughing fit stopped her explanation, and Logan had heard enough.
“I’m here now, Ms.—” He spared nothing more than a cursory glance to the middle-aged woman perched on the edge of his leather recliner. Notepad in hand and a thick file by her side, she regarded Hannah over the edge of her silver-rimmed glasses, and gave Logan a perfunctory smile in greeting.
Not that he took any notice because his attention was taken up by Hannah. Jesus, she looked even worse than she had in the morning.
“Hey, babe, here, I’ve got you.” He sat down next to his little dove and gently tapped her back to help with the cough. Her skin felt clammy and feverish to the touch, and when she looked up at him her eyes held that glazed look indicating she was indeed running a temperature. He handed her a glass of water and swore under his breath when her hand shook too much to take it.
“Jesus, woman, you should have called me back sooner. You should be in bed.” He scowled at her, ignoring their far too interested audience, as he held the glass to Hannah’s chapped lips to encourage her to take some fluids.
“I should call the doctor back. This can’t be right. Rhia wasn’t this ill.” He dropped a kiss on Hannah’s damp forehead, shocked how hot she felt.
“These things often hit adults far worse than they do children. Your wife explained Rhia caught a nasty virus from nursery. It’s the time of year, I’m afraid. You’re not the only one of my families to be suffering.” The social worker stood up and held out her hand for Logan to take. Her smile dropped when he ignored the proffered appendage and turned his back on her. She could go sing, for all he cared. He was far more concerned about his wife right now than social niceties.
“Have you taken some paracetamol at least?” He knew his voice had taken on an edge, but he couldn’t help himself. In his peripheral vision, he saw that damn social worker sit back down and scribble something in her notepad. No doubt that he was an arrogant oaf, living up to his reputation.
Auctioned to the Bad Boy CEO Page 13
