by Jo Leigh
She was looking at the soldier. Neil was right. Logan wasn’t a man to be messed with.
He’d bested her in a stupid contest that had no meaning, and she’d made everything worse by throwing down the gauntlet. Damn it, if he thought she’d been poking around his background, he could start poking back. Someone like him might have the resources to find out about her father.
She had to do something. And not just because the tense silence was doing a number on her.
“I was nervous about sharing the place with a strange man,” she said, offering him a smile and her most relaxed voice. “So Sam told me you’d been in special ops, and I figured it was okay that I knew or she wouldn’t have said anything.” It wasn’t completely accurate, what she’d said. Neil had been the one to tell her about special ops, but she wanted Logan to relax so they could get off this topic.
Kensey touched his muscled arm and knew she’d screwed up badly when he didn’t react to her touch as he had before. “I’m sorry if I upset you. Today I heard a lot of reps in the gun booths bragging about how special-ops soldiers use their brand. I didn’t think it was a secret. Although, yeah, there had been a lot of talk about the ID of SEAL Team Six, so...”
“It’s not a secret,” Logan said just as she’d given up hope that he’d ever speak to her again. “I use my experience to drum up business. And I make it known that I hire other special-ops vets. No big deal.” He stepped back, effectively dislodging her hand from his arm. “So, what’s for dinner?”
“Oh, about that...” She sighed, glad to change the subject. Not that she thought this was over. This man staring at her was a different Logan. Most people probably wouldn’t notice the slight edginess to his smile. But she was good at reading people. Something else she’d learned from her father. And dammit, if she wanted to prove his innocence, she had to stop baiting Logan and focus on why she was there. “I’m not cooking. We can go out for dinner, or order something to be delivered. Either way, my treat.”
“Ah, man. I was looking forward to a home-cooked meal.”
“Trust me, there is nothing in that fridge that will resemble your idea of home cooking.”
“Too fancy for you?” Logan’s grin made him look more like himself. Or at least more like the Logan he’d wanted her to see from the beginning. She needed to remember he had that ability. She had the same gift.
“It all comes with directions,” he said, his voice easy and gently teasing. “I actually recognized some of it.”
“Good.” Moving away from him caused a bit of a tug in her chest. But this was for the best. She had one job here in Boston. One. As appealing as he was, Logan wasn’t it. “Put your cooking where your mouth is. But make it snappy because I’m starving. Also, I need to shower and change clothes, so why don’t—”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the kitchen. “You look great. What was the food that made you throw in the towel?”
She raised both eyebrows.
“What?”
“You had to bring up the towel?”
He choked out a laugh. “I didn’t even think— But now that you mention it...”
She turned away from the arousal darkening his eyes and opened the freezer door. That glimpse of Logan’s dangerous side had turned her on but she couldn’t let herself go in that direction. The frigid air did little to cool her down but the overwhelming amount of food inside somewhat distracted her. In her freezer, she had an ice maker, a roasting chicken and ice cream in a few different flavors. That was it. “That one.” She pointed to a white package.
“Duck rillettes?” Logan frowned. “What is that?”
“I have no idea. Do ducks really have a part on them that are called rillettes?”
Logan shook his head and moved closer so he could see better. So that they were touching. Again. Only this time, she pressed against his shoulder and seconds later, he pressed against her hip. He felt warm where he touched her. Her bare thighs rubbed against his jeans, and the frigid air made her nipples harden.
She wondered if the air had the same effect on him. She couldn’t see his nipples through his shirt, and freezing air wasn’t going to harden anything down south.
He turned over the package, looking as if he was settling in for the evening. Maybe he really did want that home-cooked meal.
Or maybe this was a way to relax her defenses. A clever way for him to find out what she knew about him.
Then again, he might be wondering the same thing about her. And he wouldn’t be wrong. Not completely. She had been trying to find out more about him. Was he a safe haven or a rocky shoal? It would be stupid to think of him as either. To think of him at all.
The thought made her feel ridiculously sad.
“According to this,” he said, “it’s duck that’s been smoked and shredded with duck fat, salt and pepper, and meant to be slathered over stuff. And eaten with a side of pickles.”
It didn’t appeal to her in the least. Gourmet it might be, but she’d never been a foodie, and that wasn’t going to change now. “We’re ordering out.”
They were still touching. He had to lean sideways to look at her. “You’re giving up that easily?”
“Yep.” She closed the freezer door and saw his gaze drop to her chest. Right where her nipples poked the fabric of her tank top. “There are menus from a bunch of places that deliver,” she said. “Thai, Mexican, deli, Indian.” She moved to the pantry and grabbed the stack of menus from a pouch on the inside of the door. “Unless you’d rather go out. Going out is fine.” Probably better, now that she thought about it.
The effort it took for him to look her in the eyes and not ogle her breasts made her bite back a laugh.
“No, let’s stay in.” He got a beer out of the fridge and popped the can open.
“You sure? Boston has some great restaurants.”
“I’m sure it does. But going out? Not crazy about the idea.” Angled away from her, he took a gulp. Then wiped his mouth. “Sorry. You want one?”
She shook her head and did her own shifting to hide the front of her tank. “We should place an order, then shower while we wait for the food.”
He glanced at her, one brow lifted.
“I meant...separately. Of course.”
Logan shrugged, looking as if he disagreed. About which part, though? “If you insist,” he said, finally turning toward her.
Well, damn if she hadn’t been wrong about the effects of an open freezer on a man’s ability to get hard.
“Tell you what,” he said, and she forced her gaze up to his face. “You order something while I make a quick call. Okay?”
She nodded, then jerked her gaze up again. “Yes. Fine. Go.”
He couldn’t seem to leave fast enough.
She watched him until he turned the corner, and steadied herself against the nearest countertop. Truth was, the train had left the station. For both of them. Heading in only one direction. She just hoped they weren’t in for an epic wreck.
* * *
“CALL SAM.”
He only had to wait a few seconds for her to pop up on the wall. But then she told him to hang on. He immediately thought about Kensey. Not the part where he wanted to pull her into his bed and not let her go till morning. He wanted to know why she’d asked him about black ops.
People didn’t just think of black ops. Which meant she knew something about him, but what? No regular search engine would connect him with anything on the CIA side. And the only other person who knew was Lisa. So, what the hell? Besides, why would anyone start to dig? He could understand Holstrom trying to find out whatever he could, but why would Kensey bother?
He turned the problem around and around, unable to come up with anything that made sense.
“Hey, what’s up, Logan?” Sam was all dressed up, which wasn’t the
norm for her. She usually wore the computer geek special: jeans and a T-shirt.
“You going somewhere?”
“Yep. To a party. Where I intend to get drunk.”
“Well, good for you. That’ll show ’em.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “You called?”
“Did you ever talk to Kensey about me working in special operations?”
Sam shrugged. “Maybe. Although I think I only said military, but I can’t swear to that.”
“What about black ops?” He couldn’t imagine Sam saying anything like that. She didn’t know, but she had helped him blur his background, and she was too smart not to put two and two together.
“You mean did I— No. Why would I?”
“Okay. Never mind. I was just checking.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s who she claims to be, if that’s what’s got you worried.”
“I’m being overcautious.”
“More like paranoid.”
“Yeah, yeah. Listen. Would you turn off whatever the hell program it is that’s making me so damn horny? I mean I like the whole scent and colors thing, but—”
Sam burst out laughing. Really laughing.
“I’m serious.”
When Sam caught her breath she said, “I don’t have any such program. That’s all you.”
“Really?”
She wiped the bottoms of her eyes. “Damn you, Logan. I never wear makeup and now you have to make me...” She started laughing again. “Just try not to break anything in your rush to—”
He hung up. Adjusted himself in his jeans, then went to the kitchen. Kensey was bent over a drawer, and he hoped that she wouldn’t stand up any time soon. But she did. Then she went for an even lower drawer. He crossed his arms over his chest and enjoyed the view.
When she finally turned around she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Holy...how long have you been standing there?”
“Two drawers worth. What are you looking for?”
She paused, looking like a cornered animal. “The takeout menus—”
He nodded to the stack on the counter. “You already have them.”
“Fine.” Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes dilated. “I was looking for the manual.”
“For the apartment?” he asked, guessing she had the same problem as him.
When she couldn’t stop her gaze from checking his fly, and her hips moved in a way that had everything to do with sex, he crossed the distance between them and pulled her into the kiss he’d been holding on to from the moment he’d seen her.
She kissed him back. Deep and real and just messy enough to match the urgency that was coiling inside him like a rattler. It was everything he’d wanted, and as an added bonus, he’d just discovered that Ms. Cool wasn’t a very good liar.
6
“WAIT,” SHE SAID a split second before he crushed her mouth with his. She could feel his desperation, in the way he pulled her against him. Made her feel what she’d done to him.
In return, she gave as good as she got, thrusting into his hot mouth for every pulse of his erection against her low belly. Logan’s hand moved under her tank top and slid around to her back. Then he stroked her, moaning as he reached all the way to her neck before sliding down again.
Not that he missed a trick with his mouth. He kept up the barrage of thrusts and parries until she was breathless. The way her nipples hardened had nothing to do with the cold.
That hand, that wicked hand under her top moved to her front, and his moan when he cupped her flesh curled her toes. Seconds later, while she was still reveling in the feel of his large, rough hand, he pulled back. Before she could even show her displeasure, her tank was over her head and thrown somewhere in the real world.
In this world, Logan smiled as he bent down to suck on the nipple that had been hoping for more action.
As his thumb twirled one bud, he teased the other with a gentle rasp of teeth, then suction, then some masterful flicking that made her feel as if she might have already died and gone to heaven.
Letting go of him, she pulled on his dark blue button-down until the shirt was up under his pits, but she couldn’t do anything with it there. In fact, she couldn’t do anything but flail behind her until she found the countertop to balance herself as he switched nipples, evidently going for the gold.
Damn what he could do with his tongue. Holy crap. The flicking. The flicking! Just the very tip made her insane. Then, like a dragonfly, he moved from tip to tip, back and forth.
Finally, she gripped his shoulders and pulled him up until she could look him in the eyes. “Bedroom. Now.”
He seemed dazed. Completely unaware of how ridiculous he looked with his shirt bunched up so high he couldn’t put his arms down. She even pointed out the problem, but he just shrugged, and took her by the hand down the hallway to his bedroom.
She laughed the whole way.
He stopped at the bed, pulled down his shirt only to unbutton it in record time, and swiftly yanked down the covers.
God bless America, he was built like...like the men in her dreams. They all had his kind of body—muscled, but not misshapen, a subtle six pack, just enough hair that she could play with it during the cooldown after and a trim waist that led to a very impressive erection.
“This is the part where you take off your shorts. Unless you’d like me to—”
They hit the floor before he could finish.
He smiled. The kind of smile that changed his face. Made him look younger. Sexy as all get-out. “You’re gorgeous,” he said. The rough voice was new. Also sexy. “When you wore that dress last night? I...haven’t gotten over that yet.”
With a move she hadn’t expected, he lifted her bridal style, then laid her on the bed. Caveman Logan with that smoky voice? Different. A few miles more than good. It was as if she’d been sent back in time, to an age where her stomach was all butterflies and giggles were going to erupt if she didn’t do something soon.
He lifted her knees until her feet were flat on the mattress, her head resting on a pillow, and she waited breathlessly for what came next.
To say this wasn’t her typical style was a huge understatement. A part of her wanted to take the reigns from Logan and show him a thing or two, but that urge was overpowered by a feeling of freedom she hadn’t experienced in years.
“Lift,” he said, holding a pillow down by her butt. She did.
Perhaps she should tell him that while cunnilingus was great and all, she wasn’t all that into foreplay. But he seemed so intent.
He looked down at her, his eyes ablaze with desire. God, his nostrils flared. “Last night I wanted to stop you,” he said with that gravelly voice. “Make you stay.” He got on the bed and maneuvered himself neatly between her thighs. “Which is crazy, because I don’t usually react so...viscerally.”
Then he dropped to his hands and knees. His breath painted the insides of her thighs. She held perfectly still as he leaned in and kissed her gently, on her inner thigh, and then bit her.
Not hard. Just a little nip that made her start. Excited her. Even more exciting was when he licked the delicate skin where her thigh ended.
How had she not known that crease where her leg met her torso was an erogenous zone? It so was. At least when he licked her there, then blew warm air on the strip. Instead of reaching out and grabbing on to his hair, she gripped the bottom sheet.
He’d placed her so well she didn’t have to move at all to watch him. The way he looked—his need so raw—made her pulse climb through the roof. It was all there in the tiny smile that hadn’t gone away, even when he’d been arranging the pillows. In the black of his pupils, his lids at half-mast as his body prepared for pleasure.
A moment later, he was down too low for her to see his eyes. But she felt him at her alre
ady parted lips. He spread them and brushed his thumbs up and down. “So soft,” he whispered.
Before she could answer, two fingers went inside her. Deep.
She gasped and arched, ready for far more than fingers.
He laughed, a low chuckle that made her smile in return.
“I wish you could feel this the way I feel it,” he said. “I don’t think it’s possible, though. Sad, because I’m convinced there’s nothing in the world softer than a woman. And now I’ve just learned that not all women feel as good as you.”
She blushed. Why, she had no idea. It was a sweetly odd compliment. Something he couldn’t have gotten away with if he’d been younger. But the man was in his thirties, and he’d lived a great deal of life in those years. He wouldn’t bother with empty compliments.
“Christ,” he said, and a second later his tongue joined the party. Her back arched again and she might have ripped the sheet, but she didn’t give a damn because he was using his mad tongue skills where it counted.
No more gentle breaths and languid kisses. This was a full-on assault. The way he pushed his fingers inside her with exactly the right pressure to feel amazing while at the same time making her desperate for more? Jesus.
That tongue. She’d thought he’d been clever with her nipples, but he treated her to a range of sensations that stole her breath away, only to steal it again and again.
Flicks with the tip; suction with his lips in a perfect circle around her clit; licking with the widest part of his tongue, a soft, soft rasp, barely there and making her ache for it. All the while he was thrusting inside her, fast then slow, then fast again until she was crying out like someone in a porno. Wake-the-neighbors loud. When she opened her eyes she realized she’d wrapped her legs around his head. No recollection of doing so at all.
Suffocation by thighs didn’t make him slow down at all. He kept on driving her crazy. There it was, deep down in her belly, the spark of what was sure to be an epic orgasm.
“Wait,” she said, unable to tell if he’d even heard her. “Wait, I’m going to come.”
