She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and secured it with a band from her wrist he’d thought was a bracelet. “Okay, I think it’s time I got in the water.”
He smiled at her enthusiasm. “You mean on it.”
Her ponytail swished with her head shake. “No. Hello. I come with a warning label, remember?”
His smile broadened. “And what is your warning label today?”
“Stand back, soaking about to happen.”
Laughing, he held onto their carefree atmosphere and ignored the opportunity to spout a sexual innuendo. By adopting that attitude, Logan enjoyed spending time with Chloe in a friendly, non-sexual afternoon. For the first time in his life, he actually spent time with a female friend. He liked it. A lot.
They joked and teased, and he’d never felt so at ease with a woman before. He wondered if it was because they took the possibility of sex out of the equation, or if it was the woman herself. At the end of the day, he was pretty proud of himself for making it through the afternoon without giving into the urge to place his mouth on the temptation. Especially when she’d been soaking wet.
Then he questioned his sanity when he agreed to take her a couple more times that week so she could try other types of water. He saw a CAT scan in his future, and a hell of a lot of cold showers.
Chapter Six
For three days now, Chloe spent quality time on a paddleboard, learning as much about the activity as possible so she could do the campaign justice. Too bad her mind had only been halfway on the task. It was all Logan’s fault. Wearing nothing but board shorts and that damn, sexy grin. How could she possibly think straight with him paddling next to her, muscles rippling with each damn stroke? He was too ripped. Too lean. Too damn sexy for her peace of mind and poor, deprived body.
Every night she crawled in bed, cursing her decision to stick to a working relationship until the job was done. What if he got tired of waiting? What if he found out she caused his injury? What if he didn’t want to see her after that?
If sexual frustration didn’t kill her, the damn what ifs might.
Tonight was shaping up to lead into the third night she walked upstairs alone. Logan claimed he didn’t trust himself to walk her to her room and leave. Chloe wasn’t sure she could head to her room alone and stay there, knowing he was behind the door at the end of the hall.
She shook head and brought her mind back to the present and focused on her laptop. Photos she’d taken of the river that week met her gaze. She was sitting outside at a giant, rectangular cast iron table absently tracing her finger over one of the ornate swirl patterns, while searching through her picture folder to find one with the right feel.
But mostly she sat there trying to talk herself out of taking a dip in the gorgeous in-ground pool. The built-in lights cast a soft glow that beckoned as night fell around her. Just like Logan, every night Chloe tried to resist its lure. Tonight was different. The house was quiet. Linc was in Austin for two days for some kind of business meeting, which made staying in the house alone with Logan extra tough. Luckily, her sexy boss had set out after supper to work on a home improvement project at Hick’s cottage, leaving her some space. So she put on her bikini and came outside to work for a bit, with the intent to finally go for that swim.
An hour and forty-seven minutes pretty much qualified as a bit, so she shut down her laptop and stood to stretch, then stilled when she collided with a hard body.
Logan. She could tell without turning. The air crackled around them. She could also tell he had his board shorts on again. Her skin heated where her bare shoulder met his bare chest, and goose-fleshed where his hands gripped her hips to steady her.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice low and sexy, too sexy for her dwindling control.
She nodded and twisted to step free, only somehow her palms found his chest. They were always doing that. To steady herself, she silently insisted, as they slid over him a little, her good parts quivering at the warm strength radiating from him. She couldn’t help herself. The man was solid and lean with a to-die-for chest and biceps. His six-pack wasn’t shabby either. She slid her fingers down each ridge to take a mental inventory, stroking for thorough inspection. Then headed to those side muscles, the obliques, the ones that decimated her IQ on a daily basis.
“Chloe.” He grabbed her hands, his voice husky and a little tight.
“Sorry. You muddle my mind. Conflict me.” She tried to tug free but he held on.
“Explains the mixed signals,” he said. “Any chance you’ve changed your mind?”
“Um.” She blinked at his Adam’s apple, trying to remember why she held back. “Maybe. No. I don’t know.”
He backed her up against the house, his grip tightening on her wrists as he lifted her hands to hold them on either side of her head. “Let me know when you decide.”
She hissed a breath when he dipped to kiss a path down her throat while his body connected with hers from chest to thigh and everything in between. “Maybe I need to reevaluate,” she whispered. Maybe she could work with him and sleep with him without jeopardizing her job. Maybe his father wouldn’t mind.
He drew back to stare into her eyes, his all deliciously dilated and heavy-lidded. “I’m listening.”
Then his phone rang, the sound coming from the vicinity of her laptop. Grumbling a curse, he released one hand, but only one, and tugged her to the table with him to answer the call. It was as if he was afraid she’d disappear into the house if he let her go.
He was right.
The interruption restored her common sense.
“Hey, Dad. I have you on speaker,” Logan said, gaze glued to hers, knowing look in his eyes as she stiffened to the point of rigor mortis.
His dad? AJ McCall? Her boss? Freaking really?
He tightened his hold so she was unable to take flight. “Chloe’s here, we’re about to go for a swim.”
She sucked in a breath, unsure whether to be mortified or thrilled he blatantly stated they were spending personal time together. Her pulse was pounding so loudly in her head she had to mentally yell at it to quiet down so she could hear the conversation.
“That’s wonderful,” came the unexpected response. Mr. McCall sounded genuinely happy. “I was hoping you two would connect.”
Chloe’s chin hit her chest and she blinked at the phone as if it has sprouted wings and a tail.
“Don’t let me interrupt. Enjoy yourselves. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Before she could close her mouth the call ended. She turned her narrowed gaze on Logan. “What just happened?”
“I believe my father just gave us his approval to connect.” His gaze was still heated, and now, a little hopeful, while he released her to run his hands lightly down her sides to brush over her hips. “So, what’s it to be, Chloe? Connect now, or after the job?”
His father’s phone call changed things. Changed a lot of things. She reached out to trail her hands down his biceps and back up as some of that hope sparked inside her, too. But then her right thumb crossed over the scar on his left arm, the one she caused, and she realized the phone call hadn’t changed the fact Logan didn’t know she was the one who’d cost him his major league career. She had to tell him.
Now.
Before she could push back, he leaned down and in, kissing a path from the curve of her shoulder to her ear, completely obliterating all thought processes. Brain matter.
Breathing.
“Chloe?” His fingers, sweet mercy, those fingers of his were trailing up her ribs while his thumbs brushed just under her bikini top. Back and forth. Back and forth. Leaving her achy and hungry and shaking with need. “Decide anything yet?”
Yes, that she was in heaven. His lips and hands on her was nothing short of heaven.
And that thinking was overrated.
“I don’t want to wait,” she uttered on a hitched breath. “I need to—” She tried to tell him she had something to confess, but hadn’t even finished the sentence before
he covered her mouth with his.
Hungry. Hot. Thorough, pretty much zapping her remaining brain cells. And when she kissed him back, she felt the growl reverberate deep inside his chest. “What do you need?” he asked, his voice deliciously rough when he drew back.
“You.” She cupped his face and tugged his mouth down.
Apparently he was good with that because he devoured the strength in her legs with a series of openmouthed kisses, dipping and tasting until every nerve ending tingled with a heated awareness. Damn, he was potent. She slid her hands into his short, soft hair as she melted into him. His touch was as possessive as his kisses. His hands slid down her back to her bottom, squeezing, then lifting her up.
Chloe automatically wrapped her legs around his hips and moaned, as the erection tenting his board shorts brushed her center with a delicious friction she felt to her soul. Wound beyond tight, she was heading toward a wonderful bliss. Just a few more steps and she’d go off like a rocket.
He set her butt on the table. She sounded her displeasure, until his mouth slid down her throat to bite the soft spot behind her ear.
“Damn…”
His tongue darted out, steeling her breath while she felt a pull at her nape before her bikini top loosened. He drew back, and a second later, tugged it clean off, baring her breasts.
“Gorgeous.” His hands trailed down her collarbone. Then lower. When he cupped each breast, brushing her nipples with his thumbs, she gripped the sides of the table and leaned into his big, wonderfully calloused palms. “I love how responsive you are,” he said, before he licked a nipple, then drew back to blow lightly on her wet skin.
Her grip tightened as goose bumps spread across her skin. She needed more. She needed everything, and pulled him closer with her legs while she ran her hands up and down his abs. “You’re so hot.” On fire hot.
“Hot for you,” he uttered against her breast, his mouth moving from one to the other, teasing, licking, gently nibbling each nipple.
Feeling the tug straight to her center, she arched her back, inviting…begging him to take in more while squeezing his hips with her thighs.
“Killing me,” he growled, giving her a teasing nip as he moved in closer between her legs and thrust against her.
She let out a low, hungry moan.
Logan lifted his head. “I know. I can’t get enough of you, too.” He kissed his way up her neck to her jaw, his hot breath chasing a shiver down her spine.
“I want you,” she muttered, pressing against him. “Bad.” So bad. She stroked from his pecs down to his abs, which quivered at her touch. “I hope I don’t need a warning label.”
He had one hand on her hip, the other on her breast still wet from his mouth. “I’m more curious to know if you come without one.”
Damn. She liked him. So much. Too much. Chloe was more than halfway to orgasm, and she was laughing. Laughing. So was he. It was insane. And wonderful. Then their gazes met, and the laughter faded, replaced by a strong, fierce, driving need.
He captured her mouth, kissing her long and deep as he gently pushed her onto her back, leaning over her with that big, hard body. Then his mouth left hers to kiss a scorching path down her throat, while his hands caressed every inch of her on the way down to her bikini bottoms.
“I’ve been dying to do this all week.” His fingers teased, sliding to the edge of her bathing suit, holding her breath hostage. “All damn week,” he said against her mouth, as his fingers slipped beneath.
She gasped, then moaned when he slid a thick finger into her. Then mumbled incoherently when he withdrew. But before a protest left her lips, the incredible, brilliant man returned with two fingers, while his thumb stroked right over her center. “Oh…damn…”
“Good?”
Hell yeah, she wanted to tell him, but choked on a breath, so she nodded up into his incredible gaze, his pupils big and black, inching out the blue/gray, smoldering with need.
“You’re so wet,” he said huskily, his fingers pure magic, stroking just the right way, in just the right spot the pressure built shockingly fast.
“Logan—”
Then he captured her mouth in a hot, deep, wet kiss, his tongue mimicking his fingers, moving in the same sensuous motion as she gripped his torso and rocked beneath him, lost, found, completely out of herself.
When she crossed into bliss, she ripped her mouth from his and came with his name on her lips in a deep, drawn out, shocking moan. He stayed with her to the end, urging her to come down at her own speed.
“Wow.” She didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or thank him.
“Good wow?”
“Great wow.” She smiled and stretched. “I hope Hick didn’t hear that. I’ve never been loud before.”
A self-serving grin consumed his face. “Then you’re never going to be quiet again.” He bent to nip at her collarbone. “Hick runs an air conditioner, but probably still heard that.”
She punched his arm. “It’s your fault, making me nuts.”
“I like nuts.” He slid his hands over her body again, and when his fingers encountered the scar on her hip—the one she got from the same tree branch that had mangled his pitching career—he stopped and bent to kiss it. After a few beats, and he made no move to inquire, she breathed a silent sigh of relief and mentally relaxed again.
He hooked his fingers on the bathing suit bottoms and slowly pulled them off. Then stood back and stared at her sprawled naked on the cast iron table. His gaze blazed with a fierce hunger and need, turning her insides into liquid heat. “Gorgeous.”
She opened her mouth, but forgot what she wanted to say when he place a big, calloused palm on each leg and spread them for his viewing pleasure.
“So gorgeous.” He leaned down to kiss first one inner thigh, then the other. And then in between.
Again, she opened her mouth but only gasped, unable to remember what she’d wanted to say. Hell, it was a miracle she remembered her own name. Amazingly, that edge was blissfully close again. Her eyes drifted shut and her hips rocked up into his mouth, while she thrust her fingers into his hair, just in case he thought she’d be okay with him stopping.
She wasn’t.
Nor was she able to keep quiet, despite biting her lip. With breathing reduced to short, breathy pants, she made horrifyingly needy noises and moans that probably scared the wildlife back into their homes. Then he did some kind of incredible curling thing with his tongue and she burst again. Orgasm number two. In less than ten minutes.
“Damn, Logan. How…?” Her voice trailed off because she was truly at a loss as to how that could be so good. At how he could rev her up so fast, and set her off?
He crawled up her body and kissed her. “Because we’re soulmates. Cady said so.”
Chloe sat up, her heart rocking in her chest. Was he teasing her? She met his gaze and saw the seriousness in it. “She did?”
“Yes. She told me about you before you were kind enough to share your wings with me.”
She stared at him. “What?”
His laugh was a low rumble. “Cady is my friend’s wife. She has a gift.”
“I know,” she said. “Cady’s amazing.” The woman helped with crimes and missing people, besides healing. It was the part about Chloe being Logan’s soulmate that stuttered through her mind.
“That day at Hardbodies, Cady told me I was about to meet my soulmate and that she had big brown eyes that were going to melt my guarded heart.” He twirled a strand of her hair around his finger and tugged. “I’m not a foolish man, Chloe. So you need to realize I don’t say this lightly. I believe Cady one hundred percent. Especially after touching you, and kissing you and, tasting you.” He ran a finger from his other hand down her arm and shivers immediately followed. Then he waved the hand between them. “This chemistry isn’t normal.”
She nodded, body still humming. “I know.”
He shifted his stance, reminding her that he was still wound up tight, and hard. Very hard. She slid off t
he table then twisted them around, running ran her hand over his taut abs, and then lower, tracing his erection with her thumb.
“Chloe—”
“Shhh…my turn,” she said, pushing him on his back, dragging her mouth down his incredible chest, paying attention to each muscle she encountered, of which there were many. The man was magnificent, tasting salty and male, and when she scraped her teeth over one of his nipples, he sucked in a breath. The sound of his head thudding on the table, mixed with his groan, while his hands slid over her back.
Hot and hard. His whole body was a sexy zone. She lingered on his abs, licking and nipping, hoping she was making him as crazy as he’d made her. By the time she brushed the top of his board shorts, he was tenting the front.
“Bet you could shelter a whole guard unit in there,” she said against his taut skin, slipping her fingers behind the waistband and carefully freeing his mouthwatering erection, before tugging the shorts all the way off.
He choked out a laugh, then groaned when she wrapped her hands around him. This prompted another sexy, rough sound from his throat. Chloe’s whole body was on fire and insides were quivering with a fierce need to have this man inside her, but he deserved some teasing first. She dipped down and kissed her way up his length, smiling at his hissed breath. Glancing up, she found his dark, heart-stoppingly hungry gaze on her as she hovered over his tip and—his phone rang again.
Logan closed his eyes and cursed.
She released him and stood, hoping it wasn’t his mother calling this time. She didn’t hang around to find out. Her body was hot, and shaking with a desire that had her pulse pounding crazily in her ears. With the intent to calm her libido, she turned around and dove into the pool, finding the water deliciously cool as it rushed over her body, bringing her body temp down to sizzle.
While Logan talked on the phone, she floated on her back, staring up at the bright moon and bazillion stars overhead. Once upon a time, she used to lay out under the stars with Stefanie many moons ago. Her wistful fog disappeared with the sound of someone hitting the water, and a second later, Logan appeared at her side. Heat from his body instantly enveloped and a crazy tingling zinged around her.
Hell Yeah!: Her Hell Yeah Cowboy (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Harland County Series Book 8) Page 7
