Logan's Woman

by Avery Duncan

  “Yes ma’am.” Blake saluted her then went back to eating his pie. Already it was more than half gone.

  The other four men didn’t so much as look at her. And she was definitely fine with that.

  Logan escorted her out of the room, and she prepared herself.

  For what, she didn’t know.

  “So, Claire. Are you happy that you got that all out?” Logan asked, closing the dor behind him as they entered the study. She sat in the chair and he walked around her.

  Déjà vu, much? Feeling sick to her stomach, she shook her head and looked down.

  “Now, if you had waited for me to explain everything to you before you made both me and you ridiculous, this could have been avoided.” His voice was dark and quiet, dangerous. She understood why he was in the marines now. She folded her hands in her lap, not looking at him.

  Guilt was heavy on her shoulders.

  “Look at me,” he commanded, now sitting on the edge of the desk that was in front of her. Feeling her cheeks heat with shame, she lifted her eyes and bit her lip. He slipped his hand into his back pocket, and pulled out the black velvet box.

  Her eyes locked on it. He couldn’t have found the right one…

  He held it in front her, his features dark in the low lighting of the study. “You want this.”

  “I just want to see if you guessed the right one,” she said hesitantly.

  He set it down on the desk, behind him. “Come here, then.”

  She stayed right where she was. “Why?”

  “Don’t you want to see if we’re getting married or not?”

  “We aren’t, Logan. It doesn’t…”

  “Get off your cute little butt and come over here.” This time, his voice was nothing but a growl. Shivers ran down her back and she slowly got to her feet, the only reason being because the heat and desire in his eyes bid her to. With her heart in her throat, her mouth going dry, she took that step close to him and his arms came around her waist, drawing her against him.

  “I think it’s time for some punishment. Teasing me with the ring, that episode out there... Definitely needs to be reprimanded,” he whispered, brushing his nose against her hair, his hand sliding up her back and pressing her even closer against him.

  She felt one of his hands leave, and then a sharp clap rang in the rough. Claire gasped, grabbing his shoulders. “You did not just spank me!”

  He nipped her ear, chuckling. “Naughty girls need to be punished. And teasing me is definitely being naughty.”

  “I wasn’t...teasing you...”

  “With the ring? Yes you were.”

  “I...really wasn’t,” she gasped as he kissed down her neck, bending her over his arms until he had to twist them around. In one second, her butt was on the desk, her legs around his waist, and his mouth was ravishing hers. With a lusty, surrendering sigh, she kissed him back.

  Chapter 15

  Claire pulled back from him sharply, eyes going wide. “Logan, I’m not into spanking…” Liar. She’d never expected to like it, but she definitely had. Even still, her ass stung – but with pleasure. She took a shuddering breath, even as Logan pressed her into the table, his hands moving to cup her neck.

  He made her stare him in the eyes. “Do you want to see the ring?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, waiting for him to lean down and kiss her.

  He didn’t. Instead, Logan reached behind her and picked up the small, velvet box. Her heart hammered.

  God I hoped he picked the right one.

  She didn’t have time to ask herself why she hoped he had picked the right one, because the next thing she knew, Logan was kissing her deeply, smoothly. His tongue opened her mouth, meeting hers. She gave a sigh and tried to wrap her arms around his neck. He wouldn’t let her. Instead, he held tightly onto her hand.

  His mouth moved over hers like silk, causing tendrils of heat to slide over her skin, through her body. She whimpered softly when he pulled away.

  And then held up her hand to her face.

  Her breath rushed from her chest.

  She could feel Logan staring at her, but she didn’t know what to say. What could she? I do? Before she could react or even give him something close to a full sentence, he pecked her lips and murmured, “Glenda and you will go dress shopping tomorrow.”

  She nodded numbly. “How did you…know?”

  “My powers of deduction are what got me into the military so quick,” he explained, tacking on, “That, and my amazing body. Too bad we have to wait…”

  “Wait? Wait for what?” she asked, her eyes shooting up to his.

  “Well I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to throw you on the desk and –“

  “Oh,” she gasped, covering his mouth with her hand. “Okay, I get it. I do. Alright. I think it’s time to—to eat. Food. Food sounds really good.”

  Logan tugged her hand down, cupping her cheek. The tenderness in his eyes shook her.

  “It’s really hard to stay flustered when you do that…” she whispered.

  “It’s really hard to stay out from between your legs when you do everything,” he countered darkly, his eyes turning a shade so black it was like onyx.

  Her cheeks heated, and then she remembered something.

  “Logan?” she asked, biting her lip.

  “Yes.”

  “Can we…talk about it?”

  “Talk about what.”

  “Your other marriage…”

  “Do you really want to do it now?” he asked, pulling back from her, the heat draining out her eyes as surely as if she had pulled the plug on a drain. Since the topic was already up, she might as well.

  Claire nodded, getting off of the desk and sitting in the plush leather chair. This time, instead of sitting against the desk as he seemed to like to, he sat in the chair next to her and watched her.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Just…I don’t know. I’m curious. What was she like?” Claire hated herself for being jealous of Logan’s first wife – heck, she didn’t even want to be his! Maybe.

  “At first, she was sweet. She liked to shop and host parties and invite people over for business. Her name was Christina,” he said. She couldn’t tell from the tone of his voice whether he had liked that or not. One of the men downstairs had said that he hadn’t really cared about her…

  “Did you love her?” she asked, hiding how close-throated she felt.

  “No. I liked her, at first. It was more of a resigned like, though. I felt like I had to marry her, have some kids, and then get on with my ranching.” He wanted kids?

  “Did she want them?”

  “Christina? No. If I brought it up, or Glenda or my brothers did, she would start to complain about her body being ruined. I got used to the notion of having no kids, though. We were already married at the time and I thought it was too late to change anything.” Okay, so he didn’t want kids?

  Claire frowned. “How long did you know each other before that? You think you would get to know her well enough to plan out the future… I mean, you must have talked about having kids at some point.”

  Logan ran a hand through his hair roughly, managing to make his hair stick up in random places yet looking so sexy it made her hot. “We knew each other for…three months? Her father was a business man of mine and they were going through some troubles. I thought it was the thin to do at the time.”

  “Three months? That’s so short!” she exclaimed.

  “Well I’ve known you for one and we’re getting married in two days,” he said bluntly, making her pause – and then laugh.

  “You have a problem, Logan,” she said, still laughing.

  “I really thought that after Christina, I would never marry again,” he defended himself, holding his hands up.

  “Yet look at you now,” she teased.

  He sobered somewhat. “I’m serious. After the divorce, I didn’t care about women at all. I haven’t had sex since a couple months before the divorce, I ne
ver invited anyone over. I only have men cattle-hands – I estranged myself from the opposite sex.

  “For the longest time, I was just…really bitter. She tried to take my money, my ranch, everything. I found out later that she’d even brought over groups of men to my house when I was out on business trips,” he said, growling.

  “You still care, then.” For some reason, that made her depressed.

  “Claire, I’ve never cared about any woman except my mother, Glenda, and you. In that, I am dead serious. Christina was a burden that, even though I never held any emotional interest, still hurt my pride. We had sex on our wedding night and maybe once in the next two years that we were together.”

  Hearing about his sex life with his ex-wife made her heart turn cold. She thought of them, intertwined on the bed, him pleasuring another woman and making her feel like he made Claire feel… She folded her hands in her lap, looking only at that.

  “How long were you together?”

  “Three years. We barely spoke to each other though. I assumed that she had stayed faithful to me – even though I never really loved her or talked to her, I still didn’t go sleeping with every willing woman I met.”

  Again, the bitterness in his voice shook her.

  “When did it all…start crashing?”

  Logan was silent for the first time. She could tell he didn’t want to talk about it, but she had to know. It was important to her, yet she had no clue why.

  “I came home one evening. I’d settled an amazing deal with this cattle-rancher out in Itally, and it had gotten over two days early. Christina thought I was going to be gone for a week and I came home, with flowers and a piece of jewelry to celebrate the deal and –“

  He paused. She could only guess what he was going to say next. Claire wanted nothing more than to comfort him, but she felt like if she touched him, he would stop talking. The more she learned about him, the more she realized that Logan was a deep man with a lot of history – and she wasn’t. Claire was probably exactly like Christina.

  “The first thing I noticed when I walked into the door was my mother’s favorite vase. It had been passed down through her family and she’d never been able to give it to her daughter because after my brother Chase was born, he ditched town. She never got over the abandonment, so she never had a daughter.

  “The thing was always in the center of that oak table in the drawing room. And even though I was hardly ever in the house, and barely knew where anything was except my room, the shower, and the kitchen – the fact that the vase was missing just struck me.

  “So I went up to her room. We didn’t share the same bed because she said she needed ‘her beauty sleep’ and ‘sleeping with me was like sleeping with a bull’,” he explained, talking slowly, measuring his words. Claire felt her heart turning over in her chest, but she still listened, encouraging him with her eyes.

  “I saw her with two men. Two. And I don’t even want to explain what they were doing,” he said, his voice turning dark.

  “And the vase?”

  “Gone. She pawned it for money to bring her lovers to her. My ranch men never knew – at least, that’s what they told me.”

  “God… Logan, I’m so sorry…”

  He looked at her, pressing his lips in a sad smile. “Not your fault, so don’t be saying sorry. It’s her fault – and mine, for not being there more.”

  She frowned. “What? Logan, no! Through all of that time you stayed faithful, and you had a job to do! You couldn’t help that you were away so much – but she could have helped pawning heirlooms and being a whore,” she snapped.

  Logan stared at her.

  “Listen. You can’t blame yourself for the mistakes of a whore. She didn’t have any valid reason to do what she did. She could have done you both a favor by ending it sooner, and not trying to steal your money.”

  “Alright, Claire.”

  She growled in frustration.

  “Don’t ‘Alright, Claire’, me!” she snapped, standing up. She pointed a finger in his face and said, deadpan, “That’s one thing I hate. You act like I’m not right when I am – I always am.”

  That, somehow, brought out a smile. He grabbed her hand and tugged, catching her off guard.

  She fell into his lap with a squeak and he wrapped his arms around her waist. “So, don’t talking about me… Now you’re turn.” The smile he gave her would have made her give him the world if she could.

  Even so, she tried to pull away. “I don’t think…”

  “Claire. I’ve told you my life story almost. Now it’s your turn,” he coaxed, smiling at her. She melted somewhat, biting her lip.

  “It’s not as uhm…deep as yours…”

  “That’s okay. Whatever it is, I want to know. I want to know about your mother, your father, your family, your childhood, where you went to school…. You’re first boyfriend,” he growled. She flushed, shaking her head.

  “About that…”

  “It can’t be that bad. You’re a virgin, Claire.” The way he so bluntly, yet so happily said that, made her choke, face turning red.

  “Well, thanks for pointing that out!” she said, covering her face.

  She felt his lips brush against her temple.

  “Tell me some weird things that have happened to you,” he commanded, fingers threading into her hair. “Anything. This is our time together before Glenda comes and helps me cook our dinner.”

  Claire flushed even worse. “Do I really have to?”

  He nodded, smirking. “How about this. Every story you tell me will get you one favor from me – anything you want, any time you want.”

  Her eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Yep. Now get talking,” he commanded, slapping her butt softly.

  She frowned at him, but thought of what to talk about.

  “How about you start with the boyfriends,” he suggested. He might have tried to hide it from her, but she noticed the dark look he was giving her – well, not her, but probably past boyfriends. She couldn’t help but smile.

  “That’s kind of a problem,” she coughed, hating how this was going to come out. “I’ve never had one.”

  “Never?”

  She nodded. “I mean, I went on maybe two dates my whole life – and they were my dad’s friends kid’s that he set me up with when I was thirteen so I could at least say I was somewhat experienced.”

  Logan stared at her, obviously dumbfounded. “You’ve never had a boyfriend.”

  “Well,” she tried awkwardly, trying to lighten him up. “That’s the main reason I’m still a virgin…”

  “And how old are you?”

  “Ah…you know…young…”

  His brows drew low. “How young, Claire?”

  “I haven’t really finished college yet...” she hedged, watching his expression go from confused and then to complete and utter shock.

  “I’m crushing on a baby,” he said, voice somewhat numb.

  Her cheeks flushed, but she tried to tease him anyways. “You dirty craddle-robber --”

  “A virgin baby,” he reiterated. All at once, her worry drained and she glared at him. “Cool. Thanks.” She started to get off of his lap with angry movements, but his arms came tightly around her waist and held her still. “I’m kidding,” he chuckled, knuckling her chin gently, like he would a kid.

  She glowered, still offended. “Anyways,” she snapped, straightening herself with what little dignity she could as he laughed at her, “I never had a boyfriend because of my father. I got set up on a couple of dates and he thought that was good enough.”

  He looked at her weird. “Alright. I see. So he basically kept you under lock and key. Did you even have friends?”

  “Of course I did!” she exclaimed, crossing her arms. “A couple of them.”

  Logan looked at her point blank. “Did you ever hang out.”

  “Well, not really... I was just so busy with school and helping him plan parties that I didn’t really feel the need to. I was co
ntent with it just being me and him and college. Everything always worked out smoothly and I didn’t have to worry about drama.”

  “I understand that,” he conceded, nodding.

  “My dad was awesome -- still is. Whenever he wasn’t meeting with Congress or other people, and I was free from college, we would go up to this little place in Colorado called No Name. They had such pretty mountains -- and a cabin reserve. We went there a lot -- zip lining over the river the first time was so hilarious,” she said, laughinag at the memory. “He didn’t know how to slow it down when we were on our way back, and we were trying to race each other -- he almost flew into the post at the end of the line! The whole time he was cursing and freaking out -- I love my dad,” she said, breaking into her own sentence. “He tried his best to make up for my mom not being there.

  “My aunt tried, but she couldn’t always relate. She was very into security, and she’d never had kids. Aunt Hannah was really strict and down to earth -- and an FBI agent. She was so against me going away without any protection, but she had her husband to take care of and my father wouldn’t let her tell anyone what was going on because it would somehow get to Joey that I was alive.”

  She paused, grimacing.

  “How old were you when your mother died? You said she was in a car accident,” he hedged, running his hands up her back and massaging her shoulders gently.

  “I was seven. My father was just starting to run for Senate -- the accident killed him inside, though. He didn’t run again until I was sixteen and spoiled out of my butthole,” she laughed, covering her mouth. She sobered as she continued. “He mourned her for so long, I didn’t think he would ever get over it. He didn’t, however, try to get the man who killed her put in jail for life. He’d been drunk, but he told me that when he got to the hospital, the man that had crashed into her was sobbing and praying.

  “My father isn’t a heartless man. Just because he’s a polititan doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a heart,” she said to him firmly. “He let the law take it’s natural course and he only got put into jail for five years, even helped pay for a good attourny. It was a freak accident,” she tried, her voice tinged with slight anger.