by Zoe York
“Why what?”
“Why do you have condoms?”
She turned pink. She didn’t want to talk about her sex life with Stephen. “We used them,” she mumbled.
“You and Steve?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
He reached for her, snagging the box and tossing it onto the far side of the bed. Then he returned them to their previous position—legs entwined, his hands tracing her body, his mouth lowering to hers…
And stopping.
Her breath caught in her throat as he searched her face. “He wanted to use condoms on your honeymoon?”
God, she didn’t want to have this conversation. But on the other hand, it was also unburdening to admit this to Logan—the only person in the world she would ever share it with. “Yeah.”
“Did you ever…not use them?”
An achy awareness bloomed low in her belly. “No.”
“Were they your only form of birth control?”
This conversation shouldn’t be making her wet. “No,” she breathed. It was totally making her wet. God, this was dirty. “I’m on the pill. I took it this morning. I take it every morning.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay.”
The moment stretched like soft, sweet bubblegum, then snapped as he kissed her hard and fast, a claiming of her mouth, her body, her entire being. It stole her breath and did something funny to her heart as he kissed down her neck, sucking her skin into his mouth. Her pulse jumped toward his tongue, just like the rest of her. “Logan…”
He slapped his hand on the box of condoms, dragging it closer before tearing it open with one hand. She twisted her head that way and watched him deftly rip off the first of hopefully many condoms they’d use.
Or not.
Her heartbeat skipped at the thought. “You don’t need to use that if you don’t want to,” she whispered, stroking her hands up and down his torso. “If you’ve been tested. If you trust me.”
He lifted up just enough to look at her face. His jaw tightened as he nodded. “I haven’t been with anyone in a while, since before my last physical.”
“I want you. Just you.” Her voice cracked as she said it, and she realized she meant, she needed him. Just him. She held his gaze as she reached between them and stroked his erection. “And I want you to have me in a way that’s just ours.”
He rocked into her touch, his eyes hooding as he pumped through her fist. “You’ve already got me. I’m yours, however you’ll have me.”
She lifted her hips and rubbed him against her slit. She was slippery there, wet for him, and as she teased herself with the head of his cock, she could picture it. Another rock of her hips and they’d be aligned perfectly.
The foil wrapper crinkled as Logan clenched his fist tighter. He shook his head as he gave her a slow, dirty half-smile. “Your choice, babe.”
Logan was trying to play it cool, but Tori was killing him. Her hand on his dick, rubbing him against her…and the look on her face. Sweet and hopeful and honestly dirty, the best kind of dirty, like she’d discovered a naughty secret.
Shit, he wanted to share so many naughty secrets with her. A lifetime’s worth, but that was putting the cart way before the horse.
He dropped the condom onto the bed and stroked his knuckles over her cheek. “I love you.”
Her lips parted and her eyes widened as she gave him a tremulous smile. “Then love me. Just like this.” And she fit him against her snug, sweet entrance.
Sliding into Tori, feeling her tight, hot pussy stretch around his bare cock, was the single greatest feeling Logan could ever remember. Everything that followed was on the same incredible level. Her barely-there cry as he pressed her open. The way she clutched at him as he eased back, then pumped his hips into her again. When he bottomed out on the third thrust and she groaned before begging him to do that again.
He did, over and over again. He took his time, too. They shouldn’t be in any hurry. He hitched her thigh up on one side and buried his face in her neck as he figured out where her sweet spots were, then rose up above her and moved against them faster, harder, until she was fucking him from below, an equal player in their pleasure. They were both so hungry for release, but the pursuit of it was so fucking amazing he didn’t want to speed through it.
But that tug, deep inside, couldn’t be ignored. The way his balls pulled tight and her channel squeezed around him. Only the promise that they’d do this, again and again, allowed him to let himself go. When she wrapped her arms around his next and pulled him down to her, he gave into the urge to press her into the bed. Hard, rough, possessive. He wanted to be in her and on her like nobody else ever had. Wanted to imprint himself on her skin. He kissed her with each thrust, needing her breath on him as she tumbled into the abyss.
“You close?” he asked hoarsely. He knew she was. He could feel her tugging on him, coaxing his own orgasm like a dirty siren call.
“Mmm,” she breathed. “Come with me. Come in me, Logan.”
He slid his fingers through hers and pinned her hand against the bed as he sped up, chasing her so they could get there at the same time. His rhythm faltered as she cried out, his hips jerking wildly as a fresh, hot slick of her arousal coated his dick. The corners of his vision darkened and his thoughts were reduced to single words.
Heaven. Fuck. God. Yes. Hot. Tight. Tori. Love.
With a hard, pulsing spurt, then another and another, he came inside her. Her legs wrapped weakly around his hips, holding him inside her, and he blindly found her mouth so he could kiss her all over again.
“Wow,” he breathed. “That was…”
“Yeah.” Her lips clung to his even as she nodded. “For me, too.”
“I’ve never felt anything like that, Tor.”
Another nod, this one rougher, and he lifted his head enough so he could focus on her face. Her eyes were bright. She gave him a little smile. “Same.”
His heart slammed against his ribs like it wanted—needed—to be let free, to hold her and love her forever.
It wasn’t like that was new information.
But for the first time in his life, Logan didn’t have to keep it a secret.
Chapter Twelve
The rest of the day passed in a glorious, romantic dream. They ate breakfast in bed, naked. Then they got dressed and hit the beach, hand-in-hand, and swam together until they were exhausted and happy. As they dried off in the sun, Tori thought to herself that she’d never been happier in her life—and she was supposed to be devastated.
That tripped her up hard.
Supposed to.
Life was too short to wallow in grief. She’d told Logan she wanted to live it up this week. Have sex, go dancing, be wild.
Taking it to the next level—in his arms, with real feelings and a sizzling connection—had been a brilliant surprise.
No, she wasn’t devastated. Not today.
Maybe tomorrow.
But as Logan’s fingers brushed her hand, then up her arm, she thought to herself, maybe not until he leaves Atlanta.
If she could just let herself enjoy this week with the company of her best friend, maybe when she had to return to real life and all the work that would entail, she’d be well on her way to feeling healed.
“You ready to head back to the villa?” he murmured.
She tipped her face up to the hot, Caribbean sun. “Sure,” she said, stretching her arms wide. “And then we should go for a drive around the island. Explore a little. Or if you wanted to call up your friends and try out their obstacle course…”
She didn’t need to look over at Logan to know he was grinning. “That’s my girl,” he said, his voice full of pride. “Today’s going to be a good day, isn’t it?”
Back at the villa, they showered together, slick bubbles leading to steamy touching and then damp, tumbling sex on her bed.
After, Logan held her for ages. No rush to get on with their day, no awkward need to scrub their sex from his body. She hadn’t
known how much she’d missed this kind of intimacy, too. The last man who’d enjoyed cuddling after sex had been a few boyfriends before Stephen, and he’d been weirdly clingy in other ways, too. She’d been grateful to settle into a relationship more matter-of-fact than passionate.
In hindsight, of course, that pendulum swing had been too far in the wrong direction.
Now, she had to make different choices for her life. For her happiness.
Starting with sex.
And continuing with an obstacle course, apparently.
While Logan called his SEAL buddies, Tori got dressed. Then she piled her wild, curling hair on top of her head in a twisty bun, and swiped on a bare minimum of makeup. Lip gloss, sunscreen, and a dash of glittery pink eyeshadow, then a stroke of mascara.
When she stepped back from the mirror, the woman looking at her in the glass positively glowed.
“You ready?” Logan asked, appearing in the doorway.
She was. Ready and eager for anything and everything. “Let’s go.”
The drive was fun. A powerful car, a gorgeous view, a twisting road…it was a winning formula.
But the best part was Tori in the passenger seat, her creamy thigh brushing his knuckles every time he dropped his hand from the gear shifter. Which he did a lot, because her legs were irresistible.
So too was her enthusiasm. “Look!” she exclaimed when the volcanic peak in the middle of the island came into view, and then, when they started to climb into the jungle, “Oh! Bananas! Logan, those are bananas!”
Indeed they were. “It’s pretty cool.”
And when the GPS on her phone directed them to drop out of the jungle, back toward the coast, and the Villa Sucre estate appeared, the sounds she made were enough to make him want to pull over and tug her into his lap.
“Oh, wow. That’s just beautiful.”
He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Loveliest setting for a SEAL boot camp I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure.”
“You run past the Hotel Coronado almost every day,” she teased.
“Sure, but you’re never there to watch me.” He winked. She wasn’t wrong. His base in California was next to prime real estate on the Pacific Ocean.
But he hadn’t been lying. This was…something else.
It was peaceful.
He didn’t have a lot of peace in his life.
The sprawling mansion was set back from the road by a long, dusty drive. Mick was standing in the garden out front, talking to a woman. Leaning in, smiling affectionately. When they parked, he waved, then wrapped his arm around her.
“Welcome to Villa Sucre. This is my wife, Cara Levasseur. She’s our resident historian. Another long story.”
Logan shook her hand, introducing himself and Tori, too. “Something about this place makes for complicated tales, huh?”
The historian’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, definitely. Come in, please. Everyone else is on the back verandah. We don’t get a lot of visitors, this is exciting.”
As they walked through the wide, sweeping central corridor of the mansion, Cara gave them a quick history lesson on the sugar mill, and a glimpse at the tussle over the deed that had brought her and Mick together in the first place.
“All’s well that ends well,” she said as she stopped in the dated kitchen and gestured to the back door. “Head on out. I’m going to mix up some rum punch and then join you out there.”
“Rum punch,” Logan protested as he found Brayden sprawled in a woven whicker chair. “I thought we were going to hit your obstacle course, my man.”
The woman curled up beside him laughed. “Some of us prefer to be spectators, and the rum punch is for us.” She stood and held out her hand. “Arielle, nice to meet you. Brayden’s been telling us stories about you.”
“That can’t be good.”
Tori laughed, and introduced herself. Then they turned to the last couple sitting on the other side of the door—and immediately recognized the American ex-pat from the market. The soap lady. Tori did a double-take. “Oh, hi!”
“Hello again. I’m Daphne Strike. I’m Will’s wife.”
“It really is a small world.” Tori grinned. “Who else is hiding here?”
Will laughed. “This is it.”
The conversation turned to catching up and reminiscing, but at the next lull, Tori leaned forward and asked Will about their executive training company.
“I work for a tech start-up in Atlanta,” she said. “Feel free to tell me not to be nosy, but I’m always curious about start-ups in other industries.”
“You probably know more about the proper ins and outs of starting a business than we do,” Will said. “But we’ve done okay. We’re running two or three training groups through a month, giving us time off to re-group and re-assess, do marketing in our down week, that sort of thing.”
They kept talking about the business as the group got up and headed next door, to where the executive training all took place.
And Brayden hadn’t been exaggerating—his obstacle course was a thing of beauty. Twice as long as the one on the base in Coronado, and probably easier to run, too.
“We needed to make it challenging enough for the urban warriors who have done things like Ironman, but still accessible for first-timers,” his friend explained. “So it’s actually three courses in one. A pro can do the whole thing, we can split it into a team event, with three tiered legs, or my favorite, is pitching a pro against a newbie, but on two different tracks. There’s a lot of lessons learned in that exercise.”
“Very cool.” Logan rolled his shoulders. “Shall we do teams today? Tori and I will take on anyone.”
“Whoa, I thought I was going to be on Team Rum Punch,” his best friend mock-protested. Then she winked. “Just kidding. Let’s kick their butts.”
Mick volunteered to be Brayden’s partner. “I can’t run,” he told Tori. “But I’ve got the fastest hand-over-hand time on the wall. Don’t think you’ll have any advantage over me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of assuming that,” she promised. “And I can run but the climbing will kill me.”
They all shook hands, then shouted at the same time, “May the best team win!”
Instead of racing side-by-side, they started at opposite ends of the U-shaped course. It took five minutes to meet in the middle, at the tire run, and by then Logan was soaked with sweat. It felt good to hustle, though, and it was a lot of fun to watch Tori jiggle her way through the different obstacles. He gave her a good boost up the wall, so she only had to pull herself up three handholds to get to the top. And she beat his time at the crawl under the net, handily.
“I’m super bendy,” she whispered as they hustled up the ramp to the last obstacle.
He’d noticed. And appreciated that fact very much.
The final challenge was a leap into the air, ringing a bell suspended over a large inflated bouncy pad to land on. They had to do it one at a time, and Logan went first, his fingers easily whacking against the bottom of the bell before he piked his legs up and landed on his butt.
After he rolled out of the way, he cheered Tori on as she did the same thing, her arms stretched high in the air, her legs pointed below her. She landed on her side, the bell still ringing merrily above her as she tucked into a ball.
And then Mick and Brayden appeared above them on the platform.
“Hey guys,” she said sweetly, smiling up at them. “I guess you want me to get out of your way?”
“We like her,” Cara called out from where they’d been watching. “A lot. Hey, do you guys want to stay for dinner?”
And they did. They spent the whole evening at Villa Sucre. The back verandah, strung with white lights, turned into an intimate discotheque, complete with the latest Caribbean dance music courtesy of Arielle’s phone and a wireless set of speakers.
Everyone danced. Cara showed Tori how to move her hips like an island girl, then she tried it out with Brayden, and then Daphne, and finally Logan.
&nb
sp; He was half-drunk on mojitos and fully drunk on Victoria. I love you so fucking much, he wanted to tell her, but there would be time for that later.
When a slow song came on, he settled for wrapping her in his arms and whispering, “This has been the best day of my life.”
Chapter Thirteen
Four days later
“Babe…”
Tori shook her head. Nope. She wasn’t waking up. If she woke up, then she’d have to admit they were back in Atlanta, and it would be time to take Logan to the airport. She wasn’t ready for that. “Sleeping.”
“No you’re not.” He laughed against her bare belly, which just made her ache between her legs. Which is where he was headed, the evil, wonderful man. “Come on. I’ll give you a nice little orgasm before we have to head out.”
She blinked her eyes open and slowly propped herself up on her elbows as he peeled back the sheet. They’d arrived back at her apartment just before midnight, tumbled into her bed naked after a quick shower, and fallen fast asleep instead of making love.
But she wanted to have one last time with him before he had to head back to Coronado. “I want you inside me,” she whispered as he kissed the crease between her torso and her thigh.
“Then you’d better come quickly on my tongue.”
She did, and then he pulled her on top of him and let her ride while he stroked her breasts and gazed up at her like a man in love. Which he was—he didn’t hide that. And as overwhelming as it was to know how strongly he felt, it never felt like too much. How could it when he was still her best friend, and now her lover as well? And she meant lover in every way, although she hadn’t yet made the same confession of love in the same way. It felt weird and wrong to leap into making that kind of promise to Logan when a week earlier she’d been ready to marry someone else.
What a terrifying disaster that would have been. And after their week together, she had no doubt that she’d not only dodged a bullet, but found a true hero and partner in her best friend at the same time.