The Royals Series

by Bay, Louise

  Silence swirled between us as I navigated the dark, twisty road.

  “You’ll come in?” Logan asked as I pulled up in front of Badsley House.

  “It’s been a long day—”

  “I know I have no right to ask. You’ve done more than enough already. But cooking relaxes me and I know I won’t bother if it’s just me. Can I make you an omelet or something?”

  I didn’t want to go in, but not because I was tired. My walls were crumbling. I needed reinforcements.

  “Come in and eat, Darcy.” He stroked his thumb across my cheek.

  “You’re so bossy,” I said.

  “And you like it,” he replied, clicking open his seat belt and then releasing mine.

  As much as I wanted to stay angry at him, he knew how to remind me of the Logan Steele that I liked. The way he made me melt like butter when he touched me. The way he took control in the bedroom. Those deep blue eyes that I so easily sank into. If only he wasn’t hell-bent on disrupting our beautiful village.

  “You’re going to wish you’d never invited me in, you know. Because, while you’re making omelets, I’m going to try to convince you that going another way with Manor House Club makes more sense.”

  He held the front door open and I stepped inside.

  “I look forward to it—as long as you remember it’s business, and not personal.”

  “Which means you make a decision based on business sense, rather than emotion.” I followed him into the kitchen and took a seat when he pulled out one of the pine chairs around the table.

  “Exactly,” he said, opening the wine fridge and pulling out a bottle. “If you come up with a better proposition for the development, then I want to hear about it.”

  “Really?” I held the stem of the glass he’d set in front of me as he poured out the wine. He hadn’t even asked me if I wanted a glass, but I did. Perhaps he could tell.

  “Really.” He shrugged off his jacket and hung it on the back of the chair next to mine. “Like I said, it’s just business. Cheese?” he asked.

  “It’s not personal, it’s cheese?”

  He chuckled. “Christ, you’re adorable.” He bent and kissed me on the top of my head. “You want cheese in your omelet?”

  “Do you have peppers?” I asked.

  “I think so.” He took a sip of his wine and set it next to mine.

  “So let me give you all the business reasons why—”

  “I’d really like to hear more about why you personally are so against it. It doesn’t quite add up to me.”

  “I’ve been through this with you. The increased air pollution from the traffic, the divide it will create between members and non-members—”

  “Yes, I’ve heard all that. I don’t hear you in any of it.” He pulled eggs, cheese, peppers and an onion out of the fridge and set them on the counter. “You seem as determined to maintain Woolton in the same way as I was to buy Badsley House back.”

  “I agree. I’m at least as determined.”

  “So talk me about why it matters to you. You know how personal Badsley is to me.”

  Why was he being so difficult? I was giving him good, solid arguments. “I told you. I want to maintain the customs and traditions.”

  “And why are they so important to you?”

  “I’ve told you. I don’t understand why you keep asking the same question.” It was as if he were interrogating me. Perhaps he just wanted to be distracted from thoughts of his grandmother.

  He turned to me, looked at me intently. “Tell me your first memory of Woolton.”

  I sighed and slumped back in my chair. He wasn’t going to give up. “Probably Ryder and me down by the stream.”

  “How old were you?”

  I shrugged. “I must have been about five.”

  Logan chuckled. “And your parents let Ryder take you down to the river.”

  I tried to remember back to that time. “We had a lot of freedom at Woolton. We were visiting. Again. And we didn’t want to go home.” I smiled at the memory of feeling completely free. The sun speckling through the trees. The cool water of the stream as it ran over my toes. In all my memories of Woolton the sun always shone, and everyone was smiling and happy. “It was the first time I saw a dragonfly. Ryder told me that it was lucky and that if we made a wish, whatever we wished for would come true. I said my wish out loud. I wanted to stay at Woolton Hall forever.”

  “And your wish came true,” he said.

  “Yeah, for better or for worse.” Children shouldn’t wish their parents away, but I had, and more than that, I’d been more than happy when my wish had been granted.

  “For worse? I’ve never heard you say anything bad about Woolton.”

  “And I’m not now. But that time when our mother left us at Woolton, she didn’t come back. We didn’t see her again for two years.” Our mother would regularly dump us at Woolton Hall and go off on some mission to find her inner whatever. “Before that, it had been only a few weeks here or there. I don’t really remember. But that time she didn’t come back. And my wish came true.”

  “God, Darcy, I had no idea. Did you miss her?”

  Why was I talking about this? I was supposed to be convincing Logan that he should abandon his appeal. “No, I didn’t miss her. I had my grandparents and Woolton and the magic of the dragonflies and the endless summer days. I think maybe Ryder did. He was older and understood more about what was going on. And now, looking back, I realize I should have missed her more than I did.”

  “What about your father?”

  Logan’s question caught me a little off-guard. I never thought about him. “He left before that. Ryder doesn’t even remember him. I have no idea who he is.”

  Logan abandoned his cooking, wiped his hands on a cloth and came and sat opposite me. “I’m sorry. I think I assumed you lived this privileged life this whole time and—”

  “I did in many ways.” I picked up my glass of wine. “I had my brother and my grandparents. I didn’t lack for food or love and I grew up in this wonderful place.” I took a sip, wanting to clear my throat. “Ryder and I just had parents who didn’t want to be parents.”

  I tried to ignore the comfort that Logan’s hand on my leg provided. It was all so long ago, but I had forgotten about the dragonfly. And the wish. “Woolton is a magical place for me. It’s a place I’ve always felt safe in. The sense of community, the values…I’ve experienced places and people who don’t hold those things dear and I don’t want that for Woolton. I want the children who grow up here to think it’s magical too. To be dragged down to the stream by their big brothers to see dragonflies when they are too young. To have wishes come true. I want Woolton to be a place where everyone feels safe.” My voice began to crack and I swallowed.

  Logan pulled me onto his lap and brought his arms around me. “Now I get it. The village saved you, so now you’re all about saving the village.”

  I’d never thought about it like that, but he was right. I wanted to protect this place just like it had protected me.

  After a few moments, my stomach growled, filling the silence.

  “Come on, I owe you an omelet.”

  I wanted to stay in his arms, but food was a good second choice.

  “Do you need a hand?”

  “I think I can handle an omelet.”

  “You don’t seem like the kind of man who cooks.” I shifted my chair so I could stare at his broad back as he worked. His muscles bunched and released under his shirt, reminding me of how he’d moved when we’d slept together. How every touch had been so deliberate and calculated.

  “I enjoy it.”

  “I’d like to cook more,” I said. “I don’t get the chance much because it’s still very much Cook’s kitchen at Woolton.”

  He turned as he whisked the eggs with the fork. “You have a lot of staff, but it’s just you. Is that weird?”

  I shrugged. “It’s how I grew up, so I don’t really know anything else. And of course, Ryder and Scar
lett come to stay every six weeks or so. The house is a lot busier then.”

  “But you can’t get into your own kitchen when you want to?”

  I wasn’t sure if he expected an answer, so I stayed quiet. He didn’t understand. It just was how it was done in big, old estates.

  “You can come cook here whenever you want.” He plated the omelet, which looked perfect. He’d even added some salad. Who was this guy?

  I picked up my fork as Logan sat in the chair next to mine. Our knees touched as he sat forward, but instead of moving away, I let myself enjoy it. His touch had a soothing and comforting quality that I wanted to indulge in a little.

  He sliced through the omelet with his fork. Last time we’d had dinner it had been at one of the best restaurants in London, and now here we were, eating omelets around his kitchen table. I wasn’t enjoying tonight any less, and I liked that he seemed equally as comfortable in both settings. He wasn’t one of those men who insisted on being treated like a king wherever he went.

  “I have to get to work over the weekend and end up with an alternative site for you,” I said.

  He chuckled, wiping the corner of his mouth with his napkin. “I look forward to that.”

  “You’re not the only one who’s tenacious, you know.”

  “I’m well aware.” He leaned back against his chair and slid his legs between mine.

  “The omelet was delicious.”

  “Something a little more sophisticated next time,” he said.

  I reached for his plate. “Let me—”

  “Absolutely not.” He stood, and before I could object had piled everything into the dishwasher.

  “I should go,” I said, the wooden legs of my chair scraping against the terra-cotta floor as I stood.

  In a second he was in front of me, his hands gripping my shoulders. Instinctively, I placed my hands flat against his hard chest, my gaze fixed to the triangle of exposed skin at his throat. He walked me back against the kitchen counter and I gasped when he lifted me onto the granite, but I didn’t resist. I wanted this. I wanted him.

  He looped his fingers through mine and leaned forward to capture my lips.

  His mouth was as warm and strong as I remembered. He transformed my thoughts from I-shouldn’t-be-doing-this into please-don’t-stop. He switched seamlessly from an enemy to a man I wanted naked and on top of me.

  Sliding his tongue between my lips, he groaned. Heat pulsed between my thighs both at his touch and at the idea that I could make him make those sounds. A man who must have had so many women was at my mercy.

  I tried to twist my fingers from his, but he growled, tightened his grip and pulled back to look at me. “Are you saying no?”

  “What? I—” I glanced at our joined hands. I wanted to run my fingers over his end of day scruff, trace a line over his collarbone. I wanted to touch him.

  “If you’re saying no, I’ll release you. But if you’re not, then I’m in charge—you know how this goes.”

  My skin tightened and my breath shortened. I did know how it went. And I liked it. More than liked it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Logan

  Nothing about this day had turned out as I’d expected, but there was no better way to end it than in bed with my tongue in Darcy Westbury’s pussy. She might be spiky on the outside, but she was so fucking sweet on the inside.

  Going down on her could become an addiction.

  Despite her best efforts to stay still, and my hands curled around her waist, she bucked underneath me. So far, she’d managed to keep her hands above her head as I’d instructed.

  “Logan, please,” she cried out.

  I grinned. Begging me for release already?

  I flattened my tongue against her clit.

  “You want to come, baby,” I asked.

  “Don’t stop, please don’t stop. I’ll do anything. Please.”

  Jesus, her begging had my cock aching, and urging me to get her off and plunge inside. I resisted, took a steadying breath, and made long, steady strokes with my tongue, guaranteed to set her off. Her thighs began to tremble and her back arched as she screamed, “Oh. God. Logan.”

  I didn’t know what was more invigorating, her twitching pussy around my tongue or my dick. I stood, wiped my mouth on the back of my hand, and watched as her stomach rose and fell, her breasts heaving and she opened her heavy eyelids.

  “Hey,” I said as she looked at me, her face flushed, her limbs heavy.

  “Hey.” She bit back a smile as if she’d been caught out doing something that she shouldn’t. “I’m sorry, was I too loud?”

  “You were perfect.” I stroked her thigh, then pressed a kiss inside her knee. “I like hearing your pleasure.”

  She crinkled her nose as if she couldn’t bear to remember how she’d begged me to make her come.

  “Now undress me, please.”

  She slipped off the bed and reached for the top button of my shirt. “Why wouldn’t you let me before?” she asked as she worked her way down my torso.

  Going down on a woman was always better when they were completely naked and you were fully dressed. The balance of power was more pronounced in my favor. “Because I said so.”

  “You know, I wouldn’t put up with that kind of answer if we weren’t…”

  “But we are and you will.” I wouldn’t expect her to let me get away with telling her what to do without question under any other circumstances. I wouldn’t want to, either. I enjoyed her spirit, her challenge. The way she went head to head with me so openly. In the boardroom, it was much more subtle. Darcy’s power outside the bedroom wasn’t subtle. And it was the contrast between her in the bedroom and out of the bedroom that had me harder than flint. Her fingers grazed my skin as she pulled my shirt from my trousers.

  I couldn’t stop myself from cupping her face and kissing her.

  Everything about her drew me to her, had me switching everything up. When was the last time I’d taken the same woman to bed twice? Let alone a woman who I knew. Someone who knew my grandmother.

  She slid her fingers around my waistband and fumbled with my fly. Despite every molecule of my body urging me to strip off and bury myself into her hard and fast, I was determined to continue smoothing my thumbs over her cheeks and working my tongue against hers.

  She gasped as her palms brushed over my erection.

  “You ready?” I asked as I pulled back.

  She nodded, and I grabbed a handful of her perfect arse. “Turn around. On all fours.” Despite being desperate to see her on her knees in front of me, my dick in her mouth, I’d explode instantly—I wasn’t ready for that.

  She climbed onto the bed and looked back at me over her shoulder, as if expecting to be marked out of ten. I avoided her gaze but took in every inch of her body. Her creamy white skin, her glossy brown hair, her breasts swaying gently as if goading me into action.

  “Logan?”

  “Yes, Darcy?” I didn’t stop my inspection of her body, the curve of her back, the roundness of her arse, the goosebumps along her skin, the way her fingers clutched at the sheets despite the fact that I wasn’t touching her. If I could have invented a woman, my imagination couldn’t have come up with anything better.

  “Logan, please.” She leaned back on her knees, stretched her arms and I gave her a quick, sharp slap on her backside.

  She snapped back into position, giving me a beautiful view of her swollen pussy. I slid a condom over my straining erection and I kneeled on the bed behind her. Lining myself up, and with one hand on her hip, I pushed inside her. My heart rate doubled and I had to close my eyes against the blinding lights. Jesus, had she felt like this the first time?

  “Logan, Logan, Logan,” she chanted breathless and desperate.

  I took a deep breath. Fuck, I had to get myself together or I was going to embarrass myself.

  I tried to block out how good she felt, how soft her skin was, how tight her pussy was. I tried not to think about how this feisty, fun
ny, loyal woman buckled under my touch and pleaded for my cock. Instead, I thrust, my eyes screwed shut, my hands tight against her hips instead of exploring her rounded bottom or her smooth back. I knew it would be too much, so I focused on my heartbeat rather than the perfect sounds of her moans.

  She tightened around me and her piercing scream and her fierce climax shattered the fog I’d tried to bury myself in.

  I wasn’t the only one having a hard time fighting falling over the edge.

  I slowed my pace to a standstill as her entire body shook. “Twice already? You’re greedy tonight.”

  “I…I can’t help myself. When I’m with you, it’s as if my body has been taken over.”

  While I knew our fucking was the best I’d ever had, it was gratifying to hear this wasn’t a one-way street. That I was nothing like her past experiences. “Your body is mine when you’re with me.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, bowing her head.

  Her agreement took the edge off my desperate need to come. She’d confessed she was already mine—I could take my time in claiming her. I rocked in and out of her, wanting the heat in her to build again. It didn’t take long before renewed wetness burst from her and I pushed further each time, one hand curling around her shoulder so I could get as deep as possible. Pleasure shot through me, piercing my body from every angle.

  I was so close. But I didn’t want to come like this. Something was missing.

  My swollen cock throbbed angrily against my stomach as if cursing me for making it wait so long for release, but I wanted more than to just come. I wanted to feel bound and connected to the woman I was fucking.

  “Logan?” Darcy asked, her hair flicking across her back as she turned her head to figure out what was going on. Her cheeks were flushed, her barely noticeable eyeliner a little smudged, her hair a little mussed. I’d never seen her look so sexy.

  “Turn over,” I whispered.

  She frowned, as if confused by my request, but complied anyway, shifting onto her back and propping herself up on her elbows, her eyes never leaving mine. I crawled over her, relishing the heat of her body, how soft she was, how perfect she felt against me. I caged her head and dipped to kiss her.