by Anna Durand
Why, then, did I spend an hour choosing my clothes on Saturday morning? I never spent more than thirty seconds contemplating my wardrobe. Today, I changed my outfit three times before I walked out the door of my hotel room.
I had even shaved, which I never did on the weekend.
We gathered in the dining room of Evan and Keely's house this time, rather than on the patio. It was a bonnie day full of sunshine, but according to Keely, brunch belonged in the dining room. When I'd pointed out the day was plenty warm enough for an outdoor meal, she shook her head.
"No, Logan," she said, "brunch is indoors. We may have hosted a brunch outside last year when my family visited, but nowadays it's an indoor activity."
"But bonnie women deserve to be seen in the sunshine."
Keely kissed my cheek. "You are such a sweetie-pie in disguise."
I decided not to question her statement. It was ludicrous, calling a spy a sweetie-pie, but she meant well.
Serena arrived with her son a few minutes later.
I kissed Serena's cheek in greeting. And then I wondered why I'd done that. It had been instinct, I supposed, nothing more and nothing less.
The lass gawped at me like I'd pulled out a gun and aimed it at her face.
Her son thrust his hand out to me.
I shook it. "Good morning, Chase."
"Good morning. It's way cool you're here. Mom didn't tell me you would be."
"Because I didn't know," Serena said, now eying me sideways.
She must have suspected, but maybe she'd hoped to be wrong about how meddlesome Evan and Keely were.
Evan popped out of the kitchen and trotted toward us. "We have a wee bit of an emergency. I forgot to buy maple syrup."
Keely emerged from the kitchen moving much slower than her husband.
"You forgot?" I said, giving Evan my hardest stare, the one that usually convinced men to confess everything. "You expect us to believe you accidentally neglected to buy syrup."
"Aye," Evan said, unaffected by my attempt to intimidate him. "I forgot. It happens, Logan. Would you like to check the cupboards?"
I studied him for a moment. "No, I believe you."
"Keely and I will go to the store." He looked at Chase. "Why don't you come with us?"
Now that was a purposeful act. He might have honestly forgotten to buy syrup, but his suggestion the laddie go with them to the store was pure conniving.
"Can I, Mom?" Chase asked.
"When have you ever voluntarily gone to the grocery store?" She threw a furtive glance my way. "Fine. Have a blast shopping for syrup."
"Awesome. Thanks, Mom."
Evan, Keely, and Chase left in the Porsche SUV owned by our hosts.
Serena and I were alone. In a large house. With five bedrooms, two sofas, and various other pieces of furniture that would work nicely as locations for a good poke.
I tore my gaze away from the large, well-padded sofa in the living room. I tried not to look at Serena, but my eyes had a different idea. They gravitated to her like she was a black hole dragging me into oblivion.
She shrugged out of her jacket and hung it on the rack beside the door.
Bod an Donais. The woman wore a short denim skirt that exposed most of her shapely thighs and a sweater that clung to her body, accentuating her breasts. The neckline dipped low enough to grant me a glimpse of those lush slopes.
My cock woke up.
Serena swept her gaze over my entire body. She drew in a slow, deep breath while her tongue darted out to moisten her lips.
I focused on the wall and coughed into my fist. "What should we do while they're gone?"
"Please fuck me, Logan."
Her request stunned me to the point of paralysis. I couldn't blink or move my eyes, and I certainly could not speak. My muscles refused to function, my brain too. All the blood in my body flooded into my slat.
"Did you hear me?" she asked.
"Aye." Women had propositioned me before, many times. Why did her request leave me speechless and frozen? "I heard, but I'm half convinced it was an auditory hallucination."
Why had I said that? A dead stupid confession.
Serena stepped in front of me, her gray eyes sharp and clear and focused on me. The stiletto heels of her shoes elevated her to near my height. "I want you to fuck me, Logan. Is that real enough for you?"
"You said it would never happen again."
"I changed my mind." She inched closer, so near to me that her breasts nudged my chest and I could feel their hard tips. "Every night I have vivid dreams about you doing all sorts of naughty things to me, and I wake up wet and tangled in the sheets. I've had to create my own happy ending every night. Last night, I did that four times. And it's all your fault."
"My fault?"
She nodded solemnly. "That's right. I can't get a good night's sleep because of you, so it's your responsibility to make sure I can get some shuteye tonight."
And she thought I was insane? Serena had a bucketful of screws loose inside her head.
What are you complaining about? She wants you, so fuck her, man. Do it now.
This was what I'd wanted since the first time I'd seen her, more so since our aborted attempt in the copy room. Serena's offer had stunned me, but I would rise to the challenge.
I was rising right now. Rising and throbbing.
"Where do you want it?" I asked.
"Anywhere you want." Her lips curved into a teasing smile. "We should probably avoid office equipment, though."
I swept her into my arms and carried her into the living room. When I dropped her onto the sofa, she let out an oddly adorable squeak of surprise. I straddled her legs.
She glanced at the bulge in my trousers and licked her lips. "We probably have fifteen minutes until they get back from the store. Better skip the foreplay." She smiled again in that teasing way. "Not that you worried about that the first time."
Her reminder of our first awful encounter made me want to prove to her I wasn't a selfish prick, the sort who cared about his own pleasure and didn't give a toss about his lover's satisfaction. I needed to prove it to her. My stubborn side demanded it, but the time restriction made that difficult.
We had to do this fast. Maybe we should've waited until a better time, but the second she'd asked me to fuck her, my cock had shot hard as steel. I couldn't wait. My breathing was labored, my entire groin ached for her, and I was...shaking. What the hell? I didn't quiver with need, not for any woman.
But Serena wasn't any woman.
"Hurry it up," she said with a hint of annoyance. "We don't have much time."
I pushed her skirt up and dragged her knickers down to her ankles. The scent of her desire flooded my senses. I hauled in a deep breath, savoring the aroma, hungering to taste her. No time for that. I undid my trousers and pushed them down enough to free my cock. When I dug a condom packet out of my pocket, Serena snatched it away.
"Let me do that," she said, her voice husky and her breathing heavy.
She ripped open the packet and slanted closer.
I watched her hand, my focus riveted to it as she rolled the condom over me. If I'd had any self-control left before she did that, it disintegrated at the sensation of her long, elegant fingers sliding up my shaft.
A deep groan resonated in my chest.
She lay back on the sofa, arms crossed above her head, breasts heaving. The blush of desire tinted her cheeks, and when she spread her thighs, the sight of her glistening pink flesh took my breath away.
I grasped her hips, lifted them, and thrust inside her. Even with a thin layer of latex between our bodies, the feel of her hot sheath penetrated into me. God, she felt good. Incredible. Perfect. I held still for a moment, our bodies merged, reveling in the sensations and the vision of her face tight with need and her nipples jutting against her sweater. As badly as I wanted to tear off her clothes and suck those nipples, we didn't have time for it.
She locked her legs around my hips. Her stilettos dug into my erse at the exact moment when she clenched her inner muscles around me.
"Fuck," I snarled, then I pulled my hips back and drove into her.
Her neck arched. Her back arched. She gripped the sofa's arm above her head, her nails scraping on the fabric. "Hurry, Logan, please."
My name tumbling from her lips pushed me over the edge.
I pumped into her fast and hard, relentless in my need to make it to the finish line this time. I braced my hands on the sofa's arm and punched into her over and over and over until the slapping of flesh and our fevered grunts became a cacophony of lust. Her stilettos bit into me hard enough to leave bruises, I was sure, and still I fucked her with a mounting intensity.
The sofa thumped and shook.
Serena's cries echoed through the room.
I swung a hand down to rub her clit.
"Logan!" she screamed as her body convulsed under me and her sheath pulsated around my cock.
My body went rigid. My back bowed, and I came with a blinding power. By the time my senses started working again, Serena lay limp beneath me.
I gaped down at her for several seconds, unable to move, before my muscles gave out and I collapsed on top of her. With the last iota of energy I had left, I turned sideways to avoid crushing the lass. I wound up half wedged between her body and the sofa's back, and half sprawled over her.
She held the back of her hand to her rosy cheek. Between gasping breaths, she said, "That was definitely an improvement over the first time."
"An improvement?" I lifted my head off her shoulder. "I made ye come so hard ye screamed my name. Ye writhed like a wild thing."
"Yeah, okay, I did that." She wriggled away from me to sit up. "You'll be out of my system now. We can go back to our normal lives."
Out of her system? Like hell. Having her once, making her come for me, had taken the edge off my need but hadn't gotten rid of it. I still wanted her. And I was sure she wanted me too.
We needed to do that again. Aye, another time would get rid of the problem.
Serena stood and righted her clothes, then wandered over to the nearest window.
Twice we'd had sex, and I still didn't know what she looked like naked. Those luscious breasts couldn't be as perfect as I imagined. Maybe that was why I still craved her body, because I hadn't seen all of it yet. Aye, that explained it.
Serena gazed out the window with the slightest smile curving her lips. Her hair shimmered a lustrous toffee brown in the sunlight that filtered through the windows, and her gray eyes seemed bluer in the soft light.
The woman was bonnie. Her mouth was the problem, or rather the words that came out of it.
Her eyes went wide. Her jaw dropped, and she whirled around with her shoulders bunched.
I sat up. "What's wrong?"
"They're back." She twitched her head like she couldn't decide in which direction to look and flapped her hands at me. "Get off the sofa and cover yourself up. They're pulling into the driveway."
The pitch of her voice rose with every word she spoke.
I got up, stretched, and stripped off the condom. Zipping up my trousers, I glanced around in search of a trash bin but couldn't find one. "Do you see a bin?"
"A bin of what?" she almost shrieked.
"The kind that holds trash."
"I don't see a trash can." She frantically patted her hair. "Do I have sex hair?"
Since I had no idea what "sex hair" looked like, I shrugged.
The lass ran up to me and pounded her fists on my chest. "They'll walk through the door any second."
I stuffed the used condom in my pocket. "Sit down, Serena. If we're on the sofa having a blether, no one will think we just fucked."
She gnawed on her lip.
"Have a seat, Serena." I sat down, hoping to encourage her.
Gingerly, she lowered her bum onto the sofa, leaving a distinct gap between us.
I laid an arm across the sofa, angling toward her.
Evan, Keely, and Chase entered the house and spotted us in the living room.
"There they are," Evan said, smiling as he spotted me and Serena.
Keely smiled at us too. "And they haven't killed each other."
Chase grinned.
The five of us headed into the dining room. Naturally, Evan and his wife had conspired to seat me beside Serena. Evan took the chair at the head of the table while Keely and Chase occupied the seats across from me and Serena. Our brunch consisted of pancakes, sausage links and patties, biscuits, blueberry muffins, bacon, waffles, eggs, and toast. The eggs came in three varieties—scrambled, fried, and hardboiled. They'd even supplied a few Scottish favorites like Lorne sausage, tattie scones, and fried tomatoes.
Once the feast was laid out on the table, I arched a brow at Evan. "This is enough food for the entire MacTaggart clan. I know teenage lads eat a lot, but this seems like overkill for one boy."
"Chase doesn't eat like that," Serena said, smiling at her son across the table. "He's the most civilized teenager you'll meet, and the sweetest."
The lad in question rolled his eyes. "Mom, jeez, don't wreck my rep. I'm not sweet or civilized, I'm a badass."
"No cursing," Serena said in the stern tone every parent seemed to learn the second their first child was born.
Chase rolled his eyes again.
Evan leaned back in his chair, hands linked over his lap. "We need all this food for the other guests who haven't arrived yet."
I squinted at my cousin. "What other guests?"
"You'll see."
The table did have three other chairs, one at the end opposite Evan and one on each side next to me and Chase. Three chairs. Three. I stared at the vacant seat at the end of the table, the number three echoing in my brain.
Why did the number three set my stomach to churning?
The doorbell chimed.
Evan sprang up from his chair and flashed me a sly smile. "They're here."
I didn't get the chance to ask who was here. Evan took off through the dining room door and out of sight. I swung my attention to Keely. "What has your husband done?"
She feigned innocence, even batting her eyelashes in the attempt. "What do you mean?"
Feminine laughter echoed through the house.
My spine snapped straight. My gaze shot to the doorway. I knew that laughter. I'd heard it all my life.
Evan ambled into the dining room and moved aside. He spread one arm to indicate the three women who followed him into the room. "Our guests have arrived."
Isla, Elspeth, and Kirsty stepped across the threshold.
"Logie!" Isla exclaimed, throwing her arms out as if she intended to hug me from halfway across the room.
Elspeth and Kirsty shouted "Logie!" too, and all three descended on me. They flung their arms around me, and I could no longer see anything through the wall of lavender-scented bodies. They kissed my cheeks and ruffled my hair. Isla cooed sounds that might have been words, but in her baby-talk voice none of it made sense. Elspeth called me her "bonnie sweet Logie."
Kirsty whispered into my ear, "Donnae be angry. It was their idea, but I agreed we needed to come and check on you."
As the middle sister, Kirsty had always been the mediator between Elspeth and Isla. She was the most level-headed of the three, aside from her insinuations that she had psychic powers. It made sense Kirsty hadn't come up with this ridiculous ambush scheme.
But I was certain Evan had conspired with them.
My sisters stopped suffocating me and each took a small step back.
Their gazes landed on Serena—and they rushed at her.
Bloody fucking hell.
Chapter Eight
Serena
Three beautiful women swarmed me, firing off so many questions I couldn't sort out who'd asked what or how to respond. Who on earth were these women? They knew Logan, that much was clear. They'd called him "Logie
" and fussed over him like he was their child. All of them were too young to be his mother. Very young aunts? Maybe sisters?
Logan pushed his chair back and stood, clearing his throat. His expression had reverted to his usual unreadable state.
"Serena," he said, nailing his gaze to mine, "meet my sisters. Isla, Elspeth, and Kirsty."
He pointed to each sister as he named them, but I couldn't get a clear view of them, what with the MacTaggart ladies surrounding me. They touched my hair and cooed about how soft and bonnie it was. They admired my clothes, telling me how "posh" I was. They giggled and whispered things I couldn't understand, maybe Gaelic. I knew a little bit of the language, but not enough to keep up with what they were saying. Their cheerful banter and laughter filled the dining room.
A sharp whistle pierced the din.
Logan's sisters fell silent, straightened, and faced their brother.
He was just removing his fingers from his mouth.
"What's wrong, Logie?" one of the sisters asked, her expression full of genuine innocence.
"You are suffocating Serena." His voice held no censure, only a hint of affection that matched the tiny upward tick of his lips. "If you kill her, you can't conspire to get us married off."
"Good point," the sister he'd spoken to said. She nodded to the other two. "We're being rude, aren't we?"
A chorus of ayes followed as each sister repeated the affirmation multiple times.
Logan's sisters backed away from my chair, and a different one spoke this time. "Serena, would ye mind awfully standing? It's hard to do a proper introduction at the table."
How did this woman know my name? I doubted Logan talked about me to anyone, and he clearly hadn't known they were coming. I imagined Evan had told the sisters all about me. Well, Evan and Keely. My best friend was currently giving me a sheepish look, her shoulders hunched.
I shook my head at her and pushed up out of my chair, turning to face Logan's sisters.