His face was expressionless for a moment. But then it changed and he looked astounded, as if a light bulb had just gone off in his head. Then he began laughing. He glanced around the kitchen and then back to her. He frowned in confusion. “What’s wrong with the plates being in the cabinet directly above the dishwasher? Why to the left or the right?”
She narrowed her eyes at him and would have slammed her hands on her hips if he hadn’t held her so tightly. “Because I’m too short to reach that cabinet when the dishwasher is opened. I have to walk all the way around it and then go up on my tiptoes.”
There was a glimmer of amusement in his eyes and she felt like hitting him. “Why not just stack them on the counter and close the dishwasher and then put them away?”
She felt a flare of temper and gave him a withering stare. “Are you arguing with me just for the sake of an argument?” She exhaled a pent-up breath. “I don’t like to extend housework. I like to get it finished quickly and stacking the dishes is adding another step to the process.”
“So, basically you’re okay with the kitchen, you just don’t like the way I have things arranged?”
Her lips flattened and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Yep.” She took a deep breath and took a look around. “The kitchen itself is gorgeous.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “So change it.”
Lauren didn’t think she’d heard correctly. Mr. Perfectionist was telling her she could mess with his stuff? “I’m sorry, what?”
“Change it. Move the crap around. Put it where you want it. I don’t care; I don’t spend a lot of time in here.” He turned to walk out. “I’ve got work to do, let me know if you need help with any of the heavy stuff.” And then he stopped and turned and faced her again. “Lauren … if there’s anything at all about the house you don’t like, just change it and if you need help, tell me, okay?”
She nodded, and after he left, Lauren leaned back against the sink, totally discomfited. He’d answered her in a serious tone, as if he really wanted her to be happy and at home. She took a few deep breaths, trying to slow her heart rate. And then she glanced around at the gorgeous kitchen with a tiny arrow of excitement that she tried to suppress. This was going to be fun.
But crap.
Things were getting deeper by the day.
****
Two hours later, Logan walked on silent feet to the bar that overlooked the kitchen. Lauren was on her knees with her head and shoulders inside one of the lower cabinets and all his stuff was in piles and stacks on top of the granite countertops. A sharp, fierce coil of pleasure heated his guts as he silently watched her.
The feeling wasn’t sexual. At least not for the most part. His satisfaction was coming from having her in his kitchen, messing with his stuff, moving it around and putting her mark on it, making it hers.
Whoa. He wanted his kitchen to be her kitchen. That was damn basic.
He stood and watched her for a few moments, enjoying the sway of her hips and the perfect roundness of her butt as she reached farther into the low space. He swelled against his jeans, but he fought his arousal, because this moment wasn’t about sex. A gratified smile twisted his lips, and a haunting fire licked down his spine. He was getting so close. So fucking close to his goal, that he could taste it.
It didn’t escape Logan’s notice that he should be running for cover and throwing her out of his house. That’s what guys were supposed to do when women got too clingy, wasn’t it? But damn, she never got clingy. Besides, Lauren wasn’t like other women. Other women, he could barely tolerate. They were usually good for only one thing, but that wasn’t the case with Lauren. Lauren was her own woman, damn it; she had a life of her own and he continually had to ram himself against her reserved outer layer so that he could be a part of that life.
But he was getting close.
He’d have her, and sooner, rather than later, if he had his way about it. She was like the proverbial Little Red Riding Hood, taking one step too close to the Big, Bad Wolf.
And when she did, he’d have her. And that would be that.
****
Lauren turned off the water in the shower stall and breathed a sigh of relief. Crawling around in the cabinets and moving everything around had taken a lot more work than she’d expected. She grabbed a towel, wrapped it around her body and walked out of the bathroom.
Drying her hair with another large towel, she came to a dead halt in the middle of the bedroom. Her stomach twisted with heat, and her nerves jangled to life.
Logan lay on the center of the bed, completely nude, with his hands laced behind his head, staring straight at her. He lifted a hand and crooked a finger at her, and Lauren’s eyes took in his straining erection.
“Come here,” he drawled deep in his throat.
Never thinking to deny him, never wanting to, like an automaton, Lauren took two seconds to squeeze the excess moisture from her hair and then dropped the towel on the floor. Goosebumps shivered over her skin and as his erection jerked and throbbed, her feminine channel flooded with answering moisture.
It was a damp and dreary day, romantic in the bedroom with the rain softly falling against the windowpanes, and Lauren didn’t hesitate. She dropped the remaining towel that hid her body from his, and climbed over the foot of the bed.
Their glances connected and his arrogant half-smile disappeared completely as tension gripped his muscles. Incendiary heat built between them and the primal expression on his face accelerated the blood as it pumped through her veins. She felt an intoxicating need to take him into her mouth. He only ever allowed it for a small while; his patience was always tested and she never got to play with him the way she wanted to. It never failed, he always flipped her to her back before she got what she wanted; he rarely allowed her to bring him to completion this way. But when he did, it was awe-inducing.
Lauren looked at the washboard abs of his six-pack clenched in uncontested strength. He seemed to lounge back almost indolently, but she knew him well enough to know it was a facade; he looked as if he could attack in two seconds flat if he wanted to or needed to. She smelled the raw sizzle of primitive hunger that wrapped around them. His face was stamped with authority, like he was about to get his way in all things, but Lauren was about to dispute that dominance in a non-verbal way of her own.
She slowly scooted up another few inches, keeping her eyes on him the entire time, as if he were a sleeping lion that couldn’t be trusted. His legs were spread just enough that she could slide between his thighs and keep her own legs tightly closed. She made the move and took his straining cock triumphantly in one hand.
His head jerked and he sucked oxygen in through his teeth. “Lauren,” he growled, his hands staying behind his head for the moment, but the muscles in his forearms were strained and his biceps bulged.
She leaned down and took a single swipe with her tongue, her lips against the head of his arousal as she held his eyes. “Hmm?”
“You better be careful,” he said in a rough threat that sent chills down her midsection, but scared her, not in the least.
“I’m always careful around you, Logan,” she purred, taking another swipe with her tongue. “I’d be crazy not to be.”
She found a drop of pre-cum, sticky and salty, and as he watched, she licked it up and savored it on her tongue before swallowing. Then she moved up another notch and fastening her eyes on his, she took him deep in her mouth and held him there.
His eyes flared and his hands jerked down and landed on her shoulders. Lauren felt the small, square package he’d held ready in his fingers the entire time. He watched her now, intently, looking drugged and mesmerized as she continued to taste him. Lauren sucked and licked him, exactly the way they both liked it best.
He groaned, deep and long, and Lauren thought for a moment that he would let her finish what she was doing, but it wasn’t to be. He released her and lifted the plastic package to his mouth, ripping it open with his teeth. He moved her away and pulled her up
to him by the shoulders, donning the protection quickly. “Later.” And then he flipped her to her back and came over her. He moved down over her stomach, scattering a wet path of kisses over her belly. He stopped and draped her thighs over his shoulders and began performing the same act on her that he’d just made her abandon on him. His tongue was hot and wet, and he put his finger on her clit and began massaging it, in time with the strokes of his tongue as it plunged in and out of her.
Lauren saw stars and began to feel a familiar tightening sensation, but he knew it, damn him, and he changed his tactic. He slid his long, thick, middle finger inside of her and began swiping her clit with his tongue, abrading it and rubbing it until her world narrowed to him and only him. “Logan,” she began.
“What,” he asked, in a deep, rough voice, but he never stopped.
“Logan,” she tried again.
“What?” he asked more harshly as she began a keening sound that signaled her coming release.
Lauren’s brain liquefied and colors lit the sky. At the height of her orgasm, her thought process splintered and all she could think of was one thing. “I love you,” she panted in mind-blowing oblivion, just as her world exploded around her.
He held her tightly with his mouth and hands for a few seconds while she rode her orgasm, and then he pulled away from her only long enough to crawl on top and sink inside of her.
He took one deep breath and began lunging inside of her, his hold on her unbreakable.
Lauren knew something was different, but she was too far-gone to identify what it was. She only knew Logan was following her over, coming inside of her and that he was gripping her more tightly than he’d ever done before. She let go of the tiny thought that plagued her and focused on the joy that he’d brought into her world.
****
Logan lay beside Lauren with his arm thrown over his forehead, taking huge drags of oxygen into his lungs. Nothing he’d ever experienced in his life could compare to what had just happened to him. Not before her, and not since he’d met her. It was always good with her, it had always been good, from the very beginning, but what she’d just said to him was literally blowing his mind.
He liked it. No question he liked it. Fuck, he loved it.
But had she meant what she’d said? Or had she only said it because she’d been under the influence of a powerful orgasm? Did she only think she loved him because he knew how to push all of her buttons, how to give her the kind of sex that he knew for a fact she loved and that she’d never had before he came along?
Whatever. He was going to hold on tight and soon, he would remind her of what she’d said, because there was one damn thing he knew for sure: she was never getting away from him.
Never.
****
Lauren slowly recovered and she opened her eyes to find Logan flat on his back with his arm over his forehead, but his head was turned toward her and he was staring at her. His eyes held an expression she’d never seen before, except for possibly the first time they’d gone to bed together. They smoldered with a feral fire, a possessiveness that was inflexible. He stared at her without mercy, with no respite offered, with an irrefutable look that told her unequivocally that she belonged to him. She could clearly read the expression on his face. Suddenly, she knew; the window of opportunity to try to impose her will was gone. Logan was the master and he was seizing control.
She shivered in reaction and wondered what had put that expression on his face. And then it hit her like a shot in the dark.
She’d said it out loud. She’d told him the thing she’d been thinking for weeks. And he wasn’t kicking her out of bed and picking up his cell phone to block his number.
Oh, no, quite the contrary.
By his look she could tell that he was claiming her. He was letting her know that he’d not only heard what she’d said, but that he wasn’t going to let her take it back. He was invoking his authority and asserting his power. He would get his way in this.
A mind-numbing arrow of bliss flipped her stomach over. And why shouldn’t she let him have his way?
There was no reason she shouldn’t.
He was a good man and she was madly in love with him.
****
Slowly, over the next two weeks, Logan made sure that Lauren almost completely moved in with him. As she stood in her apartment after work one day and looked at the non-existent clothes left in her closet, it suddenly hit her how much of a one-track mind he had about their relationship.
He wanted it cemented. Set in stone. He’d never told her, but she could clearly see it.
She looked around her apartment. Her furniture still remained, of course, as did most everything in her kitchen. But the stuff she used daily, her clothes, her toiletries, her personal effects, everything was at his house now.
She had a set of keys to his house, and he had a set of keys to her apartment, even though they never stayed here anymore.
As she stood and looked around, she realized how quickly her life had become centered around him. And she was glad.
He made her happy, and the only ‘but’ to the equation was how quickly it had all happened. She was twenty-five years old, and she had never really imagined herself getting in so deep at this age. Several of her friends had gotten married the second they’d graduated from college. So twenty-five certainly wasn’t too young, but in that farthest area of her brain where she vaguely thought about a husband and children, she saw it in the future, maybe somewhere around twenty-eight or thirty.
Logan had turned twenty-nine the week before. She didn’t know why that thought suddenly seemed important to her, but it did.
She bent down and grabbed the bag she’d been hunting for at the back of her closet and walked out to the living room and tried to focus.
Abruptly she came to a dead stop as the realization hit her.
Logan was going to ask her to marry him.
She took a deep breath and sank down on the couch. Now that she thought about it, there was little doubt in her mind. She didn’t know when or how soon, but the notion wouldn’t go away. He was so utterly possessive that just living with her wouldn’t be enough for him. He’d want it all. He’d want her body, heart and soul.
And he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He had no ‘give’ to him. She would have to decide if she was going to break up with him, or marry him. She wasn’t going to break up with him, no way. There wasn’t a decision to be made. There was no way in hell she was giving him up.
Her heart began pounding against her breastbone as she went over his actions. He’d maneuvered her into this relationship from the very second he’d caught her staring at him, and she hadn’t really known why, other than the obvious reason.
He’d never said he loved her.
And she’d never said it again, either.
But thinking about it now, and not for the first time, she thought he did love her. He was just too ‘into her’, too caring, too possessive, too protective. It was almost as if his world revolved around her, and she got a squishy, marshmallow-like feeling in the pit of her stomach just thinking about it. Yeah, he gave her goosebumps and butterflies, and they didn’t seem to be letting up as the months slid by.
He was protective and so utterly possessive. She thought about what he’d said to her about someday wanting his sperm. Lauren could well and truly imagine having his children. She tried to picture another man as the father of those ambiguous little babies, and nothing came to her. Just the idea repelled her. All she wanted was Logan.
So she knew he was going to ask her to marry him. Or if she knew Logan, he’d probably tell her that she was going to marry him. And she was going to say yes, quick fast.
So, really, the only question was, when would it happen?
****
Logan pushed inside of Lauren and then stilled, trying to let the feel of her wrapped tightly around him soothe the ache he felt. Yeah, he had an ache, an emptiness in the pit of his stomach that he thought would be appeased
by sliding into her, but it was still there, fucking with his head.
He kissed her gently on the mouth and smoothed back her hair. She was soft and hot and tight around him, and he knew in a few seconds he wasn’t going to be able to control himself any longer. He was going to start pumping no matter what his brain was telling him to do.
But for now, he delved his tongue into her mouth and tasted her. She tasted of warmth and sweetness, of Lauren and… home. His tongue swirled around, tempting her to play with him. She moaned sweetly into his mouth, and she began sucking on his tongue as her hips lifted in a silent attempt to get him to move. An arrow of pure lust slammed him hard, but he still had a nagging emptiness that he couldn’t explain.
He lifted his head and stared down at her. She was peering at him intently, with her arms wrapped around his shoulders. She stared at him with a look of open desire, and his heart turned over in response. “You’re so sweet.”
Her sultry look turned so tender that it almost took his breath away. “You’re sweet too, Logan.”
He pushed farther inside and a spark arced between them, even as he quirked a half-smile. “No, I’m not, I’m an ass.” He tried to ignore the current of electricity that flowed between them and concentrate on her.
She hit his shoulder and lifted her hips at the same time. “You’re my ass.”
He couldn’t help it, he let out a smirk and she said, “That didn’t come out the right way.”
He dropped a single kiss on her lips. “I know what you meant.”
“And I’m right, aren’t I? You’re mine.” Her blue eyes held his.
He nodded his head, his gaze on hers as the demand she made somewhat mitigated the ache he felt. “Yeah.”
“And I’m yours,” she continued softly.
“Oh, yeah. You’re mine.” He slid out and pumped back into her, and she gasped. “You want me to do that again?”
She pushed her hips up to his, silently begging him for more. “I always want you to do that again,” she said in a voice colored with heightened arousal.
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