by Sandra Hyatt
And then she would berate herself for her daydreams because she knew that a good portion of the rest of the world daydreamed about having her life. She should be nothing but grateful.
“You have a very expressive face.”
Rebecca’s grip tightened on her fork. “Expressive?”
“Thoughts and emotions seem to flit through your eyes, even while you’re looking far away.”
“I do sometimes get a little caught up in my thoughts.”
“A man could find it less than flattering.”
As if he needed flattery from her. From anyone for that matter. “Doubtless women fawn all over you.”
“Less, I expect, than men fawn over you.”
“Actually, they don’t. They tend to be intimidated.”
“The threat of beheading, no doubt.” It must be something to do with the candlelight, the way it glinted in his eyes.
Rebecca smiled. “No one’s been beheaded in San Philippe in centuries.”
“The dungeons?”
“They’ve been converted. Lighting. Heating. Part’s even a gymnasium. You’d never guess their history.” And despite her joking she knew it wasn’t the nonexistent prospect of royal incarceration that kept suitors at bay. Though it was generous of Logan to give her that out. “No. I think I intimidate them.” It was only men like Logan with an agenda—to make it into royal circles—who were prepared to overlook “her” and the glass bowl of her life in order to get what they sought. But at least Logan had been honest about that, which gave her leave to be honest in return.
“You’re a princess. I can see how that might throw a man off his game, so to speak.”
“But not you?”
“A person’s a person. Regardless of what they do for a living, or where they live.”
“Not so many people think like that. But it’s more than the princess thing. I can be reserved.” And sometimes she came across as remote, cold even. And the more uncertain she was the more reserved she became.
“I noticed,” he said agreeably. “And haughty.”
“No. Just reserved.”
“Especially when you enunciate so clearly.”
Like she just had. Years of elocution lessons were almost impossible to recover from. The princess persona was all of her training. All of her security. “Is it bad?”
“I was teasing you, Princess.”
“That’s another thing. I’m not always sure when people—and you in particular—are joking. And I don’t want to not laugh if they’ve made a joke, but on the other hand I don’t want to laugh if they weren’t making a joke.”
“I’m sure you’re making this a whole lot harder than it needs to be. How about you laugh if and when something strikes you as funny?”
She shook her head. “Too risky.”
They lapsed into silence as their dessert arrived, a rich decadent chocolate tart, along with two spoons. The chocolate melted into her mouth, almost seeming to soak into it. They watched each other eat. Surreptitious glimpses and other more openly appreciative glances. And the liquid heat that she’d come to associate with Logan, as though her insides were following the example of the melting chocolate, filled her.
“Do you analyze everything?”
“Almost everything.”
“Must be hell on your lovers.”
Rebecca swallowed. “I wouldn’t…I don’t…analyze that. Only things about myself. Public things.”
“I’m relieved to hear it.”
Because? The question almost slipped out. Because he might think there was potential opportunity for her to analyze him, or merely because he believed in male solidarity?
He watched her over the rim of his wineglass, a frown clouding his expression. “There have been other lovers, haven’t there?”
Relief, at the clarification—he did know what she’d asked of him, and had agreed to the same—warred with embarrassment at having this discussion here and now. For long seconds she looked at her wine, the red so dark it was almost black in the candlelight.
Then she looked up, met Logan’s gaze. “Yes. But my experience is limited.” He hadn’t asked for numbers. “And I wasn’t analyzing, not at the time, but I’ve come to think there might have been room for improvement.”
One man, not much more than a boy really, at the end of her first summer home from college. They’d met a few times over that week. It was a time she’d be happy to forget. It hadn’t been, she suspected, earth-shattering for Ivan, either.
“It always gets better as lovers get to know one another’s bodies.”
She looked around the restaurant. “I’m not sure that this is a conversation we should be having here.” No one was sitting close enough to hear, but all the same.
He nodded. “I just wanted to be clear.”
“Would it have been a problem if there hadn’t been others?” Why, when she was the one who didn’t want to be having this conversation here and now, did stupid questions slip out? But she had no idea how men thought, not about things like this.
“Not a problem as such, but…” He shrugged.
How would it change things, she wanted to ask, but finally had the good sense not to.
Logan tipped his head back and looked for a moment at the ceiling. At the curving brickwork of what had once been some kind of cellar. He looked back at her. “Do you know how hard this is?”
“How hard what is?” she teased, quietly pleased with the flirtation and double entendre she was usually so appalling at.
She was rewarded with the flash of his grin. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the small table. “How hard it is to sit here discussing this with you when from the very moment you asked me that question at the rose gardens, and if I’m honest from well before then, I’ve been imagining you naked and beneath me. How if we weren’t in this restaurant I’d have hauled you against me and—” He looked back at the ceiling again, exhaling roughly.
His words thrilled her. She’d thought he was so in control.
Logan stood. “Let’s go.”
He took her hand and led her from the restaurant. They crossed back over the river to head in the direction of her car. And his apartment. There was still a voice, a royal cautionary voice, in the back of her mind insisting that she didn’t know what she was doing. That she was making a mistake. It was the same voice that dictated her behavior day in and day out, year in and year out. That voice was saying run, get in her car and get out of here before she got into something she was ill-prepared for.
But the louder voice came from the hunger that stirred and swirled whenever she was with Logan, whenever she thought of him, the clamoring hunger that said this man could both inflame it and satisfy it.
This man who’d insinuated that she analyzed things too much.
She forced her mind to still, to focus on the here and now. They neared her car. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed a meal so much.” It was true. The meal, eating with Logan, just being her self had been a rare pleasure. The sensual currents had heightened everything. A new and delicious experience.
“I could say the same. And although the food was good, it was the company that elevated it. You’re an intriguing woman, Rebecca.”
They were almost opposite her car when Logan paused in front of the wide, gold-lettered, glass doors of his apartment building, the oldest and most exclusive in San Philippe. He turned to her and lifted an eyebrow in inquiry.
And she knew what he was asking.
No discussion, no pressure, no expectation. That in itself was a novelty. Her life was usually nothing but pressure and expectation. The decision was hers alone. She thought—hoped—that he had a preference as to her answer. He was, after all, issuing the invitation. This was the moment. The fork in the road. And, for all her angst, it was a surprisingly easy decision. She wanted this. She wanted it academically for all sorts of reasons that made sense in her head but she wanted it physically, as a woman. She wanted it inside and ou
t. And deeper still there was a yearning in her heart for this connection with Logan.
He held her gaze, his searching and utterly serious, as she nodded. In turn, Logan nodded to the doorman who opened the door and ushered them through. The sounds of the street outside were silenced as the door closed behind them.
Eight
Inside Logan’s apartment, Rebecca crossed to the mullioned windows overlooking the street. Logan came to stand beside her, his shoulder a whisper away from hers, his scent subtle and warming. Down below, her car sat clearly visible on the far side of the road. Nothing covert about it. A nearby street lamp dimly illuminated the interior through the front windshield. She closed her eyes. She hated it when she was an idiot. He would have had little trouble identifying her. How long had he watched her before calling her?
“Give me your keys and I’ll park your car in one of my spaces below the building.”
“Oh. Thank you.” She handed him the keys. Their fingers brushed. A small current of desire sped through her. He felt it, too—she saw it in his eyes. He closed his hand around the keys and strode toward the elevator.
She crossed to the couch to sit. And then, unable to sit still, stood. She took the opportunity of his absence to look around his apartment. The sparse furnishings were at odds with the ornate interior and symbolic of a man passing through. The clean modern lines of the couch and single angular armchair contrasted with plaster moldings and a crystal chandelier and rich red velvet curtains. An acoustic guitar leaned against the couch. The instrument was the only personal touch in the whole room, the only thing that gave any clue as to its inhabitant. A low coffee table was pulled close to the couch. She could imagine Logan sitting on the couch, feet on the coffee table, guitar in his arms.
With him gone, the apartment was quiet and still and she had further opportunity to doubt the wisdom of her decision to come up here. She curled her hands into fists. It was the right decision and she would go through with it.
He would leave San Philippe once he had what he wanted. That was what made it—him—safe.
Rebecca was still staring at the battered instrument when he came back. She turned to see him standing on the far side of the living room watching her. “What sort of music do you play?”
“Whatever takes my fancy at the time.”
“I’d like to hear you.”
“Some other time, maybe.”
It was nothing personal and she shouldn’t take it that way. Some people didn’t like playing for others. She looked back toward the view and the glittering city outside. This was all feeling too planned, too academic.
Warm fingers touched her jaw, turned her head. Her eyes met warm deep chocolate. A hint of a question lingered there along with a hint of intent. His lips were a serious, straight line. “Rebecca—”
She stepped in close, rose up on tiptoes and pressed her lips to his, needing to silence whatever he’d been going to say or ask. Yes, she knew what she was doing, she was sure. And yes, she most definitely did want this.
She felt his lips curve into a smile as his hands went to her shoulders and he pulled her closer still. His lips parted and moved with an assurance and pleasure her own lips had quickly come to recognize and her body had quickly come to respond to. Suddenly nothing felt planned or academic. There was only now, his lips on hers, his body against hers, his hands framing her face.
And there was no need for words or questions. But need aplenty for this. Just this connection.
Again no pressure, no expectation. In their stead, enjoyment, delight.
And heat.
He gave with his kiss. Gave of himself. Gave pleasure.
Sensation sang through her body as she let herself take. She wanted his touch and the taste of him. She wanted the wonder of his exploration, the delight of her own discovery.
Her hands found his chest, fingers splaying over powerful contours, relishing the warm silk over hard muscle. So male. So intriguing. So infinitely tempting. And beneath silk and muscle the beat of his heart. So human. She slid her hand beneath his shirt so that his skin all but scorched her palm where it came to rest on his chest. His heart seemed to beat right into her hand, as though if she curled her fingers she would be able to cradle it.
And all the while lips and tongue tasted and tempted, dared and challenged and invited.
She accepted the invitation, kissing him back, discovering the secrets of his mouth. Those lips that so often quirked in amusement were now hers for the taking and claiming hers in return. He angled his head, deepening his kiss. The hint of his beard gently abraded. There was something restrained in his kiss, she felt it and thought maybe she should be grateful for that. Maybe she was. But, then again, maybe she wasn’t.
Her second hand joined the first, exploring the breadth of his torso, over sparse hair and small nipples, sliding around the hard strong back. Everything so male, so different. And everything feminine within her thrilled and leaped in response to what he was doing to her, to what she was doing to him and to the sensations possessing her.
She pressed harder against him, pressed her hips against his. She felt the shape of him.
A low masculine groan resonated somewhere between chest and throat and that sense of restraint she thought she’d felt shattered as the kiss became fiercer, hungrier.
He broke the kiss, bent and scooped her into his arms, striding through his apartment to his bedroom, setting her down gently on her feet beside an enormous bed.
Enough silver light from the city outside filtered through the windows to illuminate the angles of his face and a jaw set with determination, lips full and skilled in arts she knew little of but hungered to know more. His brow was etched with concentration as he worked at the small buttons that ran down the front of her blouse. When he had enough undone he pushed a shoulder of her blouse aside, pressed those lips to heated skin. Rebecca shuddered with savage delight.
He jerked his head upward and pulled back, and she knew a pang of loss caused by the distance. Had she done something wrong—responded too freely, not responded enough?
“I want you.” He said the words he’d once said so clinically. This time his voice was a rough growl threaded with need. “Tell me,” he said, “that this is what you want. Tell me now.” He gripped her shoulders, ready to either set her away or pull her closer. “I need to hear the words.”
The raw edge to his voice thrilled her, his suave control was gone—for her. She lifted her hands to cup his jaw, tilted her head to meet the fierce expression in his eyes. “This is what I want,” she said quietly. “You are what and who I want.”
His Adam’s apple moved in his throat. But that was his only movement. Her heart thumped as she waited at the brink of a precipice, not quite knowing how to force a leap from it. Why was he holding back? She knew he wanted this. It was there in his kisses, it was there in the rapid tattoo of his heart, the shallow breathing. She recognized the mirror of her desire.
“Think of it as a royal command.” She kept her gaze on his as she dropped her hands to the remaining buttons of her blouse, picking up where he had left off. Then she tossed her blouse to the floor.
Those lips that so fascinated her quirked in a flicker of a smile. “I’m yours to command,” he said as his head lowered to hers and as he eased a bra strap from her shoulder and kissed the spot where it had lain, then nipped her. And that quick gentle press of teeth on her skin arrowed need through her.
She knew with a fierce satisfaction that this moment, this thing between them was just that, something between the two of them alone. He was a man and she was a woman. Not a princess. Just a woman. Filled with a feminine power and feminine needs that only he could satisfy.
And then her bra was gone. Logan stepped back. Looked, admired, then lifted his hands to her breasts, rubbed thumbs over pebbled nipples. Her insides tightened with need for him, her legs almost gave way as she leaned in to his touch.
The imbalance in their dress seemed unfair. Rebecca reached out
to undo his buttons, and pull his shirt off him.
And then she stilled.
His body, what she could see of it, which wasn’t yet enough, was…beautiful. He had a broad sculpted chest with a light covering of hair, a lean hard abdomen. There, too, a faint trail of hair led her gaze downward to the snap on his jeans.
He stepped in, scooped her into his arms and set her gently on the bed. With tender haste he peeled what remained of her clothing from her as though unveiling a long-sought treasure. Raising her arms above her head, he anchored them there with one hand, trailing fingertips and kisses over her body—her face, her throat, breasts and arms, and each of her fingers. He explored as though he wanted to learn every inch of her. He pressed velvet soft kisses behind her knees, the soles of her feet, parts of her that should not be so sensitive but that were aflame at his touch. She writhed and rose up to meet him. And then he began the slow journey back up again.
And when he pressed his kisses between her thighs she could no longer keep her arms above her head, and instead plunged her fingers into the rich silk of his hair as her body jerked with the sensations that jolted through her.
Surely it was wrong to feel this intensely. Wrong and so wonderfully right. The rational part of her, hanging only by a thread, slipped away so that there was no thought, only exquisite pleasure. Her head thrashed with clamoring need for something she couldn’t quite reach.
And then she reached it. Or rather it reached her, sweeping through her, wracking her body. She tried to suppress the cries of surprise and passion but they escaped.
And then Logan, broad shouldered and fierce, rose up above her. He sheathed himself and slid inside of her, the length of him stretching and filling her. So that where she’d thought it couldn’t be possible to feel more, she felt so very much more.
They moved together, skin against skin, slowly, beautifully, moving as one, desire quickening, until they melded into a powerful, crashing rhythm, something desperate and primal. Until once again she cried out. This time her cries mingled with Logan’s raw groan as he drove into her, nothing gentle or refined, pure naked desire and need fulfilled.