by Ann Major
Wanting desperately to believe him, she shut off her light. But the darkness made her feel strange and lonely in Logan’s big, unfamiliar guest bed, and she couldn’t stop thinking about him being at the end of the hall in his own big red bed. At the thought of his long, tanned body beneath his equally crisp sheets, the pulse in her throat began to jump erratically. Her skin started to burn, and soon she was so hot she threw off her covers. Was he as wide-awake as she was?
Slowly she arose from her bed. Stretching and then sighing, she walked restlessly to the door inside her bedroom that opened out onto the gallery. Stars lit the black sky. Maybe fresh air would make her relax and feel sleepy.
Pulling the drapes back and unlocking the door, she would have stepped outside, but a four-alarm siren began to scream through the house.
Putting her hands over her ears, she swallowed. She’d probably awakened everybody in the neighborhood. Not to mention, Logan.
In the next minute, the siren stopped, and Logan began knocking loudly on her hall door.
“Come in.”
He stepped inside, holding a cordless phone. Clad only in a pair of black pajama bottoms, her heart sped up at the sight of his wide, dusky shoulders and cut abdomen.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
The phone rang, and he told his security company that a guest had opened a door but that everything was fine. He gave them his code and hung up.
“You can open your door now,” he said. “I should have told you about the alarm. This is New Orleans. Our crime rate is not the best in the country.”
“I know that, of course. I should have thought. But then since I camped out in so many war zones, I probably don’t worry about crime the same way normal people do…even in New Orleans.”
“Don’t remind me of how you lived…because of my actions.”
“Don’t blame yourself entirely. I was an adult.”
“You were a young, vulnerable woman, whose heart was broken.”
“Don’t…”
He said no more on the subject. When she stepped outside onto the gallery, he joined her. She slid into the moonlight while he kept in the deep shadows, his feral eyes gleaming in the dark as he watched her every movement.
“I couldn’t sleep…for thinking about you,” she admitted, her gaze drifting over his muscular brown chest and hard arms again.
A light breeze caused her silk gown to ripple and cling to her swollen nipples as well as to the lush curves of her hips and legs.
“Funny, I’m having the same problem,” he said, his deep voice husky. “I shouldn’t have followed you out here.”
Her senses catapulted in alarm. Sexual chemistry seemed to ignite the air between them. To hide her nervousness she slid her hand back and forth along the slick black railing and laughed softly. “I forget. Why exactly are we sleeping apart tonight?”
“Old-fashioned courtship. So that I can prove I don’t want you just for sex.”
“Oh, right.” So, why were his warm, gleaming eyes glued so hungrily to her breasts?
“Now we know why old-fashioned courtships didn’t sanction sleepovers,” she said. “Hey, maybe I’ve always been too open to risk. Maybe I don’t have to know you’re perfect and will treat me perfectly forever and ever.”
“You’re sure about that when I still don’t know how I see this thing between us long-term,” he said.
“Maybe I want to lie cuddled in your arms all night too much to resist sharing your bed.”
He sighed. “I wouldn’t say no. But then, be honest. Ask yourself, once you’re in my bed, do you really think you can trust me to stop at cuddling.”
“Or me? I just said cuddling to make myself sound ladylike…and…er…demure.”
His gaze seared her. Even though she felt his swift movement toward her through the darkness, she hissed in a breath when his big hands wrapped her close, his heat instantly warming every sensual cell in her body.
Fool. Fool.
She couldn’t help herself. She felt small and feminine and very desirable in his arms. Like a marshmallow over a fire, she burned on the outside and turned to mush on the inside.
His lips eager, he kissed her brow, her mouth. When he finally let her go, her heart was thudding furiously in her throat, and her entire being was ablaze.
“Cici, I don’t know what I felt nine years ago, but whatever it was, it damn sure knocked me off course. I’d been dating Noelle when I came down to Belle Rose to see Grandpère and Jake that summer. I’d even decided to marry her. Not that I’d asked her or that I was even seeing her exclusively. Still, I’d made up my mind.”
“You were good at that. Stubborn to the core once you set your course.”
“So, when I saw you in your pirogue that first day and realized you were all grown up, I never imagined that you and I could ever be seriously involved…even after Grandpère convinced me I had to save Jake from you.” He broke off.
“I understand. There was no place for me in your life.”
“I was slightly angry that you weren’t that cute little bratty girl who followed me around in the swamp anymore, but there you were with the sunlight in your hair. A sex goddess of the swamp. Irresistible.”
“Little girls do have a way of growing up.”
“Yes. Do they ever. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. When Grandpère convinced me to save Jake, I soon became so obsessed with you myself, I no longer knew what I was doing. Not that I could admit it.”
Logan bent his head and kissed her softly. “After we made love, I was wild to have you again. And again. Then you told me you were in love with me, and I realized maybe I’d gone too far.”
“Because I was naive.”
“I…I was so determined to go out and conquer the world. My grandfather was convinced I had to have someone like Noelle at my side. He had my life all planned out. Since the family was in trouble, I went along with whatever he said. I didn’t think I had the freedom to choose.”
“And you had Noelle waiting in the wings.”
“I was stupid where she was concerned. She was never more than an illusion. I should have behaved more responsibly toward both of you.”
Logan was caressing her with both hands, slowly running his callused fingers down her arms and hips, causing her to shiver.
“Do we have to rehash all this…when it feel so good just to be together?”
“I want you to know how it was with me…and Noelle. I married her on the rebound. I was still crazy about you. Maybe I told myself in the beginning that I seduced you to keep Jake from having you, but that couldn’t have been all there was to it. Because of my feelings for you, I was messed up for years, maybe until I saw you naked in the garçonnière and wanted you so fiercely. I never felt a tenth for her what I felt for you that day. I sure as hell never loved her. Looking back I see that I worked all the time, probably to avoid being home alone with her and having to face the truth. As I told you before, I’m afraid I neglected her and made her very unhappy. She told me how miserable I’d made her shortly before she died. She tried so hard to be a good wife, too. She was a lovely woman. She didn’t deserve to be slighted any more than you did. I’ll always regret how I treated her. Not that it fixes anything. She’s dead. There’s no going back.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Who knows? As a little girl, you looked at our big house and at us, and you built the Claibornes up into lordly beings we aren’t.”
“Like my book title, Lords of the Bayou.”
“Exactly. I want you to know who we are, at least, who I am, warts and all. I don’t want to lead you on.”
“Don’t worry. How could I have illusions about you after how you treated me? But you thought you were doing what was best for your family. It’s in the past.”
“I was blind.”
“So was I.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Then she pre
ssed a single fingertip against his mouth. “I don’t care about the past,” she whispered.
Logan began to caress her with both hands, causing her to shiver.
“You’re so soft and feminine,” he said. “So beautiful. So sweet. How could I have ever thought you couldn’t suit me?”
“Maybe because you were too used to thinking of me as a child who was constantly out to get your attention by doing all those silly things…like stealing your hat or hiding your fishing lures.”
“Back then you were a part of my life, like the air I breathed. I took you for granted.”
And now? What did he feel now? She pulled free of his embrace and ran the length of the hall to his bedroom, knowing he would follow. Maybe she shouldn’t make love to him with so many unanswered questions, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
“From the moment I heard you’d come back to Belle Rose, I’ve been like a man possessed.”
Something inside her she’d thought long dead had instantly taken her over from the moment she’d seen him at the garçonnière. Ever since she’d made love to him, she’d been consumed by her feelings for him. She wanted him. And not just for a casual affair. He felt essential in ways she couldn’t fathom.
Inside his bedroom, she whispered a single word. “Condom?”
“Right,” he muttered, his own voice as rough as hers. “Almost forgot.”
After he led her to the bed, she was vaguely aware of him opening a drawer and shredding a foil wrapper. Then he was like a man possessed as he kissed her lips and throat and breasts before savagely tearing off his clothes as she flung her own off onto the floor.
Sheathed, he pulled her under him on the bed. Then he lowered himself over her and drove himself inside her soft, wet depths with a single thrust. On a blissful sigh she locked her legs around his hips and held on tight. Not that he remained still long.
Suddenly there seemed no softness or tenderness in him. But she didn’t care as he drove into her again and again. Tonight she wanted it fast and hard. She wanted to be claimed, possessed and dominated. No matter what the future held, she wanted to feel that she was his, solely his, if only for tonight.
Their mating was fierce and violent. It was almost as if they’d each been afraid she thought afterward as she lay trembling and spent in his hard, warm arms. But afraid of what? Surely not Butler’s warning at dinner.
Logan made love to her again and again that night, and every time her hips surged to meet his, their bodies locked in the perfect rhythm of an ancient dance. Always as he slid inside her depths, into the hot sleek perfection of her womanhood, she would writhe and cling as her own pleasure engulfed her. But each time her excitement held that strange, desperate quality, even as it built past anything she had ever known.
When it was over, she knew she had to tell him about their son.
Eleven
“L ogan?”
“What is it, darling?” he murmured drowsily.
She pulled free of his arms. At the thought of the little boy they’d lost, misery made her tremble. “You asked about my scar. It’s from a Cesarean operation. The reason I called you in the fall after that summer we were lovers…was…was to tell you…that…that I, that I was pregnant…with your child.”
His body went rigid. Then she felt him slide away from her, leaving her wrapped in coldness.
“Oh, my God…I never once thought of that,” he muttered.
Her eyes filled with tears, so his shadowy form on the other side of the bed became a merciful blur. “I know. And before I could…say anything you…”
“I cut you off by telling you that I’d married Noelle,” he said in a low, dead voice. “Always the bastard…”
“No…”
“Damn it, yes! I am. I had to get you off the phone because just talking to you made me know how much I still wanted you. And I was married. Did I think of how I was hurting you? Did I?” Finally, he said, “Tell me everything.”
“I was so devastated I didn’t care if I lived or died,” she admitted, her voice thick with remembered pain.
He was silent for a long time. When he finally spoke again, his low tone had a faraway quality. “How did you manage alone without my help?”
“I don’t know.” She lay back against her pillow and stared up at the dark ceiling. “Somehow I just got through the days, one at a time. I guess I took care of myself…because of our precious baby.” She paused. “Even so, he only lived a day. That was the worst part.”
“He?”
“We had a son. He had dark hair like yours. I loved him so much…more than anything. I named him Logan.”
“Oh, my God! So, that’s why you cried when I kissed your scar in the garçonnière, why you’re crying now,” he said, his voice still strange and distant. “He died, and you had to face all that alone. It must have been unbearable. I can’t believe I was so horribly cold to you…even before the worst had happened.”
“You didn’t know.”
“As if that excuses my behavior. What did you do next?”
“I buried our baby and my pain. I tried to forget him and you as well, by hiding behind my camera. For years, I preferred to be a witness to other people’s pain.”
“No wonder.”
Something in his voice and manner filled her with new apprehension.
“Even though I was running from my own heartbreak, I wanted my pictures to scream victims’ stories, maybe because my own pain was locked so tightly in my heart.”
“You threw yourself in danger because of what I did to you and our son. You could have died, and I would never have known how deeply I had wronged you. I would never have known about our little boy. I would have gone on living my silly, stupid, self-serving life. Mitchell Butler is right about me.”
He sounded so utterly stricken, she lifted her gaze to his and found his eyes cloudy with dark emotion.
“It wasn’t all your fault,” she said gently. “Maybe I should have been stronger. Or maybe I was too bold. I did sort of throw myself at you that summer.”
“As many young girls do, who don’t know the power of their sexuality and where it can lead. No, I was older. I should have faced the reality of what I did, of what happened…that I cared about you…deeply. I knew you loved me, and I was stupid and cruel and set on an idiotic course because of outdated ideas about duty and family. Damn.” Guilt and shame filled his broken tone.
She leaned across the bed to touch him, to comfort him, but the moment her fingertips slid against the hot, hard flesh of his shoulder, he jerked away from her.
“No. I don’t deserve you. Not after this.”
“Logan, it was a long time ago.”
“Do you think that matters?” he demanded icily. “I should have thought about the possibility of a baby. I should have listened when you called me. Cici, oh, God, Cici, I’ll never forgive myself for making you go through that alone. I can’t even begin to imagine how terrible it all must have been for you.”
When he stood up and began to dress, her heart began to slam in slow, painful beats. “I didn’t tell you about our son to make you unhappier or guiltier. I think I forgave you a long time ago. Tonight, I just wanted to share his short life and my love for him with you. That’s all. I wanted you to know that we had this precious, darling son together.”
“Well, I’m glad you told me,” he said coldly. “Now I’m going out. I have to be alone.”
“But Logan…I need you…”
“No, you don’t. When have I ever satisfied any of your real needs? Tomorrow I think you should leave.”
“What? You’re sending me away?”
“It’s for your own good.”
“You’re really serious?”
“Someday you’ll thank me,” he said savagely.
“No. I won’t. Don’t I have any rights in this relationship?”
“Like I said, you’ll be better off!”
“But what if I don’t see it that way? You have no right to make thi
s decision for me.”
“I have news for you. The decision has been made.” He stalked toward the door.
“You’re as high-handed and arrogant and hateful as you always were!” she shouted.
“Finally, you understand me as well as Mitchell Butler does—only he’s got an advantage—because he’s exactly like me. I eat people alive!” He opened the door, banged it shut and was gone.
She heard his footsteps slamming down the stairs. The front door opened and closed. She heard his car start. Then tires squealed down the drive.
After that, except for the pulse that knocked painfully in her throat, his empty house was silent and still.
Eight hours later the gray afternoon sky threatened rain as Logan knelt before Noelle’s white marble, above-ground tomb in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1.
Carefully he laid a single red rose on the gleaming white step before the marble angel that bore a profound likeness to Noelle.
“I’m sorry I made you so unhappy,” he whispered, hoping she could hear him. “I wanted to marry you so much. I was so sure I was doing the right thing. But I lied to you. And to myself. And I hurt you…just as much as I hurt Cici and our son. Just as much.”
There was a low sigh, and he started. Looking up, he saw it was only the wind in the trees.
How could he have been so horribly wrong about everything when he’d been so sure he was right? He’d hurt so many people he’d thought he’d loved.
Last night when Cici had told him about their son, the pain in her voice had pierced his heart like a knife. If he’d helped her back then, maybe their son would be alive.
He’d driven around all morning, thinking about Cici and all that he’d put her through. He loved her, but after the torment he’d caused her, he knew he didn’t deserve her.
He loved her. Maybe he’d always loved her. Too bad he hadn’t known it until it was too late.
He had to let her go. For once in his life he wouldn’t go after what he selfishly wanted, just because he wanted it.
He wasn’t worthy of her. She was better off without him.
Slowly he arose, and as he walked out of the cemetery he thought of the bleak, empty years ahead and wondered how he would ever find the courage to face a future that didn’t include Cici Bellefleur. Would he ever be able to live with what he’d done to her?