Burned

by Roberts, Emma

He carefully pulled me off his cock, and I whimpered at the loss. Gently, he maneuvered me into a bridal-carry and stepped to the other side of the large shower, under the second shower spray, stopping at the seat in the corner. I knew what he was about to do only seconds before he did it.

  He sat down on the slick seat and set me gently on his lap, pulling my arms around his neck while arranging my legs on either side of his thighs.

  “When you’re ready, baby,” he murmured.

  Baby.

  A shudder ran through my body. Dear God, I wanted him. Even reeling from the orgasm, I still wanted to feel him inside me. I wanted to straddle him and ride him all the way back to blissful nirvana until we were both spent.

  I was breathing hard. I needed to up my cardio routine if I was going to keep up with this man. Logan barely sounded winded.

  I had a brief, dark thought that he’d probably been practicing his skills on an untold number of women since we’d broken up. Maybe he was sort of spoiled for choice, since I had no doubt that any number of gold-digging types would love to attach themselves to the arm of a wealthy and attractive young CEO.

  I seized him a little more roughly than normal. Guiding him to my entrance with a soft growl, I slammed my hips down on him, making him enter me quickly, gratified when he made a choking sound and cursed.

  His hands settled on my hips, guiding me as I rode his cock. Not that I needed much instruction. After two years in his bed, I knew exactly how this man liked to be fucked.

  I could have sworn his eyes rolled back into his head at one point. Time was an endless stretch, and I was only aware of three things. The hot slam of the water on my back. The thickness of his cock inside of me. The shudder of one orgasm after another as he drove me to unknown heights.

  Fucking hell but he had stamina.

  After my fourth orgasm, he finally grunted, hips arcing into mine as he stilled. His mouth locked with mine, his teeth pulling at my bottom lip, snagging the last scream of pleasure from my mouth.

  Hands braced against his chest, I could feel the throb of his pulse beneath my palm. Draping my wet hair over his shoulder, I nuzzled his throat, too weary to move.

  His arms slid around me and held me close.

  Closing my eyes, I drifted.

  When I became aware of my surroundings again, I was semi-dressed, with a robe draped around me.

  Logan was tucking the thick comforter around me, enveloping me in warmth. He jerked in surprise when he met my gaze.

  “You should be asleep,” he whispered.

  “I was,” I yawned. “What are you doing?”

  “Tucking you in,” he answered, as though that ought to have been obvious. “And then I’m going across the hall. Do you need anything before I go?”

  Irrational hurt flashed through me. He was going to fuck me and then leave?

  I seized his wrist before he could draw away and pulled him in.

  “Stay. Stay with me tonight.”

  If he left, I’d keep myself awake all night, agonizing about what we’d just done. I’d castigate myself for breaking Hustler house rules and loving every minute of it. I’d wonder seriously if I was going to hell for what I was pulling on this trip.

  Logan’s eyes darted toward the door. “I shouldn’t.”

  “Please?”

  His face softened at my soft entreaty. “Okay.”

  Logan stripped off his sodden clothing, throwing it back in the direction of the bathroom.

  A warm rush of gratitude filled me.

  When he climbed beneath the covers, I curled closer to him, resuming my earlier position. His warm breath rustled my hair as he exhaled.

  “Goodnight, Mina,” he whispered, curling an arm around me.

  “Goodnight, Logan,” I murmured against his throat.

  I closed my eyes once more and in no time at all, I was drifting off to sleep, the reassuring weight of Logan’s arms lulling me into dreams.

  Chapter Twelve

  Logan

  “Logan,” Mina pleaded, her voice dragging me from sleep. “Logan, wake up. Wake up.”

  Visions flashed before my eyes, rapid as gunfire, and I batted the hands away from me. I was trapped. I couldn’t get out. The chatter of a submachine gun split the air all around me, peppering the side of the building. Inside, Alya and her two children screamed. Blood seeped into the rug beneath me and spread, staining the dusty floor crimson.

  Harsh, stinging pain exploded across my right cheek and I launched upward, seizing the arm that had struck me. A soft whimper of pain stilled me mid-motion.

  I lurched back to the present, releasing my crushing grip on Mina’s wrist with a sharp intake of breath.

  She pulled it tight against her chest as she leapt from the bed, regarding me with wide, frightened eyes.

  I wasn’t in Fallujah. The insurgents were long dead. Alya and her children were safe, so far as I knew. And the bullet that had mostly pulped my spleen had been removed years ago.

  “Mina,” I panted. “Mina, I’m...I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean...”

  “I know,” she whispered, tentatively placing a knee onto the mattress. She crawled toward me slowly, the long lines of her body mostly bare and incredibly enticing.

  I needed to have my hands on her. Her body, pale and luminescent in the moonlight filtering through the window was a siren call. Ghostly and ethereal, I had to touch her to know she was real. If she disappeared and left me in this hell again, I’d scream.

  She stretched over me, her body inches from mine, and pressed petal-soft kisses to my cheeks, my throat, the hollow just beneath my ear. It wasn’t enough.

  I seized her slim, almost bony hips and flipped our positions. The flame brightness of her hair fanned across the ivory sheets. I skimmed my fingers between her legs, feeling her wet and ready for me. I was shocked she wasn’t spent, after the shower session the night before. I hadn’t been quite that vigorous with anyone since we’d split.

  She didn’t used to shave completely bare. Was it something she’d done to impress someone new? The thought of a shadowy, unknown man touching her made my blood boil. Mina was mine.

  “Are you going to be alright?” she whispered, trying to push up to get a better look at my face.

  “I need you,” I murmured. “Stay right there. Please.”

  Mina obediently laid back. Her eyelids fluttered closed when I traced the column of her throat with my teeth and tongue. Her spine arched when I continued south, lavishing attention on the tight pink nipples that strained toward me. God, she tasted good. Did she roll around in sugar? Or was my feverish brain imagining that she was the single most delicious thing I’d ever tasted?

  I continued on, and paused when I reached her hips.

  “Logan—”

  “Shh.”

  Mina had rarely allowed me to go down on her. In the beginning, I’d put it down to inexperience and embarrassment. Later, it had mostly been to spite me. She knew I liked it.

  Nudging her legs apart, I settled in between her thighs. There wasn’t a single part of her that wasn’t beautiful. I wondered if God had made her perfect to mock the men who couldn’t have her. That was how it had felt when I’d been sure she was out of my reach.

  She was mine now. Mine forever, if I could somehow pull off a miracle and keep her by my side.

  The first swipe of my tongue made her hips arch off the bed with a moan loud enough to wake the dead. Given our cover story, I was fairly sure that the passengers in the neighboring cabin were going to talk. I’d pretty much shattered her True-Love-Waits persona. I couldn’t find it in myself to care. She tasted like fucking candy on my tongue, and I needed more.

  Bracing my hands on her hips, I pinned her to the bed, mercilessly laving her clit.

  “Oh God,” Mina moaned. “Logan. Logan please...”

  I wasn’t sure if the plea was to stop or continue. To say her signals had been mixed up to this point was the largest understatement of the century.

  Her long fi
ngers twined in the sheets, her head was thrown back in apparent ecstasy, and her breathing came in labored pants.

  I took that as an affirmation and slid two fingers into the silken wetness of her core.

  She clenched around me immediately and let out another moan.

  My cock strained toward her. It was almost physically painful to not be inside her but it would be the height of selfishness to pull away from her now. Curling my fingers to hit that sweet spot just right, I eagerly devoured her, getting as much of her sweet, drugging flavor as I could.

  She came apart in my arms a minute later, sobbing with the intensity of her climax.

  That sound pulled me up short, snapping everything into focus once more. Shame rose up to choke me.

  I really was a selfish bastard. I’d brought her here to protect her. Then all I’d done was shout at her and make her feel cheap. I’d come to her room to make a peace offering. Then I’d fucked her instead, and ruined the carefully crafted image she’d cultivated into the bargain.

  I pushed myself up abruptly, searching for my abandoned towel. My pants were a lost cause, still sodden in the bathroom.

  “I have to go,” I muttered, locating the fluffy towel on the floor near the bed. Wrapping it around my waist, I snatched the key card for my room and stood, making a beeline for the door.

  Mina’s voice was still thick with drowsy pleasure when she spoke, stealing the bite from her words. “What the–get back here!”

  I ignored the command. I had to get out of there before I did something else unforgivably discourteous. The doorknob creaked beneath my grip as I took the unthinking anger out on the cold metal.

  Mina said something else, but it was lost behind the inches-thick door between us. I stood for a few seconds in the hall, realizing I’d broken another promise.

  Stay, she’d asked me, voice low and pleading. Stay with me tonight.

  “You complete dick,” I muttered. But there was nothing else for it. I’d already fled. I slid the keycard into my door and ducked in once the light turned green.

  Sinking into an armchair near the window, I stared out at the moonlit shapes of Casablanca.

  “You deserve whatever you get tomorrow,” I muttered.

  I had a feeling it was going to be ugly.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mina

  The sun beat down on the golden sands of La Corniche, sending sunbathers and surfers alike toward the azure waves lapping at the shore.

  The broiling warmth seeped into my skin, a dollop of discomfort on top of my already sour mood. With the complexion of a redhead, the beach was really the last place I should have been. Spite and a stubborn work ethic had seen me through the morning, when all I’d really wanted to do was curl up in my cabin aboard the superyacht and cry my eyes out.

  Logan and I had set up in the shade of a palm, doing our best to avoid the festering silence that had blossomed between us any time we were alone. That wasn’t often, given that Cassius had seemed intent on dragging us around the entirety of the tourist circuit most of the morning. The afternoon was coming on fast, and after that, the evening dinner planned at the hotel further inland.

  “Do you want me to put some sunscreen on your back?” Logan asked, breaking the silence first.

  I stayed the impulse to tell him where he could shove the tube. I had an act to uphold and fair skin to keep unburnt, so I shrugged delicately. “If you want.”

  Logan reached into the bag we’d been provided and withdrew the sunscreen, uncapping it. He brushed the golden tail aside and smeared the stuff onto my back, the only place that I hadn’t been able to reach. The conservative black one-piece didn’t expose much, so I’d been able to handle most of the beach ritual myself.

  The feel of his big, calloused hands brought back memories that I didn’t want to contemplate. Sex in the shower. The glowing aftermath. The nightmares and the panicked flight from my room after giving me one of the most intense orgasms I’d ever experienced. I hadn’t had the energy to do much more than apply my face and arrange the blonde wig into a ponytail before leaving my room this morning—thanks to lying awake and wondering what could have happened to cause the man to flee. And wanting him again, despite multiple mind-blowing orgasms.

  I scowled at the sand at the edge of the large, shared beach towel. Damn Logan Farraday. Damn him straight to hell. I’d cried over him, and that was something I’d sworn I would never do again.

  He pushed aside the chain of the necklace he’d bought me earlier in the day. The Morocco Mall had been a pleasant distraction, and I’d almost been able to forget just how pissed I was at him.

  Logan had insisted upon buying the rose des vents necklace before we departed. Diamond, mother of pearl, and eighteen-carat gold, it was something I would have been delighted to receive from any other man in any other circumstances. But right now, I wanted to yank the chain off and throw it into the sand.

  The necklace was either an apology or a bribe, neither of which I was willing to accept. As soon as we got back to the superyacht, it would be shipped back home and Heather could sell it for the almost seven thousand dollar value it went for.

  A small, humorless laugh bubbled up in my throat. Make-up gifts hadn’t been the way I’d envisioned conning him out of six million. But if he screwed up the way he had in the cabin a few more times, I could probably raise double or triple that.

  His hands lingered on me a fraction longer than was necessary.

  “I really am sorry,” he muttered. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  During which part? I wanted to scream. The sex or what happened after?

  I never got the chance to ask, because my gallant savior of the night previously, Antony Dennison, called over to us, inviting us to cooler accommodations at his hotel pool.

  I stood, snatching my cover-up and shoving it over my head. Without bothering to glance back at Logan, I sauntered over to join the crowd gathered around a white stretch limo.

  Logan caught up to me quickly, seizing my hand in one of his, hauling me to a stop.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he whisper-talked. “We should go back to the yacht. We need to talk about this.”

  I yanked my arm free from his grasp and stepped away from him, trembling with fury.

  “What’s there to talk about?” I hissed. “You got what you paid for, didn’t you?”

  He rocked back a few steps, looking as stunned as if I’d coldcocked him. If only.

  I all but sprinted toward Dennison and the limo. I didn’t know if a hot tub and a half-dozen mojitos could scald away the humiliation that clung to me like cheap perfume.

  But hey, it never hurt to try.

  * * *

  Hyatt Regency Casablanca would be hosting the business meeting Logan had come for the following morning. Tonight, we were dining at Café M, the in-hotel five-star dining establishment.

  To distract from my distinct lack of appetite, I’d kept a steady stream of conversation going, not that the show would have been strictly necessary. The tastefully low-cut silver evening gown had most male eyes fixated on my cleavage, not my face.

  An array of businessmen crowded around our table, chiming in where appropriate. Their wives or girlfriends seemed irritated or bored by the shop talk. The fact I’d kept the chitchat flowing for over an hour had earned me several glares—as Cassius and Antony, among others, cast me admiring looks. My skill at business meetings was one of the few reasons I was glad that the Senator had married my mother. He’d insisted my brother and I learn at least the bare minimum about the industries that were funding his campaign, and I’d had more of a flair for charming his associates than Keenan.

  Logan reclined in his chair, sipping a glass of scotch, watching me interact with the crowd.

  “You’re a bloody lucky man, Mr. Farraday,” Antony said, raising his glass to Logan. “Miss Mason is really something. I’m sure any one of us would love to steal her away from you.”

  Logan slung an
arm around my waist, and I didn’t think I imagined the edge of bitter mockery that shadowed his voice. “Ah, maybe my father should have installed Miss Mason as CEO. She seems to be just the sort of cutthroat businessperson Farraday Industries needs.”

  Irritation crackled through my body and I seized his bicep, dragging him up from the table before he could say anything worse.

  “Sorry,” I said with a light giggle, tossing the table a grin. “I think that’s probably the end of the night for us, boys. We’ve had a little too much to drink and need to be getting back.”

  “I could book you a room at the hotel,” Antony offered, bright interest sparkling in his eyes. “My treat of course. I’d hate for you to fall and break your pretty ankles, Miss Mason.”

  I waved the offer away with another, rather forced giggle. “I’m okay. You’ve got me, don’t you sweetie?” I glanced at Logan and batted my eyelashes. “You’ll catch me if I fall?”

  “Always.”

  Logan’s eyes bored into me with an intensity that cleared away the pleasant buzz I’d been experiencing. It stripped away all my layers and left me bare and vulnerable. Did he know how dangerously close he’d come to stealing my heart again?

  Maybe it had been better that he’d bailed. It had thrown the situation back into sharp perspective and removed my fickle heart from danger.

  I shoved at his shoulder when our bill had been paid and we’d gotten out of earshot of the others. He barely moved, the bodybuilding bastard. His bulk was an irritant when it wasn’t being used to its full potential in the bedroom. I knew I’d never have yanked him out of that chair unless he’d wanted to come with me.

  “What was that back there?” I hissed. “Were you trying to make everyone uncomfortable?”

  “It was the truth,” he said with a shrug. “You’re better at this than I’ll ever be. I didn’t want this position, you know. I’d rather be...well, anywhere else.”

  A sneer curled my lips. “Oh, poor poor, Logan. It must be truly terrible to be heir to a vast business empire and have endless choices in life. How ever shall you cope? Some of us don’t have those options, jackass.”