by Zee Monodee
Someone could almost walk along that silvery path to touch the moon. The sight shimmered ethereal, magical even, and she gasped as she contemplated it.
The reflection gleamed and almost distorted as a stronger wave crashed onto the sand. Startled out of her musings, she travelled her gaze to where the froth from the last wave bubbled and trailed back to the sea on the departing water.
But something interrupted the foam’s route.
Someone had stepped into the surf, and the sea gurgled around his feet.
In a slow and casual manner, the figure of a man cut itself from the shadows to become bathed in the eerie moonlight. He stood tall, his legs long and strong under the trousers with their hems wet by the waves. He held his shoes in one hand; the other slung his tuxedo jacket over a shoulder.
As he drew closer, she hitched in a breath and took a step back.
Logan. He was returning to his room after the party.
His room that was located next to hers, their terraces adjoining, separated by a thin grid of wrought-iron near the beach and the solid concrete wall a few feet back.
He came up, pushed the small gate open, and stepped onto the polished stone floor of his terrace. After dropping the shoes, he flung his jacket over the chaise longue to the side of the patio. The bow tie followed the same path seconds later, and she gave a small gasp when he reached for the top buttons on his shirt.
He didn’t pause, and she breathed a sigh of relief. He must not have heard her.
As he walked to the edge of the terrace where he stood with his spine straight, she had a clear view of his back. Under the moonlight and in the dark trousers and white shirt with their rolled-up sleeves, he made her think of a strong, sexy pirate of times past standing like a master and commander at the helm of his ship.
Drat, he looked gorgeous. And so utterly desirable.
She gulped.
She had to get out of here. ASAP.
“Time to come out of the shadows now, Neha.”
Chapter Ten
Oh, no. He knew she stood there.
What to do? Her first instinct screamed to rush back into her room, but he’d hear her closing the door.
She wanted to run, as fast and as far as possible from him, but at the same time, that he’d know she had fled was a bullet she couldn’t bite.
Why? Why? Why?
Why this whole torturing conflict? Why couldn’t he leave her alone?
Because you don’t want him to.
“Come on, babe,” he beckoned in a low voice.
Neha closed her eyes. He shouldn’t call her ‘babe.’ He shouldn’t speak to her, because the sound of his deep voice did things to her she didn’t want it to do.
He turned towards her, and his intense gaze landed on her where she stood still swathed in the shadows of her terrace.
He took one step, two, three, to reach the iron grid separating their patios. He stopped there, and while her brain still battled with the run-or-not question, she moved towards him.
Logan ran his bold gaze over her. Even in the sheer moonlight, she could see the appreciation in his eyes. A blush stole up her, burning her yet in a totally different manner from the uncomfortable flash that had assailed her back in her room.
He leaned forward, and, with a tug, scooped her into his arms and deposited her on her feet a scant few inches in front of him, on his side of the terrace.
A soft puff of air escaped her lips at the sudden proximity.
“Much better,” he said with the hint of a smile on his lips.
His beautiful, kissable lips. She shouldn’t stare at them. Because then, she’d be too tempted to kiss him, to feel his hard mouth on hers. On her body. All over her skin. Blast it!
“This …” The word refused to come out of her throat. “This is wrong.”
“No, it’s not.”
His voice came out a husky whisper, a gentle tickle upon her face.
“We’ll be doing something bad,” she murmured.
Logan lowered his head, and his lips were now a breath away from hers.
“I’ll make it good for you.” He dropped a kiss on the corner of her mouth. “Always.”
“Logan.”
She whispered his name. She shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be doing this …
“Shh.”
He then settled his lips on hers.
Fire burst forth from every cell of her body at the gentle contact. Goodness, yes. This cannot be wrong. This had to be right. It just had to be ... And he’d promised he’d make it good for her ...
When he broke away a second later, she inhaled sharply. “Logan—”
He cut the words from her vocal chords when he travelled his large, strong, and warm palm up the side of her neck to cradle her jaw. He brought his other hand up, on the opposite side, until her face lay in his gentle grasp.
On a sudden flash, she reckoned she’d been right. Gentleness from a big man like him flowed even sweeter. It poured like a heady rush of sugar inside her, the high making her every thought waver in nothingness before her body caught up and then slowed. Until everything inside her and in her veins trickled like the slow, languorous flow of thick molasses.
With his thumbs, he brushed her cheekbones, swiped at her makeup, his finger pads calloused and rough against her skin. She parted her lips to hitch in a breath, and the gesture seemed like all the prompt he’d been waiting for.
He placed his mouth on hers, sucking the air out of her, breathing the air into her, infusing life and fire into her pleasure-drugged and sluggish body.
Neha moaned, the sound lost as he slanted his lips over hers, coaxing her to open further, to give in to his conquering kiss. He darted his tongue out to trail along the line of her mouth, and in a burst of surrender, she parted her lips and allowed him in.
She wouldn’t have believed it possible, but his kiss grew hungrier. Every split second passed with him brandishing her as his own.
How could he do this to her? How could she enjoy letting herself go, giving herself up, so easily?
When his mouth left hers, she reeled. Why had he stopped? Had he come to his senses finally? Realized what madness they were getting sucked into at warp speed?
He released her face, trailed his palms down her body to clasp her hands. Gently, he tugged her forward as he moved back, towards the sliding door to his bedroom.
Neha almost hesitated, but then, she found she wasn’t moving, really, for Logan’s soft pull made her drift on a sort of cloud where nothing her body did registered fully inside her brain. No, all she could feel, all she could experience, was what this man was doing to her.
He stopped only when he had reached the side of the big bed inside the room. He dipped his sultry gaze over her, and she bit down the moan she wanted to let out. She desperately needed him to touch her with his hands, not only his eyes.
“You are so beautiful in this outfit, it’s sinful,” he said.
He found her eyes with his, locking there, making her lose herself in the fiery depths of desire in his irises.
“Show me how to take it off you, Neha.”
She dashed the tip of her tongue out to moisten her lips. Sinful. Brazen. Shameless. Everything he represented; everything she yearned to be right then.
Focusing on nothing else but his eyes, she reached for the tiny pin holding the draped fabric over her shoulder, fastened into the short, nearly backless blouse she wore underneath. Reaching for the end of the sari, the one dangling near her ankle, she picked up the fabric and placed it in his hand. Then, slowly, she turned, unravelling the fabric from around her. The sari gave with a swish of cascading folds when it released from the tucked waistband of the skirt-like undergarment covering her from the hips down. Still, she continued to move in a circle until the whole six yards of silk rested in his hands.
Spin and spin, her mind kept thinking. As her surroundings blurred under the movement, Neha couldn’t help but realize this had to be the most alluring and provocative thing
she’d done with and for a man. Her marriage had had intimacy, but it had been the perfunctory, duty-driven kind.
Not the passionate, so-slow-it-nearly-killed stimulation Logan subjected her to.
He released the fabric, which drifted like a soft cloud to their side, and settled his fingers at the tiny hook-and-eye fastenings on the front of her blouse. With deft moves making her think he had acquired experience with removing clothing in only one way—practice—she bit her lip and forgot the jealous pique when his bare knuckles brushed against the skin of her breasts.
With a tug, he released the ribbon holding the muslin skirt in place, and she stood in front of him in only her bra and knickers.
A wave of embarrassment washed over her, and she lowered her face.
Then, his fingers tickled under her chin, and he made her look up into his face.
As she peered at his tense jaw, Neha knew he could tell her to not be shy, or that she looked beautiful, or some other such type of talk to put her at ease.
Yet, here stood Logan. He didn’t do things the way every other man would.
“Take it all off,” he said softly. “Show yourself to me.”
At that moment, she wished to be naked for him. She yearned to become his, to bring him pleasure, to make him hers. Brand him as surely as he would brand her.
So, she reached for the bra clasp in her back and lowered the straps all the way until the wisp of satin and lace fell to the heavy-pile rug on the floor. Her thumbs then hooking to the sides of the lace panties, she tugged and pushed them down her legs. Standing in only her high heels, she slid her feet from the sandals and stepped closer to him, with nothing on her.
“You’re more beautiful than I thought you would be.”
His voice had a breathless quality to it, and she smiled. She had this effect on him. The brick and steel hulk became a flesh and blood man with her.
Flesh. Skin. Tattoo. She wanted—no, she craved—to see his tattoo and be able to run her fingers, as she’d so often fantasized of doing, over the dark drawing. How to ask him to remove his shirt, though?
Don’t ask. Do it.
With timid fingers, she touched his clothing. The cotton felt crisp under her touch, warm, too. Heat blazed from his body, and she yearned to feel the same warmth breathing out to her without any barrier between them.
She undid one button, and another, and another, until she had pulled the shirttails from his trousers.
“Will you …” she said at the same time a fiery blush stole across her face. “Will you take it off?”
He gave a low, throaty chuckle, and obliged her, shaking the shirt off.
She moistened her lips. “Everything.”
He undid the button and zipper on his trousers and pulled them down along with the boxer shorts he wore underneath.
She gasped when her gaze locked on the juncture of his thighs. With trepidation sounding oddly like the pulsing beat of lust, she stared at the evidence of his desire for her. A part of her died to touch him, but she didn’t dare. She’d never been the instigator, and she didn’t know how to start being one.
Logan must’ve sensed her hesitation.
“Babe, look at me,” he said as he drew closer—so close, a breeze wouldn’t be able to rush between them.
She moaned when his warm skin touched hers, the smattering of hairs on his chest brushing her already taut nipples.
Stop, she yearned to say. You’re torturing me, and I’m going to die.
Yet, she’d also die if he didn’t continue with this sensual and sexy assault on all her nerves and senses. She breathed in deep, the scent of his skin, mingled with that of the aftershave she had come to know down to its tiniest molecule, tantalizing her insides with the promise of something amazing in his arms.
His arms. Yes, she craved to be in his arms.
As if he’d read her mind, he caught her chin between his thumb and finger and made her peek up, then released her face to wrap his arms around her, to bring her slowly but surely flush against his body.
“Look at me,” he again coaxed.
She could do nothing but stare into his eyes.
“Tell me you want me,” he asked.
She couldn’t, shouldn’t, because then, they would reach the point of no return, the line to make everything irreversible.
You’re already too far gone.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Please what?”
“I … I want you.”
As the words left her lips to wrap around them, he settled his mouth over hers and conquered her as his with a passion she’d thought existed only in romance novels or on the silver screen.
Neha abandoned herself in his embrace. He kissed her, devoured her as he started a slow, exultant quest all over her body with his hands. Making her turn, he pushed her back until she lay on the bed, under him.
If she’d thought she’d die earlier, she became certain she’d expire and be reborn only to die again as he made her his. There didn’t exist an inch of her body he didn’t touch, caress, let the tips of his fingers or the solid expanse of his palm explore. His mouth then did the taking, his lips nipping at the delicate, sensitive skin of her neck, or taking her to heights unknown as he kissed her all over.
But Logan wreaked the most havoc, and brought the most pleasure, at the heart of her femininity. Hands, lips, tongue—he used everything he had to take her over the edge and back, and over the crest again and again.
So much so that when he finally took her, she didn’t know if she were dreaming it all, hovering in oblivion, or if she laid there very much awake.
As he slid into her, Neha knew she hadn’t lived prior to this moment. She parted her thighs to let him get closer, lifted her hips from the bed to take him in farther, dug her ankles into the back of his powerful legs to keep him in place.
Still, nothing pleasured, sated, and soothed as the slow, steady movement of his body against hers, inside hers. Rapture built, but more than this, a sense of belonging, of coming home, diffused like a drug taking hold of every living cell inside her.
“Logan,” she cried as her release crashed.
“I’m here, babe. I’m with you. Always.”
And then, he buried his face at the side of her neck. The sound of his raspy, rapid breathing became music to her ears.
“Neha,” he gasped when his climax took him.
He shuddered and let go inside her. With her arms wrapped around him to bring him as close to her as she could, she yearned right then to never let him go.
***
They made love all through the night. She didn’t pause to think, didn’t allow any conscious thought to touch her. Nothing except feel, receive, give. Nothing mattered but Logan, her, and this beautiful, uplifting dance they created together in his moonlight-drenched room.
Her name on his lips all through those magical hours sounded like a siren’s call luring her to further heights of pleasure.
Yet, as she lay against the pillow, sated and completely boneless, a nagging sensation entered her as steadily as the beams of moonlight left place for the darkest hour of the night, right before the sun would pierce through the shadows and bring its illumination to chase the darkness.
She rested naked on the soft, cool cotton of the bed, a solid, hair-smattered leg draped across her thigh, a warm body pressed to her back, with an arm over hers. They hadn’t bothered with the sheet or the quilt to cover up. On top of the sultry temperature of the air, the heat they had blazing between them would’ve scorched the fabrics to ashes.
Logan slept next to her. She should sleep, too, but slumber eluded her. As if her mind were leaving the space wide open for all sorts of inopportune thoughts to settle in and brew up a tempest inside her consciousness.
She shivered at the sensation of his steady breaths tickling the back of her neck. He was fast asleep, with every right to be after the way he’d tired himself, and her, in the past hours. Neha smiled, but the soft contentment died like so
ap bubbles bursting in the air.
One question popped up as small as the head of a pin, to enlarge and blow up to gigantic proportions.
What had she done?
She’d been tempted; she hadn’t resisted; she’d surrendered.
All good for a few hours, but now what?
She looked like a complete fool!
Neha gasped, her first instinct to sit up. But Logan’s arm tightened around her when she stirred the slightest bit, and there could be no escape.
Wrong. She had one. Home.
Her sanctuary.
She had to get away. Blast it, what had she done? There would be consequences, repercussions on everything. They worked together, for goodness’ sake.
And, though they’d spent a night together, this didn’t mean there would be anything more between them. This wasn’t a wedding night, where a man and a woman came to together in a joining of their bodies, their hearts, and their souls.
This was straight, hard and fast sex.
Maybe Logan had grown used to this kind of encounter, but she hadn’t.
He’d proven himself an insatiable man, and no way could this sort of hunger remain unfulfilled for long. She’d had no inkling about his private life; yet, she doubted such a man remained celibate for long. If and when he took a woman to his bed, there would surely be no expectations the following morning.
The problem was how she had become the woman in this scenario, and she had no idea whether she had any expectations or not. Not like she expected Logan to have to ask her to marry him because he’d slept with her—this wasn’t the Regency era—but still ...
The fact remained she could want more.
Holy everything godly and saintly!
She wanted more? Like what? Marriage, diamond ring, and the whole hoop-la? As well as a lifetime of nights spent in his arms?
She clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle her gasp.
No, this could not be allowed to happen. This man owed her nothing. He’d only promised her a good time, and damn it all to Hell, he had delivered just that. He’d done things to her she’d never thought possible.