by Kristi Gold
He decided to let it go. for now. “You’ll be home in fifteen minutes, then you can sleep the rest of the day.”
“I’d rather go to your place.”
Logan could foresee one major problem with that. “Your dad’s already royally pissed off. If he learns that you—”
“I’ll call him, unless you don’t want me to come home with you.”
If he said he didn’t, he’d be lying to her and to himself. “My condo it is.”
Jenna rilled through the bag at her feet, withdrew her cell phone and spoke the simple word home.
“Hi. Dad. We’re in Houston, but I won’t be there for a while. I’m going to cook breakfast for Logan at his place and I’ll let you know when I’m heading home. Bye.” She slapped the phone closed and dropped it into the bag.
“It didn’t sound like you gave him a chance to say anything.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t. And since I can’t make toast without cremating it, I seriously doubt he bought the breakfast thing. But I certainly couldn’t tell him the truth.”
“What is the truth, Jenna?”
She leaned over and laid her hand on his thigh. “The truth is I don’t want to be in my bed. I want to be in yours until it’s time for me to go.”
Logan got the feeling she could be on the verge of ending their involvement before the day was done, right when he was contemplating the possibilities. He’d just have to work hard to prevent that from happening, and he had several ways to do that. For the next few hours, he planned to try every one.
When they pulled into the parking garage a few minutes later, Logan left most of the gear in the SUV while Jenna slung her smaller bag over her shoulder, leaving her cane behind. They entered the elevator with a group of people and stood side by side in silence until the only remaining couple exited on the fourth floor. As soon as the doors slid shut, Logan couldn’t stand it any longer. He kissed her all the way to the ninth floor and only let her go long enough to unlock and open the door. .And when they stepped inside, he kissed her some more.
In the interest of saving time, Logan lifted Jenna into his arms and carried her up the stairs—stairs that he always took two at a time, a routine act he’d taken for granted. Since he’d met Jenna, he’d begun to recognize all the challenges she faced on a daily basis, and that had only reinforced his appreciation of her.
He definitely appreciated her sexy smile after he set her down on her feet in his bedroom. “Where’s the shower?” she asked.
“Right behind you.” Logan pushed her hair back and kissed her neck. “We’re going to take one together this time.”
“Definitely.”
After he backed her into the bathroom, they undressed as if competing in a race to see who could finish first and. remarkably. Jenna won, while Loean balanced on losing control.
Even in light of his exhaustion, he honestly believed he could drop to the ceramic-tiled floor and do a hundred push-ups—or take her on the floor right where they stood. He chalked that up to pure adrenaline. To Jenna.
With what strength he had left, he led her into the shower where he opted for limited foreplay. Just enough to taunt her while they bathed, before he pulled out all the stops. But she wasn’t making it easy when she did some pretty creative things with her hands. In fact, she was making it extremely hard. And he returned the favor until he had her digging her nails into his back.
“The bedroom,” he told her before things got too out of hand. “Good idea,” she said, and gave him a quick pinch on his bare butt.
They barely dried off, didn’t bother with clothes and hit the bed without turning down the covers. As they faced each other, no words passed between them and it wasn’t because they had a hard time talking to each other; they’d had several good conversations over the course of the weekend. Logan had plenty to say to her, just not now.
He didn’t need words. He needed to hear the sound of her sighs when he touched her and the rapid rhythm of her breathing when he kissed his way from her neck to her breasts and then down her belly. Using his mouth, he brought her to the brink, then let up until he knew she couldn’t take any more. He had her precisely where he wanted her—completely under his influence and in a place she wouldn’t soon forget. Or so he thought until she nudged him onto his back and levied a little persuasion of her own.
He gritted his teeth and hissed out a breath when she did to him what he’d done to her. She didn’t hold anything back, didn’t miss an inch of his skin with her deadly kisses, and by the time she shimmied up his body, he was ready to wave a white flag.
He rolled away from her to retrieve a condom from his nightstand and after he tore open the packet, she held out her hand and said. “Let me.”
Yeah, she was definitely the one in command, and that became even more obvious as she straddled his body, taking him inside her.
She began to move, and Logan detected a hint of desperation. But then he felt a little desperate, too. Desperate to understand why she affected him in ways no woman ever had.
He couldn’t consider that now. He couldn’t consider anything except Jenna hovering above him, her hair hanging down in damp strands around her face, her lips slightly parted, her eyes closed tight. She drove him to the edge with the rise and fall of her hips. Her smile indicated she knew exactly what she was doing and where she planned to take them both. Her lack of inhibition, her determination, her periodic kisses, hurled them to that destination quickly. The pulse of her climax brought on his own, a force that ripped through Logan and drove every lucid thought from his brain.
As Jenna buckled against him, his arms came around her, and as he continued to hold her. he couldn’t shake the guilt over what he’d done the past twelve months. Although he’d been discriminating when it had come to his lovers, he’d also been a jerk, no better than his youngest brother who’d made sex a sport. And among the half-dozen women Logan had taken to bed, he’d never been sorry to see one of them go.
But today, as he started to drift off to sleep with Jenna’s body curled into his, he never wanted her to leave.
Jenna awoke with a start when she heard an annoying buzz. She shook Logan’s arm and whispered his name, yet he didn’t respond. She wasn’t all that surprised. He’d been on the road all night and his exhaustion had finally gotten the best of him. Their lovemaking had also been a contributing factor. Even so, if she had her way, she’d ask him to do it all again, at least one more time before she left for good.
The buzzer sounded again, sending Jenna from the bed to follow the noise originating from the hall outside the bedroom. She felt along the wall until she located the intercom. After depressing the button, she said, “Yes?”
“Miss Fordyce?”
The man sounded as surprised to hear her as she was to hear her name. “That’s me.”
“Uh, there’s a man down here named Calvin. He says he’s supposed to take you home.”
Clearly, her father had called out the guard. “Tell him I’ll be down in about five minutes.”
And that was just as well. This little bit of paradise with Logan was almost over. It had to be. She had too much going on in her life and not enough confidence to believe that she could be the woman he needed—even if she’d tried to fool herself into thinking that was possible. He deserved a woman who was whole, both physically and emotionally.
After she located her bag and dressed in the last of her clean clothes, a blanket of depression settled over her. Tonight, she would again go to bed alone and wake tomorrow alone. But the decision weighing heavily on her mind was one she had to make by herself. The most difficult decision she would ever have to make—relinquishing custody of her child.
After one more futile attempt to wake Logan, she left the room and carefully descended the stairs. She relied on her learned ability to mentally chart a course of places she had been before, the steps she had taken, in order to find the front door. As she waited for the elevator, she chastised herself for leaving Logan without any
explanation. But she couldn’t very well write him a note; her handwriting was barely legible these days. And knowing him, which she did—better than she ever dreamed she would know him—he would call her later and demand an explanation. Yet she wasn’t certain she could explain her feelings to him because she didn’t know how she felt, aside from confused. She did know that in the limited time she’d spent with him, she’d never been so happy. So liberated. So close to falling in love.
“Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?”
Jenna turned to the sound of his voice, as if he had some magnetic hold over her. “I didn’t want to wake you up.” She didn’t want to say goodbye, either. “Dad sent Calvin for me. He’s waiting downstairs.”
“I can drive you home on the way to my office.” She shook her head. “That’s not necessary, Logan.”
“Fine. I’ll call you later.”
“That’s not necessary, either.”
“I know that, but I want to.”
When he circled his arms around her waist, she wanted to ask him not to touch, otherwise she would never be able to do what she had to do. Yet she couldn’t force herself to pull away from him.
“We can go out to dinner tomorrow night. Or I can take you to the baseball game. I have good seats. I’ll nab a fly ball for you as a souvenir.”
He simply didn’t get it, and that couldn’t be more apparent to Jenna at the moment. “I couldn’t see a fly ball coming at me, Logan. I couldn’t even see any of the action.”
“I’ll give you a play-by-play.”
Gathering her strength, she wrested out of his grasp. “We’ve had a great few days together, but now it’s back to the real world. And my reality isn’t very pretty.”
“What the hell are you saying’?”
“You were absolutely right. Lovemaking complicates even thing. It’s better we end it now before someone starts caring too much.”
“It’s too damn late for that, Jenna. You’ve already made me care, like it or not.”
She prayed the elevator would hum’ and arrive, before she completely broke down. “I’m a mess, Logan. My life’s a mess. I may lose my child. I may never regain my sight.”
“You don’t have to go through this alone. I’m willing to be there for you.” He’d proved that to her yesterday, but still… “It’s my problem, Logan. You don’t need the hassle.”
“Don’t presume to tell me what I need. But I’m going to tell you something and you need to listen carefully.” His tone reflected anger yet contrasted with the gentle way he touched her face. “After Helena and I broke it off, I spent a year trying to convince myself that I could survive by moving from one woman to the next. But it didn’t do anything to cure my loneliness. In fact, it made it worse. And then I met this sexy, determined, hardheaded beautiful woman and I didn’t feel alone, anymore.”
She closed her eyes and willed away the tears, at least for the time being. “Please stop, Logan. You’re only making this more difficult.”
“This whole thing’s difficult, Jenna, and I didn’t plan on it happening. But whether you meant to or not. you made me feel something for the first time in a long time and I’m not willing to blow that off.”
The elevator chimed, providing her with the out she so desperately needed. “I’m sorry, Logan,” she said as she backed up a step, “I can’t do this. I don’t know what else to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything else. I get it now, we had a great time, it was a nice diversion, and that’s it. At least for you.”
If he only knew how wrong he was. “It wasn’t only a diversion, Logan. It was—”
“Don’t try to come up with something to make me feel better, because I’m still going to feel like hell. Have a nice life, princess. And good luck.”
Jenna entered the elevator not knowing if Logan was still there, or if he’d already left. Her eyes were so clouded with tears that she couldn’t detect the boldest movement or the darkest shadow. She felt along the bank of buttons and, using her Braille, found the one that indicated the lobby.
She had learned to manage her life as best she could. She had worked hard to maintain some normalcy as an unsighted woman in a visual world. Yet she couldn’t help but wonder if by walking away from Logan, she was blind to what could be the best thing that had happened to her in years.
He found her tending to her garden, as he knew he would. Lucine Kabakian O’Brien always spent every morning from March through August pruning her plants with the same commitment she’d shown to her family.
From a very early age, the O’Brien boys had learned to seek out their father for guidance on sex and their mother for counsel on affairs of the heart. Logan needed that counsel now more than any time in his adult life.
She kept her back to him, still totally unaware he’d entered the yard. And when he walked toward her, bent down and popped a kiss on her cheek, she spun around and gasped.
“Heavens, Logan. Don’t you know better than to startle a woman with pruning shears’? That’s a good way to lose all hope of fathering children.”
He slid his hands into his pockets and sent her a sheepish smile. “Sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You’re forgiven, dear.” She tossed the tool into the nearby cart and worked the gardening gloves from her hand. “Your father is always sneaking up on me. I thought you were him.”
“He told me to tell you he’s reading the morning paper.”
She sent him a skeptical look. “He’s in the lounger, taking his morning nap.”
Logan grinned. “Yeah, he is. .And before I left the living room, he started snoring as loud as a turbocharged engine.”
“Nothing new there.” She gestured toward the patio with a glove. “While he’s occupied, let’s have a nice chat. Just the two of us.”
She hooked her arm through his and after they were seated in two chairs opposite each other at the small table, Logan leaned forward and clasped his hands together on the metal surface. “I wanted to apologize for not being here the past two Sundays for lunch and for not calling.”
She studied him with concern. “It’s more than that. Logan. Something is terribly wrong.”
He wasn’t surprised by her ability to read him. She’d owned that talent for as long as he could remember. “I’m having a tough time right now.” Tougher than he’d expected since he’d said goodbye to Jenna. He’d been doing a good impression of a lovesick idiot and he didn’t know why. Maybe it was only wounded pride. After all, he was usually the one to call things off with a woman, not the other way around.
“I distinctly remember the last time you surprised me with a morning visit.” Lucy said, breaking into his thoughts. “You told me you were planning to marry Helena and you wanted suggestions on how to propose.”
That was a sorry subject he’d rather avoid. “And it turned out to be a huge mistake.”
Lucy laid her palm on his arm, garnering his attention. “This little visit doesn’t involve another woman, does it? Perhaps a pretty, down-to-earth young woman whom we met and fell in love with two weeks ago’?”
Jenna had predictably received the O’Brien family stamp of approval. “Yeah, it does.”
He launched into a summary of the camping trip, the visit to Tennessee and ended with Jenna’s insistence she didn’t need anyone to support her through the custody battle. “Anyway, I haven’t talked to her since.”
“You haven’t even tried to call her?” His mother sounded astounded and a little disappointed.
Truth was, he’d picked up the phone every day for almost two weeks, sometimes two or three times a day, and he’d hung up before the first ring every time. “I don’t want to push her.”
“There’s a difference between pushing, Logan, and letting her know you care. And I suspect you care much more than you’re willing to admit.”
She’d hit that nail straight on the head. He afforded her a quick glance before lowering his gaze to the table, something he hadn�
�t done since his early teens, when he’d awaited punishment for toilet papering the principal’s front lawn. “When did you know you wanted to spend the rest of your life with Dad1?”
“You’re asking me to think back to a time when George Washington was still wearing knickers’?” Logan laughed over her use of one of his father’s favorite phrases. “I guess. I assumed that was something you wouldn’t forget.”
She smiled. “No, I’ve never forgotten. I was a very shy girl in school and I didn’t know any boys at all. Then out of the blue, your father asked me to the senior dance. Funny thing was, he didn’t even know how to dance, but that didn’t stop him from trying. I suffered a few sore toes that niglit, but I also fell in love with him. A tough, loud Irishman who was willing to risk embarrassing himself in order to make me happy. We married three months later. I became pregnant with Devin three months after that, and he’s been making me happy ever since.”
That was a story Logan had never heard, but he’d never thought to ask before he’d met Jenna. “Only three months before you two married?”
“Yes. and I would have married him the day after the dance if he’d asked me.” Her expression turned serious. “Love doesn’t stop to consider how long you’ve known a person, Logan. Sometimes it never arrives. Sometimes it doesn’t come about for years. Other times it hits you immediately. And that was much the case with me and your father. Is that what’s happened with you and Jenna?”
Logan still had a hard time wrapping his mind aroimd that concept. “I don’t know. Mom.”
“Tell me something. .Are you finding you can’t sleep? Do the things you like to do no longer give you joy? Are you having trouble concentrating at work1?”
She had a surplus of insight for such a small woman. “All of the above.”
“Did you find yourself watching her while she was sleeping?”
“I never said I slept with her.”
It was his mother’s turn to laugh. “My dear child, all my sons are genetically predisposed to uncontrollable passion when it comes to women, thanks to your father.”