CHAPTER NINE
Logan attacked the buttons of her sleeveless shirt first. These tiny pearls had gleamed in the sunlight when she’d sauntered out into the backyard, looking so crisp and cool and unapproachable. Every moment since, his fingers had itched to slide the pearls free of the buttonholes just like he was doing now, to peel the cotton off her beautiful body and let her shirt flutter to the grass. He needed to see the hot-blooded woman he’d slept with last night, to make sure she still existed. Would she be as willing and eager as before John had shown up to throw a bucket of ice water on their morning? Or had Logan just dreamed the whole night?
Jenny shot up from the chair and lunged into his arms, the warm globes of her breasts molding against his chest. He found her lips and the kiss shot off sparks like one of those sparkling things kids lit for the Fourth of July. With one bend of a knee, he could drop her with him to the clover and make quick work of her shorts. With sunlight bright on her curved little belly, he could pull out the foil packet he’d tucked in his back pocket, roll on the condom, and let nature take its course. But his knee stiffened as he caught a glance of John’s baseball cap discarded on the lounge chair. His prankster of a friend could return any minute, claim he’d forgotten his favorite hat, and Logan would be hard-pressed not to punch the guy if he interrupted again, or caught a glimpse of Jenny in her naked glory.
Instead, he tugged her toward the cabin by the waistband of her shorts, walking backwards to drink in the soft look on her face, the fullness of her breasts, the lace bra that barely covered her pale nipples. She laughed low in her throat as he urged her up the stairs to the deck, then opened the door behind him, pulling her into the shadows of the kitchen. Once she cleared the door, he nudged it behind her and then pressed her into its back until it slammed closed.
Her eyes narrowed and darkened with the potency of single-malt scotch. He buried his lips in her hair, sucked in the scent of the strawberry shampoo she’d left on the ledge of the bathtub when he’d gone to retrieve the condoms in the lower drawer. They’d share that shower later. He would run a slippery bar of soap over her bare wet skin and against every soft crevice.
Finding her mouth again, he sucked her lips between his, and then sought her warm tongue. A hundred ways he would make love to this woman in the week to come. He’d lay a blanket in the backyard to see how moonlight lit the curve of her back. He’d stretch her out in front of the fireplace and use his knees to push her legs open. He’d drop his head between her thighs in the flatbed of his Ford until she scraped her fingers against the cool metal. And he’d take her right here, right now, against this kitchen door, and watched the last of the ice melt in her eyes.
His hand between them, he flicked open the button of her shorts. The zipper split against his knuckles as he thrust his hand down, burrowing under the edge of her panties, through the softness of the hair at the juncture of her thighs, and further, to slip his fingers into her cleft.
She moaned as her whole body flexed, and the sound sent blood rushing to his cock. He rubbed the moistness between her legs as the heat intensified against his fingers. Vibrations shuddered through her. His erection strained against his shorts, rock-hard, but he fed on the sounds she was making as he slipped his fingers deeper between her legs. He slowly plunged up, inside her, curling his finger in a beckoning motion to stimulate the interior root of her clitoris.
She gasped as he found her G spot. He concentrated his efforts and she cried out again. She was so sensitive here, so responsive. He’d noticed it last night and had filed away that secret of her body. Now watching her eyes squeeze shut was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. Her body quivered and her sex squeezed every more tightly around his fingers. He sensed how close she was to orgasm already, and considered slowing down, pulling his fingers out, replacing them with his straining cock, but she wasn’t wearing a diaphragm this time. If he stopped now, he’d have to strip down, rip open the condom, let go of her to roll it on…but he was so tight around him, on the very edge of release, and he loved the way that felt. He tasted the thin sheen of sweat on her temple, felt the pounding of her pulse against his mouth. Right now, he wanted to give her exactly what she needed and watch the look on her face as he did.
She was flushed with exhilaration, her lips wet, her eyes half-closed. A sense of primitive power surged through him as he stimulated this beauty into losing control.
“Hold onto me, Jenny.” He increased the pressure of his fingertips and rubbed in little circles. “I want to feel you—“
“Logan!”
Her muscles clenched against his fingers. She arched her neck, pressed her head back against the kitchen door, as her body tightened in a powerful orgasm. He kept stroking, urging the contractions on, extending the length of her pleasure as his cock strained against her. Her moaning intensified in the bliss, unfiltered and exuberant. He rued the moment when the contractions began to slow in frequency, as her body clenched him with less strength. Then she blinked open her eyes and looked at him, breathing hard. Wet tendrils of hair lay across her jaw and chin, but her eyes had gone as soft as melted caramel.
He slipped his fingers out of her core and removed his hand from her shorts. With his fingers, wet with her natural lubrication, he traced a circle around her navel. The scent of her arousal teased him. She looked as if she were trying to say something, but couldn’t find her tongue. The only sound in the kitchen was their harsh breathing, until he suddenly heard the rustle of clothing
He glanced down to find her shimmying out of her shorts, and then pushing down a scrap of satin silk. His cock ached against his zipper, straining toward the soft delta between her legs. He couldn’t remember a time he’d been so aroused by a woman.
He caught her hot-melted-caramel gaze as he gripped her waist. “You’re going to come again, Jenny.”
“I know.” She flipped his shorts open.
“I mean right now.” He pulled the foil packet out of his pocket as she jerked his shorts down. “Again.”
“Challenge accepted.”
He ripped the packet with his teeth as she yanked the black fabric of his underwear over his aching cock. The foil fluttered to the floor as she slid one cool hand down the shaft and grabbed the condom with the other. His balls clenched as she sucked her cock between her lips, wetting him before rolling the condom down the shaft.
His mind sizzled blank as she rose to her feet, anticipation lighting her eyes. He ran his hands down her hips and filled his hands with her backside. Lifting her up against the kitchen door, he hefted her into the perfect position. She opened herself with such eagerness that he was glad she’d already had an orgasm, that her sex gleamed with moisture, because he could help plunging into her hard, pinning her back against the door.
Then he didn’t think for a long time, giving over to his limbic brain, holding on to just enough sense until he heard the sound of her gasp again, until the first contraction of her second orgasm squeezed him over the edge.
He came up out of blindness into a garden of strawberries, and her still-damp hair pressed against his nose. His heart still raced in his chest, and he wondered if she could hear it where she stood, her cheek pressed against his shoulder, her arms slung loose around his waist.
“Oh…” she murmured into his throat. “…my.”
“Yeah.” A grin tugged at his mouth, and deeper. “Yeah.”
***
By late afternoon, Jenny wondered if there was a limit to the number of times a couple could make love in a day. If there were, she and Logan had not yet reached it. For even now, lying on their bed still wet from a shared shower, she wanted him to make love to her again.
She said, breathlessly, “How many times was that?”
Logan said. “Four. Five?”
“Six, I think,” she said, feeling like a cream-fed cat. “Not including our first time last night.”
“I count five.”
“Definitely six.” She splayed a hand over her belly and felt a
slippery sheen of soap still on her skin. “The shower,” she said, counting backward, “the living room couch—”
“The hallway,” he said with a rumble in his voice. “Don’t forget the hallway.”
“Yes, the hallway,” she added, dreamily. “Then the deck and the kitchen.”
“Technically,” he said, “The kitchen only counts one for me.”
“Ah,” she murmured, her lips stretching in the most lascivious of grins. “Then it’s six for me, five for you.”
“You owe me one, Jenny.”
She lifted herself lazily on one elbow, rolled to her side to eye Logan, naked and flat on his back, the ripples of his abdomen gleaming with moisture. “Speak your pleasure.”
He looked up through heavy lids. “You’re going to kill me.”
“No, but I’d spank you if you like.”
He laughed, a bark of a laugh, and she realized that but for a rumble of humor here or there, that was the first time she’d ever heard Logan Macallister laugh out loud. She liked the sound. It was short and came from the hidden center of him, the man she didn’t yet know. It made her heart light to know that she’d given him pleasure, in more ways than just the one. Of course, that was a miracle, too. Her ex had never made her feel as incandescent as this. With her ex, it had been all work on her part, and more than once she’d had to find her own pleasure once he gave up trying to give it to her. Why hadn’t she recognized, earlier in the relationship, how very little he cared?
Because like every experiment, you believed if you tried harder, you could make it work.
She shook the thought out of her head. Now wasn’t the time to think about exes. She preferred to have Logan filling her mind, Logan and his magic fingers and his rolling laugh and his intense gaze.
Speaking of hot sex…she slid a finger down to his navel. “You haven’t answered me yet. About what you want.”
He seized her hand and brought it to his lips. “I have a thousand ideas.”
“Is that all?”
“But right now I could eat a horse.”
Jenny noticed the grumble in her own stomach, too. She frowned and thought of the empty refrigerator. “I think there’s some whipped cream in the fridge—“
“Save that for later.” He nipped the inside of her wrist. “I need more sustenance than whip cream.”
“I guess man cannot live on love alone, huh?”
The minute the words left her lips she wanted to suck them right back into her mouth. She saw the word register in his thoughts as internally she scolded herself up, down, and sideways. What the hell was she thinking, rattling this fabulous communion between them? Hot sex was a good thing, for both of them. It was the perfect solution to being stuck in a cabin with a hot guy for ten more days. Both of them got to enjoy themselves, and then leave before any discussion of commitment could come up. For the first time in her life, she liked easy banter, shared laughter, the lack of any serious conversation.
“My bad,” she said, sitting up. “When I’m wine-addled, or sex-addled, I lose control over my tongue.”
He slid to his side and ran a finger across her lower lip. “I like when you lose control.”
She grinned, grateful that he hadn’t withdrawn after her gaffe, pleased that she hadn’t blundered into destroying this new comfort and ease between them.
“Pancakes,” he said, his taut abdomen collapsing into folds as he sat straight up. “I’m in the mood for breakfast.”
She glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand. “It’s eight o’clock at night.”
“We had burgers for breakfast and didn’t eat lunch. We might as well have pancakes for dinner.” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “I know a great pancake house, it’s a bit of a ride, but it’s open all night. Twenty-four hour breakfasts. Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, thick waffles—“
“Waffles?” she said, imagining the fragrant squares dripping with maple syrup. “As in, Belgian waffles with dollops of cream?”
“You got it, Red.”
“Oh…my.”
“Hey,” he said, coming around the bed to put his face right up to hers, “that expression is reserved for me.”
A bubble of a laugh floated its way to her throat. “We’ll see, after the waffles.”
An hour later, Jenny lifted a fork full of waffle dripping with syrup. The waffle melted in her mouth, and the taste of fresh maple syrup and rich cream exploded on her tongue. As she chewed, she gazed at Logan over her fork and concluded without question that sex with Logan Macallister was a hundred thousand times better than waffles.
He knew, too, for his mouth twitched in a way that made her think of being braced up against a hard wooden door. She glanced around the nearly empty pancake house, as if they could see her thoughts, and then enjoyed another bite of dripping waffle.
“Jenny.” Logan’s green eyes sharpened. “Stop that.”
“What?” she asked around her fork.
“Eating like that.” His gaze slipped to her mouth. “You did the same thing last night with pizza. Pulled everything off the fork with your lips. It drove me to distraction.”
Jenny speared her fork into another piece, swirling it slow, around and around, in the maple syrup. “Are you objecting to the way I eat?”
“The way you eat should be banned.”
She hefted a dripping forkful, waving it like a tease.
“You pull your mouth back so deliberately.”
She suppressed a giggle as she did as he described with extreme slowness, tugging a small piece of waffle off the tines.
“And all the while,” he continued, lowering his voice, “you look up at me with those smoky-brandy eyes, making promises.”
“Are you suggesting,” she said, as she swallowed anew, “that I’m not eating properly, Dr. Macallister?”
“It’s obscene. It should be banned.”
She closed her thighs against a new, sore surge of wanting. “I am doing everything right, I believe.”
“Yes.” He leaned his crossed forearms on the table, having shoved his empty plate to one side of the cluttered table. “You’ve been doing everything perfectly.”
His words were more of a balm than he knew. One end of the open wound on her heart knitted tight, but she lowered her eyes so he wouldn’t see how good that made her feel, or how vulnerable she felt, or how little she trusted the strength of those stitches.
“That’s good to hear,” she said, licking a drip of maple off her thumb. “My etiquette teacher will be pleased I learned my lessons well. She wouldn’t approve of public lewdness.”
Jenny laid her fork on the side of her plate and pulled the straw out of her milk shake. Defying all propriety, she licked the dripping shake off the length of the straw, then sucked the rest through until it slurped.
Their gazes met across the table and her heart lifted. She felt saucy and wicked and sated and happy. She had every intention of doing to parts of Logan’s anatomy what she was no doing with this straw, and he saw the promise in her eyes, and it was moving him to arousal. To think she hadn’t thought about her research or experiments in twenty-four hours. She traced Logan’s shin under the table and basked in his unflinching gaze. His attention, his interest, his laugh, his touch, all made her feel like the sexiest, most desirable woman in the world. It didn’t matter that it was temporary. They had another whole week together.
“So,” he said, clearing his throat and leaning back against the neoprene banquette. “You took etiquette classes as a girl.”
“I was taught how to greet dignitaries, how to set a formal dining room table, how to be a conscientious hostess. A throwback to an earlier time, though several of my friends did marry politicians.”
“Sounds more like finishing school for aristocrats,” he murmured, “brings images of pearls and white gloves.”
“We were required to wear pearls and gloves at tea-time. Very British. Of course, there were times when me and the girls would wear our pearls and ou
r white gloves and not a stitch of underwear.”
Logan made a quiet choking sound, shifting his seat as if his shorts had just gone too tight. The story was a bald-faced lie, for she wouldn’t have dared do something so bold that might have got her expelled, if they’d ever been found out. But sitting with Logan, she would say anything to keep him on the pulsing edge of desire.
“You’ll do that for me?” he asked, setting his water glass aside. “Wear pearls and gloves and nothing else?”
“You bet.”
Logan shot up, dishes rattling, glassware clinking, as he leaned over the table to capture her mouth in a kiss that broke every rule of social. She rumbled a laugh under the kiss as Logan pulled away and called for the bill.
On the way home, somewhere along the side of the dark country road, Logan pulled over onto the gravel and drew her close, kissing her until she could barely breathe.
She could get used to this, she thought, as he urged her back in the truck’s cabin to stare up at his handsome face.
If only she could feel like this forever.
CHAPTER TEN
A breeze flooded the cab of the truck as Logan eased the vehicle onto the country road. The cool night air swept out of the cab the scent of sex and heavy breathing. It tousled his hair and battered the edges of his half-unbuttoned shirt, left open in his rush to arrange his clothing before someone drove by to discover him and Jenny knotted together in the front seat. But as good as he felt right now—and damn he felt good, his whole body thrumming, warm from the inside out—there was nothing right about how fiercely he wanted to reach across the cabin to where Jenny lounged against the passenger seat door. He’d become familiar with every part of her body over the last twenty-four hours, but reaching for her bare hand felt like an intimacy he hadn’t earned.
Instead, he fixed his grip on the steering wheel and held tight enough for his knuckles to turn white as the healthy post-coital rush of endorphins seeped through him, giving rise a far more dangerous contentment. He had to keep his mind and his eyes on what mattered. This single country lane had no streetlamps. He could see no further than the cast of the headlights. He was driving the speed limit but he felt he was hurtling headlong into darkness far faster than he should be. Any minute something or someone could loom up into that light, and he wouldn’t have time to brake before the impact.
Alone With You (Cabin Fever Series Book 1) Page 10