Mercy, he was gorgeous, from head to toe. And gone was their relatively slow progress. She shocked herself by watching his every movement as he ripped open a foil package and sheathed himself. If possible, she grew even hotter and needier at the sight. She found it difficult to breathe, as if her lungs were as stunned by the view before her as she was.
Logan lowered himself to the bed and pulled her beneath him, nudging her legs apart with his knee. He kissed her again, his tongue dancing with hers and making her wonder how she’d ever made it through a day without being kissed like that.
“Are you okay?” he asked as he trailed kisses across her cheek toward her ear.
“I’m not sure. I feel like I’m going to burst into flames.”
Logan gripped her hips and pulled her up to press against his erection. “The feeling’s mutual.” He teased at her opening for just a moment before he plunged inside her, filling her as she’d never, ever been filled before.
A new wave of desire surged through her, prompting her to move against him, yearning for more. His hands splayed against her hips, he pulled her body to meet his as he drove into her again. Without thinking, Skyler wrapped her legs around him and captured Logan’s mouth, kissing, tugging, biting until she had to throw her head back in order to get enough air into her lungs. She gasped as Logan increased his pace, and she began meeting each of his thrusts with ones of her own.
Vibrations started deep within her, and she dug her hands into Logan’s hair. She didn’t need to say a word for him to know she wanted to increase the pace. With each stroke, she felt herself getting closer to the pinnacle. Her breath came faster as she bowed up against Logan’s straining body.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she said before she reached her peak.
Logan, who must have been hanging on to his own release with tight reins until she found hers, made one final stroke, then went rigid all over. He cried out as he found completion, then collapsed half on, half off her. He sucked in great gulps of air.
They didn’t speak. As the raging desire and physical bliss faded and Skyler was left with listening to the breathing of a near stranger next to her, she wondered if she truly had gone insane.
* * *
LOGAN FELT THE moment Skyler began to think too much, when she started slipping back to the woman she’d been before she’d made the decision to take a chance and live a little. Well, he couldn’t have that, because if he had his way, the night was far from over for them.
He wrapped his hand around the curve of her hip and rolled her to face him. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Thinking.”
“I can’t.” Her voice held a hint of panic at the edge.
“Well, I have a cure for that.” He pulled her closer, draping her leg over his hip as he captured her sweet mouth with his. She still tasted like her blueberry ice cream.
He sensed a moment of resistance in her before she caved and ran her soft fingertips up his chest. Her hand stopped moving when she reached the puckered skin on his left pec. She leaned away and ran her finger along the slash.
“What happened to you?”
“A bull I was riding didn’t particularly like me.”
Her mouth fell open on a little gasp. “A horn did this?”
“Hazard of the job.”
She looked up at him, and his breath caught. Even in the dim light and with her hair tousled, she was stunning. He hadn’t lied—he did love redheads. He’d dare any man to see Skyler Harrington and not want to take her straight to his bed.
“You’ve got a death wish, don’t you?”
He smiled. “Not at all. I very much like living, especially right now.” Before she could speak or think any more, he ran his hand along her jaw and into her hair and brought her tasty mouth to his again. No matter how much he kissed her, he couldn’t seem to get enough. He never lacked for female companionship, but it had been a long time since he’d craved a woman as he did Skyler.
The mere touch of her hands skimming along the skin of his chest drove him wild, and he rolled her onto her back. As he slid home again, one word echoed in his head. Perfect.
* * *
SKYLER PULLED THE cover over her shoulder as she gradually came awake. Why did the air-conditioning feel so cold? And why was it running so loudly? She opened her eyes and blinked a couple of times. It took a few seconds for the confusion to fade enough for her to realize what she was looking at—a motel air-conditioning unit.
She froze as another cog slipped into place, the one telling her that the reason she had awakened chilled was the fact that she was still naked. She closed her eyes and tried to calm her breathing. Bad move. Closing her eyes only gave her a blank screen on which to replay what had happened with Logan. She’d had mind-blowing sex, twice, with a man she’d met that morning.
She glanced at the clock. Correction, yesterday morning. It wasn’t her birthday anymore, so that meant it was time to get her temporarily insane self out of this room and away from Logan Bradshaw and his delectable body.
Somehow she was able to calm her panic enough to listen to his breathing. Slow, steady, definitely asleep. She held her breath as she eased out from under the covers and carefully retrieved and put on her clothes. When Logan stirred in his sleep, she stopped dead. She made the mistake of looking at him. His bare chest tempted her to crawl back into bed and wake him in a way he would be sure to appreciate. The way the sheet rode low around his hips caused her to lick her lips at the memory of him making love to her.
No, it was sex. Making love was something you did with someone you actually cared about, not a stranger who’d probably done this same thing with countless other women. Thank goodness they’d at least been safe about it.
Even though she knew she should go, her feet weren’t getting the message. Instead, she stood and watched him sleep. The part of her that had led her here, the part that likely wouldn’t exist outside this room, whispered that she’d done nothing wrong. That she deserved to enjoy herself, to revel in the feel of a man’s body pressed close to hers. And Logan’s had felt like nothing she’d ever imagined. If she let herself, she could get used to that feeling.
But it wasn’t real. This wasn’t her, and he would be gone in a matter of days.
That’s what India thought about Liam.
She shook her head to clear away the thought. Logan was nothing like Liam. India’s fiancé was a hardworking father and business owner. Logan had that carefree adrenaline-junkie vibe. Chances were he wouldn’t live to be an old man. That scar across his chest was evidence of that. Nothing but pure sexual hunger had brought her to this room, because other than the physical desire, they were absolutely nothing alike.
Her common sense slammed back into her as if it had taken a short vacation, and suddenly she needed to get far away from Logan Bradshaw as quickly as possible. She pushed aside one final surge of yearning and slipped out the door into the night. Before anyone who might recognize her noticed her, she hurried across the lit parking lot to the dimmer sidewalk that led back toward Main Street.
With each hurried step away from the motel, she scolded herself more for her incredible lapse in judgment. She’d just had sex with a near stranger, twice! She wanted to get home, take a shower and go to bed. If she was supremely lucky, in the morning she’d wake up and this would all be nothing more than a hot, steamy dream.
As she neared downtown, she slowed as her thoughts spun. How in the world was she going to face Elissa and India? Why hadn’t she gone back to the music hall as she’d intended? Dealing with their matchmaking attempts would have been more bearable than telling them she’d gone off to the Country Vista to have sex with her skydiving partner. Wondering why she hadn’t heard from them, she stopped walking and pulled out her phone. When she saw she had twelve unanswered text messages, she remembered she’d put her phon
e on silent during the movie and had forgotten to change it back. If only she’d had the ringer on, maybe the texts would have kept her from making the biggest mistake of her life.
She scrolled through them.
Elissa: Hope you’re having a good time with Mr. McHottiePants.
Elissa: Smooch, smooch, smooch.
India: Ignore her. Call if you need us.
Several more followed in the same vein before India’s final message:
Where are you? Are you ok? Let me know.
She glanced across the street toward the mostly empty parking lot of the Blue Falls Music Hall and knew she couldn’t face seeing either of her friends tonight. With a deep breath, she texted India back.
Fine. Sorry, forgot to turn the ringer back on. Tired, heading to bed.
Just as soon as she walked the mile and a half around the lake to her apartment. If she made it without someone seeing her and setting the local gossip mill ablaze, she’d officially be the luckiest woman in all of the Hill Country.
She hurried toward the walking path that circled the lake. When she passed the Ice Cream Hut, she couldn’t help but remember how Logan had teased both her and Mari as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Damn her hormones—it probably was. She imagined him buying an ice-cream cone for a woman in every rodeo town he rolled into. Tears pooled in her eyes, and that made her even angrier. But she wasn’t angry at Logan. He hadn’t claimed to be anything he wasn’t. No, she was angry at herself. She’d let her body trump the orderly, precise thought process that had gotten her through years of upheaval and allowed her to become a successful businesswoman.
She increased her pace, wanting to be home more than she could express. Her anger grew, extending to her friends. They’d pushed her to the point where she’d fallen prey to Logan’s good looks and smooth talking. All the way back to the inn, she concocted countless ways to get back at them. But that would mean admitting what had happened. And by the time she unlocked the exterior door to her apartment that wouldn’t necessitate her walking through the inn’s lobby, she’d decided she was keeping her one-night stand to herself. That shouldn’t be a problem, since she couldn’t imagine Logan caring enough to deliberately cross her path again. He’d had her, and most likely he’d be on to the next woman who caught his eye.
That last thought kept reverberating in her head as she made straight for her bathroom and took a shower. Why did it bother her so much?
Because she wasn’t one to give even her body so easily. She’d lost control, and if there was one thing she couldn’t bear, it was to not be in control of her own life.
She dressed in cool summer pajamas and crawled into her bed. She inhaled the familiar clean scent of it, ran her hand across the downy softness. Everything about it was better than the bed at the Country Vista Inn.
Except that she was alone. She tried to tell herself that she was perfectly fine on her own, that she preferred it that way. But as a tear finally leaked out and trailed down to her pillow, she admitted that she was lonely. Logan wasn’t to blame for what happened between them. Her friends weren’t either. It was the loneliness that most of the time she could convince herself was a figment of her imagination, the empty feeling that she rarely acknowledged. But as she lay in her bed alone, she let herself feel it. She let herself admit, if only to herself in the privacy of her own mind, that she missed the warmth of a man’s body next to her.
As she closed her eyes, she allowed herself to relive every moment, every touch she’d shared with Logan. Moments and touches that had for a short while made her forget that loneliness.
Chapter Five
Logan knew Skyler was gone even before he opened his eyes. The room was too quiet and the bed next to him too cool for her to still be there. He looked at the rumpled sheet where she’d lain. It wasn’t a surprise she was gone, but he had to admit it was a disappointment. Finding his way into her body again this morning would have been a great way to start the day. But he guessed he was lucky she’d stayed as long as she had, that she’d agreed to come back to the room with him at all.
If he were to place a bet, he’d say she was drowning in regret this morning. He wondered if he shouldn’t have pressed her so much, but then he remembered how she’d pulled him into that dark little park and kissed him as if her soul depended on it. She might not admit it, but she’d wanted what they’d shared just as much as he had.
Suddenly ravenous, he rolled out of bed, took a shower, dressed and headed for the Primrose Café. He’d worked up quite an appetite with Skyler. Maybe he’d even see her in town this morning and cause her to blush with a kiss in broad daylight. He smiled at that thought. If Skyler was regretting going to bed with him, maybe he should make it his mission to erase that regret. And get her right back in that bed. Whatever she might say the day after, they’d been good together. Who knew there was that much fire under the surface of Miss Prim and Proper?
When he stepped through the front door of the café, a quick survey of the room showed every table was full. A young waitress with a dirty plate in one hand and a coffeepot in the other stopped next to him on her way across the dining room.
“There’s still a couple of stools left up front,” she said with a nod toward the counter lined with stools.
She was probably in her mid-twenties with a long brown ponytail. He recognized the smile on her pink lips and the look of appreciation in her bright blue eyes. Normally he would have returned them as his thoughts shifted away from breakfast. But for some reason, in his mind the waitress’s face was replaced by Skyler’s.
Feeling a bit off, he nodded. “I’ll take a cup of that coffee when you get the chance.”
“Be right there as soon as I take care of the Chew the Fat Club.”
He watched as she headed toward the front corner of the restaurant next to the big picture window that had Primrose Café painted across it. Four old coots were deep in conversation, likely solving all the world’s problems. Logan laughed a little under his breath. There seemed to be a Chew the Fat Club in every small town in America. Those guys probably had a dozen grandkids between them and were here every morning drinking their weight in coffee. And by the way they smiled when the waitress approached, probably part of what they talked about during their morning get-togethers was the good old days when they’d been wild bucks chasing pretty girls.
Pretty girls like Skyler Harrington.
Logan shook his head and crossed to the stool at the end of the bar. He needed an entire pot of coffee to wake up and send his body and mind the message that it was a new day. His hot night with Skyler was done. He didn’t regret it, not one bit, but he wasn’t one to get too wrapped up in any one woman. He didn’t live the kind of life where that made a lick of sense. He slid onto the stool and grabbed a menu.
“Saw you at the music hall last night,” the pretty waitress said as she set an empty cup in front of him. He glanced at her nametag. Gretchen.
“Yep. Seemed like the place to be.”
“You know Skyler?”
There was more to her question than simple curiosity, and for some reason a voice in Logan’s head told him to tread carefully. What was up with that?
“Met her and her friends yesterday.” He pointed toward a photo on the menu. “I’ll have the Good Morning Platter with scrambled eggs.” Two eggs, bacon, sausage and a biscuit with gravy. His night with Skyler had left him with an enormous appetite this morning. That thought made him want to grin.
Gretchen jotted down his order and headed for the window to the kitchen. While her back was turned, someone slid onto the only remaining empty stool, next to him.
“Tell me I’m not going to have to sic the sheriff on you.”
He glanced over to see Skyler’s friend Elissa sitting next to him with a “Don’t mess with me, or I’ll eat you for lunch” expression on her face.
“Pardon?”
“The last time I saw or heard from Skyler, she was heading out the door of the music hall with you. Then, poof, she disappears. Doesn’t answer calls, doesn’t respond to texts, doesn’t contact me for a ride home.”
A twinge of worry hit him. “Have you tried her this morning?”
“Yes, but still no answer.”
Had something happened to her? Blue Falls was one of those small towns where you didn’t think anything bad ever happened, but the reality was that evil knew no geographic boundaries. “She was fine when I saw her last.” She’d felt fine, too, snuggled up next to him for warmth, her soft curves making him want to take her all over again.
“What time was that?”
“I don’t know, sometime after midnight.”
The smile that started to spread across Elissa’s face surprised him. It took a moment to realize he’d been maneuvered into revealing a little too much, probably way more than Skyler wanted out there in the light of day.
“You’re a sneaky one,” he said, unsure if he admired her ability or was annoyed by it.
“I had to do something. Skyler obviously isn’t going to say anything.”
“You’ve talked to her?”
“No. She’s dodging my calls, and now I know why.”
“But she’s okay?” Something in him needed to know she was safe.
Elissa gave him a look that was a bit too probing. “Yeah. I called the inn, and she’s there working as usual.”
“You did hijack one of her work days.” Strangely relieved to know Skyler was safe, he took a drink of his coffee.
“It was her birthday. No one should work on their birthday.”
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