“So tell me,” he began. “How was your week?”
~
Sophie
Sophie wondered at the rueful expression on his face as he asked her about her week. A feeling like a piece clicking into place inside her made her relax. This was common ground. “My week was good. I don't know if I told you, but I just got a new contract with some big-fish hotelier.”
He snorted, a smile playing about his full lips. “Hotelier? Paul has been called many things, mainly by his wife, but hotelier has never been amongst them. He's simply a business man who knows how to make money. He'll sell it off once it's started to turn a profit. But you won't give a shit by then. You'll have gotten what you wanted and moved on. Isn't that your modus operandi?”
Her heart sank. “What?” She'd thought he'd brought her here tonight to repair their bridges and make a go at some sort of friendly relationship. Obviously she'd been wrong. “I never...”
“Got what you wanted from me? Oh no?” His eyes danced with evil mirth, reminding her that she had gotten exactly what she'd wanted from him. He sipped his scotch without removing his eyes from hers.
“I was going to say I never moved on.” She lowered her gaze, training it on the forks and cursing herself when their image started to wobble in her forming tears.
“Shit,” he sighed. “Soph. Don't cry. Please don't cry.”
“Why Logan? 'Cos everything will be alright?” She smiled, letting a tear roll down her cheek. “I don't believe you this time.”
“I'm sorry, okay? It just came out.”
“No,” she waved away his apology. “You're right. I did leave. I left you behind.” She took the napkin he'd held out for her and dabbed at her eyes. God, this was so embarrassing. “Excuse me.” She rose, intending to flee to the bathroom, but as she went to step away from the table, her foot caught in a snag on the carpet and she went sprawling into his lap, face-first.
The waitress chose that moment to return with the basket of bread sticks and a box of matches, presumably to relight the candle Logan had extinguished. “Is everything alright, Sir?” she asked, somewhat skeptically.
“Fine,” he waved her off. “Give us a moment, would you? My dinner companion has hurt her ankle tripping over that loose bit of carpeting.” He pointed with his finger at the offending thread while Sophie desperately tried to rise. He pulled her into his lap, running a hand down her calf to encircle her ankle with his strong fingers.
“Of course, I'm terribly sorry, Sir.” The waitress left as if her behind were on fire. No doubt to tell management that some customer had been injured and might sue. Logan's fingers kneaded her ankle as if she really had injured it. “Are you alright?”
He seemed to be asking after more than her ankle, and Sophie shook her head before burying it in the crook of his neck. Oh, how she'd missed the smell of his neck. The feel of his arms surrounding her. The sense of rightness that she'd always tried to play off as lingering teenage lust. He held her gently, his arms surrounding her at waist and shoulder. She felt safe. Protected. Cherished. And then he opened his mouth.
“You need to return to your seat. You're causing quite a stir.”
She rose with cheeks tinged red and resumed her seat. The old Logan wouldn't have cared a jot who was watching. He'd have kissed her forehead and told her to stay. “Sorry,” she whispered. Her plan to seduce him falling apart around her, she opted for the well-worn path of sisterly camaraderie, and asked him about his love life.
He gave her an odd look, which she took to mean he wasn't comfortable with her prying. “Same as always,” he finally admitted, closing that avenue of conversation.
The entire dinner was a disaster from start to finish. He said little and ate less. Their stilted conversation consisted of her asking questions and him shutting them down so that by the end of the night she began to wonder what on earth had possessed him to invite her over. Swallowing her last mouthful of gin and tonic, she realized she was half sozzled, having resorted to the immature response of getting drunk when she felt uncomfortable. Crap, now he'd think she'd turned into a lush as well as a neurotic bitch who couldn't even have dinner without crying, falling over and smelling his neck.
“Well,” she sighed, rising. She'd decided to go for absolute broke. “This has been very uncomfortable, to say the least. I think we should call it a night here.”
His eyes burned into hers as he rose to tower over her, signing his name on the receipt for it to be added to his bill. “I don't think so, Sophie.”
“What? You mean you enjoyed this...this debacle?”
"It has been somewhat awkward, I will admit." He reached for her hand. "But the night isn't over yet."
With a quizzical tilt to her head, she allowed him to tug her to his side and walk her to the elevator. Her lips spreading in a secret smile, she realized he hadn't written the entire evening off, as she'd thought he would after the scene in the restaurant. He was still interested. She felt her knees turn to jello when his lips landed on the side of her neck as the elevator doors swished to a close with a ding.
By the time it dinged again, the door sliding open on his floor, Sophie's insides were mush, and Logan's lips had trailed to her jawline, placing gentle kisses on the corner of her mouth. He had barely touched her, and already she was a mess. Eagerly following him to his door, she watched his tanned fingers slide the key card through the slot, thinking they'd soon be working on her body.
Need bubbled from her ready lips in the form of a moan when he reached behind him, snagging the front of her blouse and tugging her inside. The minute the door snicked shut, he was on her, hands spanning her waist, pulling her to him while his mouth landed on hers, hard, desperate and hot. His groan when she opened her mouth to allow his tongue to slide inside made her thighs clench together. "Logan," she croaked, feeling his tongue blaze a path to her collar bone.
He said nothing, merely nipped at her sensitized flesh and raised the hem of her skirt past her knees, bunching it in one fist. She heard the split tear a little as he dragged it roughly up the expanse of her thighs. With an animalistic grunt, he ripped her panties down her thighs, urging her to raise her legs one by one so as to slide them off, lowering himself to capture each foot as she lifted, steadying her.
His eyes flashing fire, he gazed up at her, her skirt in a bunch above her hips, and her pussy bare to his gaze. With deliberate slow movements, he closed the distance between them, his lips burning her flesh where they kissed and tortured her thighs.
Not once did he look away from her, flattening the bulk of her skirt against her abdomen so that he could watch her when at last his tongue slid between her folds. Sophie rolled her eyes, the sensation more than she could bear. He growled when her lids drifted shut, a demand that she look at him. That she see, really see for the first time, who was responsible for her state of arousal. She was about to go supernova, and he obviously wanted her to know it was because of him.
At the first touch of his tongue, she was on fire, and it didn't take long for those tell-tale tingles to spread through her body. Reaching forward with one shaking hand, she grabbed a fist-full of his hair, urging him on. Instead, he tore his mouth from her body, laughing cruelly. "No, baby. Not yet."
Logan stood, capturing both of Sophie's hands in his as he raised her arms above their heads, trapping her between his body and the door. Transferring both wrists into one of his huge hands, he reached for his pants with the other. "Raise your leg."
With the heels on, and a bit of maneuvering on both their parts, he situated himself between her thighs. She rested her thigh on his hip, the leather of his belt digging in. She couldn't care less – he was here. Logan was hers. Joy spread through every nerve-ending as he positioned himself at her entrance.
Arching her back, she tried to convey silently her wish to be freed, but Logan was having none of it, pressing the flesh of her wrists against the unyielding oak of the door. "Logan," she rasped. "I want to feel you. It's been so long." After more
than a year without the touch of a lover, Sophie felt as though an inferno were taking place inside her body, each breathless kiss and simple caress setting off fireworks in her nerve-endings.
"Feel this," he told her, seating himself inside her, stretching her, filling her, making her gasp and forget the need to run her hands over his body. It felt right. They felt right. She whipped her head from side to side, mewling and moaning, the only sounds she was capable of making as he worked himself in and out of her.
The wet noises of their love-making, the burning intensity of his eyes as he gazed at her – it was all too much. Sophie came on a ragged gasp, her body clenching around Logan's still hard cock. Sagging and spent, she leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "Bed..."
"No," he grunted. "Here is good."
He finally freed her hands, pulling her other thigh up to rest on his hip, still pounding into her. Sophie's back smacked against the door as he raised her up, both hands planted on her ass to balance her, fingers digging in with a delicious mixture of pain and pleasure. Again feeling her body tighten, she grabbed at his shoulders, working her lips up the column of his throat.
His moans vibrated against her lips as she placed them against his, feeling desperation simmering inside herself as he brought her to the brink once more. "Oh, Logan. That feels...oh, God." Convulsing, she came again, her head thrown back, and this time he joined her, groaning his pleasure into the soft flesh of her throat.
His breathing as unsteady as hers, he lowered her to the floor where she stood, boneless and still shaking. Sophie watched as he speedily tucked himself back into his pants, doing them up with a frown on his face. Feeling like she'd missed a trick, she smoothed her skirt back down her legs. “Logan, I–”
He cut her off with a glare. "Now that we've achieved what we set out to, you should leave."
She narrowed her eyes, concentrating on the bleak expression that darkened his face. “What do you mean by that? What did we 'set out' to do?”
“Come on, Soph. Don't play demure. It never did suit you.” He snatched her panties from the floor and tossed them to her. Still trying to drunkenly figure out what he'd meant, she caught them distractedly and tucked them into her purse.
"Classy," he quipped, reaching around her for the door handle.
“Logan?”
He whirled on her, eyes like daggers. “I told you, Soph. Playing demure doesn't suit you.”
“Wait, Logan. Please,” she shrieked, wondering how it all gone to shit. “I don't understand. What's going on?”
“What's going on?” he repeated, as if realizing for the first time that she was truly clueless. “You received the stipulations to your contract, yes?” The door creaked open.
“Um, yeah. It led me to believe you wanted to reconnect, but now I'm not so sure. I gather you've changed your mind.” Her head was reeling from too much drink and too little food – her nerves had only allowed her to pick at her dinner.
“Reconnect?” he questioned with a laugh. “Oh, I did. But not in the way you imagine, Ms. Ellis. I don't want to be your brother. I don't even want to be your friend anymore.”
"Okay, so what?" Confusion clouded her mind. What was he saying?
“All I wanted from you is exactly what I just got.” She frowned at him. “Sex.”
“Ex-excuse me? Sex?”
“Didn't you hear me? Did I stutter? Shall I repeat it for you?” His eyes were cold, his expression remote. Sophie blinked slowly, like a sleeper who's just woken up in the middle of a club.
“Just sex?”
“Just sex.” He crushed his mouth to hers, hard and cruel, his tongue forcing her mouth open under his. She groaned with the initial rush of it all, but soon her body caught up with her mind and she pushed at him, shocked at the depth of his anger at her. "And now that I've gotten what I want – for now – it's time for you to go home. Good night, Ms. Ellis. And thank you."
"Thank you?"
She was talking to the blank side of his door. With a cold dread settling in her stomach, Sophie realized he'd just used her and then dumped her ass out in the hallway.
An angry snarl twisting her features, she rapped her fist against his door. "Logan Castle, open this door right now!" She ignored the shocked face of a guest who dared a peek out of their door, pinning them with a glare. Snapping her head back to the door, she was met with Logan's bored expression.
"What is it? It's late. I'm tired." He yawned. Actually, fucking yawned. She wanted to tear his eyes out.
Pushing her way into his room, she turned on him with a hiss. “Logan,” she shrieked. “I'm not fucking you for a contract.” The door closed softly, punctuating her statement.
“Aren't you?” Grinning, he strolled across the room, brushing by her. "You just did." He sat on the end of his vast bed, his expression daring her to argue.
“No, I'm not. I didn't. Fuck this.” She turned on her heel. “Keep the fucking contract. Wipe your ass with it for all I care. I'm no whore.” She may have no sense when it came to her stepbrother, but she had some damn self-respect. “And to think I came here tonight with the express intention of seducing you. Stupid me, I've always been a little slow on the uptake. While I was planning on seducing you, you were planning on buying me.” Her face paled upon the full realization of what he'd done. “You're not the man I thought you were.”
“And whose fault is that, Sophie, huh?” He charged at her, slamming the door closed the moment she pulled it open an inch. “You destroyed me. You think I didn't feel just as guilty as you for letting things get so far? You think I totally discounted our parents' feelings? No, sister, I knew exactly how they'd feel, but I wanted you enough to get over it.”
“Don't call me that,” she whispered, anger causing two spots of color high on her cheeks.
“What?” he taunted. “Sister?”
“Yes,” she hissed.
“Why not, sister?” he taunted once more, planting a hand either side of her shoulders, leaning in so close she could feel the breath leave his lips with each word. “Does it make you feel dirty when you get wet for your stepbrother? Does it? Does it make you feel nasty when you remember the things we did to each other just now?” He rubbed his lips across hers once. “Does it upset you that you're just as hot for me as you ever were? Maybe we should find a fountain and you can make another wish.”
She slapped his face, hard. “No, you arrogant son of a bitch. Don't call me sister, because I'm not your sister. And I never will be again.”
“No,” he agreed, the imprint of her hand standing out red and raw on his cheek. “You're not my sister. But then again you never wanted to be my sister, did you?”
Remembering the time he'd sat with her on the park bench eating pizza and laughing, she wondered at what leaving had cost him. His soul, she decided. He was soulless and heartless and not the man she had loved for so long. “Keep the contract,” she croaked once more.
“I'll tell Paul in the morning that you pulled out.”
“Tell him,” she invited. “I don't care.”
“Your professional reputation will be destroyed.” He smirked.
It was true. Her professional reputation would be in tatters. She'd be lucky to get a job painting a picture after this. Not only her, but she'd pull Alex down with her. Unacceptable. “I don't care,” she whispered uncertainly.
“Do you want the job?” he asked, serious for a moment, his eyes losing some of the coldness.
“You know I do,” she replied, the admission killing something inside her.
“It's yours.” He leaned in closer again, his lips brushing hers. For a moment she resisted, still as a statue beneath his searching mouth, but before long her body took over again and she kissed him in return, her hands sinking into the lushness of his hair. His tongue swept hers as his mouth opened and closed against hers, and she moaned.
Pulling away, she gathered her wits. “For a price, of course,” she whispered bitterly.
“Yes,” he moved away
from her, carefully seating himself in the chair farthest from the door. “I'll give you time to think about it. After all, we can change designers right up until you're scheduled to start work.” In two weeks. She was scheduled to start in two week's time.
~
Logan
Logan watched the thoughts as they flitted across her face. She was insulted, but confused. If the situation wasn't so ludicrous, he would laugh. His crotch ached, so close to her and yet disallowing himself the pleasure of her touch again. If he went to her, he knew, he could have her. The kiss had proven it to him. Her body still wanted him. Even now.
She'd planned to seduce him, she'd said. He narrowed his eyes in thought. She still wanted him, body and mind. Her tears in the restaurant earlier had killed him – knowing he was the cause of them. He'd cried his tears for her, too, but still couldn't stand the thought of hurting her. After all this time, the need to protect her, even from himself, was still prevalent. When she'd turned into his body, her face buried in the crook of his neck, just feeling her breath on his skin made him rock solid. He'd had to ask her to move lest she find out just what kind of stir she was causing.
Now she stood breathing hard with her back pressed against his door. “This isn't right, surely you can see that?”
He laughed and the sound was bitter. “Make up your mind, sister. You either want the job, or you don't? Which is it?”
She actually thought about it, her eyes closing. Logan felt like he should tie himself to the chair to stop himself going to her. Cursing himself for a lovesick fool, he waited for her answer. The longer she thought, the harder it was to remain in his chair. He rose, stalking towards her, powerless to stop himself.
“Well?” he whispered, right beside her ear, making her jump. Her eyes flew open and Logan noted the look of pure lust before she hid behind a mask of indifference.
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