She eased back, then swung her legs over the side of the bed and slid off. Her red silk bathrobe hung on the closet doorknob. She heard his voice as she thrust her arms into the sleeves.
“Come back to bed, Ginny.”
She tugged the silk across her breasts as she jerked around. Smoky green eyes peeked out beneath heavy lids. He hadn’t moved. With an outstretched hand, he rubbed the place where she had slept.
She took a deep, shaky breath to resist her first urge—to let the red silk bathrobe slip off her shoulders so she could join him, naked as he, in that big bed. So she could kiss his lips, caress his hard, long body, pretend they were just enjoying each other for the great sex.
It wasn’t that easy anymore.
She reached for the only defense she had. She drew around her a cloak of frost and forced her heart to turn to ice. Then she sought frantically for an excuse, any excuse, and came up with one quick.
“Sorry, Logan,” she said with a lame laugh. “I can’t”
“Sure you cant
“I’ve got to remove this diaphragm,” she explained. “It doesn’t work forever, you know.”
“Remove it,” he said, “then come back to bed.” He rolled to his side and cradled his head in his hand as a lazy smile slipped across his face. “There are other ways to pleasure each other, Red.”
Her eyes widened as images flashed through her mind, as the heat he’d ignited with his words threatened to melt the thin patina of frost she was determined to hold. She struggled to form words. She curled a fistful of silk over her heart. “Logan…”
“I want you, Ginny.”
“I want you, too.”
The words came out before she could stop mem, pushed by the momentum of honesty. She told herself there was nothing wrong in admitting passion for him. After all, that’s what got them into bed together in the first place, but there was a whole lot of distance between passion and love. Her heart had crossed that distance with lightning speed and her mind was still playing catch-up. She had no idea if Logan had made the journey with her.
“Did I hurt you?” He sat up on the bed his brow creased with concern. “Is that it, Ginny? Things got pretty rough yesterday.”
She was sore; her whole body was sore. She’d used muscles she hadn’t known she had. But all the creaksness and soreness of her body wouldn’t preclude another bout of lovemaking with Logan, if she had the courage. Instead, she shrugged a shoulder and latched onto the excuse. “I could use a little breather.”
In more than one way
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. “I’ll run you a bath.”
“No,” she said, catching his arm as he passed her. “No,” she repeated, swiftly releasing him, unnerved by the feel of his warm, smooth skin. “A shower will be fine. I just need a break.”
He searched her face. A curious light came into his eyes. She felt soft and open and vulnerable under the impact of that gaze, as readable as a child’s picture book. She didn’t want him to know how she felt. He’d made it clear he wasn’t a “forever” kind of guy. She didn’t want him to back off because she’d fallen too deep, too hard. She didn’t want his pity. And if he did feel something for her that went beyond passion… well, she wasn’t sure she wanted that, either.
For “that” meant commitment, that meant forever, that meant vows and rambling white houses and small pink babies—all the things she had never dared to dream of.
Her head spun. She was so confused. This was an emotional maelstrom she couldn’t control, she didn’t know how to handle. So she handled it the way she’d always handled difficult, muddled human relations. “The truth is,” she said, backing away from him, “I need to go back to work, Logan. We can’t be…” She let her gaze drift to the bed with its rumpled sheets. “I mean, a week of hot sex is great, but I do need to finish my research project….”
“Don’t.”
“Wh-what?”
“Don’t do this, Ginny.” He turned to face her. She backed up farther. “Don’t push me away like this.”
“I’m not.” The doorknob of the closet bumped against the base of her spine.
“Yeah, you are,” he interrupted. “You can stand there tall and straight with your jaw set and your shoulders thrown back, but I can see into you now, Ginny. That deep-freeze act doesn’t work for me anymore. Those eyes of yours…” He touched her cheek, traced her cheekbone. “I used to think they were the color of iced tea. Shocking and cold. Then I thought whiskey, yeah, whiskey. Smoky and secretive and sexy. Now I think they’re like Long Island Iced Tea—four liqueurs and a splash of cola. Deceptively potent, utterly intoxicating.”
She tried for levity. “You must be thirsty.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “For you.”
He stepped closer, settled his hands on the door to the closet, trapping her. He smelled of man, of sleep, of rumpled sheets, of sex.
“I’m not going to let you hide in the basement, Ginny,” he whispered. “Not for the rest of the week, anyway.”
“I’m not hiding,” she said, hating herself for being so transparent. “I do have to work. I only have two weeks’ leave from the university. I haven’t even found the last species John mentions in his paper.”
“Then well find it together.” He glanced toward the window, to the morning light turned bright and warm. “It looks like a good day. We’ll go to the park and take a hike, find that plant of yours. Have a picnic.”
“You want to mix business with pleasure.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Though I’d be happy with just the pleasure part But if it takes mining business and pleasure to keep you out of that lab coat, then so be it.”
She hesitated. She didn’t know if she could handle this. Another whole day with Logan, another twenty-four hours close to him. Getting to know him better. Letting him get to know her better.
He pressed his forehead against hers. His breath brushed her face; she breathed it in. She felt herself weakening.
“You promised me a week of hot sex, Ginny.”
“Promised?” Her voice felt shaky in her throat. “I think it was more like…an agreement.”
“Whatever. You promised—agreed to—a week. That week has only begun.”
Just begun, she thought. How long had they been sleeping together? Forty-eight hours? Not even. More like thirty-six. It felt as if she’d lived a whole new life in those thirty-six hours.
He lifted his head from hers, looked deeply into her eyes. “Have I disappointed you?”
“What?”
“In bed.” His lips quirked. “Is there something you want me to do that I haven’t?”
“Logan!” she sputtered. “You know…of course not!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!” You’re the only man who has ever made the earth move for me. “Yes, yes, yes.”
“I’m just trying to figure out why you’re acting so squirrelly.”
“I’m not acting squirrelly.”
“Jumpy. Nervous. Afraid to look me in the face.”
She glanced up sharply into those green eyes so close to hers, saw in them the effort it was taking for him to keep his voice light.
“Well, Ginny, I’ll tell you the truth,” he said, swallowing hard despite the lightness in his voice. “I’m feeling pretty squirrelly too. You, little lady, are scaring me to death.”
She froze. She froze, staring into his eyes, his honest words ringing in her ears and her heart tripping in her chest. She froze while a shiver shimmied up her spine. He felt something, too—something strong and undeniable and otherworldly—something he couldn’t ignore or deny.
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, gently. “Let’s you and I just take this thing… one day at a time.”
WITCHITY - WITCHITY - WITCHITY - witchity - wit. Which - is - it-Which - is - it - Which - is - it?
Yellowthroat, Logan thought, clanking the mouth of his beer against his teeth and lifting the bottle to suck down the dr
egs. He leaned back in the dappled shade of a tree and cradled his full belly.
Pit-rick. Pit-rick.
Tanager, he noted, glancing up into the boughs of the tree and searching for the bird through slitted eyes. No sooner had he found the brilliant red head amid the greenery than his gaze drifted down again…down across the blanket he’d carried to this shady little glen in the hopes of coaxing Ginny into another bout of lovemaking… to the sight of Ginny. Ginny, who leaned over the edge of a trickling brook, then lifted a test tube filled with clear water. She dropped a few drops of a blue solution into the water, then tapped the test tube to mix it. When she was done, she held it up against a color chart and marked the results in her laboratory notebook.
When the lady worked, he thought ruefully, the lady worked. She had the fierce, burning concentration of sunlight through a magnifying glass. It had taken them most of the morning to find the plant, and she hadn’t stopped with her tubes and bags and solutions yet. She hadn’t even stopped to eat her sandwich, which lay wrapped and abandoned atop the picnic basket.
It all made sense, of course. She lost all track of time when she worked. He suspected that Ginny had spent most of her lifetime hiding out in the laboratory. She forgot about food, she forgot about everything, including all her problems. One of her problems was sitting ten feet from her, eyeing her like a lion after an antelope. After last night’s incredible lovemaking, everything had changed between them. Ginny was having a hard time dealing with it.
So was he, he admitted, rolling his shoulders. He wasn’t ready for this. The timing was all wrong. What would Ginny want with a man like him? Ginny, who couldn’t even take an afternoon off from work to spend time with her lover. He didn’t resent it—he couldn’t. He envied her concentration, he envied her love of her work, he envied her unbridled confidence. A woman didn’t achieve the position Ginny had by goofing about, drinking beer and carving knickknacks.
She stood up and wandered over to the patch of weeds that were the sought-after plant species. She spread her hand over the blossoms. With tape, she lifted the pollen from the flowers and tucked the sample into another plastic bag.
Sitting here like a bump on a log, watching her add her little bit to the world’s scientific knowledge, Logan felt about as worthless as dirt.
“Phew! It’s hot.”
He glanced up a pair of long, freckled legs. Ginny swiped her brow with her forearm and tossed a small, plastic bag full of decapitated flowers upon the blanket.
“Is that sandwich for me?” she asked. “I’m starved.”
“All yours, baby,” he said. “The soda is still cold.”
She tucked into the lunch with vigor. He watched her eat, his loins reacting instinctively. Ginny ate with her lips. She puckered them around the edge of the can every time she took a sip. She even tore off bits of the sandwich and lifted them to her mouth, tugging the morsels free with the fullness of her lips. Even when she chewed, her lips were moist… kissable.
The next thing he knew he was straddling her legs with his knees, leaning over her and kissing her on that delectably full mouth. He tasted the spiciness of brown mustard on her lips.
“Logan!” she sputtered, covering her mouth as she finished chewing a bite of her sandwich. “Logan, we’re in the middle of a public park.”
“Mmm.” He licked the corner of her lip where a breadcrumb lingered. “I noticed.”
“Well…I don’t think…”
Her voice grew uneven as he ran his hand over her breast. Her nipple hardened into a nub; it pressed urgently against his palm. He watched her face as he found that nub and rubbed his thumb rhythmically over it. He loved when she looked like this, wide-eyed, pink-cheeked, her lips starting to quirk at the corners in sensual pleasure.
Then a cold mist clouded those bright whiskey-colored eyes, and she placed her hand over his to stop the motion.
“We can’t do this, Logan—”
“Yes, we can.”
“There are public decency laws.”
“Don’t tell me, in all your years of field research,” he said, “that you’ve never made love in the great wide open.”
“Well…no.”
“Honey, the only creatures around right now are the birds, and believe me, they won’t be shocked.”
“Anybody could come by,” she said. “This place is full of hikers.”
“We’re three miles from the park entrance,” he said, pressing his palm warm against the full globe of her breast, “and we haven’t seen a hiker in at least a mile.”
She blinked at him, all wide eyes and uncertainty. That was the lamest excuse she had offered since this morning, but he was beginning to figure this lady out. He wanted to make long, slow love to her with open eyes; she was scared to death of that kind of intimacy, ever since last night’s fireworks. Offer her hot sex and she was a willing participant; proffer something a little deeper, a little more frightening, and she ran for the hills.
He supposed hot sex would be just fine…for now.
“Turn over, Ginny.”
“What!”
“Roll over. Onto your stomach.” He laid his mouth on the pulse throbbing in her throat. “Remember yesterday… in the living room?”
The skin at her neck turned three shades darker.
“We’re in the woods,” he said, huskily, remembering the sight of her naked body bent over the back of the couch. The smoothness of her skin, the long indentation of her spine, the soft cushion of her buttocks. “It’s full of animals—deer, birds, maybe a bear or two, all in heat. When in Rome…”
She made a little sound in her throat, then, with a shaky laugh, obediently rolled onto her stomach. He ran his hands down the curve of her back, to the rise of her buttocks, and with hardening loins, he followed nature’s most urgent urgings.
A half hour later, he rolled onto his back and yanked up his shorts to cover himself enough for the public decency laws. Raking his hands through his hair, he tried to catch his breath. He glanced at Ginny, lying facedown beside him. She peered at him over the length of her arm, and he saw the sleepy glow of sexual satisfaction crinkle the corner of her eyes.
Well, he thought, still shaking with the force and intensity of their primitive mating, at least he was good at one thing in this world. If only he could make a living at being Ginny Van Saun’s personal stud, he’d take on the job in a minute.
‘Course, at this point, he figured he’d take it on for free. He wanted this woman. For more than swift lovemaking in the summer sun. He wanted to make her look like this—soft, vulnerable, happy—all the time. He wanted to melt that frost machine inside her—make her unafraid to love. To love him. Even if he wasn’t worth a damn.
He traced the downy hairs on her arm and she shifted her shoulders and settled down as if to sleep. A lightness swelled his chest, as if his heart had inflated like a balloon and now pressed against his sternum, trying to break free. This could happen if he willed it. He could make himself worthy of this woman.
He could seize this love that had come upon them so unexpectedly. He could seize it, hold it, make it work.
He watched her face as she dozed. Something started to happen inside his head. The options started to roll. Options he’d known about six months ago, but he’d never really taken the time to consider.
He didn’t have to go back to his old international medical team, he didn’t have to go back into the field again. He didn’t even have to practice medicine. He could get a desk job with the same organization. Or, he could try to get a position teaching at a medical school somewhere. He could go into hospital management. There were insurance companies who hired doctors to write guidelines for managed health care. His M.D. wasn’t totally worthless in the marketplace for a man too much of a coward to pick up a stethoscope again.
He’d made no effort to apply to any of those sorts of positions in the past six months…because they had all left him cold. After working for nearly ten years in the jungles and backwaters of
the underdeveloped countries of the world, he didn’t think he could spend his days staring at a word processor or attending meetings with M.B.A.s who spent their time weighing profits against quality health care. He still wasn’t sure he could make that transition.
What he did know is that he wanted to be worthy of this amazing woman. He couldn’t ask her to share his life, unless he had a life worth sharing. For the first time since his plane had touched down on North American soil, he felt the urge to turn on his computer and work on his résumé.
All because of Ginny.
He turned to face her—and caught her looking at him. The softness in her eyes struck him like a hammer. He rolled on his side and slid his hand under her unbound hair to savor the bare skin of her back.
Marry me, Ginny.
God, he wanted to say those words. He wanted to nuzzle his face in that place behind her ear, fill his senses with the smell of her sun-warmed hair, tell her he wanted to spend his life in her bed. The urge was almost too strong to resist…but resist he did. Because her gaze faltered, slid away, and she closed her eyes against him. If she knew the truth, she’d turn into ice before his eyes.
One day at a time. That’s what he’d promised her.
He slid his hand down the incline of her back, then over one bare buttock. “For a lady who was so concerned with the public decency laws,” he said, squeezing the fullness of one lush, naked buttock, “you sure are reveling in the transgression.”
He was rewarded with a flash of brown eyes and a sexy little smile as she tossed her hair over her shoulder and lifted up on her elbows, giving him full view of the weight and wonder of her breasts. “Your fault,” she said. “You’ve corrupted me.”
“Good.”
“I used to be such a moral, law-abiding citizen,” she continued, rolling to one side, giving him a full frontal view. “Now you’ve got me committing lewd acts in public places.”
“Complaining?” he said through a throat suddenly tight
“Oh, no.” Her grin widened, split. “I’m not complaining one little bit. It’s strangely…liberating.”
Logan's Way Page 16