At least she didn’t have any regrets. As much as she had detested her time with Carl, Kate came away from the whole ordeal thinking of it as a learning experience. Very rarely did anyone complete the first try perfectly in life. Life took a little practice and maybe, with a little luck, she’d get to do some practicing tonight.
Asking, or rather telling Logan to come to dinner had been a complete rush. It had felt about the same as jumping out of an airplane with Julia. Kate knew good and well that it was wrong with a capital W to seduce one of her patients, but at the risk of sounding childish, he started it. He’d been the one to crack jokes and smile and take up too much space in the exam room.
Carl had had her wound up so tight and afraid to do anything without his permission that it had taken months to unravel herself enough to where small, mundane tasks such as cooking dinner weren’t monumental if done “improperly.” There were still times when she had to remind herself that it was okay to wear red lipstick and buy colorful sheets and duvet covers for the bed.
Now here she was sitting in her bedroom wearing a fifty dollar dress and two-hundred dollar lingerie, waiting for a man who may or may not show up to have wild and crazy sex with her.
Well, if he didn’t show up then at least she’d taken a flying leap out of her comfort zone and asked him in the first place. She could find the positive in the situation and chalk it up to experience.
And if he did show up…well, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.
A guy like Logan Murray probably received dinner invitations from women on a daily basis. They probably didn’t even make it to dinner. Kate would probably just become another notch on his bedpost. Even if that was to be the case, a little one night fling was exactly what she needed.
It seemed so easy giving in to that natural urge to kiss him in her office. She vowed to be that free here in her home and to give in to the moment and enjoy where it took her and not overthink things. With leaps and bounds, Kate was finally becoming the woman she wanted to be.
Happy with her appearance, Kate went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine. She turned on the sensual sounds of some jazz music that Julia had recommended and swayed to the rhythm. She swiveled her hips and reveled in the feel of the soft fabric of her dress twirling around her thighs.
After loosening up to a few songs, it was time to set the scene. There was no formal dining room in her home but just enough room in the kitchen for her small bistro table and chairs. She set plates on the table, along with her best silverware, before going to the stove.
She liked playing with ingredients and spices, creating new flavors and embellishing the familiar. If a recipe didn’t turn out and was beyond fixing, then she could just toss it and move on to something else. No harm done and no pressure, just the opportunity for discovery. Always one to follow the directions precisely and color inside the lines, it was invigorating to take a step out of the good ole comfort zone once in a while.
Carl had been especially rigid when it came to food. He had a diet that rivaled Hugh Hefner and Kate was glad to get to experiment with new dishes in the kitchen. Not that pasta was an exotic food, but she was free to cook it however she wished. Tonight she made Penne Rigate with Spicy Braised Swordfish to serve with fresh French bread from the bakery. Yes, she had bought the ingredients early in the morning during her routine shopping trip, but that was before she vowed to be more spontaneous. It wasn’t the bread’s fault she approached change with baby steps.
The sauce smelled heavenly. When it was ready—oh yes, it had a decadent flavor to it!—she was pleased by the outcome and put the recipe in the keeper folder. Fortunately tonight’s dinner wouldn’t be banished to the garbage disposal. And the store-bought bread and salad were practically guaranteed to be edible.
She drank wine while she cooked dinner and the fruity taste of the rosé melded deliciously with the rich flavor of the tender swordfish and rich tomato sauce.
If he didn’t show, at least Kate would have a delicious meal to eat. See, always one to find the positive in any situation, Kate had no problem looking on the bright side.
When her phone rang, Kate thought it might be Logan calling to cancel, but she quickly remembered she hadn’t given him her cell number. And he would probably text to cancel rather than call anyway.
That only left one other person.
“Are we still on for yoga tomorrow?” Julia’s voice boomed over the line and Kate pulled a knife from the drawer for the bread.
“Yes.”
“Is that jazz music playing in the background?”
Damn you, Kate thought. Her sister had the ears of a barn owl. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
“I’m having someone over for dinner,” Kate elaborated.
“Well, you wouldn’t be playing jazz for Janis, so… You invited a man over to your house?” Julia screeched.
“Yes,” Kate answered simply. She didn’t relay the scene in her office to her sister. Julia would laugh and say how much it sounded like the scene in Top Gun when Kelly McGillis did something similar with Tom Cruise. And Tom Cruise’s character had shown up late because he’d been playing shirtless volleyball.
Oh Jeez. That mental picture didn’t help matters at all. It was best not to think about Logan playing shirtless, sweaty volleyball on the beach. It was best not to think about Logan at all.
“I’m getting Shamus so we can go looking for my sister.”
“Julia,” Kate said on an exhale. “I’m trying something new. I had an idea and I’m carrying it out on instinct.”
“Well, good for you, Katie Kat. I’m glad you’re putting yourself out there again. Do you want to borrow Shamus?”
“What for?”
“So he can be your guard dog in case this guy turns out to be a major creepo—not that you’d invite a major creepo over to your house, but—”
“No,” Kate replied sternly. “I don’t need Shamus to play chaperone.”
“Fair enough.”
“Look, Julia, I don’t have time to chat. And yes, we’re still on for yoga tomorrow.”
“Okay. I hope he appreciates how good your cooking is!”
Kate ended the call and leaned a hip against the stove. She didn’t like keeping things from Julia; they usually shared most everything with each other. But this wasn’t something she could share just yet. And by tomorrow there might not even be anything to share.
Kate set her phone on the counter and sighed. Did she really invite a patient to her home? Maybe she’d chosen him because she was looking for some post-divorce, no-strings attached action. Because if she paid her instincts any heed, she knew Logan Murray probably wasn’t the settle-down type of guy.
Either way, when he pinned her to the wall with those blue eyes of his, she couldn’t ignore the sizzle of excitement that raced through her veins and the flutter between her legs. He had a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, along with a look she couldn’t quite read. She liked that she couldn’t tell what he was thinking right away. He was as far away from inflexible, plan-ahead Carl as she could get. And that was exactly what she was looking for.
Whether it was for one night or a few strung together, she’d just have to wait and let it play out naturally.
If he even showed up.
Nervous butterflies knocked together inside Kate’s stomach and she wrote them off to inexperience. Julia was the risk-taker. Julia was the one who leapt first and thought about the consequences later—if at all. Maybe the fact that Julia couldn’t see people’s reactions allowed her to be that much more fearless in her life. It wasn’t realistic to give a damn about what people thought of her when she couldn’t see the looks on their faces anyway.
Kate, the one with perfect vision and the not-so-perfect track record with men, was the sensible one.
Not tonight.
And what was so foolish about enjoying an evening with a very eligible man who sent very real goose bumps all over her body when he looked at her?
Before she could answer her own question there was a knock at the door. A quick glance at the clock on the microwave told her he was precisely on time. Good. She didn’t know if she could wait much longer.
She turned down the burner on the stove and went into the living room to lower the volume on the music. After making one last sweep through the room—hey, old habits died hard—she fluffed her hair and strode confidently to the door.
She swung open the door to find Logan standing on her porch. Her belly tingled and her breath caught. He was even better looking out from under the artificial lighting of her office. He had showered and changed his clothes and was wearing dark jeans and a blue T-shirt that matched his eyes.
With the way his muscles were rippling, he might have just come from the gym. Visions of him shirtless and sweating beneath a bench press had Kate swallowing hard. Maybe he’d been playing shirtless volleyball after all…
Damn. The confidence she’d worked so hard to bolster flew right out the door.
What in the Sam Hill was she doing? She didn’t invite people who were practically strangers into her home in hopes of seducing them with pasta, wine, and more toe-curling kissing. She set up practical dates through trusted friends and always let the men do the calling and the planning and the paying. Just like a nice, obedient woman was supposed to do.
But she wasn’t that same woman anymore, she reminded herself. Five years with Mr. Controlling and she had shed that submissive persona once and for all.
Because she couldn’t trust herself to speak, she waved Logan inside.
Like any warm-blooded woman would, Kate watched his backside as he walked into the living room. One look at his ass in those jeans and her confidence returned full force along with a few strategically placed tingles.
While he studied the photos on her mantle she studied his backside. Man, he could fill out a pair of jeans like nobody’s business.
Kate’s cozy bungalow didn’t have high ceilings and Logan stood next to her sofa looking much too big and much too masculine for the space. But she wasn’t going to let proportions stand in her way tonight. Bigger wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“Would you like some wine?” she asked finally.
Logan looked over at her, his gaze sizzling. When he looked her up and down, his eyes darkened with lust and she took that as a promising sign. “Sure.”
Spine straight and head held high, she went into the kitchen to pour him a glass and to start the pasta boiling.
* * *
The doctor’s house was tastefully decorated without any annoying frou-frou items and there wasn’t a stuffed animal in sight. Logan immediately decided he liked the place.
While Kate was in the kitchen retrieving the wine, he made himself at home and looked around the room. It was light and airy and showed no signs of what the woman did for a living. The jazz music playing softly on the stereo surprised him.
Then again, the doctor was full of surprises. He hadn’t expected her to be so bold as to invite him over in the first place. And the way she’d surrendered to him in her office was another added bonus and even more of a surprise.
She carried herself with the kind of sexy confidence he admired in a woman. But one look at her shaky hands tonight and he knew she was having second thoughts about why she’d asked him here.
Throughout the past several years, Logan had had a colorful assortment of women pass though his life and there was something refreshingly different about Ms., err, Dr. Kapowski. She had no idea the kind of raw sexuality she kept beneath the surface and he had no qualms about helping her discover it.
She had a maturity he wasn’t used to seeing in a woman her age. The puck bunnies he usually “dated” weren’t known so much for their intellectuality, but for the good time they could deliver. It didn’t seem to bother guys like Trik and Sebby, but the hollowness was starting to wear on Logan.
Passing a few hours with a bubbly, big-breasted blonde who didn’t know the difference between icing on a cupcake and icing on a hockey rink didn’t hold a candle to spending the evening with a smart, beautiful woman who ran her own successful practice and didn’t need to use her physical attributes to make her way in life. Not that there was anything wrong with indulging in a friendly roll in the hay with a girl who was named after a spice, but after several aforementioned rolls, Logan was more than a little intrigued to have dinner with a woman who knew the ins and outs of ocular anatomy better than he did.
With interest, he looked at the framed photos on her mantle. They were all of her and a young woman. Her sister? Probably. The woman had Kate’s same features and coloring. He couldn’t tell if they had the same eyes because in every photo the other woman was looking slightly away from the camera.
After a trip around the living room, Logan joined Kate in the kitchen and she handed him a glass of wine. She looked like she was determined to keep her nerves at bay and Logan silently commended her bravery.
After taking a drink, he set the glass on the table. He hadn’t come here to drink wine.
Chapter Four
Simmer to Boiling
The minute Logan stepped into the kitchen Kate could sense his presence in the small space. Any doubts she had had about tonight were forgotten. You didn’t feel this kind of electricity in the air if you didn’t have chemistry with someone, did you?
The electric currents she was experiencing right now zinged from him to her and bounced off the walls and back again.
So, her instincts hadn’t been completely off when she’d chosen him to embark on this out-of-character quest with. That was comforting. And that sizzling kiss he’d planted on her in her office hadn’t been too shabby either.
Kate had the sudden urge to fill the silence with small talk. Anything was better than the sexual tension that had her gripping a spoon so tight she feared it might snap in two. But she didn’t want to drive him away with mindless babble. That’s not what he’d come here for.
She took a few more sips of wine before realizing she didn’t need the liquid courage. She was more than capable of treating this man to a lovely evening and a delicious dinner—with or without getting physical and adding sex into the mix.
“I made penne and I even made salad dressing for the salad,” she told him, setting her wine glass down next to his before turning toward the stove to stir the sauce.
Logan came up behind her. His chest was hard and warm against her back. She felt his erection press against her bottom. When his hand snaked around her waist and his palm pressed against her belly, she sucked in a shaky breath. He leaned down and took her earlobe into his mouth, his breath hot in her ear. She shivered at his closeness.
“You didn’t invite me over here for dinner.”
Nerves made her drop the spoon and red sauce splattered onto her thumb.
He grabbed her wrist, spun her around to face him and licked the sauce from her finger. He pinned her against the cabinet, the edge of the counter biting into her lower back. She swallowed hard as her fingers dipped into the moist recess of his mouth. He licked them clean and she felt the floor tilt beneath her.
He flicked the burner off, his dark eyes never leaving hers.
Kate pushed away her thoughts. Forced out concerns about how wrong this was. How irrational and unethical. Instead, she focused on how right it felt. How wonderfully delicious he tasted in her office. And how glorious his hands felt as they roamed over her aching body now.
She reached up with her free hand, cupped his neck, and pulled him down for a kiss. His hair was soft in her fingers and she tugged a handful to let him know she meant business.
Without breaking the kiss, he put his hands on her hips and lifted her onto the counter. He settled between her legs and slid his big hands up her thighs and under her dress. She threw her head back when he peppered kisses down her neck and throat. Her nipples hardened into fine points, jabbing at her bra.
His lips traveled down the column of her throat and lingered at her cleavage. He yanked the neckline of the dress aside and groaned when it revealed a lacy black bra. His tongue darted out and moistened her nipple through the delicate lace. She tightened her grip on his hair and ground her bottom into the countertop.
Cupping her breast, Logan traced circles over her pebbled flesh with his thumb. He shoved her dress up around her waist and she shimmied to accommodate him. He breathed in her feminine musk and leaned forward to place a kiss on her thigh.
She scooted to the edge of the counter and he held her in place with strong arms. He placed her ankle on his shoulder, opening her up to him.
Kate had never given herself so freely to a man, especially one she’d only known for a matter of hours. Nevertheless, he took control and she willingly followed him into the abyss.
The pasta was forgotten, everything was forgotten, as he feasted on her skin like she was the first course of the meal and gave new meaning to the term eat-in kitchen. He lapped at her folds and wriggled his tongue expertly against her clit until her whole body became so tight she thought she might combust right there on her countertop.
He plunged two fingers inside and kept rhythm with his tongue. When he stroked that special spot deep inside her, she clenched and released as climax quickly claimed her.
Logan pressed one last kiss just above her mound, rose, and rested his forehead against hers. They stayed there like that—foreheads touching, his fingers still inside her—until she caught her breath. And then he gave her forehead a chaste kiss.
“You okay?” he whispered.
“Yeah,” she whispered back. More than okay.
When he slid his hand from between her legs, she shivered and her body convulsed, ready for more.
He helped her down from the counter and she straightened her dress and mustered up enough dignity to walk away from him. “I’ll be right back,” she told him. “I’m going to use the restroom.”
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