Strip

by Adrianna Dane

  She wound her arms around his neck. “I think we click, Logan Callahan. I don’t know how or why, but I think there’s something between us. And I’d like to give it a chance.”

  He knew he was making a mistake, but he couldn’t ignore the remarkable chance he was being given. He had to try. Just this once he had to reach for the gold ring. And she encompassed everything that was golden in his world.

  “Maybe we should venture out today.”

  “Why?” He began to move down her body, feathering kisses as he went until he encountered a pert nipple. He sucked it deep inside and she arched into him.

  “Logan, you’re doing it again.”

  “What am I doing?” He looked down at the glistening peak and then sucked the other nipple into his mouth and lightly bit it. He felt her shudder.

  “Distracting me. We’re never going to get out of this room at this rate.”

  “That was your idea, not mine.”

  He looked over his shoulder for the box of condoms he’d had delivered. He remembered the pretty shade of pink that had flooded Kate’s face when the delivery guy knocked at the door. She had looked so sexy wrapped in the white sheet with nothing on beneath it. Mmm. He’d been so glad he’d ordered the box and several tubes of lubricant.

  His search caught the corner of the box peeking from beneath the sheet. He grabbed a condom and quickly sheathed his prick. Within seconds he was buried inside Kate’s sweet, wet pussy. He slid in and out, her tight channel hugging him closely.

  She wrapped her legs around his hips and flexed up. He buried himself deeper, knowing with her wrapped around him he could do anything. Be anyone she needed him to be.

  He surged inside her, retreated, and plunged deep again. She shuddered and cried out, her climax washing over her and drenching him with her cream. He followed her within seconds, then wrapped her closely against his body.

  He didn’t know if it was possible to fall in love with someone in forty-eight hours, but he was sure he was damn close. And nothing was going to take her away from him, no matter what he had to do to keep her.

  Chapter Six

  “Strip.”

  Logan stopped short as he entered his apartment. The wild-eyed woman stood in front of him holding a small revolver pointed at him. He dropped his briefcase onto the floor, carefully eyeing the woman he’d asked to marry him just days before.

  “What are you doing, Kate?”

  Hadn’t it been only an hour ago he’d spoken to her on the phone and everything had seemed fine? What had taken place between then and now?

  “Bastard!” she screamed. “You pretended to be my lover. All you really wanted was to steal more of what doesn’t belong to you. Damn you, Logan Callahan. Why didn’t you tell me the truth at the beginning? You’re fucking associated with the bitch who destroyed my father. My God, she was your lover!”

  Logan winced at the pain-filled voice. He should have known it would happen. He’d wanted more time. He took a careful step into the room. This wasn’t good. She was right, he shouldn’t have kept it a secret, but he’d done it because he knew this was how she’d react. The pain was too new, too fresh. She’d never believe him now.

  He’d left it too long. Every day of the last three months he’d known he should have said something. And every day, he’d put it off just a little longer. He’d wanted to cling to the happiness she’d brought into his life. The honest sense of belonging she brought with her. But in his mind he had known it was only a reprieve. One he should have realized he wasn’t going to get. She would never understand that he’d been trying to get it all back for her. And then he was going to tell her, once he had proven he really could be her white knight.

  She waved the gun. “I said strip. And do it now.”

  He tried to move closer, but she lifted the gun.

  “Kate, let me explain.”

  “I don’t want to hear it. She’s responsible for his death. If she hadn’t been cheating on him and then forced him through that divorce, he’d never have had that heart attack. He’d have gotten himself to the doctors before it happened and they could have saved his life. And then she took everything. Sold it all and walked away with every penny. You didn’t think I’d find out, did you? How you helped her strip him clean of everything, even his pride.”

  “I wanted to tell you about her myself.”

  “You wanted to wait until you had me so hooked I couldn’t see straight. All your kind want is to fleece people like my father. What do they call your sort? Grifters? How could I not have known what you were?”

  “It’s not what you think, Kate. I’m not like her.”

  “Bullshit. I told you to strip. Do it.”

  Logan figured this probably wasn’t the best time to try to reason with his lover. Her righteous anger was in full steam. He began to unbutton his white shirt. He never should have let it get this far. Ten years he’d spent trying to make amends. But it was only the last three months that he’d felt alive. And now it looked like he was going to lose that, too.

  Maybe it was time. He’d carried the weight for so many years. He’d accepted the guilt. Every time Nell’s name hit the headlines he’d cringed, worried someone would somehow link him to her. He was afraid he’d run into someone on the street who knew his past associations. But none of that mattered now.

  Logan shrugged out of the shirt and then yanked his T-shirt over his head. “What are you planning to do, Kate? I don’t think you want to go to prison over this. I’m not the one who hurt you.”

  Her eyes flashed silver. God, he loved the shade of her eyes. Her hair rich, shining sunlight that he loved feeling brush over his body.

  “You’re not the one who hurt me?” Her words were soft-spoken but menacing nonetheless. “You made me fall in love with you. How could you do this to me? You stripped me bare, just like that damned woman did to my father. Just like her. All set to destroy me, too, isn’t that right? You knew I had my mother’s money, something she couldn’t touch. And you wanted that, too.”

  “That isn’t the way it is. You’ve got it all wrong. Just listen to me.”

  “I don’t want to hear anything you’ve got to say, Logan. Not anymore.” She pointed the gun at his trousers. “Get them off. Underwear, too.”

  “You want my clothes?”

  “Just do it.”

  “Dammit, Kate, will you listen to me?”

  He pulled off his shoes and socks. He had to buy time, to somehow get through to her. But one thing he didn’t have was the glib tongue and persuasive personality of Nell. It’s one of the reasons he’d never worked her front lines. He’d never wanted to. But right now he prayed for that silver tongue. God, help him, he had to get through to the angry lover who held a gun on him.

  She gripped the revolver with both hands and aimed. “I’ve had lessons, Logan. One of the things I’m sure you didn’t know about me. I do know how to use this. And I will if you make me. Now do what I tell you.”

  He yanked the belt out of the loop, and dropped it to the floor. Angrily, he unbuttoned his pants, yanked down the zipper and shoved both pants and underwear down over his hips. Then he straightened back up.

  “Now what, Kate? Have you thought this out at all? Do you know what you’re doing?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, yes. I’ve had a week to think about what I was going to do. Ever since I found those documents in your safe. But it was just an hour ago that I had it confirmed.” She laughed bitterly. “I so wanted to believe I was wrong.”

  “You went in my safe?” He’d never thought she would infringe on his privacy that way. Not his Kate. And hidden the fact from him for a week. Obviously, she was a better actress than he’d thought she was.

  “You’d left it unlocked. I couldn’t believe what was in there. I couldn’t believe you’d do that to me. Was the marriage proposal all just a scam, too? Oh, I guess not, because then you’d have full access to my trust fund. And that’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Grifters. Liars, cheats, mu
rderers. The whole bunch of you.”

  Her fiery gaze burned a path over his naked body. She waved the gun toward the bedroom. “Move. Believe me, I’m not letting you off that easily. Oh, I could have just walked away and never seen you again. But, no, I want you to know what you’ve thrown away. I want you to remember. Damn you, Logan, damn you to hell.”

  He saw in her gaze the glitter of unshed, angry tears. Something told him there was more than anger behind that look. So much more. But she wasn’t going to let him explain. She was beyond talk. He could only hope he’d get a chance to explain later. He headed toward the bedroom having no idea what she planned. He had to trust in the woman he’d come to know.

  He could try to overtake her. But that’s not how he wanted this to end. He wanted her to believe in him. He had wanted to show her she could trust him. And he’d left it too long. Now he was going to have to pay the price. He owed her at least that.

  Chapter Seven

  Kate closed the second metal cuff and heard the click. That should hold him. How did she dare believe anything he had to say? Hadn’t she found the proof of exactly who he was? And had it confirmed?

  “Kate, why are you doing this? You’ve known me for how many months? Do you really think I’m trying to scam you?”

  She moved back from the bed and set the gun on the dresser. Then she leaned against the dresser to look at the naked man on the bed. Rock hard, dark hair, emerald eyes, and silken words that had ripped her heart out. How the hell could she believe him? She didn’t dare.

  But she couldn’t help it—her eyes lingered along the muscular lines of his body, remembering the feel of him. She’d forced him to strip, wanted to make him as vulnerable as she felt, wanted to humiliate him. Wanting—God, she didn’t know what she wanted. One thing she did know was that he wasn’t the least bit embarrassed. Just look at that thick cock bobbing against his stomach. And the velvet mat of hair that ran upward in a thick pelt that forced her gaze to rise up toward his muscular pecs.

  “I can’t believe you’re turned on like this. You like having a gun pointed at you?

  He grinned. The son of a bitch actually grinned at her. And the worst part of it was that her body had the same reaction it always did, wanting to melt at his feet in a warm puddle of desire.

  “Stop it,” she demanded. “This isn’t funny.”

  “Babe, it’s not the situation that has me hard. It’s you—just like always. So why don’t you calm down and we can sort this out.”

  “I don’t want to sort it out. There’s proof. You run with the worst of them and you didn’t think I’d find out? I may be blond, but dammit, I sure as hell am not dumb enough to believe another word that comes off that silver tongue of yours, Logan Callahan. Never again.”

  “I didn’t lie to you, Kate. I’ve never lied to you.”

  “You didn’t tell me you were her lover, did you?”

  The handcuffs rattled as he tried to turn toward her, giving her an even more sinful view of his whole body. His cock had darkened to a deeper shade of purple and she swore she could see that thick vein pulsing from across the room. Her pussy juices began to gather against her will. Dammit, she didn’t want to be turned on by the man. But the knot in her stomach told her she didn’t have much choice.

  “You romanced me because you want the stock that’s still left in my name, isn’t that it?”

  “I don’t give a fuck about the stock.”

  “Well, she did. She sweet-talked my father into putting the majority of his holdings in her name. Thank God, it didn’t equal a majority of the company by itself.” She glared at him. “Or was that it? She wanted to get you to add my votes to hers so she could sell the company. Is that why she sent you here?”

  “I don’t want your shares in the company. I don’t want your money. I haven’t actually spoken with Nell in years.”

  Kate lifted her chin and set her jaw. “I don’t believe you. Why didn’t I question why you were in court that day? Why were you there?” She narrowed her gaze at him.

  Oh, yes, she remembered that day very well. She and her attorney, and Nell Dubrowski, her men, and their team of attorneys. Paid for with her father’s money.

  It had to have been because she’d been so upset when she left the courtroom. That’s the only thing that could explain her not noticing him in the courtroom. The judge had ruled in Nell’s favor and there was nothing Kate could do about it. Nell had gotten the stock, the house, the money her father had worked so hard for. Everything. So by the time she left the courtroom she hadn’t noticed the broad, brick wall and had run headfirst into him. She’d have collapsed to the floor if he hadn’t caught her.

  Her head snapped up and she glared at the man on the bed. “You engineered that. Why did I not realize it? You planned it all. You knew how upset I—”

  “Stop it, Kate. Of course, I saw you were upset, but the only thought in my mind was in getting you past those reporters waiting out front and away from there. How was I to know…”

  She felt the heat rush into her face. God, she didn’t want him to finish that sentence because she knew exactly what he was going to say.

  “It was your idea.”

  “But I didn’t think we’d end up in—”

  Might as well face it. “In bed? I wasn’t myself. You took advantage.” That had to have been the way it was. She never would have… Not with a man she’d never met before that afternoon. God, but she had.

  “Now who’s lying, Kate? You wanted it as much as I did. You’d been under a strain, you needed…me. You were wound tighter than a…bedspring.”

  “Damn you, Logan Callahan. Damn you for taking advantage of the situation like that.”

  She saw his expression turn solemn and the look in his eyes intensified. “I wanted to help you, Kate.”

  “You wanted to help yourself. To my money. And to me.”

  “I’ll admit, I did want you—I still do. I love you, Kate. I want to marry you.”

  “I don’t want to hear more lies. I looked through those papers. I know what she is, and I know about your connection to her. You’re a charlatan, a liar, somebody who uses people.”

  He winced. “You don’t know a damn thing about me, Kate.”

  She tried to harden her heart—she refused to feel sorry for him.

  “And that’s just the point, isn’t it, Logan—or whatever your name is. I don’t know anything about you. Your whole life is built on subterfuge. There’s not a speck of truth in anything you’ve told me.”

  “I’ve never lied about how I feel about you, Kate. Never. How the fuck could I lie? Look at me.” The cuffs locking his hands to the headboard rattled again. “My body should tell you that I want you. I sure as hell can’t hide anything from you now.”

  “That’s lust, not love. Any woman could do that to you.”

  He snorted. “Even one holding a gun? I guess that proves you don’t know me—let alone any man—that well. It’s you, babe, just you.”

  “Or my money.”

  “You don’t have much faith in yourself, do you?”

  Well, she had to admit, he had her there. At the moment she had less faith in herself than she did in him. She should have known, shouldn’t she?

  Chapter Eight

  Logan had thought he had cleaned his hands of Nell Dubrowski and the rest of her kind. He’d made a different life for himself. If the investigator hadn’t called him… But if the investigator hadn’t called him, he never would have met Kate. Caught in his own trap with no way out.

  Seventeen. He’d been seventeen when he’d first met Nell. Could anyone have been more naïve than him at the time? He’d fallen head over heels in lust with the diminutive southern blond bombshell. Soft-spoken and beauty pageant beautiful. Breasts that practically spilled from the red bikini when he first saw her the sweltering summer at Myrtle Beach. She’d kept him spellbound for years. He was lucky to have gotten away alive. But he’d damn well learned his lesson.

  The woman was
poison and a sure way to end up in prison if he’d stayed with her even another minute. He’d managed to get out with his skin still intact, but just barely. And he certainly didn’t look forward to ending up back in her clutches.

  Even without the call from Investigator Alarna, he couldn’t have missed the headlines blazing across the newspaper. Seeing Nell’s picture after so many years had brought it all back. The good times and the bad. Because there had been moments of both.

  To this day he didn’t know why he’d gone to court that day. Why he’d been so intrigued by the distraught young blond. Or why he’d taken her back to his hotel suite at The Remington. He’d sworn not to get involved with another woman. And keep his emotions intact. And he’d pretty much been able to keep his word until he’d met Kate.

  It had to be blonds. His Achilles’ heel. Blonds with intriguing silver eyes were even worse. Big, beautiful eyes that seemed to hold every emotion in their depths. So different from Nell’s ice-cold blue eyes. Dangerous because she had a way of controlling her emotions. Vacuous looks that spun wheels of intelligence that she masked very carefully. He’d been lucky to get out alive.

  But he had a feeling that this time he wasn’t going to come out of the situation unscathed. Not in the least. Not everything had been in that blasted file in the safe. And if Kate ever found out all of it…well, he didn’t want to think what sort of hell that would be.

  He watched her pace back and forth in his bedroom. Even angry, she was gorgeous. He could give her the information she wanted that would exonerate him. But he wanted her to believe him, without that piece of the puzzle. He needed her to trust him. It had never mattered before—not with other women, but Kate was different. He loved this woman and he needed her respect.

  He wished he could get his body to calm down. This wasn’t the best time for him to want nothing more than to have her join him in this bed. How the hell could he have left that damn safe unlocked? He tried to think back to when it might have happened. The only thing he could come up with was that night when Detective Alarna called with some new information. Just as he’d hung up the phone, Kate had stopped by. She definitely had a way of distracting him without much effort.