by Lia Lee
Yet without love, just how long could their proposed marriage pact last? Maybe until after the baby was born, or until Logan tired of her? Or maybe, when he found someone more exotic and novel to catch his fancy?
Cara almost felt sick just thinking about that.
Cara decided she needed to just sleep the night off for a start. Even seeing Jude again, seemed eclipsed by Logan’s proposal and that delicious lovemaking. There was still tomorrow, and the next, and even the following day after that, before she had to make any vital decisions. For now she’d take things each moment at a time. That was the best she could do.
Chapter Eight
Logan turned and faced the door as Cara entered his private home office. He held up a finger as he spoke into the phone he held to his ear, and Cara bobbed her head in assent and didn’t interrupt his call.
“Got it, Connor. I’ll call again if I have anything else. Thanks, mate.”
Conversation finished, Logan’s smile of welcome warmed Cara’s heart impossibly. Crazy how every single thing about Logan got to her. She was falling more and more in love with him, yet he stayed the same way, treating her with respect and compassion and intense attraction, but nothing deeper. Nothing to stand the test of time.
Cara first thought it was the constant proximity they shared, so she tried to stay busy with her painting, hobbies, and physical activity. She had this whole country estate for a playpen and could go horseback riding, walking, or even hiking in the woodlands in the backyard.
But every breath she took still reminded her that her heart was wherever Logan was. How the hell could she fix that and get her common sense back?
“How did the checkup go?” he asked, moving to meet her halfway as she advanced. He rested his hand on her stomach and almost made Cara jump. The gesture was so natural, him feeling her three-month bump and it wasn’t the first time—yet it still caught her off guard each instance.
“We’re due for another ultrasound in a week, so I made an appointment,” Cara said.
“I’ll be there,” Logan said decisively. Cara didn’t argue, but held his gaze questioningly.
“You just spoke to Connor?”
“Yes. Simply checking base with what he’s helping me with.”
“You mean—Jude?” Cara asked, almost dreading to say that name within this near-perfect world she had with Logan.
“Correct. He’s been able to confirm that Jude left town a fortnight ago. We’ll be keeping tabs on his movements. Connor is working on the possibility of some kind of restraining order to keep Jude coming anywhere near you. Just in case. Does that set your mind at ease?”
“Immensely. Thanks for going to such lengths just for me.”
“I told you, I’ll do all I can to make you feel safe. All I need is for you to agree to a wedding, and we’re all set.”
Cara sighed. “Or we can do what we’ve always been doing, similar to how we set things up for the clinic. We’ll play at being a couple, and then no one can make a brouhaha if the pregnancy gets public.”
“I see your point,” Logan said, eyes narrowing. “But the part where the baby gets to have a stable family, with both parents, is lacking from the picture. And I want that for him or her.”
“I know, Logan. Believe me, I get it. It’s just, I’ve already signed away parental rights. So, you could easily marry anyone and she could adopt the baby as hers and you can have the family unit you want.”
Logan’s next impatient move shocked Cara, as he slapped his palm down on the edge of his desk—hard. He drew in a breath, seemed to calm himself, and then turned to her. “You keep repeating the same scenario, but it’s just not working for me. I’m well aware that I can have anyone for a bride, and yet I’ve made it clear I find you the perfect candidate.”
“Why?” Cara squared her gaze on him and almost wished she could will him to tell her she was perfect, not because she was the baby’s birth mother, but because he cared about her emotionally.
“Why?” He stepped forward and grasped her face in his hands. “Just what is it you want to hear, Cara? What’s holding you back?”
Cara bit on her lip and shook her head in denial.
“Is it to do with so-called differences between our worlds? I’m Irish, you’re American? I’m rich, you’re not? Fucking hell, Cara. None of that matters, don’t you get it?”
“You don’t know what you’re asking of me.” She continued to shake her head as if in a trance. “You don’t know how it feels—to be tied down with no guarantees. Yes, you might be offering financial stability and all the perks of being a billionaire’s wife, and the mother of your child. But I want more from life.”
Logan gave her a quizzical look and she knew he didn’t understand what the hell she was talking about. She knew he couldn’t possibly feel the same way she did about love, and true romance. Such notions would be alien to a man like him and yet she hoped …
“Look, I can’t do this today,” she said heavily, throwing up her hands. “We can’t keep going over this and not reach a consensus.”
“You’re the one being too stubborn to admit I’m offering the best solution for all concerned,” snapped Logan, and then he sighed, catching Cara’s simmering gaze. “Look, I didn’t mean to call you stubborn,” he said in a calmer tone. “And I know you’re right—laying out the financial and social benefits of marrying me, only makes me look like an arrogant prick.”
An unbidden smile twitched a corner of Cara’s lips. “I didn’t say that. Don’t put words in my mouth.”
He was staring at her mouth now. His eyes gleamed on the sensual curves, slightly plumper at the bottom and pinker. Cara unthinkingly sank her teeth into her lower lip and heard Logan’s low, air-throbbing growl …
When Cara had walked in minutes ago, she’d never have dreamed their conversation would end with her naked and on her back on Logan’s pristine oak desk. Not that she was surprised. Most of their little arguments, ended with them having hot makeup sex. Like now. Cara remembered backing away when she’d seen the darkened hunger in Logan’s eyes as she’d nibbled on her bottom lip. The next moment he’d easily grabbed her and pulled her against his rock solid frame. A few heated kisses were enough to melt the fight out of her.
Then he slowly stripped her, and had positioned her lying on his desk with her ass close to the edge, her legs spread for him to stand between them. He freed his thickness and he was already hard as he fisted himself in readiness to penetrate her silken nether lips.
“Fuck.” He slid easily into that moist cove and even Cara was shocked how wet and ready she already was. These freaking pregnancy hormones always managed to have her on constant edge, and just one look from Logan got her sizzling.
He filled her up good and upturned her whole existence. Once embedded balls-deep inside her, he grabbed her ankles and kept them in the air as he pumped in and out of her puffy sex.
“So fucking beautiful,” he groaned, eyes roaming her sexy body as she lay spread out on his desk. The hint of a bump in her stomach was the sexiest sight to behold. Just like the way her nipples, darker and bigger from the pregnancy, made his throat tighten. Cara was his, and not just that, she was filled with his seed, his brood. Her breasts were big with it, her figure fuller for it, and just knowing it was his baby making such changes to her body had Logan harder than he could ever remember being.
He could never have enough of her—of her pretty face, with the luminescent hazel eyes, button nose, and full lips. Or of her luscious breasts, so round and big, he couldn’t resist grabbing them and holding on tight while he pounded his need into her.
Their combined juices shone on the smooth inner softness of her thighs. Goddamn he loved the way her flesh jiggled for him, letting him know he was hitting her good and deep. Cara was made just for him, and each time he was inside her he never wanted out again. Never wanted to give up the sensation of her constricting walls welcoming him deeper and deeper, shaping to him in ways no other woman ever had. Never wante
d to forget the vision of his big manhood splitting apart her molten folds. Or the sounds of her screams of ecstasy, as she wet him over and over with her endless cum.
One hand still squeezing on her breast and the other holding up her ankle, Logan thrust home again and again. He held her gaze and he let her know, just by burning the truth into her with his eyes, that she was his and he’d never let her go.
In that moment, he pumped in a round of fevered thrusts that gave them no chance against the advancing tide. With a roar, Logan was swept under, taking Cara with him as they tumbled over and over into their mutual engulfment. Coming together, rising together, ending together.
That had to have been the best sex they’d had so far. It was unscripted, carnal, and almost even Neanderthal in force. And yet, when they kissed warmly and lingeringly as Logan gathered her up in his arms, why did he taste a hint of sadness on her lips? What could she possibly need that he wasn’t giving her? The finest things, the hottest passion, and the deepest accord—he offered her the world. So what the hell was he doing wrong, that made her seem to keep a piece of herself tightly locked from him?
Logan didn’t understand it, so he shut it away for later. He was already stirred up again and eager to once more sink deep inside her. This time, he carried her off to his bedroom for a shower. As she grew more and more pregnant, he found himself more and more insatiable for her. Logan had always been highly sexed but it had never been an addiction for him the way it was becoming with Cara. Why did everything feel so different and ever new with her?
Much, much later he would realize the question really should have been, why had he been so blind not to see why she made everything special? Other women had given him their bodies just as willingly, yet each time Cara gave in to him, she enveloped him in a wondrous warmth he felt in the strangest regions.
In the shower, beneath the rushing droplets, he took her again, this time from behind as she stood arched against the wall. Her wide, curvy ass was more than enough to cushion him each time he rammed into her with primal force. She grew creamier and tighter, pulsating around his rugged, meaty invader that only pumped into her harder the more she moaned and begged. She was making his brain blast dark shadows into his vision, taking him to a dark place where he needed her to scream for mercy from his power-packed plunges inside her.
More, more, more … always he needed more of her until there was nothing left of that proliferating lust to be mined—for the while. A sickening jolt hit his chest and Logan felt the wetness of the water run down his cheek as he rested it against her neck, while their locked bodies shuddered with another thunderous, conjoint release. It went on for an inordinately long time and neither could tell where her release began and his ended. He realized then, that there could possibly be no other woman for him, no one that could fit him so perfectly that just being inside her, exploding in her and with her, could almost bring a fucking tear to his eye—shit!
Not wanting to explore that possibility, Logan hastily kissed her shoulder and pulled out of her with a groan of gratification. “That was good, sugar. Getting a good bang—or two—always gives me better focus. Got to get back to work.”
Cara glanced over her shoulder at him, giving him that Seriously? look that would have made him smile to show her he was teasing, but he nipped the urge. Stealing one last kiss on her wet mouth, he smacked her ass for good measure, and exited the shower to let her finish cleaning up.
***
Cara knew she was childish to be this mad at Logan but she couldn’t help it. He didn’t even know he got her so mad, which made it worse. How could one man be so intelligent he could amass wealth enough to rival some third world countries’ GDP, yet he couldn’t tell he was hurting her?
The brute.
Much as she hated to succumb to his charm, she did it every time. He just needed to touch her a certain way, and she was putty for him. Even when he sometimes made her feel like just a warm, sexy body to slake his demanding libido, she was too far gone to resist. She needed him too, needed the physical contact and the way it made her feel closest to him, especially when he was at his most unguarded, groaning and shuddering atop her or beneath her as he filled her insides with his cum.
She just couldn’t take it anymore. She knew something had to give but she still didn’t have the nerve to come right out and tell Logan what the hell was bothering her. If she had to spell it out for him, then it just wouldn’t be the same. She had to know that his feelings, his comprehension of how much she meant to him, had come to him naturally and of his own will.
Filled with angst, she’d already been short with him this morning and had a little moment when she’d talked back. He’d brought up the wedding again and how he could manage to make time for something before the end of the year. An elegant, simple ceremony he said, and she could invite her family and they could finally learn about her pregnancy.
Cara had shot back saying it was her life and he shouldn’t go thinking he could run it for her just yet.
“That’s it, sulk,” he’d said with a disgusted shake of his head when she’d turned from him and faced the window angrily. He’d left her there, the door slamming after him.
An hour later, Cara was dressed warmly to fight the autumn chill. She knew Logan would be locked in his office working and wouldn’t even notice she was gone. She silently fumed and headed out of the house.
As she walked away she stared up at the mansion and she imagined she could pick out Logan’s office, where he was no doubt too busy to care that, yet again, he’d made her feel small and inconsequential.
Sighing, she pushed her hands into her coat pockets, and made a decision. She was too used to running. This time, however, she realized that with Logan, her running was more of the emotional kind. Every day, she kept running from the way she felt about him, but enough was enough. She’d take her life in her own hands, and this time she’ll never look back.
Chapter Nine
Cara was gone. Logan could feel it.
He’d heard her exit the mansion but his first thought was, she was out for some shopping. She’d scored a commission with one of the top galleries and had been eagerly setting out her whole portfolio in readiness for finishing the requested paintings.
But that was hours ago. Now, he tried her number and it was unavailable.
She’d never stay out this long without calling in—and certainly wouldn’t make her phone impossible to reach. He’d always been firm about them keeping in constant contact to ensure she wasn’t in danger or injured.
Now he wasn’t sure what to think. Until it hit him.
He dashed through passage after passage to her bedroom. He checked her clothes and other items—everything was there. Then he went to her studio and found everything in place there too.
Suddenly, her words of not long ago came to mind. About when she had chosen to leave her ex, Jude, and had taken only the clothes she had on and a few paintings. Had left everything else because they’d been provided by him.
Logan thought of the whole wardrobe of designer clothes, jewelry, and shoes left in her bedroom. She hadn’t touched a thing, and he couldn’t say which of her paintings were missing, but she might have taken more than a few.
Shit!
He played over their earlier argument and his high-handedness in insisting on a wedding soon. On top of that, was the past week or so of him concealing more and more of his feelings, especially when they made love. He kept up this wall between them so that sentiment never came into play and he’d hated himself for it each time.
How could he risk opening up too far and revealing the truth he couldn’t even own up to himself?
From the beginning, there’d always been the rules laid down in clear-cut terms in the surrogacy contract and all that came with it. And Logan had planned that when they got married there’d be a contract for that too. The pre-nup, the non-disclosure, and everything else that he needed to protect his interests and that of his kid.
Now, n
othing even mattered if Cara was truly gone.
The contract between them would mean fuck all if she chose to walk away. The law would almost always favor the rights of the mother and besides, traditional surrogacy wasn’t even recognized in most states. Since Cara was genetically related to the baby, she more or less had the final say, and if she moved to the right jurisdiction then Logan couldn’t enforce anything they’d agreed on before.
But why was that the least of his worries right now?
What he cared about was that he’d driven her away with his hardheadedness. Cara was so sensitive, pure, and beautiful and yet he’d tried to fight everything that felt so right with her, thanks to his flaming ego.
He stalked her room and the next moment another fortuitous thought came to him.
He knew just the way to find her.
In moments he was out of the house, diving into his Range Rover, and speeding off with resolve in his every motion.
Logan couldn’t let her slip out of his fingers. He could see her location on the GPS on his dashboard screen. Cara had a twin of the watch Logan owned, and hers was like his—GPS enabled. He’d designed the application himself and it enabled him to pinpoint Cara’s location at any time. He saw the area she was headed and his heart pounded faster and faster thinking of a way he could get her back.
He might already be too late. She might be close to getting on a train somewhere, or even planning to head to the airport. Once she got on a plane it might as well be over for him. Just the thought of possibly never seeing her again, holding her again …
He switched on his headset and tried to call her again. But all he got as usual was that damned mechanical voice telling him the number was unavailable. He waited for the beep that would let him leave a message.
His heart was pounding. His brain almost couldn’t work but suddenly, he thought of her smile and innocence and it gave him the resolve he needed to make the next step.
Now, he spoke after the beep, his tone even yet deep, while inside he roiled with emotions too encompassing they had him gripping tightly on the wheel as he drove. “Cara, it’s me.” Dragging in a harsh breath, he went on, “You’re thinking of running again, aren’t you? I’m coming for you. Don’t worry, I’ll be there soon. I’ll bring you right back where you belong. With me.”