Lethal in a Kilt

by Anna Durand

  "Impotent? Conversation over, Isla. I have to get back to work."

  "You're right, I pushed too far. I'm sorry. I do it only because I love you."

  "Aye, but sometimes I wish you didn't love me quite so much."

  "No, you don't. Think about what I said and have a good day. Blessed be, Logan."

  I grunted. "Goodbye, Isla."

  Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I surveyed my desk. It looked like any other desk in any other office. I had a computer, a phone, a desk calendar, and a holder full of pens. Aye, I had all the appropriate tools. Now, if I could figure out what a security chief did...

  My thoughts returned to the copy room and Serena, and the flavor of her lust.

  Chapter Six

  Serena

  I stared blankly at my computer screen. The document displayed on it had blurred into a meaningless blob. I would've preferred to think I'd developed a sudden vision problem, or maybe I was having a stroke, but I knew the truth. Logan MacTaggart had me distracted and flustered. Why did I let him do this to me? The man was loathsome. He couldn't honestly believe talking dirty would make me want to try sex with him again, not after our disastrous encounter in the copy room.

  Except it kind of had worked.

  The proof was my distracted state, the fact my brain insisted on reminding me of those moments in the copy room every five seconds, and the fact my panties had been damp ever since.

  I did not want to want Logan. I didn't want to think about him or see him. Yet I was now forced to bump into him every day, five days a week. Maybe he would avoid me. Hah. Like that would happen. He enjoyed tormenting me. Logan had a sadistic streak, I'd decided, because he took pleasure in making me squirm, snarl, and finally give in to this inappropriate lust.

  Slumping in my chair, I rubbed my eyes in hopes of clearing my vision. Clearing my head.

  No more Logan fantasies. No more, do you hear?

  Did my brain listen? Of course not. The second I issued the silent command, my mind conjured a memory of Logan sucking on my fingers. Those hooded eyes locked on me. His cheeks caving in slightly. His faint groan of pleasure. I'd gotten wetter watching him do that, and I'd been seconds away from dragging him to the floor and riding him like a sex-starved cowgirl.

  "Is the report ready?"

  Evan's voice jerked me out of my fantasy—literally. I jumped and yelped.

  He raised a brow at me. "Are you all right, Serena?"

  "Yes, fine, yes." Sure, that didn't sound pathetic at all. I clumsily shuffled papers on my desk in a pointless effort to look like I'd been working instead of imagining all the ways I might hump Logan. "Uh, the report is, um, right here."

  I shuffled with a bit too much vigor, and papers slid off my desk onto the floor. Mumbling a curse under my breath, I gathered them up in my hands. My hair had fallen over my eyes while I was bent over doing that. I straightened and blew the hair away with a noisy breath.

  Evan's lips twitched, a sure sign he was struggling not to laugh. He bent over my desk and pointed at the computer screen. "Isn't this the report you're looking for?"

  Shit. Of course it was. Damn that Logan.

  "Oh yeah," I said with a nervous laugh. "That's the one."

  Evan studied me with an infuriatingly calm expression, the light glinting on his glasses. "Could you please print it out for me? I'm away to another meeting in five minutes and need that report."

  "Yes. Right away."

  "Thank you."

  He ambled back into his office, and as he shut the door, I heard a soft chuckle.

  Damn, damn, damn that Logan. He'd turned me into a moron. A sex-obsessed, lust-drunk, clueless and senseless moron.

  I printed out the report and handed it to Evan when he exited his office a few minutes later. He tried hard to suppress his smirk, but it tightened his lips and his eyes. Once he'd left, I slumped into my chair again. I needed a drink. Something hard like bourbon or maybe vodka.

  Or Logan MacTaggart.

  Yes, he was hard in all the right ways. When he'd penetrated my body, it had felt better than anything I'd experienced in years. If things hadn't gone awry, I had no doubts he would've given me spectacular orgasms.

  Bourbon. I needed bourbon.

  I winced. Evan might've been a very understanding boss, but I doubted even he would overlook a tipsy executive assistant. What else could I do to relax?

  Let Logan finish what he'd started in the copy room.

  "Gah!" The exclamation exploded out of me, and I smacked my hands down on the desktop. I muttered, "Stop thinking about him, you idiot."

  A glance at the clock on my computer told me lunchtime had arrived. Thank heaven for that.

  I got up and stretched.

  "What an enticing view."

  Logan's voice shivered heat through me.

  I turned toward him and wished I hadn't.

  He leaned against the wall at the entrance to my little domain, one hand in his pants pocket, his gaze sliding over me with unmistakable interest. "Stretch again, Serena. I love watching your body move almost as much as I love feeling it move while I'm inside you."

  "Forget it, Logan. Whatever that was in the copy room, it's over and done."

  "Is it?"

  "Yes."

  He sauntered up to me, caught my face in both hands, and touched his lips to mine. "We'll see."

  Then he left.

  I gaped at the empty space where he'd stood a minute ago. What the hell? He'd stopped by to kiss me? It hadn't even been a hot kiss. Chaste seemed like the best description.

  What game was he playing now?

  Somehow, I managed to reassemble my wits enough to go downstairs and grab lunch in the cafeteria. I didn't see Logan there. After eating too much, including two brownies, I left the cafeteria and got into the elevator with three other people.

  Logan ducked inside a second before the doors slid shut. He hung back, leaning against the rear wall.

  I faced forward, separated from him by two other bodies, and pretended not to notice him. Had I reverted to high school behavior? Ignoring the boy I liked. Pretending I didn't like him.

  Because I did not like Logan. This wasn't childish behavior. It was self-preservation. I despised the man, but he seemed to know every erotic button to push to make me wild with lust.

  One by one, the other people disembarked.

  When Logan and I were alone in the elevator, as it rose toward the top floor, I tensed in anticipation of another sneak attack. No, not in anticipation. That was not excitement fluttering in my belly. I dreaded the moment when he might try to kiss me again. Dreaded, not anticipated.

  He stayed where he was, still leaning against the wall. The blasted man didn't even speak.

  The elevator stopped. The doors opened.

  Relief rushed through me, sagging my shoulders, as I stepped out of the elevator.

  "Serena."

  Instinctively, I turned toward the man who'd spoken, toward Logan.

  He surged forward and planted a firm but brief kiss on my lips.

  As the doors slid shut, he ducked back inside the elevator.

  I stayed there, frozen and not really seeing the closed doors in front of me, for several seconds before I summoned the wherewithal to move. When I got back to my desk, I stared at the computer screen. What was Logan up to? He must've followed me upstairs in the elevator for the sole purpose of kissing me. Why? He hadn't even stuck around to taunt me with sarcasm or dirty talk about what he'd love to do to me.

  The man was insane. No other explanation fit his behavior.

  I got back to work, doing my damnedest not to think about Logan.

  My efforts paid off for about an hour.

  That's when Logan strolled into my domain again, spun my chair around, and planted another solid kiss on my lips. He pulled away almost as quickly as he'd swooped in, then he ambled off down the hallway out of my sight.

  He did this t
hree more times before Evan got back from his meeting.

  I must've looked dazed or harried or something that wasn't like me because Evan halted halfway past my desk and scrunched his eyebrows at me.

  "Are you not well?" he asked. "You're behaving strangely today."

  Blame your cursed cousin. I cleared my throat and straightened in my chair. "Everything's fine. I'm tired, that's all."

  "Go home early. I can handle things on my own for the rest of the afternoon."

  "That's not necessary."

  It was three fifteen, and I usually left at five. Evan accommodated my single mom schedule, though, letting me leave early or come in late whenever I needed. I did not abuse his kindness. Only for good reasons did I leave early or show up late, and only with prior notice. I couldn't take off because Logan had me in a tizzy.

  Evan patted my hand. "Go on. I insist."

  "Okay. Thank you, Evan."

  "You're family, Serena. No need to thank me."

  Giving my hand a quick squeeze, he walked into his office.

  I logged out of my computer and filed away all the papers on my desk before I left. At least Logan couldn't sneak up behind me to kiss me at home. Locked doors and windows prevented that. Since he was a former spy, I couldn't help wondering if he knew how to get past locks. What if he crept into my house in the dead of night and crawled into my bed to—

  For pity's sake, woman, cut that out.

  Yes, I should cut that out right this minute. No fantasies of Logan breaking and entering for the sole purpose of seducing me. Never mind that the idea got me hot and bothered.

  What did he look like naked?

  I headed for the elevator and punched the button. While I waited for the car to arrive, I imagined what all those muscles might look like. I'd felt them around me when he'd had me up against the copier. To see those muscles, to fondle them and lick them...

  "Hello again, Serena."

  That was not Evan's voice.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and compressed my mouth, praying I'd imagined hearing Logan's sexy voice behind me.

  The elevator doors slid open. No one was inside.

  Had it been too much to hope for a car full of people? I needed a buffer between me and the sinfully hot man behind me.

  I had no choice. I shuffled inside the elevator and faced the front, faced Logan.

  He stepped inside, standing next to me, and folded his thick arms over his broad chest.

  The moment the elevator started to move, he grasped my shoulders and rotated me toward him.

  "Logan, you shouldn't—"

  He pulled me into his firm body and mashed his mouth to mine.

  I held motionless, stiff and unyielding—for about three seconds. Though he didn't invade my mouth, the pressure of his soft, warm lips and the sensation of his muscular body against mine did things to me. My body softened without my permission. When I exhaled the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding, it emerged as a moan. He withdrew his lips just enough to glide his tongue over the seam of my mouth, then fastened his lips to mine again.

  And I melted into him.

  The elevator doors opened.

  He stepped back, his face blank. The way his Adam's apple bounced when he swallowed told me he wasn't as unaffected as he pretended to be.

  I stood paralyzed, my lips parted, my body thrumming with desire. I wanted more. Kissing, touching, more of everything.

  The doors started to close.

  Logan thrust out a hand to stop them. "You wanted out, didn't you?"

  I blinked several times, rolled my shoulders back, and nodded. "Yes. Thank you."

  "No need to thank me for the kiss. I enjoyed it too."

  "I meant thank you for holding the door open."

  He swept his sizzling gaze over me. "I'll hold anything you like for you."

  "The door is all I need."

  I hustled out of the elevator and did not look back. I traveled three steps before Logan's voice made me pause in my flight.

  "You want more, though. A lot more."

  Without glancing back, I hurried out of the building.

  Chapter Seven

  Logan

  For the rest of the week, three entire days, I continued my kissing campaign. Sometimes I wondered why the hell I was doing this. Mostly, I relished every opportunity to confound and arouse Serena, loving the way each time I kissed her she started out stiff and unyielding, but soon dissolved into the kiss. Her lips tasted different from her body, though no less enticing. Why did this woman feel, smell, and taste so much better than any woman I'd known before? She was just another female, not a sensual goddess descended from the heavens.

  Except she was.

  Your bum's oot the windae, MacTaggart.

  I was talking rubbish for certain, if only to myself. I didn't mind, though, since I'd been off my head for some time before I met Serena Carpenter. My family would attest to that. Logan the strange. Logan the standoffish. Logan the man you called on when you needed a tangled mess undone and didn't care how it got sorted. My family never said those words. They didn't need to. I understood what I was and what my limitations were. I would never become best mates with my cousins.

  They should be grateful for that.

  On the day after I'd begun my kissing campaign, Serena hunted me down and cornered me in my office. I'd been standing at the windows gazing out on the city when she stormed in and slammed the door.

  She marched straight up to me and set her hands on her hips. "What is your game, Logan?"

  "I like poker, five-card stud."

  "You know what I mean." She bent toward me a touch. "You can't waltz up to me in the middle of the lobby and kiss me."

  "I did, therefore I can. It was a good-morning kiss, gràidh."

  Why had I called her darling in Gaelic? I never called women that unless they were my sisters.

  Serena huffed. "'Sexual harassment is not a greeting."

  I shrugged one shoulder. "It's only harassment if you don't enjoy it. Which you do. Besides, aren't you the woman who begged me to fuck you in the copy room yesterday?"

  "Wrong. I didn't beg, I ordered you to do it."

  "Your body begged me." I took hold of a lock of her hair, twirling it around my finger. It was soft as silk. "Your noises begged me too. Face it, Serena. You can't control your lust for me."

  She glowered at me for a couple seconds, then stabbed a finger into my chest. "No more kissing bandit. Understand?"

  "Not really. Try speaking proper English instead of the American version."

  "Right, because Scots speak proper English." She crossed her arms over her breasts, and her lips curved up at the corners a little, no more than a hint of a smile. "Donnae, cannae, willnae. Have a canary, have a poke. Fash, fankle, haver. Get your head in your hands to play with." She shook her head. "I still don't get how that one means to punish someone."

  "Maybe it's because if you don't do your job properly, you'll lose your head." I made a slashing movement across my throat with my hand and made an appropriate noise to accompany the gesture. "Then your head'll be in your hands to play with."

  "If you're dead, you can't play with your own head."

  "Sure you can." I leaned in and spoke in my best menacing voice, tempering it for the lass. My full-on menacing voice would've sent her running. "Haven't you ever seen decapitated chickens running around? Blood spurting from their severed necks?"

  Her lip curled. She drew her head back. "You are insane."

  I leaned back against the window frame. "Well, I suppose insane is better than disgusting."

  "You are insanely disgusting."

  A chill trickled down my spine. This time, she wasn't calling me disgusting because her lust for me fashed her. No, this time her discomfort was genuine. I'd gone too far, showing her the side of me none but my enemies ever saw. She thought I was insane, not as a euphemism but as the bald truth. I'd known for a long time ot
her people didn't understand my sense of humor, so why had I inflicted it on Serena?

  And why did her reaction fash me?

  I turned away from her, toward the windows, pretending to admire the view. "Go. I have work to do."

  "Logan—"

  "Go."

  I kept my gaze glued to the view while I listened for the click of the door that indicated she had left the room.

  The scent of her lingered. That indefinable, feminine scent unique to her. It filled my senses and awakened parts of me I'd thought died years ago, the part that wanted...something. I couldn't name it or describe it, but I wanted more than the solitary life I'd convinced myself I needed and even cherished.

  By the time my lunch break arrived, I'd shaken off the disquiet my conversation with Serena had triggered. I felt like myself again, for better or worse, and I re-instituted the kissing campaign by sneaking up behind Serena while she stood in line at the cafeteria counter. I tapped her shoulder.

  She turned to look at me.

  I stole a kiss, quick and chaste.

  The lass growled at me.

  Holding back a chuckle, I winked, then went to the end of the line before anyone could whinge about me jumping the queue.

  For the remainder of the week, I kissed her as often as possible without impinging too much on the hours I was supposed to be doing my job. I spoke to the man whose company had installed the building's security system and learned how the bloody complicated thing worked. I explored every nook and cranny of the building hunting for weak spots. I questioned department heads and lesser employees to learn what security precautions they took to safeguard private information and proprietary processes.

  Christ, it was dull as dirt.

  Laying bricks started to sound like the more exciting and challenging career choice. Maybe I wasn't cut out for the civilian life. Maybe I'd become a kissing bandit to spice up my mind-numbing existence. Maybe Serena spiced up my life all on her own.

  Aye, that would explain my obsession with kissing her, flirting with her, and antagonizing her.

  Evan and Keely insisted I come over for brunch on Saturday. I realized they would make certain Serena turned up as well, but I agreed anyway. Did I want to see Serena? I'd been seeing her all week—seeing, kissing, imagining her naked body and all the ways I'd prove to her our debacle in the copy room had been an aberration. I didn't need to see her on the weekend too.