by Diana Palmer
She couldn’t move, or breathe very well. He was heavy, but it was other sensations that she noticed. It was the heat of his skin, the beat of his heart, the pleasure that the rhythm began to build in her body. It was a trembling tension that slowly blocked out every single thought except the need to make it stop, any way she could.
She clutched his broad shoulders and her head thrashed. “Logan…” she whispered. “I can’t…bear it, I can’t…bear it!” she whimpered feverishly.
He laughed deep in his throat and moved harder. “Love me,” he said, one big hand catching in the hair at her nape as he forced her to look at him. “Love me!”
“I…do!” Her eyes held his, bright with passion and love and spiraling pleasure. “Logan…I love you…more than my life!”
He blurred suddenly in her eyes as the harsh movements created a blinding red oblivion. She heard him speak, but her mind was totally intent on achieving satisfaction. She moved helplessly, her body demanding more than he was giving her, her voice pleading with him, sobbing as she climbed up and up and up.
The roughness of the carpet, the quick breathing, all blurred into a crescendo of movement and sudden throbbing stillness.
She sobbed helplessly as the waves swept over her, her voice mingling with Logan’s harsh groans. Shuddering, they clung until the last trembling thread snapped and they spun away together.
He wouldn’t let go. That registered as sanity came floating back. Kit opened her eyes and saw the ceiling over Logan’s broad, damp shoulder. It wasn’t quite steady. His heartbeat was rough against her breasts. His skin was wet and cold where it touched her.
“You made me whole,” he said, shaken to his soul. His lips traveled softly over her face, her closed eyelids, her nose, her mouth, her cheeks, her chin. “Oh, God, Kit, you gave me ecstasy!”
“Yes.” She smoothed back his damp, unruly hair, her eyes soft and serious as they met the black fever in his. “I love you,” she whispered.
“I know. My God, how I know!” He kissed her with warm, slow passion, his body moving sensually above and within her. “It would be sacrilege to do that with another woman now!” he said under his breath.
“Would it, really?”
He lifted his head and smoothed back her soft hair tenderly. “You were with me every step of the way,” he said huskily. “Every step! Do you have any idea how rare that is between lovers?”
She flushed and turned her shy face into his throat.
He laughed gently and held her there. “You’re my lover,” he whispered into her ear. “And I’m yours. After all these long years, we made love, Kit.”
“You aren’t sorry?” she asked worriedly.
“No. Are you?” he asked, lifting his head to study her.
She probably should have been, but she wasn’t. She said so. Her fingers touched his hard mouth and she watched in wonder as he moved and she felt him, still a part of her.
“I know,” he whispered at the expression on her face. “It awes me, too.” He kissed her again, delighted in the feel of her body, the softness of her hair, the perfume that lay subtle and intoxicating on her throat. He groaned softly as the fever began to burn in him, but even as he felt the need, he denied it.
“No,” he whispered on a shaken sigh. “No, we can’t.”
“Why?” she asked.
He told her, watching her blush. “And besides that,” he murmured dryly, “I think you’re probably going to be a bit uncomfortable for the next day or so. This takes getting used to.”
“Oh.”
He lifted away from her, poising there long enough to make her blush before he chuckled and rolled over onto his back. “Now you know,” he murmured.
She sat up, wincing a little at the unfamiliar discomfort. He watched her and smiled with pure masculine triumph.
“I’ll strut for a week,” he murmured as she pulled the robe from the couch and wrapped up in it. “I could never have imagined the very prim and proper Miss Morris clawing my back raw and begging for satisfaction.”
“You can stop that,” she said, hitting his chest. “Conceit doesn’t become you.”
“Yes, it does.” He sat up and pulled her across his chest to kiss her roughly. “I’ve got you and I’m keeping you,” he said, his dark eyes possessive and unblinking. “You’ll never get away. First thing tomorrow, we’re getting a license. As soon after that as possible, you’re marrying me.”
Her eyes mirrored her shock. “But…!”
“But nothing. Marriage is an honorable institution. I do have my reputation, and yours, to consider. Satisfying a passing urge is one thing, but what you and I just did, Miss Morris, has no relation whatsoever to fleeting lust. That, by God, was lovemaking. The real thing.”
“I won’t get pregnant.” She faltered. “You took care of that.”
“Kit, that isn’t why I want to marry you.”
“Oh. It’s because you…deflowered me?”
“Deflowered?” he teased.
She glared at him. “What would you call it?”
“Delicious,” he murmured against her mouth. “Sweet heaven. A taste of immortality. I could go on, but it would take weeks until I ran out of adjectives.”
“Logan,” she protested weakly.
“Are you hungry?” he asked softly. “I can cook bacon and eggs.”
“I can cook, too,” she replied.
He smiled at her, his eyes so warm and affectionate that she hardly recognized them. “We’ll manage together. Then we’ll sleep, in my bed, in each other’s arms.”
Her body tingled at the thought. Heaven seemed very close.
He got up and pulled on his slacks, holding out a hand to help her up. “Can you make cinnamon toast?” he asked, bending to kiss her gently. “Yes.”
He smiled. “Good. Come on. We’ll share the work.”
Breakfast at almost midnight wasn’t at all bad, Kit thought. They washed up together, and that was nice, too. But the best part was lying with her head pillowed on Logan’s broad chest in the dark bedroom, with the sounds of traffic outside. She curled into his body with absolute trust, so much in love, so happy, that she wanted to die if tomorrow meant giving it up.
He meant it about marriage. She didn’t even question his motives. She loved him too much to say no. He wanted her, and there was something…something…in his expression when he looked at her. If it was only physical infatuation, it would wear off. She’d face that eventuality if she had to. But the look in his eyes gave her hope that it might be something more than an affair. She had that thought to cling to as she closed her eyes and went to sleep with the sound of Logan’s breathing under her ear.
The next morning, she was aware of movement and sound as her eyes opened. She frowned, disoriented as she looked around. This wasn’t her apartment, and it certainly wasn’t her robe that she was sleeping in.
She sat up and looked around the room, and the night before came back to her in a flash of vivid impressions that made her face go rosy. She’d made love with Logan and slept in his arms all night. Now it was morning and time to pay the piper.
She got up and dressed in Chris’s things that Logan had thoughtfully left on the chair, along with her flimsy, and by now quite dry, underthings.
“Are you ever going to get out of the bed and have breakfast?” came a disgruntled voice from beyond the door. “The eggs are congealing, for God’s sake!”
“You’re so impatient!” she muttered, throwing open the door.
He leaned against the jamb, tall and muscular and devastating in just slacks and a T-shirt with Atlanta Braves plastered across the front. “I wasn’t last night,” he reminded her wickedly.
She couldn’t argue with that. She laughed up at him.
“You look very nice in Chris’s jeans,” he remarked, studying her trim figure. “Perhaps we could raid his closet while he’s on vacation and see how you fill out the rest of his clothes.”
“He probably looks much better in them than I
do,” she said.
“Not from where I’m standing. Come here.” He lifted her by the waist onto a level with his big, dark eyes. “Kiss me, sweetheart,” he whispered.
Tingling from the endearment, she leaned forward and put her soft mouth against his wide, hard one. “Good morning,” she whispered back.
“Good morning yourself.” He savored her lips, aglow with the wonder of having her this way, with the silky soft memory of the night before making him weak all over. He hadn’t slept a long time. He’d woken long before first light and lay looking at Kit with wonder. So many years they’d been together, and he’d never seen how lovely she was. He really had been blind.
He kissed her slowly, barely brushing her mouth with his lips. “Come on and I’ll feed you,” he said. He put her back on her feet with flattering reluctance. “That isn’t what I really wanted to do, of course. I want to throw you on the floor and ravish you, but it’s much too early for that sort of thing. Besides, I’m too much a gentleman to seduce you on the floor of my apartment.”
Remembering the carpet burns on her back she was hesitant to agree with him. He chuckled at her expression.
“Next time we’ll use the bed,” he murmured ruefully. “I couldn’t hold out long enough to get into the bedroom.”
“You said you weren’t impatient?”
“I seem to have a low threshold with you, don’t I?” He brushed back her short hair. “Are you sore, Kit?” he asked matter-of-factly.
“A little,” she said nervously.
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” he said gently. “I shouldn’t have been quite so rough. I wanted you very badly.”
“I wanted you, too.”
“What a scarlet blush,” he remarked. He smiled. “We’ll eat and then we’ll go apply for a license.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Is it? Well, we’ll go apply for a license tomorrow, then.” He seated her. “You can’t make love again comfortably today, can you?”
She could hardly breathe. “I don’t know…”
“There are ways, and ways,” he whispered, bending to kiss her with soft tenderness. “I’ll teach them to you.”
He sat down beside her and poured the coffee. As they ate, Kit watched him and tried to imagine that he was the same man who’d been yelling at her for years over mistakes in dictation and fouled-up appointments and misfiled files—most of which were his own fault.
“Something bothering you?” he asked.
“It’s really you, isn’t it?” she replied vaguely. “I’m just having a little trouble believing it, that’s all. We’ve worked together for a long time.”
“And I’ve never looked at you until a few days ago,” he agreed. His face went somber, almost grim. “I might have married Betsy. Why didn’t you do something?”
“I did!” she shot back. “I tried to tell you, and you fired me!”
“I didn’t know you were in love with me then,” he said quietly.
“It wouldn’t have stopped you if you had,” she returned.
He didn’t speak. His eyes were on his plate. “I haven’t been very good to you over the years. I’ve been selfish and overbearing. Do you think you care enough to put up with me, Kit?” he asked, raising a curiously still face to hers. “Suppose you were only physically infatuated? After all, you knew nothing of men before last night.”
Did he mean that? Or was he looking for a way out? She panicked and it showed in her eyes.
“Now what’s wrong?” he asked gently.
“You’re sorry about what happened, aren’t you?” she blurted out.
“In a way,” he had to admit. “I let you go to my head. I had no right to put you in that position. Despite the fact that I didn’t let you get pregnant, you gave me something that you were saving for marriage.”
“In which case, you would have had it anyway,” she told him.
“Yes.” He studied his fork. “But in the proper sequence. I find that I’m more conservative than I realized. I cheated you of a proper wedding night. I’m sorry.”
“It wouldn’t have been any different, really.” She faltered. “I’d have been more nervous, I suppose….”
“You’re still nervous.” He caught her cold hand in his and warmed it. “Why?”
She couldn’t quite explain it. “I’m shy, that’s all. I’ve never slept with a man before.”
He chuckled. “Are you sure it’s that?”
She glared at him. “You don’t have to make fun of me.”
“Was I?” He sobered at once. “You’re right. I shouldn’t tease you about something that profound.” His eyes slid down to the shirt she was wearing and lingered there until her breathing quickened. “I used to watch you sometimes and wonder what you looked like under your clothes. I was careful not to let you know, of course.”
She smiled faintly. “I used to watch you and wonder what you looked like under your shirt.”
“Now you know.”
“Oh, yes.”
Her eyes were faintly acquisitive. They made his body begin to throb all over again. He got up and stood over her. With a smooth motion, he pulled the T-shirt over his head and tossed it over a chair.
Kit’s lips parted. “Oh, Logan,” she whispered, her eyes as hungry as the hands she lifted to caress him with. “Logan, I love to touch you…!”
He groaned, lifting her into his arms. His mouth took hers roughly, claiming it. “I want you,” he said harshly.
She clung, not protesting, as he carried her into the bedroom and came down beside her on the bed. She didn’t say a word as he unfastened the shirt and removed it and her bra and leaned above her, studying her bare breasts with hot, hungry eyes.
“Make love to me,” she whispered. “I want you, too.”
“And hurt you?” he asked, forcing his eyes up to hers. “Because it would.”
“I don’t care,” she told him. Her eyes smoothed over the broad, hair-roughened muscles of his chest. “I love you. It will be all right.”
“You have a lot to learn about bodies and intimacy, little one,” he said quietly. He held her eyes and unsnapped the jeans. The sound of the zipper was loud in the room. He slid his hand under them. “Let me show you what I mean.”
He touched her, intimately, and watched her flinch. He wasn’t rough. It was only that her body was new to passion, and very sensitized.
“You see, Kit?” he asked gently. “Remember how we were together last night, and try to imagine how it would feel when I went into you.”
She went scarlet and gasped at the imagery.
“I know. It’s blunt talk. But this kind of thing gets unmanageable. I can’t start and then stop.”
“No…”
He looked at her with aching need, his breath lodged in his chest as he withdrew his hand and smoothed it up her belly to her breasts and softly caressed them. “You are every dream I’ve had in my life,” he whispered roughly.
With trembling hands she felt for a fastening and found it, moved it. His eyes widened and he gasped. His hand caught her wrist.
“No!” he said roughly.
“You want to,” she breathed. She lifted her mouth to his and kissed him, feeling his hold begin to slacken. “You know you want to, Logan. You want to…!”
He groaned and gave in to her. There were times, he thought blindly, when surrender was positively a virtue.
Chapter Nine
Logan drove Kit home late that afternoon, reluctant to let her go. But she’d insisted that she had chores to do, to get ready for work the next day.
“At lunch, we’ll take out that marriage license,” he told her firmly as he left her at her door. “You’ll never get away again.”
She smiled lovingly. “As if I’d ever want to,” she said. “Am I dreaming?” she added somberly, searching his dark eyes. “I must be. I couldn’t be this happy otherwise. I’ll wake up….”
He was thinking the same thing as his eyes caressed her radiant fac
e. “No, you won’t,” he said tenderly. He bent and brushed his mouth gently over hers. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You aren’t sorry?” she asked worriedly.
He stared at her for a long moment, seeing her with eyes that knew all about her. Everything. “Not if I died in my sleep.”
“You’re sure that you want to marry me?”
“Kit, do you think we’ve had enough of each other yet?” he mused. “I could go to you on my deathbed, don’t you know? I’m in over my head, and so are you. Marriage is the only way for us.”
“Your mother and brother…”
“Will be delighted. Especially my mother.” He frowned. “Which reminds me. Kit, you have to find my mother.”
“First thing tomorrow, I promise.”
“My future wife, Jane Bond.”
“How about Shirley Holmes?”
He chuckled. “Our kids will be born wearing trench coats and following the doctor around the delivery room.”
She flushed. The thought of having a child was delightful—in wedlock. “I like children.”
“I used to, before I got to know Emmett’s,” he said dryly. “I imagine we won’t be so intimidated by our own.” He frowned. “You were afraid last night that I might accidentally make you pregnant.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I don’t want to bring a child into the world without a stable relationship. I don’t think you do, either.”
“I don’t suppose I do, Kit.” He held her gently by the shoulders. “I’m no less conservative than you are, and I agree that children shouldn’t be accidents. That’s irresponsible.”
She studied his face with eyes that adored it. “It’s hard not to give in when you love someone,” she said quietly. “I don’t think I ever really understood losing control until last night. I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t stop.”
“For what it’s worth, neither could I. I’ll take care of you, Kit.”
“I’ll take care of you, too,” she promised.
He started to speak, but she put a soft hand over his mouth.
“It’s not shameful to let a woman care about you and try to protect you,” she told him.