From Enemies to Expecting(21)

“It leads to the garden of Eden,” she murmured as he laid her bodysuit aside. “Or so the story goes.”

His gaze cut to her eyes.

“What’s the real story?” he asked quietly. Unobtrusively. Sincerely, as if he really did want to know who she was.

“Ivy is hearty. It climbs. The vine grows little feet and will cling to almost any surface until it’s taller than the structure it’s climbing on. That resonates with me.”

“You’re tenacious.” He nodded and slid the panties over her legs and trailed his thumb across the tattoo as he settled them into place. “That’s a good quality.”

She shrugged, mystified why he’d picked that word from the concept she’d thrown out. She’d always thought of it as survival and then domination of her surroundings, because it was that or be trampled underfoot. Ivy was one of those plants that when you stumbled over ruins, it would still be thriving. Maybe even overtaking the entire structure.

The butterfly tattoo on her wrist had meaning to her as well. Everything she’d done to decorate her body had significance. She wasn’t sure how much she liked that he’d immediately dug that out of her.

His thumb continued stroking her thigh, and she got very aware of his hands on her very fast. “Your thumb is a little low. The garden is underneath those panties you just put on me.”

“Are you asking me to touch you?” His voice was rough with a need that thrilled her. “Because that is very against the rules.”

“Make some new ones,” she said and let the challenge roll through the space between them, of which there was way too much for her taste. Maybe this hadn’t been about sex at the start, but it could be now. It should be. “I’m just going to ignore them all anyway. I’m very good at being bad.”

To demonstrate, she slid her fingertips up his leg to brush his groin, but just as she was about to curl her palm around his shaft, he grabbed her hand, removing it forcibly.

“Why do you do that?” he said point-blank, holding her hand in his as far away from his body as he could.

“Do what?” She stared at him, desperately trying to figure out where she’d miscalculated. He wanted her, and there was no way he could lie about it when she’d felt the evidence herself. “Refuse to pull punches when I want something? I’m not going to apologize. I like sex.”

“No, you don’t. You like control, and seduction is how you get it.” He stared right back. “It amuses you to lead a man around, and sex keeps him occupied so he doesn’t dig too far down into places he’s not welcome.”

Shock made her hand go limp. “I don’t do that.”

She did. She so did.

How the hell had he figured that out when they hadn’t even slept together yet?

“You do. You flirt and wear outrageous clothes and advertise your availability purely as a distraction. What are you afraid I’m going to find out?”

That she longed to be the kind of woman a man wanted to stay with. Since she wasn’t, she might as well get something out of a man’s company. Orgasms worked for her.

She tossed her hair. “I’m not the one who’s afraid, McLaughlin. It bothers you that you’re so attracted to me. That’s why you want me in boring clothes, so you can keep pretending you don’t have a secret desire to do all sorts of wicked things to me. Things you know I’d like. You’re throwing all of this in my face because you’re the one who needs a distraction. Stop being such a Goody Two-shoes and take what you want.”

“What I want is for you to put these clothes on so we can go.” The catch in his voice said he wasn’t as unaffected as he’d like her to believe. “Good sex stems from intimacy. Connection. I like to have that with someone I’m sleeping with.”

I want to see the real you.

He’d meant it. That hadn’t been a ploy to get her out of an outfit he’d hated.

And all at once, she wanted to give it to him. To have this thing between them be real. She could confess all her secrets, tell him how he made her feel feminine for the first time in a long time. He wouldn’t care that she couldn’t have babies; he’d like her for her.

They’d have something between them besides sex.

That’s when her fantasy dried up and blew away. What did she know about how to be in a real relationship? Nothing, obviously, or she’d have figured out how to keep Neil around once she’d told him she’d conceived.

Dutifully, she let Logan hook her bra into place and raised her arms so he could pull the T-shirt over her head, suddenly grateful for the cover. She felt oddly exposed, as if the sheer act of informing her that he was stripping away her shields along with her outfit could actually accomplish it.