Logan forced himself to walk from her bedroom and close the door. Did he want to? Hell, no. He wanted to stay and sink inside of her again, and short of that, he wanted to stand back and watch as she crawled out from underneath that damn sheet she'd hidden beneath. He wanted to see what she looked like naked, when she was standing. He wanted to span her waist with his hands and see his thumbs pressing against her abdomen. He wanted to see exactly how wide or how narrow her hips were in proportion to her breasts. He wanted to see the line of her naked collarbone and he wanted to see the hollow of her throat.
Most of all, he wanted the right to stand there and watch her, he wanted an invisible chain that bound her to him so she couldn't get away from him as easily as she'd just done, and he wanted the satisfaction of knowing that she wanted that just as much as he did.
He scrubbed his hand over his face in agitation when he realized the direction of his thoughts. He needed to get a fucking grip and slow the fuck down or he was going to send her running.
And damned if he would allow that to happen.
She was too perfect, too sexy, too sweet, just as he'd told her. And he hadn't had enough of her yet. Not even close. He could still taste her on his tongue, and he wanted more. He could still feel his hands wrapped around her wrists, and he wanted more. He could remember the exact moment she'd exploded in spasms around him, and he wanted more.
Yeah, he needed to get a grip and slow the fuck down before he scared her off. He definitely needed to tone it down a notch or two, because there wasn't any way in hell she was going to get away from him this quickly.
He'd play her game for awhile, let her think she was in control of this thing between them, because it wouldn't help his case a damn bit for her to know how goddamn obsessed he was already. He was feeling a hot, possessive streak that he'd never felt for another woman, an aggressive need to mark her as his territory.
He sucked in oxygen and blew it out slowly. Shit yeah, he needed to calm the fuck down. Not only would it scare the shit out of her, it was beginning to scare the shit out of him.
Chapter Four
An hour later, they'd eaten together, mostly in silence, and Lauren moved around the compact kitchen cleaning up the mess. She glanced at Logan, feeling a subtle ache between her legs. Not so much of a sexual need, but an actual ache from where he'd been just a little over an hour ago. Her inner muscles had been stretched and exercised, and Lauren was feeling the effects already.
As she leaned over the counter, scrubbing at an invisible spot, her mind working feverishly, Logan came up behind her and she felt the hair pulled from her neck and his hot mouth on her skin.
Her hand stilled as a wave of heat transmitted itself from his body to hers.
She sucked in a breath as she felt his teeth sink into her skin as his hands reached around and enclosed her breasts.
She jerked in his arms and moaned softly. He tweaked her already tender nipples, and his mouth on her neck, just short of pain, was inducing a flood of moisture between her thighs that begged her to let him have his way in this. Lauren tried to capture a thought, any thought, but couldn't and only fell into the pleasure that his embrace induced.
After the episode in the bedroom, she'd dressed in t-shirt and shorts, and now, she felt him drag her shorts and underwear down her legs. There was no need for him to seduce her; she was way beyond that.
Her clothes pooled around her ankles, and when he instructed her to step out of them, she did as he said without question.
She heard his zipper come undone, and the rustle of a condom, and within seconds, he was pushing into her from behind. He held her hips in his hands, and instantaneously, she flooded with wet heat. Seconds after he bottomed out within her, she contracted around him, and he groaned, and then began sliding in and out in a rhythm that sent ecstasy shooting through her body.
It took only a minute of his hard strokes, and Lauren felt the wave sweep over her and she began coming. His teeth bit into her neck harder, and as his hands stilled on her hips and he held her grasped to him in a merciless grip, Lauren knew that they were coming together.
Fifteen minutes later, Lauren sat on the sofa in a daze. She'd cleaned up quickly in her small bathroom, and then moved out of his way so that he could do the same.
She picked up the remote while she waited for him, and absently began surfing through the channels, paying absolutely not a whit of attention to what was playing. Her heart was beating loudly in her ears, and no matter how much she tried to focus, she couldn't believe that they'd had sex so soon after meeting each other, and to top it off, twice within a matter of an hour or so.
And not only that . . . she had the feeling that she hadn't been just another notch on his proverbial bedpost. She wasn't worried that he'd never want to see her again. In fact, it was just the opposite. She was getting the vibe that after what they'd done together, his arrogance and his alpha tendencies were only going to grow.
He came to stand in the threshold between her bedroom and the living room, and as he remained there in silence, Lauren had no choice but to glance up. She found his expression foreboding as he studied her.
The look on his face put her back up. "What's wrong? What did I do?"
He frowned at her and shook his head. "Nothing," he replied in a voice that was, by far, the gentlest tone she'd ever heard from him.
He continued to study her intently and Lauren swallowed. "Then what's wrong?"
He flattened his lips and put one hand to his mouth in a fist, working it as if he didn't want to voice his thought out loud. He looked away and finally, with resignation, back to her. "The condom busted."
Lauren was already more than a little disconcerted, and all she had was an automatic response, "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, sweetheart," he said gently.
He continued to watch her, almost carefully, and Lauren began to feel light-headed as the implications of his words began to register. A busted condom. A busted condom. A. Busted. Condom.
"You don't seem worried," he said, matter-of-factly, noticing the lack of expression of her face. "You're on birth control, then?"
All at once a roaring began in her ears and the residual shock she was feeling from having sex with him disappeared in a flash as another worry took precedence. She tried to speak, but the oxygen snarled in her lungs as she felt the blood drain from her face.
There was no question that he saw her reaction. "Honey, I'm clean, I swear."
She began shaking her head, and she stood to her feet and covered her mouth with both hands and spoke through them, her voice muffled. "No."
Her stance probably reflected her horror and he left the doorway where he stood and walked swiftly across the small room and put his hands on her shoulders. "I'm clean, baby. Calm down."
She tilted her head and looked up at him. "I'm not on birth-control."
The horror she was feeling was now reflected on his face. "What? Why?"
She broke away from his hold and paced a few feet away from him toward the kitchen area. Her panic was fast blending with anger. "What do you want me to say here, Logan?"
"Okay, I'm sorry. So you're not on anything."
"No, I'm not," she said.
He studied her silently from across the room. "What do you want to do?"
Logan seemed so adamant that he was clean that Lauren was going to trust him on that for the moment and think about the risk of pregnancy and whether or not she should go buy some emergency contraceptives. She wasn't enthused about the idea, as the last time she'd tried the pill, it had made her so nauseous that she'd thrown up and been out of commission for a couple of days. And emergency contraceptives were probably about ten times as strong.
She didn't want to panic. She began counting and realized almost immediately that she was probably okay.
She glanced up at him and shook her head.
At her silence, he asked, "What does that mean?"
"I think it's going to be okay."
"Are you sure?" he questioned quietly, but no less intently.
"No! But I think so."
"You're not mad at me?" he asked.
The turmoil in her head was about to make her brain split in two. "Why would I be mad at you?"
"I don't know. The condom splitting. It was my responsibility and I fucked it up."
"You had no control over that, right?" she asked, trying to breathe, trying to think.
"That's right."
"Okay, well, I think it's going to be okay. I'd rather not panic and put a bunch of hormones in my body that I know will make me sick." She shook her head. "But I don't know for sure, I'm going to Google it after you leave."
"All right, sweetheart."
"You seem pretty okay with trusting me on this," she said, trying to figure out what was inside his head.
He shrugged his shoulders. "I trust you not to lie to me. And I've got your back on this, Lauren. If you get pregnant, we'll deal with it together."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lauren felt her stomach tighten in rejection of his possible meaning. What was he going to do, pay for her to terminate the pregnancy?
"What the hell do you think it means? It means I'll help you raise the kid. Marry you. Support you financially. Learn to love a baby. Whatever you want, I'm here."
Lauren was all at once ashamed of what she'd just mentally accused him of. So maybe the guy wasn't all macho jerk with only fantastic sexual charisma.