His head jerked and he sucked oxygen in through his teeth. "Lauren," he growled, his hands staying behind his head for the moment, but the muscles in his forearms were strained and his biceps bulged.
She leaned down and took a single swipe with her tongue, her lips against the head of his arousal as she held his eyes. "Hmm?"
"You better be careful," he said in a rough threat that sent chills down her midsection, but scared her, not in the least.
"I'm always careful around you, Logan," she purred, taking another swipe with her tongue. "I'd be crazy not to be."
She found a drop of pre-cum, sticky and salty, and as he watched, she licked it up and savored it on her tongue before swallowing. Then she moved up another notch and fastening her eyes on his, she took him deep in her mouth and held him there.
His eyes flared and his hands jerked down and landed on her shoulders. Lauren felt the small, square package he'd held ready in his fingers the entire time. He watched her now, intently, looking drugged and mesmerized as she continued to taste him. Lauren sucked and licked him, exactly the way they both liked it best.
He groaned, deep and long, and Lauren thought for a moment that he would let her finish what she was doing, but it wasn't to be. He released her and lifted the plastic package to his mouth, ripping it open with his teeth. He moved her away and pulled her up to him by the shoulders, donning the protection quickly. "Later." And then he flipped her to her back and came over her. He moved down over her stomach, scattering a wet path of kisses over her belly. He stopped and draped her thighs over his shoulders and began performing the same act on her that he'd just made her abandon on him. His tongue was hot and wet, and he put his finger on her clit and began massaging it, in time with the strokes of his tongue as it plunged in and out of her.
Lauren saw stars and began to feel a familiar tightening sensation, but he knew it, damn him, and he changed his tactic. He slid his long, thick, middle finger inside of her and began swiping her clit with his tongue, abrading it and rubbing it until her world narrowed to him and only him. "Logan," she began.
"What," he asked, in a deep, rough voice, but he never stopped.
"Logan," she tried again.
"What?" he asked more harshly as she began a keening sound that signaled her coming release.
Lauren's brain liquefied and colors lit the sky. At the height of her orgasm, her thought process splintered and all she could think of was one thing. "I love you," she panted in mind-blowing oblivion, just as her world exploded around her.
He held her tightly with his mouth and hands for a few seconds while she rode her orgasm, and then he pulled away from her only long enough to crawl on top and sink inside of her.
He took one deep breath and began lunging inside of her, his hold on her unbreakable.
Lauren knew something was different, but she was too far-gone to identify what it was. She only knew Logan was following her over, coming inside of her and that he was gripping her more tightly than he'd ever done before. She let go of the tiny thought that plagued her and focused on the joy that he'd brought into her world.
Logan lay beside Lauren with his arm thrown over his forehead, taking huge drags of oxygen into his lungs. Nothing he'd ever experienced in his life could compare to what had just happened to him. Not before her, and not since he'd met her. It was always good with her, it had always been good, from the very beginning, but what she'd just said to him was literally blowing his mind.
He liked it. No question he liked it. Fuck, he loved it.
But had she meant what she'd said? Or had she only said it because she'd been under the influence of a powerful orgasm? Did she only think she loved him because he knew how to push all of her buttons, how to give her the kind of sex that he knew for a fact she loved and that she'd never had before he came along?
Whatever. He was going to hold on tight and soon, he would remind her of what she'd said, because there was one damn thing he knew for sure: she was never getting away from him.
Never.
Lauren slowly recovered and she opened her eyes to find Logan flat on his back with his arm over his forehead, but his head was turned toward her and he was staring at her. His eyes held an expression she'd never seen before, except for possibly the first time they'd gone to bed together. They smoldered with a feral fire, a possessiveness that was inflexible. He stared at her without mercy, with no respite offered, with an irrefutable look that told her unequivocally that she belonged to him. She could clearly read the expression on his face. Suddenly, she knew; the window of opportunity to try to impose her will was gone. Logan was the master and he was seizing control.
She shivered in reaction and wondered what had put that expression on his face. And then it hit her like a shot in the dark.
She'd said it out loud. She'd told him the thing she'd been thinking for weeks. And he wasn't kicking her out of bed and picking up his cell phone to block his number.
Oh, no, quite the contrary.
By his look she could tell that he was claiming her. He was letting her know that he'd not only heard what she'd said, but that he wasn't going to let her take it back. He was invoking his authority and asserting his power. He would get his way in this.
A mind-numbing arrow of bliss flipped her stomach over. And why shouldn't she let him have his way?
There was no reason she shouldn't.
He was a good man and she was madly in love with him.
Slowly, over the next two weeks, Logan made sure that Lauren almost completely moved in with him. As she stood in her apartment after work one day and looked at the non-existent clothes left in her closet, it suddenly hit her how much of a one-track mind he had about their relationship.
He wanted it cemented. Set in stone. He'd never told her, but she could clearly see it.
She looked around her apartment. Her furniture still remained, of course, as did most everything in her kitchen. But the stuff she used daily, her clothes, her toiletries, her personal effects, everything was at his house now.
She had a set of keys to his house, and he had a set of keys to her apartment, even though they never stayed here anymore.
As she stood and looked around, she realized how quickly her life had become centered around him. And she was glad.
He made her happy, and the only 'but' to the equation was how quickly it had all happened. She was twenty-five years old, and she had never really imagined herself getting in so deep at this age. Several of her friends had gotten married the second they'd graduated from college. So twenty-five certainly wasn't too young, but in that farthest area of her brain where she vaguely thought about a husband and children, she saw it in the future, maybe somewhere around twenty-eight or thirty.
Logan had turned twenty-nine the week before. She didn't know why that thought suddenly seemed important to her, but it did.
She bent down and grabbed the bag she'd been hunting for at the back of her closet and walked out to the living room and tried to focus.
Abruptly she came to a dead stop as the realization hit her.
Logan was going to ask her to marry him.
She took a deep breath and sank down on the couch. Now that she thought about it, there was little doubt in her mind. She didn't know when or how soon, but the notion wouldn't go away. He was so utterly possessive that just living with her wouldn't be enough for him. He'd want it all. He'd want her body, heart and soul.
And he wouldn't take no for an answer. He had no 'give' to him. She would have to decide if she was going to break up with him, or marry him. She wasn't going to break up with him, no way. There wasn't a decision to be made. There was no way in hell she was giving him up.
Her heart began pounding against her breastbone as she went over his actions. He'd maneuvered her into this relationship from the very second he'd caught her staring at him, and she hadn't really known why, other than the obvious reason.
He'd never said he loved her.
And she'd never said it again, either.
But thinking about it now, and not for the first time, she thought he did love her. He was just too 'into her', too caring, too possessive, too protective. It was almost as if his world revolved around her, and she got a squishy, marshmallow-like feeling in the pit of her stomach just thinking about it. Yeah, he gave her goosebumps and butterflies, and they didn't seem to be letting up as the months slid by.
He was protective and so utterly possessive. She thought about what he'd said to her about someday wanting his sperm. Lauren could well and truly imagine having his children. She tried to picture another man as the father of those ambiguous little babies, and nothing came to her. Just the idea repelled her. All she wanted was Logan.
So she knew he was going to ask her to marry him. Or if she knew Logan, he'd probably tell her that she was going to marry him. And she was going to say yes, quick fast.
So, really, the only question was, when would it happen?
Logan pushed inside of Lauren and then stilled, trying to let the feel of her wrapped tightly around him soothe the ache he felt. Yeah, he had an ache, an emptiness in the pit of his stomach that he thought would be appeased by sliding into her, but it was still there, fucking with his head.
He kissed her gently on the mouth and smoothed back her hair. She was soft and hot and tight around him, and he knew in a few seconds he wasn't going to be able to control himself any longer. He was going to start pumping no matter what his brain was telling him to do.