‘Max asked me what was going on between us too. We’re a hot topic of conversation within your family, apparently. I told him that you were an excellent houseguest and an incredibly skilled lay.’
Logan seemed to be having trouble with speech. Which was just fine by Evie, because she didn’t particularly want to talk about where their relationship was going either.
Evie picked up a slice of apple pie she’d brought home with her and handed it to him along with her smuggest smile. ‘You’re welcome.’
LOGAN’S week at Evie’s passed in a blur of easy smiles and sweat-slicked nights. Life was good but there was no denying that he had put the real life on hold in order to be here. Work was piling up back in London and his executives had taken to calling him in the middle of the night—his time—with increasingly urgent questions about the running of his business and opportunities arising. His executive assistant was ready to strangle him. On Friday she’d not so politely told him that if he didn’t have his surly self back behind his desk come Monday, she wouldn’t be there either. Apparently she’d had quite enough of his executive employees begging her for word on decisions that no one but Logan had the power to make. No one else sat at Logan’s desk while he was away. He’d never stayed away for this long before, had never needed to structure his organisation so that he could.
Something to consider.
As for Evie, she was being very … understanding. She didn’t push for him to stay and, apart from that time when she’d talked about lunching with his mother, she’d made no reference to where their relationship was headed at all. As if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to breeze into and out of Evie’s world and make barely a ripple.
Not meek when it came to everyday living—Evie knew how to stand her ground and more. That message had come through loud and clear. He’d watched her putting the brakes on a new project Max had wanted to bid on—a bread and butter project that Max figured they could turn a quick profit on. Evie begged to differ. The client was dodgy—notoriously late with payments and not above changing specs mid build and expecting the builder to wear the cost. There were jobs worth taking, Evie had told his brother bluntly. This one wasn’t worth their effort.
Max had thrown up his hands in a sulk. Evie had lifted one eyebrow, folded her arms in front of her and murmured, ‘Really?’
And half an hour later Max had been back, the dodgy bread and butter bid abandoned, head down alongside Evie’s as they nutted out an alteration to the civic centre plans that scattered her kitchen bench.
No wonder Max had refused to let her go.
But Max wasn’t here now and Logan had to be at the airport early in the morning and, dammit, Evie could at least acknowledge that fact with more than a nod.
And then she pulled down a bottle of tequila from a shelf in the kitchen and two shot glasses and poured until tequila threatened to spill over onto the bench.
‘Got any salt?’ he said.
‘Happens I do.’ Evie had lemons too, and he felt all of sixteen as Evie told him to make a fist. He did and watched as Evie’s hand circled his wrist and she brought his fist to her mouth, a tiny, knowing smile on her face as the tip of her tongue dipped into the V between his forefinger and thumb.
She had his undivided attention as she pulled away, poured salt over the wet part and set her mouth to him again, licking the salt off in one long, lazy swipe before picking up the shot glass and swallowing the contents fast.
Lemon came next and she scrunched up her eyes and shook her head as the lemon juice went down. Party.
‘Hard day at the office?’ he asked as she licked then at her own hand and poured salt on and offered it to him. Logan’s body kicked as he took her wrist and guided it to his mouth. He took his time, his thumb stroking slowly over the pulse at her wrist, and then he rubbed his lips along the edge of her thumb and then his tongue. And then he took teeth to her skin and nipped and felt Evie’s pulse kick and her eyes glow golden.
‘Ordinary day at the office,’ she murmured. ‘But I’m hoping for an extraordinary night.’
He licked at the salt and she downed his tequila and he slammed his lips into hers and drank it straight from her mouth and chased it down with the sweet taste of her until the salt was all gone and the tequila was gone and all he could taste was Evie.
By the time she drew away to take a shaky breath, Logan was hard as concrete and a delicate flush of arousal had moved in on Evie’s cheeks.
‘More,’ she demanded, and sucked her lower lip into her mouth and licked it clean.
‘More of what?’
‘Everything.’
So he poured them another tequila and this time Evie bypassed the condiments and went straight for the alcohol and then expelled her breath as if she was breathing fire. She probably was.
‘Something you want to forget?’
‘No. I want to remember it all.’ Evie smiled and pierced his heart. ‘I’m just working up the courage to let you go. Bear with me. It’s going to be harder than I thought.’
Easy words, and an easy out if he wanted to take it. Keep it light, no deep, dark emotions required. Except that sorrow lurked beneath the smile in her eyes and challenge lived there too.
‘I hope the week worked for you,’ she said.
‘It did. Did it work for you?’
Evie shrugged, and, for the moment, the challenge in her eyes won out over sorrow and goodbye. ‘You know I’m a sucker for more.’
He knew what she wanted. His gaze skated over her face, lingered on a spot covered by the fall of her glossy black hair. He couldn’t see the scar but he sure as hell knew it was there.
‘No table tops,’ she said. ‘For this we use the bed.’
And still Logan hesitated.
He’d been good all week. So very restrained. Playing at normal and it had worked. He’d wanted normal. Needed to prove to them both that he could be satisfied with it. Tonight though, he craved just that little bit … more.
They still had a few hours left. They still had the night.
And there were so many ways to spend it.
He came around to her side of the counter and pushed her back against it, got up in her space, his arms either side of her. Lips to her cheek now, the scrape of his teeth against the sensitive skin of her ear lobe, just enough to make her gasp. One hand to her throat now as he took full possession of her mouth. Finding the pulse point the better to monitor it. Tilting her head back so that his mouth fitted hers exactly the way he wanted it to.
Mine. He let that thought reach the top of the stack and his hips responded with a slow and rolling grind.
‘Mine,’ he said and his voice came low and savage.
‘Prove it.’
Oh, he was going to.
‘Stroke me,’ he said, and showed her exactly how he wanted it, and he was comfortable calling the shots, God help him, he was. Hard and rough and she leaned into him and set her lips to his jaw, and her teeth to the skin of his chin and nipped, at which point he slipped just that little bit out of sync with the rest of the world. The place he entered had far more jagged edges and ruins in it and the rivers ran red with pain beneath. Evie didn’t need to be told to take the tip of him between fingers and thumb and squeeze hard—she already knew how much he liked riding that bright flare of pain right back into pleasure.
Knew