THE QUESTION RUSHED at him, then pooled low and heavy in his sex.
The friction had been arcing between them all night, he’d lost count of the number of times he’d almost gone to her.
The last thing he had remotely expected had been that Kat Steel would take the lead. He found he rather liked it.
Perhaps too much.
‘Be very careful, Kat,’ he muttered.
‘Or...?’ she prompted gently.
‘Or you may find that agreement we made to keep things platonic goes up in flames,’ he growled.
She eyed him for a moment longer then simply shrugged her shoulders at him.
‘Maybe I rather like the idea of setting fire to something for once.’
If he’d expected her to have second thoughts, he would clearly need to think again. And now he was restless, edgy. He’d wanted her since that first moment he’d seen her, and just now he’d ended up telling her a raft of private details he had never told anyone else before. Ever.
Maybe Kat was right. The time for talking was over.
Unable to hold himself back any longer, Logan sank onto the rug in front of her, moved his mouth over hers and finally, finally kissed her for the second time.
Thoroughly and completely, the way he had in every fantasy he’d had about her since he’d met her that first day in the hospital.
The way he’d been telling himself all night he didn’t want to.
Kat didn’t stop him. She didn’t want to even try to. He claimed her again and again as her hands inched their way up solid biceps, greed and hunger pumping through her.
He tasted of cinnamon, with that kick of the festive wine they’d been sharing, and the memory of their afternoon together only made her feel that much closer to him. Then he slid his hand to into her hair and angled her head until he was kissing her deeper. More carnally, if that were possible.
She couldn’t breathe. She was sure she’d stopped. And yet she could feel the slow, heavy thumping of her heart against her ribcage. Like the timpani drums she’d heard earlier, playing that medley of Christmas carols.
She had never felt so untethered and adrift. But she simply couldn’t bring herself to care. All she wanted was Logan. Right here, right now. He was so very strong, was it any wonder that she trembled so deliciously from head to foot at the feel of his sublimely chiselled body covering hers?
He made her feel wanton, needy, and she couldn’t get enough of him. She pressed herself closer, shamelessly rubbing herself against him, and the rough growl he made shook right through her.
Pure lust shimmered between them. It danced. It teased. She lost herself in it, letting her palms graze over his arms, then his shoulders, indulging herself and revelling in the pure physical strength of the man.
Kat hardly noticed when he slid his own hands down her body, hooking then under the hem of her jumper and pulling it up. But when he broke the kiss long enough to tug it over her head in a slick movement, she heard a low sound of protest that was so needy it couldn’t possibly be her.
And then he was back, fusing his mouth to hers, and pouring so much into that kiss that she felt as though she might spill over from the sheer, dizzying thrill of it. He moved his hands to cup her backside and shifted them both in one efficient move that had him sitting on the couch and her sitting astride him.
She gasped and then, unable to help herself, she rocked herself into him. Her softness against his unequivocal hardness. And heat. So much heat. Her heart clattered louder at the dark flare in his eyes. So black it was almost feral.
Reaching down, she pulled her T-shirt up over her head and dropped it to the floor. Then she did the same for him.
Her insides lurched.
The man really was Comic Book God. Or, at least, the latter part. He had abs that even the fictional heroes would have coveted. Almost reverently, she reached out and traced every perfectly hewn contour. It should be illegal for any man to look so mouthwateringly irresistible.
And then, as if compelled by some unheard voice, she dipped her head and pressed her lips to the muscles instead. As if they were there purely for her pleasure. Her body was on fire. Her breasts felt heavy, her nipples too tight, and between her legs she felt molten.
Backwards and forwards, Kat explored. Right up until he lifted his hand and traced a soft line down the centre of her spine, and she lifted her head in question.
‘I think,’ he drawled, the thickness in his voice moving through her like slick oil, ‘it may be my turn.’
Before she could answer, he dipped his head to her breast and drew one of the hard peaks into his mouth—lacy bra included—and she couldn’t tell whether it was the frustrating barrier of the material or the graze of the lace against her already sensitive skin that sent her wild.
‘More,’ she muttered, arching her back—the action making her press down on him all the more urgently, that hard ridge of sheer masculinity flexing where she ached for him the most.
And then his hand was grazing her belly, sneaking lower and lower until he was toying with the waistband of her trousers and she thought she might go up in flames from the liquid heat that pooled between her legs.
The sound of the zip being tugged down, slowly, deliberately. And Kat thought she’d never heard it sound quite so deliciously rude before. But then the back of his hand was sliding over the front of her briefs and she stopped thinking anything at all.
There was nothing but the feel of one large hand cupping her backside, and the other hooking under the material to graze over her and then cup her, wet and hot, in the palm of his hand.
She feared she might break, humiliatingly, apart from just that single action.
Then his fingers began to move, tracing her, learning her, making her grow slicker and heavier with every stroke. But still making her wait. Torturing her with the tantalising promise of exquisite pleasure, which he kept Just. Out. Of. Reach.
‘Logan...’
Kat bit her lower lip, helpless to keep the desperate longing from her voice.
‘Tell me,’ he commanded hoarsely, as if it was taking just as much for him to resist.
‘You already know...’ She tried to drop her forehead to rest on his shoulder but he wouldn’t let her.
He shifted back until he could see her, until they were gazing at each other, and then finally—finally—he slid his fingers inside her, driving her to dizzier heights. And she, to what should have been her shame, simply threw her head back and rode his hand as long and as far as he wanted to take her.
Propelling her closer and closer to that magical edge. Making her entire body fizzle and ignite. And then he did something incredible with his hand, some twist and flick, and suddenly she was soaring. Shattering into a thousand pieces and raining down in a shower of colour and light.
Like nothing she’d ever known before. And Kat thought she might stay up there for ever.
Logan didn’t think he’d ever been turned on so much in his life, watching Kat Steel come apart at that moment.
It had to be the most beautiful sight in the world, from her shocked, bright face to the white-hot heat on his fingers. And those naughty, ragged sounds were making him so incredibly hard that it was almost painful.
All he wanted was to be able to do it to her all over again. A part of him feared he would never be able to get enough of it.
But that was a concern for another day. Another night. Right now, he just wanted to be inside her.
Flipping them both around so that she was on her back on the couch with him between her legs, Logan slid his hands to grip the waistband of her trousers, wanting to lower his head and taste for himself what he’d just done to her.
And then, when he’d made her come part all over again, he would slide inside her and topple them both off the edge.
He was just about to slide her trousers down when she struggled upright and stilled his hand.
‘What about Jamie?’ she croaked hoarsely.
It was like a blast of cold air, and he had no idea how managed to stop himself. But he didn’t trust himself to speak.
‘He might come down the hall,’ she continued after a moment.
But he thought that reminder was more for herself than for him, and he liked the fact that she was nowhere near to being in control. Certainly no more than he was.
‘There’s a baby gate,’ Logan ground out, as he pulled her up into a more seated position and then proceeded to sort his clothing out. ‘And we’d hear him.’
‘Oh, I didn’t...’ She paused, stilling in her actions. ‘I wasn’t saying...you know, stop. I just—’
‘We have to stop,’ he cut in before she could say anything more. ‘This is entirely inappropriate.’
Her eyes clouded over, a sort of shame flitting through them, and he hated that he made her feel that way, but he couldn’t do a thing about it. If he started to explain it to her, he feared he might give in to temptation. Give in to her.
He didn’t want to take her on the floor of his living room like they were a pair of sexed-up adolescents. And he certainly wasn’t about to take her to his bedroom and have her stay the night when his four-year-old son was in the apartment.
Or at all, a voice rang out belatedly.
But either way it was a loss of control.
He was a father, not a single man. His only responsibility was to his son, and not bringing back random women to their home.
Except that Kat wasn’t random. And Jamie adored her. But none of that was reason enough to let her stay the night and confuse Jamie when he woke up in the morning to find her there.
So, if he couldn’t seem to control himself around this woman, there seemed to be only one other solution.
As if she could read his expression, Kat licked her lips nervously.
‘You want me to go home?’
‘I think that would be for the best.’
He sounded like a jerk, but that was just too bad. He could still taste her, smell her. And she was driving him crazy with need.
If he softened towards here, even for a moment, he feared he might be too tempted to finish what he’d started.
‘I’ll call a cab for you.’
Kat could feel the hot prickling behind her eyes, and it was a battle to hold her head up. To square her shoulders.
She could not let Logan see how humiliated she felt, or how much his rejection stung.
How it played on insecurities she wished she could stuff down.
After all, how could Logan’s rejection compare to when Kirk had called off their engagement, throwing the one argument at her against which she could offer absolutely no possible recourse? Kirk had wanted kids of his own—real kids of his own, he’d said. He’d meant biological, and that had only driven his barbed little knife home all the deeper.
Of all people, she’d thought Kirk was the one person she could always rely on. They’d met as kids. Two fifteen-year-olds sitting on a ward, staring out of the window to the parkland beyond, watching normal kids do normal things whilst they were attached to a gamut of drips and needles.
They’d endured it all together. A team. Understanding things no normal, healthy kid could ever have appreciated.
He was the one person she had thought would always stand by her. Or, if he’d had to leave her, it would have been because they’d grown apart.
She would never have expected him, of all people, to have been so cold-hearted.
So cruel.
He’d made her feel worthless. Undesirable. Valueless. And she had let him, because he had been the one person who’d known exactly which buttons to press to hit every single one of her crippling insecurities. Every single fear they had ever talked about on those wards when life and death had been such everyday topics. When you walked into a room, scanned it, and worked out who wasn’t there any more.
Clenching her fists, Kat indulged a little in the sense of anger. Because it was either that or fall back into the sea of self-loathing that had almost drowned her for years, until she’d found a way to pull herself out by her fingernails.
She wasn’t about to let this man—a relative stranger, for goodness’ sake—see how his words sliced through her. She was stronger than that.
Even if she wasn’t, coming to Seattle was supposed to be her chance to reinvent herself.
Fake it until you make it—wasn’t that what she’d told herself?
Straightening her shoulders, she made herself look Logan in the eye.
‘I don’t need a cab, I’m perfectly capable of walking.’
‘Not at this hour,’ he scoffed, but something flashed across his expression.
If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought it was care. Then again, the guy was a decent human being. Just because he didn’t want to...be intimate with her, it didn’t mean he wanted to see her walk the streets alone at night.
‘I only live a short walk away.’ She tried to smooth her tone into something less prickly. ‘The other side of the park.’
‘Far enough for a cab,’ he repeated, and Kat didn’t know if it was the way he moved, or the tone he took, or a combination of the two with something else entirely, but she suddenly discovered that she didn’t much care to argue with him.
There was something utterly focussed about him. Just like when he’d come into the ER on top of the VIP patient, saving his life.
When Logan Connors made a decision, she didn’t imagine he was used to backing down.
She pitied anyone who tried to counter him on that hospital floor.
Kat forced a smile.
‘Fine, a cab sounds like a good idea. Thanks.’
And it gave her a tiny victory that she now knew more about Logan Connors than she suspected he knew about her.