in that same testing nibble, and had a lovely fog settling over her brain. 'Never mind.'
He touched, just as he'd told her he wanted to. A long, smooth stroke from her shoulders down to her fingertips. A lazy pass over her hips, her thigh, as if he were sampling her shape as he'd sampled her flavor.
Then his mouth was on hers again, hot and greedy. Those nerve endings exploded, electric jolts as his hands, his lips ran over her as if he were starved now for each separate taste. Hard hands, rough at the palms, rushed over her with both skill and desperation.
Just as she'd imagined. Just as she'd wanted.
Desires she'd ruthlessly buried broke the surface and screamed into life. Riding on the thrill, she dragged at his shirt until her hands found the hot, bare skin and dug in.
Man and muscle.
He found her breast, had her arching in delicious pleasure as his teeth nipped over shirt and bra to tantalize the flesh beneath, to stir the blood beneath into feverish, pulsing life. Everything inside her
went full, and ripe, and ready.
As senses awakened, slashing one against the other, in an edgy tangle of needs, she gave herself over to them, to him. And she yearned for him, for that promise of release, in a way she hadn't yearned for in
so long. She wanted, craved, the heat that washed through her as the possessive stroke of those labor-scarred hands, the demanding crush of those insatiable lips, electrified her body.
She wanted, craved, all these quivering aches, these madly churning needs and the freedom to meet them.
She rose with him, body to body, moved with him, flesh to flesh. And drove him toward delirium with that creamy skin, those lovely curves. In the softening light, she looked beyond exquisite lying against
the dark spread—that bright hair tumbled, those summer-blue eyes clouded with pleasure.
Passion radiated from her, meeting and matching his own. And so he wanted to give her more, and take more, and simply drown himself in what they brought to each other. The scent of her filled him like breath.
He murmured her name, savoring and exploiting as they explored each other. And there was more, he discovered, more than he'd expected.
Her heart lurched as those rugged hands guided her up, over, through the steep rise of desire. The crest rolled through her, a long, endless swell of sultry heat. She arched up again, crying out as she clamped
her arms around him, pulses galloping.
Her mouth took his in a kind of ravenous madness, even as her mind screamed—Again!
He held on, held strong while she rode the peak, and the thrill her response brought him made him tremble. He ached, heart, mind, loins, ached to the point of pain.
And when he could bear it no longer, he drove into her.
She cried out once more, a sound of both shock and triumph. And she was already moving with him,
a quick piston of hips, as her hands came up to frame his face.
She watched him, those blue eyes swimming, those lush lips trembling with each breath as they rose
and fell together.
In the whole of his life, he'd never seen such beauty bloom.
When those eyes went blind, when they closed on a sobbing moan, he let himself go.
* * *
He was heavy. Very heavy. Stella lay still beneath Logan and pondered the wonder of being pinned, helplessly, under a man. She felt loose and sleepy and utterly relaxed. She imagined there was probably
a nice pink light beaming quietly out of her fingers and toes.
His heart was thundering still. What woman wouldn't feel smug and satisfied knowing she'd caused a
big, strong man to lose his breath?
Cat-content, she stroked her hands over his back.
He grunted, and rolled off of her.
She felt immediately exposed and self-conscious. Reaching out, she started to give the spread a little
tug, to cover herself at least partially. Then he did something that froze her in place, and had her heart teetering.
He took her hand and kissed her fingers.
He said nothing, nothing at all, and she stayed very still while she tried to swallow her heart back into place.
'Guess I'd better feed you now,' he said at length.
'Ah, I should call and make sure the boys are all right.'
'Go ahead.' He sat up, patting her naked thigh before he rolled out of bed and reached for his jeans.
'I'll go get things started in the kitchen.'
He didn't bother with his shirt, but started out. Then he stopped, turned and looked at her.
'What?' She lifted an arm, casually, she hoped, over her breasts.
'I just like the way you look there. All mussed and flushed. Makes me want to muss and flush you
some more, first chance I get.'
'Oh.' She tried to formulate a response, but he was already sauntering off. And whistling.
FIFTEEN
The man could cook. With little help from Stella, Logan put together a meal of delicately grilled tuna, herbed-up brown rice, and chunks of sauteed peppers and mushrooms. He was the sort of cook who dashed and dumped ingredients in by eye, or impulse, and seemed to enjoy it.
The results were marvelous.
She was an adequate cook, a competent one. She measured everything and considered cooking just
one of her daily chores.
It was probably a good analogy for who they were, she decided. And another reason why it made little sense for her to be eating in his kitchen or being naked in his bed.
The sex had been ... incredible. No point in being less than honest about it. And after good, healthy
sex she should've been feeling relaxed and loose and comfortable. Instead she felt tense and tight and awkward.
It had been so intense, then he'd just rolled out of bed and started dinner. They might just as easily
have finished a rousing match of tennis.
Except he'd kissed her fingers, and that sweet, affectionate gesture had arrowed straight to her heart.
Her problem, her problem, she reminded herself. Over-analyzing, over-compensating, over-something. But if she didn't analyze something how did she know what it was?
'Dinner okay?'
She broke out of her internal debate to see him watching her steadily, with those strong jungle-cat eyes. 'It's terrific.'
'You're not eating much.'
Deliberately she forked off more tuna. 'I've never understood people who cook like you, like they do on some of the cooking shows. Tossing things together, shaking a little of this in, pinches of that. How do you know it's right?'
If that was really what she'd been thinking about with her mouth in that sexy sulk, he'd go outside and
eat a shovelful of mulch. 'I don't know. It usually is, or different enough to be right some other way.'
Maybe he couldn't get inside her head, but he had to figure whatever was in there had to do with sex, or the ramifications of having it. But they'd play it her way for the moment. 'If I'm going to cook, and since I don't want to spend every night in a restaurant, I'm going to cook, I want to enjoy it. If I regimented it, it'd start to piss me
