sophisticated as the next girl, right? So she vowed to be perfectly happy and enjoy her time with Logan for as long as it lasted.
And once she was back in Minnesota, whenever she found herself feeling a little bit lonely, she would be able to look back at these moments with him and remember this time as the most thrilling of her life.
Not everyone could say they’d had such a time. She was lucky. And happy.
She took one more glance at Logan, then tiptoed to the bathroom. Staring at herself in the mirror, she gave herself a little squeeze because she felt so wonderful. She’d never guessed that sex could be so… Well, now she totally understood why the spores did it every morning like clockwork.
She finished freshening up, then quietly opened the bathroom door. And shrieked.
“Not staying for coffee?” Logan said casually, as he stood there waiting for her. He wore a gorgeous smile, but otherwise, he was completely naked.
She scurried backward and yanked a bath towel off the rack to wrap around herself. Naked in the middle of the night while she was wrapped around him was one thing. Naked while standing in the morning sunlight having a conversation was something else altogether. “I didn’t think you’d… Well, good morning.”
“Good morning to you,” he said, still grinning. “You do know I saw your naked body all night long, Grace.”
“That was different,” she said, clutching the towel in a death grip. “Now it’s…it’s morning.” She almost groaned. So smart, yet, oh, so lame.
“Yes, it is,” he said agreeably. “I ordered coffee and breakfast. No need to rush off.”
“Oh, thank you. But I should…” She had no idea how to complete that sentence. Her lack of knowledge when it came to sexual etiquette was disheartening.
“Stay,” he said, settling the matter. He walked past her into the bathroom. “I’ll be right out.”
They had breakfast on his private terrace. He’d ordered eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns and toast for both of them, along with a variety of pastries, juice and coffee.
Grace knew she wouldn’t be able to eat half of the food on her plate, but took a bite of egg and a sip of coffee.
One half hour later, her plate was empty and Logan was pouring her another cup of coffee.
“I guess I was hungry,” she said, as she stirred a teaspoon of cream into her coffee. Logan had graciously loaned her his bathrobe so she would feel more comfortable.
He stretched back in his chair. “It’s refreshing to be with a woman who enjoys eating as much as you do.”
“I take it you haven’t been up to Minnesota lately,” Grace said wryly. She popped the last bite of toast into her mouth and dabbed her lips with her napkin.
He laughed. “You’re right…I haven’t.”
“We have to eat to stay alive up there,” she explained. “And we live by those words. Minnesotans believe you need an extra layer of body fat or two, just to keep warm through the long winters.”
“Ah.” He leaned closer, untied her bathrobe and skimmed his fingers across her stomach, causing a shiver of excitement to race through her like lightning. “But you don’t have an extra layer of body fat on you, Grace.”
“I…I suppose I work it off in the lab.” She wished she could drag him back to bed right then. But, once again, she had no idea what constituted proper behavior the morning after.
“Your lab job sounds like it would be fairly sedentary. Is it?”
“I suppose it can be for some people, but I do a lot of running around.”
They both reached for the same croissant and she almost screamed from the shock of tingling heat she felt as their hands touched. What was wrong with her?
She stared at Logan but he didn’t seem to be at all affected by the touch. Instead, he grinned, took the croissant, tore it and handed her half.
“So tell me why someone like you is still a virgin.”
The question surprised her. “Someone like me?”
He broke off a piece of the flaky pastry and munched on it. “You’re beautiful, Grace. What’s wrong with the guys up there in the tundra? Has all that snow frozen their brains?”
“Maybe.” She felt her cheeks warm up, but she had to smile at the unexpected compliment. “Thank you. But the most likely answer is that the men I work with are lab geeks like me. They’re only interested in my theories.”
She wasn’t about to tell him how Walter had pretended an interest he didn’t really feel. Instead, she added, “Other than that, I don’t get out of the laboratory much.”
“Why not?”
“It’s my job,” she said simply, but it was more than that. “It’s my life.”
“Life is more than a job,” he countered.
“I suppose it should be,” she said, and knew she could’ve left it at that. But, for some reason, she wanted him to know more about her. “But I grew up there. I’m most comfortable when I’m surrounded by science. Even though much of it is theoretical, it’s so much more real than anything else in my life. It’s tangible. I totally understand it, too. It’s nothing like the world outside the lab where everything is confusing and I always feel like I don’t know the rules.” And that sounded pathetic, didn’t it? She took a breath and added, “The lab is safe-and unemotional, for the most part. Except when I get excited about some result or finding.”
He studied her as he sipped his coffee. “What do you mean, you grew up there?”
She shrugged. “I’ve lived at the university since I was eight.”
“Eight?” His eyes narrowed and he set his coffee cup down and leaned in. “You mean, eight years old?”
On the other hand, maybe she shouldn’t have been quite so forthcoming because now he was staring at her as if she’d suddenly grown a second head. Her imagination took flight as she envisioned the headlines:
Grace reeled her thoughts back to planet Earth and held her chin up high. “That’s right, I was eight years old. I told you I was smart.”
“Yeah, you did,” he said slowly, sitting back and crossing one leg over the other. “Told me I’d run for the hills if I knew how smart you really were.”
“That’s right. Well…” She folded her napkin, placed it carefully on the table and stood. “I’ll be going now.”
He grabbed her hand. “Not so fast, Grace.”
“Logan, I think we’ve said all there is to say.”
“I don’t.” He yanked her down onto his lap and met her mouth with his in a hard, wet kiss that involved teeth and tongues and lots of zapping electrical currents zooming through her body. Then he pulled his mouth away and she knew she would’ve collapsed if he hadn’t been holding her so tightly.
“I may not be Einstein,” he said gruffly, his eyes narrowed on her, “but I’m not an idiot. I like you just fine. And I don’t run.”
Looking into his eyes, all she could think was that she was the one who probably should run-but she really didn’t want to. As soon as she caught her breath, she whispered, “I’m glad.”
“Good.” Then he grinned. “Now let’s go hunt for spores.”
She had been a virgin.
Logan was still shaking his head in disbelief two days later as he sat at his office desk. He’d just received the revised set of blueprint renderings of the proposed sports center and he pulled them from the large mailing tube. Unrolling the thick stack of drawings across his conference table, he used his stapler and a hardbound dictionary to secure the ends and prevent the stack from curling up.
Grace was the last woman on earth he would’ve guessed would be a virgin. If he’d known, he sure as hell wouldn’t have taken her to bed the other night.
But how could he have guessed? The woman had come across as though she’d written the book on sex. She studied a species’ sexual habits, for God’s sake. She gave lectures to newlyweds on how to find their G-spot-or whatever they were calling it these days. Who would’ve guessed that Ms. Sexual Expert had been faking it this whole time?
“Hell.” He wiped a hand across his jaw. He should’ve been pissed off with her deception, but instead he caught
