She shoved her hands beneath the hem of his shirt, her fingertips making contact with hard, hot skin. She gasped, slid her hand up higher, marveling at the feel of the hair that covered those muscles. Served as a reminder of just how different they were. Masculine to her feminine. And she did not spend a whole lot of time pondering her femininity. But the overwhelming intensity of his masculinity sure did it.
She pushed his shirt then, desperate to get it off. Desperate to see him. And he obliged her. He reached behind his head and tugged at his shirt collar, pulling it up from the back and casting it to the floor. “How do men take their shirts off like that?” she marveled. “It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of men take their shirts off.”
“Not this close,” she said.
And then, they couldn’t talk anymore, because he was kissing her again, her hands pinned between them, flat on his chest, which was as rough and hairy and muscular as his stomach.
Then he was kissing her neck, down to the curve of one of her breasts. He looked up at her, electric blue hitting her like a lightning bolt. And he kept on looking at her as his mouth migrated down to the tip of one of her breasts, as he drew her nipple deep into his mouth. She gasped, arching back, her stomach pitching hard. She had not been prepared for that. For the intense need that would flood her when he did that. Then with his hand, that work-rough, calloused hand, he cupped her other breast, pinching her nipple hard between his thumb and forefinger.
She started to move her hips against him, finding his hard thigh and trying to use it to soothe the ache that was building inside of her.
“So pretty,” he murmured against her skin, raining kisses over her tender body, leaving her feeling electric. As if all the nerves in her had come online when his lips touched her. Parts of her that she hadn’t even been aware of were suddenly taut and aching, begging for his touch.
Already, this was not what she had imagined.
It was so much more complex. She had thought of it as some great mystery of the universe. In answer to a question that she had. But so far, all she had were more questions. About herself. About him. About how he made her feel these things.
And all the while, he kept looking at her. She was so deeply aware that it was Logan touching her like this. Logan holding her in his arms and making her want things she had never even fantasized about before.
In her head it had been a formal lesson. In her head, she had thought she might sit for a while. Maybe chat a little before it all started.
And it was the deep, wrenching difference between that vague imagining she’d allowed herself and what was happening now that kept her from catching her breath.
Or maybe it was him.
Logan. How many times had she made jokes about sex with him in the room? About his sex life even? About him going off and hooking up with a woman. And she had no idea what it meant. Not really. Because she hadn’t imagined him touching some other woman’s breasts. Hadn’t imagined him sucking her nipples into his mouth. Making her weak with wanting and helpless with desire.
If she had been able to imagine this, she never would have been able to joke about things like that. Not ever.
He was right. She hadn’t known what she didn’t know.
It was such a wealth of ignorance. She was the Scrooge McDuck of it. Swimming around in a pool of innuendo and not having a clue what it all was.
Suddenly, it was like a lock had clicked inside of her, and out had come the flood of understanding.
And they’d only just gotten their shirts off.
“I need you,” he growled. “Dammit, I really do.”
She knew that he was serious. That there was more to what he’d said than just sexual flattery or anything like that. That it wasn’t just part of the thing that people said when they were about to have sex. But that it was some kind of deep truth that had come from the center of all that he was. And because he was Logan, that mattered.
The way he looked at her, like he knew the answers to all her questions, made her whole world feel tilted on its axis. And suddenly what had been inevitable earlier today felt deeply uncertain now.
It felt like the whole world was fragile now. Like all the mountains around Hope Springs might crack and collapse. Those mountains that were her guide when she was out on the ranch, her horizon line that she counted on to find her way. Those sentries that were centuries old and had stood guard around the land for generations suddenly compromised over this moment.
She didn’t know what he needed from her.
So she nodded, put her hands on his chest, slid them up around his neck, and kissed him. And she found herself lifted up from the couch, her denim-clad thighs wrapped around his waist as he held her tightly, kissed her as they walked from the living room, right into his bedroom.
Logan’s bedroom.
It hit her then that whatever she had thought about the two of them, there was a barrier between them. Because she had never been in his bedroom. If he were like a brother, she would have been. Because she’d been in her brother’s bedroom a hundred times. More than.
