“Jenny.” His chest expanded as he breathed in deep. “Answer me one question.”
“Anything.”
His knuckles turned white against his arms. “I think I know the answer to this,” he said, “but I need to hear you to say it aloud.”
“Okay?”
“What’s going to prevent the appearance in nine months of a squalling newborn with an aptitude for science?”
She caught her breath. Oh. My. God. He thought…he thought they’d had unprotected sex. And they had, really, in one sense. He hadn’t used a condom, which was always the best choice in a new relationship. And she’d said nothing to him about her own preparations in the whirl of their foreplay. He didn’t know her well enough to understand that she’d always made sure to protect herself against an unexpected pregnancy. Her own mother had seen to it that she was ready to make the responsible choice when she was still a teenager, drilling into her from the moment she’d become interested in boys about how an unplanned baby could derail a promising career, like Jenny’s birth had almost done to her mother’s.
“I damn well know better,” Logan said through a tight jaw, “but I had nothing in my mind last night but getting you into bed with me. You blew the top of my head off, Jenny. I didn’t even stop to think about this possibility until John started going on about Lily—”
“No worries,” she interrupted on a stutter, still caught on you blew the top of my head off, Jenny.
His gaze pierced through her. “Diaphragm, right?”
She nodded.
“Thank God you had sense.” He let his head fall back. “If there was a ripe ovum in your body and we didn’t stop to prevent the natural consequences, we’d be having a different kind of discussion right now.”
She nodded, flexing her fingers over the arms of the lounge chair, her toes curling under. Did he have condoms tucked away somewhere? Would they be giving it another go? You blew the top of my head off Jenny didn’t sound like a bad thing. I sounded like he wanted more. And now John was gone, they were alone, and this certainly wasn’t the conversation she’d feared when he said we need to talk.
“Wait,” he murmured, stilling. “You didn’t stop in the middle of everything last night. To put it in.”
A flush rose up her neck, a heat that had nothing to do with dappled sun through the spruce boughs.
“I did the responsible thing,” she said. “I prepared before our date.”
His face lit. For a moment, he didn’t look like the guy at the end of the bar who could beckon a woman with a flick of a brow.
“You can’t blame a girl for hoping.”
The corner of his mouth rose, then fell, then rose again. “You wanted last night to happen.”
“I hoped it would.”
“And I’ve wanted it since the first time I laid eyes on you.”
“Of course you did. I was buck naked.” She tucked her knees a little higher and dropped her voice. “I can be naked again, if you want.”
“Jenny,” he said, like he was choking on the word. “I have to be honest with you.”
Her mood dipped. “So this is the talking part.”
“Yeah,” he said, with a nodding frown. “Yes.”
A solid lump formed in her chest. She didn’t want honesty right now—not the kind she suspected he was about to dish out. She wanted sexual honesty. She wanted Logan to haul her off this lawn chair, drag her into his arms, and make her brain and body melt. That was the easier path.
“You’re John’s colleague,” he said, “and a hell of a woman.” A muscle flexed in his cheek. “You deserve to know what you’re getting into.”
“Your shorts, hopefully.”
He twisted his head and made another strangled sound. “You might not want that, after what I’m going to say.”
“Say it quick then,” she said. “Hedging hurts.”
“I don’t have a job.” He crossed his arms even tighter. “I live on other people’s couches. My life is a mess, and I don’t know when things will improve.”
She shrugged. “You’re a medical doctor. You’ll find work.”
“There’s more to it.” He grunted. “I’m in a weird place.”
“Tell me.”
He dropped his head and stared at clover. The sun beat hot down upon them and the world was all brightness and light. She suspected the things he needed to say needed to be said under shadow. She suspected she hadn’t yet earned the right to hear the story he wasn’t sharing.
“What’s important,” he said, raising his chin to pin her with his clear green gaze, “right in this moment, is that you know that I’m in no state for a relationship. I can’t make any kind of commitment of any sort, beyond a few weeks.”
“Hell, Logan,” she said, her throat narrowing as her chest pinched. “Neither can I.”
She’d hardly managed to crawl back into her skin after her ex had dumped her. She’d barely dared to poke her head out of her lab in the intervening year. She wasn’t sure she’d ever again be ready to make any kind of commitment. Her heart was still tender. She couldn’t think beyond her next encounter with Logan, which her whole body was tingling for.
“So it’s understood,” he ventured, his voice low, “that we’re a compatible pair of adults willing to spend the next ten days enjoying some inventive, mutually pleasurable activities…right?”
A sexy shudder all but launched her off the lounge chair. “Works for me.”
He sucked air between his teeth. “Full consent?”
“Oh, yeah.” She swung her legs over the edge of the chair. “And I’m tired of waiting.”
CHAPTER NINE
Logan attacked the buttons of her sleeveless shirt first. These tiny pearls had gleamed in the sunlight when she’d sauntered out into the backyard, looking so crisp and cool and unapproachable. Every moment since, his fingers had itched to slide the pearls free of the buttonholes just like he was doing
