“Then what do you want?”
She shrugged. “To know this means more to you than a one-night stand.” She met his gaze with a determined one of her own. She wouldn’t apologize for her needs.
He treated her to a lazy smile. “Trust me,” he said in a husky voice. “It means more. I respect you too much to sleep with you and never call again.”
“Now there’s a line if I ever heard one.” Yet she couldn’t help but smile in return. “So, what you’re saying is when this is over, you’ll call me?” she asked, forcing lightness and humor into her voice.
He nodded. “Soon.”
A smile twitched at her lips. “Is that the typical guy version of soon?”
His smile vanished, to be replaced by an intense but equally sexy look that set her nerve endings on fire. “It’s the Logan Montgomery version of soon.”
In the silence that followed, Catherine realized she couldn’t ask for anything more. Either she trusted him, or she didn’t. And she wouldn’t be here if her faith was lacking.
Drawing a deep breath, she met his gaze. “You aren’t going to draw this out much longer, are you?” she asked at last.
* * *
Logan exhaled the breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. For a minute there, he’d thought she would bolt. I’m not asking for promises. Little did she know he’d have made them willingly. But she had more guts than he’d given her credit for since she hadn’t walked out on him yet.
His heart beat rapidly against his chest. Without waiting another second, he swept her into his arms and walked over to the row of windows overlooking the ocean. His ocean, his beach, the scene that meant so much to him because it represented his life. All things he wanted to share with Catherine.
She locked her arms around his neck.
“Take a look,” he said.
Turning her head, she glanced out the window. As he inhaled the scent of her hair, his body tightened even more.
“This must be some view on a clear day.”
“It’s the best.”
“It’s not so bad now, either.” Her eyelids fluttered closed and she tightened her arms around his neck more securely. “You know, all night I’ve been listening to the sound of the rain.”
So had he. The elements wreaking havoc outside matched the thundering yearning inside his soul. And against his chest, her heartbeat picked up speed, joining his in the same rapid rhythm.
“I live in a one-bedroom apartment. Sometimes, if I’m really lucky and listen extra hard, I’ll catch the storm echoing in the night. Otherwise, it gets lost in the blare of car horns and noise.”
“I take it you aren’t afraid of thunderstorms?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m one of the strange people in the world who loves the rain.”
He closed his eyes and pictured her lying alone in her bed, naked on top of the covers, listening to the pulsing, pounding water beating against the window.
“Don’t you?” she asked.
He forced his heavy eyelids open. “Don’t I what?”
“Love the rain? You’d have to in order to live in a house with all these windows.”
“Storms have a beauty all their own.” And so did she.
“You have the added bonus of the ocean. The waves pounding against the shore. It’s electric,” she murmured.
“Erotic,” he muttered. He lowered her to the floor slowly, then followed her, feeling her breasts crush against him and the hard peaks of her nipples grazed his chest.
He held her gaze fast as their bodies collided, aching and straining with a need that had yet to be met. “God, you feel good.” He gripped her waist tighter.
Her assent came out more like a purr of contentment.
He drove his fingers through her hair. “What do you want?” he asked, resisting the urge to taste her lips until he’d heard her say she felt the same things he did.
Her hands gripped his shoulders until her fingernails bit through the T-shirt and into his skin. “I want to feel you inside me, driving me to the edge as hard and as fast as the rain outside. I want…”
Logan didn’t wait to hear more. He brought his lips down hard on hers, tasting her, drinking her, needing everything she was willing to give. And her moan of assent told him she’d desired it, too.
The music had finished sometime before, and with the storm as their only backdrop, his lips never moved from hers, never letting his body leave her warmth. He hadn’t meant for things to get so out of hand so quickly, but the tempest of desire swirling inside him wouldn’t be denied.
Catherine’s lower body arched against him, begging, pleading for more. He reached for the bottom of her shirt and sent it flying across the room.
He glanced down and sucked in a deep breath. Rounded mounds of flesh strained upward over delicate peach lace. Her nipples pushed taut and hard against their confinement. The hint of lace he’d seen earlier hadn’t done justice to what lay beneath.
He drew in an unsteady breath, then traced the scalloped edging over one breast before lowering his mouth and capturing one of the teasing nipples with his mouth.
Her breath caught, her back arched again, and she moaned aloud with pleasure. He couldn’t mistake that her body wanted him.
Threading his hand through her feather-soft hair, he brought their faces within inches of each other.
She cupped his face in her hands and covered his lips with hers.
The kiss didn’t start out slow. With the desire building all evening, their need was too urgent to contain. Her lips were soft and warm as they opened for his searching tongue, and he swept inside, finding heaven. And as he’d known all along, one taste wasn’t enough.
Gripping her bare waist in his hands, he pulled her closer, wanting to feel her heated skin against his, but his T-shirt prevented him from getting as close as he wanted.
“Here,” she whispered. “Let me.”
Logan sat back and she pulled
