One Night With Her Ex. Kate Hardy

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      Which sounded lame, even to her ears.

      ‘I could have done anything with you, Evie. Anything, and you’d have let me.’ He worked his mouth across her nipple again and had a little party there and all she could do was whimper and strain against him and hope to hell he got it into his head to party harder. ‘What is that if not submission?’ he muttered.

      ‘Participation,’ she said. ‘Participation resulting from stimulation. You need to work on your definitions.’

      And she needed to work on him. Cautiously, Evie inched her way further down Logan’s big body until her face was level with his and her hair fell around their faces like a curtain.

      He didn’t look rested or anywhere close to content. Evie closed her eyes and rested her forehead gently against his, breathing in the scent of him and the scent of her still on him. He tasted of her too, as she licked at his mouth, coaxing and cajoling until he did what she wanted, which was open for her with a groan, but when she went to undo his belt, he clamped her wrist and dragged her hand back up to his chest.

      ‘Don’t,’ he said against her lips and she pulled away, just a fraction.

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘No condoms.’

      Which sounded a lot like an excuse. ‘Another way, then. Same way you did me.’

      ‘I want—’

      Yes, he did want. She could feel him rigid beneath her, digging into her. ‘Hard,’ she murmured.

      ‘Yes. I want hard.’ As if the admission of specific needs and desires was something to be ashamed of. ‘And rough.’ He licked at her lips as if soothing away fresh wounds. ‘Too rough for your mouth. Don’t want to hurt you.’

      ‘Hands,’ she offered. ‘Yours and mine. Rough.’

      He shuddered beneath her, but he still wouldn’t let her hand go any lower than his chest. ‘No.’ With their lips barely touching and a shield of black lashes concealing his eyes. ‘You need to leave, Angie. Now. I can’t do this.’

      ‘Why not?’ She could think of plenty of reasons. They were in his mother’s house. She was—supposedly—still engaged to his brother. Not that it had stopped him. And then there was this fear he had of dominating her, of hurting her, and that was the resistance he couldn’t get past. Same reason they’d parted all those years ago.

      ‘I don’t understand you.’ Evie backed off a little, pulled the straps of her dress back up her shoulders. ‘Condoms can be purchased. Needs can be satisfied without anyone getting hurt. And my doing as you ask and leaving your room is not submission. It’s listening and responding and it’s action born of concern. For you. For whatever’s going on in that hard head of yours.’ He wouldn’t meet her eyes, so she put a gentle forefinger to his chin, and leaned down and gently forced eye contact. Turmoil there, and plenty of it. Black eyes blown with darkness and desire. ‘You savour me with one breath and turn me away with the next. Want to tell me what that’s all about?’

      ‘I really don’t. Angie, please—’

      ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Just go.’

      Time to smooth down her dress with fumbling fingers and hope to hell no one saw her on the way to the guestroom. She didn’t understand this man who lay so unmoving on his bed, one arm behind his head, one hand hooked over his belt as he watched her through slitted eyes, his erection still straining against his trousers. Her gaze fastened on his lips next; he had such sexy, snarly lips.

      ‘Your mother said something about your father being a man of strong passions.’ Uncontrollable passions, maybe. Caroline had implied that Logan had similar issues. Mothers knew these things. ‘Are you close to him?’

      ‘My father’s dead,’ answered Logan flatly.

      ‘Oh,’ she said with a grimace. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’ So many things about this man that she didn’t know.

      ‘No great loss. He died when I was ten.’ Logan closed his eyes and shut her out, put his forearm over his eyes for good measure. ‘My father was an abusive, controlling bastard. When my mother finally worked up the guts to leave him—and me—he blew his brains out.’

      Evie stared at him in horrified silence. What did a person say to that? Where did a person even start? ‘Logan—’

      ‘Go,’ he muttered gruffly. ‘Please, Evangeline, just go.’

      And this time Evie complied.

CHAPTER FOUR

      LOGAN remembered to breathe again once Angie had gone and the door snicked shut behind her. He shouldn’t have told her. It wasn’t something he talked about. Not with his mother, not with the psychologists his mother had taken him to once she’d had him back in her care.

      It was okay to be angry, several of them had told him gently. Maybe he could examine his anger; start with the little things, they’d coaxed, while his ten-year-old self had sat there and studied his ragged, chewed-off fingernails and told them he wasn’t angry, not him. Not with his father for topping himself, not with his mother for leaving them. She’d come back, hadn’t she? Once the old man was gone? She’d come back for her son who was volatile, and controlling and needy, just like his father, and she’d never once called him those things, just started praising all the other traits he possessed and sent him to shrinks to keep the crazy in check.

      Why had he told Angie that? Why couldn’t he have left it at his father was dead?

      She’d run now, if she had any sense. Away from this family. Away from him.

      Evangeline Jones didn’t understand the stakes in this game, but Logan did. He knew how it went; the breaking of a woman’s will. Drip by tiny drip until it was all gone and she jumped at the sound of a footfall and flinched whenever someone moved too fast. He knew those games, knew every move.

      Second hand.

      Time to take himself in hand, thought Logan grimly as he sat up and ran his palms over his face. Do something about the want first. Take the edge off; the needy, greedy edge. Stay focused on the end game, which was staying strong and staying sane.

      Hurting no one.

      Hurting everyone.

      Evie made it back to her room without encountering anyone. She made it to the en suite and stood there staring at the carnage Logan had wrought. Lips swollen from kisses that had gone too deep, complexion still rosy from the afterglow of good sex and her eyes dark with a mixture of shock and desire.

      If a man tries to warn you over and over again that he’s damaged goods he probably is.

      If he tells you that he has his reasons for not wanting too hard then he probably does.

      If he tells you outright that he doesn’t want to hurt you, it’s because he knows that some day he will. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but he will, and he’s given you fair warning.

      Evie СКАЧАТЬ