Chapter Three

 

As I stepped from my room the next morning, the fragrant smell of roasted coffee hit me. Wearing my bikini and a matching sarong, I walked barefoot into the kitchen, letting my nose lead the way, and my tongue already tingling in anticipation of caffeine.

Logan was sprawled on the sofa and wearing black shorts; he had a big red mug in his hand and yet more noisy hockey on the TV. But until I’d had at least one cup of coffee on board I wasn’t a sociable person, so I said nothing, reaching for the pot and poured steaming liquid into a mug.

I added a splash of milk and wandered past the sofa, through the open doors and into the morning sunshine. Padding over the deck and onto the sand, I was pleased to find it hadn’t transformed to molten glass—yet.

The lull of the waves called so I headed to the shoreline. Walking toward the outcrop of gnarled, reddish brown rocks, I stopped every now and then to admire the view and sip coffee.

When I reached the rocks, I dipped my feet into the shallow pools and let the sun warm my shoulders. Tiny blue fish skittered through strands of lime-green weeds, a larger, golden fish with bulging black eyes showed a brief interest in my red toenails before darting back behind his rock. A lone gull screeched overhead and I spotted an orange crab scampering sideways beneath a rock—then something pierced the side of my left foot.

“Argh!” I screamed. I couldn’t help it, the pain was so sudden and so severe. Like an electric shock shooting up my leg in agonizing slices of heat. I half fell, half hopped away from the water. My cup dropped and landed upside down, spilling the last of my coffee. I sat heavily, just beyond the waves, grasping my ankle and jerking my foot up to examine the source of the sting, dreading what I’d discover.

Protruding from the side of my arch were three long, black, incredibly thin needles. I gritted my teeth and hissed. They’d pierced my skin deep and disappeared well beneath the surface. A bright globule of blood was already seeping from one puncture site. The scarlet red against the shiny black and my pale flesh was sickening and my coffee threatened to surface as my stomach clenched.

Tears welled in my eyes. It hurt so much, like a burn and a stab wound at the same time. How would I get the needles out? How would I get back to the house? The black shards became a blur as I stared at them unblinking. I’d allow myself a moment of self-pity then hop or crawl or drag myself back to my room. I was sure I’d packed a pair of tweezers. I’d pull the spines out, if only I could make it.

“Hey, hey, what’s going on?” a deep voice called from behind me. “You all right?”

I turned and through watery eyes saw Logan jogging down the beach, sunglasses shading his eyes, his bare feet kicking up sand.

“No,” I said, with a wobble in my voice. Why was I such a wimp with pain? I wished I was tougher but it had never been in my genetic makeup. “I’ve stood on something, something sharp, it’s stuck in me.”

“Let’s see.” He dropped to his knees, shoving his shades on top of his head. Small creases darted from the corners of his eyes as he lowered his dark head to my foot.

I caught my breath. Suddenly I had something other than pain to concentrate on. The breeze lifted his hair around the base of his neck. His broad, golden shoulders shone in the sun and the delicious scent that filled the car yesterday washed over me. I tried again to pinpoint it, neroli and cedar perhaps?

“Sea anemone,” he said with a frown, wrapping his big hand around my calf and lifting my foot higher. “But at least they’re on the side and not the base. Once we’ve managed to get them out, you’ll still be able to walk.”

“Managed to get them out?” I asked, swallowing a shake in my voice.

“Yeah, nasty little bastards, they have a shot of poison in them, makes you feel like you’ve been hit with an electric shock. Gotta get them out quick, otherwise they keep on pumping venom.”

I glanced at the house, it was a good hundred yards away. “Would you go find some tweezers?” I asked. “So I can pull them out.”

“Nah, come up to the villa?”

“No, it hurts too much to walk. I’ll wait here.”

He scowled at my foot then looked up at my face. “Are you crying?”

“No.” I swiped several tears from my cheeks. “Not at all.”

“Come on,” he said with a frown. “Let’s get you back up there.”

The next thing I knew, he’d wrapped one arm round my waist, the other beneath my thighs, swung me into the air and pressed me sideways against his hard chest. “Hey,” I said, pointing out my foot so there was no danger of it knocking against the other one. “What are you doing?”

“Taking you to the villa. You said it hurts to walk.”

He shifted me in his arms as though I was no heavier than a feather, forcing me to wrap an arm around the hot skin of his neck to support myself. No one had ever picked me up—well, not since I was a little girl and my dad used to swing me onto his shoulders so I could see where we were going. But I’d been tiny then, a fraction of the size I was now.

“I’ll try to walk,” I said, fearing for the future stability of his spine.

“Why?”

“Because…because I’m heavy.”

He let out a snort and his blue gaze captured mine. “No, you’re not.”

“I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“Brooke, I’ve lifted heavier ice skates than you.”

“But…”

“You want me to run to prove it?”

“No, no,” I said, tightening my grip as he upped his already swift pace. “Walking is cool, really.”

His warm skin and hard muscle against my body felt good, reassuring. As he trooped along in silence, I became aware of his sweet coffee breath washing over me and his heart thudding steadily against my side. The loose curls that licked the back of his head tickled my arm, and my foot didn’t feel quite so bad.

“Here,” he said, carefully lowering me onto the large four-poster I’d slept on the previous afternoon. “I’ll be right back.”

The second he stepped into the villa the pain returned with a vengeance. It spread around my foot, inside and out, shooting up my leg to my knee in mean little spurts. I gnawed at the inside of my cheek and hoped he wouldn’t be long. I just wanted to pull the needles out fast, get it over with.

“Got ’em,” Logan said, stepping onto the deck and holding up silver tweezers as if he’d won a trophy.

“Thanks.” I held out my hand.

“Let me do it.”

“I can manage.”

“I know you can but let me, I’ve done it before, you have to grip them right at the end otherwise you inject more bad stuff, it’ll hurt longer.” He sat on the end of the bed and reached for my foot.

My muscles tensed as he rested it on top of his hard thigh. “You won’t hurt me?”

“No.” His jaw clenched and a muscle in his cheek flexed as he looked me in the eye. “I won’t hurt you.”

Warily, I watched him hunch over my foot. He pressed one calloused palm on my shin to hold me still, the other hand holding the tweezers.

“Ouch!” I said as he touched the longest of the barbs.

“That didn’t hurt,” he said, glancing up and narrowing his eyes.

“Yes it did.”

He didn’t argue, just bobbed his head low again. He was so big he took up all the space around me and I could feel the warmth from his body seeping into my skin. I stared at a silvery scar on his scalp, no doubt the result of another “high stick” to the head.

“There we go,” he said, holding up the first of the long black needles. “One out.”

“I didn’t even feel you do it.” A wave of relief washed over me.

“I know.” He grinned. It was the first time I’d seen him give a full wattage smile. It suited him. He had neat straight teeth and the smile went right up to his eyes, generating a sparkle in their pale blue depths. “Now look away and I’ll do the others.”

Within minutes the other two needles were out. Logan went to drop them in the kitchen trash and when he returned he carried two mugs of coffee.

“I guess you need a fresh one,” he said, nodding in the direction of my abandoned mug.

“Yeah, I’ll have to get that before the tide comes back in.” I reached gratefully for the coffee he held out, took a sip and rested back on the pillow, relieved my morning ordeal was over so quickly and my peaceful center was returning—all thanks to Logan.

He walked around the other side of the bed, rearranged a couple of pillows and sat next to me with his coffee, his long legs stretching out way beyond mine and his weight dipping the mattress.

It should have felt weird sitting on a bed with a man I barely knew but it didn’t. I guess we’d just been so physically close in my moment of trauma that it didn’t matter. And now he didn’t seem quite as unenlightened as he had when I’d first met him. He had a softer side, even if it was beneath a hard layer.

“So tell me, Mr. Logan Taylor,” I said, looking at the dusting of sand on his big feet. “How come you’re so good at removing anemone needles?”

He sipped his coffee and stared at the waves. They’d increased in energy and were rolling and curling with rising gusto, pounding and frothing enthusiastically against the beach. I wouldn’t be able to bob around on my back today if this kept up. “Tina and I used to have a house in Key West. The bastards were everywhere, we had to wear those plastic shoes if we went swimming from the back terrace.”

“Who’s Tina?”

His brow furrowed. “My ex-wife.”

“How ex?”

He let out a tight sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

“I told you,” I said, tipping my head to look at him. “I’m not interested in hockey, I don’t follow it so I have no idea what’s in your past. I’m not some rink bunny who has a scrapbook on you.”

He glanced at me, the frown etching an even deeper line between his brows. “It’s old news.”

“Old news,” I said in a softer tone, “that I haven’t heard.”

A palm swaying in the breeze sent shadows flickering over his face. “What the hell,” he said, looking back out to sea. “She left me just over a year ago for her hairdresser.”

“She left you for a hairdresser?”

“Yeah, her hairdresser, Charlene.”

I just about choked on my coffee. “Charlene! As in, a woman?”

“Yep, that’s right.” His jaw tensed. “Logan Taylor’s wife left him for a woman. She’d had enough of macho stuff, hockey, my loud mates…me. Said I took everything to the extreme and she wanted a quiet life.” He shrugged. “But it’s who I am. If I was satisfied with anything less than one hundred percent effort and result in every aspect of my life I wouldn’t be much of a sportsman, would I?”

“I guess not.”

He let out a long, low sigh. “But the ribbing I got in the locker room was the worst of it. The guys wouldn’t let it drop, the jokes were endless and trust me, they milked it big-time. They were relentless, always on about it, how I’d turned a woman off the entire male species. Bastards.” He snorted. “Then one day I took Brick’s feet from under him and threatened to pulverize his sorry ass if he said another word. They all got the message and it stopped.”

“That’s awful,” I said, wondering what sort of a mother would call her child Brick. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” He shrugged.

“No, it’s not my fault, but still, I’m sorry if it hurt you.”

“It hurt here for a while.” He banged his fist on his chest. “But it hurt my damn wallet a whole lot more and for a whole lot longer. She took me for all she could—she had to, how much does a fucking hairdresser earn? Certainly not the bucks I get. Tina had to see herself right off our divorce because she’s never worked a day in her life and never intends to.”

“Does she have the house in the Keys?”

“Yep, all part of the deal her smarmy lawyer worked out. But I got the big one, just down the coast from Sarasota. It’s great, I’ve had it all refurbished. It’s a real guy’s place now, no more girly frills or dried fucking flowers.”

I scowled at him. “Do you have to do that?”

“What?”

“Curse all the time.”

“I don’t.”

“You do and it’s crazy that you don’t even notice yourself doing it.”

He shrugged against the pillows. “Sorry.”

“I’ll forgive you,” I said with a smile. “Seeing as you’ve just saved me from the evil sea anemone.”

He raised one thick eyebrow at me.

A sudden gust of wind rattled the parasol and we both twisted our necks and watched it wobble in its slot before becoming still again.

“You wanna walk to the cafe up the beach?” Logan asked. “Fergal says they do a mean brunch.” He gestured in the opposite direction of the rocky outcrop.

“I don’t know.” I looked at my foot. He’d put a small flesh-colored Band-Aid over the three tiny holes. “It might not be wise to walk.”

“It’ll be fine now, I promise. Try to stand.”

I tugged my bottom lip with my teeth.

“Okay, I’ll let you off for a bit.” He jumped up. “I’ll go for a run and a shower and you can have another hour to recover.”

I nodded. “Would you just reach me the magazine by my bed?” As soon as the words fell from my mouth I realized how cheeky I’d been. I couldn’t ask Logan Taylor to do my fetching and carrying.

“Sure,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. His bare feet padded over the decking and once again I admired the way his body moved. He didn’t waste energy, it was stored up in his muscles, like a full battery of power waiting to be unleashed.

He returned one minute later with the latest copy of Nursing into the Future. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you a nurse?” He took my empty coffee cup.

“No, not yet, hoping to be though.” I shrugged. “I’ve got the entrance exam in a few weeks. Fingers crossed I’ll pass and then I’ll get an interview with a chance to start in September.”

“Don’t they teach you all this in school?” He squinted at the cover with its headlines, “Autonomy in nursing—is it being threatened?” and “New guidelines for CVA management.”

“Sure, but it’s good to be able to talk intelligently about the current issues affecting nurses when I go to the interview.”

“I think you’ll do just fine.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.” He tipped one corner of his mouth in a half-smile. “You seem like the type of girl, I mean, woman, who can do anything you set your mind to.”

“I do?”

Flattening his mouth, he nodded. “Yep, definitely.” His gaze drifted down my face and my throat, settling on my bikini top. “When Fergal said I was sharing with a girl doing college exams,” he said, his eyes still lowered and his lashes creating tiny shadows on his cheeks, “you were the last thing I expected.”

I wondered why now I felt caressed by his gaze instead of ogled at. “You thought I’d be a rink bunny,” I said quietly.

His gaze came back up to my face. He didn’t look in the least remorseful that he’d quite blatantly studied my breasts. “Yeah, I also thought you’d be some spoiled little rich kid whose daddy did everything for her. Any friend of Fergal’s is bound to be loaded or powerful or both, especially a friend who gets favors like using this place.”

What could I say? My fictional daddy was not a good topic of conversation. I flipped open the journal and crossed my legs.

“What’s he do, your father?” Logan folded his arms, rocking back on his heels.

“This and that, you know, business stuff.” I hated telling lies, I hated telling lies like I hated Halloween, it was so bad for my karma.

“What business?”

“Oh, I don’t know, a bit of everything,” I said on a sigh as if the subject was beyond boring because I’d discussed it so many times with so many different people.

“Like?” His eyes bored into mine. They were the color of the shallowest part of the water surrounding the island, a stunning clear aqua. But I couldn’t hold his gaze, not when I was busy forcing a pile of false statements from between my lips.

I shrugged. “All sorts, real estate, investments, you know…” I pretended to take great interest in a reader’s letter on faulty colostomy bag seals. “I don’t take much notice of what he’s up to.”

“And your mother, is she a nurse?”

I felt a stab of pain behind my breastbone and my stomach tensed. “She was,” I said truthfully. “But she died in a car crash.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.” I looked up at him looming next to me in the dappled sunlight and spotted his aura for the first time, it was a rich scarlet with spiky streaks of black. “Old news,” I said, forcing a tight smile. “Anyway, I thought you were going for a run?” I needed to end this conversation. It was throwing my entire cosmic balance off center.

“I am,” he said. “Then we’ll go eat.”

 

*****

 

An hour later Logan and I ambled along the beach to the cafe. My foot felt fine, though I was careful not to walk in the waves and dampen the Band-Aid. We picked a table overlooking the small harbor and watched the boats bob as we gorged on ham and cheese served on bread still warm from the oven.

The local fishermen were busy tightening down hatches and securing colorful boats to brightly painted posts. Women scurried about in floral headscarves, clutching wicker baskets stuffed with produce, children and dogs trotted along at their feet.

Logan had on a pale blue shirt with a small embroidered anchor on the breast pocket. The breeze was getting stronger and flattened the material against his wide chest from time to time. I wished I’d brought a band to tie back my hair, it was lifting around my face, tickling my neck and getting in the way of my brunch. I was glad of the long-sleeved red cardigan I’d put over my halter-top and the three-quarter trousers I’d slipped into. The breeze wasn’t cold, but something about its increasing strength chilled my skin.

“We close in five minutes,” the short round waitress said, topping up our coffee for the third time. “There’s a dry storm rolling in, I gotta get home and pen in me chickens.”

“No problem,” Logan said, reaching into his wallet. “How much do we owe you?” She scribbled on a pad and dropped it on the table.

“I’ll get this.” I plucked cash from my pocket.

“No, you won’t.”

I scowled. “Well let me pay half, we’ve eaten loads.”

“Absolutely not.” He handed the waitress several notes. “I invited you out to brunch.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t a date or anything.”

A strong gust flapped the tablecloth upward like a stingray’s wings. “Wasn’t it?” One side of his mouth twitched and thick strands of his hair lifted. “That’s a shame, I was kind of hoping it was.”

A tingle that had nothing to do with the wind traveled over my skin.

“And I made a big effort not to curse,” he said, leaning over the table, eyes twinkling as if he were sharing a secret. “’Cause I thought it was a date. Didn’t you notice?”

Was he teasing me? “Yes, I did notice, it suited you much better.” I grabbed my hair into a ponytail to stop it whipping my cheeks. “Come on, we ought to go. I’m not sure what a dry storm is but it’s going to be wild judging by the way the locals are strapping everything down.”

We headed back along the sand at a speedy pace. The waves were roaring now, six-feet-high tunnels of angry sea rolling in from the jagged horizon. Great swathes of energy boiling and frothing. The wind could no longer be described as a breeze, it was a gale and we were facing it head-on as we made our way down the deserted beach.

I ducked my head and hunched my shoulders to battle against it. The smallest grains of sand were streaming over the surface of the beach, hitting my shins like tiny bullets, stinging and nipping, and the deep, dry sand made each step an uphill struggle and my legs soon ached with the effort.

“Here,” Logan said, holding out his hand. “Come on, I’ll pull you.”

I looked up. He seemed unaffected by the wind whereas it just about blew me over when it punched out an extra strong gust. But he just stood there, shirt and black shorts flapping wildly and the sheets of sand sliding around his calves and feet like water slipping around a boulder.

I reached for his hand, glad of the support. But as soon as our flesh connected I wondered just what I’d done. My stomach lurched and my heart fluttered. A sensation stronger than any sea anemone shot up my arm. His hand squeezing and tugging mine was like yin connecting with yang, two magnetic poles reaching for one another. And the feeling didn’t stop there, it spread over my shoulders, seeped down my back and settled deep in my chest.

I couldn’t deny it. I was attracted to Logan Taylor. There was something about his raw maleness, his aura that appealed to my feminine side. His conversation over the last couple of hours had been intelligent and witty, his smile infectious, and the fact that he’d tried not to curse was sweet.

“Not far now,” he shouted over the wind as the villa came into view.

A palm tree overhead creaked ominously and I scurried closer into his side, wrapping my other hand around his thick biceps as I glanced upward.

“It’s okay,” he said, releasing my hand and circling my waist with his arm. “It won’t fall on you.” He dragged me against his body, urging me more quickly through the sand.

I found myself taking two paces to his one and within minutes we were climbing onto the deck. Shifting sand danced around the table and chair legs. The pillows and cushions from the bed had rolled to the floor and were tumbling about in the golden dust and lodging in leaves and branches. The parasol clattered against the table, the pole lifting up from the floor and threatening to take off into the sky.

“You grab the cushions,” Logan called over the noise of the flapping shrubbery. “I’ll anchor down the parasol.”

Unlocking the door to the living area, I grabbed three pillows and chucked them inside. I went back for the other three then tumbled in, half shutting the door behind myself. My hair was wild, my cheeks stung and my heart pounded as I caught my breath.

I watched Logan close the umbrella and secure the pole into place. He glanced around, shading his eyes with his hand, checking for anything else that might blow away, then headed my way with a train of dry, flat leaves skittering past his feet. I opened the door wide to let him through. He stepped in, still squinting against the dust, as I pushed the door shut with a loud click.

The world went silent. After the howling wind and the roaring sea, the quiet of the house was acute and heavy and fell around us like a dense cloak.

Leaning back against the door, I pulled in a deep breath. “Made it,” I gasped.

“Yeah,” he said, stepping up close—real close.

When I looked up, his cheeks were stained red, several grains of sand hung in his long lashes and his hair was tousled and dusted with gold. “Is that everything tied down?” I asked, trying to ignore my breasts heaving against my halter-top.

“Well, almost everything,” he said with a decidedly carnal grin.

I flattened my palms against the cool glass door behind me. “What else do you need to tie down?”

The right side of his mouth creased upward and he gave the tiniest of twitches with his eyebrows. “I’d like to tie you down,” he said, his gaze coming to rest on my mouth. “To the bed.”

My stomach knotted as excitement, anticipation and sin collided in a delicious tangle.

“But I guess that’s moving a bit fast,” he murmured, bending his head lower. “We only just met.”

“A bit fast for me,” I agreed, absorbing the burning heat from his body as it radiated toward mine.

“Brooke.” He raised one hand and rested it against the wooden doorframe by my left ear. He moved in closer still. The gorgeous spiced aftershave he wore invaded my nostrils and settled not just on my tongue but somewhere else deep inside me. “You remember when you walked out the water yesterday?” he asked in a low, rumbling voice.

“Yes.” How could I forget the toe-curling embarrassment? He’d stared silently as me as I’d ambled up the beach, trying desperately to look cool and unflustered. I felt my cheeks warming further at the memory as my stomach twisted.

“It was a million times better than any Bond movie.”

“It was?”

“Hell, yeah. If they had you as a Bond girl it would be my favorite film. Not just 007, but any film ever.” His mouth slid upward in a grin. “You just about blew my mind.”

“I did?” He’d liked what he’d seen, and I thought he’d been unimpressed with my curvy attributes.

“Oh, yeah, my mind and other parts of my anatomy.”

He ducked his head, his lips a whisper from mine. I could almost taste the salt on his mouth.

“Well, we wouldn’t want that would we, Logan?” I murmured.

“Wouldn’t we?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Sounds painful.” I swallowed, my throat tight.

“It’s already getting painful.” He shifted his weight to the other foot. We were so close now my breast brushed against his chest and my nipples, which had tightened to hard pinched peaks, scraped against him through my clothing.

I reached up to touch his jaw, his bristles catching on my fingertips. Our gazes connected and I rose onto the balls of my feet and pressed my mouth to his.

He opened up and took immediate control of the kiss. He tasted so good—man and ocean, wind and sun—he tasted of everything I was missing in my life and had been for so long. I moved my hands to his shoulders and squeezed hard muscles through his soft cotton shirt. My tongue searched for his and began to explore his mouth.

Logan groaned and let go of the doorframe, cradling the base of my skull in his palm and winding his other arm around my waist. He pulled me close and as the length of our bodies touched, right in the very center of my abdomen, he pressed his steely erection forward. He was right, he was painfully hard.

“Damn, you taste good,” he murmured, trailing a gentle kiss across my cheek.

I tipped my head back and let him explore the base of my ear, the angle of my jaw and the hollow of my throat. “I taste like salt,” I said.

“You taste of the beach and flowers and coconut,” he whispered between kisses. “Delicious.” He pulled back slightly, slipping his fingertips under the shoulders of my cardigan and easing it down my arms. It fell to the floor and he slid his palms back up over my elbows to the base of my neck.

Each tiny section of flesh he touched came alive with sensation and pricked with greedy little goose bumps searching out his caress. I found his mouth again and ran my fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. I pulled his head to mine harder. I wanted more. Much more.

He was busy, fiddling with the knot at the back of my halter-top. It was cleverly designed with a fitted bra, it had cost a fortune but was well worth it. I felt it slipping free and pulled back from the kiss, crossing my arm over my chest and gripping my opposite shoulder to hold it in place.

“What’s up?” Logan asked, his eyes heavy with desire and his voice thick with lust.

“I’m…I’m big,” I said in a rush then felt silly for saying something so insecure and obvious.

“Me too,” he said, a provocative grin playing on his mouth. “Relax, Brooke, it’s all good, trust me.”

A nervous giggle escaped my lips. He continued to undo the straps, his light touch sending tingles down my spine. Then he lifted each one forward past my ears and the only thing holding up my top was my arm.

“Are you stuck like that?” he asked, laying the straps down and running his knuckles over my collarbone.

I shook my head and dropped my arm. The top slipped slowly down, exposing the large orbs of my breasts and my peaked, pink nipples. I waited for him to make some lewd remark about their size, or grab them with both hands and squeeze.

But he didn’t. Instead Logan studied me with heavy eyes. “You said you were big,” he said, “but you should have warned me you’re perfect too.” He cupped my right breast in his palm and kissed my mouth, long and lazy. He slowly brushed his thumb around my nipple and when it was hard and tight he scraped gently over it. I melted against him, no one had ever touched me so reverently or with such delicate caresses.

Men, Sam in particular, had groped and squeezed and thought that worked for my bigger breasts. Despite me telling him to the contrary, he’d persisted in kneading me like dough, thinking it would get me horny.

Appreciation and desire flooded through me as Logan continued with his feathery touches and his delicate kisses. He was getting it just right. I felt like a woman, like a treasured possession. His lips left mine and he ducked down, stooping so he could take my nipple into his hot mouth. I let out a moan, ran my fingers up through his hair and arched toward him. Blood pooled in my pelvis, hunger built, a yearning was growing that needed to be satisfied.

Looking down, I watched his tongue dance across my cleavage to circle the other nipple. His eyes were closed. I could see the small scar on the top of his head again.

He dipped his hands to my waist and pressed over the flare of my hips as he stood upright. The fire of desire burned hot in his eyes, and his breathing had picked up to match my rasping breaths. “I want you,” he said determinedly. “Now.”

My stomach dropped. Nausea twisted my gut.

What the hell was I doing? I was behaving like a whore. I’d been paid to be in the villa, to be a companion for Logan, and here I was, half naked against the door, buzzing for him, desperate for him. I was about to sleep with him, have sex with him. In the next few minutes I’d be getting paid one hundred thousand dollars to fuck him when that was exactly what I said I wouldn’t do. My good karma was about to be dropkicked into a dark a corner of the universe, never to return.

I let out a whimper of shame and scooted out of his reach. “I’m sorry,” I said, yanking my top up. “I’m sorry, Logan, I can’t.”

He stiffened, dropping his arms to his sides and clenching his fists.

“I’m really, really sorry,” I said.

Pain and confusion flickered across his beautiful blue eyes. He rubbed his fingers across his forehead and blew out a long breath through pursed lips.

My gaze dropped to his shorts. The bulge of his erection strained against his zipper and the tiny metal teeth looked ready to rip apart. He shoved his other hand down his waistband and rearranged himself. A grimace crossed his face. He looked like a starving man who’d just been offered his favorite dish then had it taken away.

“I…I just can’t,” I said as a sob bubbled in my chest. “It’s not you, Logan, honestly, it’s not.”

“Whatever,” he said through tight-clenched teeth. “I’m not gonna force myself on you. I just thought you were into it, the attraction was mutual.”

“I am, it is, it’s just…” I paused, what could I say? That I’d be whoring myself if I slept with him. If I followed my carnal desires and got naked, sweaty and downright dirty with him I’d be stepping over a line I’d promised myself not to.

He walked to the sofa and sank down, still shifting the material of his shorts and wearing an uncomfortable expression.

I muttered another apology and fled the room. I’d brought so much bad karma on myself. I’d be looking over my shoulder for weeks.