Logan's Woman (16 page)

“Wait? Wait for what?” she asked, her eyes
shooting up to his.

“Well I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to
throw you on the desk and –“

“Oh
,” she
gasped, covering his mouth with her hand. “Okay, I get it. I do.
Alright. I think it’s time to—to eat. Food. Food sounds really
good.”

Logan tugged her hand down, cupping her cheek.
The tenderness in his eyes shook her.

“It’s really hard to stay flustered when you do
that…” she whispered.

“It’s really hard to stay out from between your
legs when you do everything,” he countered darkly, his eyes turning
a shade so black it was like onyx.

Her cheeks heated, and then she remembered
something.

“Logan?” she asked, biting her lip.

“Yes.”

“Can we…talk about it?”

“Talk about what.”

“Your other marriage…”

“Do you really want to do it now?” he asked,
pulling back from her, the heat draining out her eyes as surely as
if she had pulled the plug on a drain. Since the topic was already
up, she might as well.

Claire nodded, getting off of the desk and
sitting in the plush leather chair. This time, instead of sitting
against the desk as he seemed to like to, he sat in the chair next
to her and watched her.

“What do you want to know?”

“Just…I don’t know. I’m curious.
What was she like?” Claire hated herself for being jealous of
Logan’s first wife – heck, she didn’t even want to be his!
Maybe
.

“At first, she was sweet. She liked to shop and
host parties and invite people over for business. Her name was
Christina,” he said. She couldn’t tell from the tone of his voice
whether he had liked that or not. One of the men downstairs had
said that he hadn’t really cared about her…

“Did you love her?” she asked, hiding how
close-throated she felt.

“No. I liked her, at first. It was
more of a resigned like, though. I felt like I had to marry her,
have some kids, and then get on with my ranching.”
He wanted kids?

“Did she want them?”

“Christina? No. If I brought it up,
or Glenda or my brothers did, she would start to complain about her
body being ruined. I got used to the notion of having no kids,
though. We were already married at the time and I thought it was
too late to change anything.”
Okay, so
he
didn’t
want
kids?

Claire frowned. “How long did you know each
other before that? You think you would get to know her well enough
to plan out the future… I mean, you must have talked about having
kids at some point.”

Logan ran a hand through his hair roughly,
managing to make his hair stick up in random places yet looking so
sexy it made her hot. “We knew each other for…three months? Her
father was a business man of mine and they were going through some
troubles. I thought it was the thin to do at the time.”

“Three months? That’s so short!” she
exclaimed.

“Well I’ve known you for one and we’re getting
married in two days,” he said bluntly, making her pause – and then
laugh.

“You have a problem, Logan,” she said, still
laughing.

“I really thought that after Christina, I would
never marry again,” he defended himself, holding his hands
up.

“Yet look at you now,” she teased.

He sobered somewhat. “I’m serious. After the
divorce, I didn’t care about women at all. I haven’t had sex since
a couple months before the divorce, I never invited anyone over. I
only have men cattle-hands – I estranged myself from the opposite
sex.

“For the longest time, I was just…really
bitter. She tried to take my money, my ranch, everything. I found
out later that she’d even brought over groups of men to my house
when I was out on business trips,” he said, growling.

“You still care, then.” For some reason, that
made her depressed.

“Claire, I’ve never cared about any woman
except my mother, Glenda, and you. In that, I am dead serious.
Christina was a burden that, even though I never held any emotional
interest, still hurt my pride. We had sex on our wedding night and
maybe once in the next two years that we were together.”

Hearing about his sex life with his ex-wife
made her heart turn cold. She thought of them, intertwined on the
bed, him pleasuring another woman and making her feel like he made
Claire feel… She folded her hands in her lap, looking only at
that.

“How long were you together?”

“Three years. We barely spoke to each other
though. I assumed that she had stayed faithful to me – even though
I never really loved her or talked to her, I still didn’t go
sleeping with every willing woman I met.”

Again, the bitterness in his voice shook
her.

“When did it all…start crashing?”

Logan was silent for the first time. She could
tell he didn’t want to talk about it, but she had to know. It was
important to her, yet she had no clue why.

“I came home one evening. I’d
settled an
amazing
deal with this cattle-rancher out in Itally, and it had gotten
over two days early. Christina thought I was going to be gone for a
week and I came home, with flowers and a piece of jewelry to
celebrate the deal and –“

He paused. She could only guess what he was
going to say next. Claire wanted nothing more than to comfort him,
but she felt like if she touched him, he would stop talking. The
more she learned about him, the more she realized that Logan was a
deep man with a lot of history – and she wasn’t. Claire was
probably exactly like Christina.

“The first thing I noticed when I walked into
the door was my mother’s favorite vase. It had been passed down
through her family and she’d never been able to give it to her
daughter because after my brother Chase was born, he ditched town.
She never got over the abandonment, so she never had a
daughter.

“The thing was always in the center of that oak
table in the drawing room. And even though I was hardly ever in the
house, and barely knew where anything was except my room, the
shower, and the kitchen – the fact that the vase was missing just
struck me.

“So I went up to her room. We didn’t share the
same bed because she said she needed ‘her beauty sleep’ and
‘sleeping with me was like sleeping with a bull’,” he explained,
talking slowly, measuring his words. Claire felt her heart turning
over in her chest, but she still listened, encouraging him with her
eyes.

“I saw her with two men.
Two
. And I don’t even want
to explain what they were doing,” he said, his voice turning
dark.

“And the vase?”

“Gone. She pawned it for money to bring her
lovers to her. My ranch men never knew – at least, that’s what they
told me.”

“God… Logan, I’m so sorry…”

He looked at her, pressing his lips in a sad
smile. “Not your fault, so don’t be saying sorry. It’s her fault –
and mine, for not being there more.”

She frowned. “What? Logan, no! Through all of
that time you stayed faithful, and you had a job to do! You
couldn’t help that you were away so much – but she could have
helped pawning heirlooms and being a whore,” she
snapped.

Logan stared at her.

“Listen. You can’t blame yourself
for the mistakes of a whore. She didn’t have any valid reason to do
what she did. She could have done you
both
a favor by ending it sooner,
and
not
trying to
steal your money.”

“Alright, Claire.”

She growled in frustration.

“Don’t ‘Alright, Claire’, me!” she
snapped, standing up. She pointed a finger in his face and said,
deadpan, “That’s one thing I hate. You act like I’m not right when
I am – I
always
am.”

That, somehow, brought out a smile. He grabbed
her hand and tugged, catching her off guard.

She fell into his lap with a squeak and he
wrapped his arms around her waist. “So, don’t talking about me… Now
you’re turn.” The smile he gave her would have made her give him
the world if she could.

Even so, she tried to pull away. “I don’t
think…”

“Claire. I’ve told you my life story almost.
Now it’s your turn,” he coaxed, smiling at her. She melted
somewhat, biting her lip.

“It’s not as uhm…deep as yours…”

“That’s okay. Whatever it is, I want to know. I
want to know about your mother, your father, your family, your
childhood, where you went to school…. You’re first boyfriend,” he
growled. She flushed, shaking her head.

“About that…”

“It can’t be that bad. You’re a virgin,
Claire.” The way he so bluntly, yet so happily said that, made her
choke, face turning red.

“Well, thanks for pointing that out!” she said,
covering her face.

She felt his lips brush against her
temple.

“Tell me some weird things that have happened
to you,” he commanded, fingers threading into her hair. “Anything.
This is our time together before Glenda comes and helps me cook our
dinner.”

Claire flushed even worse. “Do I really have
to?”

He nodded, smirking. “How about this. Every
story you tell me will get you one favor from me – anything you
want, any time you want.”

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yep. Now get talking,” he commanded, slapping
her butt softly.

She frowned at him, but thought of what to talk
about.

“How about you start with the boyfriends,” he
suggested. He might have tried to hide it from her, but she noticed
the dark look he was giving her – well, not her, but probably past
boyfriends. She couldn’t help but smile.

“That’s kind of a problem,” she coughed, hating
how this was going to come out. “I’ve never had one.”

“Never?”

She nodded. “I mean, I went on maybe two dates
my whole life – and they were my dad’s friends kid’s that he set me
up with when I was thirteen so I could at least say I was somewhat
experienced.”

Logan stared at her, obviously
dumbfounded. “You’ve
never
had a boyfriend.”

“Well,” she tried awkwardly, trying to lighten
him up. “That’s the main reason I’m still a virgin…”

“And
how
old are you?”

“Ah…you know…young…”

His brows drew low. “How young,
Claire?”

“I haven’t really finished college yet...” she
hedged, watching his expression go from confused and then to
complete and utter shock.

“I’m crushing on a baby,” he said, voice
somewhat numb.

Her cheeks flushed, but she tried to tease him
anyways. “You dirty craddle-robber --”

“A
virgin
baby,” he reiterated. All at
once, her worry drained and she glared at him. “
Cool
.
Thanks
.” She started to get off of his
lap with angry movements, but his arms came tightly around her
waist and held her still. “I’m kidding,” he chuckled, knuckling her
chin gently, like he would a kid.

She glowered, still offended. “Anyways,” she
snapped, straightening herself with what little dignity she could
as he laughed at her, “I never had a boyfriend because of my
father. I got set up on a couple of dates and he thought that was
good enough.”

He looked at her weird. “Alright. I see. So he
basically kept you under lock and key. Did you even have
friends?”

“Of course I did!” she exclaimed, crossing her
arms. “A couple of them.”

Logan looked at her point blank. “Did you ever
hang out.”

“Well, not really... I was just so busy with
school and helping him plan parties that I didn’t really feel the
need to. I was content with it just being me and him and college.
Everything always worked out smoothly and I didn’t have to worry
about drama.”

“I understand that,” he conceded,
nodding.

“My dad was awesome -- still is. Whenever he
wasn’t meeting with Congress or other people, and I was free from
college, we would go up to this little place in Colorado called No
Name. They had such pretty mountains -- and a cabin reserve. We
went there a lot -- zip lining over the river the first time was so
hilarious,” she said, laughinag at the memory. “He didn’t know how
to slow it down when we were on our way back, and we were trying to
race each other -- he almost flew into the post at the end of the
line! The whole time he was cursing and freaking out -- I love my
dad,” she said, breaking into her own sentence. “He tried his best
to make up for my mom not being there.

“My aunt tried, but she couldn’t always relate.
She was very into security, and she’d never had kids. Aunt Hannah
was really strict and down to earth -- and an FBI agent. She was so
against me going away without any protection, but she had her
husband to take care of and my father wouldn’t let her tell anyone
what was going on because it would somehow get to Joey that I was
alive.”