Marrying the Northbridge Nanny (13 page)

“Two months. And yeah, it was rough for a while. Chase came to Connecticut to help through the worst of it but we were two guys dealing with an infant—poor Tia spent a couple of weeks in diapers that were too small for her before it occurred to either one of us that she’d outgrown them and needed a bigger size—”

“Plus it wasn’t only about Tia—your
marriage
had
ended,” Meg prompted, wondering about him. And any residual emotions he might have when it came to his ex.

“Sure, there was fallout from that, too. I had my bleak days. And nights. Divorce is tough.” He grinned a half grin. “And you’re thinking you have to make me feel better about it all. But it’s okay, you don’t. The whole thing was over three years ago—I weathered it and made it out the other end just fine.”

Something about the way he said that made her believe that he
had
weathered it, that it was over for him. Which she was inordinately glad to know.

“And since then?” Meg asked, not all of her curiosity appeased. “Have you dated or been involved with anyone else? Or have you been too swamped with being a single dad?”

The half grin reappeared, complete with the devilishness again. “My best friend and partner is one of the biggest players you’ll ever meet. He’s made it his goal to hook me up every chance he gets. But there hasn’t been anything serious—my first priority is Tia.”

A gust of wind and rain hit the side of the apartment hard enough to rattle the windows just then.

“Geez, what’s going on out there?” Logan said, getting up from the sofa and going to the door to open it and look out.

Meg followed behind, standing beside him at the threshold to watch the show of thunder and lightning through the sheet of rain that was pouring down.

But looking in the direction of the lightning show brought Logan into Meg’s peripheral vision and that was all it took for her gaze to be drawn to him instead.

He wasn’t aware that she was studying him rather than the storm and so Meg gave herself a moment to enjoy that view of his perfect profile.

She didn’t know how it was possible to go so quickly from talking about such a solemn subject to being turned on by the simple sight of him, but that’s what happened.

“I should probably make a run for it,” Logan said.

That idea set off a sort of panic in Meg. It had been a long, stressful day. The evening had brought a tense conversation. And now it was as if the rain was washing all of that away, and she just wanted to curl up in his arms…

“Don’t do that,” she heard herself say in answer to his suggestion that he make a run for it. Then, to conceal what was really on her mind, she added, “You’ll get soaked.”

“I’m not a sugar cube—I won’t melt,” he said.

But he didn’t move to go. He turned his back to the door frame and looked at her as if he knew she had other motives. “Unless you just don’t want me to go…”

She just didn’t want him to go—that
was
the bottom line. But what if he did stay?

Things between them last night had been headed for lovemaking when she’d had second thoughts that had stopped it. But if he stayed now, she knew she was putting them back on that road and she’d better be sure about what she was doing.

As she looked up into Logan’s piercing blue eyes she reminded herself of the reasons why she hadn’t thought this would be smart last night.

No, tonight they weren’t out in an open, public place the way they had been at the river’s edge. But there was still their work arrangement. There was still the
upheaval of his ended marriage and move cross-country. There was still her own influx situation. There was still Tia and the inadvisability of Tia’s dad and her nanny being anything more than employer and employee.

There was no denying it—each and every one of those things still existed and was still a reason not to take this to the bedroom.

And yet…

They were doing so well keeping what was between them private and separate from the working portion of their relationship that Meg didn’t think even Hadley had any suspicions. Certainly it wasn’t affecting Tia and whatever happened now didn’t need to affect Tia either, did it?

And as for the rest? Transition and upheaval and flux might all be precarious times to make major decisions, but a simple night of giving in to something that had been simmering between them right from the start? That wasn’t a life-altering major decision, that was an indulgence.

Of course Meg had been raised to limit and moderate her indulgences.

But this once?

It didn’t seem wrong. In fact, it almost seemed like what she
should
do. What could be more of an aid to relaxing than making love…

She couldn’t help smiling at her own rationalizations and the reach they were taking.

“What are you grinning at?” Logan asked.

Meg shook her head, refusing to tell him, but instead confessing, “I don’t want you to go.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, peered down at
her and smiled the most wonderfully wicked smile she’d ever seen. “No?” he challenged. “I thought this was where we were going to end up last night and then you got cold feet.”

She was barefoot and she glanced down at them. “Not so cold tonight,” she answered quietly.

He stood there watching her intently for a long moment before he reached an arm across the distance that separated them and clasped one hand around the back of her neck. “That isn’t why I came here tonight, you know,” he said then, his voice lower, more gravely. “I only came because I wanted to be with you.”

“So…another glass of wine and more talking is all you’re up for?” Meg goaded audaciously in return.

He laughed. “It’s good wine but…” He pulled her toward him. “It seems like you might have something better in mind.”

“I might,” she answered, surprised by her own boldness and the inclination to step outside the box a little when he was standing there in front of her, so masculine, so handsome, so imposing, so sexy in that white T-shirt that left just enough to the imagination.

“Did you have this in mind?” he asked as he leaned forward to kiss her. It was the briefest meeting of parted lips, mingled breath, and not much more.

“I might have had that in mind,” she conceded when he ended it.

“Did you have this in mind?” he asked as he nibbled her earlobe, the sharp edge of her jawline and then the side of her neck.

“Hmm, possibly…”

“And this?” A string of kisses linked together along her collarbone and down her arm.

“I don’t know,” she said with a sigh, “that all seems a little tame…”

Logan laughed. “Maybe you were thinking something more along the lines of this…” he suggested, kissing the upper arch of her breast where it swelled slightly above her tank top.

That surprised her and sent a giddy ripple along the surface of her skin.

“Yep, that’s exactly what I was thinking,” she lied, concealing her reaction to the fact that he’d gone further than she’d expected him to so quickly.

Not that she was having any more second thoughts because she wasn’t.

His mouth met hers again, this time in a kiss that was much sexier than anything that had preceded it. He ended that kiss, too, and said, “Is that
all
you were thinking?”

“No,” Meg said frankly, taking hold of his T-shirt to pull it up and—with Logan’s cooperation—over his head.

She could tell that
that
had surprised him because when his handsome face was free of the shirt one eyebrow was arched at her and he was smiling again.

“Well now…” he said as if the game was on.

But that just made Meg laugh as she tossed his T-shirt onto the couch.

The game was definitely on, though, because Logan pulled her up against him and kissed her with a new vigor, maneuvering her out of the doorway in the process and pushing the door closed with a resounding slam.

His arms were around her, holding her close so she
could feel his bare flesh against the little bit of hers that rose above the U of the tank top as his mouth opened wider and his tongue instigated a sexy tango with hers.

Meg had thought his back, shoulders and chest were impressive in the T-shirts he wore, but regardless of how good he’d looked in any of the body-hugging knits, the real splendor of it all had been muted. But now it was there for her to investigate and revel in.

His shoulders seemed even more expansive outside the confines of clothing, broad and strong and rippled with muscles encased in sleek skin. His biceps were no less massive or powerful, and the wall of chest and honed abs she was up against were like steel.

Nearly tearing off his shirt had set a tone that didn’t call for inhibitions and Logan was clearly not observing any as one hand snaked under her tank top and went from her back to her side and then forward to cup her breast.

Eager and intent, his grasp was masterful as he kneaded that soft sphere, molding it to fit his hand, her nipple turning into a tight pebble of pleasure as Meg fought not to writhe.

She was not alone in her arousal. Logan’s mouth was wide open over hers by then, his tongue was insistent and forceful, and she could feel him rising where his hips met hers.

The man really did have a magic touch, and every clasp and release of her breast, every caress, every gentle roll of her nipple between his fingers only increased the demands her body was making for more.

His other hand dropped to the small of her back and then to her rear end, pressing her against him. A full,
hard ridge behind his jeans continued to let her know it wasn’t only her body making demands.

Meg trailed her hands down the V of his back to the waistband of his jeans, following it around front to unfasten the button, to slide the zipper down.

A low moan rumbled from him then, even though she’d yet to reach for him, and that ended his ravaging of her mouth. For a split-second he broke off all contact to reach for her hand and lead her across the room to climb the two steps to the bedroom platform and the bed.

Off came his shoes and socks in a hurry then, but just when Meg was sure he was going to tackle her onto the bed, he instead kissed her very sweetly and said, “Surgery just a few months ago—I’m thinking some caution is in order and I better know your weak spot so I don’t hurt you.”

He was her weak spot. She’d completely forgotten about the other.

“It’s my left side but you don’t have to worry—it’s healed.”

Whether or not he believed her, things still changed from there as Logan kissed her again—a slow, sexy kiss that hinted of things to come as he found her pajamas’ drawstring at her navel and pulled it free.

The pants fluttered to the floor and she was left in nothing but bikini panties and the tank top. Logan lifted her to sit on the bed.

But she
was
sitting—not lying—on it so Meg was able to reach for the open ends of his jeans and divest him of those and the boxers beneath them, leaving him gloriously, grandly, naked.

He didn’t seem to mind that she looked. At every amazing inch of his naked body and the long, hard shaft that proved he wanted her.

Then he pulled off her tank top, recaptured her mouth with his, and still managed to rid her of those pesky panties before he eased her to lie back while he stretched out alongside her.

That was when the warm, wet wonders of his mouth went to her breast. And while tongue and teeth and lips delighted first one and then the other, his hand went traveling.

He seemed to want to know the tone and texture of every inch of her and along the way he managed to locate her most sensitive spots. Spots she hadn’t even known were as sensitive as they were until he touched them, coaxing the best from her.

Then his hand ran from her knee, up her thigh, to the secrets between her legs…He explored that portion of her while his mouth worked more wonders at her breasts.

It was Meg’s turn to moan.

She reached for that part of him that elicited the same response, curving her hand around him and doing what she could to inspire a little frenzy in him. A frenzy that grew in her, too, at the feel of that iron shaft in her grip, at the ever-increasing need he was causing in her.

Just when she wasn’t sure she could contain herself a moment more, his hand deserted her, his mouth abandoned her breasts, and he reached to the floor, returning with protection that he’d taken from his pants pocket.

It crossed Meg’s mind to tease him about coming
prepared, but she wanted him so badly by then that all she did was will him to hurry.

Which he did, rolling back to her to kiss her once again as he brought his big body over hers.

Meg’s legs opened to him and he had no problem finding his home, sliding into her in one smooth motion as if he were made specially for her, kissing her still as he pressed into her and then pulled partially out again.

For a while his tongue kept the same rhythm until passion and desire gained too much ground for anything but bodies to meet and part and meet again.

With her hands clutching his massive shoulders, Meg matched his tempo, rising and falling with him, racing with him until she couldn’t any more, until what he was building within her was too great, too overwhelming, and all she could do was hold herself tight around him and let him bring her to that pinnacle. That pinnacle that exploded with more force, more light, more thunder than anything in the storm outside, elevating her to a mindless ecstasy that stole her breath and held her poised in the most incredible bliss…

And just as she reached it, so did Logan, plunging even more deeply into her, freezing there, his entire body turning to stone as that same pleasure seemed to take him out of himself, too.

Then, little by little, they both began to breathe again. Tensed bodies eased, and Logan rested his weight on Meg.

“So much for caution,” he said after a moment, his voice gravelly. “Are you okay?”

“Everything is good.”

Much, much better than good…

Logan slipped from her then and rolled to his back, bringing her to lie at his side this time, wrapping her in both of his arms and holding her nearly melded against him, her head cradled in his shoulder.