Impulse (9 page)
My breath quickened.
“Come with me.”
He tugged my elbow and with cautious steps, we entered the shower. The water quietly sprayed the floor, which was made of gritty stone, providing enough traction that my fears of falling took a backseat to what Logan was about to do.
Or not do. I wasn’t sure which idea I liked better.
We moved beneath the hot water and a purr rumbled in his chest—one I’d never heard before. It was deep, sinful, and provocative. One of the most enthralling qualities about Logan was the unusual Chitah sounds he made—animalistic and led by emotions.
“Do you want to know what I find most attractive about you?” he asked, breaking the silence as he backed me up near the wall.
Logan was on bended knee and lifted my foot, placing it on his leg. My fingers searched for the wall as soft bristles circled across my ankle—soapy and wet.
“Um… my charming personality?”
He laughed softly. “Your legs.”
The scrubber moved upward, swirling in heavenly motions across my knee.
“They’re long and delicious. You may not be as tall as a Chitah, but no one has legs more dangerous than yours.”
What was dangerous was his mouth. The more he kept talking, the less I wanted him to.
“Although, I do spend a considerable amount of time thinking about your tongue.”
Likewise
, I thought.
“I’ll make a note of that.” He chuckled.
Oh, my God. Right there in Logan’s shower, I wanted to die. He wasn’t a mind reader because I had said it out loud.
It had been so long since I’d been with a man that all of my confidence evaporated.
Here he was, about to explore every inch of me with his bare hands, and I reacted with more innocence than I possessed.
“Reach up,” he said. “There’s a bar above your head. I want you to grip it.”
I tentatively lifted my arms and found a solid metal bar for hanging towels. It was cold and my fingers curled tightly around it. I stared into the darkness and waited for direction.
“I’m going to put your leg over my shoulder.”
My mind raced as I imagined what he looked like sitting on his knees. The wet skin of his back warmed my leg. Logan continued the slow, methodical motions along the outside of my upper thigh, but he didn’t stop talking. I heard him set a bottle on the floor and cool liquid soap trickled down my skin in rivulets.
Stubble grazed the inside of my knee like worn-down sandpaper, and his heated breath caressed my skin as the water sprayed against his back. He was so close to the most intimate part of me and I knew he could smell my desire.
“Tell me one of your fantasies,” he said.
I swallowed hard.
The scrubber tumbled against the wall, replaced by his firm hands rinsing the soap from my thigh. This was not a clumsy man filled with lust; Logan’s hands were skilled and knew their way around a woman’s body.
“When I take you, Silver, I want it to be to your liking. I don’t know you intimately; do you prefer a male to be rough or gentle?”
The hot water didn’t have anything on the heat of my blush as I dropped my leg to the floor. It didn’t deter him as he continued to wash me.
“I don’t… I don’t know.”
No one ever asked me; no one ever wanted to know. Logan had a way of making me nervous, and I didn’t have that familiarity with him to speak so candidly about such personal things. He was well over a hundred years old. That kind of experience could make even the most seasoned woman feel like a wallflower.
“You know what you like,” he said decidedly. “No better time than the present to learn more about the female I’m courting. This is something that we discuss.”
By “we,” he meant Chitahs. In my book, this was dirty talk, but for him it was a perfectly legitimate conversation so he could learn how to seduce a woman exactly the way she desired.
“I can’t talk about this with you,” I admitted in a quiet voice.
His fingers squeezed my upper thigh. Logan wasn’t forceful, but he was determined when he lifted it over his shoulder.
“Tell me what you want in a lover, Little Raven,” he urged. “We’re not leaving this room until you confess.”
His warm breath heated my inside thigh and his hands never once stopped massaging. Logan’s scent reminded me of a thunderstorm—turbulent and dangerous, like an impending act of nature.
What did I have to lose?
“I want a man who knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to show it.” That was the truth. Most of the men I knew were indecisive or secretive. Logan’s outspokenness and undeniable confidence is the reason I allowed him to court me.
“And?” he pressed.
His mouth slid higher.
“Someone who takes his time.”
He rewarded me with another kiss on my inner thigh—only higher. A needful growl vibrated against my skin.
Desire clouded my thoughts when his cheek scraped against my soft skin, moving even closer, and his proximity was more than I could bear.
“Do you like foreplay or stamina?”
His mouth was so close that his breath touched me intimately—like scorching fire against my core. My leg reactively tried to pull him closer, but Logan was unmovable and I felt his smile spread across my leg.
“This is the most foreplay I’ve ever had and if you want to know the truth—I don’t want you to stop.”
He slid his hands upward and cool gel smoothed over my breasts. I was so startled by the unexpected contact that I stiffened. Logan placed a penetrating kiss against my inside thigh—this time his lips met with the crease of my leg and I threw my head back and it thumped against the wall. An ache throbbed between my legs I held my breath, squeezing the metal bar.
“The most intoxicating scent on you is blushing desire.” The raw timbre of his voice carried a suggestion that those words were not meant for me to hear.
Energy poured through my body like a river, forbidding me to touch him with my hands. I wanted to curl my fingers in his hair and feel the velvety stroke of his tongue as I stood languid in his arms.
Instead, he kept talking while his fingers tempted every curve and line of my body. A thumb rolled over my hard nipple and his tongue simultaneously laved my sensitive skin.
“Is this to your liking?”
Each time he spoke, his breath was ragged and heated. Did he have any idea what that was doing to me? The textures—liquid soap, firm hands, rough whiskers, and hot water. He tortured my body with his touch, yet it’s what he
wasn’t
doing that sent me right over the cliff.
That primal thrumming came from his throat, a purr that was deep and wild. He massaged my chest until it was slick and filmy and I leaned back. The shock of the cold stone wall against my back made me shriek out.
His laugh was delicious and dark. “I like the sounds you make and look forward to being the one who gives them to you.”
Logan stood up and a stream of water spattered against my chest from the showerhead. He aimed it at me and the sudsy liquid glided down my body.
His sneakers squeaked on the tile and he took hold of my arm, wiping away the soap until a clean friction built up between us. It was more than I could have imagined as he gratified me with gentle persuasion. Logan wasn’t just touching me with his hands—he was coveting me. My body wasn’t simply washed with soap and water—it was revered in the gentle way he that he took his time. He may not have seen me naked, but he memorized every inch of my body with his tenacious hands.
After the third round, I was about as primed as a woman could get.
“Turn around and face me,” he said. “I’m going to wash your hair.”
He backed me into the stream of hot water and I sighed as his fingers gingerly massaged a mango-scented liquid throughout my scalp. It didn’t make any sense that Logan had so many scented toiletries and yet he never smelled like anything but a man.
“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this,” I mumbled with a soft laugh.
He rinsed the shampoo away and placed his heavy hands on my shoulders, making a slow descent down the curve of my back with a feathery touch.
“Logan?”
“Hmm?”
“You can’t see in the dark, can you?”
“Not entirely.”
I pushed away and crossed my arms. “What does that mean? You can or you can’t?”
“My sight is better than average in dim light. I can’t see in total darkness. Female, would it really matter after I have seen you naked with my hands? I know your body so well that I couldn’t mistake you for any other woman. I have imagined you in my mind, and you’re exquisite.”
“Where do you intend to take this?”
Logan’s hands were so sultry with every possessive stroke, and he slipped one behind my neck insistently.
“I’ll go wherever you lead me. I don’t have to see you to know there is a glint of silvering in your eyes and your fingers are charged with passion. You
want
to be taken.” His mouth covered my ear. “And I want to be the one who takes you. Say yes and I won’t stop until I’m inside of you.
Deep
inside.”
His finger brushed between my legs and I gasped in surprise from the unexpected intimate contact.
“What about the courtship?” My voice trembled.
“If this is what you want—then rules be damned—it’s what you’re going to get.” His slick finger stroked once more before withdrawing.
My heart almost slammed on the brakes. “Am I not worth sticking to your rules?”
There was amusement in his voice. “You’re the reason I don’t want to play by them.”
“I want you to claim me in every way, Logan, but I can’t touch you. I can’t be with you like a normal woman. I want this, but…”
His hands cradled my neck. “But what?”
It didn’t feel right. I was immensely attracted to him and swept up in the moment, but the reason he instigated this to begin with didn’t set with me.
“You brought me in here because you couldn’t stand me wearing another man’s cologne. It wasn’t about seduction or romance, or even a spontaneous move. I like being with you and feeling this way, but—”
“You’re still not sure. I told you once that I would not bed a female who was doubtful, and I won’t now.” He sighed with frustration. “I would have been able to scent your doubt if it wasn’t for all this damn
mango
.”
My energy leveled down and I touched his arm. “Are you mad?”
“I’ll get you a towel and show you how mad I am,” he said sharply.
I snapped my jaw shut as he moved out of the room and the light burst on. The stone wall molded against my back. His arm extended through the opening, offering me a long, white towel. After covering myself up, I shut off the water and warily stepped around the shower wall.
Logan stood with his eyes respectfully closed and his arms folded.
It wasn’t until I noticed the thick bulge in his wet trousers that I knew without a doubt that Logan Cross was a man of remarkable restraint.
I took my time drying off the ends of my dripping hair with a small towel, admiring his luscious, golden skin and the masculine line of his body. Broad, rounded shoulders gave his body a V shape, and the muscles on his arms and abdomen were defined and solid. A selfish part of me wanted to see those beautiful patterns rippling across his arms and torso—the ones that changed colors when he was consumed with emotion. I wanted to be the one responsible.
My crumpled clothes sat in a pile inside of the wastebasket. “What am I supposed to cover up with?”
“Me?” A wolfish smile turned up the ends of his mouth.
I finished drying my hair and noticed his glum expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Aside from your unsated lust that burns my nose like gasoline? Not a thing. Do you want to know what I was going to do to you in there with those lovely legs draped over my shoulders?”
“No, please.” I caught a subtle glow in my reflection and my lips were swollen from biting them.
Water trailed from his wet hair over his shoulders; nothing had changed in the baggage compartment. “Maybe you need to get back in the shower and turn on the cold water,” I suggested.
“Maybe you should join me, my sweet.”
He took a deep, purposeful breath and I shoved my palm against his wet chest.
“Stop doing that, Mr. Cross.”
He quirked a smile. “I do love it when you call me that.”
I squeezed the ends of my hair and tossed the towel in the sink. “Was it easy for you to kill all those people? Before we met.”
Logan lowered his head, keeping his eyes closed. “Those were deplorable men, Silver, and I will not apologize for my actions.”
“Was every single one of them a Mage?”
