She (20 page)

“Oh, uh, I like it,” I say, and I do. “It’s very manly. Classically manly. The water feature, though…it seems a little out of place.” But then I remember something he told me yesterday. “Ah, but you like to be by the water.”

He smiles at me. “Yes.”

The room has a good clear feel to it. “Do you work from home often?” I ask.

“No, not during the day, but sometimes I come home in the evenings and keep working in here. Hence the reason Mercy was keen for me to get a girlfriend!” he laughs.

“Workaholic,” I poke fun.

“I
used
to be,” he says seductively.

I smile. “I like it,” I tell him again. It’s not how I’d have my home, but for a man, it’s stylish and efficient.

“So, Amelie did an OK job, then?” he asks.

“If you like it she did. If you don’t, then she didn’t. Our job is to satisfy our clients,” I put on my best professional voice.

“I’m happy with it,” Logan nods.

“Good. I will convey your satisfaction to my boss,” I say with a wink.

He smiles down at me and gently brushed his lips against mine. “I like seeing you in my bathrobe,” he says quietly.

“I like being in it,” I tell him. “Or out of it…Either way,” I shrug nonchalantly.

He smiles against my mouth. “Are you hungry, baby?”

His proximity to me distracts me. I watch his lips move as he talks, and his dimples form when he smiles. Oh, Logan, so many beautiful distractions. What did he ask me? Hungry?

“I could eat,” I say, not really answering the question.

He takes my hand and leads me out of the office, back through the man’s den and into the open living area. At the front door Logan picks up my large, and forgotten parcel. Excitement surges in me!

“Do you want to open this?” he asks.

“Yes!” I say, so quickly and enthusiastically that he laughs.

It comes with us into the kitchen, and Logan places it on the countertop and then opens a drawer and pulls out a knife. I roll my eyes. How very mannish, I smile to myself.

“Scissors, please,” I say.

“Oh, OK,” Logan puts the knife back and retrieves a pair of sharp scissors instead.

He hands them to me, and I have the box of goodies open within a few seconds.

Logan looks alarmed by my speed with the scissors. “Note to self,” he says, “never get in between Gemima and her shopping!”

I grin at him, and then rummage through the packing paper to find the treasures within. I feel like it’s Christmas come early! Jeez, how many things did I buy? Awaiting me, I find four dresses, three tops, two skirts, and two pairs of pants. I must’ve been in a really good mood when I ordered these last Sunday!
I wonder why
, I think happily. I take each of the items out of the plastic wrapping they come in, making sure to place all the plastic back into the box, consciously trying to mess up Logan’s kitchen as little as possible, and then I hold out each piece, scrutinising it, before piling them up neatly next to the box. All the while Logan is watching me with a smile playing on his lips.

“Do you like them?” he wants to know.

“Uh-huh,” I say. I hold one of the dresses, “This one is quite different to how it looked online. I’ll have to try it, them, on before I know if they’re any good. They might make me look like a sack of shit.”

Logan tries to hide his amusement. “That’s not possible,” he says.

“You’d be surprised what a badly cut piece of cloth can do to a girl!”

He chuckles and his beautiful face overwhelms me. Again.

“I’ll try them on later,” I say distractedly. I look around the open room again, and my eye is drawn to the terrance outside, which although large, looks, as far as I can see in the dark, mostly unoccupied. “Do you have anything on your balcony?” I ask, knowing that Amelie’s jurisdiction covers only the inside.

“No,” he tells me. “It’s very bleak out there. Ideally I’d like to have a garden, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

“Workaholic,” I tease him again. “Couldn’t you ask Mercy to bring in some plants?”

“That’s not really what I pay her to do,” he says.

“What does she do?” I wonder.

“She, uh, tidies, and cleans stuff, does the laundry, and sometimes she’ll cook.”

“She mustn’t need to come too often,” I say, thinking about the size of the apartment. “For a penthouse, it’s not that big.” Then I blanch. Shit! Is that an offensive thing to say? I mean, we’re talking about his apartment, not his appendage, so he
shouldn’t
be offended, right? I’m never sure with men and sizes of things. “It’s really nice,” I say quickly, “it’s just not that big…”

Logan laughs at my rambling. “No, it’s not that big,” he agrees. “
But
…there is a part you haven’t seen yet.”

He walks to the far end of the kitchen, away from the front door, and opens a door that I assumed to be a pantry or laundry room, but it’s not. The room beyond is the same size as the whole open-planned space on this side of the door.

“
Woah
…” I breathe, peering into it.

My mouth drops open as I take it all in: it’s a low ceilinged room with an underground, twenty-metre lap pool, and at this end of the pool is a hot tub. Above the hot tub is a large circular skylight, allowing luxury stargazing. Half way down the length of the swimming pool is a slack line reaching from one side of the pool to the other, raised about half a foot above the water.

“This is more like it!” I say, making Logan laugh. “Very cool,” I say, smiling at him, wholly impressed. “So, this is where you swim?”

“Mostly. There are a few public pools I go to, too.”

“But I suppose you can’t swim naked there,” I say, dropping my bathrobe where I stand and sitting down on the edge of the water, dipping my legs in.

“I’ve never been in here naked,” he tells me. “I only use it for laps, not frivolity, and being naked I wouldn’t be very streamlined.”

I grin up at him, and cheekily lift up his robe to sneak-a-peek underneath. “You most certainly would not be,” I say, smiling.

Logan laughs at my candour, and then strips and sits down next to me.

“Can you walk across that?” I ask, pointing at the slack line.

“I can do it when no one is watching.”

“And I turn into Madonna when no one is watching,” I play with him.

He smiles and then leans forward to kiss me, slowly and deeply. One of his hands runs smoothly up and down my bare back, while the other one grips my leg. Instinctively, I wrap my arms around his neck and hold his mouth to mine, enjoying him too much to let him escape. He doesn’t try to escape me; he doesn’t want to. I know, with absolute certainty, that I hold him captive the same way that he holds me. The good kind of captive; the kind that has you unable and unwilling to move because you’re
so
enthralled and intrigued and romanced by the other person.

We sit naked, side by side, on the edge of the pool making out for several intoxicating minutes. By the time we break apart we could both use a cool dip. Logan’s eyes are mischievous when he looks at me, and I know what he’s going to do, but I’m too late to stop it. Before I know it, I’m in the water; in over my head. It’s cold and fresh and exhilarating.

When I bob to the surface, I gasp and splutter. “It’s freezing!”

Logan is standing near the slack line, tall and nude. He is an impressive, intimidating sight.

“Let’s see if I can walk this with company, shall we?” he says.

It turns out he can, though not without intermittent bouts of wobbling, which not only nearly topple him, but which cause certain parts of his anatomy to flap about violently, sending me into peels of laughter. After walking four near-perfect lengths of the line, Logan jumps off and joins me in the water.

We spend over an hour swimming, splashing, racing, and playing in the water, enjoying each other in a different, more childlike way. I love getting to know Logan; everything about him, whether it be that he can swim at least twice as fast as I can (and I thought that I was a decent swimmer!) or that he can hold his breath for a very long time, or that his eyes go bloodshot when he swims without goggles.

I also am reminded of how strong he is. Usually when we’re having sex it’s the strength in his legs that baffles me, but now in the pool, when he lifts me clean out of the water and places me on the slack line, I realise just how strong his upper body is as well. Clearly all that time being somewhat of a loner has paid off in other, muscular, ways. I sit for several rather uncomfortable minutes, nude on the slack line, bouncing up and down, before splashing back into the water.

I swim over to the edge of the pool where Logan is leaning on his arms, his back to the water. I run my hands up and down his back. It’s taut and defined and not a part of him I often get to see. I wrap my arms around his stomach and rest my chin on his shoulder.

“I’m pooped,” I say.

“
Pooped
?” Logan chuckles. “Perhaps some sustenance will help?”

*

It’s almost eight by the time we’re back in our bathrobes, back in the kitchen, and finally have our dinner heating through on the stove.

“It’ll take a few minutes,” Logan says, taking my hand and walking a few paces until we stop in front of a computer tablet that hangs in a bracket on the wall next to the fridge. He presses a few buttons until he’s got the page up that he wants.

“OK,” he smiles at me, “this is the list of commands you need to say. The computer will register your voice and then—”

“I’ll be able to use the toilet?” I cut in.

“Yes,” he nods.

I glance at the list; it’s shorter than anticipated, thankfully.

“Press the button, wait ‘til the red light flashes, say the word, then press the button again.”

“OK,” I say, taking a breath and pressing the first word:
lights
. “Lights,” I say clearly. I look at Logan, as if to ask if that was alright, and he nods and smiles again.

I breeze through the rest of the words; words like:
flush
,
toilet
,
shades down
,
shades up
and to my astonishment,
fire on
, and,
fire off
. Logan turns the fire on by commanding it, like a magician! He has fun watching me interact with the tablet. Up until now the most high-tech thing I can do is connect my phone to my car radio, and I think
that’s
amazing! But now I’m programming a computer in a wall so that it can recognise when I’m speaking to it!
Madness
, I inwardly smile.

When I’m finished Logan presses a few more buttons and from out of nowhere I can hear music. Somehow, despite being nowhere near it, he has managed to turn on the television, and speakers above us issue our favourite channel: the Chillout Lounge.

I raise my eyebrows at him and he chuckles.

“Yup, I can turn the television on from the kitchen. It’s a highly practical practice,” he says sarcastically.

Without thinking I start swaying my hips to the Latin beat of the music. It’s Santana, and the moves I learnt to his music, when Amber and I took Latin dance classes three years ago, come flooding back to me. I sway seductively in front of Logan, getting us both revved up.

“Dance with me?” I ask, leading the way around the kitchen island to a small open space between the fireplace and the dining table.

Automatically, Logan follows me. His appetence for me rules him. I smile at him, and then feeling a sudden rush of erotic bravery, I discard my bathrobe for the second time tonight, and dance naked before him. His eyes widen in surprise and then gleam in appreciation. I feel my face flush, but I don’t care. The way he gazes at me makes me feel so damn sexy! His looks alone are turning me on.

I recall several moves from my tuition, and I pop my hips and roll my body to the rhythm of the music, and like when I was doing my striptease for him, Logan looks mesmerised. He watches my hips shake, his mouth open slightly, and I feel like a snake charmer totally in control of the snake. I move one way, and his eyes follow me, I move back and so do they. Oh, Logan, I don’t know how it is that I can hold you so captivated, but I love that I do!

As I move towards him, his eyes travel up my body until they meet mine. He looks like he wants to make love to me right here, right now. An excited, sensual jolt runs through me.

“Dance,” I whisper against his lips.

He smiles. “I, uh, don’t look half as good as you do dancing naked.”

“Mon cheri, I disagree,” I say. “You can keep your robe on, if you like?”

He holds me against him and through his robe I can feel him hardening.

“
Dance
,” I urge. “It’s the only logical thing to do,” I repeat his words from our first date.

He chuckles, his voice low and sexy. Slowly his hips begin to sway in time with mine, his eyes pouring into mine with a mixture of love and desire. I’m seduced on the spot.

“You’re perfect, Logan,” I purr.
As we move together, I increase the space between us infinitesimally to undo the belt of his robe, coaxing the robe to fall open. When it does, I greedily put my hands on his shoulders, forcing the robe to fall to the ground. He lets me undress him, his eyes gleaming, his hips moving.
Jeez
, he’s sexy right now!
So
sexy! His hands clamp down on my hips, and he pulls me flush against him once more. Feeling his erection against me, I moan against his lips, my longing for him overcoming me. My sound of pleasure pushes him over the edge; Logan’s seen and heard enough.

Before I can comprehend what’s happening, he lifts me off of the ground and sits me down on the edge of the dining table. I open my legs wide, expecting him, anticipating him, and he does not disappoint. For a few brief moments I can feel his hard member pushing against my opening, teasing me, while his hands run up and down my thighs driving me wild with desire.