The One That Got Away (4 page)

He’d never been in thrall, thought Evie gently. He’d never
known obsession. Ignorance was bliss.

‘Would you like to tell him or shall I?’ said Evie when the
silence threatened to smother her.

‘By all means, let’s hear your take on it,’ said Logan with
exquisite politeness.

‘Our time together was all-consuming,’ she offered, and wore
Logan’s burning black gaze and didn’t flinch. ‘I was very...malleable, and Logan
liked it that way. The combination worked a little too well for us. And then one
day someone held a mirror up to our actions and Logan didn’t like what he could
see, and so he left and spared us both.’ Evie arched a slender eyebrow and Logan
met it with a bitter twist of his beautifully sculpted lips. ‘Am I close?’

Logan inclined his head.

And for once, neither Max nor his mother had anything to
say.

THREE

The problem with the truth was that people so often
hated hearing it. Logan was no exception. He didn’t want to admit the darker
aspects of his nature. The possessiveness. The passion that coursed through him,
unbridled and deep. He’d only ever lost himself in a woman once and that was
with Angie. Never again.

Not once since then.

His mother knew how dark he ran on occasion. Mothers knew.
Half-brothers who were eight years the younger did not always know such things,
and the furtive glances Max kept giving him set Logan to seething.

‘Don’t judge until you’ve been there,’ he snapped.

‘No judgment here,’ said Max quickly. ‘None. Just trying to
figure the best way forward.’

‘Get rid of her.’

‘He means the best way forward for
everyone
,’ his mother said pointedly.

His mother was not the weakest link at this table. Neither was
Max.

Logan turned once more to Evangeline. ‘You really want to cross
me?’

‘What I
want
is for MEP to land the
civic project and for you to stop being such a dog in the manger,’ she said
evenly. ‘You don’t want me, and that’s fine. I get it. I got it ten years ago
when you walked away. So stay away. Stay out of my business and I’ll stay out of
yours.’

‘You’re in my
home
.’

‘Actually,’ his mother said gently, and reached for her wine,
‘this is
my
home.’

‘Logan, you’ll be gone in a couple of days,’ said Max
carefully. ‘Evie and I will be back in Sydney. Out of sight, out of mind.’

‘No,’ said Logan curtly. ‘She won’t be out of mind, she’ll be
within reach, and if you think your sham of a marriage will keep me in check,
think again.’

‘You still want her,’ said Max slowly.

Logan didn’t want to answer that question. For over ten years
he’d avoided that particular question, contenting himself with less, always
less. Touching no one too deeply and making damn sure no one tapped the darkness
in him.

‘Yes,’ he admitted through clenched teeth, and pushed back from
the table, intent on leaving before he made a bad situation worse. ‘It appears I
do. Which is why if you have any care for her whatsoever you’ll get her the hell
out of my way.’

* * *

Evie gave up all pretence of eating once Logan had
stalked from the room. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Stop it, Evangeline,’ said Caroline Carmichael sharply. ‘When
you’ve done wrong you can apologise. But I see no reason for you to apologise
for the behaviour of my son.’

‘We can call off the wedding,’ said Evie. ‘I’m happy to call
the wedding off. This isn’t going to work.’

‘No kidding,’ murmured Max.

‘There’ll be other civic centres,’ she said, and almost
believed it. ‘Better ones.’

‘Evie, you
know
how often projects
like this one come up,’ said Max tightly. ‘
Don’t
lose sight of the bigger picture here for you and me and MEP. I’ll talk
to Logan again. He’ll come round, I know he will. Because that wasn’t my
brother, just then. That’s not who he is. He’s just...jet-lagged or
something.’

Evie said nothing. Caroline said nothing.

And Max drank deeply of his wine.

‘
Are
you strong enough to withstand
my eldest son’s desire for you?’ Caroline asked her bluntly.

‘No.’

‘Are you still submissive?’

‘No.’ Evie smiled faintly. ‘I was very young. I found my
strength.’

‘You might want to consider ramming that particular development
down Logan’s throat,’ said Caroline.

‘I thought I just did.’

This time it was Caroline’s turn to offer up a faint smile.
‘Harder.’

Evie stood.

‘Where are you going?’ asked Max.

‘To abuse your brother’s throat.’

* * *

She found him in one of the bedrooms, slinging clothes
into a suitcase with little care as to how they landed.

‘Get out,’ he said when he saw her in the doorway.

‘No.’ Evie made herself continue forward, shutting the door
behind her, and moving forward again until she was well into the room, but not
so close as to be within reach. ‘You’re being childish, Logan. You’re letting
your fear of behaviours long gone colour your vision of the present. You need to
learn how to deal with the person I am now. I need to learn how to deal with
you.’

‘Childish?’
he said
incredulously.

Was that
really
as far as he’d got
with her words? ‘Don’t forget fearful.’

He pinned her with a fierce gaze.

‘Why else would you be running away?’ she pointed out as gently
as she could.

And received silence in reply.

‘Do you feel guilty about some of the things we did together?
Is that it? Because you shouldn’t. You had my consent.’

‘I know that, Angie.’

‘Is it because you exposed your deepest desires to me, and I
just fed them to your family?’

‘Those desires started—and finished—with you. They don’t belong
to me any more. And, yeah. You could have kept them to yourself.’

‘Maybe I thought your family needed a better explanation than
the one they’d been served. I didn’t realise you were only interested in being
truthful up to a point.’

‘You should have.’

She wanted to rattle him, Evie realised. Pick away at his anger
and his armour and see what was underneath. ‘You can’t dominate me any more,
Logan. You need to realise that.’

‘I don’t
want
to dominate you,’ he
muttered. ‘I never wanted that.’ He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and
looked away. ‘But it happened.’

‘I thought I was in love with you. Week one of an intensely
sexual, sensual relationship,’ she argued. ‘So much to feel and to learn and,
yes, my focus was on pleasing you. I like to think I’d have regained my
equilibrium at some stage. That the relationship dynamic would have evened out
in time. But I guess we’ll never know.’

‘I don’t want to dwell on the past, Angie. I just want you gone
from my life
now
.’

‘Which is in itself an exercise in enforcing your will over
mine.’ Evie moved forward until she was crowding his space; nothing weak about
that move. ‘That seem right to you?’

‘You can’t marry him, Angie.’

‘You really think Max would still have me after the fuss you
just made?’

‘He’s got fifty million reasons to ignore the fuss I just
made,’ said Logan gruffly. ‘You don’t. You need to end this now.’

Logan’s hand went to the back of his neck. From there, it was
only too easy for Evie to let her gaze run over the hard angle of his jaw, the
stubble just starting to show, and from there to his lips. A woman could fixate
on those lips.

‘Don’t,’ he warned huskily.

‘Don’t what?’ Wonder if she could coax them open? Wonder what
it would take to make them say the name Evie instead of Angie? ‘Don’t tempt you?
Don’t wonder what we might have had if you’d stuck around long enough to find
out? Because I do wonder what we might have had together, Logan. I can’t help
it. And I’m sure as hell wondering it now.’

‘Nothing good.’

‘You don’t know that. You barely know
me
. What if I
am
a match for you now?
Ever thought of that?’

‘No.’

‘Maybe you should,’ she cautioned gently, and touched her
fingers to his lips and he went still as a statue but he let her do it. ‘What if
we
could
bring this passion between us under
control?’

‘We’d get lost,’ he muttered as her fingertips strayed to his
jaw. ‘
I’d
get lost and I can’t afford to, Angie. I
can’t.’

‘What if I know the way?’

‘Do you?’ he asked, and then his hands were on her waist,
dragging her towards him, and his lips crushed down on hers, desperate and
tortured, no half-measures with this man and there never had been. It was all or
nothing, and his kisses inflamed her as desperation turned into desire hot and
sweet. And then he took his tongue to her mouth and lit an inferno.

A step backwards towards the bed for him as Evie set her palms
to his chest and drank deeply of his passion and his pain. A step forward for
her, and then they were falling, and he was beneath her, and his eyes were
closed and his ravenous mouth never left her skin.

Her dress proved a poor barrier against Logan’s clever hands,
the thin shoulder straps sliding down, and then he swept the bodice down to
reveal the swell of small breasts and the tips of her nipples. He set his tongue
to one, and then lips, and suckled hard and Evie gasped as he took her to the
edge of pain, and he knew exactly where that edge began, damn him, and when to
retreat and bring pleasure coursing in its wake.

Palms to his shoulders, with only the warm cotton of his shirt
in the way and she wanted his clothes gone, and hers, but when she tried to undo
his shirt buttons he wouldn’t let her, pushing her hands away with ruthless
efficiency. ‘No,’ he muttered.

And then he slung his arms beneath her thighs and slid her up
and over his chest and onto his mouth and licked his way past her panties and
into her, and if she thought he’d been a skilled lover ten years ago it was
nothing to the expertise he wielded now.

With tongue and with hands he opened her up and drew her out,
until her gasps became pleas and her pleas turned into a breathless stream of
nonsense as she rode him, no room for his pleasure now, it was all about Evie,
and what this man had always been able to do to her in the bedroom, and that was
make sensation the only thing that mattered and self-control nothing more than a
wispy memory.

This wasn’t submission, she thought hazily, sliding her hands
down to tangle in his hair, holding him exactly where she wanted him and it
didn’t take long, not long at all, before Evie shot to orgasm, wave after wave
of pleasure so fierce and fine that her body arched like a hunter’s bow.

He let her rest, momentarily. He let her catch one breath,
maybe two, and then, just when recovery seemed possible, Logan clamped his mouth
over her again and came at her sideways with his tongue and slung her skywards
once more.

No control over her response whatsoever as she cried out her
release and prayed she hadn’t been too loud, but it wasn’t submission. Evie
clung to the faintest of hope that surrendering to pleasure wasn’t submission.
It was just...

Sensitive now as she toppled forward, her forearms landing on
the bed above him and her head resting on her arms. A tremor shook her, a
juddering reminder of where she’d just been and what Logan had just done to get
her there.

‘That wasn’t submission,’ she said breathlessly as she tried to
think of a smooth move that would get her body back down level with
his
body.

There was none.

‘I was on top,’ she said as she crawled back down his body the
clumsy way. ‘I
am
on top.’

Which sounded lame, even to her ears.

‘I could have done anything with you, Evie.
Anything,
and you’d have let me.’ He worked his mouth
across her nipple again and had a little party there and all she could do was
whimper and strain against him and hope to hell he got it into his head to party
harder. ‘What
is
that if not submission?’ he
muttered.

‘Participation,’ she said. ‘Participation resulting from
stimulation. You need to work on your definitions.’

And she needed to work on him. Cautiously, Evie inched her way
further down Logan’s big body until her face was level with his and her hair
fell around their faces like a curtain.

He didn’t look rested or anywhere close to content. Evie closed
her eyes and rested her forehead gently against his, breathing in the scent of
him and the scent of her still on him. He tasted of her too, as she licked at
his mouth, coaxing and cajoling until he did what she wanted, which was open for
her with a groan, but when she went to undo his belt, he clamped her wrist and
dragged her hand back up to his chest.

‘Don’t,’ he said against her lips and she pulled away, just a
fraction.

‘Why not?’

‘No condoms.’

Which sounded a lot like an excuse. ‘Another way, then. Same
way you did me.’

‘I want—’

Yes, he did want. She could feel him rigid beneath her, digging
into her. ‘Hard,’ she murmured.

‘Yes. I want hard.’ As if the admission of specific needs and
desires was something to be ashamed of. ‘And rough.’ He licked at her lips as if
soothing away fresh wounds. ‘Too rough for your mouth. Don’t want to hurt
you.’

‘Hands,’ she offered. ‘Yours
and
mine. Rough.’

He shuddered beneath her, but he still wouldn’t let her hand go
any lower than his chest. ‘No.’ With their lips barely touching and a shield of
black lashes concealing his eyes. ‘You need to leave, Angie. Now. I can’t do
this.’

‘Why not?’ She could think of plenty of reasons. They were in
his mother’s house. She was—supposedly—still engaged to his brother. Not that it
had stopped him. And then there was this fear he had of dominating her, of
hurting her, and
that
was the resistance he couldn’t
get past. Same reason they’d parted all those years ago.

‘I don’t understand you.’ Evie backed off a little, pulled the
straps of her dress back up her shoulders. ‘Condoms can be purchased. Needs can
be satisfied without anyone getting hurt. And my doing as you ask and leaving
your room is
not
submission. It’s listening and
responding and it’s action born of concern. For you. For whatever’s going on in
that hard head of yours.’ He wouldn’t meet her eyes, so she put a gentle
forefinger to his chin, and leaned down and gently forced eye contact. Turmoil
there, and plenty of it. Black eyes blown with darkness and desire. ‘You savour
me with one breath and turn me away with the next. Want to tell me what that’s
all about?’