Page 13 of Winter’s Fire

Then she’d seen how pretty some of the less vicious types of clamps were, with their crystals and coloured beads. A Dom would select them with care. If he was in love with his sub, he’d choose them to suit her colouring. He’d cup her breast in his palm, cradling the lush curve so he could pinch the nipple. His fingers would be a little rough, a little callused… a little like Logan’s, maybe.

Her breath had stilled. Logan, touching her breast with all the intimacy of a lover. Touching more than her breast, setting her pulse racing and her heart pounding. Only a lover would know how to elicit those responses from her, how to control her pleasure… and have the right to watch her orgasm.

Lucy dragged herself free of the lethal, quicksand-like blurring of memory and imagination. Thanks to heavier than normal traffic, she was already behind schedule, and all this mental procrastination wasn’t helping. She rang the bell. After a few seconds the door opened, and at the sight that met her, she was swallowed up by an avalanche of foreboding.

Logan was half-naked—fortunately, it was the half that wouldn’t offend public decency. With his hair dishevelled and stubble darkening his chin, he was as hot as sin and glowering at her as if she’d dragged him out of bed by the balls. She swallowed hard. A sudden lack of saliva had a lot to do with the muscular chest at which she was staring. Wasn’t staring. Okay, was staring, but didn’t mean to. Sort of.

“You’re late.”

He growled out the words as he turned and strode away from the door. Lucy could only assume he expected her to follow him. She banished all thoughts of sacrificial virgins and fire-breathing dragons before they could send her running for cover. Eyes narrowed, she switched from damsel to knight, bolted on her mental armour, and entered the scaly one’s lair. Tempted though she was to slam the door behind her, she closed it with care, and kept her sarcasm to herself. “The cab got stuck in traffic.”

“Lateness shows a lack of respect—”

“So does turning your back on someone and blaming them for something over which they had no control!” Lucy stopped dead, dropped her bag on the floor, and folded her arms. No way was he walking all over her like that.

He pivoted to face her.

Tension spiked in the stand-off.

She stood her ground.

“You’re right. I apologise.”

“Apology accepted.” She could be gracious. It didn’t stop her being forthright, though. “Do you greet all your visitors like this, or did you save the snarling just for me?”

He hadn’t had this attitude while they’d talked just last night. Mostly, anyway. His initial bluntness had left her flustered. Later, though, after some reflection, she’d concluded that straight-talking was far preferable to all the verbal sidestepping she’d endured in past relationships.

Logan closed the distance between them. The dark intensity swirling around him almost forced her to back away from him. With those muscles, the man looked as if he bench-pressed armoured vehicles for shits and giggles. He picked up her bag as if it weighed nothing. “This way.”

He took her to a bedroom that could have been the before shot in a home improvement magazine. Not that it was any of her business—it wasn’t as if she was moving in lock, stock and barrel.

“When you’ve unpacked, I’ll show you around.”

And then what? “Thanks. I won’t be long.”

She watched Logan leave, then looked around the room again. The average prison cell would probably be marginally more welcoming. Her host might have a guest bedroom, but she’d bet he didn’t get many guests. Female ones, at any rate. Any woman worth her styling products would have put him right about the essentials, like a mirror no more than half a hairdryer cord’s length from a power socket.

But what else could she expect from a bona fide man-cave? The obligatory massive, wall-mounted, flat-screen home cinema system in the main room was hard-to-miss evidence of where Logan’s priorities lay. With a resigned sigh, Lucy unpacked a few essentials and returned to the shrine to high-tech video entertainment.

Logan was noticeable by his absence.

“Lucy?”

The voice came from behind her. She turned. Logan was in the doorway to what must have been his bedroom. He was in the middle of pulling a plain black t-shirt over a set of droolworthy abs. They were a perfect complement to the impressive biceps. And the shoulders. And… had she mentioned the pecs?

“Would you like a coffee?”

Lucy watched him cross the room. “Thanks, but no—I prefer tea.”

“Tea it is, then.” He paused at the entrance to the kitchen and turned back to her. “I left an envelope on the chest of drawers back there.” He nodded in the direction of the room he’d just left. “Would you get it for me, please? And don’t forget to close the door behind you when you come back.”

A somewhat odd request, but since he was going to the trouble of making her a drink, Lucy gave a mental shrug and did as she was asked.

Logan’s bedroom could have been an exemplar in minimalism, but one element took her breath away—the bed. A magnificent four-poster without a canopy, it wasn’t Logan at all. At least, not the Logan she knew from work, and who suited the rest of the man-cave to a T.

An image blasted into her mind, of a different Logan, the one who did match this ebony creation with its silvered rococo scrolls and dark-grey, button-studded, velvet headboard. Lying on his side with his lower half covered by the crisp, grey bed linen, head propped up on his hand, he was looking at her with a blistering, armour-piercing gaze that penetrated her defences with laser-like efficiency. The obsidian glitter made promises she wasn’t sure she wanted him to keep. Heat rushed to her cheeks once more, breaking the spell and reminding her of the errand she had yet to complete.

The envelope was there, propped against a photo frame, just where he’d said it would be. Sealed and blank on both sides, it appeared to contain absolutely nothing.