Page 35 of Alone With You
“My friends have a bad habit of ‘dropping by’ unannounced,” he said. “John wasn’t the first to do so. It’s a conspiracy to keep an eye on me.”
She blinked at him, scrabbling to understand. “Do they have a reason to be worried?”
“No,” he said. “They’re old hens. Every last one of them. But I’ve had enough of meddling.”
Standing before her, haloed by the blue-white brightness of the sky, Logan looked so fierce and ravaged that her heart turned over. She wondered why so many people were worried about him, wondered if he’d ever tell her that story. She wanted to know it, wanted to know everything. Maybe she’d been in the sun too long. Or she was too unhinged from last night’s going-on. She didn’t know this man standing before her, she hadn’t earned the right to feel so strongly. She hadn’t earned the right to know his troubles, either.
“Jenny.” His chest expanded as he breathed in deep. “Answer me one question.”
“Anything.”
His knuckles turned white against his arms. “I think I know the answer to this,” he said, “but I need to hear you to say it aloud.”
“Okay?”
“What’s going to prevent the appearance in nine months of a squalling newborn with an aptitude for science?”
She caught her breath. Oh. My. God. He thought…he thought they’d had unprotected sex. And they had, really, in one sense. He hadn’t used a condom, which was always the best choice in a new relationship. And she’d said nothing to him about her own preparations in the whirl of their foreplay. He didn’t know her well enough to understand that she’d always made sure to protect herself against an unexpected pregnancy. Her own mother had seen to it that she was ready to make the responsible choice when she was still a teenager, drilling into her from the moment she’d become interested in boys about how an unplanned baby could derail a promising career, like Jenny’s birth had almost done to her mother’s.
“I damn well know better,” Logan said through a tight jaw, “but I had nothing in my mind last night but getting you into bed with me. You blew the top of my head off, Jenny. I didn’t even stop to think about this possibility until John started going on about Lily—”
“No worries,” she interrupted on a stutter, still caught onyou blew the top of my head off, Jenny.
His gaze pierced through her. “Diaphragm, right?”
She nodded.
“Thank God you had sense.” He let his head fall back. “If there was a ripe ovum in your body and we didn’t stop to prevent the natural consequences, we’d be having a different kind of discussion right now.”
She nodded, flexing her fingers over the arms of the lounge chair, her toes curling under. Did he have condoms tucked away somewhere? Would they be giving it another go?You blew the top of my head off Jennydidn’t sound like a bad thing. I sounded like he wanted more. And now John was gone, they were alone, and this certainly wasn’t the conversation she’d feared when he saidwe need to talk.
“Wait,” he murmured, stilling. “You didn’t stop in the middle of everything last night. To put it in.”
A flush rose up her neck, a heat that had nothing to do with dappled sun through the spruce boughs.
“I did the responsible thing,” she said. “I prepared before our date.”
His face lit. For a moment, he didn’t look like the guy at the end of the bar who could beckon a woman with a flick of a brow.
“You can’t blame a girl for hoping.”
The corner of his mouth rose, then fell, then rose again. “You wanted last night to happen.”
“Ihopedit would.”
“And I’ve wanted it since the first time I laid eyes on you.”
“Of course you did. I was buck naked.” She tucked her knees a little higher and dropped her voice. “I can be naked again, if you want.”
“Jenny,” he said, like he was choking on the word. “I have to be honest with you.”
Her mood dipped. “Sothisis the talking part.”
“Yeah,” he said, with a nodding frown. “Yes.”
A solid lump formed in her chest. She didn’t want honesty right now—not the kind she suspected he was about to dish out. She wantedsexualhonesty. She wanted Logan to haul her off this lawn chair, drag her into his arms, and make her brain and body melt. That was the easier path.
“You’re John’s colleague,” he said, “and a hell of a woman.” A muscle flexed in his cheek. “You deserve to know what you’re getting into.”
