“Don’t you worry,” Henry tells her, his old brown eyes still glittering with laughter, “his mother was just the same. Ellie didn’t compromise on anything, if she couldn’t make her mind up between a blue dress and a red suit she’d just buy them both. It seems Logan enjoys shopping, too.”
Tell me about it!
Between them, all the shopping bags, boxes and hangers find their way up to a bedroom that Henry has had made up for Catherine. “You make yourself comfortable,” Henry turns to leave, “I’ve already got supper cooking. Just come down when you’re ready – it’s nothing that will spoil.”
Logan has gone to put the car away and Catherine is glad of some time alone. The bedroom is simply, but beautifully furnished. Admiring the deep bronze curtains that hang at the French windows, Catherine looks out on a balcony. She imagines it would be the perfect place to curl up with a book on a warm evening. Turning to the double bed, she trails her fingers over the beautiful patchwork quilt. Such a skilful blending of so many autumnal colours, with pillows and decorative cushions to match; Catherine can only assume that Henry has a housekeeper, or someone who comes in to help with the house. She definitely cannot see her very masculine host picking out matching cushions, curtains and other soft furnishings. Walking over to a large wardrobe, her toes now scrunching deeply into beige carpet that feels soft enough to sleep on, Catherine begins the tedious job of hanging up her new clothes and putting all the other items away.
Inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly a couple of times helps to steady Catherine’s erratic heartbeat and calms her nerves. “He seems nice,” Catherine tells herself as she closes the bedroom door, making her way to the staircase, “not too scary, anyway…”
“Not scary at all,” Logan interjects behind her then has to shoot out a hand to steady Catherine as she span around, almost toppling off the top step.
“Holy shit!” Hand grasping her now furiously beating heart, her lungs desperately trying to recapture the breath that has been scared out of her, Catherine turns huge blue, startled eyes on Logan.
What the fuck!
“I’m sorry,” he manages, trying heroically but failing to stifle a laugh that has his whole body shaking with it.
“You…you…,” fighting to free herself from his firm grip, Catherine very nearly topples them both down the staircase, “get off me…get off me, you oaf!”
Realising that Catherine is genuinely upset, Logan sobers quickly. “Catherine, stop – just stop!” he orders gently, but as her arms still fight for freedom, he does the only thing he can think of. He pulls her roughly to him, traps her arms with his and steals all her protests with a kiss.
The moment their mouths meet, she is lost.
His scent. His taste. Him.
She stills immediately. Instead of the fight or flight response, her body is now responding to something just as primal, just as compelling, and with just the same degree of passion. His lips, gentle at first, have opened to the forceful demand of her tongue. She tastes him now, searching for and giving everything to the kiss. Her arms are now free and her hands reach up and fist in the back of his hair; he isn’t close enough, not deep enough, not…not…
His head exploding, his loins burning, Logan manages to break away. “If we don’t stop now I’m afraid I won’t be able to.” He is visibly trembling, and Catherine feels a liberating sense of power to think that she can make this man mountain quiver with need.
“Who says we have to?” She holds his puzzled gaze for a long moment. “I trust you.” In that single moment, having uttered the words, Catherine knows them to be true. Right from that first meeting when their hands had touched and a jolt of electricity had passed between them, she had known he was a danger to her equilibrium. And she had been afraid. But no longer.
It is a simple declaration that is almost his undoing. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” He tries to put even some small distance between them, but Catherine just closes it again. “Catherine, please…I’m not a saint…”
Her smile is dangerous and determined. “Neither am I.” Reaching up she slowly pulls his head down, her eyes never leaving his even when their mouths meet. Catherine watches his brown eyes melt, then fire with his growing need. Pressing her aching body into him, she feels the hardness of that need, but this time she isn’t afraid. “Let me take you to bed, Logan?”
Her whispered words are an invitation that he cannot resist. “Are you sure?” She nods and smiles, but Logan searches her face before swinging her up into his arms. Striding to her bedroom, he closes the door behind them before he dares take another breath. He wants her so badly, but he has to go slowly. Not only doesn’t he want to frighten her, he wants to give her as much of a gift as she is offering him. He will be so gentle; will give her the tenderness that no one else has.
Lifting her jumper over her head, Logan gazes on the youthful beauty that is Catherine. “If you want me to stop, at any time, I promise you I will.” It is a promise he knows he will keep, whatever the cost to his sanity. His lips gently touch and his tongue teases against her mouth. Then he begins a slow exploration of her face, her ears, and her lovely neck.
Oh my.
Catherine’s head is spinning, her body pleading for something she doesn’t understand. Her nipples are now so hard, all but pushing through the cotton of her bra. And she can feel the wetness of her panties. If she doesn’t get naked soon her clothes will surely combust.
Her hands find the elasticated waistband of her tracky bottoms; her thumbs hook inside and begin to tug them down, but Logan stops her. “There’s no rush, Catherine. Let me pleasure you and take you to places you never dreamed of.” He unfastens her bra, letting it fall to the floor then tastes her until her breath comes in gasping gulps and her fingers dig into his shoulders. Her legs are trembling so badly that he lifts her onto the bed to save her falling. Looking down at her, he can see the plea in her eyes. Logan knows she has no idea what she is pleading for, but he will show her, will allow her the time to experience and explore those needs fully.
He did take off her trousers then and, standing at the foot of the bed gazing down at the miracle of her, removes his own clothing to give her the chance to see him naked. He hears a gasp escape her lips. “I won’t hurt you, Catherine,” he reassures her softly, “and you can say no at any time.”
She watches as he kneels on the bed at her feet then quivers hotly as he opens her legs to move between them. Her panties are still on, but when he lowers his head to taste her through them, she lets out an involuntary scream of pleasure. His gentle hands move under her bottom, sliding beneath her pants to cup her buttocks.
Arching her back off the bed, Catherine’s head thrashes side to side as his tongue, teeth and lips graze, bite and tease her mercilessly, while his knowing hands knead her buttocks. “Please…,” she screams.
His thumb pulls her cotton pants to one side and the next scream Catherine gives is in shock as much as for the pleasure that tears through her. His tongue is inside her now, finding every sensitive nerve ending, sending her body into the blissful spasms of her first orgasm. Before she has fully come down, he replaces his tongue with expert fingers and his mouth finds her breasts. He takes her back up, her fingers grasping at the bedding trying to stay her, but he makes her fly. “Let go, Catherine.” Logan takes her lips and his tongue plunders her mouth as his fingers plunder the growing heat of her sex.
Then her mind and body explode and her world goes instantly black.
When she wakes, Catherine finds Logan smoothing a cold flannel over her brow, smiling. “You fainted,” he answers Catherine’s unspoken question. Her brows furrow and her eyes search his face for clues
. I’ve never fainted.
“Fainted!” Catherine shoots up, almost knocking heads with Logan. “What do you mean, I fainted?” She is panicking now; there must be something wrong with her. “That’s not normal, is it?”
His smile widens. “In the old days it was called swooning,” he tells her, then gives her a gentle push back on to the pillows. “Do you remember how you felt before you fainted?” You mean the bit where your tongue was inside me, or the whole imploding thing.
Catherine certainly does, and a rush of colour stains her otherwise pale cheeks. “I’m not sure,” she murmurs, lowering her eyes to the fingers now twisting in the quilt.
“Mmm…,” he smiles wickedly, “…perhaps I should refresh your memory,”
What!
Catherine ducks out from under him, grabbing at the sheet that is mostly on the floor pulling it around her. “You promised,” she shrieks when Logan makes a playful lunge at her.
He sits up then, shaking his head ruefully. “Me and my big mouth.”
She looks at him then, uncertain and shy. “I did it again…I didn’t mean to.” She feels miserable and confused.
Now he’ll think you’re a real prick-tease!
“You did nothing wrong,” he tells her softly, all the banter gone from his voice. “Come and sit with me.” He holds his hand out toward her encouragingly. “Keep the sheet around you if it makes you feel more comfortable; but I promise I won’t touch you like that again until you’re ready – and definitely not tonight.”
Oh.
She does keep the sheet around her but not because she doesn’t trust him. “I know you wouldn’t do anything I didn’t want…,” Logan moves to sit up; leaning against the headboard he lets her fit herself comfortably against him, “…and, believe me, I have no idea why it all went wrong.” She turns her face into his shoulder and kisses him there. “I wanted…no, I want you so badly – I never dreamed I would ever want anyone that way.” Catherine pulls his arm tight around her, needing the strength and safety she knows she will find there.
Oh, Logan, if you only knew.
Enjoying the feeling of her snuggled into him, Logan kisses the top of her head. “By ‘that way’ do you mean the overwhelming response you experienced, or that you didn’t think you would ever want sex?” He knows she is blushing, he can feel the heat of her cheek against his chest.
“Both, I think.” Bloody hell. She tries to sort her thoughts and feelings out, but her body is still throbbing in a strangely exciting but scary way, and her thoughts are mixing with horrific memories from her past; a past Logan knows nothing about. “The only man to touch me before you was my first employer when I was seventeen.” Taking a deep cleansing breath, she decides that this is the least she can tell him. “I had only been out of foster care for a few weeks. My social worker helped me to find the bedsit and the job – I was in seventh heaven. Free, at last, in a home I didn’t have to share with anyone else.” Catherine looks up at Logan, her blue eyes glinting with remembered excitement. “I could just be me; for the first time ever, including the time I had with my mum, I could do and be anything I chose with no one there to judge me or call me a freak.”
Just me, myself and I. The best friends I ever had.
Logan puts a hand to her cheek, his thumb gently caressing it. “You’re not a freak and you never were,” he assures her. “I’m glad you were finally happy, but what happened to change that?”
“Mr Shipley happened,” Catherine lowers her head and her eyes, but not before Logan sees the clouds gather in them. “He was the owner of the off-licence where I got my first job. I worked hard and he was always smiling at me, so I thought he liked me and was happy with my work.” Logan can feel her body tense but stays quiet allowing Catherine to tell him in her own way and in her own time. “I began to notice him watching me. I’d be putting stock away on the shelves and he’d pretend to be doing something, but I knew he was watching me.” Her heart starts to pound as the image in her mind becomes clearer. “I began avoiding being alone with him – which was difficult as we didn’t always have customers in the shop, but I stayed out front whenever possible.”
A tear rolls unnoticed down her cheek and onto Logan’s tightening chest. He has a very good idea of what is coming and his anger is rising. “It went on for a few weeks, but nothing ever happened; he didn’t touch me or say anything to make me uncomfortable, but I was.”
Pulling the sheet more tightly around her, Logan feels Catherine burrow deeper into his side and tightens his arm around her. “It came from nowhere,” her voice is distant now; “he was in a good mood, smiling, whistling or singing to a familiar tune. Then he said he was going out back for a fag and I actually smiled at him.” She mumbles something that Logan struggles to hear, but it sounds like ‘maybe that was it’
. I must have done something wrong.
Pulling Catherine round to face him, Logan fights to keep the anger out of his voice, knowing it will only frighten her. “A smile is not an invitation to molest someone,” he tells her firmly. “Whatever he did, he did because he wanted to and not because you did anything to encourage him.” When she doesn’t respond he gives her shoulders a gentle shake. “Catherine, you did nothing wrong.”
Eyes wide and wet, Catherine stares back at Logan and shakes her head
. You don’t know. No one knows.
“But I did,” she sniffs, trying to hold back the tears but failing miserably, “I think I might even have killed him.”
There, now you know you won’t want me anymore!
It is Logan’s turn to go wide-eyed. “Just tell me what happened and don’t leave anything out,” he tells her. “Whatever it is, we can handle it.”
Of course, she knows he is placating her, but Catherine also knows she can trust Logan; knows it from the bottom of her fearful heart. “He came in from his smoke break and seemed different, somehow. Like he’d made up his mind about something and was determined to do it - which, of course, he did. Or tried to,” she amends grimly. “He didn’t come straight at me; he moved towards the door and flipped the open sign to closed, then dropped the catch on the door.”