One Night With Her Ex: The One That Got Away / The Man From her Wayward Past / The Ex Who Hired Her

She had his undivided attention as she pulled away, poured salt over the wet part and set her mouth to him again, licking the salt off in one long, lazy swipe before picking up the shot glass and swallowing the contents fast.

Lemon came next and she scrunched up her eyes and shook her head as the lemon juice went down. Party.

‘Hard day at the office?’ he asked as she licked then at her own hand and poured salt on and offered it to him. Logan’s body kicked as he took her wrist and guided it to his mouth. He took his time, his thumb stroking slowly over the pulse at her wrist, and then he rubbed his lips along the edge of her thumb and then his tongue. And then he took teeth to her skin and nipped and felt Evie’s pulse kick and her eyes glow golden.

‘Ordinary day at the office,’ she murmured. ‘But I’m hoping for an extraordinary night.’

He licked at the salt and she downed his tequila and he slammed his lips into hers and drank it straight from her mouth and chased it down with the sweet taste of her until the salt was all gone and the tequila was gone and all he could taste was Evie.

By the time she drew away to take a shaky breath, Logan was hard as concrete and a delicate flush of arousal had moved in on Evie’s cheeks.

‘More,’ she demanded, and sucked her lower lip into her mouth and licked it clean.

‘More of what?’

‘Everything.’

So he poured them another tequila and this time Evie bypassed the condiments and went straight for the alcohol and then expelled her breath as if she was breathing fire. She probably was.

‘Something you want to forget?’

‘No. I want to remember it all.’ Evie smiled and pierced his heart. ‘I’m just working up the courage to let you go. Bear with me. It’s going to be harder than I thought.’

Easy words, and an easy out if he wanted to take it. Keep it light, no deep, dark emotions required. Except that sorrow lurked beneath the smile in her eyes and challenge lived there too.

‘I hope the week worked for you,’ she said.

‘It did. Did it work for you?’

Evie shrugged, and, for the moment, the challenge in her eyes won out over sorrow and goodbye. ‘You know I’m a sucker for more.’

He knew what she wanted. His gaze skated over her face, lingered on a spot covered by the fall of her glossy black hair. He couldn’t see the scar but he sure as hell knew it was there.

‘No table tops,’ she said. ‘For this we use the bed.’

And still Logan hesitated.

He’d been good all week. So very restrained. Playing at normal and it had worked. He’d wanted normal. Needed to prove to them both that he could be satisfied with it. Tonight though, he craved just that little bit … more.

They still had a few hours left. They still had the night.

And there were so many ways to spend it.

He came around to her side of the counter and pushed her back against it, got up in her space, his arms either side of her. Lips to her cheek now, the scrape of his teeth against the sensitive skin of her ear lobe, just enough to make her gasp. One hand to her throat now as he took full possession of her mouth. Finding the pulse point the better to monitor it. Tilting her head back so that his mouth fitted hers exactly the way he wanted it to.

Mine. He let that thought reach the top of the stack and his hips responded with a slow and rolling grind.

‘Mine,’ he said and his voice came low and savage.

‘Prove it.’

Oh, he was going to.

‘Stroke me,’ he said, and showed her exactly how he wanted it, and he was comfortable calling the shots, God help him, he was. Hard and rough and she leaned into him and set her lips to his jaw, and her teeth to the skin of his chin and nipped, at which point he slipped just that little bit out of sync with the rest of the world. The place he entered had far more jagged edges and ruins in it and the rivers ran red with pain beneath. Evie didn’t need to be told to take the tip of him between fingers and thumb and squeeze hard—she already knew how much he liked riding that bright flare of pain right back into pleasure.

Knew because she liked that ride too.

‘I want control tonight.’ The words came from the deepest, darkest part of him. ‘Over pleasure and pain and everything in between. All the control.’

Evie smiled as she palmed her way down blood-engorged hardness and stroked him again with a twist to her wrist that almost made him come undone. ‘Then take it.’

He swore he wouldn’t take too much; that this was just a game that when played well led to extreme pleasure for both participants. He swore to do no harm and the kitchen counter wouldn’t do, so he took her by the wrist and headed for the stairs.

The bottom of the stairs saw his shoulders braced against the wall and Logan’s hands cradling her cheeks as he set his lips to hers again. They had to get up the stairs without him reaching for her along the way. There were a lot of stairs. Evie strained against him, hands cupping his buttocks and pulling him against her.

‘Patience,’ he whispered. ‘Virtue.’ And devoured her mouth, his tongue searching and sweeping and his teeth taunting and teasing, memorising the taste of her, testing the surrender in her.

It took them for ever to get to the bedroom.

Hours, in Evie’s estimation. Or maybe it was just that time stopped so often along the way. Stopped when Logan got to sitting on the stairs with her knees either side of him, and wrapped one of her hands around the stair railing and made her put her other palm to the wall as he licked along the lacy edge of her bra, and the bra came off and he curled his tongue around a nipple before closing his lips around her and sucking hard.

Evie whimpered as passion caught a lick of pain and burned all the brighter for it.

She returned the favour when finally he let her put her mouth to him.

And then they got to the bedroom and slowly, surely, he stripped her down until the only thing that mattered was Logan’s next touch and what it would bring, and she never knew what, only that it was always exactly right.

No thought of anything but the ride as he worked her, enslaved her.

No need to ever ask for more because she already had everything she’d ever wanted and his name was

Logan and when her sky turned black he was the only thing she could see.

This, she thought when she was a mindless mess of sensation and yearning and he finally sheathed himself inside her. This man and the razor-sharp edge he brought to things.

This was what she’d been waiting for.

Evie woke in the dark, twenty minutes before Logan had set the alarm on his phone to ring. He had to get to the airport by six. By the end of the day he’d be on the other side of the world. She didn’t want to dwell on how empty that made her feel.

Instead, Evie stretched her arms above her head gingerly, and straightened her legs, testing for tenderness and finding echoes of it in unexpected places. Inner thigh muscles, upper arms, her mouth … overstretched and puffy, and she sucked at her lower lip, checking for splits and finding one. She turned towards the man sleeping beside her, only he wasn’t asleep. Sleepy-eyed, yes, but not asleep, his gaze roved over the parts of her not covered by the sheet, and then he rolled over onto his elbow, flicked on the lamp by the bed before sliding the sheet down her body and studying the rest of her in the soft glow cast by the lamp’s light.

‘Roll over,’ he ordered and Evie did as she was told and let him continue his examination. ‘Bruise here,’ he said, and ran the pad of his thumb over the curve of her hip. ‘Red here.’ A touch on her buttocks; the soft underside of her upper arms.

‘Feels fine,’ she said and slid her hands beneath the pillow and stretched again, working out the kinks, one by one.

His fingers touched the split in the middle of her lower lip and his eyes darkened. He’d used her hard and they both knew it.

‘Sorry,’ he rumbled gruffly.

She prodded at the split with her tongue. Decided that within half a day it’d be gone. ‘Don’t be.’

Logan moved his attention to her hair next, gentle fingers sliding through it, pushing it back off her face, out of her eyes. She let him find the scar he was looking for. Let him run his fingers over it.

‘Angie—’

He hadn’t called her that all week. She knew exactly why that name had slipped from his lips now, but it wasn’t one she wanted to hear.

‘Evie,’ she corrected gently and drew his hand to the curve of her cheek instead. ‘Angie didn’t know how to pull all the scattered pieces of herself back together after a night like last night. Evie does.’

‘Who taught you?’ Possessiveness in his voice and in his eyes, and Evie thrilled to it, even as she rolled away from his touch and out of the crazily mussed-up bed.

‘No one person. You more than anyone. Experience.’ She sat on the side of the bed with her back to him and her fingers curled around the edge of the bed. She closed her eyes, tilted her head back and stretched her back out. ‘You were right about me needing more experience all those years ago. Hindsight’s a wonderful thing.’ She turned her head to look at him, expecting turmoil in his eyes and finding it. ‘I like the person I am now. I value every single experience that went into the making of her. Good and bad.’

‘Evie—’

Her name bled from his lips, apology shot through with regret. ‘Logan,’ she replied steadily. ‘If that’s regret on your lips for what we did last night I’d rather not hear it. You brought a lick of pain and a lot of intense pleasure along with your lovemaking last night and you like wielding both—don’t tell me you don’t—and I love it when you do. No analysis required. Can’t we just leave it at that?’

So he choked on whatever he’d been about to say and asked her if she wanted coffee instead.

She said yes, and watched as he stepped into sweats that rode low on his hips and disappeared down the stairs, a picture of rumpled, extremely biddable masculinity. She didn’t want coffee but Logan wanted to get away from her, or do something for her, or both, and who was Evie to argue?

She waited another moment and then rose and headed for the bathroom, somewhat tender in places, walking a little stiffly, to be sure, but nothing a shower and being up and about wouldn’t fix.

A quick shower this morning, anticipating that Logan too would want to clean up and be on his way. Go back to bed after he left, she could do that, but Evie knew she wouldn’t.

Strip the bed, put some washing on, get out of the apartment, maybe even go for a swim and let the waves wash away her tears. Keep moving, stay busy.

He came back with coffee just as she stepped from the shower and she towelled off fast and slipped into her dressing robe. Leave him with a picture of morning domesticity. A counterpoint to the memories they’d created last night.

Tossing the towel atop the clothes basket, Evie offered up a wry smile, took the coffee from his outstretched hand and headed back towards the bed, sitting cross-legged on it but pulling a sheet up around her legs to keep her honest before taking her first sip.

He’d made the coffee exactly the way she liked it.

Bastard.

She watched him pack in silence, wondering whether he still needed to collect things from the serviced apartment he’d rented for the week or whether over the course of the week he’d managed to bring everything here. He’d worked here—she knew that much. Using her home office to stay in contact with his London office and his Perth office. Getting up in the early hours of the morning when his phone rang and heading downstairs while an urgent voice on the other end of the phone demanded his attention. Rich man, but definitely still a working man with responsibilities she barely understood.

But they’d done well together this past week, nonetheless. He could be proud of that. They both could.

No need to do anything but smile once he was fully packed and his attention returned to her once more. He knelt down beside her bed and took her coffee from unprotesting hands and set it aside. He pressed butterfly kisses to the wing of her eyebrow, the curve of her cheek and finally her lips. Tender, this goodbye, and she reached up to trace his lips with her fingers, still obsessed with the shape and sensuality of them.

‘Got everything?’ she asked quietly.

‘Yes. The rest is downstairs in your office.’

She leaned forward and kissed him lightly and then once more to savour him. ‘Safe journey, Mr Black. Be happy.’ Then she pulled him into a fierce hug and closed her eyes and memorised the feel of being in his arms. ‘I’m happy. You need to know that I wouldn’t have missed one moment of this past week. With you.’

His arms tightened around her, but he didn’t speak, just buried his face in the curve of her neck, breathing in deep before slowly letting go.

And then he picked up his bag and Evie closed her eyes so that she didn’t have to see the set of his shoulders or the shape of his resolve as he headed for the stairs.

She’d done all she could. It was up to him now.

Evangeline Jones knew exactly how to love hard and with no regrets.

She needed a man bold enough to do the same.

CHAPTER EIGHT

LOGAN couldn’t get Evie out of his head. The long hours of travel couldn’t shift her. The mountain of work that awaited him upon his return served only to make him more aware of how much he wanted her around after the day’s work was done. One week after his return to London and he couldn’t look at his bed without thinking of what Evie would look like in it. Passion-blind and soaring. Shiny-slick and smiling in the aftermath. He missed the brush of her shoulder against his as she cooked in her kitchen. Being in her space; having her invade his. He hadn’t just tolerated it. He’d embraced it. A sucker for a soft touch, she’d teased him. Or a hard touch.

Any kind of touch as long as it was hers.

Only hers.

He didn’t know what to do with a need so fierce and large. Didn’t know how to make her a part of his life without demanding too much. Didn’t know how to balance Evie’s needs with his fear of one day losing control of his own desires and going too far. Of becoming possessive and controlling. Abusive. So many different ways to reach inside a person and tear them apart.

He’d texted her when he’d arrived back in London. ‘Home,’ he’d written.

And got a smiley face text in reply.

That was good, right? Not too needy or greedy on either side. Letting Evie get on with her life without him stomping all over it. Letting him get on with his.

No obsession here.

No overwhelming need to have her by his side.

Except that with each passing day Logan’s need to hear Evie’s voice and feel her touch grew stronger.

He lasted a week. One week before he rang his brother during Max’s working day on the pretext of getting Max’s opinion on converting an outer London warehouse into residential units. Max’s speciality, not his. Was Max interested in taking on the project? Developing an international profile?

Was Evie?

‘Since when have you been interested in redevelopment projects?’ came his brother’s guarded reply.

‘Since staying with Evie in her warehouse apartment,’ he countered. ‘I didn’t mind the experience.’

‘Well, aren’t you the lucky one?’ said Max with unmistakeable bite. ‘Did it ever occur to you that the reason you liked the warehouse apartment experience was because of the woman involved?’

‘If you’re not interested, all you have to do is say so,’ countered Logan coolly.

Silence from Max’s end. ‘I’ll talk it over with Evie,’ he said grudgingly. ‘I don’t know that we’re ready to take the company international. You looking to move on the warehouse fast?’

‘Don’t have to. Just letting you know it’s there. Any news on the civic centre bid?’

‘Looks promising,’ said Max. ‘There are three bids left on the table and one of them is ours.’

‘Good,’ said Logan. ‘Good. What do you know about Sinclair House?’

‘You mean Mum’s latest charity? It’s a safe house for victims of domestic abuse. She goes there once a fortnight and helps with meals or something. Why?’

‘She hit me up for a donation. Apparently they need a new roof.’ But Max’s answer had piqued Logan’s interest more than it had settled it. ‘What do you mean she goes there once a fortnight?’

‘Just what I said.’

‘She needs to stop that. It’s not safe.’

‘It’s a safe house, Logan. Heavy on the security windows and doors. Six-foot fences.’

‘Yeah, and it’s full of God knows who.’

‘Mostly battered women and children, from what I can gather. What exactly do you think they’re going to do?’

Logan shook his head. This was the difference between him and Max. Max had no goddamn idea what people were capable of. ‘Desperate people do desperate things.’

‘Yeah, and they also need help. What do you want me to do, Logan? Tell her to stop? That’d work on her almost as well as it works on you. You talk to her if you’re that concerned about it. Heaven knows she treasures every last scrap of attention you throw her.’

‘Hey, you’re the favourite.’

‘You know what? For all your legendary business acumen you’re one blind son of a bitch.’

‘Language, little brother.’

‘Screw you. Don’t start with me, Logan, or I’ll serve it straight back at you. Matter of fact I’m going to anyway. Why haven’t you called Evie? Which, by the way, she predicted.’

‘What do you mean predicted?’

‘I mean when I asked her if she’d heard from you she said no, that wasn’t part of the deal. What the hell kind of deal is that?’

‘Look, Max—’

‘Don’t you “look, Max” me. You spend a week inside a woman’s skin, she opens up her home to you and her life to you and a week later you can’t be bothered to give her five minutes of your precious time? What is wrong with you?’

‘Nothing! I was just … giving her some space.’ A gaping pit was beginning to form in Logan’s stomach at the thought that something might have happened to her. ‘Is she all right?’

‘Evie’s fine, Logan. Just peachy, thanks for asking. She does her work, she goes to the beach, she bought a Ducati road bike that goes from zero to one hundred in six point nine seconds, but don’t let that alarm you. She’s taking road-safety lessons from a former AMA Motocross champion called Duke, but don’t let that bother you either. His manners are impeccable and he knows how to use a phone.’

‘Hey, hold the PMS.’

‘You deserve the PMS. You’re treating a woman I respect and admire like a whore and she’s letting you. Doesn’t make it right.’

‘If I’d wanted a sermon I’d have gone to church.’

‘Go to hell, Logan. I vouched for you. I practically threw Evie at you, and this is how you repay me? By using her up and walking away without a backward glance? My business partner. My friend. And your loss. I’ll give your regards to Duke.’

And then Max hung up on him.

‘Who’s Duke?’ asked Evie as she strode into MEP’s outer office, head down and preoccupied, but not so unconscious that she hadn’t caught the way Max had slapped his phone down on the desk, and there was definitely no missing his scowl.

‘Duke’s the US motocross champion who’s teaching you how to ride your new Ducati,’ said Max curtly. ‘Don’t ask.’

‘Huh,’ said Evie thoughtfully. ‘Am I enjoying the process?’

‘Immensely.’

‘Good for me,’ she said. ‘Because it’s a good idea. I take it that was Logan on the phone?’

Max nodded.

Evie smiled; she couldn’t help it. ‘So what else have I been doing?’

‘Not moping,’ said Max. ‘As a true friend I’m doing my level best to ignore your current state of mope.’

‘Excellent,’ said Evie. ‘Good for you too.’

‘Do you remember how peaceful life was back in the days before we got engaged and I made the idiotic mistake of introducing you to my family?’ Max asked with a great deal of wistfulness. ‘I do.’

‘Never mind, Max. You’ll fall in love yourself one day, lose all sense of purpose, struggle mightily to keep your life on track and probably fail miserably, but trust me; I will be there to point it out to you. It’ll be my pleasure.’

‘Must be catching,’ said Logan.

‘What?’

‘PMS.’

‘Just for that I’m not bringing you back any lunch.’

‘I’ll remember that when I’m rich and you want lunch. No champagne. No caviar. No lobster.’

‘No problem. I’ve lived on tuna sandwiches before. I can do it again.’

‘Maybe I should reassure Logan that you’re not interested in his money,’ said Max. ‘Might help.’

‘Tell him whatever the hell you like,’ said Evie, doing an about turn and heading for the door. ‘Maybe I could be flying fighter jets next time he calls. Stunt biplanes.’

‘Get me a tuna sandwich,’ Max called after her. ‘And I won’t tell him how much you’re missing him.’

‘Thank you.’

Evie heard the catch in her voice, but she kept on going because if she turned around and saw sympathy in Max’s eyes, her carefully constructed world without Logan in it would probably come tumbling down. ‘For that I’ll bring you two.’

Logan called her that night, at her apartment rather than at work, and for that Evie was grateful. Eight-thirty p.m. her time and eleven-thirty a.m. in London. Middle of a businessman’s day and she wondered where he was calling from, whether he’d squeezed her in between meetings, and most of all she clutched the phone and closed her eyes and concentrated on the sound of his voice saying her name. Some time soon she was going to have to speak, but not yet. Not until he said her name again.

Which he did.

‘Hey,’ she said. Best she could do—she was fresh out of amiable greetings.

‘Max tells me you bought a Ducati.’ Guess Logan was all out of pleasant small talk too.

‘So I heard,’ offered Evie.

‘Which one?’

‘The red one that goes really, really fast.’ And there ended Evie’s knowledge of motorbikes and her taste for silly lies. ‘I didn’t buy a Ducati, Logan. Your brother’s messing with you.’

‘He’s not the only one.’

‘Could be you bring it on yourself,’ she murmured. ‘Best guess.’

‘I should have called you a week ago,’ he said.

‘Only if you wanted me to feel valued.’ She let her comment hang for a moment, because she was nobody’s pushover and he needed to know that. ‘If, on the other hand, you were sorting out a few issues, like, say, the difference between wanting to stay in touch with someone and being so unhealthily obsessed with someone that you couldn’t live without them … If a little bit of thinking time bought you some clarity on that issue … I’d call that time well spent.’

She could almost hear his brain churning.

‘Generous of you,’ he said finally, his voice sounding as if he’d just eaten a mile of gravel road.

‘For you I can be generous.’

‘So how’ve you been?’ More gravel. Filler conversation.

‘Okay.’ Wasn’t as if he was going to call her a liar. ‘Work’s been slow and I’m thinking of painting the ceiling of my apartment dark red.’

‘Evangeline, parts of your ceiling are three storeys high.’

‘I own half a construction company, Logan. There’s this equipment called scaffolding.’

‘I’m assuming you have people called employees as well?’

‘So speaks the multimillionaire.’ Evie rolled her eyes. ‘I like painting. It’s therapeutic. Besides, if you want something done right, do it yourself.’

‘Don’t say that,’ he said with what Evie could have sworn was an underlying note of panic.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’ve just created two new senior operations manager positions and filled them and I’m now on the hunt for a senior finance manager.’

‘So … you’re expanding?’