Page 11 of Winter’s Fire

~~*~~

If she’d really wanted to, she’d have taken that step.

Lucy hadn’t expected still to feel the echo of that kiss on her way home hours later. Logan had offered her a ride, but one look at his monster of a motorcycle was all she’d needed to decline. Even though he had a spare helmet, there was no way she was riding pillion on that thing. If something as relatively fleeting as a kiss could affect her so profoundly, what would plastering herself to his back do to her peace of mind?

Who was she kidding? Whatever peace of mind she might have had, that kiss had effectively annihilated it.

Nursing a mug of tea, Lucy curled up on the sofa. Certain thoughts, fuzzy and indistinct, had been lurking at the back of her mind all afternoon, but with distance had come some clarity.

Including the fact that it was time to face some home truths about her attitude to Logan and what it concealed. She used the authoritarian manner she reserved for him and him alone to camouflage an attraction she fought every day to deny. Some days she won the battle—other days she lost it, and made the most of any and every pretext to get him into the office, just to see him and spend time in his presence, even if they were at loggerheads over some minor administrative matter or other.

And if she’d thought Logan attractive before he kissed her… Lucy touched her fingertip to her lower lip. She wanted more of those searing kisses. What would have happened if the darkness swirling around him hadn’t scared her away from him soon after they first met? Would anything about her have attracted him enough for him to—

Probably not. A man like Logan had particular tastes, and a woman like her wasn’t an item on his kind of menu.

The implications of what she was taking on ploughed into her with the force of a runaway train. It wasn’t only the lifestyle stuff, all the protocols, rituals and conventions—her head was already spinning from that. No, what made things a thousand times worse was the prospect of working alongside Logan and making him believe she was faking the attraction she truly felt.

She’d have to be so careful, but what if she let something slip and gave away her true feelings? At best, that could create a difficult atmosphere between them. At worst, he could use her feelings as if they were a weapon in their arsenal for the mission, with no thought for the impact of such ruthlessness on her.

A grunt of humourless laughter broke from her. Maybe that would be the best—then she could grow the thick skin she’d need to succeed in this line of work.

And yet… when their lips had parted, she could have sworn there was a tremble of hesitation about Logan, as if he’d felt something more. Might he want more of those kisses, too? Could a man kiss like that and not feel anything at all? Not love, she wasn’t that foolish, but enough attraction to take it further? Just a few hours from now he’d be taking her into his home, and…

She wanted him. That was the truth in its baldest form. He was a Dom, she was pretty darn sure she wasn’t submissive, but her neglected lady parts had won and she wanted Logan Simmonds. It didn’t make any kind of sense, but there it was, the elephant in the room she’d been avoiding for weeks. Going undercover could be just what she needed, a heaven-sent opportunity to get him out of her system, or…

Or what? Lucy didn’t know—all she did know was that she needed to tell Logan about her change of heart, that instead of faking a relationship, maybe they could do it for real.

Going ahead, though, depended on one thing—whether her nerve held when she called him later on tonight or not, and right now the smart money wasn’t betting on her…

~~*~~

When Logan had fitted out the spare bedroom with the bare essentials, he’d never expected to get much use out of it. Any male visitors were likely to be too rat-arsed to stumble far from the sofa, and his days of providing overnight accommodation for subs had ended long before he moved to this place.

These days, he confined his pleasure to Aegis, and to submissives who wanted nothing more from him than a good time and a few earth-shattering orgasms in a club setting. He’d distanced himself mentally and emotionally from anything more fulfilling because God knew, anyone with a soul as tainted as his didn’t deserve it.

Logan kicked the bleak thoughts to the furthest reaches of his consciousness, where they belonged. There was no point in dwelling on what something that could never be a part of his life again. Besides, he had to finish the preparations for Lucy’s arrival.

He’d already confirmed the arrangements with her, so didn’t expect to hear from her until the next morning. When her name popped up on his smartphone, his sixth sense for trouble kicked in with a vengeance.

“Lucy. Everything okay?”

“Yes, fine, thanks. You’re not busy, are you? Do you have a few minutes? I need to talk to you.”

He braced himself—was this where she softened him up before backing out of the op? “Sure. What’s the problem?”

“I’ve been thinking… About the discussion we had earlier.”

Oh yeah, this was it, all right. Logan shifted his phone to his other ear and dropped onto the couch, swinging his feet up to sprawl in comfort. If she was about to blow his mission to hell, he might as well relax while she did it. “Go on.”

“You said the people there… the other guests, the staff… We need to do this right—we can’t be half-hearted about it. We have to be convincing.”

Okay, not quite what he expected, but he’d have to work on her communication skills. “Lucy, I’m not psychic—just come out with it.”

“I mean we can’t fake it—I can’t fake it.”

Which told him precisely nothing. “What are you trying to tell me?”

What followed was one of the loudest silences he’d ever heard. He wondered briefly if he’d be collecting his pension before it ended.