Authors: Patricia Wilson
When she
had been with Logan they had travelled overseas and been out regularly to all
the smart places in London. Logan had simply piled things on her, spoiling her
all the time, enjoying seeing her face when he came home with something new and
glamorous for her.
Glamour
was what she needed now and Abigail sat down on the edge of her bed and
wondered if she had the nerve to go and raid the flat. She had a key. After
that first fiasco when she had almost not been able to get in, she had put a
spare key in her bag. Logan was staying at the house. He wouldn’t even know she
had been back to the flat until he saw the clothes she was wearing. He probably
wouldn’t even remember them. His memories would be of Fenella’s clothes.
It was
that last thought that launched her into action. Why not? The clothes were
still hers and so was the jewellery. She left the house in the late afternoon
and drove to London to get them.
There was an unnatural
darkness about the afternoon when she pulled up outside the flat and Abigail
glanced at the sky to see black clouds gathering. She frowned at them and then
ran up the steps to the door. She didn’t want to be caught in a downpour. This
would have to be a quick raid but she already knew what she would take away
with her.
The
silence was a little alarming as she stepped into the quiet of the flat,
because it was a silence laced with memories and every one of them about Logan. She shrugged them off, took off her coat and went determinedly to the bedroom.
When she had been here last she had been too filled with anxiety about her father
to let any atmosphere really sink into her mind but now it was different.
The whole
place sang of Logan and she knew without being told that since she had left him
four years ago he had spent most of his time here. Maybe he had stayed here
because the house irritated him. After all, this place had been his before he
had met her but the house they had chosen together and made into a home
together. This had really always been Logan’s place and it still was.
She
squashed maudlin thoughts about any women he might have brought here since she
had left. This was not the time to allow herself to sink into any kind of
emotional crisis. And there would have been just one woman in any case. She
already knew who that was.
Abigail
marched resolutely to the bedroom, her eyes turned only on the door to the
dressing room that had been hers. There was a huge walk-in wardrobe in there
and it was filled with necessities. She had neither the time, the money nor the
inclination to go on some exhausting shopping spree. Everything she needed
would be right here and all she had to do was collect the things and take them
home to pack.
At first
it was easy. The clothes, dresses, suits and gowns were still in the same
pristine condition and she began to select things briskly, putting them on the
end of the bed. She had no idea how long they would be staying so the selection
she took had to be carefully thought out. Her initial panic-stricken notion—to
scoop up the lot and depart—had to be curbed.
After
much thought and consideration, though, she calmed down, and from time to time
it was necessary to try on a few things. Her slender figure had not altered one
bit in the past four years but perhaps now some things would not suit her more
subdued appearance.
Far from
not sulking, they threw her back into the glow she had once felt. The colours
lit up her face and after a while a smile warmed her lips as she regained the
confidence that she had grown into with Logan. She begun a methodical trying-on
of everything she had selected and the clothes she had arrived in were left
tossed over the back of a chair.
Abigail
bad only a vague realisation that the threatened rain had started. Then one
quick glance at the bedroom window assured her that it was already pounding
down. She tossed a bright red raincoat onto the growing pile of clothes. It
might not rain in California but she was taking no chances. She gave a little
giggle at the thought and that was when a noise behind her alerted her to the
fact that she was no longer alone in the silent flat.
She spun
round, her green eyes wide with alarm, and saw that Logan was leaning
indolently against the open bedroom door, his eyes moving over her with
sensuous appreciation.
‘Don’t
panic,’ he warned in that dark, velvet voice. ‘I thought we were being robbed.’
Abigail
didn’t like the intimate sound of ‘we’ and she turned quickly away, not knowing
what to do when she realised that she was standing there staring at him and her
only covering was her silky white panties. She had been forced to take off her
slip to try on some of the low-cut gowns and she hadn’t bothered to put it back
on again.
‘Please
go out and shut the door, Logan,’ she choked, but he made no move to leave.
‘I know
what you look like, Abbie,’ he reminded her softly. ‘I know every inch of you.
I know the fed of your silken skin, the way your black hair flows over those
soft shoulders and down your back. I’ve never forgotten and you look the same.
You’ll feel the same if
I
touch you.’
‘Please, Logan!’ she begged shakily. She was trembling with a mixture of alarm and unexpected
excitement. There had been no other man in her life either before or since
Logan and she was afraid of the instant reaction of her body to the dark sound
of his voice, terrified at the way his words seemed to slide into her ‘muttons
like a slow caress’.
‘I’m not
touching you at all, Abbie,’ he reminded her, his voice deepening huskily.
‘Words can’t hurt you.’
She made
a wild grab for a dress, holding it up in front of her although she was still
turned away from him, but he was behind her before she could speak again.
‘Don’t
hide,’ he said thickly. ‘It’s too late to hide. I’ve already seen you. I told
you when I brought you here from the hospital that you had to undress yourself
because I knew how I would feel.’ His breath was warm against her shoulder and
his hand ran along her trembling flesh and under the black fall of her hair.
‘Do you think I’m made of stone, Abbie?’
‘I—I
didn’t know you were here,’ she gasped desperately. ‘I didn’t think you would
come.’
‘I was
passing and I saw your car,’ he murmured darkly, his hands beginning to mould
her shoulders suggestively. ‘I wondered what you were up to. I never expected
to find you like this.’
‘I came
to—to get some clothes,’ she managed breathlessly. ‘I was trying them on.’ Logan laughed softly, his lips coming to trail along her shoulder as he bent his head.
‘Keep
talking, Abbie,’ he advised in a low voice. ‘It’s safer.’
‘I’m
going!’ She stiffened, fighting the drugging sound of his voice, the tempting
pressure of his fingers. She dared not stay like this. Everything inside her
was melting towards him. She tried to move away and he reached for the dress
she still held before her in a forlorn attempt al protection. He dropped it on
the floor and his hands slid round her waist as he pulled her back against the
hard warmth of his body.
‘Don’t,’
he ordered huskily. ‘You said that to me once. ‘Don’t leave me, Logan.’ You also said, ‘forever.’
His hands moved upwards to
cover her breasts and his head bent to kiss the side of her neck. ‘I still want
you, Abigail. I warned you.’
‘It’s not
fair!’ She sobbed out the words and he tilted her head back, his caressing
hands moving over her curves, making her treacherous body begin to yield
against him.
‘Nothing
is fair,’ he agreed deeply. ‘I found that out a long time ago.’ His lips moved
over her cheeks and down to the curve of her jaw. ‘This has nothing to do with
fairness. This is desire and it’s burning you too, sweet Abigail. You want me.’
Outside,
the rain was pouring; the bedroom was only softly lit by the one lamp she had
switched on as she’d come in. It was like another world, a place out of time,
only dreamed of, and Abigail sank into the temptation of Logan’s insistent
hands and sensual words. For so long she had missed his touch and she gave a
low murmur of anguish. When he turned her she moved submissively against him,
her breath a sob of pleasure as he caught her close and brought his mouth down
on hers.
His hands
ran over her as his lips held her captive and she moved with mounting pleasure
beneath the ardent pressure of his fingers. Everything inside her was aroused,
hungry, and the sensual warmth of his breath when he lifted his head to place
hot kisses on her neck was like a well-remembered flame.
Her arms
wound around his neck and she simply gave in to the burning hunger that had
never really left her. The thought of Logan that she had kept hidden in her
mind for four years was now wildly alive and all other thoughts fled. It was
like being held for the first time, the excitement threatening to make her
faint.
‘Logan!’
she sobbed out his name and his arms clasped her tightly as he lifted her and
lowered her to the bed, his hand sweeping the beautiful garments to the floor.
‘I
know,’ he breathed thickly. ‘It hurts, Abigail... doesn’t it? It’s like a hot
knife inside.’ He hovered her, discarding his jacket, his shirt pulled
impatiently over his head as he almost tore off his tie. ‘Does Wingate know
what you like as much as I do? Can he make you drift to the very edge of
consciousness in his arms?’
He came
down on top of her before she could protest, before she could even think of
denying her relations with Brian. It was too late then. Her body was already
yearning, sensitised to the point of despair by the touch of his skin against
hers.
‘Abigail.’
He clasped her face in his hands as he rested on strong forearms, his weight
only lightly on the flat smoothness of her stomach. ‘You know I won’t stop now,
don’t you? You know I can’t.’
She
couldn’t answer. Her lips were trembling and her only way of showing her
acquiescence was to touch his face with delicate fingers as her eyes, wide and
green, looked into his.
‘Dear
heavens! He muttered hoarsely. ‘You’ve no idea how you look, have you? ‘You’ve
never known how much want you, how obsessed I am with this silken body.’
His lips
covered hers almost violently and she made no move at all to resist him. Her
own lips opened willingly and she moved against him softly and insistently as
he slid out of the rest of his clothes without even moving his mouth from hers.
She felt
his hands on her, sliding away the only covering she had, and then their bodies
were touching completely for the first time in the long four years.
‘Logan!’ She cried his name wildly and heard his dark, sinuous laughter.
‘I’m
here, my lovely,’ he said with an almost ferocious satisfaction. ‘I know that
frantic cry. I remember, Abigail.’
After
that there was no more talking. There was just the delirious rapture of Logan’s touch, his deep, penetrating kisses and the frenzied movements of her own body as
she strained to be even closer. The demanding murmurs of her own voice were
still as familiar to her own ears as they were to Logan and his hands
restrained her as his lips coaxed and teased.
‘Now, my
wild little Abbie,’ he whispered thickly when she was sobbing his name and
running her fingers madly through his thick hair. ‘Tell me.’
‘I want
you.’ She gasped out the words that he had always demanded, her hands clutching
him to her, and she heard his low, masculine growl of satisfaction. She had
heard it so many times before, his pleasure at her total commitment to him, and
she sighed as her world shattered around her, light and colour mingling with
velvet darkness as, after so long, Logan held her tightly and took her into
another dimension that drove everything else away. Abigail rocked on the edge
of consciousness, drowning in sensation, only the tight clasp of Logan’s arms keeping her in the world.
‘Shh,’ he
whispered, his voice like a light in the engulfing darkness. ‘It’s all right.
I’m here. Shh.’ He stroked back her hair with gentle hands and it was the
well-remembered sound of the soothing words that broke the spell holding her in
another place. She fell to earth, trembling violently, and Logan tucked her
close to him, wrapping his arms around her.
‘Shh,’ he
said softly. ‘You’ve not changed, have you? You always felt too much, Abigail.
Holding you to the earth was always a fight. What would happen if I let you go,
do you think? Where would that eager body, that wildly soaring mind take you? I
never dared take the chance of finding out.’
He held
her silently until the violent spasm of crying quieted, and cold numbing
reality came back. Sheer, stark grief engulfed her then. What had she done?
What had she let happen? Logan loved her no more now than he had ever done. The
loving had all been hers from the first. He wanted her and nothing more.
She felt
betrayed, not by him but by herself; all her principles had been abandoned, her
integrity shattered. She had held herself aloof, planning to make a new life
when this was over, and the moment he had touched her she had collapsed into
his arms.
Abigail
turned away from him, struggling to sit up and reaching for her clothes.