Fyre & Revenge (16 page)

“On your own
for years?” A frown of confusion creased Logan’s brow. “We weren’t
married for long?”

She paused,
just a fraction of a second but long enough for him to notice. But
just as quickly she shrugged. “Not long enough to get out of the
habit. Besides, you were always away.”

He grabbed a
towel and started drying. “I thought I might have been.” He tsked
in annoyance at himself—at his past self. “I was an idiot, a total
idiot. I’m sorry.”

She slid him a
sideways glance, her beautiful dark eyes still guarded, but perhaps
with a little bit of hope in them. Logan hoped so; he’d give
anything to see those eyes unguarded. Looking at him with hope and
affection, the look of a woman in love. A woman in love with
him
. He had a feeling that hadn’t happened often in his
life, and he would be an idiot to let this chance go. And he was
going to make sure it didn’t slip away.

He put the last
pot on the side, dropped the towel next to it and turned to her.
Watching as she soaped down the side with a soapy sponge, cleaning
up after them with the practical efficiency he’d noted before. A
smile curved his lips. She’d make a good mother. He bit back a
groan as the thought of her, belly swollen with his child and
glowing, filled his mind. The image took his breath away as he
realised he wanted that, more than anything.

He moved
towards her. She jumped as his hands slid around her waist,
enclosing her in his arms to pull her back against his hard
body.

“Logan! I’m
cleaning up!” she protested, but he ignored her, burying his face
into the curve of her neck and shoulder. Eyes closed, he sighed,
absorbing the feel of her against him, breathing in her scent. She
smelt fantastic, the faint scent of shower gel and shampoo, apple
shampoo, enveloping him like an aromatic security blanket. He moved
and kissed her neck as she wriggled to get free, letting go with
reluctance.

“Sorry.” He
chuckled as she slid out of his gasp and retreated to the other
side of the kitchen. “I always seem to be apologising around you.
Suppose I should get used to it. Okay, is there anything else I can
do?”

Rae shook her
head, looking around the little kitchen, now returned to its former
spick and span condition. “Not at the moment. How about you head on
in and I’ll bring the coffee through in a moment?”

Logan nodded,
recognising when a woman needed a bit of space, and tactically
withdrew. He paused in the doorway, his broad back to her. “Rae,
what I said in the car… I meant it. Whatever went wrong, we can fix
it, I promise.”

* * *

Rae released a
ragged breath after he disappeared through the door. Okay, this was
getting harder and harder now. Logan was, simply put, sweet.
Without the arrogant attitude he’d had when they first met—
the
attitude he’d had when he had all his memories you mean
, a
little voice in the back of her head said snidely—he was just a
really sweet, romantic sort of guy. A guy who was determined to
make this ‘failed marriage’ work. One she could find herself
falling in love with. Which was the trouble—she needed Logan to
fall for her, not the other way around.

She leaned back
against the counter and ran her hands through her hair. She could
handle this. She had to handle this, she was in too far to quit
now. Besides, how did she tell the hot guy wandering around her
living room she wasn’t who he thought she was?

Sorry
Logan, slight mix up at the hospital, the woman you thought was
your wife got mixed up with the wife of the guy in room eight
.
If only it were that simple. It wasn’t like a mix up in the
delivery room, which was thankfully rare these days. She had to see
it to the end.

* * *

Logan stood in
the middle of Rae’s living room, looking around. He’d seen it
earlier, when she’d given him the ‘grand tour,’ a tour which hadn’t
taken long given the size of the place. With two bedrooms—one of
them used for storing Rae’s therapy supplies, one bathroom and
three reception rooms, it had been tiny to start with. That was
before the dining room had been converted to a therapy room for Rae
to run her business out of.

He shook his
head, pacing around the clear space in the centre of the room, a
space barely big enough for him to take two or three steps. Logan’s
inner businessman told him a business this far out of town would
struggle from the get-go. Especially with the main house all shut
up and deserted as Rae had mentioned.

What she
needed, Logan decided as he looked out of the back window and into
the darkened garden beyond, was the Manor converting to a hotel.
Perhaps something swish and exclusive to draw in customers—the sort
with an expendable income and three different therapists on call.
His lip curled, a slight derisive sneer threatening.

He’d never
understood that, the need for ‘therapy’ on a regular basis. At
least with what Rae did, there was a physical benefit. That he
could understand and appreciate. Not sitting in a chair having some
guy tell him the reason he had trouble staying with one woman was
because his mother hadn’t paid him enough attention when he was a
child. No, thank you very much. His amnesia seemed limited to
recent events—he remembered his mother clearly enough, far more
clearly than he wanted to. Even as a child he’d wanted to have as
little to do with the drunken cow as possible.

But massage
therapy he could understand as being beneficial. Perhaps he should
ask Rae to look at his shoulders; they’d been aching all day.
Probably muscular tension from the accident. He rolled them again,
standing in front of the large log fire to absorb the heat. The
gatehouse was an old building and even though Rae kept it heated,
it was still cold outside the range of the fire.

He moved as
close to the fire as possible without burning his jeans. His eye
wandered idly over the mantelpiece. The usual sort of knickknacks
littered the top—an eclectic little collection of small pot dragons
and cats. Logan smiled to himself, that Rae collected such things
didn’t surprise him. There were letters stuffed behind the clock,
no doubt left to be dealt with at a later date.

Logan frowned,
the logo on the corner of one was just visible. It seemed familiar
to him. Reaching out, he tweaked the edge from the stack a little
further. A combined J and an F in a curly font. It struck a chord
deep in his memory. He’d seen this logo before. It meant something
to him. He pulled the letter free and flicked it open, feeling
guilty for spying.

“
Dear R.
Borne
…”

“What the
bloody
hell
do you think you’re doing?”

* * *

The bedroom was
shrouded in darkness, with only the soft light of the moon
filtering through the curtains at the small windows. With the
heating off, the chill from the thick stone walls stole into the
room and started to settle in for the night.

The tall figure
spread across the bed filling most of the room didn’t seem to
notice. Either that or he didn’t mind the cold, the floral
patterned duvet pushed down to his waist and one arm raised to
pillow his head. His eyes, turned to silver in the filtered
moonlight, studied the ceiling above him.

Something was
wrong here. Very, very wrong. His ears still rang from the dressing
down Rae had given him after she’d caught him with her letter. He
hadn’t had chance to scan past the name before she’d snatched it
out of his hands, ringing a peal over him for reading her mail. For
invading her privacy like he owned the place. He’d tried to
apologise but she’d been stiff and on edge for the rest of the
night.

Damn it, what a
prize idiot! Why couldn’t he have respected her privacy? Everything
would have been fine. She’d started to warm up to him, relaxing a
little into his arms when he’d held her in the kitchen. He shifted
on the bed, settling into a more comfortable position. But the
niggling feeling he was missing something just wouldn’t go away,
his brain picking at the edges of the puzzle like a schoolboy
picked at the scab on a grazed knee.

She was wary
around him. They were separated, so who knew what sort of crap he’d
put her through. Not physically though, he was sure of that. Logan
knew without asking or thinking he’d never hit a woman, no matter
what the provocation. No, he suspected it was along the lines of a
mind game.

He half turned
and pummelled the pillow viciously. He couldn’t sleep. No matter
how hard he tried he couldn’t forget this was Rae’s bed. She should
be lying here in comfort under the thick feather duvet instead of
him. Instead she was cramped up on the couch downstairs in a
sleeping bag.

He lay back
down, a heavy sigh expanding his broad chest. Okay, it wasn’t just
that. He was having trouble with the idea of her lying naked
between these sheets, all soft curves waiting to be explored.

He groaned and
buried his head under the pillow. His body leapt to full attention,
his cock hardening in an instant, fed by the erotic images in his
mind. Images of how Rae looked, the feeling of her soft body
pressed against his… Her taste.

Oh God, how she
tasted! Like strawberries and champagne on a hot summer’s day.

Unbidden, his
hand smoothed down his taut stomach, cupping his stiff cock under
the sheets. He slept naked, another thing he knew instinctively, so
there was nothing in the way as his fingers wrapped around his
shaft. He fisted himself slowly, unable to get images of Rae out of
his head as his need grew.

He shivered,
pushing the pillow back as his neck arched, the hand on his cock
coiling the lust in him tighter. His hips jerked, his ass brushing
against the cool crisp cotton as he imagined burying himself in her
warm depths over and over again. She’d feel fantastic, like warm
silk around him. Like coming home.

He pushed the
duvet out the way, goose bumps racing over his skin as the cool air
hit. His fist worked faster on his cock. His eyes shut tight, he
shuddered, lips parting as the ache in his loins intensified to
near pain. He needed to come, and badly. Rae’s image held in his
mind, he fell into a fantasy of seducing her. His grip grew firmer
until, with a stifled cry, his body jerked. He moaned, holding his
cock against his belly as it pulsed and spasmed, spurts of
white-hot come splattering over his belly. Gasping, he waited until
the pleasurable aftershocks faded away, and rolled off the bed to
clean himself up.

Much later that
night he woke abruptly, his eyes snapping open in the darkness.
Eyes crystal clear as his memory started to flood back. Back to the
accident and what he’d been doing in Ashton on Sea in the first
place.

His breath
hissed from his lungs as his eyes narrowed. Tracking down a guy
called Ray Borne, who’d turned out to be a siren of a woman called
Raelyn Borne. The same siren who was posing as his wife for some
unknown reason.

He sat up,
running his hand through his close cropped blond hair. His two sets
of memories were meshing badly at the moment, sleep still lingering
in the recesses of his brain. There were some fuzzy patches, but he
was fairly sure he wasn’t married. In fact, he was sure he’d
never
been married. Where was his phone? He needed his
phone. He needed to talk to JJ. His best friend for years, long
before they’d joined forces in their pet project, Jensen and
Fyre.

He paused in
the middle of pulling on his jeans. The letter! No wonder Rae
hadn’t wanted him to read it! It was from him about buying her
property. He remembered signing the damn thing a couple of weeks
ago. A muscle in his jaw jumped, the only outward sign of his
irritation, and he headed for the door on silent feet.

It took him
less than a minute to make his way down the stairs, pausing every
so often to make sure they didn’t squeak. Why he was being so
secretive he didn’t know. But for the moment, he didn’t want Rae to
know he had his memory back. At least not until he knew what her
game was.

He reached the
door at the bottom of the stairs, placing his hand on the wood and
pushing it open slowly. The fire had died out now, the embers
glowing in the grate. It looked pretty but cast no heat, the chill
from the rest of the house invading the living room. Rae was curled
up in a tiny ball, a rounded mass of pink flowered sleeping bag
with a ponytail.

Pink sleeping
bag? Who on earth bought a
pink
sleeping bag? With yellow
flowers? He shook his head as he padded over the carpet, heading
for the kitchen. At six foot three he’d never have fit in the
thing, not without the risk of serious cramping in the morning. Rae
was so tiny, though, she could almost lie down full length and not
worry.

He stopped just
inside the kitchen, closing the door with a soft click. He hissed
as his bare fleet contacted the cold floor tiles.

“Jesus, how
cold is it in here?” he muttered, his toes curling up to try and
avoid the cold as he headed over to the table in the corner. His
phone was where he’d left it, on the table next to the salt and
pepper pots, the charging lead tethering it to the power point.

He picked it
up, snapped the connector out of the socket with a practised motion
and slid it open. Quickly he thumbed through his address book,
looking for JJ’s number. The familiar number flashed up and he hit
dial, lifting the phone to his ear and leaning back against the
counter.

Almost
instantly the call connected and started to ring. Logan flicked a
glance towards the closed door, worried about the sound of a
conversation waking Rae in the other room. The door was good, solid
wood though, and she hadn’t moved or murmured when he walked
through. If he kept his voice down, he shouldn’t wake her.

The call was
picked up and a sleep-roughened male voice demanded, “Logan, this
had better be fucking good. I
just
got Lexi back to sleep
and if I don’t get some sleep myself that bastard Ryland’s going to
be all over my ass in that merger meeting tomorrow.”