Club Destiny 1 Conviction (31 page)

“Damn it, Sam! What do you think
you get? You walked in on part of a conversation, and without giving me a
chance to explain, you stormed off.” He yelled, hoping to get her attention.

“I heard all I needed to hear.”
She screamed back at him.

Logan was sure she hadn’t heard
what he said, though she’d had a proper come back. Taking a step closer, he
kept his hands to his side. He didn’t trust himself to touch her. Not that he
would ever hurt her, but he wanted to shake her with the intensity of his
anger.

“
What
? You heard me
telling Deanna that I fucking had dinner with Heather. That’s all you heard,
Sam.”

Sam flinched as though he’d hit
her. The brunt force of the words was out before he could stop them, but he
didn’t try to take them back. She wasn’t listening, and based on the change in
her demeanor, Sam had shut down altogether, right before his very eyes.

Closing the gap between them,
Logan got almost in her face. Their height difference caused her to look up at
him, but he didn’t back away.

“It isn’t what you think.” He
lowered his voice, letting the excessive energy drain from his body.

“It doesn’t matter what I think
it is, Logan. I learned a valuable lesson today. I learned that I am not strong
enough to endure a relationship with you.”

She could have just slapped him,
her words having the same effect. Retaliating with words wasn’t going to get
him anywhere, yet Logan wasn’t going down without a fight.

Gently tilting her chin up, Logan
forced her to look at him. He leaned in, bringing their faces closer together,
needing to make his point. “You’re the strongest woman I have ever met.
Trusting me wasn’t easy for you, but you did trust me, Sam. I need you to
keep
trusting me.”

When she would have argued, he
stopped her by interrupting. “What I feel for you isn’t superficial. Heather
would never be able to distract me from you.”

He’d captured her attention,
making her think about his meaning. Logan could see her confusion, knew he’d
inserted doubt in her mind. When tears welled up in her eyes, Logan cupped her
face. “God, Sam. You really don’t get it, do you?”

He brushed a kiss over her lips,
still cupping her face so she couldn’t back away. “I didn’t go to California to
have dinner with Heather. She set me up.” Logan explained, feeling Sam’s body
tense. “I would have never gone to California if I had known what I was walking
into. There wasn’t an issue with At Last’s contract. Heather manipulated the
entire thing. Then, to top it off, when I told her that I had actually met
someone, she did some digging and she found out about you.”

Sam pulled back quickly, his
hands slipping from her cheeks. She was definitely listening now. Logan didn’t
want her to have a chance to think about how lousy things could be, so he
continued. “Xavier called me into his office this afternoon. He knows about
us.”

“Oh God, Logan, I’m so sorry.”
Sam turned and started pacing the floor.

What?
What the hell was she sorry
about? Logan hadn’t expected the sudden turn, so he just stared at her, his
eyes tracking her every movement as she wore a path in the carpet.

“Maybe I can go back to San
Antonio. I didn’t mean for this to happen anyway. Yes, it would be better for
me to go back.”

Sam would have rambled more,
except Logan grabbed her arm, stopping her back and forth momentum, pulling her
flush against him. Gripping her arms, he held her back just enough to see her
face. “I’m not letting you walk out of my life, so you can forget about San
Antonio. We’ll work out any issues. Xavier understands what’s going on.”

“But, what if they think –”

“Trust me, Sam.” Logan gripped
her chin more forcefully than before.

Sam’s palms were pressed against
his chest, her face inches from his, and he knew she felt the way his heart
thundered. She relaxed against him, and her body shuddered, making him pull her
against him, his chin resting on the top of her head.

“I do trust you, Logan. That’s
what the problem is. I trust you and I know that I can’t compete with anyone or
anything for your attention.”

Holding her close, Logan inhaled
the sweet citrus scent of her hair, felt the soft skin of her arms beneath his
fingertips. At least they were making progress, but he didn’t expect this to be
easy. Nothing worth fighting for ever was.

“We owe it to each other and to
whatever this is between us to discuss this further.”

She nodded her head against his
chest, her hands sliding around to his back, sending a frisson of heat coursing
through him. When Sam touched him, his world slowed, and nothing mattered
except the feel of her hands on him.

“This hurts Logan. The pain in my
chest is almost unbearable. The worst part of it is I don’t want this to be
over, but I know I’m no longer in control.”

She controlled more than she
would ever know where he was concerned.

Feeling the need to explain,
while she was giving him the chance, Logan started talking, still holding her
close. “I didn’t even know Heather worked for At Last. I haven’t talked to her
or seen her in eight years. Seeing her there caught me off guard, but the only
thing I could think about was you.”

“You never even called. I waited
for you to call and you didn’t. What was I supposed to think when I hear you
telling Deanna that you had dinner with Heather?”

She was right. He hadn’t called.
Trying to come up with a backup plan while preparing to discuss the extent of
the negotiations At Last called him there for, Logan managed to stay busy.
That’s what he tried to tell himself anyway.

If he was honest with himself,
and Sam, Logan had avoided calling her so he could contemplate the feelings he
had for her. They hit him unexpectedly and being the reasonable business man
that he is, he had spent time trying to think about the pros and cons of how he
felt about her.

This was one of the cons. He
didn’t want to fight with her. He didn’t want to hurt her. And he didn’t want
to get hurt. But, the reasonable side of him knew if he didn’t take the chance
and risk all of those things, then he would miss out on what was probably the
best thing to ever happen to him.

“You’re right. I didn’t call. I
should have. It isn’t because I didn’t think about you, because I did.” Logan
pulled back, gripping her shoulders in his hands as he looked her in the eye.
“You have to realize that the things going through your mind are the same
things going through mine. I’m trying to get my head around this situation, as
well. It happened so fast, and sometimes I wonder if it’s real.”

~~  ** 
~~  **  ~~  **  ~~

To think, Logan McCoy was
actually human.

What had she expected?

Sam felt lower than ever,
realizing throughout this entire ordeal, she’d given no thought to Logan or his
feelings. She’d been selfish, believing she was the only one who could be hurt.
She had been so wrapped up in protecting herself and being prepared for the
worst that she didn’t even stop to think about how he felt.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, once
again pressing her face against the fabric of his shirt. He smelled terrific.
Like fabric softener and some sort of spicy musk.

“I don’t want you to be sorry.
The real lesson, that we both need to learn, is we’ve both been burned, so it’s
alright to be cautious, but we have to give each other a chance.”

Looking up into his hazel eyes,
seeing the furrow in his brow, Sam contemplated the wisdom of his words. He was
right, though she didn’t want to admit it. Holding on to the fear, even the
anger, was so much easier than giving herself over unconditionally to this man.
“Now what?”

“If you’ll let me, I’d like to
explain exactly what happened this weekend.”

With minimal reluctance, all of
the fight officially drained out of her, Sam agreed to hear him out. Logan
talked, answering her questions when she had them, and not only did he tell her
the logistics, he admitted to the way he felt.

As the conversation wound down,
Sam couldn’t stifle her yawn. Despite her earlier nap, she was exhausted,
wanting nothing more than to curl up in Logan’s arms and sleep for hours. Maybe
days.

When he glanced at his watch, Sam
knew they were about to call it a night. She was torn between how it might end.

“I need to go. I’ve kept you up
long enough, and you need some sleep.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

Logan smiled, gifting Sam with a
peek of his sexy dimple. “Does that mean you want me to stay?”

No more beating around the bush.
It was after midnight, and Sam didn’t want to waste another minute. “Yes. I
want you to stay.”

“Then I’ll stay.”

Taking his hand in hers, Sam led
him to her bedroom, suddenly revived and no longer anxious for sleep. As they
neared the bed, he turned to face her, pulling her against him, their bodies
aligning like they were made for one another.

Sam loved the way she fit against
him, his sheer size making her feel small. And compared to him, she was small,
but when his arms wrapped around her, she fit perfectly inside of them, but
more importantly, his mouth seemed made for hers.

When he brushed his lips over
hers, the soft warmth sent tingles down her arms. As he pursued her tongue, a
sweet, sensual mating ensued, and a desperate hunger took flight inside of her.

She loved kissing this man, her
body eager to feel more of him. When he leaned her over, slowly lowering her to
the mattress, Sam kept her mouth crushed to his. As his body came down to cover
hers, she groaned at the sweet pressure between her thighs. She wanted more,
and she wanted it now.

She spread her legs further,
allowing him to ease between them, the steel hard edge of his erection aligning
exactly where she wanted him. Trying to pull him closer, she wrapped one leg
around behind him, pressing intimately against his thigh, letting the friction ignite
a sensual firestorm between her legs.

“That’s it, baby.” Logan’s voice
thundered, sending heat reverberating through her.

Momentarily, the heat left her as
Logan quickly shed both of their clothes, but when he pressed down into her
once more, skin to skin, Sam knew it had been worth the wait. Every nerve
ending lit up like the 4
^th
of July, as she tried to get closer.

“Make love to me, Logan.” She was
begging, sliding her hands over his smooth back, down to his ass so she could
pull him closer, despite the fact that he didn’t seem to budge. “I need you
now.”

Before Sam knew what happened,
she was astride Logan, slowly lowering herself down on him, feeling the velvety
length of his cock as he slid inside of her.

“Damn that’s good. So fucking
good.” Logan groaned, and his erotic words spurred her on, increasing her pace
as she continued to take him deeper, then reversing her movement until he was
nearly all the way out.

“Baby, I won’t last long if you
keep that up.”

Sam smiled a greedy smile. She
didn’t want Logan to last long. She wanted him to lose control the way she was.

White hot flames licked at her
body as his hands firmly gripped her waist, trying to control the pace. She
continued to slide up and down his shaft, the friction pushing her closer and
closer to the edge.

“I love watching you ride my
cock.”

Sam sat up further, her eyes
locked on the place where they were joined as he assisted by lifting and
lowering her while she watched his thick, hard cock fill her completely. Then
he gripped her hips tighter, holding her just above him as he began thrusting
upward, harder, faster, inside of her.

“Take all of me, Sam.” Logan
grunted, ramming into her.

She hovered just on the edge,
holding out as the glorious friction, the pounding of his cock inside of her,
threatened to send her into another realm where only ecstasy existed. When he
raked his thumb over her clit, Sam screamed his name, her orgasm ripping
through her as her eyes locked with his in time to see him follow her over.

If she hadn’t known before, Sam
knew now. She was irrevocably in love with this man, and there was nothing
anyone could do to change that.

When Logan eased out of bed a few
minutes later, Sam was too tired to move. She was also too tired to sleep, her
brain flooded with thoughts. While she heard the shower water run, she knew
he’d disappeared to give her a few minutes to herself. Not that she needed them
this time.

What just happened between them
confirmed the fact that this, whatever it was, was so much more than just sex.
So much more than anything she had ever known. The question was, what did she
do about it?

Should she tell Logan how she
felt about him? Put her heart on the line, risk finding out he cared for her,
but he wasn’t looking for love?

A few minutes ago, when they were
in the throes of a spectacular orgasm, she’d choked on the words, wanting to
tell him how she felt, but fearing she’d ruin what they had just repaired.
Instead, she’d just made a mental connection with him, sending all of her
feelings at him, praying he could understand just by looking in her eyes.