For the Night: Complete Box Set (61 page)

A familiar face from Logan
Steele’s past returns to wreak havoc, threatening his very future, and leaving
him in turmoil. He has to step up to fulfil his most challenging role to date,
but the question is whether he’s a good enough actor to pull it off. Will Logan
get his happy ever after? Or will his past bite him, or the ones he loves, so
hard, that it turns his life into a disaster movie?

My name is Lucas Steel.
I’m thirty years old, devilishly handsome, seriously ripped, well hung,
charismatic and highly sexed. Women just can’t resist me, but for the last
couple of years, I’ve only have eyes for one.

Summer Beresford.

By day I’m a private
personal fitness trainer, to high profile clients of means. But I have a
skeleton in my closet. By night I used to be “Logan Steele” high class escort.

I didn’t have to advertise
my sexual services, I had a long client list that came to me through word of
mouth. I was that good, I was booked months in advance. Scores of women paid me
extortionately high fees to fulfil their fantasies.

That’s how I met Summer, a
sweet, innocent, naïve virgin, who paid me to help her overcome her fear of
losing her virginity, after she was almost raped as a teenager. She also wanted
to shed her inhibitions and become more knowledgeable about sex, for an erotic
romance film she’d landed the lead role in. I’m pretty sure, looking back, that
it was love at first sight for me. But I was stubborn and unwilling to pursue
her at first, positive a woman like that would never want a man like me, not
given that she knew my rather sordid history. The next time we met, I’d broken several
of my escorting rules:

Don’t get emotionally
attached.

No contact after the event
unless it’s for a new booking and the largest rule break ever,

Full payment up front, no
exceptions.

I’d given into my need for
her by surprising her at her movie premiere, prompted into action by my fears
that she was about to start dating her co-star Daron Beck. That evening with
Summer was sensational. We’d both confessed that we had feelings for each
other, but I’d been pig headed and stubborn, ruining my chances by refusing to
give up my escorting until I knew if we could work as a couple.

I’d finally come to my
senses fourteen months ago, but she’d insisted we try being friends first, to
give her time to make up her mind about whether she could trust me. I knew she
still had fears about my past coming back to bite her in the arse as well, it
could tarnish her career. However, last night she’d finally given in, we’d had
an incredible night of sex and as she fell asleep in my arms, I’d confessed
that I loved her.

I woke up this morning and
she was gone.

In all my years as Lucas,
or even Logan, a woman had
never
left me. And I wasn’t about to let the
one I really wanted slip through my fingers.

I gripped the steering
wheel tightly as I made my way across London to her penthouse. Surely this was
it? Surely we were finally getting somewhere? Three nights, that was all we’d
spent together sexually, my brunette angel and I, three damn nights and I’d
already fallen in love.

Madly, deeply, can’t bear to be apart from her,
love.

I wasn’t totally irrational, I hadn’t completely
lost my mind and lurched from man whore to love sick Romeo in the space of
three nights though. We’d met in her virgin for the night fantasy nearly two
years ago, then didn’t see each other again for another nine months, when I’d
pursued her, knowing I wanted more. She’d made me work for it, fourteen long
months, the longest of my life, but she’d been worth the wait when she finally
gave in. I fought against closing my eyes and giving in to the rerun of our
night together, last night, instead focussing on the damn traffic up ahead of
me. My eyes may have been open, but it didn’t stop me picturing the visuals and
hearing surround sound of her heated cries as I had her shackled to my St.
Andrew’s cross, running ice across her soft skin, pouring hot wax onto her
peaked nipples, kissing her, biting her and finally getting to fuck her again
as I restrained her on my bed. I would say I’d wait another fourteen months for
a night like that one, but to hell with
that.
I didn’t want to wait
another fucking minute.

I blew out a deep calming breath as my car
painfully inched its way towards the traffic lights that were the cause for my
additional tension. After that perfect night, a night when she’d laid wrapped
in my arms on the verge of sleep, when I confessed my love to her, unsure if
she’d heard me, I’d woken this morning to find her gone. I flexed my neck as
the memory of the panic I’d felt, when I’d searched my apartment looking for her,
came back to taunt me. The first time I’d told a woman I was in love with her
and she’d run. I’d felt like I’d been eviscerated, my heart had crumbled to
dust and been blown away by the howling gale in the void I was straddling
between life and death. Dramatic I know, but that’s exactly how I’d felt.
That
was how much I was in love with Summer Beresford. The pain had been marginally
eased by a message from her on my iPhone, apologising for running and not
having the courage to tell me how she really felt, but that she needed to do it
in person, not over the phone. At that moment I’d been completely unsure
whether it was a
Dear John
message that I’d just received. A link to
Ella Henderson’s track,
Yours
, eased my pain immediately. She told me
with a song what she was unable to vocalise.

I had to keep reminding myself that, at
twenty-four, she was six years younger than me and this was her first
relationship, sexual or emotional. She was scared of being hurt, no doubt her
fears were escalated by her neighbour attempting to rape her when she was
fifteen years old. I pinched the top of my nose and huffed out another deep
breath at the thought of someone trying to hurt my angel. Thank God Antony had
died in a car crash, or I might just have killed the bastard myself. Anyway,
after listening to that song I
did
feel better, but I wouldn’t be
one-hundred percent until I was holding her in my arms again. Until I heard her
say that we were a couple, until I told her how I really felt about her while
she was awake and responsive. This time I wouldn’t let her run. This time I’d
be more romantic about it.

I finally pulled up in one of her parking spaces
in the private underground garage, to which I had the code from when I’d helped
her move in a few weeks ago. Instead of still living in a rough area of London
with her parents, her first movie release had catapulted her to stardom. It had
been a massive hit, and the earnings she’d made off it so far, had given her
enough money to purchase her own three bedroom penthouse, as well as a new
terraced town house in Chelsea for her parents. She was close to finishing the
final film in the
Broken Promises Trilogy
and was busy fielding offers
for her next role. Fingers crossed it wouldn’t be with Hollywood’s leading male
star, Daron fucking Beck again. He had designs on my woman and I’d had to warn
him to back off, by threatening him with publication of his domestic abuse and
sordid internet search history, none of which was public knowledge. I owed my
intel to my friend Ian Smith, computer hacker extraordinaire, who did all my
background checks for me and went above and beyond what would be considered the
norm. I locked up my BMW i8 and headed up the stairs into the lobby of her
building and over to the reception desk, which was manned by a security team.

‘Morning Albert, how are you today?’ I enquired of
the elder gentleman. Luckily he was only in charge of the signing in and out of
guests, delivery of mail and monitoring of the security feeds. If some crazed
fan came at Summer with a knife, he was liable to have a damn heart attack
within five seconds flat. If there hadn’t been a younger muscular guy sitting
next to him, one who could cope with some action, I’d have bloody insisted on
one.

‘Very good Mr. Steel,’ he nodded. ‘I have a note
here for you.’

‘You do?’ I frowned, as he turned around to the
pigeon holes behind him and pulled out an envelope. My heart started to beat
faster, nerves setting in. Surely it wasn’t from Summer, telling me she’d
changed her mind and to leave her alone? ‘Who’s it from?’ I demanded, the panic
obvious in my tone of voice.

‘I don’t know,’ he shrugged, as he turned to face
me, looking as puzzled as I was feeling. ‘Some young lad dropped it off for you
about ten minutes ago, almost as if he knew you were coming. I was paid £20 to
not let Miss Beresford know the note was here.’ He stretched his hand out and I
reached for it, taking in a shocked breath to see it was addressed to “Mr. L.
Steele c/o Miss S. Beresford.” It wasn’t just the fact that I was getting notes
at Summer’s that had surprised me, it was that it was addressed to “Mr.
Steele,” with an
e
at the end
.
What the hell was that all
about?
I wondered. Since I gave up escorting, to woo Summer, I’d come clean
with her and had reverted back to my real name, Lucas Steel. With the exception
of Summer’s best friend Mandy, who knew about my escorting career, and my own
best friends, everyone else knew me as Lucas Steel. I suddenly had a very bad
feeling, especially with the timing of the note, arriving just before me. ‘Are
you ok, Mr. Steel? You’ve gone a little pale.’

‘I’m fine thank you, Albert,’ I replied, as I
shoved the envelope in the inner pocket of my battered black leather biker
jacket. I’d read that in private later, as much as my curiosity was peaked, all
I was interested in at this precise moment was seeing Summer. ‘Can I go up?’

‘She left instructions to let you up if you came,’
he nodded. ‘Head on over with Jake.’

‘Cheers.’ I smiled at him as Jake stood up and
tugged the sleeves of his blue uniform jacket down, before escorting me across
the polished black granite floor to the private lift. He swiped a key card and
pressed the button for me, giving me a nod as he strode away again. I don’t
think I’d ever heard him speak. I wondered if he was mute? Then again it might
be difficult to yell “Stop” to anyone, without a tongue. I doubted that would
be overlooked during an interview for a position as a security guard. I looked
at my reflection in the mirrored lift doors, ran a hand through my dark hair
and undid a button on the neck of my black shirt. As if I wasn’t already full
of nerves to see her in person and get her answer, now this damn letter? ‘One
crisis at a time, Lucas,’ I muttered under my breath. Summer was my priority
right now.

The lift seemed to take forever to climb the
thirty floors to the penthouse. Summer’s was one of two apartments up here and
she’d paid extra to have an additional layer of soundproofing put in. I’d
thought it was to muffle her screams of pleasure when she finally let me back
inside her, but given that the occupier of the other penthouse was Sam
Michaels, the lead singer of Nevada 6, the biggest boy band to come out of the
UK since One Direction, it was essential. His reputation for noisy parties was
legendary. Thankfully he wasn’t in the country very often. I’d nearly rammed
his teeth down his throat when I caught him eyeing up Summer’s backside as she
bent over to pick up a box on the day she moved in. I stood outside her front
door and took another few breaths to calm myself down. No way had she called me
here to tell me it was over, not after all this time. Not after last night or
that song. Surely? I lifted my hand and knocked on her white front door.

Summer

I answered my phone to find it was Albert,
informing me that Lucas was on his way up. I placed the handset back down and
noticed my hands were shaking. Since sending that message I’d felt sick. I
hadn’t been able to face food, only coffee, and I’d drunk too much of it as I
sat here waiting. I walked across my lounge and opened the door to my inner
lobby and paced back and forth, biting the end of my thumb nail as I waited. It
seemed to take forever until I heard the knock at the door. I looked at the
small screen on the wall and pressed the button to see the view from the camera
outside and gulped to see it was him. He looked tired and stressed, his
gorgeous dark hair was all ruffled up, but he still looked so handsome. He
always
looked handsome, he was just male perfection, in every single way. I put my
hand on the door handle and hesitated for a second, was I really ready to do
this? Between us we had a habit of screwing up this relationship, dooming it
before it started. This time I was the one who’d made a mess of it, running
away from him and his declaration of love and that totally inappropriate
engagement ring box I’d seen sitting on his kitchen island, next to the
breakfast tray, this morning.
O crap
,
what if he’d come to propose?
He
really wasn’t going to be happy with what I had to say. I jumped as the door
was knocked a little firmer, closed my eyes and took a moment to calm myself,
then decided it was now or never and opened the door.

‘Hi,’ I whispered, as I locked eyes with him and
saw a flash of relief pass across his face.

‘Summer,’ he uttered hoarsely, the sound of my
name on his lips was intoxicating enough, without his beautiful grey eyes
looking at me full of emotion. Before I had a chance to ask him to step inside,
he’d crossed the threshold, grasped my face and crushed his lips onto mine. I tried
to resist, but it was futile. When he kissed like that, with all of that
ravenous power behind it, no one would be able to resist. I felt his needy
tongue prising my lips apart and the sudden impact of the hall wall against my
back, as he invaded my mouth and my home all at the same time. My whole body
trembled as he kissed me as if his life depended on it, intensely, passionately
and greedily. I gave him back as good as I got, before he broke away, leaving
me dizzy as we both panted for air. It was like he sucked the very purpose of
being out of me, until all that was left was him. Just being in the same
vicinity, let alone touching him, kissing him, or having incredible sex with
him, overshadowed everything else in my life.

‘So much for me inviting you in,’ I uttered, as I
palmed the wall behind me for support. Giddy with desire.

‘I needed to kiss you, in case you told me to get
lost,’ he replied, as he dragged the back of his hand across his succulent
mouth.

‘Get lost? Why would I ask you to come over to
tell you to get lost?’ I was confused, I’d sent him a song full of meaning,
telling him how I felt, what I was to him.

‘You ran from me, Summer and I don’t know what I
did wrong. Then you send me a message that sounded like you were either going
to tell me something pretty damn momentous, or break up with me. I wanted to
kiss you again in case it was option two.’