Free Temptation in Texas: Logan and Lauren by Lynda Chance Page A

complete daze settling over his brain cells. He was slightly amazed that the primary emotion bleeding through his veins was one of panic; he would have thought that fury would encompass his entire body and leave little room for anything else.
     
    He was angry, he admitted that to himself. But it wasn't his first emotion. Panic, that's what he was feeling. And then shock. Mixed with panic. Anger, yeah. Panic. Shit. What the hell had just happened to his life in the last five minutes?
     
    He stood completely still, simply trying for the moment to keep breathing.
     
    Lauren stepped from the closet, holding a shoebox in her hands. She was looking down into it, and he made no move to get out of her way as she stepped into the bedroom. She barreled right into him, just as he had intended. He reached out and took her by the shoulders and tried like hell not to demand an immediate answer.
     
    Her gaze lifted, and the first thing he saw reflected in her beautiful eyes was pleasure, and that utterly confused him, but her pleasure was quickly eclipsed by a look of alarm. Distress hit her features, and he could clearly see the nervous tension that transformed the delicate lines of her face. She inhaled quickly. "Hi."
     
    He couldn't stop himself, his fingers bit into her shoulders as another wave of unrest slid through him. "Hey."
     
    "You're . . . you're home early." Her words were shallow, uneven, and suspicion formed an ugly knot in his mind, settling like a stone in his stomach.
     
    He studied her reactions closely. "No, I'm not," his words were clipped; he was unable to control them.
     
    "Oh." She exhaled a pent-up breath. "What time is it?" Her eyes left his to wander to the clock on the bedside table.
     
    His eyes narrowed. "After six."
     
    "Oh." She slowly turned her head and looked back at him and he felt his nerves shift restlessly, his control barely in hand.
     
    He looked from her eyes down to the cell phone that she held in her left hand. "What were you doing in the closet?"
     
    Her inhalation was ragged. "Cleaning out a few things. I don't . . . don't ever wear these shoes."
     
    He ran his hand from her shoulder down to the box she held and took it from her and tossed it aside. He had a sudden, primitive urge to prove that she belonged to him, right here and right now. "Why not?" Swiping the cell phone from her trembling fingers, he dropped it on the dresser beside him and then turned back to her. Wasting no time, he began unbuttoning the cotton blouse she was wearing, his intention unmistakable.
     
    Her eyes flared as he stripped the shirt from her shoulders and dropped it to the floor. "Why not, what?" she asked, sudden confusion coloring her tone.
     
    Bracing his legs apart, he twisted the snap between her breasts and pushed her bra aside. "Why don't you ever wear the shoes?" His eyes dropped to her exposed chest and his penis engorged fully, the sight of her naked flesh inflaming him. Her naked flesh, his woman. Even with pain hammering through his heart, he felt the need to kill somebody radiating through his blood. He put that emotion on the back burner and demanded what he wanted even more. Her submission. He ran a single finger from one creamy mound to the next until it landed on a nipple and he pinched down on the silky flesh that never failed to intoxicate him. His fingers dragged over her nipple, and then his palm encompassed her entire breast and he grasped it, hard, trying to fight the loss of control that he knew lay just beneath his surface. Clenching his jaw, trying to calm himself down, he asked again, "Why don't you ever wear the shoes?" He fully admitted to himself that he was trying to keep her off-balance.
     
    She began trembling, just barely, but he could see it and goddamn if it wasn't satisfying to him. "What . . . what shoes?" Her voice was a pant, barely there and he knew she was lost to everything but his touch on her flesh. And that's the way it would always fucking be.
     
    He