Bedeviled Angel (32 page)

"Less than an hour, I suspect."

"But it's two a.m. Kira, it's Mel. Are you guys okay? Sounds rough out there."

Kira told Melody what was happening with the weather.

"But you two are okay?" Melody asked, nodding at Kira's answer. "Okay. Good idea. If it looks like we can't get out, we will."

Logan raised a brow when she hung up.

"Kira says there's a raging sea squall outside with trees and power lines down. On the news, they're telling everybody to stay off the roads. She says if we go out there, we'll get blown away."

"How are they faring in all this?" Logan asked with concern.

"Snug as bugs in rugs," to quote Kira. "They've been camped on your sofa, but the winds are fierce on the top floor, so they're going down to sleep in my bed. She says that's where we'll find them in the morning."

"Sounds reasonable."

Melody bit her lip. "We might be stuck here for the night."

"We already are," Logan said, turning back to the computer. "Here, what do you think of this?"

BY three a.m. they'd finished formatting and viewing a Thanksgiving show that improved on the original. A work of art, Melody thought. "It's incredible. If I weren't so tired, I'd dance," she said. "Awesome job, Kilgarven. Now, let's go home and get some sleep."

"First," he said, "let's go find an office with an outside window. This close to the ocean, we take travel warnings to heart."

"You're the native."

Five minutes later, they stood at the picture window in Gardner's corner office and counted two cars and one porch with trees crushing them. A bush flew straight toward the window, glanced off as they ducked, and kept going. A minute later, they heard the sound of breaking glass somewhere else in the building. "Oops," Melody said. "Is that going to set off the burglar alarm again?"

"Nah, we didn't reset it yet, but the night watchman is down there. Tony'U take care of it."

"Good thing."

For a while, they watched the world fly by, some debris sailing so fast they couldn't identify it. "This is like the center of a twister. Think we're on our way to Oz?"

"We will be," Logan said, "if we go out there."

A doghouse lost shingles as it rolled across the street below, bounced off of a Mercedes, and continued on its way.

"Ouch!" Logan winced. "No discrimination."

"Yeah," Mel said with a grin. "Poor rich sucker. Ain't it a shame?"

"Hey, that could have been my Volvo."

"Or my vintage beetle."

"Old. Your bug's old. That would have been a mercy killing."

"Hey! I love that car."

"It's older than you are."

"We bonded in the cradle. Hope the dog got out."

"What?"

Melody shrugged. "Hope the dog got out of that doghouse."

"Is that a ship's mast?" Logan asked, stepping closer to the window. "Call home again; make sure they're not flooding."

Melody talked with Kira for several minutes before she was satisfied they were okay. "They're fine," she told Logan after she hung up. "Don't worry, the house sits on pretty high ground."

"I'm still glad you told her to take Shane back upstairs if flooding becomes a problem."

"It probably won't."

"I agree."

"Best to be safe, though. Let's go up to our office and see if we can catch some sleep."

In their office, Logan locked the door.

"Why did you do that?"

"Tony knows we're here, but I don't feature waking up to find him watching me when he makes his rounds."

"Good thought."

Logan proceeded to throw the cushions off the sofa, revealing a hidden mattress.

"I had no idea," Melody said. "Did you ever sleep here?"

"No, I requested the sofa bed when I took the job. That was about a month before we hired you. Go ahead, lie down, get some rest."

After her turn in the bathroom, Melody kicked off her spikes and reclined fully clothed on the sheeted mattress, straight as a soldier, arms at her sides, feeling like an idiot with him watching. "This is impossible," she said.

"Sleep, and that's an order."

Melody huffed but closed her eyes while Logan continued to shuffle around the office, driving her nuts. A pillow hit her in the face.

"Hey!" She sat up. "Wow. Pillows and blankets too? Gee, all the comforts." She spread the blanket over herself while Logan moved chairs around, facing them toward each other. "What are you doing?"

"Making a bed for myself. What does it look like?"

"Looks like you're afraid of me. There's plenty of room over here. I won't attack you, you know."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"C'mon sleep here—the operative word being
sleep
—if you don't think Tiffany will mind."

"You think I give a rat's ass what she thinks?"

"Whatever, but you're safe with me."

"Gee, thanks." Logan threw off his jacket and lay beside her. "Our parents picked the perfect time to take off. Think they're having fun in Florida?"

Mel turned to him and wiggled her brows. "Think they're having sex?"

"Jeez, way to give me nightmares. Give me another picture, fast."

Melody giggled. "Picture my father smiling, then. He does it all the time around your mother. It's pretty scary."

"My mother's the same," Logan admitted. "Until your father, I hadn't seen her smile in years."

"Hell, until your mother, I rarely
saw
my father. Now I see him all the time. Kind of weird, actually, but they're happy together, and Logan, I don't know if you've picked up on it, but they're hinting that they might get married." She touched his arm.

"I think I'm happy for them."

Logan sighed. "I caught a marriage hint once, but I tried to ignore it." He chuckled. "I'm happy for them, too, I guess. Hard to believe your old man is actually good for my mother, but I'd like him better if he were nicer to you."

"Really?" Melody savored the unexpected wash of emotion Logan's concern engendered. "I asked your mother once what about my father attracted her."

"I'm not sure I want to hear this."

"She said he widened her world. I asked my father the same about your mother, and he said she made him focus on the important things, then he kissed my cheek."

She touched it. "Here. That was the first time he'd kissed me in years."

Logan stroked the exact spot with the back of a knuckle, a touch Melody felt to her toes. "I like him better already."

She shifted a leg, brought a knee up to touch his. "Our parents balance each other, like Jessie said."

"I suppose," Logan said. "Jess and her balance."

"She's right about a lot of things. Life
is
short. Our parents have said the same.

All of them want to make the best of the time they have left. We could take a lesson from them."

He didn't know about the others, but he knew exactly how to make the best of the time he and Melody had left—here, now, tonight… in this bed.

He wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her the way he'd kissed her in the cloak room, as if time had stopped and belonged entirely to them. He wanted to slip inside of her and stay for a while, take her on a meteoric rise to the stars and make her weep with pleasure.

Damn! Logan turned on his side and faced away from temptation, wishing his slacks weren't suddenly so tight. "Night, Mel."

She tried another position, then another, driving Logan nuts, reminding him of her provocative presence about every two seconds. And if she touched him, even by accident, with her hand, or her arm, or, God help him, with her breasts or her backside, one more time… "I take it you can't get comfortable?" he said, tongue in cheek, aching to suggest a position they were both likely to prefer.

"This dress is too tight to sleep in."

"By all means, take it off."

"Don't be fresh."

"I'm only being practical. Take it off, and I'll give you my shirt." He sat up and started unbuttoning his shirt.

"Wait! I don't want you bare-chested beside me in bed."

"A turn-off, is it?"

"Get real."

Logan grinned. "Okay, then, I do have a spare shirt in a bathroom drawer, all fresh, starched, and folded." He rose to fetch it.

"I want the one you're wearing," she said, padding after him in stocking feet. "It's softer."

"So you want me to be uncomfortable?"

"I want you to be a gentleman."

Logan stopped unbuttoning and held her gaze with his. "Are you certain that's what you want?"

Mel's topaz eyes widened, and her cheeks flushed. She turned her back on him.

"Unzip me and keep your smart remarks to yourself. This is awkward enough."

"I still don't know why you wore a dress," he said as he unzipped it. "First dress I've seen you wearing."

"No. I've worn several on the show," she said, turning back and snatching the body-warm shirt from his hand while trying not to gawk at his naked torso. She smacked him in the chest with the starched, paper-banded shirt. "Go put this on, so I can change."

Logan did as told, then propped himself up in the sofa bed to wait. Melody returned, finally, bathed in moonlight, his white shirt stroking her, from her neck to the tops of her long shapely legs.

He imagined those legs wrapped tight around him and was forced to shift to his side to hide his resurrected arousal. "Can we get some sleep now?" he groused.

Melody finally switched off the light, no less noisy and obvious about trying to find a comfortable position than she had been the first time. "Night," she said, touching his arm. "Thanks for the shirt. Feels yummy."

Yummy
. The word brought a renewed surge of discomfort. Yummy, the way she'd taste on his lips, the way she'd feel gloving him.

LOGAN dreamed that something heavy nestled snug against his lap, rode his erection and made him throb. He dreamed a warmth at his neck, a heaviness on his chest, Melody's hair feathering his cheek. Its scent—sin and salvation at one and the same time—enticed him to slip further into the arms of sleep. He dreamed that her hand rode his chest, her knee, his groin.

In sleep, he found her mouth, warm, open, inviting, seeking his kiss. He opened his own and devoured her pouting lips. She gave him an involuntary throat-squeak, a lusty moan, like a babe at the nipple, and a tongue that set him on fire. "Melody," he heard himself say. Greedy. Ravenous. No words could describe his edgy upward spiral, half starvation, half satiation, increasing hunger, soothing spirits, a relentless climb, breathless and unyielding.

They kissed in half-sleep, a dream but not, a ride toward eternity, a need to prolong, yet despite his best efforts, Logan woke. He did not know the exact minute awareness came to him, but it did. It came in winds and waves mightier than the elements that trapped them… blessed them. It came with a frisson of panic and a flood of joy. Acceptance. Gratitude. Responsibility.

"I want this," Logan whispered against Melody's ear, sharing the warmth of his breath, offering her his essence, raising her higher still, but not so high that she could miss the underlying question in his voice.

"I want it more than my next breath," he said. "No more pretending this is out of control." Concern laced his voice, worry perhaps, that she did not feel the same.

She knew him well enough to know he'd just handed her the choice to make for them both.

As if all choice had not been snatched from her grasp the day she opened her door to him, she thought. "I want it, too," she said, arching against him, fitting her every curve to his every hollow.

"Now tell me you're awake."

She smiled. "I'm awake."

They lay on their sides, facing each other, embracing, as close as two can be without becoming one. "I want you inside of me, Logan. No pretense, no evasion…

no interruptions. No promises," she wisely added. "No expectations for the future."

Logan nodded. "No promises, no future," he acknowledged to her relief. "We've known it from the beginning, haven't we." Not a question but a statement.

His echo of her thoughts firmed Melody's resolve to grasp this rare pulsing moment in time. No fear of rejection… she'd short-circuited every expectation. Free, she felt. Uninhibited, for the first time ever. Ready to welcome the man she had lusted after from the first.

"I have only one worry." Logan regarded her, moonlight gilding his blue eyes to green. "Tell me again that you're not talking in your sleep."

Melody buried her face in his starched shirtfront. "I'm awake," she said after a minute. "Tell me you're as sure about this as I am."

He surged, almost involuntarily, against her. "Never more so of anything…

obviously."

"It's not the, er… 'Big Guy' talking, is it?"