Her Sinful Secret. Jane Porter

the daily onslaught of scorn and hate.

      She’d get through this. Eventually. The haters of the world didn’t matter. Jax mattered, and only Jax.

      “So which home are we going to?” she asked, trying to match his careless, casual tone, trying to hide her concern and growing panic. Jax’s sitter left between five and six every day. Even if Joe went to the house to relieve the sitter, he was merely buying Logan a couple of hours. Joe had never babysat Jax for more than an hour or two before. Joe was a good guy, but he couldn’t care for the two-year-old overnight. Knowing Joe, he’d try, too, but Logan was a mama bear. No one came between her and her little girl.

      “Does it matter?” he asked, pulling sunglasses from the pocket of his jacket.

      So very James Bond. Her lip curled. He noticed.

      “What’s wrong now?” he asked.

      She glanced away from him and crossed her legs, aware that she could feel the weight of his inspection even from behind his sunglasses. “Morgan told me how much you love your little games.” She looked back at him, eyebrow arching. “You must be feeling very powerful now, what with the daring helicopter rescue and clandestine moves.”

      “I do like your sister,” he answered. “She’s good for Drakon. And he for her.”

      Logan couldn’t argue with that. Her sister had nearly lost her mind when separated from her husband. Thank God they’d worked it out.

      “Hard to believe you and Morgan are twins,” he added. “You’re nothing alike.”

      “Morgan chose to live with Dad. I didn’t.”

      “And your baby sister, Jemma, she just chose to move out, even though she was still a teenager.”

      Logan swung her leg, the gold buckle on her strappy wedge sandal catching the light. “You’re not a fan of my family, so I’m not entirely sure why we’re having this conversation.”

      “Fine. Let’s not talk about your family.” His voice dropped, deepening, going almost velvet soft. “Let’s talk about us.”

      Let’s talk about us.

      Her entire body went weak. She stopped swinging her leg, her limbs suddenly weighted even as her pulse did a crazy double beat.

      Us. Right.

      She couldn’t see his eyes, but she could tell from the lift of his lips that he was enjoying himself. He was having fun, the same way a cat played with its prey before killing it.

      She could be nervous, show fear, try to resist him—it was what he wanted. Or, she could just play along and not give him the satisfaction he craved.

      Which, to her way of thinking, was infinitely better.

      She smiled at him. He had no idea who he was dealing with. She wasn’t the Logan Lane he’d bedded three years ago. He’d made sure of that. “Oh, that would be fun. I love talking about old times.” She stared boldly into the dark sunglasses, letting him get a taste of who she’d become. “Good times. Right, babe?”

      For a moment he gave her no response and then the corners of his mouth lifted even higher. A real smile. Maybe even a laugh, with the easy smile showing off very white, very straight teeth. The smile changed his face, making him younger and freer and sexy. Unforgivably sexy. Unforgivably since everything inside her was responding.

      Not fair.

      She hated him.

      And yet she’d never met anyone with his control and heat and ability to own a room...and not just any room, but a massive ballroom...as if he were the only man in the entire place. As if he were the only man on the face of the earth. As if he’d been made just to light her up and turn her inside out.

      Her heart raced and her pulse felt like sin in her veins. She was growing hot, flushing, needing...and she pressed her thighs tighter.

      No, no, no.

      “We were good,” he said, still smiling at her, and yet his lazy drawl hinted at something so much more dangerous than anger.

      Lethal man.

      She’d wanted him that night and the fascination was back, slamming into her with the same force of a two-ton truck.

      Something in her just wanted him.

      Something in her recognized something in him and it shouldn’t happen. There was no reason for someone like Rowan to be her type...

      “It was you,” she said, feeling generous. And what harm could there be in the truth? Because he was good—very, very good—and he was making her feel the same hot bright need that she’d felt during the bachelor auction. And it’d been forever since she’d felt anything sexual, her hunger smashed beneath layers of motherhood and maternal devotion. “You have quite the skill set.”

      “Years of practice, love.”

      “I commend your dedication to your craft.”

      His dark head inclined. “I tried to give you value for your twenty grand.”

      She didn’t like that jab. But she could keep up. He and the rest of the haters had taught her how to wrap herself in a Teflon armor and just deflect, deflect, deflect. “Rest assured, you did. Now, if I knew then what I know now, I might have given you a few pointers, but I was so green. Talk about inexperienced. Talk about embarrassing. A twenty-four-year-old virgin.” She shuddered and gently pushed back a long tendril of hair that had fallen forward. “Thankfully you handled the old hymen like the champ you are.”

      He wasn’t smiling anymore.

      Everything felt different. The very air was charged, seething...pulsing...

      She gave him an innocent look. “Did I say something wrong?”

      Rowan drew off his sunglasses and leaned toward her. “Say that again.”

      “The part about the hymen? Or the part where I wished I’d given you a few pointers?”

      His green eyes were no longer cool. They burned and they were fixed intently on her, laser beams of loathing.

      She’d finally gotten a rise out of him. She had to work very hard to hide her victorious smile. “But surely you knew I was a virgin,” she added gently. “The blood on white sheets...?”

      “It wasn’t blood. It was spotting.”

      She shrugged carelessly. “You probably assumed it was just from...vigorous...thrusting.”

      His eyes glowed and his square jaw turned to granite. “You weren’t a virgin.”

      “I was. And don’t you feel honored that I picked you to be my first?” She glanced down at her hands, checking her nails. She must have chipped one earlier, when she fainted and fell. She rubbed a finger across the jagged edge and continued conversationally. “You set the bar very high, you know. Not just for what happened in the bedroom, but after.”

      He said nothing and so she looked up from her nails and stared into his eyes. “I can’t help but wonder, if I hadn’t climaxed during each of the...sessions...would you still have called me a whore?” She let the question float between them for a moment before adding, “Was it the fact that I enjoyed myself...that I took pleasure...that made me a whore? Because it was a very fast transition from virgin to whore—”

      “Virgins don’t spend twenty grand to get laid,” he said curtly, cutting her short.

      “No? Not even if they want to get laid by the best?”

      * * *

      He’d stopped smiling a long time ago. He had a reputation for being able to handle any situation but Logan was giving him a run for his money.

      If it were any woman but Logan Copeland, he’d be impressed and maybe amused. Hell, he’d been amused at the start, intrigued by the way she’d thrown