Chapter 20

20

H ow did parents of four-year-olds ever get laid? Logan wondered as he burst into the dining room to see what Franzi had destroyed.

Every time he thought that he would get Tabby alone, that he had a chance to make a move, that she wanted him to make a move, there was a disaster or a disruption.

Maybe this one was for the best, though, because Logan didn't want to influence her decision with seduction, even if he couldn't see a single alternative to their entangled financial dilemmas.

Franzi was lying on her back next to the chair she had clearly collided with, giggling at the ceiling. "I'm DIZZY!" she said.

Logan picked the cushion up off the chair and dropped it on her. She curled around it, kicking her legs and laughing, just as the timer went off.

"It'll have to cool down," Tabby called from the kitchen. "You've got a few minutes!"

The casserole wasn't the only thing that needed to cool down, Logan thought .

Tabby brought out the bowl of salad she'd mangled while he made the business proposal and gave Logan a hard look. "I have to think about the opportunity you offered me," she said very carefully.

"Of course." Opportunity was all that Logan really wanted with her. The opportunity to kiss her and lay her down on a quilt-covered bed. The opportunity to make her cry out his name and beg him to take her…

"I'm hungry," Franzi said, standing up to tug on Logan's hand.

"Let's pour drinks," Logan proposed. "You get the cups. One at a time! I'll get the ice and you can put the cubes in." He was going to need extra ice cubes in his pants.

I t took more than an hour to get Franzi into bed after dinner.

First she had to go potty, and then she needed a drink.

"There's a sippy cup by your bed," Logan reminded her.

"It's not cold enough," Franzi explained.

Logan put a few more ice cubes in it and tucked her back in, putting the favored stuffies all along her side. "They'll keep you warm and safe," he told her.

"Too hot," Franzi protested.

"I've got the window open," Logan pointed out. "Stick a leg out and it will cool down soon."

"Will you sing me a song?"

Logan sat at the edge of her bed, displacing a stuffed ray, and sang her the Pickles in a Jar lullaby. She corrected him every few stanzas as he tried to rush through it .

"Now you have to go to sleep," Logan said firmly as he bent down to kiss her forehead. "I love you, goodnight."

"I wuv you, too," Franzi said, tired.

For a moment Logan had hope, but when he got to the door, she called him back. "Uncle LOGAN! I need another hug!"

Logan was powerless against her request and bent to embrace her. "Go to sleep," he said. "No more hugs. No more water."

"Are you going to send me back?" Franzi asked in a tiny voice.

Logan kissed her forehead again. "Never," he promised. "Not ever. I'll be here in the morning and forever."

"Forever," Franzi agreed, her voice fading.

Logan leaned against her door after he closed it, waiting for her to call him back in. He had to keep her. He pwomised .

And he didn't know another way to keep that promise.

The stairs out of the stable apartment creaked as he walked down them, and Logan paused at the bottom looking up at her window to see if Franzi would wake up and cry out again.

When she didn't, he heaved a sigh and marched for the farmhouse. He couldn't do any of the noisy outdoor work, and it was too dark to paint, but he could snake the slow drain in the laundry room.

Tabby was standing on her front porch, her hands uncharacteristically still on the railing.

"I was going to take care of the laundry drain," Logan said, coming to the bottom of the steps but not offering to come up.

"I'll do it," Tabby said.

"The drain? "

"The show. The con."

"Are you sure?"

"I don't know what else to do." Tabby's voice in the darkness cracked, and Logan was up the steps before he could stop himself, gathering her into his arms where she belonged.

"We'll find another way," he said. "We can work something out. I'll…get another job, or live in a stall so you can rent our rooms out, or…"

"I'll do it," Tabby said, more determined. "It's a solid plan. It solves a lot of problems at once. I'm dying to do the show with you anyway. I'll do it."

He didn't remember consciously leaning down to her mouth, but somehow she was there under his lips, and he had one hand on the small of her back, the other cradling her jaw. Her mouth was soft and hot, eagerly meeting his and opening in welcome and need.

Kissing Tabby was everything that Logan knew it would be. She tasted like coffee and?—

Hay! his stallion exclaimed. Delicious sun-warmed hay!

She does not taste like hay, Logan protested. But she did taste delicious, and Logan could not kiss her enough now that he had started.

"I need you to remember that you're mine when I sell you," she said, when she drew away for breath. "You're mine ."

"And you're mine ," Logan said in return, almost growling it. "Mine forever. " The words surprised even him, but they tasted right in his mouth.

After so long, sure he couldn't have her the way he wanted, Logan was ready to burst with his banked need. He kissed her harder, and twined his fingers into her hair. Her whole body was along his, hot and soft and strong, and her hands were up underneath his shirt, clawing at his back with her short, neat nails.

He pressed her back against the porch rail and it gave an ominous creak. "Not here," she gasped. "My bedroom."

Logan bent down and swept her up off her feet, surprising a laugh from her. "What are you doing?" she demanded, wrapping her arms around his neck. "You can't carry me!"

"I'm a shifter," Logan said, determined not to drop her. "I'm about to show you what that means."

"Well, you'd better do it with a condom," Tabby said, in her imminently practical way. "I've got some in my bedside table and hopefully they aren't expired."

Logan got her into the bedroom and down on the bed, where he kissed her longer and they touched each other eagerly. He got his hands up under her shirt, and peeled it off without unbuttoning. The top button popped off entirely.

He kissed all the exposed flesh above her bra, stroking her arms and her side as she squirmed beneath him. "Logan," she whispered, and every time she said his name, it seemed to settle into his skin a little deeper. He was Logan with her, not any of the dozens of other names he'd lived under. Just Logan.

"My Tabby," he said in return. " Mine ."

He got her pants off first, taking the underwear with them in one move. She sat to remove her bra while he finished stripping, and he hesitated before he turned back to her. His cock was at attention, but there was a moment of uncertainty in new nudity, and Logan always wondered if it would come with disappointment because of the phrase hung like a horse . He was average, he knew from multiple adolescent measurements and an abundance of Internet research, but his expectations were always tempered by what he'd seen in erotic media.

Tabby only looked pleased and excited, and when she reached out to touch him, Logan completely forgot to be self-conscious.

She stroked him and gently squeezed his balls and Logan bent to kiss her, crawling to cover her.

"Condom," she reminded him breathlessly, and there was a flurry of housekeeping that left him covered.

Then he was on her again, and she was spreading her legs as he drove into her, deeper and harder with every stroke. She came with flattering speed, crying out and arching underneath him so soon that Logan had a moment of doubt, wondering if she was exaggerating her pleasure. But there was no faking the flush in her chest or the heat and slick moisture between her legs. If she was acting, she was a much better actress than Logan had ever suspected even existed.

His reservations vanished as he continued to ride her, coaxing more noises of desire from her as he wrestled back his own impulse for release. The moment she seemed to be enjoying it less, he rolled to pull her over him, changing their angle and unlocking new satisfaction. She came again, her whole body clenching as he held her hips, except for her breasts, which swung freely.

Logan lost what was left of his control at her cries of joy, and felt his own wave break as she slowed and he clutched at her desperately and came at last.

She collapsed onto his chest and Logan wrapped his arms around her and held on as long as she let him, drinking in the smell and feel of her as their last aftershocks of sex ebbed away. "Mine," he said, stroking her hair, but he let her go when she stirred for freedom.

They cleaned up and when Tabby reached for her underwear, Logan caught it and pulled it away. "Let me touch you a little longer," he begged, and Tabby stepped into the circle of his arms and let him pull her down onto the mussed bed.

Even sated, he could not get enough of the feel of her in his arms. She was so strong, and so feminine, a cluster of contradictions in the sexiest package that Logan had ever imagined. She was so capable and so independent, and so fragile and sweet. Her silky hair smelled like horse and sex and flowers and cedar.

She smells like a mate , Logan's stallion said with complete happiness. Our mare.

Logan let his arms tighten around her in surprise. Mates were a shifter girl's whispered nonsense, like fairy tales and happy endings…and yet here, with Tabby in the circle of his arms, he could imagine nothing more real and true.

She completed him the way he couldn't imagine anyone else ever doing, and she seemed to smooth over all his rough places and weeping wounds. He'd started their relationship with betrayal, and she'd countered it with trust. He came staggering into her life with an unexpected four-year-old and no means, and she'd given him a safe home and put his heart back together. If it wasn't for her, he wasn't sure what kind of guardian he could be to Franzi. If it wasn't for her, he'd have given up on everything that made him happier than he ever thought he could be.

He didn't deserve her—he couldn't!

But somehow, she was his.

" Mine ," he whispered into her hair, and he could feel her whole body smile in joy as she snuggled against him.