Coward.
He took a step toward her and studied her, his head cocked. Then another step and another. As he circled her, she could sense his gaze playing over her body. Finally, he came to a halt in front of her. Reaching out, he pried her handbag from her fingers and dropped it on the sofa. She had to hold herself very still as his fingers stroked beneath her chin, before gently urging her head up so he could stare into her eyes. His were silver, and this close she could see the ring of black around the iris…so familiar. “I wanted to see you again.”
“After more than ten years?” She shook her head, pulling free. He didn’t try to hold her, and she took a step back. Obviously, she was being super slow witted. “Why now?”
He grinned, looking younger. The hint of menace vanished, and some of the tension eased from the room. “You could say I had an epiphany.”
“You did?”
“A near death experience. I realized I wanted to see you again.”
He still wasn’t making any sense. “We had one night together—”
“One pretty hot night.”
“Maybe, but all the same, why would you want to see me again? And why now?”
He looked her up and down as if deciding what to say next. “You were my fantasy girl.”
“Your what?” His fantasy girl? That sounded unlikely. She wasn’t the fantasy girl type, and he must have had thousands of women since. If the one he’d just been groping was anything to go by, Abby was hardly his usual choice.
That fact didn’t seem to be stopping him now. He trailed his knuckles down the skin of her throat, and a shiver ran through her. “You probably don’t know it, but I had a little misfortune shortly after our night together.”
Punching a cop was hardly a little misfortune, and she knew all about it. She’d gone to see him three months after their night together. This was the only place she knew to look for him. They’d told her he was in prison—for grievous bodily harm to a police officer. She’d walked away and tried not to think about him ever again, which had been a little difficult, considering the circumstances.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I was inside for a year. And every night I dreamed about you. And me. Together.” He must have seen something in her face because he grinned again. “Yeah, baby, we got to know each other pretty well in that year.”
Ugh. He’d been jerking off to her memory. While he was in prison.
She should be horrified, but hell, she’d done the same. For weeks after that night, she’d dreamed of him, thought about coming back, offering herself for a replay. Right up until she’d realized she was pregnant, when the dreams had stopped and the nightmares began. It had literally torn her family apart, though in hindsight she knew that wasn’t such a bad thing.
“So,” he murmured, and somehow he’d gotten a whole lot closer. “I was in this accident a few weeks ago, and…you know, the whole life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing. Afterward, I got to thinking that maybe it was time I re-made the acquaintance of my fantasy girl. See what she was like in reality.”
At a guess: nothing like he remembered. That night had been time out. She hadn’t even been wearing her own clothes.
His hand still rested against her throat, and now it slipped around the back of her neck, burrowed into her hair and tilted her face up to his.
Move.
She needed to back off, tell him what she had come to say. She was betting that particular outcome hadn’t played any part in his fantasies. But he was going to kiss her—the intention was clear in his eyes—and somehow, there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it. She was petrified in to position, every muscle locked up tight.
No. No. No.
She was stronger than this. Wasn’t she? But the words remained lodged in her throat.
“Do you know how many nights I dreamed of you and woke up so fucking hot and hard, and you weren’t there? The things I dreamed about doing to you—nothing too kinky, honest. I’m a simple guy. Okay, maybe some of it was a little kinky.” He grinned, swiped his tongue across his lower lip, caught it between his white teeth. “And now, here you are. I’m guessing I shocked you yesterday, but maybe later…maybe you were a little bit curious about what it would be like.”
It?
Abby opened her mouth to explain why she was really here, but he placed a finger over her lips, stopping the words. “We can talk later.”
Maybe he had a subconscious inkling that he wasn’t going to like what she said. All the same she had to put a stop to this now. She suspected, though she couldn’t quite get her head around it, that Logan was about to attempt to re-enact some of those fantasies. And that so could not happen. Fantasies were just that. They had no place in the real world. Not his and not hers.