Pursuit

Excerpt: Lauren bent and grabbed her purse and Logan stood to his feet, frowning. "You're wearing that?" he asked with a grimace.

Lauren glanced down and looked at herself. She wore a red blouse with the shoulders cut out, black pleated shorts and stilettos. She glanced back up and saw his intent stare and had to smile. "This outfit is conservative. I'll have you know these are lined, linen shorts."

He didn't comment and Lauren received the impression that he couldn't. She almost laughed; she'd never even remotely seen him speechless before.

His eyes continued to run over her and when he didn't speak, she said, "We're going to a dance club. I'm twenty-five years old and you know what they say: you're only young once. I'm going to be among friends and besides, I'm sure you wouldn't let any harm come to me, right?"

His gaze slid back to hers and examined her thoroughly. His look became territorial and Lauren was hit with the same shaky feeling she always got when he was this close to her. Butterflies started fluttering in her stomach and her knees weakened. He walked forward with a purpose and picked up a lock of her hair and twirled it around his finger until he stopped at her scalp. She felt the tug on her hair center all the way to the juncture between her thighs. "Did I just hear you correctly?" The words rattled from his throat in a brusque, possessive tone. "Did you just grant me the right to be the man who protects you?"

Lauren's heart began beating viciously in her chest. She heard his question through a roaring in her ears. Her remark had been off-handed. She hadn't really meant anything serious with her question, so why was he taking it so seriously and why did she think this was suddenly a pivotal moment in their relationship? She tried to think, tried to get her brain to function. She licked her lips and tried to put the ball back in his court. "Do you . . . do you want to be that man?"

His answer was a silent one. A glimmer of heat exploded in his eyes and he began nodding his head, slowly, up and down. With one hand wrapped around her hair, his other hand snaked up and wrapped around her cheek and lifted her face to his. He bent down and kissed her, quickly but firmly, before raising his head again. "Okay. It's a done deal."

The intense look in his eyes was scaring her. Scaring her and exciting her all at the same time. Her mother had never told her that there were men like this one living on the planet. Nobody had ever warned her. "Okay, yeah, but--" she began.

He cut her off. "No buts."

Lauren was excited and nervous and panicky. "Yeah, there's a 'but'."

"And what would that be?" he questioned slowly and succinctly, only seeming to be humoring her.

"I guess this means we're . . . exclusive--" she began, but he cut her off again.

"You got that right," he breathed out in a possessive hiss.

"Okay, so it's just you and me, but that doesn't mean . . . "

"Doesn't mean what?" he questioned shortly, obviously wanting no conditions on the relationship whatsoever.

She narrowed her eyes and gathered her nerves together. "It doesn't mean that you make the rules. You need to understand that going in. You're not the boss of me, you don't tell me what to do, what to wear, or what time I have to be home. We're together, but we're not married or anything like that, and I'm all grown-up and have been for some time and I make my own rules."

His eyes impaled hers but Lauren could tell he was listening to her mandate carefully and strategically. Oh, man! She'd been right! It had been a strategy all along! And suddenly she knew that whether she'd given him an opening or not, he'd planned on having a confrontation with her tonight about . . . boundaries. And she'd played into his hands with that statement about him not letting her come to any harm. She really needed to watch what she said around this man.

His hands stayed plastered to her skull, and his body filled with a tension that was palpable. "All right, I agree," he answered in a voice that reflected his mercurial mood. "We're not married and I don't own you. You're a big girl and can live by your own rules, for now. All I'm going to say is one thing: You called it. We're together." His hand left her face and slid down and cupped the heat between her legs firmly and aggressively. "And this is mine." His fingers tightened. "Nobody touches you but me, and if somebody lays so much as a finger on a single strand of your hair, they'll wish they were dead."

Lauren's jaw dropped and she couldn't seem to close her mouth as he stared down at her.

"You got that, babe?" He hissed out while his hand between her legs held her in an unyielding grasp.

Lauren sucked in a ragged breath and nodded her head, too stunned to speak. Oh, dear God. She'd just released the Kraken.   Pursuit: Keywords, contemporary romance, alpha-male romance, steamy romance, Logan and Lauren