Exiled (A Madame X Novel) (6 page)

Plastic crinkles as clothes are stuffed into the bags, out of sight. Logan takes my hand and leads me into the living room. Collapses backward onto the couch, taking me with him. I squeal with laughter as he falls, his arms wrapped around me, taking me down to the couch. Twists with me, so I’m between the back of the couch and his big hard body, my cheek on his chest, his hands possessively cupping my backside.

I can take it for a few moments, and then I get antsy. “Logan. Let go. We should help Beth. Or, I should, at least.”

“Nope.”

“Logan—”

“I’m paying her time and a half for this. And she works best alone. Time to rest.”

He’s got me pinned. And it’s warm here. Comfy. I’m content, drifting. It’s impossible not to let myself float away, to pretend, once more, that Logan is all that exists. That this time with him is all there is.

I drowse, doze.

Sink under the warm buzzing swell of sleep, in Logan’s arms.

*   *   *

I
wake up, and Logan is gone.

Evening light streams through the sliding glass door, deep golden, bathing me in warmth. I roll, and my hand flops over the side of the couch; something wet touches my fingers, and I make a startled noise in my throat. A brown nose appears, followed by
whiskers, liquid brown eyes, floppy ears. Cocoa. Before I can even register her presence, she’s licking me.

“Yes, oh my God, Cocoa, yes. Hi. Yes, girl, I love you too.” I stop her from licking me but don’t push her away.

She rests her chin on the edge of the couch and just looks at me. As if she sees into my soul and does not find me wanting. The innocent, complete love of a dog is such a wonderful thing.

I nuzzle against her, rub her ears, her soft fine fur.

“What do I do, Cocoa? Huh? It’s all so impossible,” I murmur against her neck. “There’s no end. There’s no way out. But he needs me, you know? And I need him. But then, there will always be Caleb. And now Jakob? How do I reconcile the two? There’s no way. And I might never get another glimpse at Jakob. Because, really, I feel like they’re two different people, Caleb and Jakob. But Jakob, he’s a part of Caleb that he keeps buried way down deep. So deep I don’t think that part of him will ever come out again. Which is sad, because that’s a part of Caleb that I could have maybe—no. No. I can’t go there. Can’t think that way.”

Cocoa whines, yips gently, head tilted to one side. As if to say,
Yes, I’m listening
.

I lower my voice to a whisper so quiet it is nearly inaudible even to me, nearly subvocalization. “I love Logan, Cocoa. So much. I really, really do. So . . . how did I let that happen, again, with Caleb? How can I be that weak? I hate myself for it.”
Yip, ruff, yip,
Cocoa talking back to me. “Will he forgive me? I don’t know. I want to believe he will, but . . . I don’t know. Do I even deserve it?”

A doorknob twists somewhere, and I sit up. Logan, a towel wrapped around his waist, emerges from the bathroom. Bandaged, but otherwise incredible. Lean, sharp, gorgeous. “Talking to the dog?”

I smile and nuzzle Cocoa, who pants a couple of times and then
licks me once before trotting over to Logan. “Yes. She’s an excellent listener.”

“Isn’t she? Never argues, never gives shitty advice.”

“Exactly.”

I glance at him, frowning. “You’re not supposed to take showers, Logan. You can’t get your dressing wet.”

He waves a hand in dismissal. “I didn’t shower; I took a bath. Didn’t get my dressing wet. My hair is gonna be greasy until I can take a normal shower, but I needed to feel clean. Don’t worry about it.”

“Of course I’m going to worry about it.”

He seems about to argue but then takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and smiles at me. “I know you are, and I’m grateful that you care enough to worry.”

“I care so much it scares me sometimes, Logan.” I gesture at his hair. “See, if you’d let me help you, I could have washed your hair without getting the bandage wet.”

“Next time, then. I’m just . . . I’m not used to asking for help in anything. It’ll take time, that’s all.” There’s a moment of silence, and then he reaches down and rubs Cocoa’s ears. “I didn’t hear what you were saying to her, by the way.” He’s telepathic, apparently. “I just heard Cocoa making that noise she makes when she’s talking back to someone. I swear she understands what we’re saying, you know?”

“I do. It did seem that way.”

I want to run my hands over his body. Taste his skin. Feel his muscles under my palms. Take his hardness into my hands, feel him love me the way only he can. I don’t move, though. I can’t do that to him. I don’t deserve that with him. Not anymore. Not until I’ve come clean, admitted my sins and begged him to forgive me, if he can, for betraying him, cheating on him. That’s what it was, betrayal, infidelity. I love Logan.
Only
Logan.

But I am an addict. Weak, hooked, unable to control myself.

Logan must see or sense my inner turmoil. He grips the towel and moves to kneel beside me. “Hey. What’s up?”

I shrug. “It’s just a lot.”

“What is?”

I laugh, a bitter, humorless sound. “Everything, Logan. My life. Just . . . everything.”

He sweeps a palm across my cheek. “Talk to me, Isabel.”

I shake my head. “Why? The last thing you need right now is to take on my stick-in-the-mud angst. You need to rest. To heal. Not to worry about me. I should be worrying about
you
.”

He blows out a breath. “Isabel, why don’t you get this? I am
going
to worry about you. I am
going
to care about your problems. They’re my problems, because I want them to be. It’s what you do when you’re in a relationship.”

In a relationship.
My gut lurches. “I don’t know how to do that. How to be . . . that.”

“Who does? You make it up as you go, babe.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“Not easy, but simple. You trust me, I trust you. We confide in each other. Depend on each other. Give freely so we’re both getting what we need.”

“That sounds . . . lovely.”

He’s close. One knee on the couch, near my hip. Staring down at me. Indigo eyes warm, inviting, fiery with desire. God, those eyes. That look. The expression that says he wants me, all of me, only me. Needs me. Can’t go another minute without me, without tasting me, feeling me.

I take a breath to unburden myself of the guilt, but he steals it with a kiss. Buries his palm in my hair, cupping the back of my head. Lifting me up into the kiss. Grabbing a handful of hair at the roots
and tugging my head gently but firmly backward so he can plunder my mouth. Leaning farther over me.

I can’t not touch him, when he kisses me like this. Smooth my hands over his sides. Roam the curves of his shoulders, the broad plain of his back. Somehow, the towel comes loose. I find myself brushing it away, cupping, gripping, clutching, scratching his backside. Pulling him closer. Feeling him harden between us.

He’s propping himself up with one hand, searching for the hem of my dress with the other. Tugging it up, out of the way. Probing with a finger, sliding it under the gusset of my panties. Finding me wet. Hot. Ready. Touching and touching and touching, until I’m gasping against his kiss and stroking his hardness. Lifting my hips, needing him. Ready for him. Eager. Hungry.

He’s ripping at my panties, and I’ve got him gripped in my fist. I can feel by the tension in his belly and the way he’s breathing that he’s ready. Beyond ready.

“Is . . . God, Isabel.” He murmurs in my ear. His voice is low and rough, but it blasts me with remembrance.

“Logan, wait.”

He touches his forehead to my chest for a brief moment, but then he’s leaning back, upright. Cock jutting hard and ready, eyes tortured with need. “What do you need, babe?” He stares down at me. “If you’re worried about me, don’t. I’m perfectly healthy enough for this, I promise.”

“It’s not that, Logan.” I close my eyes tight, summon courage.

“Then what?”

I can’t look at him, or I’ll forget it all. The desire to obliterate everything with the heat of his kiss and the hardness of his body and the glory of feeling him orgasm in and on and all over me is too strong. If I look at him thus, naked, hard, ready, I’ll forget what I need to do.

“Isabel?” Logan’s voice, prompting me.

I suck in a breath. “We can’t do this, yet. I want to, need to, but I can’t.”

He shifts, plops to the cushion beside me. Drapes the towel over his lap. It tents, somewhat comically, over his massive erection. I force my eyes to focus on his face.

He sees now. This . . . isn’t good.

“Shit.” A breath, a palm passed over his face. “Spill.”

“I don’t even . . . I don’t know where to start.”

He eyes me. There’s an anger and a hardness in his gaze. “Well, then let me venture a guess: Caleb mind-fucked you again. Got you all mixed up and feeling sorry for yourself or for him, or something. Worked whatever magic hold he has on you, got you to sleep with him again. Is that it? That’s it, isn’t it? You let Caleb fuck you again.”

“Logan, I—”

“
Yes
—or—
no
, Isabel?”

A tear slides down my cheek. Another. A whole host. “Yes.” A broken sound, a shattered word, a shredded syllable.

“Fuck.” He rises, paces away, towel dropping to the floor, forgotten. Stomps angrily to his room. Pauses, head hanging, glances back at me. And then slams his fist into his bedroom door, a furious smashing blow that splinters the door. “Now I need two goddamn doors.”

“Logan, wait.”

“Just give me a few minutes, okay? I need to calm down, and I need to process this.” He’s not looking at me. Just standing naked in the doorway, blood on his knuckles, bandages diagonal across his head. “Don’t leave. Don’t drink. Just . . . wait.”

“All right.”

I try to push down the panic. The sobs. The self-loathing. But it’s bubbling up and threatening to spill over. It’s a very long time
before Logan emerges. He’s dressed, in loose track pants and a tight T-shirt, barefoot. Band-Aids on his knuckles.

Takes a seat on the couch beside me. Breathes deeply, lets it out, and finally looks at me. I keep my eyes downcast. I don’t deserve to look at him.

“Is. Look at me.”

I shake my head. I can’t. Don’t. Won’t.

He touches my chin, but I resist. Pull away. Feel his fingers slide across my cheek, brushing away tears. “Isabel de la Vega. Look at me now, please.”

I have to, the way he says it. The whip and crack of command in his voice is inexorable. “What, Logan?”

“I hate the hooks he has in you. The way he’s brainwashed you.”

“It’s addiction, Logan. Pure and simple.”

“Addiction can be broken.”

“He’s not a substance I can merely stop buying. I can’t just suffer the withdrawals, or go to rehab, or a clinic. I can’t just quit him. It’s not that simple. He holds my past. He
is
my past. I hate it, too, the way he affects me. The way I can’t seem to . . .
not
. No matter how badly I want to, no matter how hard I try.”

“What was it this time?”

“Jakob.”

“So what I told you, you already knew?”

“Some of it. I confronted him about the name on my discharge papers. And he told me about Jakob. But he told it as if it were someone else. Not him. The last thing he said to me was that Jakob Kasparek does not exist anymore. That his name was Caleb. But then . . . he . . . he showed me that Jakob
does
exist. Almost as a separate person within him, but there, nonetheless.”

“Excuse me if that doesn’t move me.”

“I’m not expecting it to.” I wipe at my face. “I don’t expect . . . anything from you. Except a good-bye, perhaps.”

“No, Isabel. No. Not that. Never that.”

“Why? How?”

“Love is not so weak as that, Isabel. At least mine isn’t.”

“But mine is, apparently.”

“I didn’t say so,” Logan says.

“You didn’t have to.” I finally look at him of my own volition. It is so hard, nearly impossible, and painful. To see the anger and the pain directed at me . . . it is nearly too much to bear. “I hate myself for it, Logan. Truly, I do. The moment he left, I—I wanted to undo it.”

What I don’t tell him, what I don’t even allow myself to fully think, is that there is a seed of doubt buried deep within me. Now that I’ve seen such a secret, vulnerable,
human
side of you, I cannot help but wonder what else there is within you, that no one else has ever seen. I wonder. I doubt myself. I doubt everything.

And that doubt is murderous. Treacherous.

But I do not doubt Logan. I do not doubt my feelings for him.

I twist to face him. Take his hands in mine. Meet his eyes. “Logan, please . . . forgive me. If you can. I don’t know what this means for us, for the future, but . . . I do love you. I hope you don’t doubt that.”

“It’s hard not to. I want to believe that if you loved me enough, you wouldn’t let anything come between us. But then I tell myself that I’m not in your shoes. I can’t understand or fathom what you’ve been through. But what I keep coming back to is . . . this isn’t the first time you’ve gone back to him after promising you were done. It’s not even the second. And—he’s still out there. He still considers you his property, and he’ll come for you. And I—I can’t help being afraid, especially now, that you might just choose him over me if it
came down to it.” He touches his lips to my knuckles, all ten, one at a time, slowly. “So, yes. I forgive you. Of course I do. But it will take time. I just . . . I need time. Stay here with me. Just be with me. And give me time to process it all.”

“I swear I—”

“Don’t. No promises, Isabel. You can’t make any promises to me, not about Caleb.”

He’s right, and I know it. I know it, and I hate it.

I cry, and he doesn’t shush me. Doesn’t tell me to stop. Doesn’t tell me it’s okay. It’s not, and we both know it. But he does hold me. He wraps his arms around me, pulls me against his chest, and lets me cry.

Sometimes it’s all there is, to cry and know it’s not okay.

W
e spend a week in an odd domestic stasis. Eating. Sleeping—together, but not
sleeping together
. He doesn’t touch me with sexual intent and I do not attempt to instigate it either. We both know we need time between you and me and Logan and me. We go grocery shopping. We pick out a new TV and new bedside table lamps. I accompany Logan to work and act as a sort of personal assistant, out of boredom and a desire to be useful. We go to dinner at restaurants, both fancy and plain.

He takes me shopping, and for the first time in my memory, I get to choose my own wardrobe. Bras, underwear, jeans, T-shirts, sweaters, skirts, simple cotton dresses, tennis shoes, sandals, flats, socks, tights, leggings, sweatshirts, shorts, workout gear. A whole new wardrobe of simple, attractive, comfortable clothes. He expresses his opinion on certain items, which ones he likes and which he doesn’t, but leaves every decision up to me. Nothing is excessively expensive, nothing is formal or uncomfortable. They are clothes that reflect
me
, and it’s a gift from Logan the value of which I don’t think
he or anyone can fathom. Just choosing my own wardrobe, it makes me feel like a real person, like a woman with her own identity. I have a
style
, and it is utterly and solely my own. And Logan expects nothing in return. That in itself is wonderful and amazing, to be given something freely. Always before, I felt like everything I did, everything I had came with a price, physical or emotional or psychological. Logan is content with a simple “thank you” and the happiness so evident in me.

He takes me to a movie at a theater—a wonderful first for me, an experience I want to repeat as often as possible. It is rapturous, transporting me into a world where I do not exist. A pleasing escape.

We take Cocoa for long meandering walks through Logan’s neighborhood.

Logan writes up a business plan for me.
Comportment
, he calls the business. I’m not sold on the name, but it will do for now. He guides me in constructing a business vision and a mission statement. All businesses need those two things, he says. We scout for locations; he writes up the loan contract; we squabble about both.

We go to an outpatient doctor to have the pressure bandage removed and the area checked. It’s healing nicely, we’re told. Wash it gently with warm water, don’t rub it too much. Leaking tears are normal, and so is a little blood in the tears. Logan refuses the prosthetics offered, both temporary and permanent. Not the way he wants to go. Not going to pretend to have an eye.

Beth has come by a few times over the last week with patches—leather, silk, combinations of materials, plain, ornate, and everything in between. Logan sorts through them, discarding some and keeping others.

He vanishes into the bathroom at the doctor’s office and emerges wearing a patch that, to me, suits him perfectly. It is made from
thick, aged brown leather, hand tooled with ornate swirling designs, the rim of the patch itself lined with brass rivets.

He grins at me expectantly. “So? What d’you think?”

I can’t help but laugh at his eager expression. “It looks great.”

“I’m glad you like it.” He glances at me. “I didn’t want anything boring, but I was worried it’d be too much.”

“You make it look . . . cool.”

He scrapes his hand through his hair, tosses it dramatically. “That’s me. King of cool.”

I snort. “Not anymore. Dork.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were teasing me.” He quirks an eyebrow at me. With the eyepatch, the effect is even more dramatic.

We’re at his SUV now; yes, he drove, carefully and with prior approval.
Just leave extra stopping distance
, he was told,
until you get used to the change in depth perception
. He climbs up and in, starts the engine while I buckle. Out into traffic, music on low.

“You act as if I’m a stick-in-the-mud, Logan. I
do
have a sense of humor.”

“Not a stick-in-the-mud, babe. Just . . . serious. As if it doesn’t always occur to you to laugh or crack jokes.”

I turn my gaze out the window, away from him. “Well, my life up until recently hasn’t precisely lent itself to frequent jocularity.”

“‘Frequent jocularity.’” He laughs. “See? That’s what I mean. Who says things like that?”

“Me?”

He reaches out and squeezes my knee, takes my hand. “Yes, you. And I love it. You speak with concision, with eloquence and elegance. It’s amazing. It’s almost like you have a script writer feeding you lines, but it’s just the way you talk.”

“My reeducation came from classic literature. I had to relearn how to speak, and for a long time, after I finished speech and physical therapy, the only person I spoke to was Caleb. And he is . . . formal. Always. And that is something I really never even truly understood until I met you. You’re the opposite. Not in a bad way, just . . . different. You are the polar opposite to Caleb’s upright, formal, precise manner. It’s . . . refreshing. As if I can let loose. Let my hair down, metaphorically speaking.”

“I get it. As much as I can, at least.”

Home, then.

Home?

Home.

Yes, Logan is home. Logan is freedom. Logan is where I am learning to be me. Learning who I am. What I like, what I don’t like. I exercise when I want to. And when I don’t want to, I don’t. I eat what I like, when I like. I have a taste for unhealthy food, I discover. Pizza, nachos, potato chips. Logan has to step in, remind me that I can’t eat all that stuff all the time. So I find a balance, gradually. Revert to healthy food. Organic, locally produced. Lean meats, vegetables, very little bread, very little processed food. But I splurge once in a while on yummy unhealthy food, just because I can. I exercise, but my way, at my pace, my routines. I like to run, I discover. I could never do that, before. But now I run. With Cocoa and Logan, I run. Logan got me an iPod and earbuds, and we run miles and miles and miles, not talking to each other, just running, breathing, pounding pavement endlessly. I can tune out the world when I run, focus on the music and the rhythm of my soles on the concrete, and not think about you or Logan or my addiction to you or the fact that I should have gotten my period two days ago.

It’s only two days late. I’ve been stressed out. Life has been
chaotic and painful and impossible, and such things can throw off a woman’s cycle.

It’s only two days.

Nothing to worry about.

*   *   *

A
week and a half late.

I’m refusing to panic. Refusing to worry. Burying my head in the sand. Not even thinking about it. Any of it.

If I let myself start thinking about it, I will lose all control over everything. I’m unbalanced. Tripping along the edge of a cliff, arms windmilling wildly.

But I know, deep down, that I am going to fall.

*   *   *

W
ith my period now two weeks late, I find myself ill in the morning. Nauseous. Stomach roiling. Sometimes I barely make it to the toilet. Fortunately, Logan is an early riser and follows a regular routine: up at five, eat a quick breakfast and drink a cup of coffee, then upstairs to work out. In the shower by seven, out the door to work by eight, in the office by eight thirty, usually.

My illness—I know the term, but refuse to think it—usually happens around six thirty. While Logan is in the gym upstairs. Sometimes later, while he’s in the shower. Or after he’s gone. It hasn’t happened while he’s been around to see it. He’d know what it means—what it
might
mean.
Could
mean.

He has me stay at his house, working from home. Writing out lesson ideas for my business, creating materials, my own version of the informational pamphlet Indigo clients received.

The sickness usually passes once I’ve vomited, but I have to eat
directly after. Light food. Fruit, an egg-white omelette, tea. No cheese; I tried, and my stomach rebelled, which is odd because I usually love cheese. I tried a sandwich for lunch one day and couldn’t keep the lunch meat down. Or, no red meat. White meat was fine. But not red. No red meat, no cheese, nothing too salty or too sweet. Bland food, then. Unusual, once again, because I typically prefer rich, flavorful food.

My moods are unpredictable, too.

Weepy and sad one moment, for no reason. Irritable the next. Giddy and manic another.

I steadfastly refuse to consider what it all might mean.

*   *   *

L
ogan comes home early from work one day, when I’m nearing three weeks late. Lays a garment bag across the back of the couch and just grins at me.

I put on the dress. It’s sexy, alluring, a little risqué for my usual taste, but I decide I like it. Black, low cut, edgy lines, a slit up the left thigh nearly to my hip, fabric gathered tight across my torso into a bunch over my left hip.

When I emerge wearing the gown, Logan’s eyes go wide and rake over me. And, for the first time in nearly a month, there’s lust in his gaze. Not that it’s been absent all this while, but he hides it. Tamps it down, refuses to act on it.

This time, he slides close to me, wraps a palm around my back, low, just above my buttocks, and tugs me against his front. “Gorgeous, Isabel.”

“Thank you,” I say. Breathe a moment, feel his heart thumping, feel his fingers dimpling against my spine, edging lower to the swell of my bottom. “What’s the occasion?”

“A business associate of mine had extra tickets to an opera
performance at Lincoln Center tonight. I managed to wangle a table at a fancy dinner place near it, so we’ve got a fun night out.”

“Opera sounds delightful. I’ve always wanted to attend a performance.”

Logan shrugs, makes a face. “I dunno. Opera isn’t really my thing, I don’t think, but you don’t turn down free seats to Lincoln Center, especially not when they’re prime seats. So we’ll go and be fancy.”

I notice now that he’s changed into a tuxedo, and has replaced his eyepatch with a black one that somehow adheres to his face without a strap. The tux is bespoke, with glinting sapphire and titanium cuff links, an expertly tied bow tie. Hair slicked back, bound low at his nape. He looks sleek, elegant, and powerful. Virile. Indigo eye matching the jewels in his cuff links. Indeed, his eye is brighter, more arresting and iridescent than the sapphire.

He reaches into the inside pocket of his tuxedo, pulls out a long thin box: a necklace, sapphire and titanium to match his cuff links, and his eye. He glides behind me, and I can suddenly feel him everywhere. His heat, his hard body looming behind me. His hands tickling across my breastbone, laying the gleaming blue pendant just above my cleavage, clasping it at my neck. Setting the box aside, reaching into his trouser pocket for another box, this one smaller, and square. Earrings, to complete the set. Gentle, sure, nimble fingers sliding the post through my earlobe, attaching the back.

And then his palms are carving down my hips. Pulling me back against him. Lips to my ear. Not whispering or speaking or kissing, just a momentary resting of his lips against my ear, a pause on their downward journey. Back of my ear, the knob of bone just there. And then to my neck. The curve where neck becomes shoulder. Feather-light kisses. Drifting touches of his lips.

Goose bumps pebble my skin.

My nipples ache.

Thoughts leave me.

He continues to press soft slow careful kisses onto my skin, neck, shoulder, my back where the cut of the dress leaves my flesh bare. And his fingers, at my hips, gathering the fabric of the dress. The hem rises. Rises. I gasp and focus on his kisses, and on the cool air on my bare flesh as the hem of the dress glides upward.

Breathing becomes difficult, then.

He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of my panties. They are simple, and new. Plain cotton briefs. Comfortable, and not at all attractive; I hadn’t gotten around to changing into anything more fancy yet. This thought too is blasted away as he lowers the undergarment. I step out. And now I’m bare for him, the dress hiked up around my waist.

“Nothing underneath, tonight.” His voice in my ear is low, a murmur, a growl.

“What?” I gasp.

“No panties tonight.”

“Logan—”

He nips at my earlobe. “Hush.”

I go silent on a breath, an outrush of surprise. His fingers are dancing over my hip bone. Over my belly, to my opposite hip. Teasing. Lower, lower. Tickling my thighs, outside to inside. Tracing across my pudendum.

I whimper.

I want his touch.

It’s been so long. A month of celibacy, for us both.

I feel wild with need. Frantic. I’ve buried it under worry, brushed it aside in favor of ignoring everything, pretending this is life, running, exercising, eating with Logan, sleeping with Logan, working on material for Comportment.

But now, with his fingers easing closer to my core, feathering over my labia—I need him.
Need.

“God, Logan.”

“What, baby?”

I can’t help gyrating my hips. “Please.”

“Please what, Isabel?”

“Touch me.”

He doesn’t answer with words. His middle finger slides into me, slides deep into my wet, hot core. Curls, moves, withdraws. I ache now. Ache all over. I’m shaking. Lay my head back against his shoulder and widen my knees. He touches me again, this time applying a gentle pressure to my clitoris. I whimper, gasp, and my knees buckle as lightning sears through me.

It feels like an eternity since I’ve felt Logan thus, felt this touch, this bliss, this connection I feel only with him.

A rising, expanding violence within me. A detonation, impending. A susurrus in my ears, a roaring of blood in my veins. Heat in my belly. A rush of sensation.

He slides that one finger into me again, withdraws it. Smears my wetness over my clit. One hand is holding up my dress, keeping it out of the way, the other at my core, his thighs hard against the backs of mine. I’m leaning back against him, limp. Capable of nothing but the motion of my hips as he slides his finger in, and out. In, and out. Against my clit. In, and out. Two fingers, then, suddenly.

Climax burgeons.

I’m gasping, arching my spine, fully giving in to the bursting wildness.