Exposed (21 page)

Logan doesn’t laugh at my faux pas. “One might say I’m a bad influence on you.” He hands me the whisky, and I take it, down two swallows, and immediately chase it. “Case in point: I’ve got you chasing whisky with beer.”

“That is true,” I say. “Very true, indeed. But I don’t mind. Mainly because your brand of bad is always so good.”

This earns me a laugh. “I’m glad you think so.”

His touch shifts from right leg to left, and it’s impossible to think of anything but his hands on my leg, the way his fingers dig into the muscle and the smooth skin just beneath the back of my knee. The intimacy of it, the way I wish and want, in the dirty places in my mind, for his touch to slide upward, even though I know that’s the worst thing that could happen right now.

“Hungry?” he asks.

I nod sloppily. “Yes. Very. Veryvery.”

“You’re drunk,” he says, laughing.

“I am. Yes indeed, I am drunk.
Aaaaaand
I like it.”

I also like this spot on the couch. It’s comfortable, cozy. The couch has swallowed me, sucked me in.

“Good. That was the point. Didn’t take much, though, did it?”

“I don’t really drink very much, or very frequently. Caleb kept me . . .
healthy
.”

“Well I’ve got something unhealthy and delicious for you. Just hang tight.” I hear plastic crinkling, silence, and then the microwave door open and close, the gentle hum of the microwave heating something. I’m curious, but far too pleasantly and comfortably drunk to make the effort of looking to see what he made. I smell it after a moment, but can’t identify it.

He plops himself down on the couch beside me, a ceramic plate in one hand, two more beers in the other. He takes the bottle out of my hand—I hadn’t realized it was empty, nor do I remember finishing it—and replaces it with the full one. I take a sip, and it is, like every sip before it, delicious. But then I smell the food. I don’t remember the last time I ate. The plate holds chips, yellow corn chips with cheese melted on them, liberal glops and strings and pools of orange cheese piled high on triangular white-yellow chips.

I try one; oh. Oh my. OH MY GOD.

“Wha-is-this?” I ask, my mouth full of chip and cheese.

He laughs. “It’s like feeding an alien. I swear you’ve never had any good food. It’s nachos, man. Cheesy chips. Best drunk or stoned food there is.”

“Except pizza,” I add, “and chicken shawarma.”

“And potato chips.”

“And beer.”

“Beer is very, very important,” Logan agrees. He reaches for a chip, but then stops and laughs. Apparently I’ve eaten them all. “You are hungry, aren’t you?”

I stare at him, embarrassed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pig out.”

Logan just shook his head, laughing. “Don’t be ridiculous, and don’t apologize.” He reaches up and tugs a lock of my hair. “You want something else?”

I just nod. I can’t believe I ate all that already. It was a big plate full of chips. “Yes, please.”

He heads toward the kitchen but then stops and leans over the back of the couch, resting his chin on my shoulder. I want very badly to kiss him, his cheek, his mouth, his temple, his anything. I don’t dare.

“You ever have a P-B-and-J?” he asks.

“A what?”

“I’m guessing that’s a no. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

I shrug. “Not that I remember.”

“Comin’ up then. You’ll love it. Another staple food. I lived on P-B-and-J growing up. Still a go-to when I don’t know what else to have.”

He returns in a few minutes with four sandwiches, two for me, two for him. The first bite is . . . delectable. Crunchy peanuts, cool fruit jelly, soft white bread. I finish the first one in moments. I’m halfway through the second when it hits me.

The sun is bright. Blinding. Shining in my eyes as I sit at a table. I can
feel the wood under my hands, rough, thick-grain wood, deep cracks and grooves, yet polished smooth by ages of wear. There is a groove under the index finger of my right hand, and I run my fingernail back and forth in it. I’ve done this a million times. Sat here, rubbing a fingernail in this groove, waiting. I smell . . . the sea. Brine. Ocean waves crash somewhere far away. A seagull caws, another answers.

Silhouetted by the sun is a woman, tall, willowy. Long black hair hanging loose down nearly to her waist. Her hips sway to music only she can hear as she stands at the counter, doing something. She is making a sandwich. Spreading grape jelly, thickly. Peanut butter, with lots of peanuts in it. Cuts it in half diagonally, sets it in front of me. On a white porcelain plate traced around the rim with delicate blue flowers.

She leans down, and the sun is blocked out by her body, allowing me to see her. I see her smile, spreading across her face like sunrise. Her eyes twinkle.
“Coma, mi amor.”
Her voice is music.

She touches her lips to my cheek, and I smell garlic and perfume.

“. . . Isabel? Isabel!” Logan’s voice filters through to my awareness.

“My . . . my mother used to make me these sandwiches. When I was a girl. I think. I just . . . I saw her. I was sitting at a table. It was by the ocean, I think. That’s all—that’s all I remember. But I could . . .
feel
it.”

Logan is at a loss for words, but I don’t need his words. He wraps an arm around me, tugs me close. “I’m here, baby.”

It’s all I need. There is nothing he can say, nothing to be said.

His heartbeat is a steady thump, a reassuring soft drumming under my ear. I have no idea what time it is, and I don’t care. The world is spinning, and I feel disconnected from it. As if I could fly away at any moment, cast loose by centrifugal force.

“At Caleb’s . . . I had a dream. A memory, I think. M’not sure. A car crash. But only maybe. All I knew was that I was hurt, and it was raining, and I was cold, and it was dark. So much pain . . . I was alone.
But then he was there, but it felt like I’d seen him before. And it wasn’t a mugging. That’s what he always told me. A mugging gone wrong. But that’s not what happened. It’s not. He lied to me. But why? Why lie about that?”

“Because maybe the truth of what happened is something he doesn’t want you to know.”

That makes far too much sense. And it makes my heart hurt. What could Caleb be hiding? There are simply too many possibilities, and I’m too dizzy to sort through them all.

I still have half a sandwich in my hand. I set it aside. I feel a cold canine nose nudge my hand, and I open my eyes to see a pair of Cocoas, blurred and overlapping, staring up at me hopefully. I barely manage to knock the remnant of my sandwich—just a small corner—on the floor at her feet.

She doesn’t pounce on it, though, but rather looks at Logan pleadingly. “You’re not supposed to have people food, but I guess it’s okay this once.” He scratches her affectionately behind her ear. “Go ahead, girl.”

Cocoa devours it in one bite, licks her lips, and then returns to her place on the rug near the doorway between the living room and the hallway. Her tail taps the floor rhythmically—
thump, thump, thump, thump
.

“I like Cocoa. She’s a good doggy.”

A laugh from Logan. “I know. She’s my girl.”

“I thought
I
was your girl,” I say, sounding a bit too petulant for even my own taste.

“Are you for real jealous of my dog right now, Isabel?” Logan asks, a laugh in his voice.

“No. Shut up.” I can’t hide the smile in my voice or on my face. Don’t try.

The silence between us then is easy. I am content to let the world
spin around me and beneath me, to lie against Logan and listen to his heart beating under my ear, and not think about Caleb or the lies or the mysteries or myself or anything.

“I have a confession to make,” Logan says.

I wobble my head on his chest, a gesture meant to be a negative, but which ends up being more of a sloppy flopping of my head. “I can’t handle anything serious right now.”

“Nothing like that. It’s just that I had an ulterior motive behind getting you drunk.”

I twist and gaze up at him, but I have to shut one eye so there’s only one of him. “Oh really? And what would that be?”

“So I’d be less tempted by you. I won’t take advantage of you when you’re wasted, especially not when you’re as vulnerable as you are right now.”

“That isn’t what I expected you to say.”

“I know.” He rubs my arm. “I want it to be right. When it happens with us, I want it to be right. And you’re just not there yet.”

I shake my head. “No. I wish I were, but I’m not. He has answers I need, and until I get them, he has a hold on me I just can’t break. It’s not fair to you.”

“Life isn’t fair,” Logan says. “It never has been and never will be. If it were, my best friend wouldn’t have died, and I wouldn’t have gone to prison. If life were fair, Caleb would have gotten arrested instead of me, and you wouldn’t have amnesia. If life was fair, we’d be able to be together and there wouldn’t be anything standing in the way.”

“But life isn’t fair.”

“Not even close.” A sigh. “I’m not saying I regret what we did together, but I just . . . it makes it all the harder for me right now. Because I’ve tasted you. I’ve gotten a little glimpse of what it’ll be like when we can be together with nothing between us.”

“But I’m weak, so there is something between us.” I choke on my next words. “Caleb is between us.”

Once again, Logan is left with nothing to say. It’s true, and we both know it.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Why?”

“Because I have no idea, and I’m curious.”

Logan tilts his wrist to glance at his watch. “It’s two thirty in the afternoon.”

“I’m tired.” I want to open my eyes, but I can’t. They won’t cooperate. “I’m sorry. I’m no fun right now. I’m just . . . so tired.”

“I’m here, Isabel. Just relax. Let go. I’ve got you.”

I’m always falling asleep around Logan. Maybe because I feel safe with him.

I dream of Logan. Of being naked with him. Nothing between us. And then I dream of shattering glass and twisting metal, and darkness and rain. And then Logan is in the darkness with me, in the rain with me, standing just out of reach.

Just out of reach. In the dream, as in life.

•   •   •

I
wake alone, terrified. Sweating. Crying. Dream residue coats my mind with fear, fragments of nightmares flapping in the spaces of my soul like bats in a belfry. Hungry eyes, red in the darkness. Bright lights blinding me. Ice in my veins. Loss. Confusion. It’s all there, in my mind, disordered and wild and jumbled and visceral but meaningless.

I try to breathe through it, but I can’t. I can’t breathe. My chest is compressed by iron bands, preventing me from breathing. My hands shake. Tears track down my cheeks, flowing freely, unstoppable. I ache to breathe, but I cannot. Terror batters at the inside of
my skull and squeezes my heart so it beats like fluttering sparrow wings.

Where is Logan?

Where am I?

I’m in his bed. The mattress is wide, and empty but for me. The blankets are kicked back to the foot-end of the bed, the sheet tangled around my thighs. I’m drenched with sweat. It’s dark outside. A digital clock on the bedside table near to hand reads 1:28
A.M.
All is dark. Lights are off. Moonlight streams in through the window, a river of light silvering the floor and my skin. I am naked but for bra and underwear. I don’t remember undressing.

I manage a thready gasp. Another. My voice rasps. “Logan?”

Nothing.

“Logan?” A little louder.

I tumble out of the bed, feet hitting the floor. The hardwood is cold under my bare feet. The bra is too tight, constricting me. I can’t breathe. I fumble at the clasps and rip the garment off, toss it aside.

I’m still dizzy. My mouth is dry. My head aches. Pounds.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe without Logan.

I find him asleep on the couch, clad in a pair of loose shorts and nothing else. A laptop computer is on the coffee table, open, screen dark, and his cell phone is near it, along with a pad of paper and a pen. There are several phone numbers written down, all local New York numbers, 212 area codes. Scribbles, things crossed out, doodles. Abstract designs, swirls of ink, squares merging with triangles, becoming trees of curlicues and arcs. He’s written something at the bottom of the page, underlined it several times.

Jakob Kasparek.

Underneath that are two more words, connected to the name above by a darkly inked arrow:
Signed out.

What does all this mean?

Just seeing him calms me. But he’s restless, tossing and turning. I lower myself to the couch near his head, feather my fingers through his hair. He murmurs something unintelligible, shifts forward, closer to me. I pull his head onto my lap, and he makes a small, boyish sound of contentment that melts something in me. His hand rests on my thigh, and I scoot lower on the couch and prop my feet on the coffee table, and his arm wraps around my waist, between my back and the couch.

I do not fall back asleep, but I am able to rest, to close my eyes and relax and let a sense of peace permeate me.

I need this man so much it
hurts.

I
doze through to dawn.

At some point past sunrise, Logan wakes suddenly and immediately, blinking up at me. “Isabel?”

I smile down at him. “Hi.”

His eyes flit over my breasts. He struggles to pull his gaze away from them. “What . . . um. What happened?”

“I had a nightmare. Woke up and you weren’t there. So I came looking for you.”

“You had a nightmare, but I ended up asleep on your lap?” He doesn’t seem inclined to move off my lap, however, and this is just fine with me.

“When I have nightmares, they usually leave me in a panic attack. I can’t breathe, can’t move. It’s hard to even think. But when I saw you asleep here, it just . . . calmed me. Having you sleep on me like this . . . it was perfect. It was what I needed.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up.”

“But you were.”

“You know what I mean.” He rubs his eyes, wipes sleep out of them. His eyes constantly return to my bare breasts. “God, you’re gorgeous.”

“So are you,” I say.

And he is. I spent a lot of time between drowsing examining his tattoos, trying to parse out the various images. Tracing the contours of his muscles with my fingers, watching him breathe.

“You need to put on a shirt. Or I need to be in a different room.” His voice is thick, low. He sits up, and I see that I’ve affected him. He twists away in an attempt to hide it, but I saw the erection in the tenting of his shorts.

“Do you have my dress somewhere?” I ask.

He stands up. “Yeah, I took it off you when I put you in bed. Thought you’d sleep better that way.”

“Very thoughtful of you,” I say, watching him. “But I don’t typically sleep in my bra. Rather uncomfortable. Maybe next time you can take that off me, too.”

He vanishes into his bedroom and returns with my dress. “I don’t know if I have the restraint for that.” He hands the garment to me. “I’m gonna take a quick shower. You want one before I do?”

I shake my head. “No. Thank you. I’m fine.”

He glances at me one last time, his gaze raking over my body with blatant desire and appreciation. And then he’s in his bathroom and I hear the shower going. It isn’t until a few minutes have passed that I remember the note he wrote himself and the questions it left me with. I decide to ask him. I prod open the door to the bathroom, smelling steam and soap. The shower has glass walls, so I can see him clearly, obscured only by a thick veil of swirling steam. His naked body is glorious, perfect, beautiful. I stare at him, watching him. He is facing the stream of water, one hand propped on the
wall, the water beating down on his head and the back of his neck. He is leaned forward, spine concave.

It takes a moment to realize what he’s doing; his hand moves slowly up and down his massive erection. He’s masturbating. He doesn’t know I’m here, and I’m watching, silent, enthralled. Aroused. His eyes are closed, his jaw clenched. His posture speaks of internal torture, some great conflict. He is squeezing himself roughly, tightly. I watch, and think about how much more gentle I would be. I watch, and feel absolutely no guilt in this voyeurism. I should, but I don’t. Only pleasure. Heat billows through me, and wetness coats my core. I want to touch him. I want to peel off my underwear and slip into the shower with him, replace his hand with mine. I want to wrap my thighs around his waist and feel him inside me. Feel him take me, plunder me, ravage me. Ravish me.

I remember something he said, just outside this very bathroom:
“Get dressed, X, before you discover how much self-control it’s taking to not . . . ravish you senseless.”

I want him to ravish me senseless.

But I dare not allow it. Not yet. Not with Caleb’s scent so fresh on my skin. I want Logan. Need him. Desperately need him. But I cannot have him. Not until I’ve broken Caleb’s hold on me.

God. Logan’s hand is a blur now, and his body rocks, straightens. His fist plunges around his cock, down to the root, and then back up once more. I’m mesmerized by this, watching the taut bubble of his buttocks flex as he thrusts into his fist, and the head of his cock turns almost purple with the brutal force of his grip. I couldn’t look away now even if I wanted to.

He groans, a quiet, constrained sound. And then his fist resumes its blurring pumping and he leans all his weight against the marble wall, face resting on his forearm, hips pushed forward. His body is
bowed inward, spine arched. He is a vision of masculinity, all muscle and tattoos and hard flesh and angles.

I nearly come when he releases. It is a geyser of semen spouting out of him, splashing onto the marble and sluicing down the drain, washed away, and he continues his rough abuse of his member, pumping until another gush spurts out of the tip of him, and then he grips himself at the base and rubs there as a third fountain of white viscous liquid leaves him. And then he’s rubbing his palm over the head and squeezing, pumping, squeezing. Finally, he’s done.

And that’s when he looks at me.

His eyes narrow. His jaw flexes. “Isabel.”

His gaze flicks over my breasts, down. Fixes on my core. I glance down as well, and see that the silk covering my opening has darkened with dampness.

I meet his gaze unapologetically. Tilt my chin up.

And then I flee. Return to his bedroom and throw myself on the bed. God, what did I do? I watched Logan masturbate. Is he angry? I don’t know. Surprised, at the very least. Confused. He saw how aroused I was, watching him.

Oh god. Oh god. I close my eyes and I can see it still, his thick shaft in his hard fist, the head broad and plump, dark as he squeezes himself mercilessly. I can almost feel his cock in my hands, can almost feel his lips on my breasts. I moan and slide my fingers under the waist of my underwear, slip two fingers into myself. Delve into the juices and smear them against my clit. Bite my lip and let out a groan as lightning sizzles through me.

I hear the door and know he’s there. I don’t open my eyes yet. I arch up off the bed and shove away my panties. Kick them off. Spread my legs open and touch myself once more, let my fingers find a circling rhythm.

When I’ve found it, I open my eyes and stare at Logan through
slitted lids. He’s leaning back against the closed bedroom door, a thick black towel wrapped around his waist, clutched closed in one hand. I don’t stop. I keep my eyes on him as I fondle my clit, slip my fingers into my slit and smear wetness over myself once more, circle, circle. I’m breathing hard, and my hips flutter. My throat closes, and then I groan involuntarily, heat tightening my muscles, tension coiling inside my belly, low.

The towel around Logan’s waist does nothing to disguise the evidence of his renewed erection.

What are we doing? Why?

I have no answers, but I know I’m not going to stop. And I know he won’t either. But he’ll get no closer, either. If he did, this would all change in a moment. A single touch, and it’d be over. He’d be here in this bed with me. And I want that, but like he said yesterday, I want it when it’s right. And this may be wrong, or maybe it’s not. I don’t know. I just know I like his eyes on my body, and I wish it were his hands but I know if it were we’d be here for days and days, naked and tangled up and sweaty and getting so dirty together doing all the things I’ve wanted with Logan for so long it hurts, it seems, and yet after we emerged blinking and sore from this bed, I’d still have questions and problems and nothing would be different and nothing would be solved.

So I choose to wait.

And torture both him and myself with this intimate, voyeuristic display. I’m on display for him. Heels drawn up to my buttocks, slit open wide for him, wet and gleaming with my juices, heavy breasts weighted to either side of my body. I blink and glance at him, and he’s naked. Towel dropped. Cock in hand. Impossibly hard again.

“Pinch your nipples, Isabel.” His voice floats to me. I pinch my nipple between finger and thumb, and a whimper leaves me. “Harder. Make it hurt.”

I squeeze hard, and lightning sears through me, and my hips lift involuntarily.

He’s jerking himself roughly.

I meet his gaze. “Softly, Logan. Gently. Not so rough.” He gentles and slows his touch. “Yes. Like that.”

“Wish it were your hand,” he murmurs.

“Or my mouth,” I say.

“Or your pussy.”

“That would be so perfect. I’d squeeze around you. I’d squeeze you so hard you wouldn’t be able to pull out of me.”

“If I were in your pussy, I’d never leave. I’d bury myself so deep . . .” He’s pleasuring himself slowly, gently. But not the way I’d do it.

God, I want to touch him.

I remember the way he felt in my hands. In my mouth. His come on my skin, on my tongue.

I’m crazed. At the edge of my control. Ready to abandon the pretense of all this and just pounce on him like a lioness leaping for her prey.

“Why are we doing this to ourselves, Logan?” I ask, my voice ragged, desperate.

“Fuck if I know.” He’s close. His eyelids are heavy, his motions jerky and rough.

“I need you.”

“Need you too, babe.” He’s grinding his teeth, his muscles are tensed, eyes narrowed and laser-focused on me.

I’m there. On the edge, riding the crest. Falling over, watching him. “Gonna—gonna come, Logan.”

“Me too.”

I don’t dare look at him now. If I look at him, I’ll leave the bed and sink to my knees in front of him and take all his seed in my
mouth and on my face and on my breasts. I’ll jump on him and ride him until I can’t walk. God, I fucking want him.

“I want you so fucking bad too, Isabel,” Logan says, and I realize I said that last part out loud.

“Oh . . . oh god. Oh god.” I’m exploding, seeing Logan in my mind, against the backdrop of my tight-shut eyes.

And then I feel him. Am I imagining this? His mouth on my nipples, suckling them hard, flattening them, biting them, his fingers on mine, circling madly with mine?

I don’t dare open my eyes and shatter the spell, I just go with it, moan and whimper and now I’m near to crying with the bliss blasting through me, wet tongue warm on my breasts, lips smearing and stuttering across my skin.

“Logan . . .” I whisper.

“Ssshhhh.” He’s close. Too close. I need him, and if he’s really here, really in this bed with me, then I’ll take him. He won’t stand a chance against my desperation. “Hush, baby. Let me take care of you.”

“But—”

“Hush.” And then his mouth is there, at my core, over my clit, and my fingers are buried in his thick long hair and I’m tugging at his head, jerking roughly to get more of his mouth on me, to urge him for more. More. God, more.

I writhe against his face, and I come. So hard, I come. Stars burst in my eyes, and my breathing is ragged gasps and near-sobs of ecstasy.

“Logan . . . god, Logan.”

I accept the inevitable. I cannot stop this. I want it. I will have it. I will have him. I can’t resist. It’s futile.

Again, his tongue lashes me to orgasm. I hurt from the potency of this climax, so hard on the heels of two other furious releases. He’s punishing me, I think. Making me come again, and again. I
can’t stop. He won’t let me stop. I didn’t know this was possible, to just come and come and come, like a string of dominoes knocking one into the other. His fingers delve into me and his fingers are tweaking my hardened nipples and I’m crying, crying, sobbing, with guilt and with bliss. An agony of ecstasy. He incites this in me, he’s done this to me before, we’ve been here before.

So close but so far.

I jerk free of him, scoot up and away from his eager nimble devouring mouth, and his eyes follow me. I lunge for him, crash into him, my mouth smashing against his.

“Erase it all, Logan,” I whisper, my breath merging with his. “Erase everything. Please. Make it all go away. Take it all away.”

“I can’t, baby,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “I can’t change anything.”

“Yes, you can. You’ve changed me.”

I have to have him. I have to feel him. I can’t do this anymore, this futile childish pretending that we’re not going to have sex, this notion that we can edge closer and closer and not really go all the way.

We’re kneeling on the bed, in the center, up on our knees, wrapped up, mouths crashing and slashing and mashing, his arms around me, fingers dimpling my spine and scraping lower to grab my ass with fierce strength, and I’m up against him, breasts flattened against the hard wall of his chest. I feel his cock between us, a thick hard hot ridge against my belly. I grip a tangled fistful of his blond hair and force him closer and reach between us to clutch his erection and smear the messy leaking fluid on my palm and down his length. He moans, and I eat that sound. I taste and swallow it, and stroke him again and suck down his breath and devour his sigh.

I lean into him, and he falls to his back. “Isabel—”

“I can’t—Logan, I’m dying without this. I’m dying without you.”
I whimper this admission to his jaw near his ear, and then I kiss where the words were.

His legs flail on the bed, and I know he feels the desperation too. He’s fighting this, fighting himself, fighting me. I’m fighting it all too, but we’re both losing.

I’m on him, straddling him, knees in the mattress beside the trim wedge of his hips, my ass in the air, need oozing out of my core. I angle, and his erection nudges my opening.

“Isabel, oh fuck, Isabel. Is. God, goddamn it.” He is a tortured soul. He can’t resist now, either. “God . . .
damn it
.”

We are doomed to this sin together. Slaved to this, chained to this.

“Look at me, Logan,” I beg. He wrenches his eyes open, fiery indigo spearing into my soul. “Don’t you dare look away.”

We both know why we’re not supposed to do this. Why it feels wrong, even though it feels so right.

I was just with Caleb.

I force the reminder upon myself. It shows in my eyes, I’m sure, and Logan sees it.

“I’m with you, baby.” His gaze is bold and strong and unwavering.

We are frozen in this moment, him about to pierce me so perfectly, our eyes locked. Tensed, taut. Neither of us looks away.

My hands are flattened on his chest, my hair loose and draping in a thick inky black curtain, and now it blocks out the whole world as I lean down and kiss him.