Exposed (23 page)

“But why cut it all off?” Logan threads his hands through my hair, the silky locks slipping like water through his fingers. “I would never tell you what to do with your life or your body or anything, but shaving it all off is just . . . it seems a little extreme.”

“In order to operate on me, the surgeons had to shave my hair off. Caleb showed me a picture of me with no hair. I don’t remember this. He says they operated on me and I seemed fine initially, I woke up, remembered myself. But then I started bleeding cranially, my brain started swelling, and they had to put me in a coma. When I woke up from that I’d lost my memory. But that picture? That was me, the last and only photo of me before I lost my identity. That was me as . . . as Isabel, as the Isabel I once was. The Isabel I used to be. And I want to—I don’t know. I want to be her again. I know I’ll never get that back. I’ve had a few minor memories return, but I’ll never get everything back. I know that. But I just . . . I guess I thought by cutting my hair off, I could . . . regain some of who I used to be.”

“I guess that makes sense. You want to identify with who you were. I totally get that. But what if—”

I cut in over him. “It’s not just that. It’s making myself different. Choosing how I look, for me. To be who
I
want to be. To look how
I
want to look, not how Caleb made me. That’s what I want, more than anything, I think.”

“And I get that too. But . . . shaving it like that is so extreme. There’s an in-between. A way to change your look drastically without going to that extreme.” He sighs, frowns. “I’ve known a few women who have shaved their heads. And I just . . . I don’t know how to put this without sounding a little like an asshole. It tends to take away an element of . . . femininity. Not that you can’t be totally woman, all woman without long hair, but to totally shave it off like you were about to . . . I don’t know. I have a friend who owns a fancy, high-end women’s salon. I can take you in to see her and you can get a professional haircut. Go pixie short, even. I just feel like if you shaved it on a whim, you might regret it. And that’s not something you can undo.”

“I—” A million thoughts batter at the insides of my head, each clamoring for expression. “I want to do it myself.”

“Do you trust me?” he asks.

I swallow hard. Do I?

“Yes,” I say.

Logan seems to sag with relief after that single syllable. As if he knows how huge that is for me to admit. “Then let’s head out. I have a plan.”

“But my hair?”

He smiles at me. “Just trust me, Isabel. I’ll take care of you.”

Then, suddenly, we are both aware that I am standing in front of the mirror, a towel wrapped around my torso. The end is tucked in at my cleavage, and now I have to clutch the thick cotton to keep it from falling open. And a glance behind tells me that he is nearly naked as well, wearing only a pair of loose shorts that hang at his
hips, showing his sharp hip bones and the V-shaped indent of muscle low on his abdomen, teasing me with an almost-glimpse of his privates.

Our gazes lock in the mirror. My heart thrums. My gut tenses. My thighs clench, and heat rushes through me. Digit by digit, my fingers loosen their grip on the towel. This is déjà vu: me in a towel, Logan shirtless. This time, however, I know what lies beneath his shorts, and how it feels.

I release the towel, an intentional gambit. Stand naked in front of him. My breasts ache, my nipples harden. My flesh pebbles, tingles.

“Jesus, Isabel.”

“What?”

He shakes his head. “Just you. You are, literally, perfect.” His hands rest on the upper swell of my hips. “I’m standing here, staring at you, and I find it hard to believe that I get to touch you. That I get to kiss you. Make love to you. That I get to even look at you.”

Palms skate lower to cup my bottom, graze over the backs of my thighs, circle around front. I cease breathing as his touch drifts upward then. Misses my core by millimeters, carves over my hip bones to my belly. Up, cresting my diaphragm, and then his hands are full of my breasts, lifting them, kneading their softness and hefting their weight, and I’m not breathing still because his thumbs brush almost idly over my nipples. I have to gasp then, because he tweaks and twiddles my nipples until I’m thrusting my chest into his hands, and lightning seems tied by a live wire from my erect nipples to my core, each touch sending blazes of heat and lust coruscating through me.

“Your tits, Isabel. Fuck, they’re so goddamn incredible. I can’t . . . I can’t get enough of your tits. All of you, but especially your tits.” He squeezes them, almost roughly. “What would you say if I told you I wanted to fuck your tits?”

The sudden and unexpected vulgarity has me panting with need.
I love his dirty words. Even if it’s hard for me to speak that way, I love hearing it. “I would say . . .” I have to swallow my embarrassment. “I would tell you to do it.”

“You would?”

I lick my lips, because they’ve gone dry with need. All the liquid in my system has gathered between my thighs. “Yes. Do it, Logan.”

I spin in place. My eyes lock on his groin, on his erection outlined in his shorts, and it’s so large and prominent it’s nearly protruding from the elastic waistband. I reach out, slide a forefinger under the waistband and tug it away from his body. Expose him, inch by inch. Tug the silky, stretchy material away, tug it lower and lower. Until his entire massive erection is bared for me. Testicles tight and heavy, dark, nestled at the junction of his thighs. He leans down, lifts my breasts—lifts my tits . . . I like that word, the dirtiness of it, the lustful juvenility of it—and mouths my nipple. I watch, stare down at him, at his loose, tangled hair and my dark Spanish skin splashed by the golden of his fingers and the pink of his lips. Watch him capture my nipple with his lips and tug it away.

God, his mouth.

I bury my hands in his hair and bring him up to my face, take his mouth with mine. Demand his tongue. Devour his breath. When we cannot either of us breathe, I release him, and then we both watch as I finish baring him. He toes away the shorts, and we are nude together. Dark flesh and golden occupying the same space. I cradle his heavy testicles in my palm, and his breath catches. He watches me now, as I fondle him. Caress him. This is not to bring him to climax, but to show affection. It’s for me, selfishly. To feel him, to memorize the sensation of being able to touch as much as I want, to absorb the beauty of his body and know that I can
have
him, that he is for me. I spread my fingers around him, and my hand seems so small, so tiny, so delicate against the size and thickness and iron-hard rigidity of his
member. My fingers do not meet when I wrap them around him, thus. I curl one hand around him, place my other above it, and there is ample flesh above my fingers and below them. I plunge my hands down, and he lets out an involuntary-sounding moan.

“Isabel, fuck. What are you doing to me?”

“I’m just touching you, Logan.”

“You touch me . . . I don’t know how to put it.” He pauses to think, and to watch as my fists slide up and down his length. “You touch me as if you’ve never touched anyone before. Like you might never get to again.”

I wish I knew how to express the truth to him. I contemplate the most tactful wording, how to put this in a way that won’t require using a certain mood-killing name. “That is . . . pretty much exactly the truth, Logan. I’ve never had an opportunity to just . . . touch. Experience. Feel. To just . . . enjoy. And my life being what it is, I really do not know what the future holds. For me, for us . . . so I just want to savor every moment.” I sink to my knees in front of him. “I want to taste you, and remember the way you taste forever. I want everything with you.”

He gazes down at me, his eyes betraying lust, confusion, anticipation, wonder, tenderness. He just watches for a moment as I kneel in front of him and stroke his beautiful penis, and he watches as I taste him, run my tongue up from root to tip. Kiss the broad head, and taste leaking essence. I tilt my head to look at him, watching his reaction as I wrap my lips around him.

His chest expands, and his eyes narrow. His hands flex into fists, and then he threads his fingers through my hair. Gathers it in his fist, wraps my long thick black locks around his palm until he’s gripping the mass of my hair at the base of my skull. I think for a moment that he’ll take control then, plunge himself roughly into my mouth. I tense in anticipation, and my heart thrums—my physical heart hammers
in a nervous drumbeat, and my metaphysical heart clangs and jangles with equal parts glee and fear.

Instead, however, he lifts me to my feet. Pulls me closer, so my body is pressed flush against his, tits crushed flat against his warm hard chest, his cock a thick rod between our bellies. Tilts my head backward. His indigo gaze is fraught with so many emotions I cannot name them all. But they’re all there to see.

“No, Isabel.” His lips scour mine. His tongue dances in my mouth. “It’s me who should be on my knees before you.”

There is a wildness within me. A crazed beast that howls for release. A madwoman who rages against the cage of demure propriety that has so long defined me. How, though, do I express this? I want so much. Being with Logan has shown me a glimpse of what I could be like, of the Isabel I could be. The sensual, feral, sexual animal I could be. That I
want
to be, if only I could be brave enough.

“Logan.” I feel like I’m gagging on the tumult of words and emotions. “I want—”

“What, Isabel?” He releases my hair, cups my face in his two large and rough but gentle hands. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want to . . .” I struggle for coherency. “I want to be—I want . . . so much.”

“Like what?” He brushes his thumb down my chin, toys with my lower lip. “Tell me, baby. Don’t be afraid.”

“But I am afraid, though.”

“Afraid of what?”

I blink, and breathe, and think. And then let myself be honest. “That you won’t like who I am, anymore. I’m changing. Every new experience with you shows me something new. About myself. And . . . in terms of this, you and I—”

“Let me stop you real quick.” He leans in, bites my lower lip, the one he’s been playing with, and I’m kissed into silence. “Maybe this
will help: You’re . . . I feel like you’re a butterfly, just starting to come out of her cocoon. I’ve fallen in love with you already, Isabel, and that won’t change. Nothing you could ever do or say will change that. And . . . the more you emerge, the more I’ll fall in love with you. So just . . .
be you
. Be bold. Be brave. If you want something, just fucking
take
it, Is, and don’t apologize.”

I’ve already fallen in love with you.

That sentence is jarring. Seven words, and I’m shaken to my core. He says it so casually, so easily. Yes, of course, I remember our moment together pressed naked and sweaty together, whispering words of love into the intensity-laden, rarefied air of his bed. But that was in the moment. Words are drawn out during sex. Things are said. But to hear him say this in a moment of quietness between us, my heart swells to aching, expands to breaking.

“You spoke, before, of worshipping me. And you did.” I have to swallow my nerves like saliva. “Now . . . I want to sin with you, Logan. I want to do bad things. I love it when you’re gentle. I need that. But—I also like it when you’re a little rough with me. We talked about—what happened. With—you know. When I called you. How I felt about that. And . . . I know, with you, it would be different.”

His jaw flexes. “I just—I know you’ve been through a lot. And it’s not that I think you’re delicate, or fragile, but I don’t want to ever be anything like
him
. I don’t want to do things that would remind you of anything that happened with him. I hate even talking about him at all, much less in intimate situations like this.”

“You’re not. You’re not like Caleb. Not at all. Even if you did something he did, it wouldn’t be the same. Because your intentions are different. What you want, with me and from me and for me, they’re diametrically opposed to everything he is, everything he wants.”

His erection is subsiding, the heat of the moment dissipating. I’m not sure I want that exact moment back, because we’ve progressed.
Spoken truths. But I do want to retake this time with Logan, make it mine. Let myself have what I want. Give in to my desires. Explore myself.

What do I want? Right now?

My gaze moves out of the bathroom, to the hallway. I remember the first time I truly felt the full force of Logan’s lust for me. That hallway, months ago. Me, naked. Him, in nothing but rain-soaked blue jeans. Being lifted, wrapping my legs around his hips and wondering in the deepest corner of my heart what it would feel like to be held aloft that way and have him sink into me.

Be bold. Be brave. If you want something, just fucking take it, Is, and don’t apologize.

I take his hand and lead him out of the bathroom and into the short hallway. “Do you remember?” I stand, facing him, naked. Breathing deeply. “The first time I was here, in your home. This hallway.”

“It’s burned into my brain,” he says. “I was so close to just . . . taking you. A flick of my fingers and my jeans would have been off, and I’d have been inside you.”

“That’s what I want, Logan.”

His eyes bore into mine, and I can almost sense his erection burgeoning. I don’t look down to see it, but I can just . . . sense it. I wait for him. He pushes his body against mine, but instead of stopping when we’re flush, he keeps pushing. Until I’m forced to step backward. God, yes. His cock is thick and full. Digs into my belly. Warm, and soft, yet so
hard
. He keeps walking, and I’m pushed backward another step, until the cold plaster of the wall touches my shoulder blades and buttocks. My head thumps gently. His hand finds mine, right on left, fingers tangling. Left on right, palms mating. He lifts my hands over my head, presses the backs of my hands against the wall. He dips at the knees, feathers a whisper-soft kiss against
my lips, another, and a third, and then he bites my upper lip until it hurts. I gasp, and he nips my lower lip. Pulls back, and I lean in to seek a kiss, but he dodges, grins at my mewl of frustration. When I think he won’t kiss me, he does, surging closer and claiming my mouth with sudden ferocity. Yet once I find the rhythm of the kiss and sink into it, he pulls back. Bends at the knee, nudges the plump softness of his cock against the juncture of my thighs. I spread them apart, gasping with willing need. He stares into my eyes, hesitates a beat, and then gives a roll of his hips. I feel him punch against me, glans rubbing deliciously against labia. I pant, wanting him in me.