Chapter 9
Nine
Baby
They all love him, Audrey’s friends. Of course they do. Logan is annoyingly charming and polite, and he’s got perfectly straight teeth that pair perfectly with his perfectly crooked smiles.
“What’s wrong?” He goes to slip his arm around my shoulders as he leans in to whisper in my ear, but I shake it off. At least I try to. It doesn’t seem to work. He’s stronger than me, and he’s taking advantage of it. Asshole.
“Don’t touch me.”
He ignores the warning, and I’m left surrounded by the smell of Logan.
It’s too much. We’re about thirty minutes into this get-together, and I’ve maybe had a little too much to drink already.
And it’s crowded—there are far too many of us at this table, and all of them have also had too much to drink.
They insisted. Drinks, food, then more drinks.
That’s the plan, and so far it’s playing out exactly how they wanted. It probably doesn’t bode well for me.
Plus, there’s Logan. He’s here as my date.
It’s too much.
“I can’t put my arm around my boyfriend?”
I grit my teeth. He’s having so much fun, but why?
Why is torturing me so funny? I can hear the grin in his voice.
I know he likes this, but I can’t imagine why it would.
If he were doing it maliciously, making fun of me, then I could at least feel like the unbridled rage I’m feeling is justified, but he’s not.
I don’t think he has a mean bone in his oversized body.
“Baby, really.” His voice is different now, more serious. It’s so close to my ear, it has me feeling warm and shivery. “What’s wrong?”
I open my mouth, probably to talk shit, but one look at his face—brows creased in worry above his pretty brown eyes—and I’m gritting my teeth once more. What’s wrong… I wonder what he’d do if I told him.
I don’t have to wonder what I’d do. I’d fucking die. Humiliation is not at all my kink. My nervous system can’t tell the difference between being rejected and being skinned alive.
“I need some air.”
I can hear Logan making an excuse for me as I rudely step away from the table, and it bothers me a lot more than it should. He’s making me look bad.
He’s got manners, and I’m pissed about it. It’s all a bit ridiculous.
I take a deep breath through my nose as soon as I step outside, desperate to smell anything other than Logan.
The crisp air on my cheeks only emphasizes how flushed they are.
What are the symptoms of high blood pressure?
It feels like I have that. I have something that’s for sure.
But a quick Google search shows that the only symptom of hypertension I happen to have is sexual dysfunction.
This is miserable. I’m gonna remember this feeling if I ever start crushing on another unobtainable boy—assuming I ever manage to get over this one, that is.
“Baby?”
Why?
I got maybe two minutes of reprieve from my own personal hell, and here he is again to drag me back under. He’s looking for me, eyeing the area, but I keep quiet—I came out here to avoid him.
So I look at my feet, at my shoes, and wonder what he thought of them.
They’re men’s shoes, a white pair of loafers, but they’re covered in a black floral pattern.
My shirt is white and skin-tight over my entire torso with poofy sleeves, slightly sheer with nothing underneath it.
I thought it’d look good next to his all-black outfit.
It’s cute, and I like it. That doesn’t mean he did.
I’m not especially masculine or feminine. Not that it matters. One extreme or the other could be a turn-off for someone like Logan. A girly boy is confusing and weird, but a guy at all is simply wrong. Maybe he’d prefer it if I were more girly.
Maybe. But I’m not.
“Baby.” His fingers slip around my wrist, but I keep staring at my shoes. I loved them when I got them, but they feel wrong now.
Everything about me does. Being surrounded by girls has had me looking at all the different ways I’m not his type. I just wasn’t born to be.
“What is it?” He tips my head up after a moment, and I decide to let him. I like it when he touches me. I don’t usually want to let anyone see how much I love his touch, but right now, I simply want it too much.
“I feel… wrong.” It’s the truth. Maybe sharing it isn’t the best idea, but I’m not too worried about it. I doubt he understands what I mean anyway.
I don’t want to be a girl. Never have. I haven’t always been, but I’m happy with who I am now. Unless he’s around, and then I wish more than anything that I could be someone he wanted. Someone he didn’t have to pretend to enjoy kissing.
I can’t believe we kissed, that I had his lips on mine. Tasted them. Felt the gentle scrape of his barely there stubble against my skin. It’s a small miracle that I survived that.
“What do you mean?”
I watch his mouth move as he speaks, and don’t have it in me to even try to give him some excuse.
He probably wouldn’t like me even if I were a girl. My personality isn’t all that. He’s so nice and sweet and thoughtful, and I’m… not. And if he could somehow get over that, I can’t consider it a good thing that he’d take me as a girl. I like him as he is. I deserve the same.
I watch him wet his lips and still don’t expect it when he leans in.
But as much as I want it, I don’t take it. I turn my head and close my eyes as he presses a soft kiss to my cheek.
“Don’t.” It sounds like I’m in pain. It feels like I am.
His breath is warm as he sighs against me. “Sorry. I thought you wanted me to.”
“No.” I frown, only partly lying to him. “I don’t want that, Logan.” I look at him as he steps away, no longer touching me at all. “Having someone pretend he wants to kiss me isn’t some prize.”
“It wasn’t—I hate when you do that.” He runs his hand through his hair, undoing all the work I put into it earlier.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You think you know everything, but you don’t.”
I scoff. I don’t see what that has to do with any of this.
“You have no fucking clue what my intentions are—pretty much ever—but you assume the worst ninety percent of the time.”
“No, I—“
“You act like I say stuff just to say it. Or do things just to mess with you, or… I don’t know. You must not think very highly of me, though, and it’s fuck—it’s frustrating.”
“Logan—”
“I did miss you when you were gone—that wasn’t a lie.”
I don’t even know what he’s talking about.
“I don’t care what clothes you wear—shorts or crop-tops, I don’t give a fuck. And I’ve never kissed anyone I didn’t want to, and I definitely didn’t need to pretend to like it.”
“I…” It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him he’s lying, but everything he just said replays in my mind, and I think that maybe he’s right.
I do assume he says stuff to mess with me—maybe not on purpose or to be mean, but there’s just no way he means all of it.
He says some really outlandish things, and some of them are simply too crazy to believe.
He once told me that he likes my hair. Said it looks soft, and he wanted to touch it. I didn’t let him, of course. I’d assumed he was teasing me. And him saying he wants to kiss me…
“You said, the last time—” I needlessly clear my throat to buy myself some time. “You said that you only did it because I told you to.” That’s the truth. It’s not something I made up or assumed.
“I don’t do everything you tell me to.”
“I mean… don’t you?” I try for a smile, but the weight of the serious look on his face has me frowning instead. “We should go back inside.” Before I do something to make this worse.
I go to leave, but he places a hand on the wall to block my way with his arm. I groan, letting my head rest on his dumb, beefy forearm.
“Do you want me to kiss you?”
“What?” I laugh, feeling a truly hilarious sense of torment.
“Be real. For two seconds, just be real, Baby.”
“Logan…” I’m tired of him looking at me like that, so earnestly. It feels out of place. I miss the him that’s easy going, who so easily puts up with me and my attitude. The Logan who doesn’t call out my bullshit and force me to answer difficult questions.
“Tell me.”
I can’t.
“Come on, Baby. Be brave for me.” The slight smile, tipped up on one corner of his lips, makes it easier to breathe.
It’s like getting a piece of him back. But only a piece, because the rest—the vulnerability, the gentle voice—I don’t recognize.
I don’t know how to handle him like this. “Do you want me to kiss you?”
It feels like forever before I finally get the courage to speak—be real with him.
“Always.”
I roll until my face is away from his and plant my back against the wall again, but it’s not any better.
He’s too big, still just there. I knock my head on the brick behind me, regretting it a bit when it actually hurts.
But his face is closer again, leaning over mine and demanding attention, and that hurts more.
“Always, huh?”
“Don’t,” I warn. “Do not tease me.”
“I’m not.” He grabs the side of my face, letting his thumb run over my bottom lip, and it takes a genuine effort not to bite it. “I’m proud of you. I know that was hard.”
“Are you gonna kiss me or what?” I snap, over the definite teasing already. But he doesn’t, he just laughs—not like I did a moment ago, a real one that has his eyes crinkling—and this time I do bite him.
“Ah—fuck.” He eyes his thumb, but it was barely even a nip. “That hurt.”
“I swear to god, if you made me say that just to not plant one on me, I’m gonna—”
My words end on a whimper that he swallows right up. This is what I needed. Him, his mouth, his hands. On me. He’s everywhere all of the time, but to experience his presence like this is like… living.
He moves so slowly and sweetly and somehow just as commanding. Not at all shy about the way he plunges his tongue into my mouth. I can’t help but react. Where he’s sensual, I’m frenzied. I cling to him in a panic, like I’m afraid that any second he’ll come to and realize that he hates this.
It’s difficult to settle. Or it would be, if I tried, but Logan doesn’t bother stopping me.
He puts up with my neediness, matches every movement like he doesn’t mind at all.
It goes on for so long, I start to feel lightheaded—but it’s okay because he’s here.
Logan’s here and solid, this perfect crutch that I get to lean on.
“Baby—”
I don’t let him speak. I went from zero to revved right the fuck up, and I might die if he tries to slow me down now.
His hands move to my butt, a firm grip that he uses to pull me against him, and I’m much too busy to be embarrassed about the erection this time around.
It all feels too good. It’s like I was made for his arms, my ass shaped with his hands in mind.
Logan rolls his hips into mine, and it’s like being shocked. He’s hard. His dick is hard and touching me, and… big. I’m dying. I may already be dead.
I hate his pants. I liked them when I picked them out, but I hate them now. They’re difficult to undo, especially with his hand in the way.
“Baby, we’re outsi—”
“No,” I whine. “Need it.”
I’m a trollop. A needy little slut who is going to succumb to the shame of this very moment later, but for now, it’s true.
I do need it. I need to touch him, feel the proof that it’s there, and know it’s all for me.
Logan pulls his mouth away from mine, and I could actually cry, before he uses the hand blocking mine to unbutton his slacks.
I watch him look down the alleyway and realize that he’s making sure there’s nobody who could see us.
I bite my lips, hard, in an attempt to stop myself from squealing.
He’s giving in to me, giving me permission to do exactly what I want. We are outside—right next to the building where a handful of people from my childhood are sitting in, and I should care, but…
“Baby!” he whisper-yells, but it’s too late.
His hand pulls at my hair, and it hurts, but his dick is in my mouth a second later, and it’s so fucking worth it. He can pull my hair all he wants, beat my ass black and blue, I do not care. Nothing could keep me from tasting this cock.
“Baby?” Audrey’s voice cuts through the horny haze, and Logan pulls back too quickly, catching more teeth than anyone would like. He hisses and starts to fumble in his hurry to cover himself up, and I just sit there on my knees, the most pissed off I’ve ever been in my entire life.
Why?