Chapter 15 #2
I stand there. I look across the room. Sutton is in conversation again — easy, natural, working the room the way she's learned to work it over months of this. I watch her for a moment. Then I make my way toward her.
My hand finds the small of her back when I reach her side. Not for the room. Just because it does. It's been doing that all night and I've stopped pretending it means nothing.
She looks up at me. The evening is sitting on both of us — everything seen, everything unsaid, everything that has no clean resolution yet.
"Ready?" I say.
"Ready," she says.
We walk out into the New York night together.
The car ride back to the hotel is quiet.
She's looking out her window when I look over at her.
Her hand rests on her knee. Mine rests on mine.The city moves past — lit and relentless, doing what New York does at this hour without any interest in what's happening in the back of this car.
Her profile is still. Her hands are in her lap. She's somewhere else.
I watch her. She doesn't turn but she knows I'm looking — I can tell by the slight stillness in her profile, the way she holds herself a fraction more carefully than she would if she thought she was unobserved.
She keeps her eyes on the window and I keep mine on her and the city moves past and neither of us says anything.
After some minutes, I turn and look out my own window.
Something shifted in her over the course of the evening.
I've been trying to locate the exact moment since we left the venue.
The Sonia conversation at the bar? The parents; something my father said, maybe, at the end of the evening?
Whatever it is she's carrying it quietly and she's not going to hand it to me tonight without being asked.
The hotel comes into view. We get out. We ride the elevator in silence. The doors open and we walk the corridor toward our rooms and the quiet between us has a different quality than usual — not comfortable, not hostile. Heavy. Full of things sitting on the surface waiting to be addressed.
I stop between our doors. She stops beside me. She's looking at the floor. Her keycard is in her hand. She's doing the thing she does when she's deciding whether to say something or let it go.
"Are you alright?" I ask.
She looks up. "I'm fine."
"You've been somewhere else since the second half of the evening."
"It was a long night." She shifts the keycard between her fingers.
"I'm tired."
I look at her.
"Did Sonia say something to you?"
Her eyes come up fast — a flash of something, quickly managed.
"I saw her cross to you at the bar," I say.
"I couldn't hear what was said."
Sutton is quiet for a moment.
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
She looks at me steadily.
"Logan. It's fine. I handled it."
"I know you did…but still." I hold her gaze.
"There is nothing going on with Sonia. There never has been. I've told you that already."
She tilts her head slightly. Something moves at the corner of her mouth — not quite a smile, not quite a challenge.
"Is she your type?"
I look at her. "No."
"What is your type, Logan?"
The question lands in the corridor and sits there. She's watching me with those eyes that have always seen more than I've authorized them to see, her chin slightly lifted, waiting.
I look at her. "Why are you asking me that?"
She holds my gaze. "I'm just asking."
The corridor is quiet. I look at her and I think about my father's words, my mother's observation and the way Sutton moved through that room tonight. Something in my chest pushes against the place where I've been keeping it contained.
"I noticed you with Harrison tonight," I say.
She looks at me evenly.
"I'm allowed to have conversations with men. Is that a crime?"
The question lands cleanly. No anger in it.
No apology. Just the plain truth of it delivered directly — the way she delivers everything when she's decided to be honest. The silence that follows is long.
I feel the weight of what I'm about to say before I say it.
The familiar pull toward deflection. The instinct to redirect, to manage, to keep it contained. I don't reach for any of it.
"I don't share well," I say.
It comes out simpler than anything I planned to say. She pauses for a moment, as if she was not prepared for those words to come out of my mouth. She blinks.
"What I mean is—" I stop. Start again.
"Watching other men look at you the way Harrison was looking at you tonight does something to me that I don't know what to do with." I hold her gaze.
"That's the honest answer."
She's quiet for a moment. Her expression has softened by a fraction — not much, but enough that I see it.
"Tonight was a lot," she says quietly.
"I know."
"Your parents are—" She stops. Something crosses her face.
"Your mother is remarkable."
"She is."
"She loves you." She says it simply. Just a fact.
I look at her. "I know."
The silence between us shifts again. She looks at the keycard. She's about to say goodnight — I can feel it coming, the retreat into the adjacent room, the managed distance reasserting itself because it's what we do and we're both very good at it.
"Don't," I say.
She looks up.
"Stay." The word comes out of me before I've finished deciding to say it.
"Stay the night with me."
She looks at me for a long moment. Searching. I don't reach for anything smooth or controlled. I just hold her gaze and let her see what's actually there.
"Logan—"
"Please." The word is quieter than the one before it. Stripped of everything. I close the distance between us. My eyes are locked on hers, and my heart is beating out of my chest.
"I don't want to be without you tonight."
It lands between us. I hear it the way I said it and I know I meant it.
That knowledge sits in my chest like something that has been there for a long time and has just been given its correct name.
She looks at me. Her eyes are doing the thing they do — searching past the surface, finding whatever's underneath.
Whatever she finds makes her exhale slowly.
Her hand comes up. Her fingers close around my lapel.
"Okay," she says. I pull her closer, and then I turn and open my door.
The second the door slams shut, I can’t hold back anymore.
I crash my lips against hers swallowing her gasp as I press her body into the door.
She melts into me instantly, her arms wrapping around my neck, tugging me closer.
The taste of her lips, sweet and intoxicating, fuels a fire deep in my chest.
I grind my body against hers, feeling her softness mold into me. My cock, already painfully hard, presses against her stomach, and I can feel the heat radiating from her. She lets out a shaky moan, and I can tell she feels it too.
I grab her waist firmly, lifting her slightly as I keep her pinned to the door.
Her dress rides up as I slide my hands lower, gripping her hips and grinding against her, letting her feel just how badly I want her.
She clutches at my shoulders, her fingers digging into my skin, and the sensation only drives me wilder.
I kiss her harder, parting her lips with my tongue and plunging it into her mouth.
Her legs tremble, and I can feel the heat pooling between them as she presses against me.
My hands move to her dress, as I slide my hands around her back and unzip it in one swift motion, tossing it to the floor.
Her skin is warm, her chest heaving as she looks at me with those lust-filled eyes that make me want to ruin her completely.
She fumbles with the buttons of my shirt, her frustration evident as her shaking fingers struggle to undo them.
I smirk, gripping the fabric and ripping it open, sending buttons flying across the room.
Her eyes widen for a second before she laughs breathlessly, her hands immediately sliding over my bare chest.
I lift her off the ground again, her legs wrapping around my waist as I carry her to the bed.
The second I lay her down I climb on top of her, kissing her neck, her collarbone, tracing my tongue down the curve of her breasts.
She arches into me, her nails raking down my back as her breathy moans fill the room.
I slide my hand down her stomach, my fingers teasing the edge of her panties.
She freezes for a moment, her chest rising and falling rapidly as I press my thumb against her center.
I groan, my voice rough with desire. I push her panties aside, sliding a finger along her slick entrance, and she lets out the most beautiful sound—a mix of a gasp and a moan.
I can’t resist anymore. I sink two fingers into her without warning, her walls clenching around me instantly.
My cock twitches and I watch her face contort with pleasure as I curl my fingers inside her.
She tries to muffle her moans, biting her lip, but I thrust harder, deeper, twisting my fingers until she’s crying out unabashedly.
“Don’t hold back,” I murmur, leaning down to nip at her jaw.
“I want to hear you.”
She gasps, her chest heaving as her body writhes.
Her body arches off the bed as I pump my fingers faster, my thumb circling her clit.
She’s trembling beneath me, completely lost in the pleasure I’m giving her.
When her orgasm hits, her walls clamp down on my fingers, her cries echoing in my ears as she drenches my hand.
I pull my fingers out slowly, watching her chest heave as she comes down from her high. Bringing my fingers to my mouth, I hold her gaze as I suck them clean. She watches, her lips parted, and I can see the desire flicker back to life in her eyes.
“You taste fucking incredible,” I say, leaning down to capture her lips again so she can taste herself on my tongue.