16. Kristen
KRISTEN
His hand is in my hair, and the mouth that argued with me earlier is now kissing me like there's no tomorrow.
The kiss changes. It goes from fierce to deep, and his mouth moves slower, becomes careful. I can feel him holding back, waiting for me to set the pace. My fingers pull at his hair, thick and wavy, as I deepen the kiss. I'm done being careful. I've been careful for too long.
He makes a sound against my mouth and it rumbles through me, then his hands slide down my waist, and he lifts me.
Just like that. Like I weigh nothing. My legs wrap around his hips, my back against the wall.
He's pressing into me, and I can feel every inch of him through our clothes. I'm dizzy with it.
"Bedroom," I say against his lips. It's more breath than word.
He moves.
We make it there in pieces. His shirt goes first because I'm pulling at it. My hands want skin, warmth, him. He sets me down long enough to get it over his head.
I see him. Really see him. Without his glasses, without the white coat, without any of the armor he wears at the hospital.
He's lean and solid, a scar on the left side of his chest that makes me wonder how he got it.
His eyes are focused on me, closer than they've ever been, and the way he's looking at me right now, like I'm the only thing that exists in this room, is enough to make me melt.
He's always been handsome. I've always known that, even when I would not admit it.
But up close, this close, with that look on his face, he's something else entirely.
His hands find the hem of my top. He pulls it over my head slowly, watching me the whole time, checking. I nod. He drops it on the floor. His mouth finds the curve of my neck, and I lose my train of thought.
The bed is cool when we fall onto it. His weight over me is warm and steady, and there's a moment where he stops. He holds himself above me, his forearms on either side of my head.
"You okay?" he asks, as his thumb traces along my jawline. Even now he wants to make sure I feel safe.
I haven't felt safe in someone's arms in so long I forgot what it was like.
What it was like to even want someone. But right now, lying underneath him in this cabin in the mountains with his hand on my face and his eyes asking permission, I want him.
I want him so much it scares me. And of all the people in the world it could be, it's Logan Maxwell.
My rival. I almost want to laugh at how insane that is.
But more than that, I just want him closer. I pull him to me in answer and kiss him.
His hands are careful where mine aren't. Every touch is a question, his fingers trailing along my skin, across my collarbone, down my ribs, waiting for my body to answer before he goes further.
I can almost feel the restraint in him, the control, the way he's holding himself in check even now because he knows what I've been through, and he's giving me every chance to change my mind.
But I don't want to.
His mouth moves down my throat. I arch into him, and his hand slowly slides up my side, until every nerve ending I have is awake. The roughness of his palms against my skin makes me pant. He touches me like I'm something worth being careful with, and I didn't know I needed that until right now.
"Kristen." My name against my pulse point. Just my name. Nothing else.
I close my eyes, and I let myself feel it. All of it. Years of tension, years of arguing, years of pretending this was less than it actually was. All of it collapsing into his hands on my body and my hands on his.
His mouth moves from my lips to my jaw to the hollow of my throat, and then lower.
He kisses across my collarbone, slow and deliberate, and his breath is warm and unsteady against my skin.
His hands slide down my sides, and his lips follow, pressing into the space between my ribs. My back arches off the bed.
"Kristen, I want you," he says against my stomach, his voice rough, and it goes straight through me. "You have no idea."
His mouth moves lower. He kisses one breast, then the other.
He's thorough. Even here, even now, he's so perfectly Logan about it that I'd laugh if I could breathe.
He finds the places that make me gasp, and he stays there.
When he moves to the other side, he does the exact same thing, like he's making sure no part of me is neglected.
I grip the sheets and bite my lip. He goes even lower, really low, and in my mind, my mind that is always running, always planning, always three steps ahead—there is suddenly nothing.
Just him, his mouth, his hands. A heat builds low in my body, starting from where he is.
He comes back up and kisses me, and I can taste myself on his lips mixed with the wine we had earlier. I pull him closer, harder, desperate for his weight on me. I want all of it.
"You taste incredible," he murmurs against my mouth, and I feel the words more than I hear them.
"Logan." I moan his name and lift my hips to him.
He laughs against my skin, and the vibration of it sends a shiver through me that I feel everywhere.
Then he moves, and my body goes still, shocked by the sudden length of him.
My head tips back, and his hand slides behind my neck.
As if from somewhere far away, I hear myself make a sound I didn't know I had in me.
He's gripping my hip with his other hand.
I pull him closer with my legs. We're not careful anymore.
We're not patient. My nails drag down his back, and he groans against my collarbone.
His composure is gone. It's in the way his body moves against me, his breathing hard and uneven.
Logan Maxwell, who never loses control, is losing it right now.
Because of me. And something about watching this man, this man who holds everything together with an iron grip, fall apart under my hands, makes me dig my nails in harder and pull him deeper.
"You're perfect," he says, and his voice is wrecked. This is him. Just Logan. Undone.
I press my mouth to his ear. "So are you."
He groans. His grip tightens on me, and his pace shifts. I stop thinking entirely and just enjoy the sensation. His skin against mine, the heat between us, the sound of his breathing and mine tangled together, his hand finding mine and pressing it into the mattress, fingers locked.
His forehead drops against mine, his breathing ragged, and he's everywhere, every part of him against every part of me as we reach our peak together.
"Kristen." My name on his lips is like a prayer, broken and desperate.
I gasp, and my body arches into his. For a few seconds, there is only us. His hand squeezing mine, my face buried in his neck, both of us trembling, both of us falling apart together.
Then there's stillness. His weight is on me, his breath is slowing against my skin, and my heartbeat is calming down. Yet neither of us lets go.
Afterward, we lie there.
My head is on his chest, and his heartbeat slows down under my ear.
His arm is around me. His fingers are tracing lazy patterns on my shoulder, and neither of us is talking because we don't need to.
The room is dark now. The mountains are black shapes against a blue-black sky through the window, and the air coming in is cool and clean.
I pull the blanket higher and press closer to him.
I think this is what it's supposed to feel like. This is what I didn't know I was missing. Someone holding me because they want to, not because they own me. Someone touching me and my body eagerly anticipating it.
I fall asleep in his arms. There are no nightmares. Just rest.
When I open my eyes the next morning, the first thing I see is mountains.
Sunlight pours in through those floor-to-ceiling windows, there's green everywhere, and the lake in the distance catches the light. It's beautiful and disorienting, and for about three seconds, I don't know where I am.
Then I turn my head and see Logan Maxwell asleep beside me.
Last night happened.
My brain does several things at once, none of them helpful.
So I lie there and stare at the ceiling, letting the short-circuit run its course.
Then I look at him again. He's on his stomach, one arm still stretched toward me, his face half-buried in the pillow.
His hair is a mess, and there's a mark on his shoulder that I'm fairly certain I put there.
I should feel embarrassed about that, but I don't.
I let myself have this. Just for a minute. The sunlight through the windows, the cool air, the sound of nothing. This quiet warmth and the steady sound of him breathing beside me.
He wakes up annoyingly composed. Like a man who rolled out of a dream and straight into a magazine. His eyes open, he blinks once, sees me, and he smiles lazily. Meanwhile, I'm fairly certain my hair looks like I was in a fight with the pillow and the pillow won.
"Morning, Portland."
"Morning, Maxwell."
"How long have you been staring at me?"
"I was not staring at you. I was looking at the mountains. You happen to be in the way."
"I'm in the way of the mountains."
"Yes. You're blocking the view. Move."
He smiles. Of course, he doesn't move—the mountains are behind me. He just lies there and watches me. The morning light falls on him, and I really look at him. His hair is tousled, and he's got pillow creases on his cheek. He looks more human than I've ever seen him.
He makes breakfast. I sit at the counter watching him move around the kitchen barefoot in a t-shirt and sweatpants.
I think about how completely surreal this is.
A month ago, I was hiding behind a tablet during rounds.
Now I'm sitting in his kitchen wearing his shirt, my legs bare, while he makes eggs like this is just what we do.
The cabin smells like butter, coffee, and fresh air from the open window. I sigh and keep watching him. The way he cracks eggs one-handed. The way he reaches for things without looking. The way his shoulders move under his shirt when he stretches to grab something from the top shelf.
I need to stop staring. But I can't.
He slides a plate in front of me. Eggs, toast, sliced fruit. I stare at it.
I pick up my fork, and the truth slips out. "Nobody's made me breakfast in a long time."
He doesn't say anything to that. He just pours me coffee and sets it down next to the plate. His hand brushes mine when he does, and he lets it linger before pulling away.
Over coffee, he leans against the counter and looks at me with that half-smile.
"You know, I've always known you had a thing for me."
I nearly choke on my coffee. "Excuse me? I think you're the one who's always been secretly into me, Maxwell. You proposed to me during graduation, remember?"
He smirks. "Maybe I was." He holds my gaze. "Maybe I am."
My face goes hot, and I hate it. I hate that his teasing still does this to me. Even after everything, even after last night, Logan Maxwell smirking at me still makes my brain stop working. I look away, drink my coffee, and pretend I'm unaffected. He absolutely knows I'm not.
"Shut up," I say.
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face is saying it."
"My face is just my face, Portland."
"Your face is insufferable."
He grins wider, and it's so rare and so good that I have to look away again because it's too early to feel this flustered.
He drives me home in the afternoon. The ride is comfortable and easy, the windows cracked. The highway unspools in front of us, and the mountains shrink in the rearview mirror. I watch them go with a pang I wasn't expecting.
We don't talk about what this means. We don't define it or label it or have the conversation that people are supposed to have after a night like that. Which, in a way, I'm thankful for.
When we pull up to my house, he parks and walks me to the front door. The air is warm, the street is quiet.
I turn to him on the porch. "Thank you," I say, keeping my voice steady. "For yesterday. The casework, the strategy, all of it. It really helped."
"Thank you too," he says, then he smirks. "For the other things."
I roll my eyes. "Goodbye, Maxwell."
He lets out a low laugh. Then he reaches out, and for a second I think he's going to touch my face. His hand comes up, his fingers hover just an inch from my cheek, and I can feel the warmth of them even without contact. He hesitates, then he pulls back and clenches his jaw.
"Good night, Kristen."
"Good night, Logan."
I didn't think such simple words could make my chest feel like this: full and light at the same time. I step inside. I don't look back. I don't dare. When I close the door and lock the deadbolt, I lean against the frame with my hands pressed to my face.
The flutter in my chest is ridiculous. This lightness is ridiculous. This stupid, reckless, terrifying hope that maybe, maybe, something good is actually happening to me and it's not going to be taken away.
I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it doesn't, and I go to sleep smiling.
In the morning, I head to the hospital early.
I'm changing in the locker room when Nancy, the unit clerk, finds me with an envelope in her hand.
"Dr. Portland? Someone left a package for you."
"From who?"
"They didn't say. Just said it was for you."
I take it. It's a brown envelope with no label or return address. I finish changing, sit down on the bench, and open it.
Photos.
Me and Logan, yesterday, standing on my front porch, close together, smiling.
His hand in the air, inches from my face.
There are three of them, taken from different angles across the street, each capturing different moments.
One where we're laughing. One where he's reaching toward me.
One where I'm looking up at him, and the expression on my face is impossible to misread.
I stare at them, and all the warmth from yesterday drains out of me.
He's watching us, he knows where I live, and now he has evidence that looks exactly like the allegation he filed.