Chapter 18 #4
“You sound very confident for a man conducting a high-risk operation.”
For the first time in what feels like years, his smile reaches his eyes.
"Don't be cute," he says.
Then he puts his mouth back on me and takes me apart.
The second time is deeper. Slower. It rolls through me until I forget to be embarrassed by the sounds I make.
My hands twist in the sheets. My back arches.
He talks me through it in a low voice, telling me I’m doing so well, telling me he has me, telling me not to run from it, not from him, not anymore.
When his fingers crook upward and he sucks my clit into his mouth, I break apart, crying out his name, for God, for anything that will keep me tethered to the bed below me.
As I crest over the hill, my breath comes back slowly, reality coming back in increments as I assemble back into my body.
He climbs over me then, still dressed, and kisses my mouth. I taste myself on him and feel his control fray at the edges. His body is hard against mine. His restraint is a living thing between us.
I reach for his shirt.
“My turn,” I whisper.
He catches my hand and kisses my palm. “You don’t owe me anything tonight.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
His breath hitches.
I sit up enough to pull his shirt over his head.
He lets me. The sight of him hits me with such force I go quiet.
The broad shoulders. The scar near his ribs from an old hit he claimed didn’t hurt while icing it for three days.
The strength of him, familiar and mine in a way I am only now brave enough to reclaim.
My hand settles over his heart.
It's racing.
“You’re nervous,” I say.
“Terrified.”
“Of me?”
“Of hurting you by wanting too much.”
I lean forward and kiss the center of his chest. “Want me.”
His hand cups the back of my head.
“Char.”
“Want me,” I say again. “I need to feel it.”
His control slips.
He kisses me with a hunger that steals the breath from my lungs. I open for it. For him. He shucks the rest of his clothes with less grace than he did mine.
Skin to skin, the world narrows.
He settles between my thighs, then stops.
“Look at me,” he says.
I do.
His eyes are on mine when he reaches down. He's shaking. So am I.
“Tell me yes,” he says.
“Yes.”
“If anything feels wrong?—”
“I’ll tell you.”
“I’ll stop.”
"Logan, I swear to God…"
He enters me slowly.
My breath catches at the first stretch, at the remembered fullness of him. His forehead drops to mine. He doesn't move.
“Okay?” he asks.
I wrap my legs around him. His eyes close. A harsh breath leaves him.
“Move,” I whisper.
He does.
He goes slow at first. Careful. So careful it makes my heart hurt. He's with me in every movement, watching my face, listening to my breath, touching me like the point isn't to take pleasure but to bring me back into my own body and show me it can still be safe with him.
The ache builds again. This time, it's tangled with love so tightly I can't separate the two.
He lowers his mouth to my neck. “You feel like home.”
I cry then. Not hard. Not enough to stop. Tears slip into my hair as he moves inside me.
He stills immediately. “Baby?”
“Don’t stop.”
His eyes search mine. “Talk to me.”
“I love you,” I say, and the words come out broken. “That’s all. I love you so much it hurts.”
His face twists.
Then he kisses me and begins to move again, deeper now, less careful because I ask him for it with my hands, my hips, the desperate little sound that breaks from me when he finds the exact angle that makes pleasure spark white behind my eyes.
“That’s it,” he says against my mouth. “There. I’ve got you.”
I cling to him.
He loses himself by degrees, but never loses me. His control breaks into need, his breath turning rough, his rhythm going unsteady, but his eyes keep finding mine. His hand slides between us, and when I gasp, he nods like my pleasure is the only answer he needs.
“Come for me, Char,” he says. “Let me feel you. I’m right here.”
The words send me over.
I break open around him calling out his name, shaking so hard he has to hold me through it. He follows a moment later, burying his face in my neck, his body going taut over mine as a sound tears out of him that's almost pain and almost prayer.
Then there's only breath.
His weight is careful on me. His hand cradles my head. Mine are spread over his back, holding him there because I'm not ready for any space.
For a long time, neither of us moves.
The house is quiet.
Eventually, he shifts enough to look at me. His face is open in a way that makes my chest ache all over again. He brushes damp hair from my cheek.
“Still okay?” he asks.
I nod. “More than okay.”
His eyes close briefly.
He takes care of me afterward with the same aching attention. A warm cloth. Water from the bathroom glass because neither of us wants him to go downstairs. The quilt pulled over us. His body settling behind mine, arm around my waist, mouth pressed to my shoulder.
I fit against him the way I always did.
No. Not always.
Better, maybe, because now I know what the space feels like when it's empty.
His hand spreads low over my stomach, careful and warm.
For a few minutes, I let myself rest there. I let the room hold us. I let my body believe what my heart has already decided.
Then Logan’s arm tightens.
“Char,” he whispers.
“Hmm?”
His voice is rough in the dark. “I can’t ever let you go again.”
The words press into the quiet.
I turn in his arms until I can see his face in the low lamplight.
I touch his cheek.
“Then don’t,” I say.