Chapter 24 Sierra
Twenty Four
Sierra
“This sounds like a date,” I say.
Logan slouches against my bedroom door frame, trying for casual. He truly is a bad actor. “No way. It’s just a…shared meal between…fuck buddies.”
I laugh.
Logan grins, his whole face lightening. I’ve been a little subdued the last couple of days, still processing what we overheard Caitlin say at the bookstore. I can tell he’s relieved he can still make me laugh.
Caitlin’s reaction is exactly what I always assumed everyone would think of me. It’s oddly validating, in a depressing sort of way. See, Logan, I want to say. I wasn’t completely off base with my fears.
However, I also…I feel conflicted because there’s no way to overlook the compassion I received too. From Seth, Cynthia, and the ladies at the salon.
And from Logan. Compared to his goodness, I can almost convince myself that Caitlin’s pettiness is nothing; it’s toothless.
“All right. I’m intrigued,” I say finally. “What does one usually eat for such an insignificant, romantically meaningless event? Crackers and ketchup packets?”
“Something like that.” Logan saunters into my room and gives me a peck on the lips.
It makes me grumpy. Doesn’t he know the damage his sexy walk does to me?
He turns to my closet and pulls out the black sheath dress I wore for the Candlelight Tour. “There’s a dress code,” he says sheepishly.
“As is standard for a simple fuck-buddy meal,” I say with a solemn nod. “Logan…”
“I won’t expect sex afterwards, if that helps make it feel less like a date.”
I snort. “Oh, you know you’re getting sex afterwards.”
He grins. “Come on, baby. Let me treat you to dinner.”
“Calling me baby also makes it sound like a date,” I point out.
He pretends to zip his mouth shut. “Sierra. It’ll be fun.”
His blue eyes are full of cautious hope and such unbearable fondness that my knees feel weak. How can I say no to that look?
I snatch the dress from him. “Give me fifteen minutes,” I grumble.
The restaurant is exactly as fancy as I’d feared. Dim lighting, white tablecloths, candles, rose centerpieces, and hushed voices. I shoot Logan an irritated look.
“It’s the only place I could find on short notice that serves crackers and ketchup packets,” he says.
A flutter of nerves hits me as the hostess seats us. This is by far the fanciest place I’ve ever eaten at. The closest thing in my past to this is a bad first date at Olive Garden.
I scan the menu. Incomprehensible foreign words—velouté, sous-vide, and descriptors that sound like they belong in a sci-fi novel, like spherification and emulsion—blur in front of my eyes.
“I don’t see crackers or ketchup on this menu,” I say. “Unless yuzu kosho is French for tomato.”
“I think that’s Japanese,” Logan says helpfully.
I lower the menu. “Logan, what are we doing here?”
He combs his fingers through his hair, suddenly looking young. “I went too far, didn’t I?”
I bark out a laugh. “There are no menu prices! I thought that was a myth for us poors to amuse ourselves thinking about—like rich people all having secret underground lairs like Batman. “
“Yeah.” He sighs. “Can I be honest?”
I flutter my fingers at him in a go-ahead motion. “Please.”
“I just wanted you to feel… I want you to understand how I…” His voice falters.
My face softens. “I do. But this…this isn’t what we agreed to.”
“I know.” He hesitates. “What you said at Isolation Canyon…you were right. I can’t…my feelings are involved.”
“Oh.” My heart sinks.
The responsible thing would be to break it off now, but the thought hurts so badly—like the chef just cut out my heart and then julienned and br?léed it.
“Can we have one night?” he asks quietly. “We can go back to no-strings-attached fuck buddies tomorrow. Just give me one night to pretend…to show you how much I cherish you.”
Oh, dear. My heart gives one painful thump.
“Can you go back, though?” I ask him, but I know the question is really directed at myself.
“If you want to go back to that, we will.” His voice lowers. “I’m so starved for you, you know I’ll take whatever scraps you offer.”
Yeah. That sounds like a “no.”
It also sounds like this would be a bad idea, for his heart and for mine.
However, the thought of bruising this beautiful man’s heart when he’s offering it to me so vulnerably kills me. Before, when I ran away, I hurt him so badly without realizing it. I can’t do it with eyes wide open. And I don’t want to.
I am also not known for my excellent decision-making.
“Okay. One night,” I whisper.
And so we “pretend.”
Logan holds my hand throughout dinner, caressing my palm and fingers with his thumb.
We kiss between sips of wine. His eyes go dark when I tell him to open his mouth so he can try a bite of my dinner.
I watch his mouth close around the fork and how his throat moves as he swallows, and my breath catches.
I never realized how intimate feeding a lover could be.
I offer him another bite and let myself take in every delicious movement. My blood thickens into molasses.
He whispers sweet nothings, and sweet everythings: how beautiful I look, how complete and at peace he feels when he’s around me.
How his dinner tastes not nearly as good as I do, how he wishes he could spread me out over this table and feast on me instead.
His eyes grow hooded as he watches me lick cream off my spoon during dessert.
We go home and make love, reaching for each other over and over again until we are past the point of satiety.
And when he begs me not to leave—that his one night isn’t over until dawn—I don’t fight it.
I stay.
***
The next morning, Logan props his head up on my thigh, using it like a pillow as he resumes his leisurely licking.
“You’re insatiable,” I murmur.
“For you, yes,” he agrees readily.
I have learned so much about adult Logan over the past few weeks.
He needs to be teased constantly; otherwise, I can see him being sucked down into a far-too-serious mindset.
He still loves his hair tousled and played with and is still obsessed with my hair.
He’s downright greedy about back rubs and scratches.
Sex-wise, he still has a healthy libido, although he has gotten far more creative than just the two positions he relied solely on when we were still learning together before. This Logan seems to relish finding new ways to make love.
More topically speaking, the man has also developed a robust appetite for cunnilingus. Just this morning, he made me come four—or was it five times?—and still he looks perfectly content to stay cuddled around my hips, a look of pure bliss on his face as he continues to lap at my clit.
“Shouldn’t we try to do something today?” I ask, my voice hoarse from all the moaning I can’t seem to keep quiet.
Logan stops to nuzzle the crease of my thigh. “I think we’ve been plenty busy. But I can try to work harder.” He returns his tongue to me with increased pressure.
I am so sensitive down there that I can already feel another orgasm winding up. Low moans escape from my throat with every swipe of his persistent tongue. My thighs tighten around his head as I climax with a hoarse gasp.
His tongue gentles, soothing me until I am limp and boneless. But he doesn’t stop.
“Logan,” I protest.
He pauses only long enough to shush me and murmur “one more” before he continues to love on me. And I can only describe it as love—each touch is so tender and sweet.
Tears prick my eyes. Has any other man cared about my pleasure before? Not like this. Not anywhere close to this. It’s even such a stark difference between the boy Logan was before and the man he is now. He’s grown up to be such a generous lover.
It’s too much. We were supposed to go back today. No-strings-attached sex. No feelings allowed. I should stop him. “But—”
“Let me take care of you, baby.” He presses his face into me, and his eyes roll back as he inhales. “I have waited years for this. ‘Don’t deny this thirsty man a drink.’”
I giggle, my eyes darting to the book of Blackstone poems perched on the table next to the bed. Logan is getting too much mileage out of quoting it at me now.
His hand strokes up and down my inner thigh, the movement comforting me until I settle back down. My toes curl when he resumes.
“All right, one more,” I pant.
“Thank you, baby,” he says with so much gratitude that I blush.
God, what am I doing fighting this? Why not two more? Six more? Who was I to deny this man his deepest desire to spoil me with a half dozen orgasms? I could get used to this.
The thought hits me hard as my next shuddering orgasm washes over me.
Logan wants me to get used to this. He wants to keep me. And he tells me with every word, every action, every look, every touch. The care he takes of me every day: how can I deny the truth anymore? This good man loves me.
I let out a sob, and Logan finally relents.
He crawls up next to me and pulls me into his arms. He kisses away the tears on my cheeks. When I press my mouth to his, I taste myself and the salt of my tears on his lips.
“Why are you crying?” he asks gently.
I shrug. My jaw is so tight that I can’t speak, and I can’t seem to stop shaking. He holds me tight, as if to absorb the tremors into himself.
He studies me hard, his gaze softening as if reassured by what he finds hidden there. “It’s okay, baby,” he says gently.
“I need you,” I manage to say.
He nods and lines himself up with my entrance. No, I want to say. No, I mean, how will I be able to live without you again?
We both gasp when he pushes inside of me. Each stroke inside of me is tender, punctuated by his sweet, loving kisses.
He loves me.
I can’t seem to fight the truth or how it makes me feel anymore. A mantra repeats inside my head as he makes love to me. He loves me. He loves me. This good, honorable, caring, generous, wonderful man loves me.
My climax is a gentle, warm wave. I relax into him as he finishes, melting into each other until I don’t know where he ends and I begin.
To think I could have had this all along. Could have had him. My heart cracks open.
Logan says he thought we both knew it was a temporary split.
For a moment, I indulge myself in thinking what would have happened if John Hillerman hadn’t stopped to check on me when he saw me crying outside my house, locked out again by my mother’s vindictive boyfriend.
If I had just been patient, if Logan had come back to me as he thinks he would have.
Then what? Nothing would have changed. We’d be fighting, breaking up, hurting each other… things could have escalated.
My eyes dart back to the Blackstone poetry on the side table.
“What…” My voice croaks. I clear it and begin again. “What happened to her? To Lula Maude?”
“We don’t know. We may never know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes people are just lost to history. To time. We may never know what happened to them.”
“Do you think Blackstone’s last letter would have convinced her to come back to him?”
“He would have kept trying.” Logan sighs. “He wouldn’t have given up. She was the love of his life.” He kisses the delicate tip of my ear.
I didn’t think it was possible to melt more, but I do.
“But maybe…maybe they needed that time apart,” I say, trying to finish my thought.
I reach across him for the slim volume on the nightstand.
I flip through the pages until the last letter.
“Look, he talks here about becoming a better man. He talks about dumping the gold and starting over for her, trying to become respectable, I…” I stop.
“I’m extrapolating a lot from a bundle of poems, aren’t I? ”
“Extrapolate away,” he murmurs, brushing the hair away from my shoulder.
“I think he was trying to change, make himself worthy of her,” I say, tapping the page with my fingertip. “Who knows how their story would have ended if he hadn’t been shot? Maybe the tragedy wasn’t that they separated. Maybe that’s what they needed to grow.”
His eyes are so warm and piercing that my voice trails off.
I flush and let my hair sweep back over my shoulder to hide my face. “Though who knows? I’m hardly a historian,” I mutter.
The hair is pushed back from my face, and he’s right there, his expression soft.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Why?”
“Because it feels like you’re looking straight into my soul.”
“I am. And I like what I see.” He kisses me gently. “You’re beautiful.”
Tears leak out of the corner of my eyes. “You’re beautiful too.”
He tries to kiss me again, but I place a hand on his bare chest to stop him. I can feel his steady heartbeat, his warm skin. Every precious rise and fall of his breath.
“All right,” I say. Adrenaline races through me, lighting my nerves on fire. This feels like the most dangerous risk I’ve taken yet.
“All right?” Logan repeats, confused.
“Let’s make it official. I’ll be your girlfriend.” The way his face lights up matches mine. “I’m yours, Logan.”
His lips crash into mine. We don’t come up for air for a long time.
“Oh, baby,” he murmurs when we finally break apart. “You’ve made me so happy.” Tears leak out of the corners of my eyes, and he sips at them. “Please tell me these are happy tears.”
I nod, too overcome to speak. The future and my past are still there, looming over us. But for now, I let us both live in this moment together.