A More Deserving Blackness (25 page)

             
An image scrapes across my mind; his face over me, grunting, and I squeeze my eyes shut and breathe through clenched teeth. 

             
No.
  I will
not
be afraid the rest of my whole fucking
life
.

             
The awful sound of my own silence fills my ears, masking even the roar of my blood.

             
My eyes tightly closed I hold my breath, turn the gun in my hand once and then bend my arm to press the round tip of the barrel against the underside of my jaw. 

             
There.  That’s it.  Exactly what it felt like.

             
I’m standing there, gritting my teeth and reeling from the feel of that hard metal kiss again, but at least I don’t feel like I’m turning inside-out anymore.  At least there isn’t any screaming.

             
Logan’s tight voice breaks across the cold silence.

             
“Bree, Love, put down the gun.”

             
I open my eyes first, unmoving, and I see him standing there, frozen in the doorway.  He’s staring at me, his whole body tense.  In his wide, dark eyes I see dread and pain.  And barely restrained terror.

             
My arm drops automatically and Logan lurches forward, ripping the weapon from my hand and sharply dismantling it, the clip and the unchambered bullet clattering across the floor before he viciously flings the gun itself, now empty, down the hall.

             
“
Jesus!
  Fuck!”

             
I flinch, but not from the curse so much as the feel of his body as he crushes me to his chest, his arms iron around my back.  He’s shaking.

             
“
Damn
it!”

             
He pulls back suddenly and shakes me hard, his hands biting into the flesh of my arms, eyes burning and bloodshot and totally livid.

             
“
What?
” he yells in my face.  “Tell me!  Tell me what’s so bad you’d come out here to
this
but you couldn’t even wake me up!”

             
I’m shaking my head, and I can feel tears pouring down my face but I can’t stop them and they just keep coming faster.  He’s glaring at me, fierce and hard, waiting in a tightly coiled rage.  And then something shifts minutely and it all drains out of him, leaving him empty and brittle.  His shoulders sag, his eyes swollen and tired and miserable.

             
“Bree.  Please,
God,
just
talk
to me.”

             
It’s the break in his voice that does it.

             
A sob jerks out of me, and then another and another, coming faster on each other until I’m clasped to Logan’s chest and I can’t breathe through the pain of it.  He’s guiding me, his arms around me, moving cautiously with his bruised ribs, and I don’t question it, I just follow.  A gentle pressure and I’m sitting on the living room couch with him lowering gingerly to his knees in front of me.

             
He’s looking up at me, worried, and I reach out, softly touching his swollen face, the broken skin of his cheek that had needed to be sewn back together, the flesh around it red and angry.  I’d watched them do it.

             
“I’m okay,” he says softly, reading the look in my eyes.

             
He scoops up my hands and places them on his chest, right over the raised, parallel ropes of his scars.  He’s not wearing a shirt and I can feel the heat of his skin, the heartbeat thrumming beneath my palm.

             
“I’m okay.”

             
But I shake my head tearfully because he’s not okay.  They wouldn’t have stopped; they would’ve killed him had I not opened my mouth and screamed for help and now I couldn’t put it all back inside again.  I’m coming apart; the shards are slipping, wet, down my face.

             
I love him so much it’s breaking all the last pieces of me that were whole.

             
I slide my hands up to anchor them at the back of his neck and drop to my knees, crushing my mouth to his.

             
Logan goes absolutely still.  Then his arms wind around my body, anchoring me, and he angles into the kiss.  His teeth prod at my lips and I open for him, letting my head fall back against his arm, the ends of my hair pooling over the backs of my bare calves.  His tongue is in my mouth and I can taste the salt of my tears and my hands are in his hair and my teeth clack against his because I’m trying to devour him.

             
“Logan,” I breathe into his mouth.

             
He rips away from me.  For a second he stares at me with intense, impossibly dark eyes before crushing his mouth back over mine with a long, low groan.

             
His hands drop to my butt, hot and forceful, kneading me through the thin cotton of my underwear.  He drags me against him and I shudder against the feel of his arousal, huge and hard beneath his jeans.

             
Logan groans at the pressure, his hips rocking against me, and he smoothes one of his hands up my back beneath my shirt and around to my stomach, his fingertips grazing the underside of my breast.  He sweeps his thumb over me, dragging it roughly over the hardened nipple, and I grip his shoulders to keep from collapsing backward it feels so good.  Breathing fast, Logan tugs down the lace of my bra and fills his hand with my breast and my body clenches hard, tightening with need.

             
“More,” I mutter against his mouth and then my hands are at his flat stomach and his breathing catches when I rip open the button of his jeans and tug down the zipper.

             
He shudders when I slip my hand down, sliding it over him, and then he groans into my mouth, his hips bucking wildly when I close my fist around him.

             
In less than a second he pushes me down onto my back on the carpet and tears my shirt off over my head, grimacing when the sweeping motion disturbs his recent injuries.   His pupils are huge and his muscles are straining and he’s holding himself on his elbows and staring down at me as he shoves with his hips, thrusting himself against the grip of my hand.  I squeeze my fist and see the answering burn in his eyes before he drops his mouth back to mine.

             
Logan lets me shove his jeans and boxers down over his hips, yanking them off to impatiently kick them away.  Then he’s staring down at me and his hands are rubbing my thighs, circling, hot, just shy of where I’m throbbing for him to touch me.  I need more.

             
“Please.”

             
Before the word has even completely left my lips, Logan’s fingers hook over the top of my underwear.  He meets my eyes, silently questioning, before quickly slipping them off my legs and lowering himself down on top of me. 

             
I can’t stop the moan at the feel of his hot skin dragging against my most sensitive place as he slowly slides the full length of his arousal between my legs. He’s shaking and my body is hot and aching and tight and I’m clutching his shoulders and panting and it’s still not enough.

             
When Logan pulls back I whimper at the loss, and then my arms drop to the floor and my fingers dig into the carpet when his hand covers me.  He moves slowly, rubbing the heel of his palm against me, watching me writhe.  When he feels my body tightening under his touch he dips it lower, spreading my thighs for the width of his palm. 

             
He slips one finger inside me and my head whips back and my thighs fall open and I cry out but he’s already withdrawing.  He spreads me intimately, sliding his slick finger over the throbbing center and pausing there.

             
My body tenses, my fingers clawing and my heels pushing and I’m arching up against his hand, trembling and taut and waiting.

             
Finally, watching me, Logan drags his finger over me, down one side and then slowly back up, wet and hot, pausing torturously at the peak and then down the other side.  He moves it faster, pressing harder, circling the hot flesh until my hips lift up off the floor and I cry out as the orgasm rips through me.

             
“Bree,” Logan groans.  He nudges my legs with his knees, spreading them, and then he’s on top of me and he’s fumbling for his jeans in the dark before I feel his hands between us, quickly covering himself. 

             
I feel him nudge against me and he stops.

             
We’re both breathing hard and Logan holds himself up to look down at me, his eyes a mix of wonder and need and fear.

             
“Bree?” he whispers tightly.

             
And I realize he knows.  He’s guessed it already, knows that dirtiest thing, and he still wants me. 

             
But he’s terrified.             

             
I nod and he waits for just a second, watching me.  Then my eyes clench shut when he wraps his arms around me, under me, and he thrusts his hips forward, pushing all the way inside.

             
I gasp at the feel of him, warm and full and deep, so deep inside me.  It shouldn’t be possible to be this close to someone, to have them invade every tiny part of you, the way Logan has.  He’d worked his way into every crack, every fissure, widening them, prying them open, exposing what was inside.  I could never keep him out.

             
He pulls back slowly, slipping out almost all of the way and then sliding forward again, burying himself deeply inside me with a muffled groan. 

             
Logan’s face is in my hair, his lips at my ear when he whispers, “Are you okay?”

             
I nod against him but it’s not enough because he pushes up to look at me and I jerk at what it feels like, down where he’s buried inside me.  It’s amazing and it’s incredible and it’s
Logan.

             
“Is this okay?” he asks, shakily, searching my eyes.

             
Yes.

             
When his eyes burn and widen, I realize I must’ve said it aloud, and I hadn’t even meant to.  Because it’s him.  Because I love him so much it’s butchering me.

             
And then his hips surge forward, setting a fast, desperate rhythm.  I rock against him, matching his pace, and he buries his face in my neck and I can hear him panting, his body tight, and there’s no way he can keep this up.  He’s driving into me, almost frantic with need, and my eyes are closed and I’m clinging to him like maybe, just maybe this could hold me together.  Then he lifts his shoulders, still moving his hips against mine as he looks down at my face.

             
“Look at me,” he demands, his voice tight, and then almost instantly growls, “Damn it,
look at me!”

             
My eyes fly open and meet his and I wrap my legs around his hips and Logan thrusts deeply once more before he comes in a violent rush, groaning and shuddering his release.

             
He’s still on top of me, breathing hard, when I feel his muscles stiffen again, but this time not with need.  Silently, not looking at me, Logan rolls out of my arms.  He gingerly bends, grabbing the dark mound that is his jeans from the floor, and disappears down the hall without a word.

             
I stare after him, stung. 

             
Anguish is a carved out cavern in my chest as I scoot up onto my butt and grope for my clothes in the dark, suddenly feeling unbearably exposed.  I’m dragging them on with shaking hands, barely able to believe that he’d just leave without saying a thing, that he’d just pull out of me and walk away, when I hear him.

             
I snap my head around, palming the silent tears from my face, and Logan is in the hall, his jeans back on, his expression disturbingly bleak.  He’s resolutely reassembling the handgun, his skilled motions punctuated with sharp, metallic clicks.  He doesn’t look at me until after he’s returned the weapon to the small table in the foyer, and then he pauses in the threshold.  He turns to me, his eyes coldly furious. 

             
“Do me a favor.  If you’re going to kill yourself, do it at your own house.  I’ve seen enough people die here.”

             
He doesn’t wait for a response before walking past me down the hall.  I stare after him for a second, stunned and hurt, before I race to follow, bursting into his room to find him just standing there, staring at the wall with his hands in fists at his sides.  I snatch his coat from the floor by his bed and dig my phone from the pocket.