Blow (37 page)

ELLE

I
closed my eyes and leaned back against the couch.

My laptop was on my knees, my inventory pad beside me, and my cell close at hand. I felt drained and done with work. The crackle of the logs caused me to open my eyes. Setting my things aside, I looked around.

Logan’s suite was swanky. That was the best word to describe it. Modern black sofas, crystal chandeliers, fine abstract art, and beautiful side pieces to accompany it all.

The vanilla curtains blew in the breeze and the fireplace warmed me. I’d decided on opening the terrace door and turning on the gas fireplace. My nerves had my temperature fluctuating. One minute I was hot, the next I was cold.

Peyton had said she was absolutely fine, but I forbade her from coming to work until Saturday. She needed to take a few days off. If what Logan said was true, and I was certain it was, I wanted her far away from anything until after Friday passed.

Friday.

D-day.

I hoped Michael knew what he was doing.

He’d stopped by the boutique with Clementine and Sarah, the nanny, at lunch. Peyton had me seeing things that weren’t there, I was sure, but Michael did look pretty at ease with the nanny. He also seemed to be back to normal. He acted like nothing out of the ordinary was taking place in our life. He also acted like his wife hadn’t been missing for three months. I think he’d convinced himself that she really was in rehab. Both behaviors bothered me.

Cracking open a bottle of water, I checked the time—five fifteen. My stomach was growling, so I reached over to the pile of snacks I had brought from my stash at the boutique. The coffee table was littered with fruit roll-ups, granola bars, pretzel bags, and a few Snickers.

My fingers glided over each one before I decided on pretzels. They were the flat kind with salt-and-pepper flavoring. My favorite.

I pulled my laptop back onto my lap and in the search bar, feeling oddly curious, I typed in two words:
sex addict
. Not that I thought I was one. It’s just that for so long I’d thought of myself as almost asexual and now, after meeting Logan, that clearly was not the case. Still, naturally, I had to wonder if it was possible to move to the other side of the spectrum.

An article in
Psychology Today
magazine caught my attention. It was titled, “How to Tell If You Are a Sex Addict.” The article contained many stories of people who had thought they might be. I read them all but couldn’t relate to any of them. Still, I read on. I stopped when I came to a quiz with a series of questions:

1. Do you find yourself unable to concentrate because you’re thinking about sex?
   
2. Do you pay for sex? (Porn or prostitution.)
   
3. Has your sexual activity ever caused problems for your family?
   
4. Even when you’re in a relationship, do you still masturbate two or three times a day?
   

There were dozens and dozens more questions, but I stopped there. I was confident that I was most definitely not a sex addict. Who knows? Maybe I was just a normal woman with healthy sexual urges.

Munching on my pretzels, I liked that thought. Curiosity drove me to keep searching, and this time I Googled
sex drive
. The first article I read stated that the majority of Americans in their late twenties and early thirties have sex with their partner two to three times per week. There were tons more articles, all stating the same thing. Interesting. I was pretty sure Logan and I might have sex two to three times per
day
if we could.

That put a huge smile on my face.

I was biting down on another pretzel in fascination when I heard the lock. The sound caused my heartbeat to step up.

Slowly, the door opened.

My eyes were glued to it and then glued to him the minute he stepped through it. He paused in the doorway. Right away the air felt thick—just the way I seemed to like it as of late.

I licked the salt off my lips and stared at him. When he flew out of the bedroom this morning, he left so fast, all I saw was a flash of gray. Now, I could see him, really see him, and he looked edible in the designer suit he had on. And the tie loose around his neck with the first few buttons of his white shirt open only made him look even sexier.

I was becoming obsessed with this man.

Was obsession one of the questions in any of the quizzes I’d looked at, I wondered?

If so, I didn’t care. I wanted this man. And that had to be a normal, healthy, and happy reaction.

Logan looked over at me—his eyes on me like they had never been. “Hey.” His voice was smooth like honey.

Something fluttered in my belly—butterflies? No. I was a grown woman. I didn’t get butterflies. Yet they felt an awful lot like them. “Hi,” I said back. “How was work?”

“I spent the day at the waterfront,” he said, striding toward me, tugging his tie off as he walked.

My pulse raced. “Why were you at the waterfront?”

I breathed him in. I hadn’t realized it, but I think I might have missed him.

Logan moved my computer aside and bent to brush his lips against mine. “I’ll tell you later.”

I accepted his answer—for now.

His mouth felt warm above mine, and I closed my eyes, reminding myself this was only supposed to be about the fucking. And it was normal.

He pulled away and smiled at me. The way he was looking at me made my skin tingle.

That was when I knew I was lying to myself—this was about more than just the fucking.

I was falling for him.

“What are you reading?” He nodded his head toward my computer.

I quickly moved to slam the screen down, but he was faster. He grabbed it and sat beside me. With a wiggle of his brows he read the name of the article I had been reading: “Sex Drive: How Do Men and Women Compare?”

“Give me that,” I said, reaching for the laptop.

With a boyish grin that melted me, he shook his head. “You’re looking at porn.”

“Please,” I said rather haughtily. “I am not looking at porn. I’m doing research.”

“Number one,” he said. “Men think about sex more. Number two,” he went on. “Two-thirds of men admit to masturbating three to four times a week.” He chuckled at that.

The thought of watching him do it seemed highly erotic. “Do you?”

He sat back and ran his fingers through his hair and grinned. “Well, yeah, sometimes.”

“The answers to that question are either ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ not ‘sometimes.’”

His coyness was adorable. “I don’t really count how many times. Do you . . . masturbate three to four times a week?”

“Next question,” I said, feeling oddly embarrassed by that one. It wasn’t that I was immature; it was just that my reasons for masturbating in the past weren’t the same as Logan’s, and admitting that wasn’t something I was proud of.

His laugh was low. “It’s okay if you do. In fact, I wouldn’t mind watching you sometime.”

Suddenly it felt like 1,000 degrees in the room. The thought of that turned me on as much as the thought of watching him pleasure himself.

He laughed again, and it was low, and growly, and deep. “Number three.” He cleared his throat as if trying to ward off the laughter. “Sex drive increases with exploration.” There were a couple of clicks and then he turned the screen toward me. “Wow, look at that.”

My hands moved instinctively to cover my face. I wasn’t really feeling embarrassed, though, so I peeked through my fingers and saw he had clicked a link to demonstrate various unusual sexual positions. Dropping my cover, I commented, “Kinky.”

His grin widened and he pointed to a picture. “We’ve done this,” he scrolled down, “and this,” he scrolled some more, “and I think this. Oh, we should try this one.”

Rising on my knees, I leaned over and snatched the computer, closed the top, and set it on the table. I was really close to him. Really, really close.

He breathed in deeply and when he turned his head, his lips grazed my throat.

Heat flooded me.

“You smell so good.” Logan’s voice was hoarser than it had just been, the playfulness replaced with something more lustful.

“It’s lavender,” I told him, my voice husky too.

He breathed me in again. “I really like it,” he said, and dragged his tongue up my throat to my mouth. His lips felt so soft against my skin, his tongue so wet. He was easing me closer now and I was putty in his hands.

The fabric of my simple white blouse seemed to come alive as soon as his body covered mine. My nipples tightened and strained against it. The denim of my jeans also seemed to give way as my knees got weak with his legs between mine.

As soon as I felt his erection straining through the fine fabric of his pants, instant arousal spread through me like a wildfire out of control.

His tongue flicked my lips. “You taste good, too.”

“Pretzels,” I said, a little breathy.

Our mouths parted and the onslaught of needing to be closer, needing to consume each other, took over.

His tongue stroked mine.

I stroked his back.

Wet, wild, pleasure. That’s what I felt with his mouth on mine.

The kiss broke and left us both breathing hard.

He lifted a little to look down at me. “I know you have a lot going on in that mind of yours, but Elle, you don’t need to try to categorize yourself as asexual, sexual, or anything else.”

“You don’t understand,” I said and then leaned forward, my mouth seeking his. When I reached it, I found it closed to me. I felt a little disappointed.

Did seeing me reading that article worry him?

Logan’s eyes glittered green with small flecks of brown. “Let me finish.”

I blinked my stupid fears away and smiled at him. “Go on.”

He sat up.

I gathered myself together and sat up too.

He looked at me. “I don’t care what you were or thought you were. All that matters is what we are—together. And that is pretty great.”

“Do you really think so?’

He tilted his head to the side. “I’m pretty certain you know I do.”

We looked into each other’s eyes for a long silent moment.

“I don’t know why it matters to me. My whole life I’ve tried to figure myself out and just when I thought I had, whatever this is between us happened and I feel like I have to go back to the drawing board and figure myself out all over again.”

“Then let me help you.”

I gave him a huff of laughter. “I think I am.”

He wasn’t laughing. “You said this thing between us was just about the fucking. What if I told you I thought it was more?”

There was a feeling of ease with Logan. One where the truth was the only thing that needed to be spoken. No games. No beating around the bush. “I’d say I think it is too.”

“So can we agree to figure out what we are—together? Because I have to admit, this is all new to me too.”

I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. Maybe he had a point. I didn’t have to be asexual or sexually repressed or whatever it was I thought I was. It didn’t mean I was a sex addict either. Maybe, just maybe, I hadn’t turned out like either of my parents. “Yes,” I answered, and launched myself at him.

Just as my lips found his, my stomach roared with the loudest hunger cry I’d ever heard.

Our mouths connected, we both laughed.

“I need to feed you,” he said.

I sat up again. “I skipped lunch and I am a little hungry.”

As he rose to his feet, his full form took my vision—the width of his shoulders, the length of his torso, the narrow hips. I was hungry all right, hungry for him.

“Elle,” he said.

I bit my lip. “What?”

“I asked what you feel like eating.”

Okay, so I wanted to say
you
. “It doesn’t matter. Anything.”

The room service menu was on the desk and he glanced down at it. “Fish, steak, or pasta?” he asked.

I twisted my lip. “Pasta, I think.”

“Good choice. I think I’ll have that too. Spaghetti, linguini, or penne?”

“Spaghetti, please.”

“Carbonara, Arabiatta, Bolognese, tomato,
aglio olio
, or lemon capers.”

I laughed. “Too many choices. I’ll go with the traditional tomato sauce and a meatball.”

His eyes twinkled. “You’re easy.”

“I prefer
simple
,” I said saucily.

He shrugged and picked up the phone. “Easy.” He winked.

“I’d like to place an order,” Logan said into the phone.

I liked what this was between us. It seemed with our secrets confessed everything was lighter, easier, and dare I say fun.

His harsh tone drew my attention. He was still on the phone. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow, I said, for now, just deliver my order. I’ll pay with cash.” Logan’s voice was gruff and laced with anger as he slammed the phone down.

“What’s the matter?” I asked him.

He stalked toward the bedroom. “Nothing. I’m going to take a shower before the food arrives.”

Whoa.

Mood change much?

“Logan,” I said, my voice harsh.

He stopped.

“What we just talked about—the figuring out what we are, you talking to me is part of it.”

Even before I finished speaking, he had turned around. He drew in a breath. “I’m sorry. You’re right. My grandfather wants me back in New York and to get me there, he’s frozen my accounts. The front desk told me my company credit card was declined earlier today, and now they won’t allow me to charge to my account.”

Not expecting anything like that, I offered, “I have some money if you need it.”

His laugh was dry. “I’ll take care of it. I might have to move to my pop’s until I can talk to my grandfather, but trust me, I’ve got enough not to worry about paying this bill.”

Logan was out of the room before I could respond.

Why is it
everything in life comes with a price
? I thought.