Reckless Together: A Contemporary New Adult College Romance (The Reckless Series) (11 page)

She moaned softly and gasped like the pleasure surprised her. "Logan." She relaxed beneath him.

He'd lost control. El made him lose all restraint. It unnerved and unmanned him. He wanted to make love to El again, right then, to prove he could hang on and manipulate the situation. Come only when he purposely let go and not before.

He'd slept with dozens of girls since the assault. Had a rep as a great lover. Oh yes, he knew how to please. He knew how to torment himself and keep him and his partner just on the edge of release. For as long as he wanted. He had phenomenal, legendary staying power. Because he'd learned how to control his sexuality and climax. It was like a game he'd played with himself sometimes, seeing how long he could go.
 

The girls said he wasn't greedy. He didn't come too early and fast like a lot of guys his age. He thought only of the girl's pleasure. He didn't care what they believed. He never bothered to correct them. But they were dead wrong. It was all about him.

He'd learned to control his body. Learned to control his sexual release. Practiced by letting girls try to drive him over the edge of pleasure and turning his full attention back on them, working to please them. By thinking thoughts that allowed him to turn himself off and slow down if he needed to. Because he'd be damned if anyone ever controlled his body again like
She
had. He refused to be a victim of his own natural responses again. Refused to let his manhood and his sexual tastes be questioned again.

He decided when he came.
He
did. He'd gotten to the point where he was sure he could go for hours and not come. That there was nothing any girl could do to him to make him come until he decided he would.
 

He never let his purely animal, physical instincts take over.
Never.
El
defeated
him. And it scared the shit out of him. She had power over him she didn't, in her innocence, even know. He couldn't hold out against her.

He never thought he'd be weak again. But somehow he was. He wanted to prove—and at the same time he didn't—that he was still in control when he was with her.

"Logan?" She stared at him with a worried expression. "Are you okay?"

"I am
way
more than okay, El. Way more." There was no way he could tell her how afraid he was of her. He needed her more. "I wasn't too fast?"
 

She smiled lazily and sighed. "You were just right." The way she caressed her words, she may as well have said she loved him.

"I love you, El." His words came out fiercer sounding than he intended.

"I love you, too." She yawned and stretched as he rolled off her and tossed the used condom in the wastebasket. "I am happily sated."

"After doing it only once?"

"Horny bastard." She glanced at the clock. "It's one in the morning. I have lab tomorrow at nine. I need to get some sleep." She pulled the sheet around her and sat up like she was going to get out of bed.

"Where are you going?"

"To get a nightgown or a shacker shirt."

"No, El. You don't need a shacker shirt. Sleep naked with me tonight." At the thought, his dick grew hard again.
 

She looked at it and smiled. "Are you going to poke me with that thing all night?"

"Not
all
night."

El straddles him. She's never ridden him like this before. Her bellybutton ring sparkles in the moonlight. A glint of peridot green. Her long blond hair falls down around her face, a cascade of silk he runs his fingers through.
 

She's hot and wet. He's on the edge already, fighting to maintain control, but wanting to let loose with her.

Her naked breasts bounce. They're so perfect. He reaches to caress one. It's full and heavy in his hand. Just the way he likes. He can't get enough of touching it. It buds beneath his touch. He takes the nipple between his fingers, rolling it and playing with it until it's long and hard.

She moans and moves expertly on him. Squeezing him rhythmically.
 

Just as he's about to tumble over the precipice of climax, she leans down to kiss him, her hair obscuring her gorgeous face. As her lips are just about to meet his, a terrifying sense of dread overcomes him.
 

It isn't El who's riding him. It's Dr. Rogers.

Logan woke with a start in a cold sweat.

"Logan? What's wrong?" El popped up next to him in bed and put her hand on his arm. "You're clammy. Are you sick? Do you feel like you have a fever?"

Too many questions. He fought to come out of the fog of the nightmare and realized El really was beside him. "Bad dream."

She gave his arm a squeeze. "Hang on. Stay there." She propped a pillow up behind him, fluffed it, and slid out of bed.

He watched her stroll naked to the bathroom in the dark, her sexy form like a shadow. The raging anger at Dr. Rogers pulsed in his temple.
Damn Her.
He wouldn't let
Her
ruin him and El. He wouldn't. He'd fight
Her
with everything he had.

She'd ruined things with Kels. Shit, Kels had deserved better. He wouldn't let
Her
destroy what he had with El.

The sound of water running in the bathroom was soothing. El returned a minute later with a glass of water. She slid into bed next to him and handed it to him. "Drink. You'll feel better. It will help you wake up and bring you back to reality."

He nodded and downed the water in three gulps, feeling the cold as it slid down his throat, hoping El was right. If she was, this water was a miracle. El was a miracle.

She took the glass from him and set it next to the bed.

"It was
Her
," he said. "Again."

"Oh, Logan." El wrapped him in her arms and coiled her legs around him, intertwining herself with him as if trying to shield him against the misery. "It wasn't real."

"It was the first time." As he pulled her to him, he brushed something warm and sticky on his stomach. Shit. He'd hoped that had been part of the dream, too. His face flamed in the dark. He had an overwhelming desire to punch something. He rubbed the stickiness between his fingers and looked at El's shadowed face, feeling like this was make-it-or-break-it time.

If she reacted with pity or horror like Kels had, it was over. He couldn't face her.

El grabbed the corner of the sheet and wiped the stickiness away with it. Her voice was a reassuring purr. "Don't worry about that. I was sleeping naked next to you. How could your body not react?" She laughed softly and ran her fingers through his hair. "The stress gave you the nightmare.
I
gave you a wet dream."

Shit
. She was exactly right. She'd described the dream without knowing exactly what it was. He stroked her cheek. "I don't deserve you."

"Oh, I know. No one does." She kissed him lightly. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah. You were right. The water did the trick." He held her tightly against him, pulling her head to rest on his chest. "El?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't ever leave me."

"Leave you? You saved my life. I owe you a debt of honor. You're stuck with me until I save yours."

"Then I'm going to live very carefully so you never have to." But he had the feeling she already had.
 

Chapter Nine

Ellie

I didn't know if I'd said the right thing to Logan until he pulled me against him and the beat of his heart became steady and sure again as I rested my head on his chest. I just knew he didn't want to be pitied. And he was feeling guilty for something he had no control over, like a stupid nightmare. Like being sexually assaulted. And I couldn't lose him. I wouldn't let him be embarrassed. Not around me.

He had a similar nightmare the next night. And the next. I got up and got him water. I ran my hands over his forehead and held him to me and tried to make him laugh. I vowed I wouldn't lose him to
Her
. Not this way. She was like the demon between us, a horrible succubus that found a way into his dreams.

I vowed I'd get up every night for the rest of my life if I had to. But I would not lose. I couldn't ask him not to testify. I couldn't even hint. He needed my strength now more than he needed anything. If we could only get past the nightmares.

They were because of the stress of the upcoming trial. On an intellectual level, Logan knew they were, too. Just manifestations of stress and anxiety. But dreams have such emotional power that it was hard to combat them. I worried they'd affect our relationship.
 

Logan wouldn't tell me the content of the dreams. I had the feeling I knew the reason—I was somehow part of them. And you know how that goes. You have a dream someone did something to you, treated you badly, ignored you, or embarrassed you. Laughed at you. And the next morning you wake up mad at them, even though you know it wasn't really them. It was only a trick of your own traitorous mind and insecurities.

But worse yet, I couldn't let go of it. I imagined all kinds of horrible scenarios that might have been tormenting him in his dreams. I went over and over the few details Logan had told me about the assault. I thought so hard about them that I almost chased the memories away. And then in a moment of silence, when I wasn't thinking of anything in particular, Logan's words came back to me, indelibly etched in my mind so perfectly I could hear his voice in my head as clearly as if he was speaking aloud.
 

I felt an overwhelming sense of dread and revulsion. Violation. Images, just snatches, like scenes from a nightmare. The kind where I'm making love with a girl I'm hot for and she suddenly morphs into someone repulsive popped up out of nowhere and made me break into a cold sweat. Dr. Rogers naked. On top of me.
 

A cold nausea swept over me. I wanted to cry and sweep back my triumph of discovery. In his nightmares, Logan was making love to me, until I morphed into
Her
. I was battling not only
Her
, but me. There had to be a way to win and conquer both demons. I didn't know who to talk to about it. I loved Jason and Lyssa. But I couldn't talk to them about this. I was lost. I needed help.
 

On Wednesday, I got back to the apartment before Logan.
 

Collin walked in the front door with a handful of mail. He tossed it on the table. A large envelope with Logan's name on it slid free from the rest.
 

"Another job offer, lucky bastard. My dad's going to have my head if I don't get one soon. I'm going to end up bored, miserable, and unhappy in the family biz, just like dear old Dad. If you repeat this, I'll deny it, but I should have listened to him and paid more attention to my studies. But partying was just too damn fun."

I barely heard his ramblings. "Another one? As in more than one?"

"Oops! You mean Logan hasn't been bragging about all the companies who are hot to have him work for them? The modest bastard." Collin shrugged. "Thought you knew about the others."

I didn't give up. "How many more than one?"

Collin shrugged again. "I haven't been counting. You'll have to ask him."

Just then the door opened and Logan came in. His gaze bounced between Collin and me. "Am I interrupting something?"

Collin laughed. "Look who's here. We were just talking about you."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Logan looked puzzled.

"Another company vying for your considerable talents." Collin pointed to the envelope on the table. "Hope it's a good offer." He grabbed a beer from the fridge. "I'll leave you two kids to talk it out."

Logan scowled, scooped up the envelope, and shoved it into his backpack with barely a glance at it.

"Aren't you going to look at it?" I asked.

"Later."
 

"Logan, don't. It's not like I don't know you've been interviewing. This is important. This is exciting. This is your future." My heart pounded in my ears. I fought to sound reasonable and happy for him, but I wanted him to stay. And he knew it. These job offers would take him away from me—physically, at least. And maybe forever. "You should look at it. See if it's as good as the others."

"You know about those?"