Smart, Sexy and Secretive (26 page)

“
Em,” he says as I position
myself on top of him. He tips my chin up. “Do we need a
condom?”

Oh God. He would think of that. He’s
just that good. “We didn’t use one last time,” I remind him. Or the
time before that.

“
You said we were okay those
times,” he reminds me. He takes his dick in his hand and rubs it
along my slit, notching it in my cleft where it bumps my clit. “Are
we okay now?”

“
I can’t think when you do
that,” I tell him, trying to count the days. My period just ended a
few days ago, but then I remember that I’m on the pill. My mom took
me to the doctor as soon as I went home. I don’t want to think
about my mom right now. I tap his shoulders and bounce in his lap.
“We’re okay,” I say.

When the words come out of my mouth, he
aims himself directly at my opening and takes my naked hips in his
hands, pulling me down onto him. He groans aloud, filling me slowly
as he looks into my eyes. “God, I love you.”

My stomach clenches, in a good way, at
the naked emotion on his face. He leans forward, pushing me back,
as he realigns our bodies. I brace myself, leaning back with my
hands on his knees, pushing my breasts forward. With a nearly feral
gleam in his eye, he licks across my nipple, and then sucks it
quickly into his mouth, drawing deeply on the turgid flesh. He
shoves his pants down to his ankles, kicks off his shoes, and
wiggles his legs until his pants and boxers hit the floor. He rolls
me to the side and onto my back, laying me on the couch with a
gentle arm behind my back. He never pulls out of me. If he pulled
out at this point, I would have to scream.

Logan brushes my hair back from my face
with tender fingers. “I like it when you’re on top, but you’re
going too fast,” he says. He looks into my eyes, waiting for my
acceptance.

We’ve only made love twice, and both
times were in the same night, the night before I left. Yet I feel
like he’s been making love to me forever. I trust him with my
everything, and I give my everything to him. I nod and pull his
head down to mine. He kisses me as he begins to move slowly between
my thighs, and I open wider for him. Logan tilts my hips, cupping
my bottom in his palm, and goes deeper. My breath rushes from my
body as he slides in and out, in and out, in and out. His head
travels to my breast, and he pays my nipples the same amount of
attention as he did my lips.

“
Jesus Christ, Em,” he says.
His breath hitches. “We might have to go back to being fast.” He
closes his eyes tightly, his lips pressed together. “I want to come
inside you.”

His blue eyes open, and he looks at me
through a cloud of passion. I can barely think, much less talk to
him. Logan lifts my leg and presses it toward my chest, putting his
weight on it, and our position suddenly changes. My breath leaves
my body. I turn my head into his forearm, which is beside my face,
and nip his wrist with my teeth. He chuckles.

“
Like that?” he asks. He
sits up a little and looks down at where we’re joined, holding my
leg close to his chest. His strokes are slow and deep. Then quick
enough to take my breath. Then slow. Then quick.

“
Jesus, Logan,” I cry. “Stop
tormenting me.”

I open my eyes and look into his. “Be
patient. I’ll take care of you,” he chides. He watches our bodies
as one, and he rims my opening with his fingertip, circling around
his dick. “So tight,” he breathes. I’ve never shared such intimacy
with anyone. Ever. And I know I’ll never find a feeling like this
with anyone but him. It’s more than sex.

He leans down, covering my body with
his, and his hips lift quickly, pistoning his cock inside me. I
clutch him to me because I’m afraid I’ll shatter. He rocks to his
side, and his hand slides between us. He touches my clit, his
finger wet from where he just stroked me. He strums my clit. Once.
Twice. Three times. Then I shatter with a keening cry.

He lets my leg go, and it falls to the
back of the couch. But Logan’s not done. He massages my clit,
milking every last quiver and shake from my body, working me until
I can’t take anymore. I pull his hand from between us, whimpering
and shaking my head. He thrusts one more time, and then he grunts
in my ear, coming inside me, soaking my walls as he grinds out his
orgasm. Into me.

Logan collapses on top of me, spent,
his breath heavy. My eyes are closed because I don’t have enough
strength left to open them. But I feel his gentle hands as he tilts
my head to face him. “Look at me,” he insists. His voice is
hesitant. “I need for you tell me everything is going to be all
right.”

I don’t know what he means. I’m back,
aren’t I? I shake my head. “Nothing’s wrong.”

He searches my face. “You promise?” His
eyebrows draw together tightly. “You’re certain?”

I push his shoulder so that he has to
sit up a little. “Certain about what?” I ask.

He withdraws from me, and I’m left wet
and well worked. My arms and legs are limp, and I can barely think.
“Are you asking me if I’m going to leave again?”

He nods. “And other things.”

“
What other
things?”

He stands up, and… Goodness, he’s
beautiful naked. He’s beautiful with clothes on, too, but naked…my
goodness. He’s a work of art.

“
I want you to fucking marry
me, Em,” he says.

My heart trips a beat. “Well, that’s
the worst proposal ever,” I joke.

“
Tell me this is real,” he
implores me.

I take his hand and look into his blue
eyes. “It’s as real as it gets,” I say.

He pulls me to my feet.
“Good.”

“
You’re staying the night,
aren’t you?” I ask. He had better be.

He grins at me. “Why should
I?”

“
Because I will be hurt if
you leave.” I’m honest, and his face softens.

“
Of course, I’m not leaving,
dummy.” I thrill at the term of endearment. There was a time a word
like that hurt me, but not from him.

“
Want to go take a shower?”
I ask.

He shakes his heads, nuzzling his
five-o’clock shadow into the side of my neck. “I plan on messing
you up again,” he warns, waggling his brows at me. “I’ll get a
washcloth from the bathroom so we can clean up.” He tweaks my nose.
“You’ll sleep better that way.”

He turns around, and I see
the words tattooed across his hip:
My name
is Emily.

It’s in my handwriting, as if he took
the note and photocopied it over his skin. It’s from when I first
told him my name. I’d written it down for him as a surprise. “You
put my note on your ass.”

“
I wanted to remember it
forever,” he says. He looks deep into my eyes, and tears sting the
backs of my lashes.

“
You did this after I left.”
I don’t need to pose it as a question. I already know the
answer.

He nods. “Loved you then. Love you
now.”

I take his AC/DC shirt from my closet.
I’d unpacked a bit before I went to the club.

“
You had my shirt all this
time?” he asks.

“
It’s not your shirt,” I
grouse. “It’s mine.” I’d taken it with me when I left and slept in
it every night since. “Possession being nine-tenths and all,” I
say. But he’s grinning as I pull the covers back and climb between
the sheets.

“
What kind of sheets are
these?” he asks, sliding his thumb across the threads.

The really expensive kind. “They’re
just sheets.” I don’t want to talk about thread counts or anything
else. I just want him to hold me. He reaches a wet rag toward the
apex of my thighs, and I intercept it. “I can do that.”

He holds tightly to it for a second. “I
like taking care of you,” he says.

My face flushes with heat. “Give me
some time to adjust to having you around, will you?” This is all
new to me, this level of intimacy. I’ve never experienced it
before.

His eyes narrow. “You had better get
used to it quick.” He pats his tatted chest. “Because what you see
is what you get.”

He’s so much more than what people see.
I just wish he knew it as well as I do.

Logan lies down and pulls me onto his
chest. His lips touch my hair. I’m wearing his shirt and nothing
else, and he’s naked. He’s tense beneath me, and his belly flinches
when I lay my hand upon it. The sheet twitches. I look down at
where the covers drape the lower half of his body. I can’t help it.
I lift it up and peek underneath. The crown of his dick arches
toward me.

“
You want to go to sleep?” I
ask.

He shakes his head and rolls me over.
He’s inside me before I can blink, and I’ve never felt more at
peace.

###

The phone rings the next morning,
jolting me out of my peaceful state. Logan is sound asleep, one of
his legs tossed over my naked bottom. His arm is wrapped around my
back so tightly that I have to untangle his limbs from mine to
reach for the phone.

“’
Lo,” I mutter.

Logan lifts his head, his eyebrows
drawing together.

“
Miss Madison?” a voice
says.

“
Yes?” I sit up on my
elbows, brushing my hair back from my face.

“
Miss Madison, it’s
Henry.”

I wipe the sleep from my eyes. “Mmm
hmm,” I murmur. My cheek falls back toward the pillow. Logan’s lips
nuzzle my temple.

“
Miss Madison,” Henry says.
“I thought you’d want to know that your parents just arrived.
They’re on their way up.”

Logan

Emily jumps to her knees and scrambles
bare-assed across the bed. God, she’s pretty, even with her hair
looking like she’s been tumbled in a dryer and the crease of the
sheets across her cheek. I shake out my arm. It’s numb from where
she’s been lying on it. Pins and needles reach from my fingertips
to my armpits.

What’s wrong?
I sign when I can feel my fingers
again.

Parents are
here
, she signs back.

She slams the phone down and runs to
her closet.

Shit. Her parents are here? This is not
how I anticipated meeting them.

Don’t just lay
there.
She shoves my leg.
Get dressed.

She runs out into the living room and
comes back with my clothes and shoes, throwing them at me. I knock
my shoes to the floor like I’m brushing a bug from my
face.

Emily just rolls her eyes and shoots me
a glare.

I jump up and start putting my clothes
on. I’ve been in some funny situations before, but this one is the
most worrisome. This wasn’t how I wanted to meet them. I wanted to
be dressed nicely, shaved, and looking like someone who could be
good for their daughter. I pull my thermal shirt over my head and
grit my teeth.

Fuck. I guess I’ll have to make the
best of it.

I jump into my jeans, and Emily rushes
to the bathroom to brush the snags out of her hair. I get dressed
all the way down to my shoes because I want to have shoes on to
meet her parents. One of my socks is missing, but I don’t have time
to look for it. I follow her and squirt some of her toothpaste onto
my finger so I can “brush” my teeth. I run my finger over my teeth,
and she grins at me over her toothbrush.

I spit and rinse my mouth out, and she
does the same. She darts past me, but I wrap my arm around her
waist and drag her back to me. She’s only halfway protesting as she
laughs against my lips.

Behave
yourself
, she scolds.

She puts on a pot of coffee, and I
stand there with a cup under the spout instead of the pot, and I
replace it with the empty pot and rush to the kitchen table as soon
as it’s full. I open her newspaper and turn quickly to the word
search. I fill it up with words that will make it look like I’ve
been working on it for quite some time.

My pencil is poised over the newspaper
when her parents walk in the door.

Did they even
knock
? I sign to Emily.

She shakes her head and
winces.
Thank God Henry called.

Her father raises his eyebrow as soon
as he sees me at the table. Then his eyes narrow, and he stares at
me. His eyes take in my tats, which go all the way up my neck and
down to my wrists. I never want to hide them, and in truth, his
perusal makes me want to pull my sleeves back so he can see every
last one. But something tells me he won’t be impressed.

“
Mom. Dad.” Emily motions
toward me. “This is Logan.” She motions back toward them. She’s
signing while she talks, and I kind of wish she’d stop.

Her mother rushes forward. “Logan,
darling,” she gushes. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

My heart leaps at the thought that
Emily talked about me while she was gone. Maybe she longed for me
the same way I longed for her. “It’s wonderful to meet you,” I say
as I stick out my hand.

She bypasses it and wraps her arms
around me. She squeezes me tightly and doesn’t let go for a moment.
Then she steps back, her hands still on my upper arms. She
squeezes. “Goodness, you’re a solid lump of man, aren’t you?” she
says, smiling. She winks at me. “I can see why Emily is so
enamored.”