This is an excerpt from a larger, slightly AU Gilmore Girls story I did which I thought might be a decent one shot. Reviews are appreciated, but I only hope you enjoy.


She owed him an explanation. She knew she did. And maybe she was writing it for herself, too. she needed to know what made her say 'no' to him in that instant, when she was choosing between them and herself. she hadn't really thought it out, had replied with her gut. How after all they had been through together, living together, waiting for each other, maturing together, when he did the right, sweet, and romantic thing, she had rebuffed him unceremoniously and without thinking twice.

Dear Logan,

It already sounded impersonal and she hated it. She kept it anyway.

Dear Logan,

I'm on the tour bus of Barack Obama's campaign and thrilled to be covering something so legendary. It's what I wanted, what I needed, and the reason I turned you down. An abrupt way of beginning this letter, I know, but I needed to tell you exactly what this letter will contain. I'm not sure yet that I'm sending it to you. I'm writing it for myself. And perhaps if I am honest with myself here, you will get some understanding and comfort, as well.

I met Dean as a child. He loved me fiercely and I knew I should love him. I was a writer, and passionate, and curious. He wasn't. He was always going to be the good, reliable, sweet man that he was as a boy and I could never bring myself to crave him. Jess came into my life and flipped me upside down, turned me inside out, and ripped me to pieces. I loved him until I ached, broke, and eventually lost some of that fire he unashamedly aroused in me. And while I didn't lose my body to him first, or ever, he took my heart.

Dean. Good, sweet Dean. I cannot bring myself to describe him any other way. He'll make a good, sweet woman very happy. You think perhaps that's me. It isn't. Jess came to visit me at the dorm. Dean had driven me home from a lame party where my ride was drunk and, oddly enough, stepped aside to let me speak to Jess. I saw the clenching of his fist, the tightening of his jaw. Dean was a married man but old rivalries die hard. Jess was livid to see Dean with me. But this was when Jess asked me to run away with him. We'll write and work and make love and see the country or the world.

I sent him packing, angrily. He had always been so selfish, wanting to drag me back next to him and shoving me hard away from him whenever I got there. I decided then and there to no longer wait for love. I lost my virginity to Dean and we continued our affair for a long enough time that I began to wonder if I loved him again. I was jealous when he'd go home to his wife and he made incredible excuses to sneak back to see me at Yale when I returned to school. I broke up his marriage. I'm not proud of it. But perhaps what I'm least proud of is how I broke his heart and took him for granted when he returned to me after his divorce.

You know this part. I had already met you and begun flirting. Dean returned to me and I pretended we'd been together all along - that phantom boyfriend you always harangued me about not existing. I was distracted from good, sweet Dean again. The passion was gone. Dean by himself wasn't much for me. Married Dean was. The affair was exciting. Dean alone had too little excitement to offer. And I was always the good girl. I no longer wanted to be.

So I flirted with you, with alcohol, with money, and with irresponsibility. I lost. I broke up Dean's marriage and cruelly neglected him until he finally left, wondering where the girl was that he had fallen in love with. I didn't know that girl anymore. I didn't know who I was at all.

Perhaps the best explanation I can give you, by way of an analogy, is when Dean was walking away from me in my grandmother's driveway, and you looped your arm around my neck and pulled me back into that life. I left Stars Hollow, not just Dean, in that moment. There was no breathing room. I went straight from Dean to Jess to Dean to you almost to Jess to you then away.

I had them all figured out. Dean was always chasing me, and Jess was always running backwards, egging me towards him but always running faster away from me. You? I didn't know what you were. You allowed me to be wrong, to be childish, to be angry, to be sulky, to be mean. You allowed me to do all the things that I had never been allowed to do. Mom wouldn't let me, though she always wanted to say she would understand. And I know that part of it was because I was her daughter and she didn't want me to make those mistakes. But more of it was her absolute terror that I would turn out like her. She never thought who she had become was good enough for me and I admire that about her, but she did me a disservice. I ended up hitting adolescence when I was 20 instead of 16, like everyone else. And you were okay with all of it. You were okay with me when I was drunk, when I was academic, when I was slacking, when I was studious. You were okay with all of it.

We made it through the breakups. We made it through you leaving me. We made it through my waiting for you. We made it through living together. We made it through my mother hating you. We made it through my grandparents' dinners. We made it through graduation. But we didn't make it through the engagement.

I wasn't ready, my dear, dear Logan. I'm 23 now and wondering if I am yet. I don't think so. I can love someone. That's no problem. But I needed to find myself first. I needed to be my own person before I became subject to the pressures of being part of someone else. It's been a year. I wonder if you think about it at all or if you even care. I want you to know that I do think about it and I still wonder sometimes what my life would be like if I had agreed to marry you. I was angry at you for a long time. I was angry that you felt you loved me enough to propose you spend your life with me when you didn't love me enough to wait until I would say yes. It confirmed for me that we weren't ready. Neither of us.

You provoked me into figuring out who I was and I'm sorry, so very sorry, that it backfired on you. You wouldn't have liked finding out years later that we were wrong for each other so it's the lesser of the evils. You'll find someone else. I've no doubt you have already. I haven't. But I don't want to. And it seemed as though all your years of hell raising and trysts had prepared you to want for a reciprocal love in a way that my goody-two-shoes upbringing had not.

I don't know that you'll answer this. Or read it, for that matter. But if you want to, I can be emailed. My mother gets all my mail since I'm on the road but I know how you feel about the possible invasion of privacy. I wanted to tell you of my gratitude for pushing me into nothing, for allowing me to be myself and enjoying every part of it. You're the only person I ever met who never asked anything of me except once, and I turned you down for it. You were instrumental and vital for my growth as a woman and a writer. You gave me acceptance of myself in a way so few ever have - unconditionally. I owe you so much and perhaps an explanation of how we got to where we did is where I can begin to repay you.

I did love you passionately and you were good for me. I wish I could have returned the favor. Never doubt that I wanted to be able to have you for always. I simply couldn't. I hope you find some closure in this letter and if I've only opened a wound you'd healed, I apologize for that, too.

With affection,

Rory Ace Gilmore

Mailing the letter was difficult but it had come out all at once, so she assumed it was going to sound unrehearsed and unplanned and, thus, as genuine as it was. She didn't want it to sound like a story she had researched and outlined before writing. She wanted him to know how he had changed her life and she loved him for what he had been to her. What she hadn't prepared herself for was his arriving at an Obama campaign rally in New York the following week and finding his way in the press crowd to her.

"Jesus!" she exclaimed, hand on heart. Being started by a sudden presence had nothing on the fright of meeting his eyes.

"I got your letter."

"Didn't you though?" she responded somewhat sarcastically. "You know, this area is only for press."

He said nothing, merely shook his one of his father's paper's press badge at her. She turned purposefully and faced the stage, notebook in hand. But she kept a watch on him out of the corner of her eye. He put his hands in his pockets and rocked on his feet, almost as though he were whistling casually on a warm summer day on a front porch in 1952. She wanted to kill him. But it was good to see him again. He had grown, she had grown. But they were still both kids. He 25, she 23. She had no more idea what she wanted now than she did then. She'd only had more time to experience not knowing what she wanted, which was almost as important as actually accomplishing something.

"You should have a drink with me."

"Okay."

"Now."

"Give it a few."

"Right after?"

"Sure."

"I'll see you in the lobby bar."

It was that simple. Hit and run. She looked at his back, ever swaggering, as he quietly departed the crowd. They made room for him, as if knowing that he was one day going to be a great man and they just ought to get use to getting out of his way. She knew it, too. And rushed to his side again before he could change his mind.

"You were supposed to be the heir," she said quietly when she found him in the bar. "And I the newspaper journalist."

"So we were, and so we are."

"We're not," she protested.

"You're a journalist."

"Thanks to my grandparents' generosity," Rory replied. "And you're a journalist, too."

"Ah, no, I stole a press badge," he said. "That's different."

At that moment, her drink arrived without being bidden. She watched, in amazement, as her ESB beer was passed to Logan, then to her hands. She held it, somewhat dumbfounded, as he paid for it, obviously tipping too much. He wouldn't deign to ask if it was the right thing to get her. He already knew. He had known exactly what he was doing when he showed up and he had a plan. She realized that all of a sudden and knew this would be a game of cat and mouse. She'd have to be alert.

"Are you upset because we lived up to everyone's expectations of us?" Logan asked. "We both have families with money. We're both smart. You run news really well, I run businesses very well."

"Logan."

"You look great," he said quietly. "It's good to see you."

She smiled and started readying to sit at the stool next to him. "Thank you, it's -"

"I still love you."

She paused, midway to sitting down next to him, and figured she ought to finish the gesture. "Excuse me?"

"I haven't found anyone else," he said. "I couldn't, not even when I wanted to. And, believe me, I tried. And I wanted to. But, you know, first love, all that. You know, I used to think it was my ego, maybe I was just upset that I told you I could be a great boyfriend and I wasn't. So maybe I felt like there was unfinished business."

"You *were* a great boyfriend."

"No I wasn't," he replied. "I pressured you, cheated on you, left you repeatedly, and blocked your access to the real me as long as I could stand it."

"Well, sure, but - "

"I don't wonder why you said no, Rory," Logan said. "I wonder, actually, why I asked. I knew what your answer should be. If you were any woman I had any interest in marrying, your answer would be no. And before you say it, no, this isn't a case of me not wanting to belong to any club that would accept me as a member. If you'd said yes to me then, I'd never know that you were saying it as a grown woman with your own heart and your own mind and that would torture me."

"Okay -"

"Not to mention, Jess."

She choked. "What?"

"You obviously were unsettled about him."

"Well, he was in the habit of leaving me right as I was about to think I might love him," Rory said. "It'll always be unfinished business, but it doesn't mean I pursue finishing it."

"Yeah, but when we were both angry at each other, you went after him."

"Because he was walking out," Rory defended herself. "And I'd be going home with you."

"You didn't," Logan said. "I left you there. Without a ride. Hoping you'd get in his car and I'd get to catch you. But I didn't. I watched you get a cab by yourself and I felt awful about leaving you there. It's what I get for trying to set you up. See? Now you don't think I'm a nice person."

"I don't - "

"I'm not a nice person."

"I kind of picked up on that," Rory said, and held up her hand to his face when he opened his mouth. "Stop interrupting me."

"If I don't, I'll never get out what you need to hear," he said.

"I think I've heard it," Rory said. "You still love me, you wonder why you asked me to marry you knowing I couldn't, and you think I have unsettled business with my high school boyfriend, am I getting close?"

"No," Logan said. "Your high school boyfriend was Dean. You fucked him, broke up his marriage, had him, and found him boring. You're done with him. That was your high school boyfriend. Jess was your first love. That's a lot harder to get rid of. And that's what's hard."

Rory swallowed the anger and denial. "What?"

"You're my first," Logan said. "So I know what it feels like to try to finish your feelings about your first. But I'm not your first. So I can only imagine what you're going through in trying to get over the guy who would be great, if only he would be reliable."

Rory hung her head as he sarcastically crossed his fingers and threw innocent eyes to the ceiling. His satire not lost on her, she managed to face him again and drew strength from herself to answer.

"I loved him," she said. "And he loved me. But never, ever enough. Get over it. The rest of us did."

"He didn't."

"Logan - "

"Did you get over him?" Logan asked. "If he showed up today instead of me, would you have met him? Or would you have said, no, my heart belongs to someone else? Or, no, I couldn't love you anyway so there's no point?"

"Logan -"

"Dangerous questions, I know," he answered. "Or would you have said you'd only been waiting for him to come to his senses? Would you have said you didn't know why he didn't love you enough to stick around?"

"You jackass," she hissed angrily. This got him to pause. "I asked you repeatedly why you didn't love me enough to stick around and you want to throw in my face someone else who didn't? Someone else who didn't stick around before you didn't?"

She rose from her barstool and before he had a chance to stop her she had vacated the bar. Any confrontation with Logan that she had imagined, she had not figured would go that way. He would not be jealous, he would not want to spend more time talking to her about her flaws, he would not want to think she deserved 'a good talking to'. He followed her out of the bar and she felt herself impervious to any further provocation because she was too angry to speak or even see.

"I loved you!" he shouted at her as they both hurriedly walked down the sidewalk.

"Am I supposed to care?" she returned loudly, whirling around to face him. He stopped short and they allowed the others to filter between them in their pedestrian traffic patterns before coming together, he pulling her to the side to speak.

"You are."

"Why?" she demanded. "You left me. You love me enough to spend your life with me but not enough to ensure that it's the right decision for both of us? I could KILL you. You think that didn't hurt? I lived with you and loved you and made love to you every night and had to tell you that I wasn't sure I was doing it for any reason other than the present. And however hard that was for you to hear, it was 10 times harder to say. I had to tell you that I was human, and growing, and flawed."

"And I heard that you wanted your options wide open," Logan scathed. "Meaning Jess. You didn't know where your life was going - "

"Get this argument off my ex boyfriend," Rory demanded with grit teeth.

"I can't," Logan spat back. "He was always fucking THERE."

They realized they had drawn some attention and stopped speaking, waiting for a few groups to pass them before looking at each other again. There was guilt in both sets of eyes and anger, too. How to deal with both? After this experience, they would know.

"Do you want him to come back?" Logan asked. "Did you want me to come back? Do you love either of us? Both of us?"

"I think it's ridiculous that I contacted you and all we're talking about is someone I've never even slept with!"

"But you loved him," Logan said. "So who cares if you never slept with him? What did you feel the last time you kissed him, but pushed him off because you felt loyalty to me? Don't deny it. You must've. Anyone would've."

"Logan - "

"I'm dating someone right now," Logan said. "And if you walked up to me, said you loved me, and kissed me, I'd never push you away. Who cares if I'm dating someone else? You're my Rory. I'm not letting you go. So I imagine you feel the same way about Jess. Unfortunately, now that I know what it's like to not be with someone you love that use to be yours, I can suddenly understand what you were going through with Jess."

"Oh my fucking God, would you stop talking about it already?" Rory complained, not wanting to admit how jealous she was of the idea that he was with someone else right now. That he might sneak away from some other woman in order to see her was flattering and infuriating all at once. Not that she had any room to speak. No. After all, she was engaged in a regular casual affair with one of her co-workers.

"Why did you write to me?" Logan asked. "Why did you drag all this back up again?"

"First, I hadn't invited a face to face conversation about it, but you're owed one, sure," Rory said. "Secondly, I knew you were owed an explanation and I finally felt brave enough to write it. I didn't know whether or not you'd want to receive it, but if the roles were reversed, I would have wanted to get the letter, so I took my chances."

"It's not because you want to get back together, or because you feel guilty for being with someone else?"

Rory sighed.

"Forgive me for asking, but you sent this to me in New York the week before you were going to be here," Logan said. "And you had to know I'd figure out that you were in New York with the campaign and come see you."

"I didn't actually," Rory said. "Although you're right, I probably should've counted on it."

Logan moved closer to her. "It was my first instinct to kiss you as soon as I saw you," he said softly, looking at her. "I was half expecting you to run to me and jump into a hug with me like you always did when I returned home after being away a few days."

"We aren't those people anymore, Logan," Rory replied. "That was college."

"I know," Logan answered. "But I don't like it. I want you here, with me, in my bed."

"You're with someone now, Logan," Rory said, taking half a step back.

"I'd break up with her in a heartbeat," Logan said. "If you were an option, I'd break up with her."

"Here's where you and I are very different, Logan," Rory said. "If I would be willing to break up with my boyfriend for an old flame, I'd have never begun a relationship with him in the first place because I'd know I wasn't ready to."

Logan nodded pensively and gave her a studied look. "You're hinting at me about Jess."

"And not very subtly," Rory said.

"Did you love me?" Logan asked quietly, seriously.

"Very, very much," she answered truthfully.

"Do you still?" Logan asked the question she knew was coming next.

"Sometimes I think I do," Rory said. "But now I'm so angry at you for walking away from me. And I'm on the road. I'm even less willing to get into a stated commitment than I was before. And let me remind you that it wasn't commitment I was backing away from, merely saying I would marry you. I was too young! I'm still too young!"

"But I knew, I knew that it was you for me so I asked you to make sure it stayed that way," Logan said. "You didn't know the same about me. How do you think I felt about that?"

"That you ought to be grateful I wouldn't make the mistake of letting my emotions get in the way of my good sense!" Rory said. "I wasn't ready to marry you and I understand that it's hurtful but I couldn't say yes and I shouldn't be punished for that! I didn't want to break up, I wanted to stay with you, but I just wasn't ready to agree to the rest of my life yet."

"Was I supposed to stay after you said no?" Logan asked. "How was I going to do that?"

"I don't know, Logan," Rory said with a small sigh. "The same way you wanted me to marry you. I imagine all those reasons apply to why you'd want to stay."

Logan gave her a prolonged look and seemed to resolve to something. "I wasn't here."

"What?" Rory asked. "What do you mean?"

"I wasn't in New York when your letter came," Logan said. "I knew you were with the Obama campaign and it would be in New York soon, then I got a list of people who had mailed me from my secretary and I flew back here to read it. And to see you. I was in San Francisco. My girlfriend doesn't even know I'm back in town. I'm splitting my time between here and there."

Rory didn't know what to say to that and so said nothing. Was thanking him for it appropriate? Couldn't possibly be.

"You wouldn't be with me right now, you say?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head. "I'm on the road, and you and I haven't even spoken in over a year."

"Can we stay in touch?"

"Should we?" Rory asked. "You have a girlfriend."

Logan shrugged. "I'll break up with her," he answered simply.

"Don't do that, not for thinking you and I have a chance," Rory said.

"I choose staying in touch with you over continuing to waste her time," Logan said. "I'll never love her, and she wants me to. I should let her go anyway."

Rory didn't want to point out that he should have done that a while ago, and that her re-entering his life was not her intention in writing him. But he pulled her into his arms and gave her a solid kiss before she could say anything at all. It was the kind of kiss she remembered that he used to give when he saw her after a trip. Furious, passionate, sure. He expressed a hint of desperation this time, however. and it wasn't until she began to return the kiss that he finally relaxed. He brought her even closer and deepened the kiss, his mouth warm and his hands burning through her clothes onto her skin. Theirs had been an explosive sexual relationship and as she kissed him, she knew it would be even better now. Now they were older, had more experience....

Don't think that way, she chided herself.

He felt her hesitation and whereas the old Logan would have only pulled her closer, he let her go. She panted a bit and her eyes were wide, glassy as she gazed up at him. This was pleasing to him and he took on a smirk that she had sorely missed. She straightened immediately a bit defensively as she realized that grown up Logan didn't want her to act on her passion as much as he wanted her to unabashedly show it. Logan was a bit more of a man with a bit more patience. He wanted her to be unable to hide her want for him even more than he wanted her to give in to it. He perhaps wanted to control it, having felt so rejected by her before.

"Come home with me, Rory," Logan whispered. "I've already begged for you, and I'm not a man accustomed to begging. But the look in your eyes when I was done kissing you is all the reward I could want for it."

"We're still kids, Logan," she said quietly.

"I know," Logan said. "I'm asking you to come home and make a mistake with me. Nothing more."

"Your girlfriend - "

"I"ll break up with her on the way over if it makes you feel better."

"Oh my God, no," Rory said, mortified. "You should at least take her to dinner or something."

"Would you let me worry about it?" Logan asked. "You can't tell me you don't want to."

She couldn't.

"Are you seeing someone?" he dared to inquire after realizing it was possible she felt loyalty to someone else.

"Not exclusively," Rory said. "It's openly casual."

His eyes darkened and she could tell he wanted to not hear that answer. "Are you going to tell him about me?"

"He has no reason to know anything," she replied.

"Then what's the problem?" Logan said, shifting so his body was only an inch away from hers. "Do you have to go back to work?"

"Not until tomorrow," she answered.

"I want to taste you again," he gruffly whispered in her ear. "I want to kiss my way down your breasts, your stomach, up your thighs.'

"Logan," she whispered.

"Come home with me," he persuaded. "I'm asking nothing of you."

She felt his finger apply pressure subtly at the apex of her thighs and she gasped, leaning her head on him at the sudden pressure where she was so swollen, heated, and pulsing. She knew he felt the heat radiating, even through the fabric of her skirt, and the open lust on his face when she dared meet his eyes confirmed it.

"You want me."

"Alright, let's go," Rory agreed, that one touch setting her beyond where she wanted to stop. "Let's get a cab."

"My driver's right here," Logan said.

Of course he is.

His apartment had no signs of a girlfriend - nothing in the bathroom, nothing in the bedroom. Rory comforted herself with the idea that this must not be a serious girlfriend if there wasn't even an extra toothbrush in the bathroom. She felt bad for the poor girl. No doubt, she had no idea what she was getting in Logan Huntzberger. Rory hadn't had any idea. She suddenly flashed back to when he had cheated on her in a scenario fairly similar to this but she pushed the thought away.

She was glad they hadn't lived in this apartment together. She wouldn't be able to return to the apartment in which she use to live with him in order to have a casual encounter with him. It would be too painful. Although this was the apartment he'd had when they were dating, and when they would end up in New York together, this is where they stayed. How could he still live here without her things there? It was hard for her to listen to the same music he liked for a long time. After Jess, she had avoided whole authors and genres simply because they had meant something to him. After Dean, she couldn't see anything hockey-related for years.

She was thinking too much for what was about to happen. She had gone to the bathroom on the pretense of using it, but had really only needed a moment to look herself in the eye and be certain this was a mistake she wanted to make. When she walked out of the bathroom, he was sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. She had opened the door quietly and she wasn't even sure he knew that she was there. But he looked up moments later and she knew he had only been debating whether or not he could afford to make eye contact with her. There was a look of absolute torture on his face and her heart rushed to her stomach.

"Logan, what - "

"I can't," he said, his eyes turning red. "Because I'd want you to stay."

She couldn't speak. When had she hurt him this much? When had she taken Logan Huntzberger to his knees? When they had agreed to be exclusive, he'd had Cassandra waiting on the phone and a lunch date outside his door in the hallway. She had wrecked him.

"It'd be easy for you to leave and I'd just get set further back," Logan said. He laughed back a frog in his throat. "You've made a mess of me, Ace."

His voice cracked in calling her Ace and it's also what set her eyes to watering. He turned his face to the floor and leaned over his own lap, his elbows on his knees as he refused to look at anything but the floor. She stayed in the bathroom doorway, hardly knowing what to do or where to go. Stay? Leave? Which would make this better for them? She should never have contacted him. Her letter was accusatory, as though they could have stayed together and made it work if only he hadn't pushed her to answer. But, well, that was how she felt. How could she pretend she didn't feel that way? Except she realized suddenly why leaving her was easier than staying with her and doubting her. He *loved* her.

"You can't do this with me, can you?" Logan asked.

She cleared her throat and steadied her voice as much as she could. "Do what?"

"This," Logan said, gesturing between them as he finally managed to meet her eyes again. "Heal this. Fix this. Become this again."

"I should leave, shouldn't I?" Rory asked quietly.

This seemed even more upsetting to him and she bit her lower lip. She had seen Dean hurt, Jess angry, but never had she seen a man broken because of her before. Logan was not okay. He was still mourning the end of his relationship with her just over a year ago.

"Can we talk again when the campaign is over?" Logan asked. "That's 6 months. We'll have gotten to know each other again. You'll have to decide on somewhere to live. Who knows? Maybe you'll pick San Francisco or New York."

"I can't make any promises to you, Logan," Rory said. "I can't surrender my life to yours."

"I'll surrender mine to yours, then."

"Couldn't it be something in the middle?"

"Isn't it worth talking about to see if we could find that?" Logan asked.

"It wasn't ever me who didn't want to find that happy medium," Rory answered, and immediately wished she had bitten her tongue. For all her heartache in their breakup, she hadn't experienced nearly what Logan was going through now. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's honest," Logan said. "And it's accurate."

"I know why you left," Rory said, stepping closer to where he sat on the bed. "I'm mad about it because I didn't have a choice in any of it. Not because you did it."

"Most of a relationship is a mutual decision-making process," Logan said. "The break-up rarely is."

He reached for her and she closed the final two step distance between them to her hand in his. He looked at her hand, much smaller, in his and smiled slightly before tugging. She stepped up onto the dais that his bed rested on until she stood right in front of him. He put his arms around her waist as she stood between his legs, his face against her stomach. She embraced his head and ran her hand across his shoulders. He was so warm, so *Logan*. Such a romantic boy, such a charming, handsome man. He had always been big man on campus but he had never been that with her after deciding that he was going to be her boyfriend. It had only been a year since breaking up. Why did they feel so old?

His hands roamed across her back, rubbing gently. It felt amazing. His hands slipped down, molding around the shape of her bottom on his way to the backs of her thighs. She clutched her fingers in his hair a little bit tighter as he toyed with the skin at the line of her skirt. He slid a bit further up her thigh and she held her breath as he neared his destination. His fingernail dragged across the seam around her thighs from front to back as she sucked in a desperate breath.

"Logan."

He pressed a finger against the moist cloth of her panties and she felt her knees weaken. He very suddenly had shifted her panties aside and inserted his finger inside her. She cried out a little and he gripped her buttocks firmly in his hand, both supporting her and holding her still. He made certain she had a hold of him as his finger massaged her, his thumb on her clit as his middle finger was absorbed by the ridiculous heat of her. He let go of her rump and unfastened her skirt. He removed his hand from her, eliciting a cry of anger against him as he let her skirt fall around her ankles. He pulled her panties down to her ankles and knelt on the floor in front of her, pushed his face against her and returning his finger inside of her as his tongue tasted her again as he had told her he had so desperately wanted to.

She came almost immediately. His teeth lightly grazed her clitoris before his tongue pressed against her, his finger stroking her, and she would have fallen to her knees had he not been holding her up. Blindingly, she burst from the inside out and he felt the warm surge, the fresh scent of her womanhood, and felt her tremble weakly in his arms until he picked her up, guiding her to his bed. He laid her back, removing the last of her clothes as he did. As she pulled off her bra and discarded it, he stood at the foot of his bed and took in the sight of her. She was naked, toned, flushed with the orgasm he'd just given her, and her breasts, already swollen and attentive, heaved with lust both satiated and insatiable.

"You're wearing all your clothes," she said, pulling in air desperately.

"You have the longest, most beautiful legs," Logan said, running his hands up her legs. She trembled under the touch, under his attentive stare. He had never seen her like this before. Or perhaps he'd never looked at her like this before.

"I want you naked."

Logan chuckled, feeling a rush of joy that he hadn't feel in a long time. He pulled his shirt off and began unbuckling his jeans as he pushed off his shoes. She watched him openly, admiring the lean carvings of his 25 year old muscles. A boy, a man, something in between. He wasn't quite grown up, not quite a boy still. He had the charm of both and the trappings of both but was some strange hybrid in between.

"Okay, okay."

"I'm on the pill."

"You're so pragmatic," Logan said, chuckling at her just a little. "It's so sexy."

"Oh, shut up. Come here."

"I'm not going to last very long, Rory," Logan said as he began to crawl over her body. He took her breast into his mouth the best he could and inhaled the scent of her, the sweat from her orgasm purely of a woman ready to accept a man.

"Not the first time, sure," Rory said coyly, insinuating the promise of more.

They made love, they fucked, they had sex, they rocked, they wrestled, and they exhausted their bodies until they couldn't fathom what else to do to or for each other. After seven hours, she pulled herself near his side, not daring to touch for they were both so hot, so sweaty, that they needed air circulating around them to cool down. Their skin was red and flushed, their body exhausted, their week's worth of eating burned in this single session. She had lost track of time - it was almost 11pm. She touched her fingernails to his skin and travelled the length of his torso as he fought off the burning urge to sleep.

"I don't want to go to sleep," Logan whispered, forcing his eyes open. He turned his head to face her. "You're so beautiful. I wish I'd spent more of this time talking to you."

"We had a year of that pent up," Rory said, smiling.

Logan studied her face a moment and a touch of a frown hinted at his lips. "You're trying to figure out how to say you have to leave."

How in the hell did he do that?

"The caravan leaves at 6am," she answered quietly. "If they don't see me in the hotel tonight, they'll assume I'm abandoning ship."

Logan frowned. "You can't sleep here?"

It was what they thought. He didn't want her to go. And truth be told, she didn't want to go either. If her schedule was open, she'd be here for the next several days, doing nothing but abandoning all work, responsibility, and obligation.

"I don't want to go," Rory said, touching his face.

Logan raised himself to an elbow to watch her as she slid across the bed, reaching for her clothes. "Great ass, Rory, seriously."

She chuckled and tried to not feel self-conscious about him looking at her. "Thanks?"

"Was this break up sex to you, Rory?" Logan asked. "Or make up sex?"

It was an interesting way of posing a question where the only answers could be A or B. She hated how he did that. She clasped her bra on and turned to look at him. Sexy, worried, and hot with his efforts at bringing her to the edge of sanity.

"Logan," she said quietly. "Please don't make everything a multiple choice question."

"Essay exams, only?"

She smiled sadly and turned away to take her shirt from the floor. He was struggling with what to do with her, she knew that now. Walk away to save himself? Pursue her to save himself? His eyes burned through her and in that moment she felt more than she had felt during any moment of their 7 hours in bed together. She leaped across the bed and straddled his lap, the sheets and her clothes separating their bodies but the warmth there all the same. He wrapped his arms around her and she nuzzled his face into his neck.

"Multiple choice question," Rory said into his neck. "Do I still love you? Yes, absolutely, I love you."

He squeezed her so tightly it almost hurt. He rolled until she was beneath him again and he kissed her soundly. "I love you, too, Rory."

"I'll see you again."

"Will you?"

"Yes."

"But you make no promises that it's make-up sex?"

Rory smiled that he finally understood. "Essay exams. Life isn't multiple choice."

"It's not yes or no will you marry me," Logan said quietly, perusing her eyes for her reaction. "It should have opened a dialogue about it."

"You have to get rid of your girlfriend, Logan," Rory said softly.

"You have to get rid of your fuck buddy, Rory," he returned.

They measured each other up and Rory blinked first, shrugging. "It doesn't always have to be so ugly."

"I don't imagine it will be."

She sighed a little and rolled away from him. But she wasn't angry and made sure he knew it, giving him a kiss before moving off the bed. She gathered the rest of her things as he watched her drowsily. He took his comfort in her promise that they would speak again. Perhaps she would need the time to get herself together, They would probably need to figure out if this was really what they wanted but at the same time, they finally had confronted some of the ugly truths which had kept them apart to begin with. At least now they had something to work with.