"Chemical equilibrium is when the rates of the forward and reverse reactions are equal," Logan explained as his eyes skimmed over lines of text in the open textbook in front of him. The eraser of his electric blue lead pencil tapped against the edge of his notebook in time with his speech patterns.
He knew he was just wasting his breath.
She wasn't paying any attention to his words. Her maple brown eyes were focused on his lips as the tip of her pen lingered against the corner of her own.
A couple seconds lapsed with neither of them saying a single word.
"Kandi."
Her eyes widened as a hand fluttered to brush her bangs from her face nervously, a peachy flush rising to the surface of her fair cheeks.
"I'm sorry, Logan. I'm just not feeling chem right now," she said with a sigh, looking down at the scribbles in her notebook in frustration. She reached and pulled a tube of chapstick from her purse, rolling it in circles on her lips before smacking them together.
Her lips curled upwards at the corners, offering him an apologetic smile, and he gave in.
The pages of the textbook fell together in a flurry, accompanied by the thump of the cover against the tabletop.
"Me too," he admitted as he raked a hand through tufts of espresso hair. His eyes darted around the kitchen awkwardly before landing back on his girlfriend.
Her gaze was fixated on him, her eyebrows raised slightly and her lips parted. Logan knew exactly where this was going, and the thought of it made his heart toss around in his chest like a fish stranded on the dock. He couldn't shake James's words from his head; they played over and over like a looped mantra at the seams of his thoughts.
Kandi and Logan had been dating for a little over six months, which according to James was like the cutoff date, and that tidbit seemed to loom in the back of Logan's mind whenever they were alone together. Out of his close circle of friends, James was by far the most experienced when it came to girls, constantly telling the others stories of his sexual encounters while they were all piled across Kendall's bed late at night. Apparently, in James's world, after six months of being in a relationship with a girl, you were supposed to have sex. Logan had no clue how James's logic was grounded, considering James had never actually had a serious girlfriend, only strings of hookups in the backrooms at various parties and the like. Still, the timeline remained in Logan's thoughts, worsened by James's suggestive hints in his arrogant tone whenever they hung out.
While James kept his sex life out on display, Logan preferred to keep those things to himself, partially because he didn't want his friends looking at his girlfriend in [i]that[/i] way, but mostly because he didn't really have much to tell.
More recently, their study sessions had a tendency of evolving into makeout sessions pressed against each other on the couch in her living room, anxiously awaiting the sound of the key turning in the lock that announced the arrival of her mother. Both of them practically leaping to their feet in a frenzy to appear normal and not let their guilty flushed skin give them away.
The sensation of her lips against the hollow of his cheek brought him back into the present, the tip of her nose brushing along the edge of his cheekbone. Eyelashes fluttered over her eyes as she stared into his, and he could feel her lips stray towards his. The waxy texture of her chapstick worked to glue them together as his tongue instinctively slipped between her parted lips.
Her waves closed around them like a curtain, shading their faces from the world. Her brunette strands slightly tickled as they fell onto his skin, and as the kiss deepened, Logan could taste the flavor of the orange Fanta Kandi's mom kept the refrigerator stocked with.
She pulled away, stealing a glance towards the clock on the wall before reaching for his hand.
"My mom doesn't get off of work for another hour and a half," she hinted, and he followed her gaze to the half-opened door of her bedroom.
His other hand immediately dove into the pocket of his jeans as she led the way into her room. His eyes wandered over the familiar aquamarine walls, the photographs of Kandi and her friends tacked to the corkboard above her bed. She collapsed onto the turquoise polka-dotted comforter, rolling over to switch on the lamp on the nightstand. Its warm glow caught the sun-kissed highlights in her hair, and he joined her, though less comfortably, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. On her nightstand, beside the lamp and her alarm clock, was a framed picture of the two of them at the beach from a couple months back. Her head rested on his shoulder, her hair perfectly tousled from the salty air, her toes buried in the sand. A pair of oversized sunglasses masked her eyes, while his own were squinted up from the harsh glare of the sun.
He blurted out "I love you," and he wasn't lying. He did love her. She made him feel like he was on top of the world; she made all of the cheesy love songs on the radio make sense somehow. And he was certain that she was the only one he wanted in that way because things felt so right and so natural when they were together, but he still wasn't ready.
"I know," she smirked. "I love you too."
Kandi curled her knees up to her chest, her hand patting the stretch of blanket at her side, and he slid back into the spot, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. Lying there like this, things felt perfect, and Logan felt safe and secure.
Leaning over, he brushed her hair from her face and kissed her, immediately picking things up where they'd left off. She slid down the pile of pillows until she was flat on her back, and Logan was hovering over her, the scent of her coconut perfume flooding his nostrils with every breath.
His lips trailed down her neck; his breathing hitched in his throat as her fingers brushed along his abdomen and up his chest underneath his cotton t-shirt. Taking the hint, he pulled it up over his shoulders and tossed it off the side of the bed, using the opportunity to better position himself above her. The mattress springs uttered a soft squeal as he shifted his weight.
Logan paused for a moment to soak her in, her freckled face beaming up at him, appraising every each of bare skin as if she liked what she saw, her front teeth digging into her lower lip.
His lips bore down on her collarbone, slowly inching down until they were sucking the skin at the base of the v-necked collar of her shirt. So close, he could hear the soft thud of her heart just beneath his lips, but it didn't seem to be racing out of control the way his was.
Kandi's body shifted underneath him, and he backed off, giving her just enough space to shed her own shirt, another pile of white cotton on the carpet.
Logan could feel his arms shake as he shifted his weight back onto them, the steady drum of his pulse echoing in his head as his lips met hers once more. One hand wandered down to her chest as her fingers twirled through his hair, tugging at the strands curled with sweat at the nape of his neck. Fingers clenched and unclenched, kneading at her breast through the fabric of her bra, causing her mouth to gape open into the kiss.
Growing bolder, his kisses descended to her stomach, causing her to giggle as his lips grazed the top of her hipbone. His hand rested on the zipper of her jeans, but he didn't go any further. What bit of courage he'd gained from her encouragement was dwindling away, and his anxiety was beginning to build up again.
Suddenly, she rose up, palms pressed against his cheeks as her lips crashed into his. As the kiss intensified and her tongue flicked against the roof of his mouth, her fingers unbuttoned her jeans. She shifted slightly, wriggling the denim down her hips. Though his eyes were closed, Logan could feel her movements, and he was almost afraid to open his eyes, scared that his body would overtake his mind.
When it came down to it, that was what terrified Logan the most. It wasn't that he was unsure of what to do. In the heat of the moment, the motions came naturally. It was that while they were fooling around, that primal part of him took control and he felt like he didn't have a grip on himself. Logan had always relied on his rationality and his logic, almost to the point of it being a crutch, and when he was like that with her, his hormones robbed him of that reasoning. His mind was tuned into only one station, and that station only drove him to appease his body's desires, even though in the grand scheme of things that wasn't want he wanted.
Kandi fell back onto the bed, pushing her jeans the rest of the way down her legs, eventually kicking them off towards the foot of the bed.
He envied how she seemed completely comfortable being half-naked in front of him, while he was a bundle of frayed nerves.
Her legs were now bent at the knee, parting just enough to allow him to settle in between. His hips were closer to hers now, and he could feel himself stiffen in his jeans. The heat radiating from beneath him, the pink lacey trim of her panties, it was all a little overwhelming for him to take in. Her hands began to trail down his chest to his stomach, her thumb stroking the beginning of his pelvic crease.
Locking her calves behind his thighs, their hips were forced closer together, and her hand dipped down between their bodies, massaging his erection through his jeans, and it was all he could do to keep his hips from bucking against hers.
It was a balancing act between his mind and his body, and his mind was losing.
His hands seemed almost foreign to him as they trembled to unfasten his jeans.
It wasn't that he didn't want to make love to her. In fact, Logan felt pretty much the opposite, it was just that the timing didn't seem right. Losing their virginities to each other in a rush when they were supposed to be studying for their chemistry final didn't exactly scream "romance." There was a part of him that wanted their first time to be as close to perfection as possible, and another part of him that felt that if the event was planned, he'd have a little more control over things.
Kandi must have caught the flicker of contemplative concern in his deep brown eyes because her rhythm slowed as she looked up at him.
"What's wrong?" she murmured, sliding upwards onto the pillows as her body caved in on itself in embarrassment. Her arms gripped her knees to her chest, her eyes lined with the questions she couldn't ask.
The air gushed from his lungs as he stared down at the comforter, his mind fumbling for the best way to explain himself without hurting her feelings.
Her eyes were darkened with rejection.
"It's just-" he stammered, his eyes now darting around the dimly lit bedroom, "I kinda wanted everything to be perfect."
She stole a sidelong glance at him, her features softening for a moment as the lamp cast a golden glow over her skin. "I felt the same way, but I thought that as long as it was me and you, it [i]would[/i] be perfect."
They were sitting on the bed with their legs crossed Indian-style, both of them hesitant to look each other in the eyes. Logan felt like shit because he knew she was right; he just couldn't find the right words to say.
But Kandi's arms wrapped around his neck spoke volumes more than anything either of them could've said, and Logan felt his muscles loosen in her warm embrace. His fingers ran through her tangled hair as he murmured the closest three words he could muster.