So, this was what victory tasted like...sweet on the tongue but quickly drowned in the bitterness of bad coffee.

She pondered his words, the balance of what he was offering. There was a brief second looking up at him standing in her doorway that she allowed herself to think that perhaps the strings to the marionettes were not as far from her grasp as she believed. It was a momentary lapse back into the shoes of the idealistic small town girl that still clung to life inside this carefree alter ego she had built for herself. She looked down at his physical offering burning her hand through it's thin paper shell and saw all those things he didn't want her to see, the implied promises, the beginnings of more than just casual sex that burned in the night but left her cold in the morning light, the chance to explore this thing that tainted the air between them and made everything wavy and indistinct.

Then she looked up at him, really looked at the smirk that came readily to his delectable lips and the eyes that were bright mirrors reflecting only what he wanted her to see. The scene came abruptly into focus. His face was a study in composure; all traces of drunken possessive demons and the dejected lonely boy on the bench wiped clean from its malleable surface. He wasn't giving away his secrets so easily in the harsh light of day.

His eyes told her what he was really offering... a gambit. In this careful match they played this was by no means a capitulation but rather a guarded speculation that a chance existed that things could be different... more. There were no promises between them as she supposed there was no honor among thieves. They were playing at the game of chance and this roll of the dice involved only the possibility, however small, that maybe he was more than he believed himself to be, that she was less than he believed her to be, that they could meet in the happy medium and that would be enough for a while.

It wasn't enough, not by any reckoning but there was a part of her that couldn't stop fighting for this long shot. She liked this boy, more than she should, more than lessons learned at her mother's expense should have allowed her to. It was the caprice of attraction at work, that strange and unfathomable beast called chemistry that rendered perfectly good minds useless and spoke the less sophisticated but no less powerful language of the body. This type of chemistry had little to do with science and a lot to do with the unpredictable parameters of two personalities who might seem to the world of odds makers to exist in entirely different states but surprised the critics when they met and produced an unexpected reaction.

He watched her analyzing through veiled eyes using all of his considerable skills to keep the churning, breath clogging mixture of fear and anxiety from slipping out into the open. He was torn by indecision, half afraid that she would walk away from this thing between them and half afraid that she would stay and play it out.

He was offering her all that he could offer with a clear conscience knowing that a centimeter more would be a lie, a promise he didn't know if he could keep. Any other girl and he would have made that promise blind to the repercussions. He would have told her exactly what she wanted to hear, exactly what she needed to hear in order to convince her to stay until he was ready for her to leave.

He had in fact come here with that plan foremost in his mind but the instant the door had swung open on her sweet sleep-heavy eyes and he had seen that flash of welcome followed so closely by a quicksilver flow of barely contained disappointment he found that those glib words would not come.

It was an odd Gordian knot. He stood face to face with one of the few girls on his very inclusive list that he was not ready to relinquish and just at the pivotal point where his well-honed charm should have served its highest purpose he couldn't find it in himself to let those facile promises flow from his silver tongue like wine that would readily deaden her senses to the reality of his shortcomings. There was a small and unexplored part of him that cared too much for her opinion and her esteem. A piece of the gallant character the he staunchly believed he did not possess that would rather see her walk away than be responsible for staining those immaculate sky-like eyes with nihilistic disdain.

Logan was a cynic. He had learned early the principles of Darwin and cut his baby teeth on Nietzsche, Machiavelli and Butler, he believed in the inherent ruthlessness of his fellow man and that most things were exactly as they appeared, no better and no worse. He placed very little store in the jejune belief in true love and the Disney version of happily ever after. It wasn't credible reality, at least not in the murky world of selfish motives and hedonistic principles that he lived and breathed in.

In his more pragmatic moments he found it ironically laughable that he was caught in this web of his own making after having on so many occasions stated his unequivocal aversion to starry eyed virginal good girls, they were tempting on the surface but they never ceased to change the rules, to shift the ground you stood on and always want for more. He usually preferred his playmates brainless and scheming and felt not a shred of guilt when things inevitably exploded in a shower of flame reminiscent of the Hindenburg.

Yet here he stood, the self-professed agnostic, offering some intangible increment of himself, knowing that she was in equal measure the poison that sickened him and the remedy that cured him.

He hadn't detected the changes at first, tiny as they were but under the microscope of jealousy he had could see them now, the minute tears and frays in the fabric of his existence. Something in him had altered in indescribable ways since the day that the perfectly antithetic Rory Gilmore had waltzed into his field of view like a swirling gust of hot cleansing wind that kicked up the settled pattern of his life and sent tiny dust devils to spinning inside him uncovering things that he had buried in the depths for good reasons that had to do with self-preservation and denial and abhorrence of vulnerability.

It had been a mistake from the beginning to let her in, to follow her down this pitfall-laden road to self-imposed hell but he hadn't been able to stop himself. Hadn't been able to keep from playing the mental game of Monopoly with such a worthy opponent. He hadn't really understood what he had to lose until he found himself here standing in front of her doorway on the brink of bankruptcy the fate of his last holdings hanging on the balance of her decision and in that bated breath he knew he wanted her to choose him, wanted her body and her mind to be his. Knew also that it was her choice to make.

Rory watched him for a moment before making her decision. She took another sip of the coffee hoping that by some divine intervention it would be better this time and then grimaced slightly, at least she could always count on one thing in her life...coffee, it had never failed her as panacea, problem solver or conversation starter.

She quirked an eyebrow at Logan "Well it seems like we should start with the glaring issue."

He went rigid and cursed his impulsive appearance at her door... it was clear now, all this silence had just been a preamble, she was going to make him spell it out, paint in bright colors his failures and his faults so she could no longer ignore them or excuse them. He struggled to force words past his dry throat and shrugged nonchalantly "Your call Ace."

There was a descending thud of silence that felt like the ominous drumbeat signaling an army to its battle stations.

Then she smiled and air flooded back through his lungs in a wave "Well, if you are going to try to bribe me with coffee more often then you seriously need some lessons on where to get it because I'm not sure how long I can survive on this swill. Battery acid might just be preferable if it came with caffeine." She waved the accused coffee cup in his direction.

He was still for a split second as if searching for some ultimatum in her eyes and then he grinned that full wattage Logan Huntzberger grin that said in no uncertain terms that the world was his to rule should he deign to do so. She wasn't running, she had accepted his compromise and she was staying, that was all that mattered. He would think about the relief that inundated him as her words fell later, much later. Right now all he wanted to do was kiss her senseless.

He retorted with his signature teasing tone "You know I think we could probably find a back alley somewhere that sells caffeine in it's purest unadulterated form, you could just snort the stuff and get it over without the hassle of finding good coffee."

Rory shook her head sadly as she took a step back from the door. "Poor uneducated fellow. Clearly you do not understand the importance of a good caffeine delivery device."

"You can teach me..." He stepped into the opening she had created and snaked a possessive hand around her waist pulling her abruptly flush with his chest. He met her eyes and let her see the barely controlled lust that raged there just beyond the veil. He took the coffee cup from her hand and set in on the desk next to the door before he brought a hand up to cup the back of her head and his voice ground out "...later."

She only had time to blink once before his mouth smashed down on hers and had her catapulting into that raging sea of raw desire that always seemed to surge in her when he was touching her or looking at her with those eyes that stripped her of all pretenses. She shuddered and forgot all about games and weighing the risks. She battled back from shocked submission to slake her own lust, sinking her fingers into his shoulders and pulling him closer, tighter to her humming body. He was like a drug that she just couldn't' seem to get enough of, a drug that swamped all her rationalizations and brushed aside her inhibitions and left her starving for the thrill that only he could give her.

He slammed the door behind them with his foot the sound a jarring counterpoint to the swell of desire that obliterated all but the frenetic tempo of blood beating in their veins. He lifted her slightly and spun in one motion so that she was trapped between the hard wood surface and the planes of his body. He held her captive with his tongue, his lips, and the whispered words that burned hot in the shell of her ear and made her insides tremble in crazed response. Her hands raked through his hair as she kissed back with everything she had. He lifted his head away from her for an instant to pull her shirt over her head staring into her dilated pupils. He shuddered a little when her hands started their frantic dance on his flesh, yanking at his shirt until he pulled away slightly to shuck it over his head.

They stared at each for a long moment panting in joint frenzy and then their mouths met again in a mind erasing kiss all maddening mouths and twisting tongues. She arched against him, her nipples hard as tiny pebbles against his chest and he dropped his skilled mouth to the hollow above her clavicle before trailing lower, teasing the skin above her breast and then tracing a circle around her nipple with that agile tongue. She gasped and writhed against him causing his own blood pressure to rocket as she squirmed. Before he could stop them her quick dexterous fingers were on his zipper, dragging it down in an uncomfortably erotic motion that had spots circling in his vision. Then those delicate hands still hot from the burn of the coffee cup were slipping aside the fabric of his boxers and cupping him in their smooth warmth.

"Ror.." he pushed both their weight hard against the door at her back as he gave a little shudder at the ecstasy of the feeling of her hands on that sensitive flesh. She stroked up to the root, down, slowly but with a pressure that his blood pounding in his ears. He set his teeth and lifted his head with some effort before very deliberately grasping her wrists and pulling her hands from his body. He pinned both her hands above her head against the door so that he could hold them with one hand. With the other he shucked off the legs of the pants hanging open at his waist and then pulled a condom from the wallet pocket before discarding them in a pile on the floor, he was too far gone for slow and steady this time. He pushed down the waistband of her pants and then helped disentangle them as she kicked them off. With his eyes intent on her he ripped open the condom with his teeth and looked down to slide it on to his stiff erection.

His gaze snapped back up to meet hers and her eyes swirling liquid blue caught at him, sucked him into their depths like a maelstrom. This time when her kissed her it was with desperate gentleness edged with impatient need, invitation, asking her to join him, to ride this rollercoaster with him of her own free will. To choose him. When he saw her acquiescence shimmering in those aquamarine depths he lifted her slightly poised her above him and then leaned his weight against the door as she slid down on to him with excruciating slowness, her heat surrounding him, consuming him, lust beating in his blood as he struggled to remain still.

She was deaf to all but the screaming of nerve endings, blind to everything but the light absorbing black of his pupils as they pinned her with their intensity. In a passion induced furor her body responded without thought, bent to the will of instinct more primal than thought or reason. She raised one leg to curl around his hip with a little gasp at the sensations the movement elicited. When he shuddered against her she raised the other leg and locked them together behind him so that he was bearing all of her weight as he pushed her back against the door. This shift of weight had her sinking deeper on to him and they took a deep trembling breath almost in sync before they began to move together.

He wanted to take every shudder, every shiver, and every quake of her body against his and absorb them through his skin, let them play their wild havoc with his soul. He wanted to give back even a modicum of the illicit pleasure that coursed through him as he pushed into her willing body, driven by the hums and moans of pleasure, the bite of her nails as they dug into his back anchoring her against his onslaught.

She keened a high pitched strangled scream of frustrated near release and then panted into his ear "Please, Logan...harder...just...almost..."

He drove them both to the peak of release and then held them there teetering on the edge until the world exploded in a shower of sparks and light around him and he felt the last snap of his restraint as she squeezed him with her legs pulling him as deep as possible and her head rolled from side to side against the door as her body convulsed around him. He held back that tiny habitually reserved part of himself from complete surrender but this time it was a close thing and he held on only by extreme will. He was close so close to losing everything in this girl who clung and shivered against him.

The physical satiation came with a buzzing dizziness, a blinding wave of red that obscured all but his vision of those luminescent blue eyes. He tasted the salty tang of blood as he bit into his lip holding back the scream of release from it's full potential as a barbaric shout of possession and swallowing all but the groans of pleasure. As the crest of passion broke over them he felt himself being dragged by its strength onto the sand, left weak and limp in the wake of the ebb of rampaging desire. He dropped his head to her chest and focused on breathing.

There was a moment of heavy silence broken only by the rhythm of inhale and exhale. When thought returned to the blank slate of his mind he pondered what beast had overtaken him, driven him to this extreme. He prided himself on being a generous and gentle lover, not one who threw a girl up against her door in broad daylight and allowed his brutish side to take over in the heat of passion. He felt... guilty. She had certainly consented, been an equal partner even but surely this was not what she had been expecting.

Her legs slid from his hips but his head remained bent over her. He was contemplating words of apology, fearing the damning look in her eye when he felt the first quiver of her chest beneath him. It was accompanied by a foreign and at first unrecognizable sound that rumbled and echoed in his ear and his heart stiffened at the thought that he had somehow driven her to tears. He cringed but then forced himself to raise his head with trepidation to look into those blue eyes that saw too much of him.

What he saw there left him flabbergasted, speechless... she was laughing. The mirth rose up to her eyes that danced in a sort of hopeless surrender to the whims of merriment, her lips had curved and her torso was shaking now with the quiet peals of amusement.

He found himself beguiled by the impish smile, lured by that inviting melody of her laugh and his own lips assumed an imitation of the expression.

Finally she gained enough control over her giddiness to speak "That was one hell of a wake up call." She said her voice tinged with humor. "Almost makes up for the abominable beverage masquerading as coffee."

He grinned now sort of amazed at the lightness that followed in the wake of worry, the freedom that came with laughter and of course the bone weakening relaxation that came on the heels of mind-blowing sex. He kissed her then just because he could, because it felt good to laugh and stand naked with her in the light of the day. His smirk was fully resurrected by the time he raised his head.

"So...about that lesson you promised me?"