"I'm going to miss you slipping… into bed like this," Rory whispered into Logan's ear, not minding the double meaning, whilst inhaling Logan's scent deep into her nostrils. She wanted to remember this, knowing this was going to be the last night for who knows how long.
It didn't matter that in theory they had plans to keep in touch, visit and so forth, just somewhere inside Rory, she kept cautioning herself not to count on this too much. Almost as if anything that she trusted was bound to get screwed up. Maybe she couldn't make it work by keeping things interesting long distance? Maybe Logan would just find someone more interesting as soon as his life held that vacancy day-to-day? Rory knew how she could get sucked into her work too, and it was a small step from that to not having enough time for late night calls and texting sessions.
"If you think climbing into your bed quietly was hard…," Logan replied, returning an equally cheeky underlying message, almost like the college- age -Logan would've done. But that was the way they were able to be together - not minding lame jokes and intentionally cheesy flirting.
"You're insatiable," Rory chuckled, feeling his fingers slip back between her puffy lower lips, and let out a moan.
"I just know how you secretly love waking up all sore the next morning," Logan murmured, and kissed the salty skin on her neck.
Rory bit her lip and closed her eyes at his kisses, the tone of his voice hitting a soft spot for her. There was just something about every little detail of his being - the touch, the scent, the taste, as well as his lick, tone and choice of words. Everything he did - it moved something in her, causing her not just to get lost in their joint pleasure, but float to an alternate plane of consciousness.
His skillful fingers kept moving against her most sensitive spot, causing her juices to begin to form again, adding onto the former.
"Ah…," Rory exhaled into his ear, wanting to offer him some of her pleasure. But her hands remained immobile, allowing him to continue his work.
And boy, did he know the job well. He already knew her body so well too, having memorized it. His lips trailed down her cleavage, grazing his teeth against her nipple, while his hand continued to massage her slit.
His lips were moving lower and lower, across her belly button, and Rory knew well where this was going. There hadn't been a lot of guys in Rory's life who'd put her first in bed as much as Logan did. So often it was about him watching her in throes of pleasure, knowing he'd made that happen, rather than him searching for a quick release. Rory figured it was because he'd had his share of those, and knew their worth to be insignificant.
"Wait," Rory stalled him.
"Uh?" Logan said, returning to her eye-level. It was not common for her to stop him at this stage.
"I just want to look at you," Rory said, getting a sharp jolt of pain at the thought of the possibility of this truly being the last time they were this close.
Logan could see the sadness in her eyes, and despite knowing there was probably more he'd need to do to erase that, he continued to move his fingers, inching closer and closer to her G-spot.
Rory's hands held him by his neck and the back of his neck, slipping her fingers into the back of his hair. Her neck stretched out to kiss him - longingly as if there were never enough kisses to extinguish her thirst for him.
"Rory…," Logan hummed in between kisses, having hardly any breath in him to repeat to her yet another time how he loved her.
"Shh…," Rory said, not needing his words.
Rory shifted her weight, taking control - what Logan didn't know was that Rory loved watching him just as much as he did. She moved to straddle him, his hand still between her thighs, but she removed that too, and slowly licked his fingers clean, letting him savor the sight.
Logan's body relaxed as she took over but his mind became even more aroused at the sight of her, feeling every inch of him as she lowered herself onto him. He watched her in slow motion, even if her moves were quite vigorous in reality. It was just that his mind was making this last longer, making him last longer. And he did - allowing him to watch Rory's body convulse and spasm at her orgasms, and yet continue to continue to move, wanting him to come too. That kind of will was admirable to say the least, illustrating the resilience he'd seen in her from the moment he'd met her.
Eventually he let go, Rory's nipples brushing against his chest and her gentle breath of hot air against his ear being too much for him. Rory was too much for him, too perfect to be real almost. It was for that reason he was willing to accept whatever they would be - needing no guarantees. He just needed to have her for now, doubting he deserved her for more than just a little while.
"I need to tell you something," Logan confessed, several minutes later, having come down from his high. He wanted to end this on the highest note possible, a sweet memory or even better - with hope, but there was always guilt with him.
"I wanted to tell you something already that night when the boys got arrested, before we got the call," he added, before Rory had a real chance to respond.
"I thought we agreed how we're both too much of realists to indulge in grand statements?" Rory recalled where he'd been headed that night. They'd only barely joked about that night later on, essentially letting each -other know that it hadn't been about a proposal or from her end, about a rejection.
"I love you, and I don't want you to go with my having any secrets," Logan said, dreading her departure in the morning.
"Okay, right," Rory replied, trying to make this into a joke. "You're not really divorced, are you?" she added, clearly jokingly, trying to think up the worst but also the most cliché secrets to have.
Logan's eyes widened at that line, not believing how she could even joke about that. She was a complex woman, and that made her all the more fascinating.
"No, obviously…," Logan replied, raising the corner of his mouth with amusement. "But, I do need to confess that I did something bad," he said.
"Mrs. Larsen always did have a sweet spot for you, I knew it!" Rory continued to joke, referring to their other neighbor.
"Rory…," Logan cautioned, wanting her to return to reality for a second.
This made Rory more serious, and a little afraid.
"One night when I couldn't sleep,… I was up downstairs on your laptop… and I sort of read a few chapters of your book," Logan confessed.
"Logan!" Rory exclaimed, having not anticipated it.
"I know you have every right to be mad at me, and I'm sorry. I just couldn't stop after I just looked at the first paragraph," Logan confessed.
"Oh, wow...,!" Rory said, straightening her back, and pulled the blanket around her body, feeling a little vulnerable, even if there wasn't a square inch of her Logan hadn't already seen.
"I'm sorry… really. But I just kept thinking what a waste it was that no -one else gets to read it. You have a beautiful mind, Rory,… and your writing is incredible," Logan said, leaving out Corinne's suggestion from this whole thing.
"Logan, come on, you're supposed to say that," Rory chimed, referring to the fact that they were involved.
"I mean it, Rory. If I were in the editor's shoes, I'd publish this so fast… and you know I could, you know. It'd be a non-issue.… I wish you'd see it through my eyes," Logan insisted.
"So. you actually read it?" Rory reflected.
"As much of it as I could with a good conscious," Logan shrugged.
"Did you get to the part where the main character meets, um…?" Rory inquired, knowing many bits of that book of hers had taken inspiration from reality.
"No, but now I wish I had," Logan said, sensing Rory was thankfully not as mad as he'd been worried, she'd be.
"Oh no…," Rory chuckled nervously, trying to picture what that would be like. It seemed too scary to comprehend.
"So, you're not mad?" Logan asked. "I just thought you wouldn't be and I just wanted an innocent glimpse. I love how you are when you write, sometimes I just wonder why you don't do just that. Why is it that you even teach if you do something else you clearly enjoy enough to spend your holiday doing?" Logan explained.
"It's all very sweet of you, but I am not sure it's what my writing has to be necessarily. Sometimes doing something for a purpose, to get published, or to make money… it takes out the fun of it. I don't like thinking about who'd read it. It's just for me, a mental holiday of sorts," Rory explained, ignoring the question about her being mad. She'd believed herself that she would be, but as the moment had presented itself, she only found herself mildly annoyed at the fact that this had happened without her knowing about it.
"And I get that. All I'm saying is that from what I read I just… kept thinking it didn't need to be just that. I just wanted to know what I saw in it. That it could be great because it already is," Logan continued.
"Thanks for telling me," Rory said, seeing Logan's expression visibly relaxed. She wrapped her arms around him yet again and simply held him as he stroked her back, assuringly. Logan was incredibly relieved.
"How do you do that?" Logan asked.
"Do, what?" she replied.
"Be so forgiving. None of my ex-es would've let something like this fly," Logan explained.
"Because I trust you. Maybe not your praise but just… you… And I mean you could've just read the whole thing and not tell me. Or worse, sent it off to some editor behind my back or surprise me for my birthday with the printed version. But you didn't - you just told me you got a peek," Rory replied.
Logan hated to admit it, but many of those things had, in fact, crossed his mind. It was easy to publish a book if one didn't have to go by the publisher's schedule.
"I love you," Logan said, deciding to stick to something simple and uncomplicated.
"And I love you, too," Rory replied, feeling like she didn't say it enough, before resting her head on his shoulder again.
Rory drove off the next morning, keeping their actual goodbye short and sweet, like it was an everyday thing, not wanting to cry or be overly affectionate in front of the kids, having convinced them this was just a casual departure.
Logan felt a vast void within him and in the neighborhood - it was like there was something missing from his soul when Rory wasn't there. It wasn't quite heartache one felt at a break up, and this wasn't it, technically - it was just the possibility of letting this fade away as their lives took different courses.
Was it stupid for them to let something like this be left up to chance? Or was it their age that gave them the confidence to trust themselves with this distance.
When Rory stopped at Boston to see her dad before semester started, she paused for a moment, telling Corinne she'd be right after her, after she'd parked the car.
She clicked share on her book, and sent the link to Logan, giving him the privilege of seeing everything she'd written including every work, every analogy, even every scribble she had at the end of that file. It was what she could offer - insight. She added a little note too, though for a while she'd contemplated leaving something romantic or maybe even longing.
"PS. Chapter 6 has a particularly smutty scene," she wrote, trying to picture Logan's face as he read it, recalling the way she'd been all hot herself after writing it after one of their own encounters.