If you're still with me, I want to thank you for your readership :) I'd also love to know what's kept you hooked? Please, let me know in the comments.
I'm not sure how long we sat like that, in the dirt against his truck, but it was long enough that the first hints of morning light were streaking across the sky in orangey obsidian tones.
At some point, I'd leaned into him for warmth and he'd wrapped an arm around me. Maybe we'd dosed, uncomfortable as we were, drained from the tumult of the evening before, but most probably not. Lost in the confusion of garbled words and thoughts.
Clothes damp from sitting on the dewy ground, I shivered, which jolted Logan awake. So he was asleep. He blinked, eyes adjusting, mind adjusting, focusing on what was at hand. I nudged him conspiratorially with my leg, offering a small smile.
"I'd like a shower, If that's possible?" the thought of standing under the hot hot spray was almost a craving.
He assented, pulled the key from his pocket and offered it to me. Gratefully, I took it and made my way over to the heavy-duty wooden door. I took a small step back, at once hesitant, and bumped into a body that was too close to mine. I hadn't even heard him follow.
I wasn't expecting anything from him after the revelation. It had clearly drained him, and I had to admit being on the receiving end of such secrets wasn't easy either. No wonder I never let people in.
Up in the bedroom ensuite, the one I'd showered in before, I removed my dirty clothes, dumping them in a pile next to the toilet. The tiles mercifully were heated and I stood just warming my feet for a moment while the water got to temperature.
The house was incredibly silent, and I wondered if Logan had gone to bed when a quiet click made my heart jump into my throat. I turned my head enough to see him, standing despondent by the closed door. Irrationally, I didn't try to cover my nakedness. Instead, I turned and wrapped him in a tight hug. He didn't respond. I didn't expect him to.
When I turned to shower, I noticed he's gripping my wrist tight. With his bare hand. There wasn't so much as a tingle beneath my skin. Neither of us acknowledged it.
He walked, me backing up with him, into the waiting shower, fully clothed. It was a large cubical but I couldn't help but feel boxed in with him in there as well. Water fell over my face as I glanced up at him. The only light came in from a small window at the top of the wall, allowing me just enough light to make out his shadowy expression. Its dark intensity wholly focused on me.
Then, He tilted my head up towards him, burring his long fingers in my wet hair. Only a breath separating his mouth from my own waiting one. The act as a whole was something I had done before. It was the intimacy I'd missed out on.
A thumb dropped to lightly trace over my open lips, the faint skim of his fuzzed cheek on mine almost tickled. So close but yet… he's hesitating.
All the self-doubt came rushing back in a single moment. Something telling must have flashed over my face, in my eyes, because he frowned. Took a step back.
"Did I… Erm…" I trailed off, so unsure of myself now, knowing I'm the one making it awkward. Embarrassment burning in me.
"It's not… Just wanna be sure I ain't gonna hurt you." He traced a finger along one of my protruding collarbones as he said it. My stomach flipped at the tone of his raspy voice, soft and full of concern.
I started some sort of disjointed reply, promising things I knew I wouldn't follow through on, but his large hands were back on me and coherency kinda took a back seat. His fingers against my wet skin, splaying out as they moved downwards. Firmly. Possessively.
It struck me how diffrent it was to how it had been before, with the others. There was no tenderness. No slow, steady caresses or lingering eye contact.
When his lips connected with mine, the restraint in him surprised me. I realized I wasn't touching him back and instantly corrected it, hands trailing up and under his wet t-shirt, stroking the taught flesh. He suddenly groaned into my mouth, and I felt that self-control start to go fuzzy around the edges.
He pulled back enough to shed his sodden clothes, darkened eyes drinking me in, unblinking. He was warm and solid, breathing hard, and if I didn't know him like I did, I would be scared. When his mouth finds mine again, it's anything but gentle, but in contrast, his arms wrap securely around my body and I'm backed against the wall with my legs wrapped around his thick waist.
My hands roamed over his wide back, feeling the hard flat planes of muscle I'd often admired from the other side of the cage. Fingernails scraped lightly over his skin; he emitted a sound, half agonized groan, half curse, drowned out by running water and the pounding in my own ears.
He shifted downwards, pressing me more firmly against the wall, no longer moving against me but into me… and… oh…
It felt like the breath had been knocked out of my lungs. Thick waves of rippling sensation rock through me at the blunt intrusion. I sucked in a quick, deep breath as he bared his teeth and thrust again, a tremor going through his big body. A moan, another thrust, this one hard and primal, and I was finally fully seated on his length. Thank God he's holding me up because I don't think my trembling knees could've taken my weight.
It was then he kissed me again, slowly. Allowing me to relax into him. The wave of irrational panic starting to subside. My racing thoughts begin to quieten, giving myself over to the physical in its entirety. Lost in the solidness of him, the realness. The pressure of a heavy palm against sensitive flesh. Moving in slow, deliberate circles.
He started moving again, his eyes never leaving mine. His hand catching my own, fingers intertwining. Lost in the tiny details - the steady beating of his pulse in the dip at his throat. The thickness of his arm woven around me. The heady combination of movement and feeling, his heavy rutting hips. So deep. So close. The groans turning guttural as he gets more frantic.
Until I'm shuddering beneath him, body quivering as pleasure overtook me in waves. My release sends him over the edge too, and he follows with his own wet rush, in long sustained spurts that have him wimpering and cursing at the same time. Until all that's left between us is silence and the tinny fall of water droplets against the tiles.
I was much too lost in the moment to voice my concerns. Much too wrapped up in what I wanted to happen for as long as I could remember, that I remembered then why it shouldn't have worked out that way.
It wasn't the fact I wasn't on birth control, or that he didn't use protection, or even that I'd just slept with my best friend. It was that he'd come inside me.
Rage and shame wash over me in equal waves. It was too intimate. Sounded stupid after what we were doing. But it meant diffrent things to each of us. A claim. In invasion. After everything he knew.
It made no difference that it lived up to every one of my expectations and more. It made no difference that what we did had changed our relationship forever more. It didn't even matter that I could already feel the deep ache in my subsiding, inflamed internal muscles and raw nerve endings healing over.
When I finally caught his eye, the look he gave me was wounded, almost reproachful. His lips parted, and where I expected to hear another home truth, only a gasping sound came. Right before the veins under his skin bulged out, turning mottled under his now ashy skin.