Exposed (Madame X, #2)(15)

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t mean anything. Never mind.”

Logan reaches into the back pocket of his jeans, pulls out a square of folded paper. Holds it, stares at it. The wind plucks at the paper, fluttering the corners, as if it wants to rip it away, keep it from me, whatever is written there. He pivots so he faces me. Steps closer. I stop breathing. I tingle all over. My skin remembers the feel of his skin, the taste of his tongue. I shouldn’t. That is not the choice I made. But . . . I can’t forget it. And deep down, I don’t want to.

“X, when I said there’s so much I could say? I don’t know how to say it all. I want to take you away, again. Run off with you, make you mine. But that wouldn’t be enough for me. I’m a proud man, X. I want you to choose me. And . . . I think you will, someday.”

He presses his body against mine, and I feel every inch of him, hard, taut, warm. My breasts flatten against his chest, my hips bump against his. Something in me throbs, aches. Recognizes him, feels pulled by him. I forget everything, in these moments, except how utterly stolen away and carried off into the wild wind I feel, with him.

The paper crinkles against my bicep as he grips me, a hand on my arm, a palm to my cheek.

No . . . don’t; I try to form the words.

“Don’t, Logan,” I whisper, but maybe the words are only a breath, only a sigh, only the minuscule brush of my eyelashes fluttering against my cheek, the sweep of lips against lips.

He does.

He kisses me,

and kisses me,

and kisses me.

And I don’t stop him. My traitorous body wants to writhe and meld to his, wants to wrap itself around him. My hands sneak up to his hair, bury in the blond waves, and my throat utters a sigh, and maybe a moan, a feverish, desperate sound.

It is but a moment that we kiss, a single moment.

A fortieth of an hour.

But it is one in which I feel utterly changed, as if some too-loose skin draped over my skeleton is snatched away and my true form is revealed, as if his touch as if his kiss as if his very presence can make me more truly me.

I want to weep.

I want to sag against him and beg him to keep kissing me until I cannot bear any longer the soft and tender intensity.

He backs away, wiping his wrist across his mouth, chest heaving as if desperately battling some inner demon. “Here.” He hands me the square of folded paper. “It’s your real name.”

I feel struck by lightning, wired, surging with too much of everything, too much heat, too much fear, too much doubt, too much need.

He puts a hand to the half wall, as if supporting himself, as if about to leap over and fly away.

“Logan . . .” I don’t have anything else I can say.

“You have to decide if you want to know,” he says. “Because once you know . . . you can’t take it back. Once you start questioning, there’s no stopping it.”

“I have to know now, don’t I?” I ask, almost angry at him. “You posed the question, and now I have to have the answer.”

“True.” He lets out a breath, moves to walk past me, but stops a breath and a touch away. His indigo eyes meet mine. “You can come with me. We can leave New York.” He glances up at the cloud-shrouded sky. “I can take you somewhere far away, and show you the stars.”

Could he have heard that wish? Can he see into my mind, read my thoughts? Sometimes I wonder if he can.

“But . . . you won’t.” He wipes a thumb across my lips. “Not yet, anyway.”

He almost seems about to kiss me again, and I’m not entirely sure I would survive another stolen kiss, another breathless moment far too close to a man who seems to see far too much of me.

“If you ask the questions, X . . . you can’t shy away from the answers when you find them.”

I don’t watch him leave. I can’t. I won’t.

I don’t dare.

A long, long, painful silence, stretching like a rubber band about to snap. When I’m sure I’m alone, I finally look away from the skyline, from the dark shapes of skyscrapers and apartment blocks, away from the clouds and the dim distant lights. The rooftop is empty once more, but for me and the ghost of Logan’s kiss.

I unfold the square of paper.

My cigarette smolders on the white rocks beside me, forgotten.

There on the wrinkled, off-white scrap of paper is a scrawl of messy male handwriting, in all slanting capital letters.

The letters form a name.

My name.

If I could prevent myself from reading it, I almost would. But I don’t.

Logan has given me my name.

I both love him for it, and hate him for it.





FIVE


Isabel Maria de la Vega Navarro.” I whisper, reading. “Isabel.”

Is this me? Isabel?

How did Logan find this?

I trace the letters, imagining that I am able to feel the impressions of the pen on the paper, imagining the way his strong fingers gripped the pen and sliced firm concise strokes to create these letters. Twenty-six letters, simple strokes of ink on pulped and flattened wood. All to create a name. An identity.

Isabel.

I stare at the paper, for how long I do not know.

And then I discover something else written in the bottom right-hand corner, printed small.

Ten numbers.

212-555-3233. Beside it, two more letters: LR.