Exposed (Madame X, #2)(30)

He really must be telepathic, because he wraps a long arm around my shoulders and pulls me against him. At first, I only allow myself to lean against him. But I cannot sustain the fa?ade for long, and I slump. Slide lower and lower, until I’m lying on his lap. There is nothing sexual about this. His hands sweep my hair aside, and then his fingers dig into my shoulder muscles and knead them with a firm but gentle touch. I moan involuntarily, melting under the massage.

“Just let go, Isabel. Relax. Let it all go.”

“Caleb, he—”

“Hush, babe. Not now. There’s plenty of time to tell me everything. For right now, you just need to relax.”

“I don’t know how,” I admit.

“Don’t think. Don’t feel. Just focus on the feel of my hands.”

I try it. I push aside the whirlwind of thoughts and shove down the maelstrom of emotions, and focus on Logan’s hands on my shoulders, between my shoulder blades, down my spine, thumbs pressing into my lower lumbar, working back up. It isn’t until he begins massaging me that I am even aware how tensed I am, that my muscles are all knotted up into painful boulders of stress. Moment by moment, however, I feel myself relaxing.

I smell him, faint cologne, deodorant, cinnamon and cigarettes. I feel his breathing, his chest expanding and retracting.

My breathing matches his.

I fade.

I feel a sense of spatial distortion as my eyes close, as if I’m tipping forward, as if my consciousness is leaving my body. I am heavy, limp. I spin, twist, tilt.

Logan’s fingertip trails over my cheekbone, slides around my ear. I feel it distantly.

I am moments from succumbing to sleep when I hear him speak.

“You’re safe now, Isabel,” he murmurs. “I won’t let you go. Not again.”

I believe him.

He shifts, and my cheek touches leather warm from his body. Moments later, something warm and weighty is draped over me.

I have never been more comfortable in my life.

I let go.

? ? ?

I wake sobbing.

Nightmares of sirens and flashing lights and a pair of cold cruel dark eyes staring haughty and inscrutable down at me as I am used like a receptacle. Nightmares of a perfect body pinning me to an elevator door. Sorcery, stealing my will, manipulating my desires, cool silk of a tie wiping my face. Rain cold and wet and windblown, shifting shadows and blood and pain.

My dream is pervaded by a voice: “Isabel, you’re okay. It was just a dream.”

Who is Isabel?

The voice is in my ear, soft and tender and warm. “I’m here, Isabel.”

Oh, it’s me. I’m Isabel.

I am Isabel; I have to remind myself that it is true.

I am lifted, cradled. I hear a heartbeat under my ear, feel soft cotton under my cheek. I am lying on top of him, as if he is my bed. His hands smooth in caressing circles on my back.

I cannot stop sobbing.

My eyes burn with hot tears, and I try to stop them, but I can’t. “L-Logan—”

“Ssshhh. It’s okay. I’m here.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—I can’t—can’t stop—”

“Don’t apologize, sweetheart. Cry if you need to. I’ve got you. I won’t let go.”

I can only cling to him and cry. My whole body shakes with shuddering, wracking sobs, as if a lifetime of pent-up tears are being ripped out of me wholesale.

I don’t know how long it lasts. Minutes? Hours? A measureless time of weeping. I think I have cried more in the last twelve hours than in all my life.

Eventually, I am able to breathe normally and the sobs and shudders fade.

I remain still, barely breathing now.

On top of Logan.

Aware of him, suddenly.

Completely attuned to every inch of him, stretched out beneath me. His arms around me, his chin tucked against the top of my head. His denim-sheathed thighs beneath mine, thick and hard. His breath on my hair. His hips nudging mine. My hands on his pectoral muscles, my breasts crushed against his sternum.

There is a shift then. A charge to the air. Electricity crackling.

And now, between one breath and the next, it is sexual, the way I’m lying on him.

I can’t breathe again, but for a different reason.

I can’t breathe for wanting him.

Needing him.

“Isabel . . .” he breathes.

“Logan—”

“I need you to get up,” he says, and it isn’t what I expected. “There are still some people working out there, and in a few more seconds I’m going to forget that.”

“What would happen if you did, Logan?” I ask. I don’t recognize the daring, the boldness, the raw hunger in my voice.

His fingers twine gently into my hair and pull, tipping my face up to his.

It’s me, this time,

kissing him,

and kissing him,

and kissing him.

My fingers wrap around the back of his head, clinging to the nape of his neck, pulling him closer, pulling myself higher on his body, needing needing needing to be closer to him, to press my lips more completely against his, to taste him, to feel him. I breathe him. His hand, resting on my back, slides lower. I arch against him, press my body against his. There is no part of me that isn’t touching him. I pause to breathe, gasping against his lips. I want more of me to touch more of him. I want all of him, all of me, all of us.