Exposed (Madame X, #2)(44)

“We resonate, Logan.” My voice cracks at the end.

“I know we do. So powerfully that it makes a joke out of what I thought I felt with Leanne. But I know the power of that now. I know how badly it can wreck me when it—if it goes wrong.”

“So you don’t trust me.”

“Isabel, it’s not that simple. This isn’t a normal situation.”

“I don’t even know what to say.” I’m hurt. I’m angry. And I’m also all too aware how right he is. And that makes me all the more angry. “I need a minute.”

I slide out of the bed, achingly aware that I’m naked, and he’s naked, and I feel the ghosts of his touch on my skin. I can’t help glancing at him as I find the shirt he left for me. He’s still hard, thick, rigid, painfully erect, the outline of his shaft visible against the sheet. Instead of reaching for him like so much of me wants to do, I tug the shirt on. I almost moan at the slide of the downy fabric over my skin, at the smell of Logan on the cotton.

“I’m not leaving,” I tell him. “I’m going in your backyard. I just . . . I need time.”

“Whatever you need.”

“I need you, Logan,” I say, before I have a chance to think better of it.

He leans his head back against the headboard. “Jesus, Isabel.” A smile. “You look good in my shirt.”

“What?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing. It’s just a line from a country song.”

His eyes rake over me. My nipples are hard, poking at the fabric. The hem comes to midthigh, and when I reach up to brush my hair back out of my eyes and pull it into a ponytail, the edge rides up and bares my core.

“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life, Isabel.”

I’m caught by his gaze. Reeled in. Drawn closer. I find myself on the bed with him again, somehow, and the shirt is gone, abandoned. Pulling the sheet away. Reaching for him. “Let me help you, Logan. I want to make you feel good.”

He resists, grabbing my wrist to stop me. “It’ll subside eventually, Isabel.”

I’m dizzy with need. “Logan . . . you’ve made me feel so good. Let me touch you.”

“I’m weak, Isabel. I want you, and I’m trying to do what’s right for both of us.”

“Then we shouldn’t have started this. Because now I’ve felt you, and I want more.” I rub him with my thumb, and his grip on my wrist tightens.

He sighs harshly. “Fuck, Isabel. Fuck! I want you so goddamn bad.”

“I want you just as badly, Logan. More. I can’t breathe because of it.” I lean closer to him, touch his jaw with my lips.

I know what he said, and some distant part of me knows he’s right, but like this, kissing his skin, his erection in my hand, all I know is desire.

His grip on my wrist loosens, and I stroke him. Slow caresses of his length.

And then, faster than a serpent strike, I’m on my back and he’s levered above me, and his breath on my lips is warm. His body is hard and heavy. His erection is insistent, and my heart hammers like a drum.

I touch him, reaching between us to grip his thickness and feather soft quick strokes of my fingers around him, root to tip. Lift my hips. His remain hard, immovable.

His forehead touches mine. “No, Isabel. Not until you’re mine, and only mine.”

I go limp then, sucking in a breath and fighting tears. “I am yours, Logan. That’s all I want to be, is yours.”

“But you aren’t. Not yet. Not totally.”

I’m still touching him. And he’s thrusting into the circle of my fingers, his abs tensing and his buttocks flexing. I cup the hard round bubble of his buttock and revel in the feel of it, even as my soul aches and my heart cracks.

But I can’t stop touching him.

And he can’t stop either. His mouth descends and his lips touch my nipple, and I pull at his buttocks.

“Isabel—”

I bring his face to mine and touch my lips to his. “Ssshhh. Just this, Logan. Give me this, at least.”

His breathing is ragged, and the motion of his hips faltering. I help by thrusting my fist down to his root and then back up, and then we begin to move in sync, him thrusting into my hand as I stroke down. His forehead touches my shoulder, his lips my breastbone. He moans.

Time fades, ceases to exist, and I know I can’t push him for more than this. It would be taking something he isn’t ready to give. And there’s a doubt deep inside me, a tiny seed that wonders if he’s right. That I’m still weak and vulnerable and addicted to something toxic.

Someone toxic.

But I need this, at least. This pretense, this imitation. This game of pretend, where he’s above me and moving as I want him to move, and I can feel him, I can caress his spine and bury my fingers in his hair and grip the flexing mound of muscle that is his ass. I can feel him move, hear his breathing shift to become even more desperate and I can feel him thicken between the ring of my fingers.

“Isabel . . . shit . . .”

“Logan, let it go. Let me have it. Let me feel it. Let me feel you. I want as much of you as I can get. Even this much.”

He groans and goes still, tensed and taut as a piano wire. I take over, plunging my fist around him hard and slow, root to tip, and his hips flex. I watch between our bodies for the moment when he lets go.