Exposed (Madame X, #2)(78)

He turns it back to us. God, I love him.

Is he real? Or am I dreaming? Is this just a fever dream?

“Do you masturbate very much?” I ask.

He bobbles his head. “Depends.”

“On what? Be honest.”

He moves into his bedroom, and I follow him. We each dress, and he speaks as he tugs on underwear and then jeans. “Before I met you, I had a few flings. Nothing serious. Not one-night stands, exactly, but . . . somewhere in between, I guess. Short-term. But . . . between flings, yeah, I’d jerk off regularly.”

“And since you met me?” I don’t know what answer I want to hear.

He tugs a T-shirt on, a slightly morbid one, black with a white skull near the bottom, the lower mandible fading into tree roots. A crow perches on the skull, and a red rose grows out of it, and the words Bullet for My Valentine are printed across the top. I eye it with distaste, and he catches my expression.

“No? Too much, huh? Okay.” He flips through a drawer stuffed full of T-shirts and pulls out a different one, exchanges them. This one features a man with long shaggy hair, a bandana across his mouth and nose, and a crossbow on his back, with The Walking Dead in large red block letters. “Better?”

I nod. “Yes, much, thank you. That other one was . . . gross.”

He chuckles. “Yeah, metal band shirts tend be a little gnarly, I guess.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I prompt.

“You really want to know the answer?” He waits until I’ve tugged my dress on and tied my hair back.

“Yes, I do.”

He leans back against the edge of the bed. “First, there’s been no one else since I met you. I hope that’s obvious. If not, there it is. I’ve not so much as spoken to a woman who isn’t an employee since the day we met at that auction. And—” He sighs, glances at me, and then away. “Every day, sometimes more than once a day, thinking of you, yeah, I jerk off. After we first met, it was just . . . you. That kiss in the bathroom. I’ve never gotten so hard from just an innocent kiss before. And you were so f*cking sexy, it tormented me. I pictured you in this very room, sliding that dress off . . . shit, this is kind of embarrassing. I feel like a teenager all over again, talking about this.”

“Don’t be embarrassed, Logan. Tell me more.”

He swallows hard, rubs the bridge of his nose. “And then, after that scene in the hallway there, and we almost—yeah, I thought of that a lot. I thought of just . . . sinking into you. I’d imagine how f*cking tight you’d be. How soft you’d be. I felt guilty about it, too. Dirty. Like I was . . . defiling you somehow, whacking off thinking about you. But I couldn’t help it. I’d try to think of something else, but nothing . . . turned me on. Not like you. I even tried porn a couple times, which I’m not generally a big fan of, but it just seemed . . . stupid. Empty. Nowhere near as f*cking erotic as you, in my hallway. The way you dropped that towel, practically begging to be shown how beautiful you really are.”

“Not practically, Logan. I was begging.”

“I couldn’t, though.” He looks up at me. “I hope you got that.”

I nod. “I did, and I do. Doesn’t make it easier, but I understood.”

“It was self-protection. I felt myself falling for you, and I couldn’t let myself get too attached too soon, not knowing how things would shake out between you and Caleb.” He ducks his head. Speaks to his shoes. “Even still, I have this . . . fear. That you’ll still go back to him.”

“Logan—” I want to reassure him, but he speaks over me.

“I don’t fall easy, Isabel. But when I do, I fall hard and fast.” He stands up, strides over to me, takes my hips in his hands. “There’s no going back for me now. I wouldn’t want to, even if I could. This is it, for me. I don’t—I don’t see anyone ever being able to match you. So just keep that in mind, okay? Do what you have to do. I’ll never hold you back if your path leads you away from me. But just—just don’t do so lightly, okay?” Logan is an articulate man, not given to stumbling over his words or hesitating. That he does now paints a picture that leaves me near tears. He is a warrior, a man who has seen and delivered death, and narrowly escaped it himself. A man who has been to prison and come out the other side a better person. A man who has been betrayed and can still find the courage to show himself to me, who can allow himself to be vulnerable.

Knowing what I know, knowing what I’ve done to shake his faith in me—more than once . . . what courage must it take for him to say these things? It is unfathomable.

“You are my path, Logan.”

“I sure as hell hope so. And believe me, Isabel, I won’t take a single moment for granted. Not even if we have a f*cking thousand years together.”

He palms the damp knot of hair at the base of my head and tugs so my face is tilted up to his.

Kisses me,

and kisses me,

and kisses me.

Love is a painful emotion, I’m realizing. It cracks open the walls around my heart. Demands honesty of me. Courage. Vulnerability. Humility. It is not a light, frilly, easy, storybook thing, where the hero and his lady can ride off into the sunset together. The lady must be a warrior as well, willing to face the darkness with him; she must be brave enough to face the demons and dragons alongside her hero if she wishes to see sunrise, let alone the sunset.