“Babe, we don’t have to do this if you’re not ready. I don’t wanna rush you.” I brush my thumb over her lower lip to release it. “Only what you’re comfortabledoing.”
She looks me in the eyes. “I want this with you. I wantyou.”
“I want you too.” So damnmuch.
28
Joey
Acool breezeblows over my heated skin as Logan shifts me to the ground. When I see the look in his eyes, my heart goes crazy, skittering in my chest like a runaway colt. Because we’re really doingthis.
Wanting to commit every moment to memory, I rub the stubble on his handsome face. Thread my fingers through his thick hair. Stare at the man who has always owned myheart.
I almost say the words, almost tell him I love him, but I force myself to hold it in. Just because I’m head over heels about him doesn’t mean he feels the same about me. Logan cares about me, that much I know. Loves me as a friend. Cares for me as a lover. But is hein lovewith me? I’m too scared to test those waters, so I kiss him before I say something I might regret, though it runs through mymind:
I’ve always lovedyou.
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t loveyou.
Do you think you could loveme?
He leans over me, pulling back at the last moment to rub his nose against mine, a small moment of intimacy that has me sighing and wishing I was brave enough to say the words in myheart.
We kiss until I’m out of my mind, and then we push down his jeans and reach for each other, desperate and hungry toconnect.
His hard body moves over mine, shooting tingles over my sensitive skin. Feeling the way he fits, rubbing his steely length between my thighs, brings me close to the edge again. It reminds me of our first night together at the coast when I sat on his lap and made himcome.
“Logan, I need you,” Igasp.
He sits up, kneeling between my legs to reach for his wallet. I take that moment to appreciate his body. All of that lean muscle. The poetic grace in his slender hips and chiseled thighs. He’s the picture of virility with that proud erection jutting betweenus.
He rifles through his wallet and pauses, only to drop his head forward with a loudgroan.
“What’swrong?”
“Fuck.” He scrubs his hands over his eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t have a condom.” After a moment, he flops down next to me and covers his face with his arm. His chest rises and falls like he’s out of breath. “I hadn’t planned to get naked outhere.”
A twisted side of me smiles that Logan’s bent out of shape at the thought of being denied sex withme.
I run my hand over his chest, down over the trail of hair on his lower abdomen, and I whisper, “I’m on the pill.” He didn’t askbefore.
He lowers his arm just enough to make eye contact. “I’m clean. I got tested in thespring.”
My brows rise because it’s July. I don’t want to think about his revolving bedroom door, but I’m not going to make a dumb decision because I’m beingnaive.
His eyes soften. “Jo, I haven’t been with anyone in months. Certainly not since I was tested, but it’s been much longer than that. Probably not since lastfall.”
Lastfall?
For some reason, that makes me emotional. Heat stings my eyes, and I turnaway.
“What’s going on, baby? Tell me what’s wrong. Is this about having sex? We don’t have to do anything else tonight. I toldyou—”
“No, that’s notit.”
He must sense I need time to collect my thoughts because he rubs myback.
Finally, when I can talk, it comes out a rasp. “I left for Florida to get over you. Because I didn’t think you’d ever see me as more than a friend. And… I basically slept with someone because I thought it would help me move on, but it didn’t.” I swallow. “The whole time I was there, I figured you were back home being your normal player self, but now that I know you weren’t, I wish… I wish I hadn’t been with anyone else. I wish you had been myfirst.”
