The floor falls away, and my legs wrap around the hard wedge of his hips. The taut firmness of his belly is hot against my bare core. He spins, presses my spine to the window. His hands cup my naked bottom, keeping me aloft effortlessly, his tongue delves into my mouth, steals my sense and my breath, steals my will, steals my desire to know anything but this, but his kiss, but this moment.
I clutch his face, palms to faint stubble. I am confident in his hold on me. Given over to him. Lost to this. Anything could happen, and I would want it, as long as it is with Logan Ryder.
I don’t know why.
I just know he possesses some secret power over me, and I cannot resist it.
One hand now holds me up, a strong forearm barred beneath me, his other hand sliding up my spine, smoothing over skin, up and up, finding my neck, squeezing, massaging, kneading, and then back down. Soothing, yet arousing. I want to relax into him, and yet I want to devour him. My hands too seek more, explore, reach, find. Shoulders, hard and round. Ribs, waist. Broad back, hot skin. Up into his hair, under the damp, wavy locks.
I feel him gather my thick hair into a fist, gripping at the base of my skull, tilt my head back so I’m staring up at him—or I would be were my eyes open—and his kiss plunges me into oblivion. The hold on my hair is delicious. Firm, yet gentle. I cannot break away, should I even want to.
I do not.
I wish only to be kissed, and to eagerly press my lips up to his and taste his tongue in my mouth and clutch and cling to the endless maze of muscle and taut flesh.
How long passes thus? Minutes? Moments? Hours?
I once read in an old text that a moment is one-fortieth of an hour. Perhaps a million moments pass, and I count each one, sear each moment and stamp each moment onto my mind, into my memory. I do not want to ever forget this experience with Logan, should I get nothing else with him.
A myriad of moments.
His hands, both of them once again on my bare bottom, holding, cupping, gently squeezing, then his hand on my cheek, rough, hard, callused, strong, gentle as the sweep of a downy feather across skin. His lips, scouring mine, tilting, nipping, his teeth catching my lip, upper and then lower. The bite of his teeth on my lower lip is a drug, the tug, tug, tug of his teeth an aphrodisiac.
I feel my lower lip pulled away, feel his breath and his tongue, and I am turned into a wildling.
I make a sound in my throat, a noise I cannot describe as anything but a growl.
But then, just when I am contemplating how to reach down between us and free the button on his jeans and grasp his hardness in my hands, Logan sets me down and backs away.
I am utterly naked, the towel dropped and forgotten.
A tableau: me, nude, nipples hardening under his ravenous gaze, desire pooling at my core in dripping slick heat, his zipper bulging, a vein in his neck pulsing, fists clenching and releasing, chest heaving, my breasts rising and falling with my own crazed breath. A moment, where I know he is mere moments away from assaulting me, and I would not stop him, would only encourage him and moan for him and beg him for more.
“Jesus, X.” He rubs his jaw with a palm. “You make me fucking crazy.” He sounds shaken.
I cannot stand upright, can only lean weak-kneed against the back against the wall. “I have to know what you want from me, Logan.” The words tumble out unbidden.
He tilts his head and frowns. “What I want from you?” He kneels, gathers the towel in his hands, presses it to my chest, covering me.
I am not unaware of a certain reluctance in him as he does so.
I struggle to stay upright, lock my knees, scrape trembling hands through my hair. “I don’t trust myself with you. You make me... wild. But my situation, it’s not... I’m not safe. And I need to know what you want. What’s happening. I—I—”
He moves like lightning, his hands somehow instantly gripping my upper biceps gently, thumbs tracing circles. “You can trust me, X.”
“I want to.”
“But?”
“But how do I know? I can’t even breathe when I’m with you. It doesn’t make any sense. I don’t recognize myself, and everything is scary enough as it is without feeling like I’m going to—I don’t know. Lose myself. I barely have anything to lose, but even that is... at risk.”
“I’m not sure I’m following.”
I shake my head, pull out of his grip, pace away. “I’m not making any sense. Which is unlike me.”
He follows me but doesn’t grab hold again. “You know, I’ve noticed something.”
“What’s that, Logan?”
