Chapter 9

Chapter

Nine

I have to blink back a surprised wash of intense emotion: wonder, embarrassment, need, tenderness, raw lust.

I find my voice, and my own words surprise me. "Then worship me, Logan. Show me."

He licks my nipple and plunges a middle finger into my cleft. "I'm going to." A curl, a come-here motion with his finger, and I cannot stop a moan. "Be loud for me, Isabel. I want to hear every sound you make."

Mouth latched onto my nipple, one hand between my thighs, he cups my breast with his other. Sucks, swirls his tongue around my nipple. And then pulls away. His finger slides out of my opening and brings my essence with it, smearing it onto my clitoris. I ache, oh I ache. I'm going to come again. Soon, and hard.

As he finds a circling rhythm, slow and soft touches of two fingers against my throbbing clit, he alternates kissing and suckling both of my breasts, one and the other, one and the other. Tension coils inside me, centered low in my belly. I tighten. Curl up, knees rising, and he does not speed up his rhythmic touching of my most sensitive flesh. I am moaning, I realize. Nonstop. Aching. Needing. Feeling his touch and needing more.

"Can I taste you, Isabel?" Logan asks.

"Please, Logan."

"Please what? Tell me what you want, sweetheart, and I'll give it to you."

"Taste me. Make me come. Touch me. Let me touch you."

He kisses his way down my body. Sternum. Belly. Hip. Thigh. Over and over, he kisses my body, not missing anywhere. He lifts my left leg and kisses the back of my knee, and I whimper at the soft warm touch of lips there, and then he's flicking his tongue and sliding his mouth over my thigh, and I moan. A single flick of his tongue over my nether lips, and I'm writhing, gasping. But he doesn't give me what I need, not yet. He transfers his kisses to my other thigh, kissing downward now, to my calf, lips feathering over my ankle.

"Logan . . ." I gasp.

"I know, honey. But I told you that you deserve to be worshipped. Let me worship you." And he kisses the top of my foot.

Now his mouth travels back toward my core, over the top of my thigh, lips landing on the crease where hip meets leg, such an erogenous spot. Inward. To the mound just above my privates. To the very top of my core, and his tongue laps out, licks the very crest of my core, where my labia meet.

"Oh god. Logan, yes. Please. Please. " I am breathless, gasping each word. Begging. He makes me beg, just by the way he touches me, kisses me.

He fits two fingers into my opening, slides them deep. Curls them, withdraws, inserts. Starts a thrusting rhythm. His tongue lashes against my clit, and I writhe into his tongue, into his tongue, into his fingers. Move against him shamelessly. Bury my fingers in my hair, grip it, lift my hips.

"Can you come?" he murmurs.

"So close."

"How close?"

I can only whimper wordlessly and arch off the bed and grind against his mouth and fingers. His mouth covers my core now, and he sucks my clitoris between his lips and creates a suction, flicking it with his tongue, sliding his fingers in and out, in and out, and his free hand reaches up to pinch my nipple.

"Now, Isabel. Come for me, right now. Let me feel you squeeze around my fingers, baby. Let me feel you come so hard you can't breathe." His words are the catalyst I need. "Ride my fingers, ride my mouth. Take it from me."

I gasp, and lights flash behind my squeezed-shut eyes. The tension in my belly breaks apart, and I'm crying out loud. I bear down, clenching around his fingers with all the force I can muster, and then all control is gone as he matches my desperate rhythm with his mouth, with his tongue, with his fingers, taking me to the upper reaches of my climax and pushing me past it, to a place I didn't know existed.

"Yeah, that's right, just like that. Scream for me. Come for me." He whispers against my flesh. "You are so fucking beautiful, Isabel, so sexy, so fucking sexy."

I come down, and he's kneeling upright. Watching me. I'm sweaty, gasping. My breasts sway with my heaving breaths, and he watches their motion openly.

I'm still shaking, trembling from the force of my orgasm.

"I want to touch you now, Logan." I sit up. Reach for him.

He moves closer to me, kneels astride me. Gazes down at me. His erection is in front of my face, his hands on my shoulders. "Touch me then."

I tear my eyes from his and allow my gaze to roam his body, tracing the wild profusion of his tattooed arms. There are pinup girls, playing cards, crossed assault rifles, Old English–style lettering, sparrows, spiders, skulls, handguns, characters that must be from movies, masks, all woven together and growing out of a tree trunk whose roots spread around his biceps and the crease of his elbow.

I look down then, down to his erection.

I wrap one hand around it, slide my palm down the soft flesh to the base, and then circle my other hand around him, spanning most of his length, although a bit of the head protrudes above my upper hand. I lick him there, flatten my tongue over the tip of him. He groans, and his grip tightens on my shoulders. I glide my palms up, and then down. Let go with one hand and stroke his length from tip to base, over and over, learning the feel of him, the way he fills my fist, the way his skin slides and stretches. How he moans, what makes him grunt. I squeeze gently, and he gasps. I have nothing within me but desire. Need. I want all of him.

I wrap my lips around him, fit my lips to the groove under the bulbous head. He moans, a long, sustained growl. "Isabel. Don't."

"I want to."

He pulls back, sinks to sit on his heels. "Let me taste you again."

I shake my head. "I want you, Logan. I want to touch you. I want to make you feel good. I want this."

"But what happened—"

"Had nothing to do with you. Has nothing to do with how much I want you." I lean into him, kiss his mouth. "Lie down and let me worship you too, Logan."

He moves to his back, pillowing one hand beneath his head, reaching for me with the other. "I want this to be about you, Isabel."

"It is. This is what I want."

I take my time then. I start at his sharp, high cheekbones, kissing each one, and then kiss his mouth, lick his lower lip, the upper. Take his tongue into my mouth and suckle it. Kiss his throat. His chest. Flick my tongue over each of his nipples, run it along the grooves under his pectoral muscles, though the ridges of his rippling abs. Down, down. To his hips. Palm his hips, flatten my hands on his belly. Run them up, smooth them back down to his thighs. Kiss down one, as he did mine. Proving to him that his body is as beautiful to me as mine is to him. I memorize him. The taste of him. The sight of him, stretched out beneath me, his lean body hard and radiating lust, oozing masculine sex appeal. I take him in my hand, caress his shaft. Take my time with that too, enjoying the feel of him in my hand more than I ever have enjoyed anything in my life. More than junk food, more than freedom, more than antique books, just touching him and kissing him is better than anything I've ever known.

I am overwhelmed, so full of joy and exuberance and gratitude and raw fierce lust that I cannot contain it. I sink my mouth around him, sudden and fast. Take him deep into my mouth, opening my throat and tasting him on my tongue. He groans, shudders. I back away and replace mouth with fist, smearing my saliva on him. Stroke him. Faster and faster.

Feel him tremble under me, feel his moans in his chest, hear them echo in the bedroom.

I know he's close. I can feel it, taste it in the leak of clear fluid from the tip as I lick him, suckle him, feather kisses to the side, lick up the length. He throbs in my touch, thickens between my lips.

"You taste so good, Logan," I hear myself say. "Let go, let me taste you on my tongue. Give it all to me."

Who is this, speaking this way? I have never said such words. I have never even thought such words. Yet they pour from my mouth, and they sound sexy. I sound sexy. I sound worldly. Womanly. Sensual.

"Is—Isabel." He is out of breath, his voice tense. "Jesus, what are you doing to me?"

"Making you feel good, I hope."

"This isn't feeling god, Is, this is heaven."

Is. Like, a diminutive? A nickname? "Is?"

"You don't want me to call you that?"

"No, I do. I like it."

"Is. Izzy?"

"Is. I like that."

Abruptly, Logan rolls us so I'm beneath him. Kneels between my thighs, staring at me, chest heaving. The tip of his penis leaks fluid, evidence of his nearness to climax. "Will you do something for me?"

"Anything." I mean it, too. I will do anything he asks of me. It's crazy to feel so strongly so quickly, but I do.

"Touch yourself."

I've touched myself before, of course. In the dead of night, awake, unable to sleep, wrestling with old nightmares and new needs, I have touched myself. But I've always been vaguely ashamed of it, for some reason.

To touch myself in front of him? While he watches? My chest contracts and my skin feels too tight on my bones, and my heart hammers. I tingle. Blink at him. Press my thighs together.

"Logan, I don't know..." I whisper, not able to look at him. "I don't know if I can."

"I want to watch you make yourself feel good. It'll be so sexy, watching you." He sinks to sit on his shins, and his erections juts high and hard and proud. It is huge, and begs for my fingers, my lips. My core. "Like this, Is. Watch me."

He wraps one hand around his thick shaft, and his fist looks so hard and so big like that, so rough. It should be my hand there, not his. But it is hot, watching him. He strokes himself slowly, one pump of his fist. The head protrudes, and the skin stretches backward, and then he brings his hand back up. He thumbs the tip, and then plunges his fist down again.

Oh.

Oh, god. His face, as he does this. The way his eyes narrow. His jaw clenches. His chest expands and contracts heavily. His testicles hang and sway beneath his fist.

It is almost involuntary then, how my fingers steal across my belly and between my thighs. My core aches, watching him pleasure himself. I throb, tingle, burn. I have to touch myself, if only to alleviate the pressure. A bolt of lightning strikes me as I touch three fingers to my clitoris.

Swipe, circle, press.

My breath hitches, and I stare into his eyes, force myself to remain open, to splay my thighs wide and tuck my heels against my buttocks, to let him watch. And oh, oh, god, yes, it is erotic, so sexy. Touching my privates and knowing he's watching. Seeing him do the same. The intimacy binds us. I cannot look away, cannot stop. I'm rising toward climax, a mountain of heat washing over me, a tidal wave of intensity crashing through me. And I'm watching his fist pump harder and harder, and his touch is so rough, so harsh, so vigorous. I would be gentler, softer. I would caress him with such gentility, such exquisite tenderness.

I keep one hand between my thighs, stroking myself in ever-quickening circles, but I have to touch him. I knock his hand away and replace it with mine. I stroke us both, and he watches.

My hand is a plunging blur around his thickness, pumping up and down and up and down, faster and faster. He's groaning, and I'm whimpering, and he's thrusting into my hand, rutting hard into my fist. I'm grinding against my fingers, and I feel my climax approaching, feel it like not just mountains about to collide, but continents moments away from smashing into each other. I cannot breathe and cannot stop, and all I see is his face, his incredible blue eyes and his heaving chest and his tattoos and his erection in my hand, and my own fingers circling desperately.

"Oh fuck, Isabel. I'm so close," he grunts between clenched teeth. "I love watching your hand on my cock."

Cock. His cock. A new word. I've heard it, of course, but I've never said it. "I love touching your cock. I can't wait to watch you come, Logan."

"You talk dirty like that, I'm gonna come even sooner."

"You like it when I say those things?"

"Fuck yeah," he rumbles. "It's hot. Everything you do is hot. But this? Hottest fucking thing ever."

I'm stroking him hard and fast, plunging my fist down his length as fast as I can. When he starts to grunt and I watch his jaw clench and feel his cock throb in my fist, I slow.

"Fuck, Isabel, I'm right there, please don't stop."

"I'm not stopping," I whisper. "I promise."

I want to watch this. Feel it. Experience every moment of his orgasm, and the delirious joy of knowing I'm giving it to him. Nothing matters now but bringing Logan to orgasm.

I feel it begin.

I'm feathering slow soft gentle strokes, shallow ones, and he's going mad, thrusting, and I know he wants it hard and fast, but I know he'll feel it all the more intensely if I give it to him slow and gentle. And I want to make it last. For me. This is selfish, what I'm doing. Dragging it out. Memorizing it.

So good.

I'm still touching myself too, and I'm reaching climax as well, but that's subsumed beneath the tsunami of ecstasy I feel watching him.

Sweat dots his upper lip, his forehead. Shines on his chest. His hands are on my thighs for balance as he thrusts up into my fist, seeking more.

"Oh . . . Oh fuck. Isabel . . ." His voice is ragged, guttural.

I pull him closer, and he rises up, plants a knee on either side of my body, and now I can taste him and touch him at the same time. I take him into my mouth and stroke him at the root and finger my clit and groan, and he gasps. I feel him tense, feel his body tighten.

"I'm coming, Is . . ." he groans.

"Mmmmmmm." It's all I can manage, because I'm writhing with my own climax and because I'm too carried away with his to form words, and because I've got his cock filling my mouth.

He thrusts, and I like it.

I taste him.

But I want to watch.

I back away and he's kneeling upright, grasping the headboard of the bed while I'm lying down. I stare up at him, and his eyes fly open to meet mine. I finger myself and feel climax rip through me, and it's a hot knife slicing me apart.

I'm bucking and writhing, coming, coming, coming, moaning, whimpering.

And then Logan comes.

He grunts, and his seed gushes out of him. I watch it spurt between my fingers and slide over my knuckles and splash onto my breasts. He watches this as well, and groans, thrusts hard into my hand, and I lean up and take him into my mouth and suckle as he grunts a curse, thrusting into my mouth.

Orgasming still, now shooting his come onto my tongue.

I taste his essence, smoky and thick and salty, and I like it.

He's got more, and I want to watch him come some more.

So I let him fall out of my mouth and caress his length, plunge my fist to his base and pump him hard, and another jet of semen shoots out of him and onto my breasts in a white-hot sticky line on my skin.

So much come, and looking up at him, watching him thrust, I see that he's not yet done.

I mouth his cock and taste skin and semen, take him deep and suck and stroke his root and cup his testicles and touch him and suck him and take the come that lands on my tongue and swallow it and suckle him yet more.

I let him fall free one last time and he sags, and a droplet leaks out of him; with his eyes on mine, I lean forward, extend my tongue, and lick it away.

"Jesus, Isabel," he growls.

"You taste amazing, Logan."

I have my hand around him, still, and don't want to let go.

He's lowering himself to lie down, though, so I have to let go. A moment of silence then, wild and fraught, as we lie side by side.

He gets up, leaves without explanation. I hear water running, and he returns with a washcloth. I reach for it, but he just shakes his head, takes my hand in his, and gently, tenderly washes his sticky, drying come off my fingers. And then he folds the washcloth and wipes, cleaning me in gentle wiping strokes of the warm cloth, perhaps with a little extra attention for my breasts, holding each one in turn and making sure they are both wiped clean. He leaves once more, tosses the washcloth into the bathtub, and returns to the bed, sliding under the blankets beside me.

I remain where I am, lying next to him, a couple of inches of space between us.

I have no clue what comes next. I want more. I want him. I want us. But I don't know what he wants and I don't know how to ask, and I don't know what normal people do in circumstances like these.

He looks at me. "What are you still doing way over there?"

I frown, puzzled. "Way over where? I'm right beside you."

"Exactly. Too far away."

His arm scoops under me, and I'm rolled into him, my face pressed against his chest. I'm on his left side, and I can hear his heart beating: thrumthrum-thrumthrum-thrumthrum ; a timpani, hammering under my ear. His arm tightens, pulls me closer yet. Lifts me, settles me bodily on top of him so I'm half on him, half on the bed. He cradles me, his arm a taut band over my shoulder, across my back, his big wide rough palm cupping a globe of my bottom. My thigh lies over his. My hand nestles on his chest.

"Better," he says.

I can't breathe.

This is too much. This is too right.

I don't deserve this. This is too much happiness, too much perfectness, too much wonderment, too too too much. Ecstasy has me seized in crushing talons, making it hard to breathe. I'm near tears.

He's holding me.

Just holding me.

I listen to his heartbeat and try to settle myself, try to calm my frantic heart.

And of course, Logan is tuned in to my plight. "Isabel, honey. You're shaking like a leaf. What's wrong?"

I shake my head. "I don't know."

"Bzzzzzt," he says, a sound like a buzzer. "Wrong answer. Try again."

"It's too much."

"What is?"

"This." I pat his chest. "Us. You holding me. I don't know how to—it's too good. I like it too much. I want it too much."

"How can something be too good?"

"It just is. I don't know." I am so emotional, suddenly. Gripped by something so intense I cannot fathom its scope. I am near tears and can't seem to stop them, even though the last thing I want is to cry after such a sensual, sexual, incredible experience.

But I sniffle, and I hate myself for it.

"Hey, hey." He touches my chin, tilts my face up to look at him. "Is this good tears or bad tears?"

I can only shrug. "I don't know. Not bad. That was so incredible, and now this."

"Just let me hold you. It's okay," he breathes. "You can cry. It's okay. Whatever you need, it's okay. Just let me hold you."

"I don't know how."

"You don't know how to what?" His lips brush mine, not a kiss, but a reminder of a kiss, a promise of a kiss to come.

"To let you hold me. This is all so new for me."

He knows exactly what I mean, and he doesn't like it. But he doesn't say anything. Just tightens his arm around me, kneads his fingers into the muscle of my buttock, caresses it, reaches down to clutch one of the globes, smooths his hand over both, as if he just can't get enough of touching my bottom.

And then he reaches out to the drawer of the nightstand beside the bed, opens it, pulls out a long black remote, and turns on the TV. Searches through something called Netflix and finds a movie. The one he's told me about, What About Bob?

Naked, emotional, being held like I've never experienced before, the taste of his essence still in my mouth, his hands on my backside, his chest under my ear, we watch a movie together.

It's silly, funny, ridiculous, cheesy, and wonderful.

When it's over, he scoots off the bed. "Stay here."

He doesn't explain what he's doing, so I remain where I am. He returns with four bottles of beer in one hand and a bag of potato chips in the other. He arranges the pillows behind our backs, and we sit up together, a thin sheet across our laps. He hands me a bottle of beer, sets the bag of chips in the space between my thigh and his, and brings up another movie.

P.S. I Love You , it's called.

We drink our beer, and eat the greasy, unhealthy, and incredibly delicious chips.

And I cry.

Sob, actually.

So sweet, so sad, so romantic. I swoon, and push the bag of chips away and snuggle closer to Logan, and he wraps his arm around me again. This time, his palm finds my thigh, clutching it possessively, stroking now and then lower or higher, making me wonder in the back of my mind if he plans to touch me again, if he'll steal his touch inward. I don't quite tense, but I want to.

I've lost track of time, and I don't care. I'm not tired at all. The sky is dark outside, and the world is quiet.

That's not true, though; the world isn't quiet, because there is no world. There is only this bubble of purity and perfectness and wonder, this bed, this man. Our skin, my scent on him, his smell on me. His taste in my mouth, a lingering memory of kisses shared. There is only this, and this is all I ever want. I beg the universe to let this last forever.

He fetches us each one more beer, and a carton of strawberries, which we eat by pinching the green leaves and biting beneath them.

I'm dizzy, a little drunk, and wildly happy.

He turns on The Day After Tomorrow , an apocalypse-scenario movie, and I like this one too. It's easy to watch, easy to relax into and not think about anything.

Except the man cradling me in his strong arms.

I've slunk lower in the bed, so my head is on his chest, my beer finished, and I don't want anymore. I just want to be here, watching movies with Logan, holding him and being held. My arm is across his hips. His fingers trace circles on my back, dare to my hip, dance over my bottom, slide up my spine, and steal lower again.

I find my hand skating over his stomach, under the flat sheet covering us. Seeking skin.

And then, with a glance up at him, I dare to touch him first. He smiles down at me, grips my backside, kneads it, teases a touch almost-but-not-quite between the cheeks, making me squirm and gasp. I have one hand around the hardening thickness of his cock, and I watch as it straightens, thickens, burgeons fully erect in my hand.

I don't know what I want to do to him first. Everything. I want it all, and I want it now. I want to just hold him like this in my hand, to stroke him with my fingers until he comes over my knuckles and into my palm. I want to wrap my mouth around him and suck him until he's exploding onto my tongue again. I want to lie beneath him and beg him to masturbate onto my breasts and onto my face. I want to climb astride him and put him into my core and ride him until we're both spent and gasping.

I want all of that, and I don't know where to start.

I just know I ache for needing him, for wanting his touch, that I'm desperate to watch and feel him explode because I can make him feel better than he's ever felt.

"Logan," I breathe. "I want everything with you."

"I know," he says. "I want it all with you too. I want to fuck you and love you and taste you and come on your tits. I want to lick your pussy until you're begging me for more. I want to feel you shiver beneath me as we come together."

I'm stroking him, long slow slides of my fingers around his cock. Watching the way my fingers splay around his flesh. Watching his skin move. Watching his hardness grow harder. I want him inside me.

He slides a finger into me, an unexpected but gentle touch, exploring my wet warmth. He strokes inside me, adds a second finger. Thrusts gently. Adds a third, the three fingers bunched together to fill me. His fingers slide in and out of me, and I have to close my eyes, because I'm focused on the feeling, utterly swept away by the feel of his touch within me. He drags my wetness over my clitoris and smears it in circles, and I moan, and he delves his fingers back into me.

I lose track of what I'm doing, and he rolls me to my back. I let him, and my thighs splay apart. He pushes my legs wider open, cups both hands under my bottom and lifts my entire lower half off the bed, bringing my slit to his mouth, and now he devours me as if he's starving; he feasts on me, licks, slurps, sucks my throbbing clit between his teeth and I come within seconds, but he doesn't stop. He keeps me aloft with one hand, effortlessly holding me up with one arm under my bottom, and now his other hand finds me. My heels rest on his shoulders, my knees dangle draped apart. I'm spread open for him, and he feasts.

I come, spasming, arching my spine to crush my core against his mouth.

And then he slides his essence-slick fingers out of my slit and drags them down. His eyes meet mine. "Has anyone ever touched you here?" he asks, and touches me somewhere sensitive and forbidden.

I shake my head. "No," I breathe.

He doesn't ask permission. He feathers a gentle touch over me, back there. I moan low in my throat and swallow hard. His tongue flicks my clit, and I spasm, and then he's lapping at me until I'm writhing again, and I feel his fingertip touching me, pressing in gentle circles and I feel the pressure of that touch all throughout my body, feel it tightening my muscles and gathering heat in my core, and I don't stop him. I want his touch. I want him. I want every orgasm he will give me; I'm greedy for them. Desperate. Willing.

I press my heels into the hard muscle of his shoulders and push down with my hips, opening yet farther. His touch at my backside is still so gentle, so careful. Yet insistent. Matching the pace of his tongue, the suction of his lips around my clitoris. I feel yet another orgasm welling up within me hard and fast, rising like the tide, inevitable, powerful. This one, perhaps, more potent than anything I've ever felt in my life. His fingertip touches, presses, circles, and I'm writhing. Gasping. Whimpering.

"Tell me how you feel, Isabel," Logan says.

"So good," I answer. "I like this. I'm going to come soon."

"Hard?"

"Yes, Logan."

"How hard?"

"Harder than I've ever come before in my life."

"You like how I'm touching you?"

I nod. "Yes."

He presses a little harder, and my instinct is to bear down and clench up, but I don't. I feel myself stretched, just the tiniest bit. I flex my hips and open my knees and breathe hard, and allow his touch.

"No one's ever touched you like this?" he asks.

"No. Never."

"Does it feel good?"

I whine in my throat as climax roars in my ears, my blood thundering, my core tightening. "Yes."

"Curse, Isabel. Say all the dirty words you know." He licks at my clitoris, and I shake, aching, trembling. "Scream my name when you come."

"Logan..." He wants bad words. He wants me to be dirty. "This feels so fucking good, Logan. I'm going to come so hard."

"I can taste it. I can feel it. Come on my tongue."

"Give me more," I whisper, speaking my darkest desire. "Your finger... give me more."

He wiggles his finger, and I groan loudly. "This? You like this? My dirty girl likes it when I touch her asshole."

I moan in equal parts mortification and desire. I do . Oh god, I do. I like it so much. It feels so good. "Yes, Logan. I like it. I'm your dirty girl, and I like it." Did that sound stupid? It did, to me. It sounded idiotic. Cheesy.

But Logan moans against my core and his finger throbs in and out of me in shallow pulsing thrusts and I'm whimpering and grinding against his mouth and taking more of his finger and I feel fire blossoming now. Perhaps it only sounded stupid to me, because I feel so self-conscious, despite how incredible this is.

Whatever I'd felt before, any other time in my life, any orgasm I've ever experienced, it was but a shadow of what is about to occur.

I shatter.

I scream. My scream deafens even me.

There are no words to capture the intensity of my orgasm. It is fire. Wildfire, sunfire, angelfire. All the stars in the galaxy going nova in my core all at once. Volcanoes erupting, earthquakes wracking the tectonic plates of my being.

"Logan!" I scream.

I am left breathless, shaking, trembling, shivering, and I can't help crying. I am so limp, so utterly wrecked that I can only reach for Logan and cling to him and shake, and try to breathe. After I don't even know how long, the shivers and shakes subside, and I can breathe. And Logan is still painfully erect, prodding into my belly.

I shift, and I'm on top of him. The tip of his cock presses against my opening, and his eyes are hot and wild, yet tainted by some stain of conflict.

"What, Logan?" I ask, and settle onto his stomach, rather than pushing him into me. "What's wrong? I see it in your eyes."

He shifts me off him, and we lie on our sides, facing each other. "Not yet, Isabel."

I blink. "Not yet?" My throat is tight. "Why not?"

"I want to, so bad. I know you do, too. But I don't think we should, yet."

"Why not?" I feel desperate.

And angry. Unreasonably angry, feral with unsated need. I feel rejected, denied. Spurned. Confused. My chest tightens and my eyes sting, hot.

His thumb wipes at my eyes. "Don't cry, Isabel. Please." His voice is low, quiet, careful. "It's all so hard to explain."

"You can put your mouth on me, and let me suck you, and you can put your finger in—in my..." It's hard to say out loud, but I force myself to speak my mind, bluntly and without filter. "You can put your finger in my asshole. You can come on my breasts. You can lick my pussy. But you can't have sex with me?" I feel proud of myself for saying those words, for speaking so daringly.

It's not my way. Or rather, it wasn't Madame X's way, but perhaps it is how Isabel talks.

He closes his eyes, squeezes them tight, breathes out a harsh sigh. "Isabel—"

"I don't understand, Logan. I'm trying, but I don't."

"Everything up until now, it's been amazing. You are amazing. You're a dream. You're so much—so much more , in every way, than anyone I've ever known. You overwhelm me." He touches my cheekbone with his thumb. "I feel like I'm drowning, sometimes, like you're an ocean and I'm just trying to stay afloat. And... the thing is... I want to drown in you. I like the way it feels. To lose myself in you. I feel like—god, it's hard to put in words. Like there's nothing else, no one else, like the world doesn't exist. I feel like in this moment I could just be with you and make love to you and touch you and make you feel good, and there would be nothing but us forever. I could sink into you, and we'd disappear into each other. It'd just be us."

"Me too, Logan. I am drowning. I've drowned. I can't breathe without you. I've tried. I don't know anything else. I just want this. I want you. I want us . Please, Logan." My voice shakes on the last two words.

His eyes waver, flick from my eyes to my mouth, back to my eyes. "There's more than just us, Isabel. I can't ignore that. I want to, but I can't. There's so much that's gone before this moment, and we both know it. There's just... so much." He breathes, long deep breaths, as if girding himself to speak unpleasant truth. "I want you, Isabel."

"You have me, Logan."

"Let me say this, okay? First, you have to understand that I'm not rejecting you. I want you. I want this. I want us . And this is honestly the hardest thing I've ever done. Saying no, it's harder than anything I've ever had to do, and I mean that. I see that it hurts you, and I hate it more than anything."

I draw a breath. "You told me you'd rather have an unpleasant truth than a good-sounding lie. Well, so would I, Logan." I sit up, bringing the sheet over my chest and facing him. "So give me the truth."

He sits up too. Drapes the sheet over his lap. His brows furrow. His hair is tangled, and his mouth flattens in a hard line. "If Caleb showed up right now, what would you say to him?"

I sag, my breath leaving me. I burn, and I want to weep. "I don't know. He's not here."

He lets silence hang for a moment. "You've walked away from me for him twice now, Isabel. I don't hold it against you. I understand your position as well as anyone can, I think. But... until I'm sure you won't walk away from me for him a third time, or a fourth, I just... I can't commit all the way. I want you. But I don't want to share you."

"You're not sharing me, Logan. And—" I break off, summon strength from anger. "But you can do all those other things with me, touch me in a way no one ever has, do things with me that I've never done before. But you can't have sex with me?"

He just looks at me. There is sadness in his blue eyes. "Yes, Isabel. I can make you come with my fingers and my mouth. I can touch you, and kiss you... I can do all those things. And if you walk away from me, I'll survive it. I'll have those memories, for good or ill; I'll never forget this time with you, whatever happens next." He pauses to think. "If you were just some girl I was passing time with, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But you... you mean something to me, Isabel. If it were just about sexual attraction, I'd be inside you right now. I want that so bad I can fucking taste it. I can feel us, Isabel. But I just—I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if we have sex, it won't just be having sex. When we do that, it will mean... everything . For both of us. And when we do that, I know I won't be able to quit you, and I won't be able to let you walk away, and I won't survive it if you walk away from me."

"I won't walk away."

His eyes blaze. "You can't say that. You and Caleb have unfinished business. You know it, I know it, and he knows it. And you can't promise me that if you come face to face with him again, you'll choose me instead of him."

"Logan—" I say, but I stop because I'm choking. "Damn it, Logan."

"Say I'm wrong, Isabel." He touches my chin and I have to look at him. His indigo gaze is the most tortured thing I've ever seen. I believe him when he says this is the hardest thing he's ever done. I see the pain in his eyes. "Sex means something, honey. It does. People pretend like it doesn't. People pretend like they can just fuck a thousand different people and none of it ever means anything, that it's just doing what feels good. But if you find that one person who resonates with the music of your soul, when you find that one person whose very presence takes up all the spaces in your heart and makes your soul sing, makes your body feel more alive and beautiful and loved than you've ever felt, you realize that sex does mean something. I'm guilty of cheapening it just like everybody else. But I know better. If sex were meaningless, if it were just hormones and fluids and pheromones and a few minutes of pleasure, it wouldn't hurt when we get cheated on. But it does hurt, because it does mean something. When Leanne cheated on me, it broke something inside me. I tried with Billie, but the longer things went, the more I realized that I was shut off, and that I'd never invested in her, or in any idea of an us between her and I. It was casual sex, just with one person over a long period of time. But it was still empty and meaningless and didn't fill anything inside me, didn't resonate. I thought Leanne and I resonated, and she proved me wrong."

" 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 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. "Sssssh. 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.

Some one 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.

He splashes hot seed onto my belly, groaning, and I watch it happen, watch him unleash and watch the semen leave his cock and watch it slash white across my dusky skin. I stroke him fast now and he comes and comes, and I watch him, not missing a single second. His forehead is pressing hard against my shoulder, and his arms are hard bars beside my face, and I twist to kiss one of his biceps. The other. And then I nuzzle his cheekbone with my lips, and he presses his mouth to mine,

and kisses me,

and kisses me,

and kisses me.

I am lost to this. I weep. His come is a tacky pool on my belly, and his cock is still hard in my hand. I wouldn't give up this memory for anything, even if it was a pale imitation of what I really want.

"Isabel—"

I shake my head. "Mmm-mmm. No." I kiss his lips. Taste his breath, and feel his emotions like a wave. "You're right. I hate it, but you're right. I don't know what I would say. I want to say—I want to promise that I'd choose you. I do choose you. I want you. Only you. Only always you. But he messes me up and I know there is more between Caleb and me that I can't back away from. I need answers from him. And I—I want so much more than this, but you're right."

He rolls off me, lies on his back, gasping, chest heaving, a forearm across his eyes, one knee bent, foot planted in the mattress. I stare at him, devouring his beauty. Tracing the contours of his muscles with my gaze, picking out individual designs from the jumble of his tattoos, the fall of his hair, the tension and conflict in his features.

"I wanted so much better for you than this," he says, not looking at me. "You deserve... everything. Better than... this."

"No, Logan. This was perfect."

"I shouldn't have let this get started."

"If you tell me you regret this, Logan, I shall be very angry." I don't bother covering, don't bother with the shirt, don't bother sitting up or even wiping away the sticky pool of his come on my belly. I want it there. I like the feel of it there, the evidence of his desire for me visible as it dries on my skin.

He eyes me, and even now his eyes roam my body, my breasts, the shadow between my thighs. Then his gaze goes to mine. "I don't regret it. I just wanted more for us."

"So did I," I say. "So do I."

"Then why does this feel like good-bye?" He finally sits up, forearms resting on his upright knees, fingers hooked together.

It does, doesn't it? The realization makes my chest ache. "Why do we never get more than a few hours together, Logan?"

"I don't know. I wish I did. I wish I knew how to—how to fix this. You. Me. Us. Everything. But I can't." He swivels, and his knees brush my hip and my thigh. I remain as I am, staring at him, drinking him in. Memorizing his features, this moment, this feeling. "You have come so far from the broken, mysterious woman I met at that stupid auction. But you have a long ways to go yet. I can't make the journey for you. I can't make the choices for you. I can't face Caleb for you. I can't free you from him. He let you go, Isabel. But he didn't set you free. He won't do that. He's not that type of man. He's just not. You have to free yourself, and I can't help you with that. I want you, but I also know anything that could be between us can only work if you're strong and independent and fully your own person."

"And I'm not, am I?" I rip my gaze away from his. "Not yet."

A silence hangs. It is a strange, fraught quiet, filled with a thousand unspoken things. Words, sighs. Moans. Ghosts of the love we should be making right now, but aren't. Because Caleb still has claws in my mind.

"Logan?"

He glances at me. "Hmm?"

"Tell me what you know about Caleb. Tell me what happened between you."

He looks away, out the window. Gray tinges the sky. Exhaustion creeps at the edges of my mind.

Moments pass, and I begin to wonder if he's not going to answer me. But then he speaks. "I was flipping houses, still. Making a killing on it, too. I had good taste, and an eye for the houses that would flip well and the ones that wouldn't. I was getting to the point that I'd started hiring guys to do the actual construction work, and I was just picking the houses, buying them, and selling the flipped ones. And then I took a gamble on a huge mansion that had been foreclosed. It was outside Chicago a ways, in this gated community. On like six or seven acres. It was a fucking mess. It had been bank owned for several years; no one wanted it. It was old, some pipes had burst, and it was just ugly, you know? That sort of overly gaudy decor rich people think they need to show how rich they are. Plush burgundy rugs, gold-plated door handles, thick dark walnut everywhere, too much furniture and not enough floor space. Ugly as fuck, but it had beautiful bones. It was a huge project, which was why no one wanted it, you know? It really was a complete gut job; all the grass would have to be ripped out because it was all overrun with crab grass, all the beds were overgrown. Most flippers have a sweet spot of around two or three hundred thousand as a max purchase price. Once you get higher than that, you're entering a whole new tier of things. You buy at four or five hundred, to get a good return you have to start seeing a sale price of nearing a million, and that level comes with its own complications. Well, this property was a huge risk. I got it for four hundred, because they were fucking desperate to unload it at any price. That was a huge chunk for me, and I knew I was in for at least half that much in reno costs. It was worth easily double what I paid for it, just going based on previous sale prices of that property and area comps.

"So I went for it. I gutted the place, ripped every stick of flooring out, knocked down every single non-load-bearing wall, the stairs, the ceilings. Ripped out all the landscaping. I mean I took that fucker down to bones. This was six months after I found out about Leanne cheating on me with Marcus, the man who'd been a sort of flipper-mentor for me, as well as my business partner. I walked away with nothing but what I'd saved and the return on the house I was in the middle of finishing. And this huge risk, it was the first job I was doing without Marcus. I was in a bad place. Fucked up emotionally, having flashbacks from the war, not sleeping. I got myself in over my head, really. Looking back, I should have gone smaller. Done a couple properties of the type I was familiar with. A ten-thousand-square-foot mansion on six acres, one that needed a complete gut and rebuild? It was idiotic of me."

He rubs his face, crosses his legs, and covers his lap with the sheet.

"To this day I'm still not sure how I pulled it off. I was drinking all the time, like, the whole project is kind of a haze, because I was half wasted the whole time. I was a goddamned mess. But somehow, I scraped together the money to finish it, pulled a lot of all-nighters. Point is, I finished the flip in like three months, which considering the size of the job is pretty incredible. I finished over budget, though. By a lot. Bought it for four, spent another three hundred thousand on reno costs, most of which went to rewiring and redoing the kitchen. Get the kitchen right, and you can sell just about any house. So I had an overhead of seven fifty. Highest comp in the area was a flat million, but that place was fifteen hundred square feet less than my property, and was on half the acreage, and wasn't updated." He glances at me. "Shit, I'm boring you, aren't I? You don't give a shit about the flip. Short version for real now. I sold the house for one point eight. Made a killing. But I was burned out, by then. That job just... fried me. I didn't want to touch another flip. So instead of sinking that money back into another flip, I went a different direction. One of the guys I'd hired for the flip had an uncle who was selling his computer parts manufacturing business. I bought it. Streamlined the business, fired a bunch of people and rehired better ones, put in a manager I trusted, got the place running like a top. Started churning out a profit in no time. One of the people I'd hired was the main sales account manager, and she got us six new accounts that were insanely lucrative. That process landed me a lead on a computer supply company that was going under, so I bought that and, essentially, flipped it. Made cuts, hired new people, got new accounts. Used my parts supply facility to get the computers built more cheaply, so I turned a higher profit on each sale. And then a real stroke of luck for me. I met a guy who owned a whole chain of used-car lots, a couple restaurants, and a gas station. Dude had terminal cancer and was selling everything at a bargain basement price. Bought him out lock, stock, and barrel. He was a hell of a businessman, so his stuff was all in good shape. Saw a return on that investment in a matter of months."

He glances at me. "Seriously, babe, just bear with me. I'm almost to the interesting stuff. Once the companies I bought were all turning a profit, I sold them. I wasn't interested in the actual running of the business, just the buy, improve, and sell. I kept that one guy's chain of business, though. Sort of out of posterity or something. He died a few months after I bought him out, but I still own all those businesses. Well, anyway, I kept making bigger and bigger investments. Buying larger companies for larger payouts when I ended up selling them. Finally, the business took me to New York. A research and development company working on future tech for cell phones and such. Better touch screens, holograph displays, all sorts of stuff we won't actually see for years yet, even now. The owner of that company, right after we signed the deal, pulled me aside. Said he had a good lead for me. Couldn't tell me much, but it was a chance to buy into a company with real earnout potential. Millions, he said. Hundreds of millions.

"Well, of course I was skeptical. Someone says shit like that, you gotta throw some side-eye, you know? Like, what's your angle? He put me in touch with Caleb. The investment opportunity was a partner stake in a futures trading company. Stocks. Hard to explain if you're not into business. Point is, there is a fuckload of money in futures, if you do it right. Caleb, it seems, does it right. This was new, for me. I was still a builder, essentially. I just built businesses instead of buildings. Stocks, futures, market indexes? It was all new."

A long pause now. A sigh. "I was in it deep with Caleb before I figured out that he was rigging things, insider trading, corporate espionage. All sorts of dirty shit. Pissed me off. I confronted him."

He is quiet for a long couple of minutes, staring into space.

"He's a sly, manipulative bastard. Talked me around. Wasn't hard, I guess. I mean, I was making serious bank. More than I'd ever made in my life by a factor of at least ten. I wasn't stupid, I was scattering the accounts all over the place. Hiding some in tax shelters, offshore accounts, all that jazz. Nothing illegal, just spreading the money around so it wasn't all in one account. But he had me by the balls, you know? Had me dead to rights. I was in it, I was on the hook as much as him if anything happened. Just go with it, he said. It's only temporary. He was building up capital for a big buyout, a merger that would make both of us billions, billions with a big fat B . So I went with it. Obviously, hindsight is twenty-twenty. A basic life principle for you, Isabel: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. In this case, the big buyout was all a setup. He was working twice as hard as me behind the scenes, doing an end run on me. This is a complex world we live in, and the high-dollar, big-business scene here in Manhattan? It's a small world. You don't run the kind of game Caleb was running without attracting attention. He was getting too big too fast, making too much money too easily. People were suspicious. But it was his world, his game, and I was new to it all. What you have to understand here is that I'm glossing over the details because the real nitty-gritty of how Caleb set me up is boring business bullshit. It's not an exciting narrative. He was running a scheme that ran the entire gamut of white-collar crime: embezzlement, money laundering, insider trading, corporate espionage. He's smart, and he's careful. Very little, if anything at all, can be directly traced back to him. I wasn't innocent, mind you. I knew I was part of something dirty. I won't bullshit you about that. But I wasn't part of the grand scope of things either; I was just a piece, a minor player. I was good at the organizational stuff, getting the right people hired for the right job, keeping track of what went where and who did what. Caleb was the one running the big numbers, you know? But he had it all set up so that there were layers and layers between the actual dirty work and him. The SEC got a tip-off, probably. I don't know. They came sniffing, and it all went to shit. Lots of people went down. His setup was elaborate, lots of people involved, and all of them knew to one degree or another what was going on, that it was a dirty operation. I think there were something like a dozen people who were arrested for a wide variety of white-collar crimes, including yours truly."

A silence, and then a wave of his hand. "I was an idiot, and paid the price. No one to blame but myself. So I sang like a canary about everything I knew, except Caleb. I wasn't protecting him, mind you. But telling stories about a ghost is how you get turned into one yourself. I told them everything I knew in exchange for a reduced sentence and a transfer to a more white-collar prison. Got ten years, did five."

"And the only reason you did any prison time is that Caleb didn't warn you?"

"It wasn't that he didn't warn me so much as that he made sure I was left out in the open for them to find. That was always the plan. There's always someone as bait. He set me up, and I spent five years in a federal pen for it."

"What I don't understand is why you got involved with it in the first place. I mean, if you knew it was illegal, why do it?"

Logan doesn't answer for a few moments. "You didn't grow up the way I did."

I quirk an eyebrow at him. "I don't know how I grew up."

A sharp exhale. "Shit, I'm sorry. You're right. But my point is, I grew up poor as dirt. Skipping school, smoking pot, running in a gang. I watched guys OD, watched my best friend die in front of me because of drugs. So, those kinds of crime, they have victims, to me. I see the effects. They're immediate. You sell coke, that means someone is hooked on coke. And if you've ever seen a real-deal cokehead, it's not pretty. So I'd never do that shit. I'd never sell drugs. But flipping houses, that was good hard honest work. I was making decent money, and no one was shooting at me, I wasn't gonna step on or drive over an IED, or have a rocket shot at my helo. But it wasn't, like, lucrative. I was making good money, but it all went back into the next flip. So when I made that big sale and was actually flush with real cash, I wanted out. I had that tip on a parts facility, and I smelled money, you know? There's always money in technology. Always. You just have to suss it out and figure out how to sell it. Well, I went into the deal with Caleb skeptical, but at first it seemed legit. And it was big money. The idea of a big payout, like two or three commas and a lot of zeroes in your account? For a hood rat and ex-grunt like me, that was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. And he worked me into things gradually, kind of like how you cook frogs, you know? Start 'em out in the water, keep it warm, and gradually turn up the heat until they're cooked, and they never even realize it. Caleb did that with me. Hooked me in, bit by bit."

"How well did you actually know him?" I ask.

A shrug. "Not well. He was always a mysterious sort of cat. You rarely saw him in person, usually just talked to him on the phone, or got an e-mail from him. So did I know him, personally? No. I met him maybe three times, and each of those times was for maybe twenty minutes, max. He was just... cool and aloof." He pauses, takes a breath, and continues. "So that's how I got involved in a crooked business, and went to jail for it."

"And you blame Caleb for that."

He bobbles his head. "Yes and no. I knew what I was doing was wrong after a certain point, but by then I was making so much money that I couldn't make myself back out. Once you're clearing a million here, a million there, it's hard to stop. So in that sense, no, I don't blame Caleb. I can't. It was all me. But I do blame him for setting me up, letting me and the other twelve people who went to jail take the fall for him. But then again, we were the dumbasses who let ourselves be taken, so can we blame anyone but ourselves for that, in the end?"

"I see your point. It's a very mature way to look at it, I would say."

A snort of laughter. "I had five years to think about it. At first, yeah, obviously I placed all the blame squarely on Caleb's shoulders. I spent hours just dreaming up ways I'd get even with him when I got out. But as time went on and I started to really think about it, I came the conclusions I just shared with you. Yeah, he's culpable, and I do hold him accountable for me doing jail time. But the real blame falls on my shoulders. Both for doing dirty business and for being an idiot about it. Don't get me wrong, I'm still pissed off at him, and I was even more so when I first got out. I went looking for him, planning on exacting some kind of revenge, I guess."

"How did you find him?"

"It wasn't easy. He's not exactly listed in the phone book. Nor are any of the companies he's legally associated with in his name. Also, I couldn't just sit around and hunt for him. I had to start over. See, when I started working for him, I made sure I had money stashed all over the place that couldn't be easily tracked back to me. So when I got out, I had seed money. Started over. Started small. Made sure my record was buried as deep as it could go, made sure I kept myself out of the light, bought up companies via dummy corporations and turned them over, one by one, small ones, building up capital. And the whole time I was looking for Caleb, on the side, sort of. Eventually I started hearing little rumors. Mostly about a kind of escort service for the super rich. Not really an escort service though, I discovered, as much as a kind of matchmaking program. Nothing illegal about it, on the surface. You weren't buying a match, you were paying for a service. And that service could be a date for an event, a long-term companion, or if you were serious, a potential bride. It was wildly, prohibitively expensive, super secret, super exclusive. ‘The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club' sort of thing." He glances at me. "That's another movie reference that went straight over your head. Whatever. The undertone of the whole thing is that you were for all intents and purposes buying the girls. Not outright, and they weren't sex workers. You couldn't initiate sex during contracted events, that sort of thing. It was the kind of thing you didn't talk about, so it was hard to find out much because no one would talk about it." He eyes me speculatively. "And then as I got closer to the actual service, to the real Indigo Ring, I started hearing about another layer, an even more exclusive service that was even more hush-hush. You."

"Indigo Ring?"

"That's what it's called. The Indigo Ring, capital I , capital R . That's not what he calls it, I don't think, but that's the name for it among the people I could actually get to talk about it. I tracked down a guy who'd married one of Caleb's girls. He was a forty-five-year-old multimillionaire, not really sure how he made his fortune. He was awkward and lonely and difficult, one of those work-all-night-and-all-day-for-a-week-straight sorts. His wife was twenty-nine, beautiful, voluptuous, smart, a real knockout. But apparently she was also an ex–drug addict and former sex worker; this is what she told me herself. She ended up in Caleb's program somehow, got clean, worked her way through the program. I don't know how she met Caleb, and she was squirrelly about what she meant by ‘program,' wouldn't answer me directly." He shrugs. "She seemed grateful for Caleb, and also seemed to really love Brian, her husband. He helped her get a college degree of some kind. Apparently she was actually pretty intelligent, but the way she'd grown up had precluded her from really pursuing any academic interests. Once she went through Caleb's mysterious program and got off the drugs, she was able to get a GED and explore what interested her. And Brian is a computer geek, developed a software program or something, I really don't remember. But he sent her to school, and she got a degree. I don't remember what, economics or politics, or social work, maybe? Something along those lines. It was kind of cool, to be honest. I mean, they were two totally different people from wildly different backgrounds. He was white-bread, from a well-to-do upper-middle-class suburban family, grew up in Connecticut, and she was a Latino girl from Queens who'd spent most of her youth hooked on drugs and turning tricks. But they met through Caleb and for all that I could see legitimately fell in love. It was weird."

I think back to Rachel. "I know one of the girls in the program right now. When I ran away from Caleb the first time, I hid in her apartment. The girls in the program live in the tower, sequestered in these apartments. They're all like that girl, the Latina who married the rich computer guy. Drug addicts and prostitutes living dead-end lives, and Caleb finds them and puts them through his program. It's basically just getting off drugs, getting educated, learning how to function in normal society, how to be a good escort, basically. A companion, a Bride."

"So they're really not prostitutes?"

I shake my head. "According to Rachel, no. If there is sex, it's always their choice. Of course that's expected if they become a Bride, or a long-term companion, but it's not part of the contract, explicitly. The client is not allowed to proposition the girls, and no money directly exchanges hands between the client and the girls. The client pays Indigo Services, who takes their cut, and then pays the girls."

"So they're basically contractors."

"I suppose so." There's so much more to this, so many layers, and I don't know how to put it all into words.

"What aren't you saying?" he asks.

I shrug. Try to breathe. "The girls. The sex thing. There's more to it. Caleb... trains them. Sexually. So when they become long-term companions and Brides, they know how to please. How to be good at the kind of sex men like."

Logan blinks at me. "Jesus. By ‘train,' I assume you mean he fucks them all and calls it training?"

"There are actual lessons. Weekly reports and assessments. Techniques."

"So the clients aren't allowed to fuck the girls, because they belong to Caleb." This is phrased as a question, but spoken as the bitterest of statements.

"I hid under Rachel's bed during an assessment," I whisper.

"Meaning... you discovered all this by accident? Overheard Caleb having sex with some other girl?" He asks.

I nod. "Right." I swallow hard. "Then one time I was visiting Rachel, because we were kind of friends, and I needed someone who wasn't Caleb to talk to. He showed up, and caught me watching. Listening. So he... he forced me to watch while he—finished. With Rachel."

"Isabel. God." Logan wipes his face with both hands. "This is fucked up on so many levels."

"I admitted to him later that I was confused by the difference in the way he treated Rachel versus the way he treated me. He did things both to and with Rachel that he never did with me. And I wasn't—I wasn't saying I wanted those things, just that I was confused. He'd say things to her, do things with her sexually that—" I cut myself off, start over. "So then the next time I saw him, he did... what I told you. Which was the kind of thing I heard and saw him do with Rachel."

I cannot put into words the confusion. The anger. The fact that part of me liked what was done to me. That part of me craves those moments of helpless weakness, those moments of belonging , of being owned, dominated, subjugated. I hate that part of me, and cannot speak it into truth.

But Logan, oh... he sees. His eyes, crystalline and indigo and piercing me like scalpels slicing through tissue. Cutting me open and baring my secrets for his perusal.

"Isabel." His voice has that note of warmth. That layer of understanding. "There is nothing you could say, nothing you could do, no truth that could change my feelings for you. Do you know that?"

I cannot move, breathe, or feel, much less speak. I try to nod, try to seem like I am giving him an affirmation. But it ends up a sniffle and a wobble of my head. My eyes are squeezed shut and my head is ducked, and I am clutching myself, arms wrapped around my middle.

"You watched, and you were curious." His voice is a murmur in my ear. "You saw him do things to that other girl that he didn't do with you, and you were curious."

I nod. I owe him truth, even embarrassing, disgusting, mortifying truth.

Logan continues baring the secrets I cannot say. "You didn't... want those things. But you were curious. And Caleb is a perceptive motherfucker. He can read people as easily as you read books. So he saw that. Saw your curiosity. And he's a manipulative bastard, so he used it against you. Used your curiosity as an excuse to force those things on you and make you feel like maybe you asked for it. That maybe you did want it, and just didn't know how to say it. Like maybe it was you all along, and not him."

I am choking. Oxygen is not reaching my brain. Thoughts are like moths fluttering in kamikaze circles around a burning-hot lightbulb. How does he know? How do these men see so clearly into me? Do my thoughts and desires and emotions appear on my forehead in visible form?

I roll away. Logan is at my back, hand on my shoulder, mouth at my ear. "Hey. Talk to me, Is."

"And say what?" I speak to empty air in front of me rather than facing Logan. "That you're right? Fine. You're right. And so was he. I... was curious. And part of me did want it. Just... not the way he did it. I didn't want the humiliation. With her, it seemed like it was mutual. Maybe he was teaching her, but there was a two-directionality to the way they interacted, sexually. And... god, this is so hard to say out loud, especially to you. But with Caleb and me, it has always seemed... one way. Him doing what he wanted to me, and me allowing it. I wanted that—I don't know how to put it. I wanted that feeling of being an active participant and not just a... a receptacle for his needs. And all I got for my curiosity was to be used yet another way."

"What did you feel with us? You and me, just now?"

"There is an us . There always has been. I've always felt like with you, that you see me. You... you both see me, and see me . The emphasis on both words is important. You care about what I want. You care about who I am."

"Caleb doesn't."

I have to let a silence hang until I can force the words out. "I don't know if that's true. I think he just cares about me being the version of me he wants me to be. The version he created, rather than the version I am becoming."

Lips touch my spine between my shoulder blades. "And I care about you, who you were and who you are and who you're becoming. All of you."

"I know."

His hand tugs at my arm, and I roll to my back. He's levered over me, staring down at me with too-bright eyes. Knowing eyes. A gaze full of understanding and compassion and hurt and love. Yes, love. I see it there, though neither of us will speak of it outright. "But for all that, there's still something there between you and Caleb, something you can't deny and can't ignore. And I can't have you until you've seen that through."

"I hate how right you are, so much of the time," I say.

"Me too," he says.

"I don't know what it is, between Caleb and me. I wish I did, so I could be done with it."

"Me too," he says again. "But until there's an end between you and Caleb, there can't be a beginning between you and me."

The silence quavering between us then is rife with pain. This hurts. Worse than anything I've ever felt, this hurts. My throat closes, and my eyes sting. It's hard to breathe for the weight of pain in my chest. For the weight of the good-bye swinging like a thousand-pound pendulum between us.

I have nothing else to say. No more words. I leave Logan's bed and his room, and I take a shower. I take my time, scrubbing every inch of my body carefully. I don't want to. Even now, I want his scent on me. I want to be marked by him on the outside the way he's marked me on the inside.

My dress has been laid neatly on the bed, along with my undergarments, and my shoes are on the floor near them. Logan is nowhere to be seen. I dress carefully, smoothing the worst of the wrinkles out of the dress as best I can. My hair is still wet, because Logan doesn't own a hair dryer, and my hair is thick. I braid it and tie off the end. Slip on my shoes.

And yet, when I look in the floor-to-ceiling mirror in Logan's closet, I see only Isabel. Despite the familiar clothes, I do not see Madame X. I see me. I see a person. A woman becoming her own individual. I inhale deeply, run my hands over the bell curve of my hips, exhale, and then go in search of Logan.

I find him in his backyard, pacing in troubled circles, smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer. Cocoa lies on the ground near the door, chin on her paws, watching him, thick brown tail thumping the flagstones.

He halts, and his eyes rake over me. "You are so beautiful, Isabel."

"You've already seen me in this dress, Logan," I point out.

He shrugs. "Doesn't make you any less gorgeous than the first time I saw you in it."

I try another breath, but my lungs don't seem to want to inflate all the way. "I should go."

A long inhalation of the cigarette, causing the orange tip to flare bright. "I know." Smoke trickles out of his nostrils. "I'll take you."

The drive back through the pink-to-gold light of dawn is silent. The radio is off. Logan does not speak and neither do I.

He pulls up directly in front of Caleb's tower. Finally, he looks at me. "You know how to find me. I will wait, Isabel."

"For how long?" I ask, wanting to look away from his indigo gaze and finding myself unable to do so.

"Until you tell me to stop waiting."