Chapter 15

O n the elevator, Logan tugs his cap off his head and fits it onto mine, taps the brim lower over my face. He scrubs a hand through his hair, making a mess of it, the blond locks tangled. But even thus, with his hair in a snarl, he's so sexy my breath comes short at the sight of him.

"We're just gonna walk right out of here, okay? Right out the front door." He slips an arm around my waist, digs his other hand into his pocket, produces his cell phone and hands it to me. "Keep your head down. Pretend like you're engrossed in Facebook or something, yeah? Just act like you can't be bothered to look up."

I take the device in my hands. It's a big glossy black rectangle in a rubber case, with a single round button at the bottom. Logan presses the button with his thumb and the screen turns on, showing Logan with a large chocolate-brown dog, its tongue lolling out. He leaves his thumb on the button for another second, and the screen changes, showing rows of little icons in different colors with various logos. Behind the rows of icons is a stunning photograph of a spiral galaxy.

I have no clue what to do. I don't own a cell phone and have no knowledge of how to use one, so it's likely I've never owned one, either.

I just stare at the screen for a moment, and then glance up at Logan. "I don't know what to do."

He frowns down at me. "What do you mean?"

I lift the phone in gesture. "With this. I've never owned a cell phone."

His eyebrows rise. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you?" He touches the screen with his index finger and swipes left, pulling the screen full of little icons to the right. He finds one icon, taps it, and it expands to reveal a hidden set of icons; he taps one. "Tetris. It's easy. Just fit the little pieces so they make a straight line across. Tap them, and they'll rotate. It's like a moving puzzle."

A couple more taps, and the screen resolves into something like graph paper, lines marking off the screen into tiny squares. A bright yellow square appears, dropping slowly from the top of the screen to the bottom.

By the time the elevator reaches the lobby, I understand the basic object of the game, and I'm engrossed. I intentionally allow myself to become absorbed into forcing the various shapes to fit with other so the line vanishes. Otherwise, I'd be terrified. I am terrified; I'm just pretending, even to myself, that I'm not. A video game can't erase my panic at leaving the condo, my fear of being discovered and returned, and punished.

I'm leaving.

With Logan.

I'm leaving everything I know, with a man I've met twice.

And I'm playing a video game.

I could laugh from the absurdity of it all.

Logan's arm slides more tightly around my waist, and I lean into him, let him guide me. I keep my focus on the cell phone in my hands, tapping at the squares with both thumbs as I've seen my clients and Caleb do on numerous occasions. Pretending like I'm doing something more important on the device than playing a game.

I am tensed, barely breathing, heart hammering; I expect a hue and cry at every step. I hear voices, faint music, the ding of the elevators reaching the lobby and opening. I hear the doors ahead open, letting in a brief slice of the noise from outside, and then they close, returning stifling quiet to the lobby.

I have never seen the lobby of this building before, the few times I've left having entered and exited via the garage, and then always under heavy guard, hustled from the car to the elevator and vice versa as quickly as possible. I want to look around, but I don't. I see the floor underfoot, shiny black squares of marble veined with streaks of gold.

I feel Logan's torso twist and shift as he leads me through the doors, heavy slabs of glass with silver handles. Road noise, blaring horns, engines, squealing brakes. The old panic surfaces, and now my heart rate increases to a dangerous speed, thumping so hard in my chest that it's physically painful. My breath leaves me, my lungs frozen. I can't blink, and my legs won't move.

These panic attacks are why I stayed in Caleb's tower for so long.

Logan drags me, essentially, his cell phone dangling from my fingers.

"You okay, honey?" His voice in my ear, buzzing, warm.

I try to force oxygen in, and sort of succeed, enough to rasp out an answer. "Panic... attack."

A man in a suit sweeps past me, accidentally slamming his shoulder against mine, not slowing to even glance at me. I shrink away, my shoulder slamming against the building, and I feel like I'm trying to huddle into the stone, collapsing to my knees. Someone else passes, a woman scantily clad in shorts that barely cover her buttocks and a tank top that leaves little of her cleavage to the imagination; she glares at me, disgust and contempt in her gaze, as if I've personally wronged her somehow. I watch her, stare at her, unable to look away. Has she never witnessed a panic attack before? Why would someone I've never met look at me with such hate?

"X, you gotta pull it together, sweetie. I've got you. No one's gonna hurt you. You're safe with me. You just need to walk two blocks with me, okay?" He's kneeling in front of me, hands on my face. I blink, and his deep, deep blue eyes fix on mine. "That's it. Look at me. You're fine. You're okay. Breathe for me, all right? Deep breath in, ready?"

I nod, grip his forearms with desperate fingers, focus on his blueblueblue eyes, drag in a lungful of hot Manhattan summer air.

He smiles, his face kind and patient, his eyes not wavering from mine. "Good, honey. Good. Another. With me, okay? Deep breath in through the nose, out through the mouth. Keep it going. Good. Just keep your eyes on mine."

I'm breathing, staring up at him, and my heart rate slows a little. Another moment or two of deep breathing, and then he's tugging me to my feet, hand tangling in mine. I've got his cell phone in a death grip in the other hand, squeezing so hard now my fingers hurt. I lean into him, his hard bulk at my side reassuring, his scent on his T-shirt filling my nostrils, fabric softener and the faint whiff of a cigarette. His stride is loose and easy and unhurried, although I notice him glancing in the windows as we pass them, and then when we stop at a red light, he angles to face me, adjusting his hat on my head, but his gaze is down the sidewalk behind us, watching for pursuit.

"I think we're clear," he murmurs to me, feathering fingers through my loose, damp hair, tossing it back over my shoulders. "My truck is close. Half a block, not even that. Feeling any better?"

I'm still terrified beyond all reason, but I'm not in the grip of the panic attack anymore. I jerk my chin in a brief nod. "I'm fine."

He grins at me, squeezes my waist with his arm. "That's my girl. You're doing great."

He's so calm. Doesn't he understand what Caleb is capable of?

His girl? I'm his girl? Or is that just an expression? With Logan, it's hard to tell.

He pulls me around a corner, down a narrow cross street jammed with parked delivery trucks, half the width of the street blocked off by orange and white construction barriers. There's a boxy silver SUV parked between a white produce delivery truck and a tall black van. Logan pulls me to the SUV, helps me up and into the passenger seat. I get a whiff of his scent again, and I inhale, find some strange calm in it as he reaches across me to click the seat belt into place.

We're in motion within seconds, reversing out of the parking spot, accelerating and turning back onto the main road. The car smells like leather and vanilla. He turns at random, I think, left here, right there, three lefts, straight for several blocks, and then another right, his eyes watching his mirrors as much as the traffic ahead.

"I don't see any signs we're being followed," he says to me, a triumphant grin on his face. "We did it, X! You were awesome!"

"Awesome? I had a panic attack as soon as we walked out, Logan. I'm still feeling sick. Nothing feels right. I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what's happening. Half of me feels like I just made the biggest mistake of my life, and the other half is so relieved I could cry."

"You're allowed to feel however you feel. We'll take everything slow, all right? What do you want to do first?"

I shrug. "I don't know. I don't know anything, Logan."

He nods. "That's fine too. Just let me take care of everything, then, okay? You think of anything you want, just say it."

He presses a circular knob on the console between us, and loud music fills the air, cacophonous, angry-sounding, a man's voice screaming in rage. I cringe against the door, immediately tensed and confused by the volume and the raw hatred in the singer's voice. Singer... a word I'm not sure applies to what I'm hearing, exactly. Logan twists the knob, and the volume lowers to a tolerable level, and then he taps another button, twists, presses the knob, and the music changes, now all drums and keyboard and a more palatable female voice singing.

"Sorry," Logan says. "I suppose Slipknot is probably not your thing."

"Slipknot?"

"Yeah. Heavy metal." He glances at me. "Let me take a wild guess here and say that you don't know what kind of music you like, either?"

"You would be guessing correctly," I admit.

"What do you know you like?"

I sigh. "Very little. I like books, I guess I can say that with confidence. Old books, signed first editions, rare versions. Fiction of all kinds."

Logan is quiet for a moment. The song changes, something about uptown funk, although what that is I couldn't say. It's catchy, though, and I find myself bobbing my head to the rhythm.

"If you had to say there was one thing you wanted right now more than anything, what would it be?"

"A shower. A long, hot shower. Comfortable clothes. And then something to eat." I pause for a moment, and then blurt what feels like a secret. "Unhealthy food. Something greasy and satisfying."

Logan smiles at me. "Easy enough. First stop, then, is Macy's."

I didn't realize how wide my eyes could go until Logan led me on a dizzying tour of Macy's department store. I was thoroughly lost within seconds, a few turns down one aisle and then another and I would have been hard-pressed to find my way out. Not that I would have minded, I think. I could have wandered endlessly, flipped through rack after rack of clothes, content to simply look, to simply see all the various things one could buy. Logan was ceaselessly vigilant, seemingly casual as he guided me from area to area, pretending to glance at a shirt or a dress while watching in every direction at the same time.

I choose plain, comfortable clothes: a pair of jeans, a shirt, undergarments, a pair of slip-on ballet flats. I don't try anything on, merely guessing at sizes. Logan seems relieved when we're back in his vehicle, and now he drives a less circuitous route across Manhattan to a quiet, narrow, tree-lined street with low brownstone houses connected to each other in a long row. He parks his truck beside a tree, which is ringed in brick, small lights buried in the mulch at the base of the tree. Three steps up, a key turned in a lock, and then there's a loud beeping noise coming from a white panel on the wall just inside the door. Logan presses a series of numbered buttons, and the beeping stops.

"Disarmed," a disembodied, electronic, vaguely female voice says.

There's a wild, ceaseless barking coming from behind a door somewhere. Logan closes the door behind me, twists the knob to engage the deadbolt. "Come on in," he says. "I've gotta go let Cocoa out of her room. She's friendly, I promise. Exuberant in her welcomes, but friendly."

I don't have time to even panic before Logan vanishes down the hallway, opens a door, and the barking grows louder, louder, and then there's a brown blur and the scrabble of sharp claws on hardwood.

"Cocoa, down, girl!" Logan shouts, but it's too late.

A heavy warm wiggling barking licking mass slams into me, huge bear paws on my shoulders, a tongue slapping wetly on my face, and the dog's weight plows me backward, topples me off balance, and then I'm on the ground, curled into a tight ball, fighting tears, fending off a crazy tongue, a paw on my shoulder, a cold nose shoving under my hands to get at my face.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I hear Logan laughing.

"Get her off me, Logan," I manage to say, past the canine tongue that seems to be trying to see what I ate last via my throat, and how recently I've blown my nose via tongue-examination of my nostrils.

"Cocoa, sit ." Logan's voice is hard, and sharp.

Immediately, the huge brown animal—which I recognize from Logan's cell phone screen—stops licking me and sits on her haunches, whining in her throat.

"X, say hello to Cocoa." He kneels down beside me as I lever myself to a sitting position on the floor, wiping at my face. "Tell her to shake, X."

I stare at the dog suspiciously. "Will she try to eat me again?"

Logan laughs. "Eat you? She was just saying hi, in crazy puppy language."

I give him side-eye. "Puppy? She's the size of a grizzly bear, Logan."

"She's barely a year old, and not even eighty pounds yet." He cuffs her ear affectionately, rubbing in circles with his thumb. "She's a good girl, aren't you, Cocoa?"

I give my still-damp face one last wipe with my forearm, and then twist on my backside so I'm facing the dog. "Shake, Cocoa."

The dog lifts her paw, a goofy dog grin on her face. I take her paw and shake it as I would a man's hand, and she barks.

"Tell her good girl ," Logan instructs.

"Good girl, Cocoa," I say, and the dog immediately launches herself at me, tongue first. This time, I try what Logan did, making my voice sharp and hard. "Sit, Cocoa."

"See?" Logan says, grabbing the dog around the neck and hauling her against his chest, letting her lick his chin, laughing. "She's a good girl."

Clearly, the man loves his dog. Something about this makes my heart twist, and melt. I don't know what to do with myself as I watch Logan rub, pet, and kiss his dog as if she were a beloved child. Other than try not to melt, that is.

Finally, Logan stands up, wipes his face. "Gotta go outside, Cocoa?"

Cocoa barks and, with a clicking scrabble of claws, tears across the house to a back door and plants her haunches on the gleaming hardwood, thick tail flailing wildly, her head swiveling between Logan and the door. Logan pulls the sliding glass door aside, and Cocoa lunges through the opening as soon as it's wide enough to fit her bulk. The outdoor space—which I hadn't realized existed in Manhattan—is small but elaborate and beautiful. A small terrace of cobblestone, a round wrought-iron table with four chairs, a gleaming silver grill, and plot of green grass maybe a dozen steps across, flowering bushes lining the back fence. Logan follows Cocoa out, and I follow him; we stand together, watching the dog prance around happily, circle three times, and then squat to do her business.

It's quiet here. Even in the middle of the day, there is no babel of traffic sounds, no horns or grinding engines or sirens.

"This isn't where I imagined you living," I say, apropos of nothing.

"Expected some downtown high-rise, probably? Big views and lots of black marble?" He shoves a hand in his hip pocket, scraping at the cobblestone with his boot toe.

I nod. "Pretty much."

"I had that, for a while. I hated it." He shrugs. "Found this place, kind of by accident. Bought it, reno'd it myself, and adopted Cocoa. Having somewhere quiet to go, at the end of the day? It's priceless. Having somewhere outside with some green and some privacy? Even more so. And Cocoa to keep me company... can't get any better." He glances at me. "Well, it could , but that'll happen in time. I hope."

Is he talking about me? He's looking at me as if he might be. But I don't know what to make of that, what to say to it, how to process it. This is unfathomable, to me. A dog, a yard, peace and quiet. No view of the city, no endless parade of stories to invent, crossing thirteen stories beneath me. No expectations on my time. Choosing my own clothing. Discovering what I like...

It's all too much. I'm choking on possibilities. I turn away, yank the glass door open, dart through, find the hallway and the open door showing me the bathroom. I don't even bother closing the door behind me, I just collapse onto the lid of the toilet, face in my hands. My shoulders heave, and I feel tears sliding down.

I don't know why I'm crying, but I can't stop it.

I jump a mile into the air when I feel a cold nose touch my cheek. She doesn't lick me or bark or jump on me, she just lays her chin on my knee. I laugh though my tears at her expression, wide dark eyes gazing at me, as if she could somehow commiserate, as if she's trying to communicate to me. Comforting me with her presence.

And it works.

I bury my fingers in her soft, silky, short, chocolate-brown fur, scratch her floppy ears, pet her thick neck.

"See what I mean?" Logan's voice, from the doorway. "There's a reason we call dogs ‘man's best friend.' This is why."

I sniffle and feel a fresh wave of tears flow over me, hide my face against Cocoa's shoulder and cry on her; her only reaction is to put her chin on my shoulder and very gently lick the lobe of my ear.

Eventually, it passes. I look up, and Logan is sitting on the floor beside me, legs stretched out, back against the wall.

"I'm sorry," I murmur, wiping my face. "I don't know why—"

"Stop," he interrupts. "You don't have to apologize. I know—I get the feeling you've been through a lot. You don't have to tell me anything, I just... I'm here to help, okay?"

I struggle for calm, my emotions still running on high, turbulent and mixed up. "Why, Logan? You don't know anything about me. Why do you want to help me?" I wipe at my eyes again. "You just made yourself an enemy of Caleb. And for what?"

He moves to kneel in front of me, nudges the bill of his hat up out of my face. "Don't you worry about him. Okay? Caleb is not your problem anymore. He's mine." His fingers brush over my cheekbones. "As for why I'm doing this? I wish I could say it was pure altruism, rescuing the damsel in distress because I'm just that kind of knight in shining armor. I can't say that, though."

I have to focus on blinking, on breathing, on not letting myself dive forward and inhale his scent and feel his muscles under my hands and taste his tongue and lips and neck. Instead, I just stare at him, and hold myself utterly still. "Why not?"

"Because the truth is, I have far more selfish motivation. I mean, yeah, you didn't belong there, and I just... I had to get you out. But... getting you away from Caleb's cameras and security gorillas... getting you alone..."

"You wanted me alone?" Why is that the only thing I'm seizing on?

"Yeah. I did."

"We're alone now." I've whispered it, my voice dropping to nothing at all, a tiny sound, a breath. His face seems closer, and I can smell him now, and feel his hands on my thighs.

"Yeah," Logan says, his voice not much louder than my own. "That's true."

But then Cocoa barks, a happy ruff , as if she too wants to be in on the moment.

Logan stands up. He's breathing heavily, brows lowered, eyes intent. He gestures at the glassed-in shower. "You wanted a shower. I don't have any girly shower stuff, unfortunately, but you can get clean, at least." He pats his thigh, and Cocoa leaves my side to sit at his, tongue lolling out. "I'm going to take Cocoa on a little walk, give you some privacy, okay? I'll lock up and arm the alarm when I leave. Towels and washcloths under the sink. We can go get some lunch whenever you're ready."

He slaps the post of the door, offering me a quick smile. And then he's gone. I hear something jingling, hear claws on the floor, the door open, beeping of the alarm as he enters the code. Then the door closes, and I'm alone.

For the first time that I can remember, I am truly, completely alone.

There are no cameras watching my every move, no hidden microphones recording my every sound. No security waiting somewhere, should I try to leave on my own. No Len, no Thomas...

No Caleb.

I have a flash of memory, Caleb's eyes on mine, dark and intense with the fury of orgasm. Hands on me, a moment of something like connection. Face to face, for the one and only time.

Had Caleb stayed, what could have been? There is much behind those nearly black eyes, a world of emotion, a world of thoughts indecipherable and deep. Caleb admitted things to me, truths I never thought to hear.

But Caleb walked away.

And now I'm alone.

When showering... before... I would always disrobe in the bathroom, and dress there as well. If there was any room in that condo that I might have had any privacy, it would have been the bathroom. And I didn't like the feeling of being watched as I did something so private and personal as change.

But now, I can do whatever I want.

I am alone .

It feels like the greatest freedom to walk out into the living room, to examine the huge TV and the brown microfiber couch, the stereo, the artwork on the walls ranging from band posters to classic paintings—to do so alone, unobserved. The silence is thick, blissful. The sense of isolation is lovely.

There is a staircase, a landing. On the wall facing the rising stairs is a painting.

Starry Night , by Van Gogh.

I wonder if it means something personal to him, as it does to me, or if it's just another piece of art?

The kitchen is small, clean, inviting. A small dining room, a round table with two chairs, one pulled out as if recently sat in. A pile of magazines and envelopes, a set of keys on a ring. Logan Ryder , an envelope says, with an address.

A thought seizes me as I stand in the kitchen; before I can second-guess myself, I reach up behind my back, tug down the zipper of my dress. My heart hammers in my throat. I shrug out of the garment, let it pool to the floor. Bra, and then underwear. I'm naked now, in Logan's kitchen. There's the sliding glass door, the backyard, the high wall. Trees beyond, but no buildings, no one to see unless it's a helicopter flying overhead.

Daring, a little afraid, nervous, I step outside, just for the thrill of it.

I'm outside, totally nude.

I want to dance and scream in joy at the feeling, the freedom. I dare a half dozen steps out into the yard, look around me at the fence rising a dozen feet over my head, blocking my view and that of the neighbors.

And then I hear a voice from behind the fence to my left, and I dart back inside, shaking. I waste no more time getting into the shower, the water just a little too hot. There's a bottle of two-in-one shampoo and conditioner and a bar of soap; I smile to myself as I lather my hair and scrub at my scalp, remembering Logan's claim to not have any "girly shower stuff."

I take a long, long time scrubbing my body. Scrubbing the memory of Caleb off me. Trying to scrub away a lingering thought, a faint, almost guilty wish, a wondering at what could have been, had Caleb stayed.

I scrub that wish away until my skin feels raw. Caleb didn't stay; I was taken, used to sate some kind of need, and then left alone yet again, as always.

But I cannot, no matter how I try, pretend there wasn't a moment, however fleeting, when Caleb's eyes met mine and a moment of intimacy existed. That happened. It was real. I know I didn't imagine it. As quickly as it occurred, however, Caleb squashed it like an offensive bug.

And that, more than anything else, helped prompt my desire to escape. I dared hope for intimacy, for a glimpse of who Caleb is. A glimpse of the man, rather than the figure, the master, the owner . But such a hope was—and always will be, I now believe—in vain.

I twist the hot-water knob until my skin tingles with the heat, as if I could scald the hurt away.

Even after all I've endured, my weakness for Caleb remains. I fear him, yet I need him.

And I hate myself for it.

I am here, I think, to try to scour away that need. To replace it, perhaps, with need for someone else.

I am drawn to Logan, hypnotized by him, mesmerized, entranced, enthralled.

He is so kind. So thoughtful.

So warm.

But beneath that is a core of ice and steel; behind his indigo eyes lurks the cunning of a predator, I sometimes think, the ferocity of a warrior.

And that, as much I as fear it, also makes me feel safe.

Eventually I know I can linger in the shower no longer, and I turn the water off, find a thick rust-red towel folded into neat thirds under the sink, wrap it around my tingling body. Wrap another around my head to sop up some of the water; my hair is so thick that without a blow dryer, it will be damp for hours. I peek my head out of the bathroom and sense that I'm still alone. I find the bag with my new clothes in it by the front door. I have it in my hand, and at that moment, the deadbolt knob twists, the door swings in toward me, and my heart leaps into my throat.

BEEPBEEPEBEEPBEEP

Cocoa leaps at me, barking, puts wet paws on my bare shoulders.

Utter chaos ensues for a wild moment.

Logan is shoving at Cocoa, who is blocking the doorway, which in turn has me stumbling backward. Beyond Logan, rain is sluicing down in hammering bucketfuls, so thick it obscures my view of the street beyond.

The alarm is beeping faster and faster, and Cocoa is top of me, barking, tail wagging, smearing muddy paw prints on me and on the towel, and her claws catch in the cotton of the towel and loosen it, threatening to tug it away. Logan steps over Cocoa, stabbing at the alarm panel to disarm it, then slamming the door closed.

I shove Cocoa away with one hand, trying to stand up while holding the towel in place with the other.

Logan is soaked to the bone, his gray T-shirt all but see-through now, sticking to abs so grooved and ridged and hard they could be carved from stone, sticking to his lean upper body, hard, chiseled pectorals, broad shoulders. His hair is lank and stringy and sticking to his cheeks and chin.

Rainwater puddles at his feet, and his eyes are hot blue orbs, locked on mine. Neither of us moves. I am not breathing.

The towel covering my torso is hanging loose around me, held up only by one of my hands, the other still fending off Cocoa's muddy and exuberant greetings.

"Cocoa... sit ." His voice is faint, as if he has to remember how to speak. "Stay, Cocoa."

The dog sits... on my feet. Wet fur, on my feet. She stinks of wet dog, a pungent smell.

I unwind the towel wrapped in a turban around my hair and hand it to Logan, who, without looking away from me, kneels beside his dog, unclips her leash, and wipes her down carefully and lovingly, each one of her paws, her legs, her long body, her floppy ears, over and over until she's wiggling to get free.

"Go to your room, Cocoa. Go lay down." His voice is still faint, and he's still staring at me, and I can't move, paralyzed somehow by the superheated blue of Logan's gaze.

Cocoa barks once, and then trots into her room.

My back is the wall, cold against my bare spine. I need to cover myself, but I can't.

Logan is in front of me, standing tall and broad mere inches away, and he's wet too, but now he's so warm he feels like he could be steaming. I smell him, man-scent as pungent as wet dog.

He lifts his shirt, peels it off, baring a torso that is a sculpted wonder of lean, corded muscle. He isn't a mammoth bear of a man, not like the only other male body I've seen in this state of undress. Clad in those faded blue jeans and nothing else, he is tall, over six feet, but he is a man of razor sharpness, each muscle defined as if cut into his body, each muscle lean and hard. He has no spare flesh or muscle, nothing extra, nothing unneeded. He is all hard lines and deeply etched grooves. There are scars, too. Thin white lines crisscrossing his left pectoral, his right bicep, and left forearm high up near the elbow. Two round puckered scars on his right shoulder, one in the meat of his muscle, the other higher up on the collarbone, and a third lower down, just beneath his ribs. There are tattoos coloring the skin on his shoulder, a nearly indecipherable jumble of images on his left arm from collarbone to just above the elbow, so that they'd be all but hidden if he wore a short-sleeve shirt. I see cartoon pinup girls and flames and a Jolly Roger made of a grinning skull and crossed assault rifles and initials in Old English lettering nearly hidden in a snarl of barbed wire, phrases I can't quite make out in the same lettering. The whole tangle of images begins just above his elbow, designed as if to grow out of a tree whose roots wrap around his bicep, the jumble of images and designs forming the trunk, and the branches extending in skeletal fingers across his collarbone and back toward his shoulder blades.

My fingers itch to trace the images, to sort them and name them and find out their stories.

His shirt plops to the floor, a wet sound. Water streams in rivulets down his face, over his neck and shoulders, and follows the line of his sternum, over his diaphragm, and into the deeply etched grooves of his abdomen.

"You got mud on you," he murmurs, his voice a smooth basso ribbon sliding over me. His fingers trace across the upper slope of my breast, through the muddy paw print.

"Well, I was clean," I say, for lack of anything better.

"Now we'll have to fight over the shower."

"You go. This will wipe off."

He reaches down between us, takes the end corner of the towel, lifts it, and wipes at the mud until my skin is clean again. "There. Good as new."

Of course, in lifting the towel, he bared a significant portion of my bare skin, from knee to belly. The air is cold on my skin, and I'm trembling. Or maybe it's Logan making me tremble.

One hand pressed to my chest, keeping me at least nominally covered, I mirror his action, lifting a corner of the towel and using it to wipe at the droplets of water on his chest.

How easy it would be to drop the towel. Some part of me wants to, feels daring enough to risk it. To let him see me. To let him touch me, skin to bare skin.

I wonder if he can read my mind: His hand steals around my back, tugs me to him. I stumble, and willingly fall against him, cheek to chest. Heartbeat, like a drum: Bumpbump—bumpbump—bumpbump. His flesh is warm, smooth, firm, damp. My cheek sticks to his chest, but I have no desire to pull away. My hands are on his chest, palms flat against his skin on either side of my head. My left palm is on the right side of his chest, and I can feel the puckered scars there. Bullet wounds, is my guess. My fingertips touch the scars, trace them gently.

Logan murmurs in my ear. "Those weren't as bad as they look. Hit meat and bone, mostly." He takes my hand, moves it down so my fingers touch the wound just beneath his rib cage. "This one nearly got me. Rotated home, took me damn near six months to recover. Nicked the bottom of my lung, narrowly missed a few other important bits."

Who is this crazy woman inhabiting my body? Not me, not the self I'm accustomed to being. This woman, she is wild, daring. She clutches his ribs with both hands, feeling thick slabs of muscle under sensitive, exploring fingertips. This woman, this me, this X? Her lips touch skin. Feather over tattoos, cross the centerline of his sternum, kiss, kiss, kiss, and touch those wicked scars. My lips, his skin; explosive chemistry. Delicate touch, just a breath, motion across flesh, but enough to set me ablaze. I feel him shake under my hands, under my mouth. I kiss each scar. I don't know why. Each long-healed slice on his skin—"Close encounters of the shrapnel kind," he murmurs—a kiss. A burn mark on his forearm, shiny, too smooth, rippled—"Got too close to a hot rifle barrel," he whispers in explanation—kissed.

Every time my lips touch his skin, he inhales sharply, as if my mouth is afire, as if my tongue is white-hot, scorching his flesh.

Bare skin under my hands, hard muscle... I'm addicted. Drunk with him. I pause the skein of kisses, lips on his clavicle, and just touch. Fingers on his shoulder blades, tracing the bright ink I can see with eyes closed, even, down low to explore his waist above denim, slipping palms up sides to stutter fingertips over ribs. A poem of touch, a song of kisses.

"X, you gotta stop." His voice is tense, wired, slow with precision.

"Why?" I've never felt such need, felt such pleasure in merely touching. I revel in being allowed to touch as I wish, no guidance, no commands, no instructions. Only touching as I wish, mouth moving of its own volition, my small hands exploring a work of art.

"Because now isn't the time." He grabs my left hand, gathers my right into the same gentle grip, brushes my hair out of my face with his empty hand. "And you keep this up, I'll forget that."

"What isn't it the time or place for?" I look up as I ask this, meet his eyes.

"For what I want to do with you, and how long it's going to take." Oh, the promise in those eyes, those words.

I shiver. "Oh."

"Yeah." He draws a deep breath, as if for courage.

His eyes roam my face, as if memorizing. My hands still pinioned in the gentle circle of his left hand, his right nudges my chin up, tilting my face up to his, the pad of his thumb brushing my cheek and then skating over my forehead, sliding a lock of hair away.

"Damn it," he murmurs,

and kisses me,

and kisses me,

and kisses me.

Breathless, dizzy, heart madly beating, lungs seizing, hands fluttering and clutching, I kiss him in return.

A kiss. Such a simple thing. Two mouths meeting. Lips touching, a little moist, tender yet firm, hungry yet tentative. Hands reach, dare closer to erogenous samples of skin. So simple. Yet so complex, so fraught with meaning. Pulsing with questions, throbbing with possibility.

Does he kiss me to begin something else, something more?

Do I kiss him to beg for more?

Can we kiss to merely kiss, to find each other's fathom, to plumb the depths of desire without the vulnerability of shared nakedness?

I break his hold on my wrists. Reach up, snake both arms around his strong neck, cling to him. Press up against him. We pause for breath, lips touching but not locked, gasping, eyes open and seeing one another from so close that features blur. His eyes are blue like the deepest ocean, the shade of night just past twilight when the sun has sunk and stars do not yet pierce the sky. His hands find my waist, find skin—all there is to find of me is bare flesh, for I am naked, and unashamed, and full of hunger.

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?"

"You are very adept at avoiding talking about yourself."

I shrug. "There's not much to say about myself." This, at least, is a truth.

"There's so much to who you are, it's impossible to even know where to start."

I frown. "You make it seem like I'm complicated."

"Complexity, thy name is X." He's close to me again, the damp, cool towel the only barrier between our bodies. I can't help but rest my forehead against his chest.

"That's not true," I protest.

"Then what's your favorite color?"

"I don't know."

"Favorite poet?"

"E. E. Cummings."

"Favorite food?" His voice is in my ear. Rumbling, buzzing, intimate and familiar.

"I don't know."

"Favorite band?"

"I don't know." Instinctively, I turn away from the scrutiny of his gaze, except the towel is only loosely draped against my front, so I now bare my back to him. I feel his eyes on me, on the curve of my spine and the swelling bubble of my backside. "I don't know anything about myself, Logan. I don't know. Okay? I'm not complicated, I'm... incomplete."

"Babe. You're complex." His palms skate over my back, both of them moving in soothing circles. "It's not a bad thing. It makes you mysterious. I get the feeling a man could spend a lifetime getting to know you and still not unwrap all your layers."

"You barely know me."

"Exactly." A pause. Fingers in my hair, which is still damp. The intimacy of this moment makes my heart ache. "The only name I've got for you is X. I know you're of Spanish descent. I know you work for Caleb Indigo, and you're hard as hell to find, even for one of Caleb's girls. And that is saying something."

Logan has both of his hands on my hips now, holding me pressed back against him, my spine to his chest, my buttocks curved against the rough scratch of denim. I feel the bulge of his erection behind the zipper. I move just so, and were he naked as well—I inhale sharply and push away that need, that desire, that thought.

But we are puzzle pieces, he and I. How else might we fit perfectly together?

I tremble at the possibilities roiling in the dark depths of my basest desires.

"What is your real name?"

Anger, sudden and hot. "I told you my real name, damn it!" I try to pull away, but he won't let me. For the first time since I've known him, I get a tiny taste of his real strength.

He holds me in place with his hands on my hips, his grip unbreakable but still gentle and careful.

He is implacable.

"The hell it is!" He's angry too. "You're trying to tell me your real, legal name is Madame X?"

"Yes!"

"Bullshit. I can take a lot on faith, honey, but I won't tolerate being lied to, or having the truth kept from me." His voice is a low growl, colder than I thought he could sound. Here is the man who has killed, the man who was once a criminal.

"I'm not lying." I sound small, and sad, and defeated.

His hands turn me. Tilt my face up to his. "Then what is your name?"

"My name is Madame X. I am named after the painting by John Singer Sargent." I shrug away from him, all of my fire tamped and doused now. Something stings my eyes. Something wet. Why am I crying? I don't know. Or maybe there are just too many reasons to choose one.

I inhale sharply. Square my shoulders. Firm my jaw. Shove down the welter of emotions. Blink until my vision is clear.

And then I walk away.

I make it to the entrance of the hallway, trying to wrap the towel around me, needing to be covered now, and then he's moved past me to stand in front of me, blocking my path to the bathroom and his eyes are conflicted, concerned, confused. A broad thumb sweeps over my cheekbone, smearing a tear across my skin. "I believe you."

"Fortunately for me, my name does not depend on your belief for its existence. Nor do I." There are the claws, out for defense now.

"Are you one of Caleb's girls?" The question is unexpected, throws me off balance.

"I don't know what you mean." My voice is carefully modulated into cool neutrality.

"Of course you don't." He doesn't sound surprised, and he also doesn't sound as if he believes me. He sighs, rubs his face with both hands. "You know what? Let's forget that for the moment. I need food. Will you have lunch with me, Madame X?" He glances at his wrist, at the thick black rubber timepiece there. "Or dinner, I guess it would be, at this point."

"I—" I am hungry. I'm also afraid of Logan's many sharply pointed questions. Hunger wins out over caution. "Yes. I suppose I will."

"Good. You need to get dressed, then, and I need to change." A moment, then, in which neither of us seems willing to turn away first. Finally, Logan sighs. "I'm sorry, X. I didn't mean to question you or make you mad. I just... there's a lot I don't know, and I want—I want to know you."

I could weep again at the vulnerable sincerity in his voice. "You're right, you know. I am complicated. But I'm also not. It's just... hard for me to talk about myself. I am unaccustomed to trying, so you'll have to be forgiving if I'm not always very... forthcoming."

"I'll do my best to be patient, but you should understand one thing about me: When I find something I want, I go after it, hard."

I can only swallow hard and wonder how I'm supposed to respond to that. "Okay," is all I can manage.

"Get dressed, X," he says, his voice rougher than it's ever been, "before you discover how much self-control it's taking to not... ravish you senseless."

"Ravish?" Once again, I sound faint. I am clearly not myself around this man.

"Ravish. You like old books, right? That's an old-book sort of word. It means—"

"I know what it means." A little sharper, a little more myself.

"Yet you're still standing there, basically naked." He takes a step toward me, and never has a man appeared so primal, so intimidatingly, sexually male as Logan in this moment, his hard, lean, lupine form filling the narrow hallway, naked but for jeans, hands fisted at his sides, head tipped forward so all I can see are sharp cheekbones and fiery eyes. "I had you naked in my arms, X. I could have had you up against the wall. But I didn't."

"Why not?" I breathe the question, frozen in place like a deer that's scented a predator.

"Because you're not ready. Not for what I want."

"And what do you want, Logan?"

Another step. Mere molecules separate us, yet again. A breath, and I'd be in his arms, and I know nothing would stop the inevitable, should our flesh touch again.

" Everything , Madame X. I want everything." He towers over me, my head tipped back so I can look up at him, and our lips are nearly touching, but not quite. "Everything, and then some."

He's right.

I'm not ready.

He swivels out of my way, and I let out a shallow breath, one of something very like relief, and push past him. Now I am become Lot's wife: I turn back, press my spine to the door, and my eyes lock on Logan's. I fumble for the doorknob, never taking my eyes off Logan's. Stepping through and shutting the door between us takes every ounce of will I possess, and he does not turn away, does not blink, does not so much as breathe as I put the door between us.

And even then, I sense him there, still, on the other side.