"Okay." I take a breath. "I can do this."
"You can do this." I hear a voice in the background call Logan's name urgently. "I have to go. Call me if you need me. I swear I'll answer, no matter what."
"Okay. Now go do your acquisitioning."
He laughs. "See? You do have a sense of humor. I'll see you soon, okay?"
I end the call, to save him having to. I look up at the nearest intersection, at the signs. Seventh and Forty-fourth. Two blocks up, one block over. I can do it.
I push away from the wall. Straighten my spine. Lift my chin. Breathe deeply. One foot in front of the other. Ahead, a siren blares, and I flinch, and my breath lodges in my throat, but I force my feet to move. One foot forward. Follow it with the other. One step after another. Keep breathing. Ignore the people. Wait at the intersection for the light to change, a crowd around me. No one is looking at me. I am just another face in the crowd. Anonymous. It feels good.
I make it to Forty-fifth, but then I can't figure out whether to turn right or left. I choose left, and discover that I've chosen incorrectly when I reach Sixth Avenue. I turn around and retrace my steps, wading through the ever-present crowds, wincing and flinching as my shoulder is jostled, ignoring the hammer of my heart in my chest, trying desperately to pretend I'm okay. Fake it till you make it, Logan told me. I'm trying to fake it, but it's hard. The city is loud, horns always blaring, lights blinding. The people are myriad.
I'm crossing Eighth when a young man runs across the street, arms flailing, glancing behind, running frantically. He slams into me, sends me flying, twisting. I hear a shout, and a mammoth horse gallops across the intersection, a policeman on its back. I am in its path. I am still off balance, arms windmilling, stumbling. My shoe has come loose on my foot, and my ankle twists.
A hand grabs me, jerks me out of the way at the last second.
I am pulled against a hard chest smelling sharply of cologne. I look up into the cold gray eyes of Len. Big, broad, craggy features, a man like a stone golem made flesh, but barely.
"You're here?" I ask.
"He had me follow you. Make sure nothing happened to you." Len gestures at the horse and rider in pursuit of the criminal. "Like that."
"I don't need your help," I say.
"You were almost trampled."
I will not resort to petulance. "Thank you for your assistance, Len."
"No problem. Those fuckers will run you down and not even blink twice."
"I suppose you're reporting my whereabouts?" I say, noticing the wire looped around an ear, the cord vanishing under the suit.
"Don't need to. He knows where you are."
"Of course he does. He always does."
Len just shrugs. "How he is, I guess." A gesture in the direction I was going. "Might as well walk with you now."
There isn't much to say. Len is a man of few words, and I am lost in my own mind, focusing on keeping down the panic.
When I reach Ninth and Forty-fifth, I stop. Dial Logan. "I'm here," I say, when he answers.
"Be right down."
He emerges from a doorway between shops, across the street from me, on Forty-fifth. His eyes narrow when he sees who's with me. He glances both ways, then jogs across to me, eyeing Len warily.
"You didn't say anything about Len being with you," he points out.
"I didn't know he was. I was almost run over by a police horse, and Len saved me."
"Orders from the boss," Len says.
"Well, she's safe now." Logan reaches for me, and I take his hand.
Len just nods. "I'll be seeing you." Turns, walks away.
Logan watches as Len vanishes into the crowds. "'I'll be seeing you?'" he repeats. "That's not ominous or anything."
"Len is an ominous sort of man," I say.
"No kidding." Logan's eyes find me, compassion fills his gaze. "You're about done in, aren't you?"
I can only nod. I am holding it together by a string.
Logan leads me across the street, his arm around my waist. I lean into him, inhale his scent. He is chewing cinnamon gum, but I notice the outline of a pack of cigarettes in the right hip pocket of his tight blue jeans. I notice odd details, as he leads me to his office. His shoes, old, worn Adidas sneakers, faded, scuffed, the fabric worn nearly through near the toe of one shoe. Why would a wealthy man like Logan wear such old shoes? I notice a watch on his wrist, a huge black rubber thing that looks like it could take a bullet and not suffer any harm--the only watch I've ever seen him wear. His hair, pulled back in a ponytail, low on his nape. With his hair pulled back, his looks change. Sleeker, a little older. I notice wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, from smiling, and from squinting in the sun.
I remember that he spent time fighting in the desert overseas.
I notice graffiti on the wall, on a mailbox. A homeless man huddled in a doorway, watching everything but somehow seeing nothing.
I notice Logan's T-shirt, black and tight-fitting, with a white skull painted on the front, the jaw depicted as four vertical lines extending down to the hem, the eye holes made into angry slits.
Looking at him, it isn't readily obvious that Logan is a multimillionaire. Which, I suppose, is the point. He keeps things simple.
He leads me up three flights of narrow stairs and through a door. On the other side is mayhem. It was once a large apartment, but the interior walls have all been removed, leaving the room open. The desks are tall, and none of the employees are sitting, because there are no chairs at any of the desks, so everyone at a desk is doing his or her work standing up. Instead, there are beanbags scattered here and there, thickly padded leather couches filling spaces between desks along the walls. The apartment is a large rectangle with desks lining the walls on the two longest sides. One of the short sides is composed of bathrooms, a break room, a printer/copier/office supplies room, and a conference room, and the opposite end is a giant bank of televisions, each playing something different. One TV shows music videos, with the sound on low, something driving and heavy, the band members flailing long hair and hunched over guitars. Others show sports highlights, news clips, and stock tickers, an old sitcom on mute. There is a white game console on the floor, wires trailing up to one of the TVs, with handheld controllers in the hands of two young men intently focused on their game, which involves shooting some kind of dead creatures.
This is not what I imagined when I thought of Logan's office.
The office is in chaos. Four people speak loudly into phones, six more are sitting in a circle on some beanbags and a couch, passing documents back and forth and conducting at least three different conversations at once. The young men playing the video game are shouting at each other, cursing and laughing.
A young woman approaches Logan. Short, curvy, wearing a sleeveless V-neck dress, baring skin completely covered in tattoos, so there is virtually no blank space visible anywhere, not even on generously visible cleavage. "Logan, Ahmed is on the phone. He's got an addition to paragraph two of clause four-A."
A young man shouts from across the room: "Logan! The intellectual property rider is totally fucked, man. We'd be allowing them almost total control over future projects if we leave it as is."
Logan addresses the young woman. "Tell Ahmed I'll take a look and call him back. Get me a printout, and your thoughts on his additions." He points at the man across the room. "So fucking fix it, Chris! What the fuck am I paying you for?" He then glances at me, and for the first time I see a hint of stress in his eyes. "Sorry, X--I mean Isabel. Things are whacked out right now. This acquisition landed in our laps on Monday morning, and I'm trying to get it ironed out before the weekend."
"It is the weekend, Logan," I point out. "It's after nine on a Friday night."
"Exactly. But the company we're acquiring is in California, so it's only six there."
"Don't acquisitions usually take months?"
"Usually. But they're desperate, and these kids kick ass." He points at the conference room. "Let's go in there. It's qu
ieter. They can handle shit on their own for a few minutes."
I am numb.
I feel nothing; I am not panicked. I am not scared. I am not tired. I do not know what I am. I should be upset, I should be . . . I don't even know what I should be.
I don't know what's happening.
Logan leads me into the conference room, shuts the door, and twists a rod to close blinds. It is dark, suddenly, and quiet. There are no lights on in the conference room, so the only light is the ambient glow streaming in from the windows. The room is cool, air blowing on my skin from overhead. Most of the room is dominated by a long rectangular table and chairs, but there is a sectional couch in one corner. He takes a seat on the couch, and I sit beside him. I want to curl into him, nuzzle against him and forget everything.
He really must be telepathic, because he wraps a long arm around my shoulders and pulls me against him. At first, I only allow myself to lean against him. But I cannot sustain the facade for long, and I slump. Slide lower and lower, until I'm lying on his lap. There is nothing sexual about this. His hands sweep my hair aside, and then his fingers dig into my shoulder muscles and knead them with a firm but gentle touch. I moan involuntarily, melting under the massage.
"Just let go, Isabel. Relax. Let it all go."
"Caleb, he--"
"Hush, babe. Not now. There's plenty of time to tell me everything. For right now, you just need to relax."
"I don't know how," I admit.
"Don't think. Don't feel. Just focus on the feel of my hands."
I try it. I push aside the whirlwind of thoughts and shove down the maelstrom of emotions, and focus on Logan's hands on my shoulders, between my shoulder blades, down my spine, thumbs pressing into my lower lumbar, working back up. It isn't until he begins massaging me that I am even aware how tensed I am, that my muscles are all knotted up into painful boulders of stress. Moment by moment, however, I feel myself relaxing.
I smell him, faint cologne, deodorant, cinnamon and cigarettes. I feel his breathing, his chest expanding and retracting.
My breathing matches his.
I fade.
I feel a sense of spatial distortion as my eyes close, as if I'm tipping forward, as if my consciousness is leaving my body. I am heavy, limp. I spin, twist, tilt.
Logan's fingertip trails over my cheekbone, slides around my ear. I feel it distantly.
I am moments from succumbing to sleep when I hear him speak.
"You're safe now, Isabel," he murmurs. "I won't let you go. Not again."
I believe him.
He shifts, and my cheek touches leather warm from his body. Moments later, something warm and weighty is draped over me.
I have never been more comfortable in my life.
I let go.
*
I wake sobbing.
Nightmares of sirens and flashing lights and a pair of cold cruel dark eyes staring haughty and inscrutable down at me as I am used like a receptacle. Nightmares of a perfect body pinning me to an elevator door. Sorcery, stealing my will, manipulating my desires, cool silk of a tie wiping my face. Rain cold and wet and windblown, shifting shadows and blood and pain.
My dream is pervaded by a voice: "Isabel, you're okay. It was just a dream."
Who is Isabel?
The voice is in my ear, soft and tender and warm. "I'm here, Isabel."
Oh, it's me. I'm Isabel.
I am Isabel; I have to remind myself that it is true.
I am lifted, cradled. I hear a heartbeat under my ear, feel soft cotton under my cheek. I am lying on top of him, as if he is my bed. His hands smooth in caressing circles on my back.
I cannot stop sobbing.
My eyes burn with hot tears, and I try to stop them, but I can't. "L-Logan--"
"Ssshhh. It's okay. I'm here."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry--I can't--can't stop--"
"Don't apologize, sweetheart. Cry if you need to. I've got you. I won't let go."
I can only cling to him and cry. My whole body shakes with shuddering, wracking sobs, as if a lifetime of pent-up tears are being ripped out of me wholesale.
I don't know how long it lasts. Minutes? Hours? A measureless time of weeping. I think I have cried more in the last twelve hours than in all my life.
Eventually, I am able to breathe normally and the sobs and shudders fade.
I remain still, barely breathing now.
On top of Logan.
Aware of him, suddenly.
Completely attuned to every inch of him, stretched out beneath me. His arms around me, his chin tucked against the top of my head. His denim-sheathed thighs beneath mine, thick and hard. His breath on my hair. His hips nudging mine. My hands on his pectoral muscles, my breasts crushed against his sternum.
There is a shift then. A charge to the air. Electricity crackling.
And now, between one breath and the next, it is sexual, the way I'm lying on him.
I can't breathe again, but for a different reason.
I can't breathe for wanting him.
Needing him.
"Isabel . . ." he breathes.
"Logan--"
"I need you to get up," he says, and it isn't what I expected. "There are still some people working out there, and in a few more seconds I'm going to forget that."
"What would happen if you did, Logan?" I ask. I don't recognize the daring, the boldness, the raw hunger in my voice.
His fingers twine gently into my hair and pull, tipping my face up to his.
It's me, this time,
kissing him,
and kissing him,
and kissing him.
My fingers wrap around the back of his head, clinging to the nape of his neck, pulling him closer, pulling myself higher on his body, needing needing needing to be closer to him, to press my lips more completely against his, to taste him, to feel him. I breathe him. His hand, resting on my back, slides lower. I arch against him, press my body against his. There is no part of me that isn't touching him. I pause to breathe, gasping against his lips. I want more of me to touch more of him. I want all of him, all of me, all of us.
I crave completion, of a kind only Logan can provide.
He feathers his mouth against mine, a teasing brush of lips against lips, heat of breath on tasting tongue.
"That will happen," he whispers.
"Oh," I murmur.
"Yeah, oh." His fingers are tangled in my hair, applying gentle delicious pressure to my scalp, keeping my face tilted to his. "And now I can't stop."
"I don't want you to."
"I have to," he says. "Or there won't be any stopping at all."
"Logan . . ."
"I want you. I need you. But Isabel, you deserve better--we deserve better--than on a couch in my conference room, with a dozen people on the other side of the wall."
I ache. "You're right."
His erection is a thick presence between us, pressing into my belly.
I can't help but to writhe against him, to clutch his strong neck and seek more of him, to touch my lips to the edge of his jaw, inhale his scent and revel in the rough sandpaper of his stubble against my lips and sensitive skin.
He groans, a low rumble in his chest. I feel his palm cup my back, fingers dimpling across my spine, and now his touch slides lower. Lower. I don't dare breathe for the anticipation, waiting with aching lungs and thighs pressed tight together in a vain attempt to curb the pressure in my core. I wait, and exhale in delight as his palm ascends to follow the curve of my bottom. He murmurs wordlessly as his palm moves over the mounded taut muscle and squeezes.
"Jesus, Isabel." His voice sounds broken. "Your ass is amazing."
That compliment, those four words from this man, it means everything to me. I want to be the crux of his desire.
His other hand leaves my hair and steals down my spine to caress the other side of my bottom, so now both of his powerful hands are cupping my backside.
I have no coherent response to his statement, so I only wr
ithe against him, kiss his cheekbone, clutch the back of his head with both hands and seek his mouth.
We kiss, and I know the taste and texture and glory of heaven.
Somehow, in my writhing, the hem of my dress rises. Rides higher. And then Logan's fingers tug the material up and his touch is against the bare skin of my bottom where it is revealed in the cut of my underwear, which is little more than a strap of lace across the upper swell of my backside and a triangle of silk over my core.
I press my knee into the couch, lifting my leg higher. Opening for him. Encouraging his touch to explore.
"How am I supposed to resist you when you do shit like that, Isabel?" The way he says my name feels like a verbal caress, as if his saying my name, those three chosen syllables, is a validation, an act of love.
His cupping hands carve lower, so his fingers tease the edges of my thighs, drifting lower and closer to my center. I can't breathe, oh god, I can't breathe, my lungs are seized and the only breath I can find is his. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, because I am dying from the ache within, the need burning like the seed of a star, the desire igniting like a nascent supernova.
"Don't resist, Logan," I whisper, belatedly.
He does not resist.
He exhales, the heat of his sigh bathing my lips. Fingers dare, traipse, delve. I bury my face into his throat and cling madly tightly fiercely to the column of his neck and the hard curve of his head, and push my knee higher. Fingertips, three of them I feel, dancing over the thin strip of silk, tugging it aside.
One finger, sliding into my cleft. I whimper against his skin. Quietly, desperately. That finger, thick and wonderfully rough, glides deep through wetness and through heat. Draws my essence across tender pink flesh and smears it over the throbbing bud of my clitoris. Pleasure jolts through me with such sudden ferocity that I involuntarily bite him, and he grunts.
"Sorry," I whisper, kiss the flesh where my teeth left indents. "I didn't mean to."
"Kitten's got teeth," Logan murmurs.
"I'm a lioness, Logan, isn't that what you told me?"
He rumbles a laugh. "I did say that, didn't I?" His finger delves into me once more, and I gasp. "Can you keep quiet?"
"I can try," I whisper. "But I might bite you again."
"Fine with me. I'll just bite you back." He places his teeth on the delicate skin on the side of my neck and bites down with exquisite gentility.
"That wasn't even a bite," I say.
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