Exposed

by Jasinda Wilder

  I savor each fragment of sensation: his mouth wild on my tits, his cock sliding into me, stretching me, his hands clenching my buttocks so hard I'll have marks later--which I'll treasure, I must be sure to tell him--lifting me up and lowering me down, doing so harder and harder with each thrust, until my clit is bumping against his base just so, and I'm crying out nonstop, whimpering in his ear, sobbing my ecstasy to the ceiling.

  There is no stopping my orgasm. It is a freight train barreling through me, the earth splitting open under me. I cannot tamp the scream that erupts. I writhe on him, grip his hair so hard I know it must hurt but he only growls like the wolf he is, hard and lean and primal and fierce.

  "Logan--Logan . . . oh my fucking god, Logan . . ."

  "Touch your pussy, Isabel. Right now, while you're coming all over me." He growls this into my ear.

  I wrap one hand around his neck and lean back. He does the same, allowing some room between our joined bodies. His hands lift me, press my ass up and forward, and he continues to surge up into me, demonstrating incredible, breathtaking power and stamina. I reach between our bodies and touch my middle and ring fingers to my clit, just a touch at first. I groan and feel my still-undulating, clenching climax twist and ratchet higher, hotter, harder. God, this. I know exactly how to make myself come hard and fast. So I do. I find the perfect pressure, the perfect circling rhythm. Logan thrusts into me, and I'm whimpering now, sweat sliding down my temple and between my breasts.

  Electricity, lighting heat; there are not enough synonyms for the power that flows through me. I come immediately, and it is as if I am being turned inside out, ripped open and spread apart and tangled up. I feel Logan beneath me and in me and around me, his teeth on my nipples and his hands on my ass and his cock inside my pussy and his hard body blocking out anything but him, anything but us, anything but this climax like a galaxy of stars going nova all at once.

  I don't slow or stop, and neither does he.

  I didn't know orgasms could exist thus, one after another until each explosion is part of the last, a chain of detonations. I didn't know my mind could splinter from the magnitude of this physical and emotional experience, my soul bursting into fractal shards so the soft vulnerable essence of who I am is exposed and melted and merged with Logan's.

  Because he too is fragmenting. Coming apart. Going mad, in this moment. Letting loose all that boils within. His eyes fly open at the moment of his release, and I do not look away, I stare into his very heart as he pours himself into me. I see moisture pooling in his eyes, even as his voice is growling with predatory ferocity, even as his purely male and powerfully masculine body unleashes his orgasm. I feel him break apart.

  And I am there to catch every piece and puzzle them together with mine. I kiss him as he comes.

  I feel something break inside me, something hot and wet squirting out of me at the exact moment Logan cries out. It is almost embarrassingly involuntary, as if something literally broke open inside my core, drenching both of us where we are joined. I know Logan felt it.

  His thighs tremble, and his knees give out. I find my feet as he crumples, and I am so desperate to remain connected to him in this moment that when he lies down on the floor right there in the hallway, I lie on top of him and take his manhood in my hand and play with it as it softens, cradle his heavy balls in my palm and caress those too. Kiss his chest and his chin, his cheek and his lips, his throat and the outer shell of his ear.

  "Jesus, Isabel." He is breathless, gasping, pouring sweat. "I didn't know--I didn't know anything could feel like that."

  "Me neither."

  After a few minutes, he shifts beneath me. "As much as I love having you on top of me, babe, this floor isn't exactly the most comfortable thing to lie on."

  I slide off him, stand up, and offer him my hand. He takes it, grinning, and I put all my strength and weight into lifting him off the floor. He's shaky still, sweating, breathing hard.

  "Good thing I never skip leg day," he says.

  I am reminded, now that the adrenaline and sexual high is wearing off, that I'm sore from my own workout. "You amaze me, Logan."

  He shakes his head. "It's you, Isabel. It's all you."

  I'm not sure what that means. Only that the way he says it makes my heart melt all over again.

  "Now we're both all sweaty," I say.

  "And you just took a shower." He twists on the hot water, steps in.

  I step in after him. I wish I had something cute and quippy to say, but I don't. I can only lean under the hot spray and let my hands soar over his body, let my eyes close and let him wash me. Let him scrub me, taking far more time than is really needed to get me clean. And when he's done washing me, it's my turn to run the bar of soap over his wet, slippery skin and take all the time in the world to simply appreciate the beauty of his body with my hands.

  "We'd better get out soon," he says, "or this is going to turn into round two."

  The water still runs hot, and I am still afire with barely sated need. He's woken something in me, I realize. An insatiable voracity.

  I lean my back against the marble under the shower head, spread my stance wide, feet far apart. Urge him to his knees. Tangle my hands in his hair and pull his face against my core, writhe my slit against his mouth and keep him buried there until I come.

  Again and again and again.

  There is no end to the number and the ways that this man can make me come.

  And when I'm limp and panting, I let myself collapse to my knees. I remember what he said he wanted to do to me, when this all started. He's hard, by this time. Wonderfully, gloriously hard. Swaying in front of me, wet with shower water. Wet with need. I lick the water away, swipe after swipe of my tongue up his length. Sink my mouth onto him and suck until he's gasping, and then back away. Cup my breasts with both hands and lift them, lean against him. Fit his cock into the narrow space between them and then press them together. He thrusts, and the tip protrudes from between the taut globes, and I take it into my mouth.

  "This is what you wanted before, right?" I ask, glancing up at him. "Like this?"

  "Fucking hell, Is," he groans, tipping his head back.

  "I'll take it that's a yes?"

  He looks down at me, his eyes heavy-lidded. "Fuck yes."

  I move with him, rising as he pulls back, lowering myself around him as he thrusts up, and at the apex of each thrust I capture his glans with my lips and suckle the tip, lick him, flick my tongue over and around. He's barely even blinking, watching this.

  His fingers go to my hair. I'm glad he stopped me from shaving it all off, because I love his hands in my hair, the way he holds on. I'll have to make sure when I do cut it, I leave enough for him to hold on to.

  "Mmmm," I moan, when he pulls at my head, urging me to take more of him, "Yes, like that. Take it, Logan."

  He surges between my crushed-together tits and into my mouth, harder and faster, and his hands clutch at my hair, gripping the damp mass and holding me in place. All I have to do now is hold on to my tits and take his cock into my mouth. I do so eagerly, loving each taste of him, the slide of his hardness between my teeth and over my tongue. Not going deep, just enough that I can taste him.

  I moan now at each slide of his cock between my lips. I moan for him, because when I do his lip curls and he thrusts harder and his cock throbs thicker, and I moan for myself because giving him pleasure and seeing him lose control is bliss to me, is its own form of sexual pleasure. Not the kind of pleasure that leads to orgasm, but the kind of pleasure that can only come from giving something beautiful and incredible to one's lover.

  He is my lover.

  This revelation stuns me, sends my heart into palpitations. Little things like that have the power to shock me, for some reason.

  He takes me. Takes my mouth. Takes my tits.

  "I'm about to come, Isabel," he grunts in warning.

  I moan around him, humming. Release my tits, and take his cock in my hands. Stroke him slow, gazing
up at him. Lips around the broad springy head, tongue fluttering over the very tip.

  It's a whim, a last-minute decision to retake ownership of something done to me. To choose something for myself and in so doing erase the ignominy and violation I felt.

  I feel him tense, feel him throb between my lips. The decision hits me, and I pull my mouth off him and sink down onto my haunches on the wet marble, shower splattering warm on both of us. He comes, a thick white jet of seed shooting violently out of him and onto my upturned face. I feel it on my mouth, lips, chin. My mouth is open, so it lands on my tongue, salty and musky. On my cheek, running down to my jaw. I stare up at him, blinking through the spatters of water and strings of come, and see that I've shocked him.

  I'm up on my knees again, his cock between my tits, and I accept another splash of his come on my lips, licking it away with a glance up at him, feeling powerful and seductive. I did this for me, not for Logan. As a "fuck you" to Caleb and everything he did to me that I didn't choose. It's not something I would want on a regular basis, but I need it in this moment. I am retaking myself. Assuming ownership over my sexuality.

  I take Logan's cock into my mouth and wrap both hands around it and pump hands and mouth on him until he's groaning and grunting and his knees are dipping and he's hunched over me. Until he gently tugs me away, up to my feet. Finds the washcloth and wrings it out. Curls his arm around my waist and tucks me to his side, tips my face up, and washes away his seed, kisses me.

  "Wasn't expecting that," he murmurs.

  "I know. Neither was I. But I wanted to . . . remove the stigma and negativity of how that felt."

  "I don't want you to ever feel--"

  I twist off the water as it's starting to go cold, then cut him off. "Logan. I did what I wanted to do. For me. Letting you"--I work up the courage to say exactly what I mean, the way he said it--"letting you fuck my tits . . . that was for you. Having you come on my face, that was for me. Not because I got any kind of weird sexual satisfaction from it, but . . . well, you know what happened. I told you. I did that for me. To take it back."

  He helps me out of the shower, unfolds a dry towel, and wraps it around me, and another for himself. We each dry off, and then I turn to him as he cinches the towel around his waist.

  "Logan? I do wonder, how did it feel, for you? What did you think?" I don't bother with the towel, once I'm dry. I like his eyes on my body.

  He lets out a breath. "There's nothing you could do that wouldn't be incredible. But . . . it was hot. I'm not gonna lie. Seeing you, watching you, watching you take my cock in your mouth, between those big beautiful tits of yours . . . it was hot as fuck. I swear to god I'll never forget it as long as I live. It's a mental image I could jerk off to until the day I die. Coming on your face . . . that's a little different. That's not something I've ever really wanted to do before. Just not my thing. I never wanted to make anyone feel like I got off on . . . something that to me smacks of degradation, I guess. It's a common theme in porn, the come-shot to the face. But I never saw the eroticism in it. Sex, for me, to be really amazing, is about mutuality, mutual satisfaction. And that's what's out of this world about our connection, is that we just . . . we have this incredible, fucking amazing chemistry together."

  He turns it back to us. God, I love him.

  Is he real? Or am I dreaming? Is this just a fever dream?

  "Do you masturbate very much?" I ask.

  He bobbles his head. "Depends."

  "On what? Be honest."

  He moves into his bedroom, and I follow him. We each dress, and he speaks as he tugs on underwear and then jeans. "Before I met you, I had a few flings. Nothing serious. Not one-night stands, exactly, but . . . somewhere in between, I guess. Short-term. But . . . between flings, yeah, I'd jerk off regularly."

  "And since you met me?" I don't know what answer I want to hear.

  He tugs a T-shirt on, a slightly morbid one, black with a white skull near the bottom, the lower mandible fading into tree roots. A crow perches on the skull, and a red rose grows out of it, and the words Bullet for My Valentine are printed across the top. I eye it with distaste, and he catches my expression.

  "No? Too much, huh? Okay." He flips through a drawer stuffed full of T-shirts and pulls out a different one, exchanges them. This one features a man with long shaggy hair, a bandana across his mouth and nose, and a crossbow on his back, with The Walking Dead in large red block letters. "Better?"

  I nod. "Yes, much, thank you. That other one was . . . gross."

  He chuckles. "Yeah, metal band shirts tend be a little gnarly, I guess."

  "You didn't answer my question," I prompt.

  "You really want to know the answer?" He waits until I've tugged my dress on and tied my hair back.

  "Yes, I do."

  He leans back against the edge of the bed. "First, there's been no one else since I met you. I hope that's obvious. If not, there it is. I've not so much as spoken to a woman who isn't an employee since the day we met at that auction. And--" He sighs, glances at me, and then away. "Every day, sometimes more than once a day, thinking of you, yeah, I jerk off. After we first met, it was just . . . you. That kiss in the bathroom. I've never gotten so hard from just an innocent kiss before. And you were so fucking sexy, it tormented me. I pictured you in this very room, sliding that dress off . . . shit, this is kind of embarrassing. I feel like a teenager all over again, talking about this."

  "Don't be embarrassed, Logan. Tell me more."

  He swallows hard, rubs the bridge of his nose. "And then, after that scene in the hallway there, and we almost--yeah, I thought of that a lot. I thought of just . . . sinking into you. I'd imagine how fucking tight you'd be. How soft you'd be. I felt guilty about it, too. Dirty. Like I was . . . defiling you somehow, whacking off thinking about you. But I couldn't help it. I'd try to think of something else, but nothing . . . turned me on. Not like you. I even tried porn a couple times, which I'm not generally a big fan of, but it just seemed . . . stupid. Empty. Nowhere near as fucking erotic as you, in my hallway. The way you dropped that towel, practically begging to be shown how beautiful you really are."

  "Not practically, Logan. I was begging."

  "I couldn't, though." He looks up at me. "I hope you got that."

  I nod. "I did, and I do. Doesn't make it easier, but I understood."

  "It was self-protection. I felt myself falling for you, and I couldn't let myself get too attached too soon, not knowing how things would shake out between you and Caleb." He ducks his head. Speaks to his shoes. "Even still, I have this . . . fear. That you'll still go back to him."

  "Logan--" I want to reassure him, but he speaks over me.

  "I don't fall easy, Isabel. But when I do, I fall hard and fast." He stands up, strides over to me, takes my hips in his hands. "There's no going back for me now. I wouldn't want to, even if I could. This is it, for me. I don't--I don't see anyone ever being able to match you. So just keep that in mind, okay? Do what you have to do. I'll never hold you back if your path leads you away from me. But just--just don't do so lightly, okay?" Logan is an articulate man, not given to stumbling over his words or hesitating. That he does now paints a picture that leaves me near tears. He is a warrior, a man who has seen and delivered death, and narrowly escaped it himself. A man who has been to prison and come out the other side a better person. A man who has been betrayed and can still find the courage to show himself to me, who can allow himself to be vulnerable.

  Knowing what I know, knowing what I've done to shake his faith in me--more than once . . . what courage must it take for him to say these things? It is unfathomable.

  "You are my path, Logan."

  "I sure as hell hope so. And believe me, Isabel, I won't take a single moment for granted. Not even if we have a fucking thousand years together."

  He palms the damp knot of hair at the base of my head and tugs so my face is tilted up to his.

  Kisses me,

  and kisses me,

  and
kisses me.

  Love is a painful emotion, I'm realizing. It cracks open the walls around my heart. Demands honesty of me. Courage. Vulnerability. Humility. It is not a light, frilly, easy, storybook thing, where the hero and his lady can ride off into the sunset together. The lady must be a warrior as well, willing to face the darkness with him; she must be brave enough to face the demons and dragons alongside her hero if she wishes to see sunrise, let alone the sunset.

  FOURTEEN

  My heart is in my throat, thick coil of black hair in one hand, scissors in the other. I blink and let out a breath, stare at myself in the hairdresser's mirror, at Logan's reflection. He's standing behind me, hands in his pockets, watching. His friend, Mei, the stylist--who actually owns the entire salon--has my head in her small, delicate hands. Holding me steady. Soothing. Stroking nimble fingers over my scalp.

  She understands, I think, even though I've told her nothing of myself, nothing of my story. I told her only that I needed to change my appearance drastically, and she met my eyes, stared at me knowingly for a long moment, and just smiled at me. Sat me in her chair, stroked her fingers through my hair, fanning it out, billowing it, pulling it back severely to assess the shape of my face, folding it up and under to get an approximation of what I might look like with shorter hair.

  And then hands me her scissors. "You make the first cut," Mei says.

  Despite having been moments from shaving it to the scalp mere hours ago, now that I have my hair in hand and scissors ready to make the first cut, I'm having a moment of doubt. Of hesitation.

  Logan says nothing. Just watches.

  Mei takes the scissors from me. Moves to stand in front of me. She is short and slight, hair dyed lavender and clipped close on the sides, left longer on top, twisted and pulled back over her head. She speaks English fluently but with a pronounced Asian accent. "It's your choice. You do it, you don't do it, only one who matters is you. But I think you want to do it. We donate it to Locks of Love." Her fingers run almost compulsively through my hair again. "You make first cut, I make you beautiful. Make you more beautiful. You already beautiful."