by Hazel Jacobs
“Maybe it’s for the guests,” she suggests. Logan reaches for the glasses. “For the other guests,” she emphasizes. “Maybe they were going to have a meeting or something.”
“They can put it on our tab,” Logan says. His bare back is to her, and Mikayla finds herself tracing the hard lines of his muscles with her eyes.
He pours two glasses of champagne as Mikayla settles herself on the side of the pool. She dangles her legs over the side, as usual, no surprise to find the pool water deliciously warm. She accepts the champagne from Logan, and they clink glasses, the light tinkling echoes around the room as they sip.
She wonders if now would be a good time to bring up the fight that morning. She isn’t sure what she wants to say. She wishes that she knew his side of the story. Why he fired Danielle? And why he’s now so adamant that the band have nothing to do with their PAs beyond the professional? But she isn’t sure how to bring it up without sounding accusatory. Maybe she should ease into it.
“So can I ask about the tattoos?” Mikayla questions after setting her glass on the edge of the pool and leaning back on her hands.
Logan, who still has his glass in his hand as he searches the side of the spa for the controls, looks over at her. “What do you want to ask?”
“Why did you get them?”
He smiles wryly. “I needed the cash.”
“Cash?”
His fingers found the controls to the spa. There was a mechanical whirring and then the water around him filled with bubbles.
“Dash broke his leg when he was eighteen,” Logan says. “I couldn’t really afford the medical bills, so I kind of sold my skin to a tattoo parlor that was training some new recruits.”
“That’s… brave,” says Mikayla.
Logan snorts. “Yeah, nothing hurts more than a green tattoo artist, who doesn’t know how much pressure to put on the needles. My arm was a mess… scabs and ink everywhere.”
Mikayla gives his arm a critical look. It seems fine now.
“Oh, this isn’t what they did,” Logan says, following her eyes. He gestures at the blue swirls and old-fashioned microphone, and the black edges of the records which weave around his bicep. “The apprentices did skulls and shit. Would have looked cool if they hadn’t been so bad at their jobs. I think one of them turned out kind of melted. Once they were healed, I got them covered.” He points out one of the blue swirls over his wrist. “See here? You can just make out a hula girl?”
She leans forward. She can almost see the edge of a skirt, but it’s lost in a sea of blue and white. There are tiny music notes in the tattoo, she’d never noticed that before.
“Did you have to pay to get them covered?” she asks.
She looks up to catch him staring with his mouth slightly open. His eyes have drifted down to her chest, and Mikayla realizes belatedly that her robe has fallen down, revealing the top of her breasts. She quickly covers up as a hot flush rises up her cheeks.
Logan looks away, clearing his throat. “No, actually,” he says. His voice is strained. “One of the older apprentices did it. I had to wait a few months for the bad tattoos to heal, and then a few months for the whole sleeve, but I think he did a good job. He liked color,” he adds wryly, running a finger over the Van Gogh swirls. “It took some getting used to.”
“I like them,” she tells him. “I’ve never considered getting a tattoo myself.”
“Don’t,” he says. He’s looking at her face, with nothing but a slight pink tinge to his cheekbones to indicate that he’d caught a glimpse of her. “Unless you’re absolutely sure that you’re going to love them.”
“Or if Dash breaks his leg again?” she asks.
He laughs gently. “I’ll cover him. I always have.”
“You’re a good brother,” she tells him.
The moment hangs between them. They watch each other, and Mikayla can feel herself leaning forward. Her eyes drift down to Logan’s naked chest, unmarked saved for a smattering of freckles and the long, trailing lines of water rolling down his skin.
She pulls herself back, reaching for her glass of champagne and taking a long gulp. “It must have been a relief when Bass Note picked you up,” she says.
“It was,” Logan responds. He’s lost none of the intensity in his gaze. He moves over just a little so that his elbows are on the edge of the pool inches away from her thighs. “Nice not to live off of spam and two-minute noodles.”
“You just described my college days,” Mikayla says. “All those internships where the dress code was in the high hundreds… I ate a lot of beans and potatoes.”
Logan looks at her curiously. “You mentioned that your dad’s… well… do you have any other family?”
“My mom,” Mikayla replies. “She’s on her… fifth husband, now?” She has to think about it for a moment. “She’s in Vermont. Wanted me to study administration because rich men always need secretaries.”
“Well she’s not wrong,” he says. Then he shakes his head. “You’re better than that. You know that, right?”
She feels her breath hitch and a swoop in her lower belly as his eyes fixate on her lips. He’s so close that she can see the water still clinging to his eyelashes.
“Of course,” she says. She goes to take another sip of champagne, trying to calm herself down and give her something else to concentrate on, but her hand is trembling and instead of pouring the liquid into her mouth she winds up wearing it. “Crap,” she mutters.
There’s champagne in her bra and down her lap. Most of it lands on her thigh where the robe has ridden up—a cold splash which, after the heat of the spa, makes her gasp. She tries to brush it off, but Logan catches her hand in mid-air. Mikayla turns her eyes down to see him in front of her. She’s higher up than him, and he has to tilt his head up to look at her.
She can hear her own breathing echoing in the tiny room, louder than the bubbles which are still blowing through the water. She can hear her heart beating in her ears. Can Logan hear it too?
He looks so calm. So collected. As though he’s been planning this all along. With his eyes fixed on her he leans down. Mikayla imagines that he’s moving in slow-motion as he leans over her lap, his fingers still curled tightly around her wrists and guiding them down so that her hands are on either side of her hips.
Logan finally breaks eye contact. He looks down at the champagne on her skin. Slowly, deliberately, he leans down to lick it off.
Thank God I shaved my legs yesterday, is the first hysterical thought which passes through Mikayla’s mind as she watches Logan’s tongue run along her skin.
It’s a mesmerizing sight. One she never thought that she would see, not even in her fantasies. The feverish late-night dreams which would have her waking in a pool of sweat and need.
When the champagne is gone, Logan looks up at her with his soft brown eyes. His pupils nearly take up the entire iris and she has to remind herself to breathe when she sees the red tinge to his cheeks as he searches her face. There’s a question in his gaze. His hands are still loosely wrapped around her wrists, holding her in a grip, which she could easily break if she wanted to. She could easily move away if she desired.
Mikayla thinks she should move away. The band has rules about dating PAs, and after the fight she’d witnessed between Logan and Tommy, after hearing about Tommy’s own heartbreak, the last thing she should do is get involved with Logan. The last thing she should do is give in to the intense desire running through her blood, demanding more from the man in front of her. She isn’t sure what more is, but she knows she wants it.
While her mind is preoccupied with these thoughts, her body acts. She pulls one hand out of Logan’s grip—his expression doesn’t change—and takes her champagne glass. She doesn’t break eye contact as she pours the rest of the champagne onto her lap.
Mikayla gasps as the cool liquid hits her skin. It plays against the hot, bubbling spa water lapping at her calves, making her feel at once too hot and too cold. She feels Logan tens
e. She hears his sharp intake of breath as he looks away from her eyes to watch, fascinated, as the golden liquid drips down her thighs toward the tiles beneath her. He dips his head to catch it before it falls.
She gasps again when his smooth tongue makes contact. Is this really happening? There is a brief moment when Mikayla thinks that she might be dreaming. Then Logan licks around her thigh, up to the top, and then down to her inner thigh, and she stops caring whether she’s dreaming or not.
Unprofessional—the word drifts across her mind.
She pushes it aside. She’s been professional for months on this tour. If Logan is willing to break the rules, then so is she.
Logan licks up the last of the champagne. He pays special attention to her inner thighs and Mikayla can feel her body responding, getting hotter and hotter the more he touches her. Her mind conjuring images of where this could be going. Then he pauses. He looks up at her through his lashes with eyes so dark that Mikayla feels pinned down by the sight of them. He drops her wrists, and reaches around her knees to pull her forward, inching her closer so that she’s sitting on the very edge of the pool, her robe splashing into the water, the bubbles from the spa drowning out the sound of her heart pounding in her ears. She has to brace her heels against the pool wall.
She is suddenly aware of how intimate this pose is. Logan is standing between her legs, pulling them wider and leaning down, and she can’t help but blush. She’s not wearing her usual pajama bottoms, just plain white panties. If she’d known where this night was going, she would have worn something sexier. But then, she thinks, if she’d known where the night was going, she would have worked herself into a nervous collapse.
“Is this all right?” His voice is husky and deep and Mikayla is reminded of her reactions the first time she heard him singing. After tonight, she’ll never be able to listen to that voice the same way again.
Logan runs his hands down her inner thighs, watching her reactions, and Mikayla feels herself nodding encouragingly as his fingers brush against the edge of her panties.
He breaks eye contact then, focusing on the hidden parts of her with the kind of intensity he usually reserves for the stage. He pushes Mikayla’s robe aside, revealing the white V between her legs. He reaches up to pull her panties down, and she lifts her hips to help him. He tosses them aside, and they land unceremoniously on the other end of the spa.
Mikayla blushes then. She looks away, embarrassed like she always is when she’s in this position. There’s something about having a man stare down the most intimate parts of her that makes her want to hide her face. She wishes that they were in a bed so that she could bury her face in a pillow, enjoying the sensations without having to worry about what her facial expressions are doing. About whether she’s being weird, getting too into it, or not getting into it enough. With Logan’s intense gaze scrutinizing her, she feels exposed in an entirely different way than she would if she were just naked before him.
“Look at me,” Logan says.
She hears his voice, and her body reacts, doing what he asks apparently without a second thought. She meets his eyes and feels her breath catch in her throat at the sight of his lust-blown pupils watching her.
His eyes still on her, he reaches forward to gently brush his fingers through her pubic hair. His fingers might as well have been on fire, she could feel them like a brand on her skin. He kisses her inner thigh again and Mikayla can feel herself starting to relax and tense at the same time—a combination of nerves, excitement, and anticipation boil beneath the surface of her mind, while she feels herself falling into Logan’s gaze. He holds her there, poised in the moment before his thumb searches through her wet folds and begins rubbing small, tight circles over her clit.
It isn’t a rush of pleasure. It’s not a violent jolt. It’s more of a slow burn, an intense heat which promises a blazing inferno with time. She wants to turn her head away, but Logan’s eyes have her spellbound. She can’t even look down to try and anticipate what he will do next. All she can do is wait and feel as his thumbs works her slowly, thoroughly, before a finger begins to press at her entrance.
He slides one finger in, then two, watching her. Mikayla can’t feel self-conscious anymore. She doesn’t know what her face is doing, and she doesn’t care, because she’s too busy concentrating on what’s happening between her legs. Logan’s eyes dart from her face to his hands as he works in silence, fingers going in and out, massaging and caressing, rubbing and teasing.
As she feels her orgasm building up, Logan removes his fingers. Mikayla only has time for a short groan of protest before his thumb is replaced with his tongue.
“Shit!” Mikayla lets her head fall back as he works her in long, confident licks.
She reaches out, burying her fingers in his soft, dark hair, as she feels his arm reach around to grasp her hips. His fingers are still moving in and out, only now his tongue moves over her clit, licking and toying with it, making her hips jerk and her gasps turn into moans.
She can hear her own breathing echo off the walls of the spa. The bubbles are still going, adding an extra level of sensation as they run over her knees and calves, which are still submerged in the water, though Logan has moved himself so that her legs are hooked over his shoulders. Her hands pull on his hair after a particularly strong lick, and she can feel him grinning against her. When she pulls his hair again, he moans and the action sends shock waves through her body.
Her chest is moving rapidly as she gasps for breath, her teeth draw blood when she bites into her lip as Logan pushes her steadily toward an inevitable orgasm. She feels it roll through her, starting from her groin and moving out, shuddering through her belly, her chest, her arms and legs. She hears herself—as though from far away or through a tunnel—letting out a long, drawn-out moan, and she knows that Logan can feel her coming because his fingers are still buried within her, probably being squeezed with the force of her muscle contractions. He keeps going, tongue never wavering, letting her ride out the sensations as her fingers grip his hair and her hips roll against his mouth.
Mikayla lets go of his hair, her breath coming in heavy, labored gasps, allowing Logan to pull away. His eyes are even darker now, and the pupils are so wide that she can see herself reflected in them. His breathing is almost as labored as hers. When he kisses her thighs and up to her lower belly, still partially concealed by her robe, she can feel his fingernails digging into her hips.
A sound from downstairs makes them both freeze.
Mikayla is still vibrating with the strength of her orgasm, but she can hear people walking around in the pool area downstairs. It suddenly dawns on her that they are technically in a public space. That anyone could have walked in at any time. She quickly covers herself with her robe, accidentally smacking Logan in the face with the wet material. He pulls away, shaking his head like a cat and dropping her legs.
“Sorry,” she mutters. She’s surprised at how husky and deep her voice sounds. Usually, sex doesn’t affect her like this.
He looks up at her, his chest flushed and his eyes still smoldering. The bubbles are still going in the spa so Mikayla can’t see anything below his waist. She’s not sure what she would do if she could see.
“Maybe we should take this upstairs,” he says.
She nods, pulling herself up on the edge of the pool with trembling legs. Her lower half is sensitive, and she needs to concentrate on moving normally.
When Logan pulls himself out of the water, he looks painfully hard beneath his swimsuit. Mikayla blushes even though she knows that she shouldn’t. He just went down on her in the middle of a public spa, so embarrassment is kind of relative at this point. He looks—big. Not monstrous, but large enough that when he puts his robe on, not even bothering to dry off, she can still see the bulge.
Hurriedly, the two of them make their way downstairs. There are a couple of kids in the pool, doing laps and laughing together, and Mikayla feels a jolt of guilt at what she and Logan were just doing. The thoug
ht that kids could have walked in on them fills her with an awed sense of unease. She’s just grateful, in that moment, that Logan is good with his tongue and hadn’t felt the need to draw it out.
Once they are in the elevator and away from the spa, Mikayla finds it difficult to reach Logan’s eyes. He seems to be avoiding her eyes as well. By unspoken agreement they stand hard up against the back of the elevator, staring at the doors as they move slowly up.
Mikayla is amazed at herself. She’d never, not for a second, really believed that anything would happen between her and Logan. She’d dreamed of it, wished for it, fantasized about it on the lonely nights where there was nothing but her own caressing fingers for company. But she’d always fallen back into the comforting sense of professionalism whenever there was any hint that her feelings might be returned. Now that she’s finally acted on her feelings it’s as though a dam has been breached, and now there’s nothing stopping her from living out every wild fantasy which has haunted her in the months that she’s been following Black Lilith around.
They arrive at their floor and make their way slowly down the hall. She can hear laughter coming from Slate’s room as they pass. When they arrive at Mikayla’s room, she doesn’t fumble with the key card. She pulls it out of the pocket of her robe, slides it into the doorknob, and opens the door.
As soon as they’re inside the room, and the door is securely closed behind them, Logan is moving.
“I don’t think I’m going to last,” he mutters as he shoves Mikayla against the door. “Been waiting for this for too long.”
Mikayla’s back thuds against the wood as Logan crowds her space, pressing his body completely against hers, pushing so that there isn’t an inch of space between them. It doesn’t hurt—it’s not a violent action, it’s an impatient one. She can feel his bulging cock in the warm V of her legs, moving insistently through the layers of cotton robe between them, while his hands run over her hips and waist. He buries his nose in her hair and breathes deeply.
