by R.S. Grey
“Fuck,” he groans, looking down at me lying there, skirt flared up, thighs spread apart.
He manages to push through and then he’s on me, pinning me down to the seat with his weight and taking my wrists to press them against the door behind me. He takes hold of my fingers and wraps them around the door handle.
“Hold that,” he tells me, and I bloody well listen. He pushes up and off me enough to look down and assess me. I’m his conquest, and he’s got me right where he wants me. That’s how he looks: scary and beautiful and mine. He surveys my top, apparently annoyed that it’s still in place. He shoves it up to reveal my bra then tugs the cups down so my breasts spill out over the top. Next he leans down and kisses the peak of each one, teasing me.
I’m dying! He can’t do this. We were going at it in the front seat and I was so close, but now he’s slowing it down, torturing me.
The air in the car is starting to get humid from our breath, and I feel sticky with sweat when his hips roll over mine. He spreads my thighs again and brushes against me. I moan and he does it once more, not pressing into me even when I beg him to.
My panties are still on, and I hate that they shield me from his thrusts.
I move my hands to take them off, but with whip-fast reflexes, he forces my hands back to the door handle.
“I said, hold that.”
His tone has gone dark and possessive, and I’m left complying like an eager student. My fingers tighten around the door handle like my life depends on it, and then he takes the pink silk between his fingers and starts to slide it down my thighs. It gets caught on my knees, but instead of ripping like a brute, he gently fixes it and continues tugging until the material falls off onto the floor of the SUV.
Then his eyes fall between my thighs and his fingers follow, parting me for him.
I arch up off the seat when the pad of his finger brushes against sensitive nerves, and when he does it again, my insides clench.
“Logan,” I plead, but he doesn’t listen. He withdraws his touch and reaches for his length. He wraps his hand around himself, slowly pumping up and down while he watches me. He’s in no hurry to end this, but I am. I AM!
He hears my impatient whimper, and it must finally get through to him because he positions himself between my thighs and presses back into me. Finally. This. Again. His weight, his fullness, his hard length seeming to completely fill me and then some.
“Candace,” he says, tracing his mouth along my chin and letting his body press flush against mine. It’s suffocating and wonderful, nearly too much. He covers me completely, but my hands stay on that handle as he starts to rock his hips like gentle waves, pulling out of me and then slowly pressing back in. “You feel…”
His words get lost as he buries himself to the hilt and a deep moan escapes him.
I know how I must feel. Tight. Warm. Wet.
I know how he feels. Hard. Rigid. Huge.
“Logan,” I say, turning my head to capture his mouth.
Once we kiss again, his hips start to pick up speed, and the shackles of restraint are suddenly thrown off. It’s like he’s finally having me the way he wants me, pinned underneath him, at his mercy.
We’re moaning and arching and thrusting together. My legs lock around his waist as if I’m trying to pin him in place and then I’m lost, totally, as my body starts to quake and I squeeze him inside me in a viselike grip. I come apart and he follows right after me with such force that I have to bite back a cry of pain. As soon as it feels like too much, the wave recedes, replaced with calm oceans.
We’re panting and collecting our breath slowly. He props himself up on his elbows and looks down at me with a soul-crushing expression. It’s like he’s not quite sure I’m real and he has to assure himself I’m here by tracing the line of my jaw.
His lips part and I think he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t.
The words aren’t said, but we both know they’re there, lurking just under the surface.
We both know.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Candace
“Pass that spatula, will you?” I ask Logan.
“Here,” he says, handing it over. “Is the salt over by you?”
“Yeah, catch.”
“The eggs are almost done.”
“My pancakes need another few minutes. I swear yours cooked faster than mine. Have you given me the bad pan or something?”
I lift it up off the gas burner to look for marks of sabotage.
“They’re the exact same pans. Don’t try to come up with excuses for why your food is going to suck.”
“It won’t! You’ll be eating your words once you take a bite of my fluffy pancakes!”
“I’m sure.”
It’s Sunday morning and Logan and I are having a breakfast-off. It’s a very mature competition in which we each make the same foods—eggs and pancakes and bacon—and then we sample some of everything to decide who is the Champion Chef of Breakfast, or something like that. I’ve used my preschool teacher craft skills to assemble a trophy out of recycling rubbish. On it, I’ve drawn a stick figure hoisting a spatula into the air. I want that trophy—and so does Logan. He really thinks he’s the world’s best chef, but he’s in for a rude awakening. When he wasn’t looking, I over-peppered his eggs and dumped loads more flour into his pancake mix. Poor sod. Some might call it cheating, but I say it’s just my competitive nature coming out to play. He really needs to keep his head in the game. Is this how he behaves on the football field? I’d better give him a few pointers.
I check my pancakes again, and they’re beautiful, New York’s most handsome breakfast cake. I flip them onto a plate to keep warm and then cut off my burner.
“Done!” I say, whipping my towel in the air. It hits Logan in the head and he growls in feigned anger before ripping it out of my hand and trying to smack my arse with it.
“Hey! Ease up, you! That actually hurts!”
He chases me through the kitchen and I have to duck around the island. He’s much faster than me—good thing our competition doesn’t have an athletic component, because I’d be sorely outmatched.
“Enough! Hey!” I groan when he catches me and hoists me up off the ground. “I’m hungry. Let’s load up our plates and see who the victor is.”
“We know who it’s going to be,” he taunts.
He’s really going to cry once he bites into my perfectly cooked eggs, but I won’t even feel bad.
After our plates are loaded with the food cooked by each of us—separated out so we won’t get confused—we take our seats at his breakfast table facing one another.
It’s all very strict. We’ve concocted real rules and everything. We have to take a bite of the same type of food at the same time, and we have to be totally honest with our opinions. We can’t just vote for ourselves for everything, because where’s the fun in that? I tried to convince him to have one of the doormen come up and plate the food for us so we’d be totally blind as to whose food we were eating, but Logan only laughed. I suppose some of us are taking this more seriously than others.
“My eggs first,” he says, nodding for me to load some onto my fork.
I do as he says, and then we lift the forks to our mouths at the same time, gazes locked. The moment they touch our tongues, our faces contort in disgust. My pepper trick worked handily.
“Sorry bud,” I say, after forcing myself to swallow down the small bite. “Eggs are not your forte, I’m afraid.”
“Uh-huh,” he says, all knowingly. Damn, he must have caught me adding the pepper then. “Let’s try yours.”
I’m already smirking with pride as I lift my bite to my mouth—then I immediately spit them out onto my napkin one second after I’ve tasted them.
“What’d you do to my eggs?!” They’re horrid, frankly the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. Maybe it’s too much salt? But then that doesn’t explain the bitter aftertaste. “I only added pepper to yours!”
“I have no idea w
hat you’re talking about,” he says, all smooth and unruffled.
The arrogant jerk! He’s not even going to admit to cheating then!
“So my eggs are better?” he asks, already puffed with pride. “Even if you over-peppered them?”
I scowl. “Fine. Whatever. We’ve still got two other categories. I’ll obviously win those.”
I don’t win those. The pancakes and bacon are all inedible thanks to our attempts at sabotage. We’ve really mucked this up. By tainting each other’s food, we’ve made it so we don’t even have a decent breakfast to eat. I nearly gag when I try a bite of my pancakes. He added loads of onion powder to my bowl, and the result is nothing short of disgusting.
“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” I say as I load our plates into the dishwasher. “I’m still starving!”
“ME? C’mon, admit it, we both got a little competitive.”
A little?
He leans in to kiss me but stops short when he’s only a centimeter away. “Admit it.”
I groan. “Fine. Yes.” I kiss him quickly before taking his hand in mine and tugging him toward the door of his flat. “Now let’s go get some proper food before I pass out from hunger.”
He stops me on our way out so we can grab hats and sunglasses. I’d forgotten for a moment that we aren’t just two normal people going out for breakfast. If we’re leaving his flat, we have to be prepared.
Logan adjusts his Yankees ball cap on my head then smiles. It’s quite big, which means it should do the trick.
We ride the lift down as we try to decide where we want to eat. Logan has a favorite spot only a few blocks away, so we plan to head there, turning left on the sidewalk in front of his building and holding hands as we walk.
It’s gorgeous out, brisk but not so cold that I need a coat. The sun is shining and there are loads of people out and about, enjoying their Sunday morning. I stop us at a newsstand so I can buy a paper we can share at breakfast. I like reading the Sunday comics and attempting the crossword, even if I never get very far with it.
When I’m done, I turn to Logan with the newspaper in hand and smile. He nods for me to join him again so we can continue our walk, and it’s then that I notice a group of photographers a few yards ahead of us on the street. Instead of keeping their distance, they’re hurrying toward us with their cameras already firing away.
Oh great. We’ve been spotted.
We’re at a busy intersection and there are a lot of pedestrians around us. I’m tempted to turn us in the opposite direction and attempt to lose the photographers in the crowd, but then we wouldn’t be able to go to Logan’s restaurant, and what a crap turn of events that would be. I’m still hungry, after all. We shouldn’t let the photographers deter us. We’re not doing anything wrong. They are.
“Logan! Candace! Where are you guys headed this morning?” one of them asks when they get closer.
Neither of us answers, but that doesn’t stop people from turning to take notice of the spectacle. They’re curious about why we’re drawing so much attention. I hear people start to murmur Logan’s name and he tries to grab my hand, but then a passing pedestrian who’s trying to hurry away from the crowd knocks into me and I shuffle back to keep from falling. Without bothering to check if I’m okay, a photographer comes closer, shoving a microphone right under my chin.
“Are you headed to breakfast?” he asks me.
Is this allowed?! How can they get away with this?
“Please back up,” I say, holding my hand out to block him from coming any closer.
He doesn’t listen, and there are too many people starting to surround us. Logan tries to grab my hand again, but I have to step back, out of the way of another photographer who’s snapping photos directly in front of my face. The flash keeps going, blinding me.
“Stop!” I shout, angry that they’re violating my personal space like this. What are they after, anyway? An up-close shot of my nostrils? They need to stay back, or better yet, go away altogether!
“Candace, are you and Logan an official item?!” another asks impatiently, like I’m the one causing them problems.
“Candace,” Logan says, his voice more severe than I’ve ever heard it. I know he’s not upset with me—he’s just trying to get my attention—but I take another step back, trying to get away from the photographers, and I stumble right over the edge of the curb. I didn’t realize I was so close to the street, and well, I’ve never been the most agile person. Once I lose my footing, I’m able to keep myself standing, but then wham—I find myself in the direct path of an oncoming cyclist. I turn just in time to see his bike headed toward me, and then I scream as we collide.
I wake up on my back, blinking up against a bright light. A huge figure comes into hazy focus in my periphery.
Oh dear, I’ve died. And that’s God there, coming round to tell me they haven’t got any room up in heaven for the likes of me—not since that time in the fourth grade when I stole Patsy Smith’s jelly sandwich when she wasn’t looking. Suppose it’s hell for me. Better get on with it then.
“Candace?”
God sounds a lot like Logan.
I don’t find it all that surprising, really. Then I force myself to look to the side and I see Logan there. The first thing I think is, Wonderful! He’s dead too!
Then my logic kicks in and I realize I’m in hospital, gowned up and in quite a bit of pain.
It’s not as if I don’t remember getting here; it’s just that I’m a bit disoriented. I remember the cyclist and the crash—OUCH—and then I remember some of being at the scene of the accident, everyone shouting and crowding around me. There was quite a lot of conflicting advice getting tossed around.
Don’t move her!
Well we can’t just leave her lying on the street! Someone grab her feet and help me hoist her onto the sidewalk!
Has anyone seen her shoe?!
An ambulance came up quickly with its blinking lights and weeoo weeoo siren blaring, and Logan was there the whole time, holding my hand, looking down at me and telling me I’d be all right. I remember feeling safe with him beside me, confident that I wouldn’t come to harm as long as he was near.
“How long have I been out?” I ask, aware my throat’s a bit dry and scratchy.
“Just a few hours. They said you’d be tired after everything that happened.”
“So I wasn’t in a coma then? I haven’t been out for a decade, have I?”
Wouldn’t that be just my luck? Sleeping away the rest of my 20s and waking up 35 and in need of eye cream.
I expect him to smile or laugh. It’s a funny question, right? But he only shakes his head.
Right.
I look down and try to assess the damage to my body. My left hand is bandaged, and I think I remember them putting some stitches in for a cut there. I lift the blanket up off my body with my right hand and glance down. Underneath my hospital gown, I can see some mild bruises and scratches on my legs, but nothing too serious. Phew.
“Is it just my hand then?” I ask, suddenly feeling a bit embarrassed to be laid up in hospital with all these IVs and machines beeping round me. I’m quite the wuss, aren’t I?
“And a mild concussion.” He says it like he’s trying not to wince. “The nurses should be back in soon to check on you. They said I was supposed to wake you up if you slept much longer.”
“Right. Okay then.”
Next I register an odd feeling on my head, like something heavy is weighing it down. I lift my right hand and feel the thick bandage wrapped around my hair a few times. Oh. Lovely.
“You have a bad cut there,” Logan says, answering my unasked question. “On the back of your head where you hit the ground. They had to cut away some of your hair.”
“I’m bald?!”
Somehow that’s the most alarming thing of all.
“No, it’s nothing. You won’t even be able to tell once it’s all healed.”
I pat around back there gently.
“It do
esn’t hurt,” I say, a little baffled.
“They have you on pain medicine.”
Oh, right. Well then. I swallow down my distress and turn to look at Logan, finally noticing the worry lines near his eyes and the deep furrow between his brows. He has his ball cap in his hands, coiled tight in his grip. He looks like he’s been wringing it like that for ages. There’s a chair beside my bed, but he’s not sitting in it. Instead, he’s standing near my knees, glancing down at me.
“Are you all right?” I ask, wondering if he was injured too.
“I’m fine.”
“Oh okay. It’s just that you look a bit odd standing there. Why don’t you sit down?”
He ignores me. “You’re probably hungry. We never did get that breakfast, and it’s already past lunch. I was going to go down and grab you something from the cafeteria.”
I wrinkle my nose. “I’m fine, actually. The meds they have me on must be making my stomach hurt a bit. I don’t think I could eat.” I pat the bed beside my hip. “Sit by me?”
He doesn’t budge from his spot. Instead, he keeps wringing that bloody hat.
“Logan?”
His eyes are on my chest, like he can’t quite meet my eyes. I’ve never seen him like this, and it has me worried. I try to sit up and reach out for him, but the movement messes with my precarious state of equilibrium. My head suddenly starts pounding, and I immediately lie back down.
Logan jumps forward to help me position myself on the pillows.
“Easy, Candace. You’re really hurt.”
I offer him a lopsided grin. “Oh come on, I bet this happens to you all the time on the field and you handle it like a champ. I’m a big baby with these machines beeping away.”
He glowers at me, clearly not appreciating my quip. “I don’t think you understand how serious this was…how much worse it could have been.”
I frown, not quite sure what he’s playing at. It was just a collision with a cyclist. It probably happens all the time in New York City. Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened to me before with how careless I am.
