Page 19 of Exposed
Smoke fills my lungs, too much, too hot, thick and burning. I hack and hack and hack, eyes watering.
“Why do you do this?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Habit, one I can’t quite quit. Not that I’ve really tried, though, I guess.” He takes a drag. “Try pulling it into your mouth first, and then inhaling. Or just don’t inhale. It’s a shitty habit, absolutely horrible for you. I feel a responsibility to tell you that you shouldn’t start smoking.”
He doesn’t try to stop me, though, doesn’t take the cigarette from me. Just watches as I do as he suggested, and though I still cough, it’s not as bad as the first time. I become dizzy, faint; it is a heady feeling, and I think I understand the attraction of this habit.
“What did you find out, Logan?” I ask, after a few minutes of silence.
He doesn’t answer right away. Not for more long minutes of thick, tense silence, smoke rising in a thin curl, an occasional drag for him, for me. I let the silence hang, let it weigh as heavily as the clouds.
I like smoking. It gives me something to do to fill the silence, the taut space between my words and his.
“Information is power.” He stabs out his cigarette with a short, angry twist of his wrist. “I want to blackmail you with this, what I found out. Not tell you unless you come with me. But then I’d be no better than Caleb.”
I digest what he’s insinuating. “You think Caleb knows who I am and isn’t telling me?”
“I think he knows more than he’s told you, yes.” He stands up, unfolding his lean frame, and strides away from me across the rooftop, stopping to put his hands on the waist-high wall separating him from the tumble into space. “Do you remember that day in my house, in the hallway? When I got back from walking Cocoa?”
I swallow hard. “Yes, Logan. I remember.”
This is the second time he’s brought this up. I remember it all too well. It recurs, a dream, a fantasy, memories assaulting me as I bathe, as I try to sleep, lost details of hands and mouths when I wake up.
To get away from the renewal of the memory, I look up. At the sky. Dark with clouds, hazed with smog and light pollution.
I wish I could see the stars. I wonder what they look like, how I would feel looking up and seeing sky full of scintillating diamond points of light.
His words echo in my soul, throb in my ear, and I am pulled back down by the ache of need in his voice. “You were naked. Every inch of your fucking incredible skin, bare for me. I had you in my arms. Ihadyou, X. I had my hands on you, had you on my lips, on my tongue. But I let you go. I... made you walk away.”He turns, glances at me. As if he can smell me, as if he can see what lies beneath the fabric of my dress. “I don’t think you’ll ever understand how much that cost me, to walk away from you. How much self-control that took.”
I shake all over. “Logan, I—”
He turns away, resumes staring out at the skyline, speaks over me. “I am. haunted by that. I had you, and I let you go. I’m not haunted by the fact that you’re gone, though, that I let you get away. It’s more the fact that I still know it was the right thing to do. As much as I hate it, as much as it hurts... you aren’t ready for me.”
“That again? What does that mean, Logan?” I stand up now, tug the hem of the dress down. Seven strides, and I’m standing a few feet behind him. “I thought you said you found something out about me.”
He shakes his head. “It doesn’t mean anything. Never mind.”
Logan reaches into the back pocket of his jeans, pulls out a square of folded paper. Holds it, stares at it. The wind plucks at the paper, fluttering the corners, as if it wants to rip it away, keep it from me, whatever is written there. He pivots so he faces me. Steps closer. I stop breathing. I tingle all over. My skin remembers the feel of his skin, the taste of his tongue. I shouldn’t. That is not the choice I made. But... I can’t forget it. And deep down, I don’t want to.
“X, when I said there’s so much I could say? I don’t know how to say it all. I want to take you away, again. Run off with you, make you mine. But that wouldn’t be enough for me. I’m a proud man, X. I want you tochooseme. And... I think you will, someday.”
He presses his body against mine, and I feel every inch of him, hard, taut, warm. My breasts flatten against his chest, my hips bump against his. Something in me throbs, aches. Recognizes him, feels pulled by him. I forget everything, in thesemoments, except how utterly stolen away and carried off into the wild wind I feel, with him.
The paper crinkles against my bicep as he grips me, a hand on my arm, a palm to my cheek.
No... don’t; I try to form the words.
“Don’t, Logan,” I whisper, but maybe the words are only a breath, only a sigh, only the minuscule brush of my eyelashes fluttering against my cheek, the sweep of lips against lips.
He does.
He kisses me,
and kisses me,
and kisses me.
And I don’t stop him. My traitorous body wants to writhe and meld to his, wants to wrap itself around him. My hands sneak up to his hair, bury in the blond waves, and my throat utters a sigh, and maybe a moan, a feverish, desperate sound.