Page 81 of Exposed

He climbs into the bed beside me, gathers me in his arms, cradles me against his chest.

I listen to his heartbeat. “Can this be forever?”

“Yes, Isabel. This is our forever.”

“Promise?”

“On my life.”

And that is all I need.

Chapter

Thirteen

Logan is asleep; I am not. I cannot. His digital clock says it is 4:30 in the morning. I should be exhausted. I should be sore. Iamsore, but not at all tired. Deliciously sore, perfectly achy. I feel delicate.

On the inside as well as the outside.

I lie on my left side and watch Logan sleep, gaze at the boyish innocence on his face. Absorb the beauty in the slack weight of his muscles as he rests. He’s drooling a little, and I’ve been stifling a giggle at it for an hour and a half now. I half want to wipe it away, but I don’t want to wake him, and it’s just so cute I can’t.

I’m fighting tears. Warring with a maelstrom of emotions. I’m so happy, deliriously happy. Vibrating with joy. Overwhelmed with incredulity.

Helovesme. He lovesme.

ME.

Logan Ryder told me he loves me.

Tears prick the corners of my eyes as I consider this, as I relive over and over and over the wondrousness of that moment, hearing those words.

But then I think of . . . everything else.

Caleb.

Caleb’s lies.

Caleb’s truths.

The complicated, labyrinthine tapestry he’s woven of truth and lies, and how I’m not sure I’ll ever untangle the two.

How, forty-eight hours ago, a little more now, I was pressed up against the glass of Caleb’s high-rise penthouse window, being fucked by him from behind.

How I felt that happening, felt him strangling me with his toxic sorcery, his manipulative magic. How I seemed powerless to stop it. I always have the intention of refusing him, denying him, but I never actually am able to, and I do not understand why. What hold has he over me, that I cannot control my own body? What torture have I put Logan through, with this weakness? What kind of future can we have together, if I am so weak?

How can I ever face Caleb again, now that I’ve slept with Logan?

Not slept with—madeloveto.

I’ve fucked Caleb. Been fuckedbyhim. Had sex with him. Been used by him. I’venevermade love to him.

I had sex with two men in a forty-eight-hour timeframe. What does that make me?

It doesn’t really mitigate things that I enjoyed it with Logan and did not with Caleb, nor that with Caleb it was... not forced, not involuntary, but—I don’t know. I don’t have the words for it. It felt involuntary. Itfeltlike he was forcing me. But he was not holding me down, wasn’t not technically raping me. But yet I wasn’t entirely willing, either. I didn’twantto want him. I didn’t want to be used by him.

I don’t want to be his plaything anymore. But whenever he’s around, that’s how things end up.

I belong to Logan. I’ve chosen that, chosen him, chosen to belong to him.