True Colors (35 page)
But when the front door closed behind them, Logan drew her into his arms and kissed her again, deep and desperate, his hands sliding up under her tank top and over her ribs. His thumbs found the tips of her breasts, and she moaned against his mouth as they played and teased her nipples into aching peaks.
It took her a pleasure-dazed moment to realize that he was talking to her as he caressed her, as he kissed her senseless and backed her down the hallway toward the guest bedroom.
“I know you’re doubting what I feel,” he murmured, trailing kisses over her throat and back to her ear. “I know you think I can’t accept who you are.”
His tongue traced the shell of her ear, then teased the lobe. “I know I hurt you when I doubted you.”
He pulled her into the bedroom and used one foot to gently kick the door closed, his lips sucking lightly at the throb of her pulse in her throat. “I know you didn’t believe me when I said I love you and that I won’t leave you, no matter what, so I’m showing you.”
He grasped the hem of her shirt and pulled it off, tossing it aside. “I’m showing you how much I love you, Alex.”
His fingers hooked into the waistband of her jeans, and he tugged her close, his nose in her hair as he worked the button free and eased down the zipper. “I love you so much,” he repeated as he pushed the denim over her hips. He braced her as she kicked free of her shoes and jeans, then he backed her against the wall, swallowing her gasp of anticipation on a kiss that stole her breath, made her head spin. “I’m going to love you, Alex. For the rest of my life.”
Still kissing, exploring her mouth with the light touch of his tongue, he slid his fingers into her panties and started stroking her. She couldn’t stop the moan that tickled her throat, and she felt him smile against her mouth.
They stayed like that for a long time, Logan kissing and caressing, caressing and kissing, until her breath grew choppy and she could do nothing but hold on to his shoulders. He’d stopped talking, but she didn’t care, no longer able to focus on words, consumed by the growing wave of pleasure that bore down on her.
Her body tensed, preparing to take the hit, and she gasped, “Wait, wait.”
She wanted him inside her, wanted the connection. Wanted him to fill all her empty spaces.
“We have time,” he murmured, holding her close against him with one arm around her lower back while his free hand stroked and stroked and stroked.
She stiffened, and the world turned white and blank as the pleasure rolled, tumbled, cascaded over her. He held her through it, still stroking but gently, easing her down but bracing her as smaller, undulating waves continued to wash through her.
He lifted her and turned toward the bed, where he laid her on it and quickly stripped out of his own clothes. She realized dazedly that she still wore her bra and underwear, so she started to shed them. Logan grinned at her when her fingers fumbled with the clasp on her bra, and she smiled back, probably looking goofy considering how incredibly smitten she felt. He brushed her hands away and took care of it for her, taking time to massage and knead until her nipples were tight and aching.
God, she loved him.
And as he crawled onto the bed with her, she saw how much he wanted her. She opened her arms to him, throbbing with need when he settled between her legs. She lifted her hips on a gasp of pleasure as he eased into her an inch at a time. He braced on his hands, and she heard his harsh swallow as he swiveled his hips against her, working his way in, filling her with more than she ever thought possible.
Her head arched back into the pillow. He was so big, so hard, and the pressure . . . it pulsed inside her, surrounding him, drawing him deeper.
His breath hissed between his teeth. “If you move, it’s over,” he said, gently kissing the corner of her mouth.
She wouldn’t move. No way would she move. She wanted this to last. Forever.
“I love you,” he whispered, his lips pressed to her temple. “I’ve never loved anyone like this. Never.”
She tightened her arms around him and closed her eyes against the tears burning her lids. “I love you, too.”
He started to thrust finally, gently at first and slowly, as though too much friction too fast would send him over the edge. The slow, easy glide, creating friction in places she could no longer identify as his or hers, renewed the pulse of pleasure, and when he did little more than continue the lazy rhythm, thrusting against her with no apparent plans to hurtle through the final countdown, she found herself rising to meet him with a growing need that blossomed and fluttered and built until she dug her nails into his back.
How could he stand it? How could he control his movements when it felt so damn good
everywhere
? It was like they’d become one, cliché as that seemed, but she really couldn’t tell where he ended and she began, and she didn’t care. All she cared about was how it felt. So. Phenomenally. Supernaturally.
Good
.
everywhere
? It was like they’d become one, cliché as that seemed, but she really couldn’t tell where he ended and she began, and she didn’t care. All she cared about was how it felt. So. Phenomenally. Supernaturally.
Good
.
She heard herself release a strangled whimper.
He chuckled against her throat, his nose drawing feathery circles against her damp skin as he kept up the steady, devastating pace. “Think you could articulate that?” he asked, his own voice hoarse.
“No,” she replied on a gasp as pleasure spiked sharply, and she strained against him. Oh, God, finally. Her body gathered its resources, and . . . and . . .
He put the thrusting on pause and kissed away her protests, using his lips and tongue to settle her, his fingers gentle and stroking on her breasts, over her ribs and hip, drawing her closer, branding her with his touch.
The sensation between her legs was unlike anything she’d ever felt. Pleasure and exquisite, highly sensitized pain. Soft, wet silk gripping and rippling. Iron-hard heat pulsing and twitching. She was herself; she was him. She was restraint; she was greed.
She was going to kill him if he didn’t—
A gasp caught in her throat as he resumed, and this time he didn’t tease or try to ease her down. He drove her up and over.
She clung to him, and mindless, soaring ecstasy flowed through her in molten waves, hitching her hips against him repeatedly and as frenzied as his thrusts. She had no time to float down as he started to come, jerking against her and groaning against the side of her neck.
The instant he collapsed on top of her, she felt herself turn inside out. Her world narrowed down to the fever and steel between her legs, nestled in silky softness and scorching heat, the pleasure spreading out in incredible, mind-blowing spasms that culminated in a geyser of heat spurting and spurting.
She couldn’t stop the serrated moan as her head arched back and her body continued to tense and release, caught in the throes of his pleasure.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
L
ogan gathered a limp, damp Alex against him, his breath still coming fast and hard. His brain was working a mile a minute, though, as he put two and two together and realized why she had an extra orgasm every time they made love.
ogan gathered a limp, damp Alex against him, his breath still coming fast and hard. His brain was working a mile a minute, though, as he put two and two together and realized why she had an extra orgasm every time they made love.
Holy shit, he thought. Holy freaking shit. And he had to laugh, and marvel. “I’m so jealous.”
She laughed, also breathless, her muscles lightly trembling against him. “You should be. It’s pretty incredible.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t get what was happening to you before. I just thought you were so in tune with me that no matter what I did, I could make you come.”
“Well, there’s that, too.”
He hugged her close. “I really am sorry it took me so long to . . . accept.”
“Why?”
“Because I hurt you, and I hate that I did that.”
“No. I meant why did it take you so long?”
“I’m a cop. I try to see the logic . . .” He trailed off and sighed. “I’m afraid, Alex. Of what you’ll see in me. Have already seen.”
“Your nightmare.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“But that wasn’t reality. You didn’t really shoot a child.”
He closed his eyes and pulled her tighter. “How do you know that?”
“Because I know you. If you did shoot that little boy, it was an accident. I think it’s much more likely that your dream is a distorted version of the truth.”
He held her for a long time, idly stroking her bare arm. This moment, with her relaxed and loving in his arms, might be their last such moment. Once he told her—
“Tell me,” she whispered, trailing her fingertips through the hair on his chest. “Please?”
He swallowed, his entire body tight with tension. “He was six years old. Kidnapped three months before that night.” He stopped, not sure he could get through the story in one piece. The last time he had spoken of that night, it had been to a jury in a cold, impersonal setting.
Alex gave his chest hair a slight tug. “Go on.”
“I was on patrol in downtown Detroit, in an area some people would call the red-light district. I saw a little boy burst through this door in the next block, and a big guy, huge, run out after him. The man caught the boy and cuffed him a good one upside the head, then carried him back through the door. I didn’t like the look of that, so I approached and flashed my badge. Things didn’t go well, and . . . there was a shootout. Aaron Hastings was caught in the crossfire. Six and missing for three months, and the night I could have saved him, I killed him.”
“You shot him?” Her voice was dull with horror.
“If I hadn’t interfered—”
“You tried to help him, Logan,” she said, the horror gone, conviction in its place. “You didn’t mean for—”
“I know that. I know all of that. I’ve said the same things to myself over and over for the past two years. And none of it matters. That kid is dead because of me.”
Alex sat up and stared at him for a long, intense minute, until Logan shifted and got nervous. “What?” he asked.
“Is that why you left Detroit?”
“I didn’t run away—” He stopped. He was being honest now, right? “Okay, yeah, I ran away. Turns out two of my fellow police officers were on the take, paid to look the other way and even provide protection when the . . . sex providers organized their ‘party nights.’ ”
“Party nights?”
“Two-for-one deals. Buy a blow job, get a rim job for free. Buy an hour with a woman, get fifteen minutes with a little girl. Sick shit like that.”
Alex closed her eyes. “Oh my God.”
“The guy who ran the shop was a creative son of a bitch. He probably could have founded the next Microsoft or Google if he’d used his brain for good. Instead, I showed up on a party night. Killed one of the best customers and sent the leader of the band and two fellow officers to prison. Then I left town. Arrived in Lake Avalon three days later and liked it. Sunshine almost every day of the year. Fresh air. Green trees and flowers year round. And water as far as the eye can see. Humbling yet comforting. Things were simpler here.”
“Were?” she asked with a quirk of her lips.
He smiled, gathered her closer. “Until I fell in love.”
“Sorry about that,” she said.
“Yeah, you ruined my life.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, lingering for a moment to breathe in her light, sweet scent. Stalling, really. “Can I ask you a question, about the empathy?”
She grew still in his arms but nodded. “Okay.”
“When you were with Butch . . . you flashed on his past, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his worst nightmare?”
The breath she took in shook. “He has several, it turns out.”
“What do you mean?”
“He hit me with a stun gun, and it must have scrambled my system even more, because every time he touched me after that, I flashed on something different. Or maybe his entire past is a nightmare.”
He forced himself not to stiffen as he imagined what she’d gone through. No wonder she’d been unresponsive when he and Noah had found her. The fact that she’d been able to function afterward for as long as she had . . . well, fuck.
“You need to talk about this,” he said gently. “Keeping what happened bottled up will only tear you apart.”
She shifted, as though she wanted to move away from him, but he tightened his arms, ever so slightly, to ask her nonverbally to stay put. She settled back into him, though she didn’t relax. Anxiety vibrated off her body, and he did his best to absorb it.
“Take your time,” he said.
After several long minutes, she inhaled a trembling breath. “He was kidnapped as a child and subjected to years of abuse and torture.”
“Specifically?”
“I can’t . . .”
“Try.”
Her throat made a clicking sound as she swallowed. “Fists. Cigarette burns. Knives. He was locked up, not allowed to go outside. His captor told him his parents didn’t want him anymore.”
“Jesus.”
“The kidnapper—Butch called him the dickhead—he taught Butch how to torture women, how to enjoy it. I mean, part of me thinks he couldn’t have become a monster if he really didn’t want to, but part of me has no idea how much a human being can take before . . . breaking.”
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