Dissonance (20 page)

This gorgeous man with the voice of a god who could have anyone he set his sights on, wanted to be with me? The sweet oblivion of it had my reeling. The unbidden warnings rose from the back of my mind again.
How can you compare to the women he’s had? He’ll never be happy dealing with you and all your baggage. Let him in and you will have to pick up the pieces later.
I started to physically withdraw from him.

“I can’t.” My voice could not have been smaller. I hung my head, unable to look into his eyes and see what my rejection would do to him.

He didn’t surrender like I thought he would. “Hey,” he whispered, gently nudging my chin. “What is it?” I didn’t respond. “Look, I’m not the obvious bet, and I know I’m not good enough for you, but I will do whatever it takes to show you that I can change,” he voice was adamant, but desperate. I believed him, too. In my mind, I could still hear him singing “Charlotte Sometimes” to me. I knew – somehow – that the man before me could be all the things that he was promising. I also knew that I wasn’t worthy of it all.

“I’m not what you think I am. You won’t be happy with me.”

After a moment of silence, I glanced up at him through my lashes. I expected him to say something, prolonged silence was so unlike him. He looked completely dumbfounded at my words, but slowly concern and sadness began to prevail. Suddenly, he dragged me into his arms. One muscular arm wrapped around my shoulders while my head leaned onto his chest under the soothing strokes of his fingers through my hair. He leaned down to rest his cheek against my head. The warmth of his body and lulling rhythm of his breathing slowed the frantic trembling that I hadn’t noticed in my own. His lips moved to brush a kiss against my hair.

“Why do you think that?” His voice was soft and cooing, but it didn’t cover the dismay beneath. I don’t know exactly how long he just stood there holding me. Relaxing more, I let my hands lift up to his chest, laying one hesitantly over his heart. His heartbeat was strong as I expected, though it seemed a little fast. Was that my doing?

Eventually, he pulled back a bit to meet my eyes. “Please give me a chance, Charlotte,” he whispered. He brushed his thumbs over my cheeks beseechingly. In that moment, I knew there was no other option for me. Slowly, I forced a nod.

His eyes widened in shock. With a speed I couldn’t comprehend, my body was crushed back into him and his lips took mine. The passion that unfurled from his kiss left me breathless. When he pulled back after a minute – or several, hell maybe it was an hour of suspended bliss – later, my equilibrium had vanished. Keeping my face cupped between his hands, he smiled down at me more adorably than I had ever seen.

“God your lips are incredible. I’ve wanted to kiss you since I first saw you in the rain. It’s been hell,” he breathed like a confession against my lips, then leaned in for a gentle peck. “It was worth the wait.” Then, he was kissing me again with renewed vigor. His lips and tongue molded mine in a delicious dance. It occurred to me that Logan kissed with the same overwhelming ardor that he possessed on stage. Briefly, I wondered if he always kissed that way, but forced myself to chase the dark thought away.

I could feel the energy between us shifting. What started as a light buzz grew until it was a fervor, rising all around us, completely entrapping us. His deft hands gripped tighter onto me, as though he couldn’t get me close enough. As I ran my hands along his upper arms, I could feel the muscles and sinew growing taut. He sucked my lower lip into his mouth, sending a shockwave through my body. A pleasant, but desperate feeling pooling in my belly. His hand splayed out across my lower back, nearly encompassing my not-overly-small frame, and pressed me tightly against him. I could feel the stiffness of his erection pushing against me. I moaned in spite of myself, but the immediate way he gripped me tighter had my discomfort dissolving. Somehow, the desire and the muscles tightening down there didn’t scare me, but had me pressing back into him, needing more of the delicious feeling. I allowed myself to succumb to the want and sought the friction my body was screaming for.

He pulled away from me again, catching his breath before he spoke. “Charlotte, I want you, but I will wait as long as you need. I need to know that you’re ready.” His eyes were hooded with his desire, and I knew he must really mean it to pull away when his want was so clear. It reminded me of all the lessons in group therapy about leaving physical intimacy off until you felt comfortable, respected, and safe. Despite my reservations about sex that pushed the bounds into fear, I was sure I felt all three of those requirements were met with Logan. For the first time, I felt like I really could give him that part of me.

“I want you, Logan,” I whispered. “I’m yours.”

His breath hitched, but he spoke again anyway. “If you change your mind, if you want to stop at any time, we will. Promise me you’ll tell me if you need to.”

“I promise.”

He stared at me for a moment completely still. It was like he was waiting to be rudely awakened to find out this was all a dream. I could relate. Then, that dazzling smile reappeared; a grin that combined both joy and mind-boggling sex appeal. He deftly backed me against the wall, causing a whole new wave of longing to crash over me. His lips frantically kissed and sucked the skin of my neck. My hands found their way to his hair and I ran my fingers through the short length. He touched me everywhere, urged on by the knowledge that I was his. I was ready to burst from the overpowering sensations elicited by this man. This man that wanted so desperately for me to be with him. This man that had given himself to me. This man that was mine.

Mine.
The word rattled around in my head and spurred me on. Those delectable lips that suckled my neck were mine. I pulled him back up to me and kissed him, pouring every feeling I had for him into it. I wanted him, and I needed him to understand just how much. His response was more than I could have dreamed. My sudden bid for control had him going crazy. As his tongue skillfully plundered my mouth, his hands moved down my body until they cupped the back of my thighs. A tiny yelp that escaped me as he lifted my thighs up and urged my legs to wrap around him was swallowed by that luscious mouth. The surprise of being lifted was nothing compared to the moment his hardness was pressed against me. My dress had ridden up to my waist, leaving only the thin fabric of my panties to block the sensation of his denim-clad body rubbing exactly where I needed him.

The pressure of the wall against my back lessened, and then disappeared completely. Logan walked us back towards the bedrooms. Tentatively, I moved my lips from his and began to explore the exposed skin of his neck. The feeling of his warm flesh and his rapid pulse beneath my lips brought out a primal need I had never experienced before. My tongue flicked out to taste his slightly-salty skin. The growl that ripped from Logan’s chest was punctuated by my body being pressed into another wall in the hallway.

“I need you, baby,” Logan rumbled before taking my mouth again.

“Then take me.”

With that, he hauled me off the wall and sped towards his bedroom. When he kicked the door to knock it open, my pulse quickened for a whole new reason. Was he going to be rough with me? Maybe that was what he was used to, what he liked. Trepidation clawed through the haze of desire. I didn’t want fear to taint what was between us. I tried to trap it down, to be in the moment with Logan. He had not done a thing to me that I did not like yet, I had no reason to start freaking out.

I was calmed a bit by his next move. Instead of continuing the frenzy that had started in the hall, he lowered me onto his bed slowly, with a gentleness that was almost foreign to me. Some of that hesitation melted with his careful handling, but I could still feel it in the back of my mind.

Before joining me on the bed, he nimbly removed his shirt while I watched, nearly salivating at seeing his bare chest again. He was perfection. His body wasn’t like the over-honed ones of celebrities that had most women going crazy. Every toned muscle looked natural, flawless. Clearly, Logan stayed in shape, but he didn’t look like some workout-obsessed pretty boy. My man was the real deal. The skin I desperately wanted to touch every inch of wasn’t perfectly sun-kissed, but was all the more captivating for it. The missing tan only served to further accentuate the dark lines of his tattoos.

Calling on every bit of confidence I had, I grasped the hem of my dress to remove it for him. Logan reached for me and held my arms still.

“Please let me do that, Charlotte,” he requested, his voice tight and eyes blazing.

Well, how could I say no to that?

He urged me back until I was seated on the edge of the bed, the cool silken sheets sending a chill through my overheated body. Dropping to his knees, he reverently grazed his hands down my calves before freeing me of my heels. He drew dizzying circles up my legs as he planted a kiss on my stomach. “Lay back, baby.”

Logan lifted my legs, urging me to rotate and lay back on the bed, before extricating himself from his jeans much less gently. He climbed onto the bed, kneeling at my feet. His hands went behind my knees, lightly nudging them open with his eyes watching me for signs of distress. I opened them with a bit of a tremble. He noticed, and tried to comfort me by massaging my legs as he moved closer to me. When he was above me, he didn’t power forward, but just held himself there with his face close to mine, waiting. Some of the tension in my body began to release, and only then did he resume kissing me.

As he coaxed me with his lips, his hands moved very slowly up my thighs. It took him a while to even reach the fabric of my dress. His unhurried pace made me feel cherished. The feeling of his fingertips moving beneath my dress, of his hands continuing their assent with the skirt bunching around his wrists, didn’t scare me. I wanted him to remove my dress, to have access to touch more of me.

The careful journey his hands made up my body was electrifying. They followed the swell of my hips, dipped into the curve of my waist, ghosted over the sides of my breasts. I shifted, moving as he needed to allow him to remove my dress. When it finally disappeared over my head, and fell meaningless onto the floor, I was sitting up with my chest nearly touching his. His arm came around me, pulling me in tighter until I brought my arms up to his neck. Our lips met, and he lowered us both down to the mattress with unflinching control.

Logan’s hand cupped my bare breast, igniting me, making me burn. I longed for him to massage the other, to make the ache go away. When his mouth descended, down my neck, across my collar bone, I could barely contain myself. Then his tongue darted out, making delicious contact with the puckered nipple of my neglected breast, causing my back to bow off of the bed, pressing my body against him harder. I was completely lost in him.

That was until the callused tips of his fingers slipped beneath the delicate fabric of my panties and I cried out, bucking my hips up into his touch. Logan’s lips were on mine immediately. “Shhh. I’ve got you.”

He gripped both sides of the meager undergarment and began to pull it away. The teasing touch of his hands as they moved down my legs seemed to go on forever. The torture was the sweetest sin, but I wanted it over. The new surge of wetness between my legs was too much.

With my panties gone, Logan stood, pushing his boxers down quickly. The sight of him, all of him hot, hard, and ready, brought that trepidation back to the fore. Looking at the strength of his body, the clear desperation to take me, made me freeze up. I couldn’t do it.

As he moved back onto the bed, Logan froze. I could tell by the concern that clouded his eyes that he could see the fear in mine, could feel the tension in my body.

“Charlotte?” he asked gently, reaching out slowly to touch me as though I might run.

I opened my mouth to tell him to give me a minute, to give me a chance to swallow back that choking grip of the past that had settled on me, but nothing came out.

“Baby, please, just talk to me,” Logan implored.

Finally, one word slipped past my lips, one I hadn’t expected. “Stop.” It was faint, barely audible at all, so I tried again. “Please, I need to stop.”

I expected anger, frustration. I expected him to yell at me for leading him on. I expected him to storm off or tell me to get the hell out of his bed. He did none of those things. No, Logan shattered every expectation by lying down beside me, pulling my body close. He decimated all the fear I’d been harboring when he pulled the duvet over my exposed body and stroked my hair until I calmed. He leveled the walls I had erected around my heart when I said those words when he cupped my cheek, pulling my gaze up to him, and said, “Thank you for telling me to stop. I never want to push you.” He kissed me sweetly before continuing, “I want you, Charlotte, in every way, but I will wait as long as you need to feel comfortable with me.”

He kissed me again, more deeply this time. Still, he made no move to take it beyond that. Despite the heat rolling off his body, and the solid length of his erection pressed against me, he kissed me like he was content to do only that, forever.

Sometime later, when the desire seeped away from our bodies, Logan pulled me into him so that I was cuddled against his side with my head on his chest. Just as the world dissolved into darkness, I felt Logan press another kiss to my head and heard a rough whisper. “Goodnight, beautiful.”