Shelter You (14 page)

“Logan.”

“Hmmm?”

“Kiss me, please.”

There’s no need to ask twice. He would never make me beg for what I want, that’s just his way, giving, needing to please and take care of me and God help me I love him for it. I do. I love him and I think I may have loved him after he rescued me from my apartment but I was too scared to think it let alone believe it.

His lips are soft, accommodating. He takes his cues from me only taking more when he’s sure that I’m comfortable. He moves us so that I’m on my back and he’s on top of me, his hand slipping under the front of my shirt. I’m surprised by how much I like his hands on me, how good what he’s doing to me feels. Heat pools between my legs when he finally finds the swell of my breast cupping it firmly and then gently thumbing the nipple. The sensations that he elicits from me are intense and leave me wanting more, needing more of what he can give me because he’s so good at it.

Before I can protest, the kiss is broken and my shirt is gone. My cheeks turn pink with embarrassment at the thought of Logan seeing me with nothing but a pair of panties on. I gave birth to a baby just a few months ago and my body is nowhere near being back to what it used to be and it makes me self-conscious. I try to cover up with my arms but he shakes his head. “Don’t. You’re fucking beautiful baby.”

“I’m not.”

He circles my breasts with his fingertip and takes in every inch of me with nothing but lust in his eyes. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He tugs at my earlobe with his teeth causing a sharp intake of breath from me. “I want to taste every inch of you, Mia.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Do you want me to? Would you like that?”

“I…I don’t know.” I stammer.

“You don’t know? Haven’t you ever had anyone do that to you?”

“No.”

“No? Oh baby,” he says with a chuckle. “I’m about to show you what you’ve been missing.” He gently tugs on my underwear until I’m completely bared to him. I look into his eyes and all of a sudden I don’t feel so embarrassed. I feel beautiful, Logan makes me feel beautiful. His hands begin to roam again, gently massaging their way down to my legs where he runs his hands up and down my calves, making me relax my muscles with every single touch. His hands slip into my inner thighs and gently pulls them apart, giving him an all access view to everything that is me. “Oh baby, you’re gorgeous.”

His words make me shy. I’m not used to being on the receiving ends of compliments of any kind. I cover my eyes with my hands.

“Uh uh,” he says, tugging at my arms until my hands are free of my face. “Don’t hide from me, I love everything that I see and I want you to feel confident, okay?”

I open my mouth to reply just as his fingers rub against my wet core. My hips buck off the bed as I let out a cry. “Yes.”

“Yes?” he asks with a grin. “
Yes
you feel confident or
yes
you like me touching you like that?”

He rubs me again and I let out a moan.

“Which one baby? Hmm? Should I stop?”

“No. Don’t stop.”

“That’s my girl,” he says, spreading my legs further apart and lowering his head giving him better access to me. I’m pleasantly shocked when his tongue meets my wet folds and he licks his way up to my clit where he begins his gentle assault. With every second that passes I lose more of my control, bucking my hips until I find a circular rhythm that meets the motion of his tongue. A persistent pressure starts to build in me. It peaks then resides, again and again, and every time it reaches that peak it gets stronger, causing my legs to quiver. Logan’s hands clutch my hips, keeping me firmly rooted to the mattress. I grab onto his head and hold on for dear life as he works his tongue into every crevice until I’m gone, lost to an explosion that courses through my entire body, igniting me from within. In a haze I hear myself calling out for Logan as he extracts every ounce of pleasure from me. I close my eyes and toss my head to the side as I come down from the high I’ve just experienced.

“Oh my God,” I say breathily.

He chuckles and buries his face in my neck. “Was it good for you baby?”

I can’t help but to giggle at his comment. I never imagined after everything that I’ve been through that I could feel this happy. That I could feel this free and that I could actually experience what being intimate with someone feels like. Logan hovers over me again, his eyes go liquid with desire and that’s all that it takes for me to want more, to need more of him. He grabs my hands and pulls them up and over my head, wrapping his hands around my wrists and pinning me down to the bed as he buries his head in my neck and starts kissing me there.

A sense of panic starts to hit me and a memory resurfaces—crashing into the forefront of my mind, transporting me back in time, and all of a sudden I’m stuck under strong hands unable to move. A large frame hovers over me whispering horrible things in my ear. Making me afraid to move, afraid to fight, making me an unwilling participant in a series of cruel acts, forcing me to grow up long before my time, to snatch away all of the innocence and naivety of a young girl. I fight against the memory, fight to keep my wits about me, to remember that this is Logan I’m with and not…not someone who would ever intentionally hurt me. A solitary tear escapes from my eyes and I shake my head, trying to dislodge the memory from my mind, alerting Logan to my discomfort. He looks up at me his eyes wide at the sight of my tears. I can feel myself trembling and I hate that I’ve had this reaction to him.

“Babe?”

“Let go of me.” I plead through a now steady stream of tears.

He looks startled, obviously confused. “What? Mia?”

“Let go of my wrists, Logan.” I cry. “Now.”

“Okay, okay… Babe, it’s just me alright, I’m sorry,” he says, letting go of me.

I pull myself up to a sitting position and wrap my arms around my trembling body. I try to force it to be still but it’s no longer following commands from me. “I don’t like to be held down.” I admit softly.

He moves from my side until he’s in front of me. Hesitantly he pulls my chin up so that I can look in his eyes. He shakes his head slowly. “I’ll never do it again… Shh it’s okay baby. Please don’t cry.”

I grab onto his shoulders and pull him into a hug, digging my nails into his back as I try to calm my sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m just being stupid.”

“You could never be stupid, Mia. Look at me,” he says, pulling away slightly so that I can see his face. “You could never be stupid to me, alright?”

“Alright.” I nod slowly.

He strokes my hair slowly, lulling me back into a calmer place. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, I… I just have a thing about not being able to use my hands.”

He nods then rearranges us until we’re lying down in his massive bed with me tucked away safely in the crook of his arm. “How many people have you been with, Mia?”

“What?” I question, wishing that he could just let this go.

“Sexually, how many have there been?”

“One, just… Just one.” It’s the truth, even if I can’t tell him all of it, if I can’t give him the sordid details of the past I can give him one truth.

“Lily’s father… Did he? Mia, did he do something to you? Make you…”

I shut my eyes not wanting to look at him. Trying to shut his words out of my mind. “No, just please…please Logan don’t go there, just leave it alone please.”

“I can help you…If something happened to you.”

“Nothing happened, alright?” I snap at him. I try to pull away but he just holds me a little tighter. It’s not menacing, just forceful. I take a deep breath and check my attitude. “I’m sorry. I just started having sex way before I was ready and it wasn’t all that great, just let it go.”

The look of concern in his eyes and his heated stare tells me that he understands that sex for me has never been an option but I will never confirm that for him. I’ll never speak of it with him or anyone else.

“Mia…”

“Will you just hold me? Please,” I say, pulling his shoulders in an attempt to get him closer to me.

“Of course,” he replies, wrapping me in his arms.

“I’ll do better next time I promise,” I say softly.

“Baby you did fine. You did great,” he says, stroking my cheek again. God I love that so much. “I told you only what you’re comfortable with, okay?”

“Okay.” We lie together in silence, my mind running a mile a minute as I’m sure Logan’s is too, but I snuggle deep in his arms, letting their warmth envelope me, hoping that their strength will help keep me strong, help me to let go and wash away the dark memories of the past.

Logan and I haven’t spoken of my meltdown again. When I come home from work with Lily on Tuesday, he has moved all of my belongings into his bedroom, making space for my things in his closet and drawers and moving Lily’s baby monitor to his bedside table. He said that if I was going to live with him and we were going to be together, then we should use the master bedroom and make it our own.

I love when he does things like that, when he takes charge of making certain decisions, in turn making it easier for me to focus on other things like my job, Lily, and most importantly healing the wounds of my past because there’s nothing that I want more than to move forward with Logan.

“I had a dream last night,” I say quietly to Logan while we snuggle in bed with Lily, who was fussy tonight sleeping on his chest.

“What was it about?”

I stare at Lily, looking so sweet and peaceful and she’s just so easy to love. “I dreamt that I was visiting my mom. That I was at her house and she was holding Lily, cradling her in her arms and singing her a song. She looked at her with such love in her eyes, the way any grandmother would look at their grandbaby, the way that your mom looks at Lily, and she was so happy to see her. When I woke up and realized it was just a dream it made me so sad. Why couldn’t she just love her? Let me love her? Give me the choice instead of trying to force me to do something I would have never been able to live with?”

He rubs my arm. I’ve come to find that Logan uses touch as a way to calm me down, to make me feel better and I wouldn’t have thought it but it actually works. “Maybe she thought she was making the right choice?”

“Do you think it would have been the right choice for me to give Lily up?”

“No,” he says, giving me a reassuring smile. “I think that you were put in a difficult spot, an impossible situation, and you made the absolute best choice you could.”

My eyes drop to Lily resting on his broad chest. “Look at her. How could anyone not love her?” I wonder out loud.

“I don’t know babe.” He strokes Lily’s back and gives her a kiss on the top of her head.
He’s quiet for a moment, just staring at her little face. “Mia, have you tried to call her?”

“Who?” I question, already knowing the answer but not wanting to hear it.

“You know who, your mom.”

I purse my lips at the thought of picking up the phone to call a woman who was so ready to cast my child—her grandchild, away. Who made it evident that if I chose this life I would no longer be welcome in her home. “No. She made her position very clear. I don’t want her to feel like she can have any more input in my life or my decisions.”

“It’s up to you, but she can’t hurt you. No matter what she says, she can’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do and I’m here to make sure of it. Will you at least think about it?”

I let out a sigh of frustration and answer, “Yes. I’ll think about it.” We both know I’m lying, we both know that I have no intentions of calling her. Maybe not ever.

“I forgot to tell you, I’m going out of town for a training on Thursday but I’ll only be gone one night. I’ll be home by the time you get home from work on Friday night.”

“Oh, okay,” I say, acting as if his absence won’t affect me. I haven’t been alone for an entire night since the break-in at my apartment and even with Logan’s crazy hours I’m still able to sleep securely knowing that he’ll be home eventually. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to New York. Will you be alright here alone? I don’t like leaving you.”

I don’t want to let on that being alone makes me a little bit nervous. It’s not healthy for me to be so dependent on him or anyone else. I need to be able to deal with things on my own and being home alone is just one of those things that I need to conquer. I smile up at him and give him a wink. “Well, I’ll miss you, but I’ll be okay.”

“I know you will be. You’re the strongest girl I know.” His faith in me is humbling. Being with Logan has taught me what a real relationship should be like. What it means to have someone who you share your dreams with, your fears and everything in between.