"I mean like in crafts crafty."
I shrugged. "We like Pinterest."
"Good enough. You wouldn't happen to know where I could get some invisible-ink fabric paint?"
Chapter Eight
Logan
Logan sat at the kitchen table with a pile of engineering books in front of him, untouched. He should have been studying. Instead, he'd been poring over the day's mail. Two substantial, exciting job offers had arrived. He'd been expecting them—hoping for them, anyway. He should have been thrilled. He was. He would have been ecstatic, except he knew they'd make El sad.
One was an offer from a high-tech firm in Silicon Valley. Another from a company in South Carolina. He'd been so damn eager to get out of this university and away from his dad, and even the torture of being so near El and not being with her, that he hadn't applied at any of the premier high-tech companies in Seattle or Portland. Now he was regretting that decision big time.
It was way late in the game to line up a job in Seattle immediately after graduation. The best companies had started interviewing in January or earlier. It wouldn't be impossible to get a job with one eventually, not for someone with his credentials. But it would mean moving back home for as many months as it took and taking crap from his dad for everything, including turning down two good offers for no good reason. Big-time shit. Unacceptable.
Now that he and El were back together, he was rethinking his post-graduation plans. He wanted to be near her. But could he turn down these opportunities? Was it even smart to let a girl influence his plans? El was different. But.
Whatever he decided, El wouldn't be thrilled to see these offers. He'd have to tell her about them. But he didn't look forward to it.
Almost as if he'd conjured her up by thinking about her, El called just as an email from her came in. Logan couldn't help smiling as he answered the call and slid the offers beneath a pile of junk mail on the counter. "Hey, I was hoping you'd call."
"A real man of action! If you wanted to talk to me, you could have called. What's the matter? Are your fingers broken?" Her voice was filled with tease.
"Cramped from writing out equations and solutions."
"Poor baby." She laughed. "That's a lame excuse, by the way."
"I'll do better next time."
"You better. I've been dying to hear how your first day back on the job with my dad went."
"That's the only reason you called?"
"One of the reasons. Are you going to keep me in suspense?"
"Maybe. Maybe I'll make you drag it out of me." He put a hint of innuendo in his voice.
"Drag it out of you? That sounds promising." She laughed. "I have my ways."
"My first day back was just fine. Normal. I joked around with Jason. Karen seemed happy to see me, too. I went out on a few calls. There's not much more to tell. What's this you just sent me? Planned our weekend already? That's so girly."
"You may not have noticed, but I am a girl."
"Oh, I noticed." He took a deep breath, trying to hold his interest at bay. "I'm thinking about that now."
"Don't tease."
"I'm a horny guy. I never tease. Come over?"
"It's late."
"Spend the night."
"There's an enticing idea. I was hoping you'd ask. Bre is still in major depressed mode. Going into our room is like approaching Mordor. The sense of gloom is palpable."
"Sucks for her."
"Yeah, and me. She may be like this a while."
Logan made a snap decision. "Pack a bag and come stay with me until it blows over."
El paused. "Ah, that could be quite a while. In the state she's in it could take days just to get back up to depressed. Are you sure?"
It hit him that he'd practically asked her to move in. "Pack enough for a few days and we'll play it by ear. I promise I'll be a lot more fun to be around than Bre."
She laughed. "That shouldn't be hard. I'll hold you to it. Zave and Collin won't mind?"
"You are way too polite and considerate. They won't care. Do I have to beg you?"
"Yes, beg, boy, beg. I'd love to hear that." She sounded relieved and happy.
"You really want me to beg?"
"No, just come pick me up."
"I'll be there in ten."
He texted El as he pulled up in front of her dorm. She was waiting for him and came bounding out with a playful bounce in her step and a suitcase trailing behind her. He got out and kissed her, finally breaking away to help her hoist her luggage into his trunk.
"I scheduled my grad school interview today," he said, trying to sound casual, like it was no big deal.
Her smile made the agony of pretending to believe he could return to the university after the trial and go to grad school almost worth it. When she grabbed his head between her hands and pressed her lips to his again, caressing his mouth, he thought about skipping dinner and taking her straight back to his place.
She broke the kiss all too soon. "Do you have anything to eat at your place? I'm starving. I have RDA dollars. I can treat."
"Dining hall food? You're kidding." He was ribbing her. Some of it wasn't so bad. But after a few weeks in the dorms, the limited choices got old real fast. "I'm taking you out."
"Great. We can celebrate."
"What are we celebrating?"
"Your interview appointment and Jason taking my news that Mom is coming for Mom's Weekend so well and agreeing to stay out of sight."
Logan was happily surprised. "Yeah, I was relieved he wasn't in a bad mood on my first day back. I knew Jason would be reasonable about it." Logan generally avoided talking about Melissa much, afraid he'd give something away that he shouldn't. "So he's cool with staying away?"
El shrugged. "I don't know if he's cool. Resigned, maybe. He wants Mom and me to learn to get along, so he had no choice. It's a lost cause. I hope he'll realize that eventually."
Logan was surprisingly on Jason's side on this one. If El knew all the shit Melissa had been through, she might at least understand why Melissa was the way she was. Not that he ever expected them to be best buds or anything. Melissa had done too much bad crap to El for that.
Logan took El to Burger Country, the locally owned fave of students and alums alike. It had been in town forever, since Logan's parents' student days and before. He had a double cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate shake. El had a kid's meal and the world's tiniest dipped ice cream cone, the baby size that came with the meal. Caramel.
"Are you ever going to grow up and eat adult-size portions?"
The sparkle in her eyes turned him on. "Take me back to your place and I'll show you how grown up I can be."
"Let's go."
He had a hard-on the entire drive home. He grunted the barest greetings to Collin and Zave as he pulled El past them to his room. He was aching with need by the time he got her into his room and shut the door.
She pulled her T-shirt off over her head, kicked off her shoes, and slid her jeans off as he matched her move for move. He was turned on and breathing hard just staring at her in that lace bra and matching thong panty.
As she reached behind her back to undo the bra, he couldn't stand still. He took over for her, kissing her neck and unhooking it. He wanted her. He needed her.
He grabbed her butt. She wrapped her legs around him. He carried her to the bed as she ran her hands through his hair and nibbled on his neck. He had her on the bed, legs sprawled, hair spilling over the pillow almost before he could think. He was so hot and ready as he pressed between her legs, he just wanted to enter her. He forced himself to slow down and stay in control. Control was everything to Logan.
She moaned as he stroked her breast and kissed her. He would take his time and slowly arouse her if it killed him.
"Don't mess around, Logan. Get a condom and let's do this." She stroked his dick with one hand and reached for a condom in the nightstand with the other.
He beat her to it, unwrapped it, and rolled it on, because he didn't know if h
e had enough control to hold back if she did it. She arched against him. He plunged in and lost all rational thought. When he was with El, there was nothing but her and wave after wave of pleasure. The rest of the world disappeared. He needed the escape as much as he needed her. But the total loss of control scared him, threatening to push him to the dark side.
He thrust again and again as she moaned and squeezed him.
"El, you are so damned tight. Shit."
"Let go, Logan. I'm right there with you." She grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into a kiss as she rocked with his motion and stroked the inside of his mouth with her tongue, mimicking the thrusting of his dick in her.
He was trying to hold back and wait for her. But he lost the battle and fell over the edge into waves of pleasure and a climax so strong it must have registered on the Richter scale. He gasped, breathless as he pulled El so tightly against him it was like she was part of him.
She moaned softly and gasped like the pleasure surprised her. "Logan." She relaxed beneath him.
He'd lost control. El made him lose all restraint. It unnerved and unmanned him. He wanted to make love to El again, right then, to prove he could hang on and manipulate the situation. Come only when he purposely let go and not before.
He'd slept with dozens of girls since the assault. Had a rep as a great lover. Oh yes, he knew how to please. He knew how to torment himself and keep him and his partner just on the edge of release. For as long as he wanted. He had phenomenal, legendary staying power. Because he'd learned how to control his sexuality and climax. It was like a game he'd played with himself sometimes, seeing how long he could go.
The girls said he wasn't greedy. He didn't come too early and fast like a lot of guys his age. He thought only of the girl's pleasure. He didn't care what they believed. He never bothered to correct them. But they were dead wrong. It was all about him.
He'd learned to control his body. Learned to control his sexual release. Practiced by letting girls try to drive him over the edge of pleasure and turning his full attention back on them, working to please them. By thinking thoughts that allowed him to turn himself off and slow down if he needed to. Because he'd be damned if anyone ever controlled his body again like She had. He refused to be a victim of his own natural responses again. Refused to let his manhood and his sexual tastes be questioned again.
He decided when he came. He did. He'd gotten to the point where he was sure he could go for hours and not come. That there was nothing any girl could do to him to make him come until he decided he would.
He never let his purely animal, physical instincts take over. Never. El defeated him. And it scared the shit out of him. She had power over him she didn't, in her innocence, even know. He couldn't hold out against her.
He never thought he'd be weak again. But somehow he was. He wanted to prove—and at the same time he didn't—that he was still in control when he was with her.
"Logan?" She stared at him with a worried expression. "Are you okay?"
"I am way more than okay, El. Way more." There was no way he could tell her how afraid he was of her. He needed her more. "I wasn't too fast?"
She smiled lazily and sighed. "You were just right." The way she caressed her words, she may as well have said she loved him.
"I love you, El." His words came out fiercer sounding than he intended.
"I love you, too." She yawned and stretched as he rolled off her and tossed the used condom in the wastebasket. "I am happily sated."
"After doing it only once?"
"Horny bastard." She glanced at the clock. "It's one in the morning. I have lab tomorrow at nine. I need to get some sleep." She pulled the sheet around her and sat up like she was going to get out of bed.
"Where are you going?"
"To get a nightgown or a shacker shirt."
"No, El. You don't need a shacker shirt. Sleep naked with me tonight." At the thought, his dick grew hard again.
She looked at it and smiled. "Are you going to poke me with that thing all night?"
"Not all night."
El straddles him. She's never ridden him like this before. Her bellybutton ring sparkles in the moonlight. A glint of peridot green. Her long blond hair falls down around her face, a cascade of silk he runs his fingers through.
She's hot and wet. He's on the edge already, fighting to maintain control, but wanting to let loose with her.
Her naked breasts bounce. They're so perfect. He reaches to caress one. It's full and heavy in his hand. Just the way he likes. He can't get enough of touching it. It buds beneath his touch. He takes the nipple between his fingers, rolling it and playing with it until it's long and hard.
She moans and moves expertly on him. Squeezing him rhythmically.
Just as he's about to tumble over the precipice of climax, she leans down to kiss him, her hair obscuring her gorgeous face. As her lips are just about to meet his, a terrifying sense of dread overcomes him.
It isn't El who's riding him. It's Dr. Rogers.
Logan woke with a start in a cold sweat.
"Logan? What's wrong?" El popped up next to him in bed and put her hand on his arm. "You're clammy. Are you sick? Do you feel like you have a fever?"
Too many questions. He fought to come out of the fog of the nightmare and realized El really was beside him. "Bad dream."
She gave his arm a squeeze. "Hang on. Stay there." She propped a pillow up behind him, fluffed it, and slid out of bed.
He watched her stroll naked to the bathroom in the dark, her sexy form like a shadow. The raging anger at Dr. Rogers pulsed in his temple. Damn Her. He wouldn't let Her ruin him and El. He wouldn't. He'd fight Her with everything he had.
She'd ruined things with Kels. Shit, Kels had deserved better. He wouldn't let Her destroy what he had with El.
The sound of water running in the bathroom was soothing. El returned a minute later with a glass of water. She slid into bed next to him and handed it to him. "Drink. You'll feel better. It will help you wake up and bring you back to reality."
He nodded and downed the water in three gulps, feeling the cold as it slid down his throat, hoping El was right. If she was, this water was a miracle. El was a miracle.
She took the glass from him and set it next to the bed.
"It was Her," he said. "Again."
"Oh, Logan." El wrapped him in her arms and coiled her legs around him, intertwining herself with him as if trying to shield him against the misery. "It wasn't real."
"It was the first time." As he pulled her to him, he brushed something warm and sticky on his stomach. Shit. He'd hoped that had been part of the dream, too. His face flamed in the dark. He had an overwhelming desire to punch something. He rubbed the stickiness between his fingers and looked at El's shadowed face, feeling like this was make-it-or-break-it time.
If she reacted with pity or horror like Kels had, it was over. He couldn't face her.
El grabbed the corner of the sheet and wiped the stickiness away with it. Her voice was a reassuring purr. "Don't worry about that. I was sleeping naked next to you. How could your body not react?" She laughed softly and ran her fingers through his hair. "The stress gave you the nightmare. I gave you a wet dream."
Shit. She was exactly right. She'd described the dream without knowing exactly what it was. He stroked her cheek. "I don't deserve you."
"Oh, I know. No one does." She kissed him lightly. "Feeling better?"
"Yeah. You were right. The water did the trick." He held her tightly against him, pulling her head to rest on his chest. "El?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't ever leave me."
"Leave you? You saved my life. I owe you a debt of honor. You're stuck with me until I save yours."
"Then I'm going to live very carefully so you never have to." But he had the feeling she already had.
Chapter Nine
Ellie
I didn't know if I'd said the right thing to Logan until he pulled me against him and the beat of his heart
became steady and sure again as I rested my head on his chest. I just knew he didn't want to be pitied. And he was feeling guilty for something he had no control over, like a stupid nightmare. Like being sexually assaulted. And I couldn't lose him. I wouldn't let him be embarrassed. Not around me.
He had a similar nightmare the next night. And the next. I got up and got him water. I ran my hands over his forehead and held him to me and tried to make him laugh. I vowed I wouldn't lose him to Her. Not this way. She was like the demon between us, a horrible succubus that found a way into his dreams.
I vowed I'd get up every night for the rest of my life if I had to. But I would not lose. I couldn't ask him not to testify. I couldn't even hint. He needed my strength now more than he needed anything. If we could only get past the nightmares.
They were because of the stress of the upcoming trial. On an intellectual level, Logan knew they were, too. Just manifestations of stress and anxiety. But dreams have such emotional power that it was hard to combat them. I worried they'd affect our relationship.
Logan wouldn't tell me the content of the dreams. I had the feeling I knew the reason—I was somehow part of them. And you know how that goes. You have a dream someone did something to you, treated you badly, ignored you, or embarrassed you. Laughed at you. And the next morning you wake up mad at them, even though you know it wasn't really them. It was only a trick of your own traitorous mind and insecurities.
But worse yet, I couldn't let go of it. I imagined all kinds of horrible scenarios that might have been tormenting him in his dreams. I went over and over the few details Logan had told me about the assault. I thought so hard about them that I almost chased the memories away. And then in a moment of silence, when I wasn't thinking of anything in particular, Logan's words came back to me, indelibly etched in my mind so perfectly I could hear his voice in my head as clearly as if he was speaking aloud.
I felt an overwhelming sense of dread and revulsion. Violation. Images, just snatches, like scenes from a nightmare. The kind where I'm making love with a girl I'm hot for and she suddenly morphs into someone repulsive popped up out of nowhere and made me break into a cold sweat. Dr. Rogers naked. On top of me.