| |
Looking down at their combined hands, Logan felt like he could finally breathe again. Since that day almost three months ago when he had found Melanie lying unconscious on the floor of her house, he’d been afraid that this moment would never come.
The moment where they both wanted the same thing.
Each other.
He wasn’t sure when or how the idea not to have sex had come, but now that it was out there, he knew it was the right thing.
They both needed time to be more than friends. To learn each other as partners. And jumping into bed would only blur the lines.
“How about tonight?”
“What about it?” she asked.
“Our first date.”
She looked over her shoulder. “It’s already three o’clock.”
“I figure you can go rest up and then we can have dinner later. If you want I can drive you home.”
She let go of his hand and took another long drink of her beer. “A week ago – hell an hour ago – I would have been annoyed that you seem to want me to leave. But knowing how hard of a time I am having not ripping your clothes off and having my wicked way with you – and I need you to trust me on this, it will be wicked – I can understand why you want me to leave.”
The sound that came from him was half laugh, half groan. “This might be the worst idea I’ve ever had.”
She smiled and if the room had been dark it would have lit the whole place. “Just think of the reward.” Walking past him, she went to the door. “I drove, so I can get myself home.”
“Tonight, seven?”
She nodded as she opened the door. “I can’t promise that I’ll be good.”
He stood where he was and watched her leave. He wanted badly to follow her out that door and drag her back inside. But he’d made a promise to himself to take this slow.
What was that saying...slow and steady wins the race?
Well, he wanted to win and if that meant keeping his hands and mouth and dick to himself, he would do it.
Shaking his head to try and clear out some of the lust, he moved back to his couch. If he wanted to be firing on all cylinders for his date, he’d better take his own advice and get some rest.
––––––––
Three and a half hours later, he was dressed in slacks, a nice shirt and dress shoes. Considering that his normal summer attire was shorts, t-shirts and flip flops, he counted this as being dressed up. He hadn’t mentioned to Melanie what the plans were when she had left, so when he woke up from his nap, he sent her a text letting her know that they were going to Delilah's, a nice restaurant that sat on the water over on the other side of the lake. You didn’t have to dress up fancy to go to Delilah’s, but it wasn’t a shorts and t-shirt place either.
Pulling up to her house, he sat a few minutes before getting out. He’d chosen to bring his car rather than his Jeep so that she wouldn’t have to worry about her hair, but now that he was here with it, he felt like maybe it was too pretentious. It was a nineteen sixty-seven Stingray Corvette and while he loved it, he almost never drove it.
It was a purchase he’d made after his first few big assignments. One of those, I have money now and I can buy whatever I want things. He had known at the time that it was a ridiculous purchase, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself.
Sitting in it now, ready for his date with Melanie almost made him feel like a pompous jackass though.
Maybe he had time to go back home and grab his Jeep?
He was turning the car back on to do just that when the front door opened and Melanie walked out. She took his breath away. He’d never seen her in the pink dress she was wearing, but knew – even though she liked to hide it – that pink was her favorite color. The color wasn’t what he noticed first about the dress though.
Her legs were what he saw first. Lots and lots of leg. The dress was short. Like really short.
Opening his car door, he had to talk himself down from running up the steps to greet her.
“You brought the Vette,” she said as he moved closer to her. “You never drive the Vette.”
He winced “I thought this occasion called for it. Is that okay?”
“More than okay. I’ve been dying to ride in it for years.” She met him at the bottom of the steps.
“You should have let me knock.” They were face-to-face now, maybe two feet apart.
“Oh.” She frowned. “It might take me a while to get used to the new rules in our relationship.”
“There are no rules,” he laughed. “I just wanted to do this dating thing right.”
“Maybe we can make up our own rules?”
“Yeah, like what?” He smiled and waited for her answer.
“Like, we can do whatever we want because there are no rules.”
“No rules, huh? So I’m not obligated to tell you that you look fucking fantastic?”
She gave a small shrug and her cheeks reddened. “You don’t have to say it, but you can if it’s the truth.”
“In that case, we better get going.” How he kept a straight face was beyond him.
“Hey,” she slapped him in the arm with her small purse.
He took a step closer and placed both his hands on her arms. “You’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. It makes me wish I had brought my camera.” He bent the short distance and kissed her cheek. It would be so easy to just slide his mouth to the left and have her lips under his, but he retreated, remembering his promise to go slow.
“You look good too,” she practically purred. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen you this dressed up.”
They started walking toward his car. “When something is important to me, I have to do it right.”
Opening the passenger side door for her, he waited for her to slip in before softly closing the door. Taking a deep breath to steady himself from the fact that he was going to be sitting insanely close to her for the next twenty minutes, he walked around the car and got in.
“This car is gorgeous.” She rubbed her hands over the dash. “How come you rarely drive it?”
Backing out of the driveway, he got on the road before saying, “It kinda feels like it doesn’t belong in this town. Like I am rubbing people’s faces in the fact that I have money.”
She gaped at him. “You’ve got to be joking. Nobody in this town would think that.”
“I know that, deep down, but I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around it.”
“Why’d you get it then?”
He looked over at her. “For as long as I can remember, my dad had always talked about this car being his dream car. And when I finally made enough money, I thought by getting the car, it would show my dad that I had made it. That I was successful.”
“You make it sound like your dad didn’t approve of your career and I’m pretty sure I know that’s not the way it was.”
Logan had never told anyone what he was about to tell her. “It wasn’t that he didn’t approve. It was more like he just didn’t seem to care.”
She leaned forward in her seat and looked at him. “What are you talking about? Your dad is awesome. And your mom too.”
“They are awesome and I love them. A lot. But you have to understand, Brandon was the golden boy and could do no wrong. And then, all of a sudden they turned all their attention to Carly after her mom left. And I can’t and don’t fault them for that. But it made me feel left out. Like they didn’t really care what I did.”
“Logan,” she said softly, reaching out to take his hand across the seat. “Why did you never say anything?”
“Because it’s stupid,” he gave her a quick look before returning his eyes to the road. “I had a great family and here I was being pissed that I didn’t get enough attention.”
Her thumb was gently running back and forth over the top of his hand in a comforting gesture.
“Your feelings, no matter what they are, are never stupid.” She looked down. “Is that why you left?”
“It’s one of the reasons. I thought if I could come back to Cedarville after making something of myself, it would make everything better. But I also left because I needed to. I needed to see the world in order to learn that this place, this town, was where I wanted to be.”
“That’s something I totally understand. When I left for Juilliard, I thought I would never come back to this place. Who wanted to live in a small town when you could live in New York. But it only took me about six months to realize that New York was not the place for me. When I graduated and came home, it bothered me that for a while people thought that I only came home because I had gotten hurt and couldn’t make it in the big city. And that was so far from the truth. I just wanted to be here. This place was home.”
“If this were a real first date, this would be some pretty heavy conversation.”
“Oh, that’s right. I should be asking you things like your favorite color and your favorite food.”
“Pink and apricots.”
She laughed. “Your favorite color is pink?”
“As of about ten minutes ago, yeah.”
She slapped his leg. “And apricots. That’s a weird favorite food.”
“I recently got a taste of it and now I can’t think of eating anything but that.”
Her sharp intake of breath told him she got his meaning.
Melanie wore apricot lip balm. And since the first time he had kissed her, apricots were the only thing he could think of. It was so bad, that on his way to New York, he had stopped at a store and purchased some for himself.
“How am I supposed to keep my hands to myself, when you say things like that?”
“Willpower?” he asked, looking over at her.
“Yeah, that flew out the window the night you seduced me over the phone.”
He hit the brakes and pulled the car to the side of the road. Breathing was suddenly an issue.
“Are you okay,” she asked seriously.
“I just need a minute.”
“A minute for what?”
“For this.” He grabbed her face in both his hands and kissed her the only way he seemed to know how. Fast, hot and desperate. He felt her grab onto his shirt and her mouth opened under his. Sweeping his tongue inside, the taste of apricots assaulted him. He went instantly hard.
He gave himself a few more seconds of her delicious mouth before pulling back. Both of them were breathing heavily and instead of pulling further away he leaned his forehead against hers.
“We are never gonna be able to hold out. Just watching you breathe turns me on.”
She licked her lips and he held in a groan. “I could try holding my breath?”
He trailed a finger down her cheek. “Wouldn’t work.”
He felt her grip loosen on his shirt and she sat back, fixing her dress in her seat. Back in his own seat he adjusted himself before driving back out onto the road.
“Talk to me about the studio. Tell me what’s new.”
She began to talk and he listened as best he could when all the blood that normally flowed through his body had settled in one spot.
He was fucked.
By the time they made it to Delilah’s, Logan finally had a grip on his hormones. Or at least he thought he did until he opened her door for her and she swung her legs out.
He almost fucking hyperventilated right there in the parking lot.
Being that it was a Saturday during the summer, the place was packed so they settled for a table outside overlooking the lake.
“Are you really not going to take any more assignments,” she asked after they ordered drinks.
Leave it to his Melanie not to beat around the bush.
“You know how much I was starting to hate it.”
“I know that, but you love being behind your camera. It’s practically attached to your face all the time. I’m surprised I know what you look like.”
“I’m not gonna stop taking pictures, I just have to formulate a plan.”
She shook her head. “Who the hell says formulate a plan?”
He laughed. “Do you have any suggestions?”
“I have several,” she said. “But since they all involve you naked and you have this hair-brained no sex rule, I don’t think you want to hear them.”
He raised his eyebrows and licked his suddenly dry lips. “I was actually talking about suggestions for my life but...”
“Yeah, so was I.”
Her expression told him that she was dead serious and it was hot as fuck. Deciding to play her little game, he asked, “Go ahead and hit me with them. I can control myself.” He had no idea if that was true. In fact, previous encounters indicated that it wasn’t.
She leaned her head to the center of the table and lowered her voice. Her eyes were full of mischief. “I’m thinking that if you were to lie down on the bed naked when I got home from work, I could work out my daily frustrations on you.”
“And how would that be a career?” Their faces were close. So close that he could feel her warm breath on his lips.
“It would help me from being stressed at my job. And that in itself is a full-time career.”
“What else?” He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was mesmerizing when she was having fun.
“Well, let’s see. You could use up all the whipped cream by licking it from my naked body, saving me from unneeded calories.”
He swallowed at the image of his tongue running up her whipped cream covered leg. “Anything else?”
She tapped a finger to her lips pretending to think. “I’m hoping that you have a, umm, tool of sorts that can take care of some problems I have. It would have to be a big tool, and hard. Very, very hard.”
He closed his eyes and felt his cock go from semi-hard to rock hard in the blink of an eye.
“Do any of those sound like things you would be interested in?”
He opened his eyes to find her own glinting with humor.
Keep it together, he repeated over and over in his head.
“Ya know, I don’t really think so. While I do have a large, hard tool, I think it just might be too...” he paused to gauge her reaction, “much for you. If a person has never used a tool that big, there’s a learning curve to it.”
Her breath hitched and her eyes went from amused to flashing fire. Finally she sat back in her chair. Setting her napkin on the table.
“We need to go.”
“We haven’t even ordered yet.”
She stood. “Now. We need to go now.”
He stood too and moved next to her.“We are not having sex.”
She started walking and looked back over her shoulder. “There are a lot of things we can do between no sex and sex.”
He watched her walk away, his feet not able to move. If he went after her, they were definitely going to have some sort of sexual encounter. Yet it wasn’t like he could just stay there. She was leaving and he was her ride.
Removing his wallet from his pocket he dropped a fifty on the table to cover their drinks, before taking long strides to the door.
Standing out in front of the restaurant, her long tan body beckoned him. Gently taking her elbow, he led her to his car.
“Do me one favor,” he said as he opened her door. “Stay on your side of the car until we get home.”
She looked up at him, through long lashes. “I can’t promise anything.”
Shutting the door, he leaned against it and took several deep breaths.
So much for willpower.