Collin couldn't have picked the woman out of a police lineup later, but at the time she seemed pretty enough. He'd met her in a bar then followed her back to her apartment a few blocks east. She was too young for him—he remembered that—college girl; maybe twenty-two. He thought she said she had a boyfriend but they were fighting; Collin didn't listen to her yammering about it as he sat on her bed and pulled off his shirt.
"Ooooh..." She sat next to him, running her hand gingerly over a large scar on his shoulder, "What happened?"
"Accident; take off your dress." He was being an asshole, and she was one of those girls who apparently got off on the bad-boy persona.
She stood up and did a little striptease for him, slithering out of the dress and showing off her lacy black bra and panties. Despite her tight little college-girl body and her boob-job that made her look like a porn star, Collin's dick remained flaccid in his pants.
She came to him and he stood up, unzipping his pants so she could sit on the bed when she took him into her mouth.
Her gagging attempt at a blowjob was miserable at best and was doing nothing for his libido. Had he not come the other night with Logan, he would have been worried that the explosion in the church had done some serious damage to his nerves below the belt. Unfortunately, knowing that wasn't the case was giving him cause to worry about much more serious problems.
"Honey, just stop. It's not you." Collin put his hands on her shoulders as she sat below him on the bed. "Look, you're a beautiful girl..." he raked his fingers through his hair, "I'm just...my head is someplace else. Go back to your boyfriend, he's not as big of a dick as somebody like me."
Collin got dressed, grabbed his coat, and left for home.
*****
Collin slumped back down on the porch after his unfulfilling experiment in self-loathing. He'd only been gone about two hours but it may as well have been all night. The air had become even cooler and he shivered, but wasn't ready to go inside. His head was buzzing with too much new information. He started slightly as a blanket was draped over his shoulders. Glancing up, he was surprised to see that Logan had been the one to place it there.
"Don’t want you catching cold," Logan said softly and turned to go back into the house.
"Thanks," Collin mumbled, and then, "Wait."
Logan stopped in the doorway, but didn’t turn.
"What I did in there. It was over the top."
Logan glanced over his shoulder, "I'm sure I deserved it. No harm done."
"No, you didn’t deserve it. It wasn't about you…it was about me."
Logan turned, "Would you like to talk about it?"
"No."
The mage gave a little shrug, "I'll leave you alone then. I'll take the couch tonight so you can have a bed…that is, if you don’t think I've polluted it too badly."
Collin sighed and rolled his eyes, "No, it's okay, I'll take the couch."
"Just as well. The sheets are a bit…sullied…in places," Logan left his implication hanging in the cool night air as he went back inside.
Collin chuckled bitterly. Logan certainly could turn a phrase into something debauched and disturbing. Although the most disturbing thing about it was the fact that Collin's mind went right along through that dark innuendo and sparked an image in his brain that should have disgusted him, but didn't.
Damn it, he really needed to focus on something else. He'd been with a hot young girl tonight and couldn't even get it up, but imagining Logan jerking-off had caused an uncomfortable stirring in his pants. "Just tension," he reconciled, as if saying it out-loud would make it true. Collin had converted his three-car garage into a gym, so instead of heading into the house, he headed there. Working out would be a lot more productive than suffering through an unfulfilling one-night-stand, and a lot healthier than fantasizing about the mage in his house.
Collin put on some music and pulled off his shirt, looking in his full-length mirror. His scars from the explosion told the story of how badly he'd been injured, but he knew that they would have been a lot worse. If it hadn’t been for Logan, he'd be dead. Considering this, he certainly hadn’t been showering the man with gratitude. But it had been Logan's kind who had started this whole mess in the first place.