Becoming His Muse, Complete Set (30 page)

“Say it again,” he says roughly. “Tell me again.”

“Fuck me, Logan. Fuck me hard.”

He moan-growls as he does just that. It seems he practically splits me in two as I keep sparking, my final explosion imminent.

“Again,” he demands.

I whimper it out one last time and then I’m rolling and rocking at the mercy of his final thrusts as my orgasm explodes around us both. I bite my tongue so as not to cry out his name, because someone might be listening on the other side of that door. My nails dig into his shirt, my head lolls against the hard tiled wall, my juices drench his still-plunging cock. His lips lock onto my neck as I feel his climactic thrusts. They’re hard and deep, as if he’s going right through me and into the wall, and then they slow and soften as he leans into me, still holding me up, but with trembling tired arms. I slide one leg down to hold myself up while I feel his releasing pulses fill me.

He kisses my neck and cheek softly, murmuring. “Mmmm… I liked that… I like fucking you…I like you telling me to…”

“I like you wanting to,” I whisper back. I can’t quite find the words to express how beautifully powerful I feel when he wants me that rawly, that primally, when he
needs
me to open to him, to say those things, or others, and for him to give himself to me so fully. I feel full. Full of him. Full of my own power and pleasure.

But now we have to let each other go. He slips from my pussy’s embrace. I wipe up my juices. He disposes of his condom. We both put our clothes back together and ready ourselves to rejoin the real world. But I hang on to the sweet sensual world we have created between us.

Whoever had knocked earlier is no longer waiting, probably having given up and gone in search of another toilet on another floor. We exit together, and only one elderly woman sees us, her arched eyebrow and pursed lips the only sign of suspicion. We lean toward one another, sharing a sexy secret. I feel as if I’m glowing on the inside and out. Logan’s arm slides possessively around my shoulders for all to see as we carry on up the ramp that houses several large Picasso paintings.

Logan and I walk together hand in hand or arm in arm as if we’ve been a couple for years. What a relief it is to just be together, out in the open, with nothing to hide. It reveals to me how stressful the last few months have been.

“It’s nice to be here with you like this.”

“Museum hopping?”

“Not
hiding
,” I say.

“It could always be like this,” he says.

I stop and turn to him. “What do you mean?”

He shrugs. “If we lived here.”

We? Here? My head is spinning. Logan has never even hinted at anything permanent between us.

“This particular Picasso was….” He steps toward the wall pointing out this and that while the tiny bomb he just dropped explodes inside me.

By the time we leave the Guggenheim, we have to rush to catch a taxi to make the curtain call for Wicked. That dazzling spectacle pervades my senses through the evening, and manages to push Logan’s suggestive words to the back of my mind. But they are not lost. They haunt the eddies of my imagination and conjure up all kind of scenarios.

That night I dream we’re bride and groom floating through a colorful surrealist sky of a Marc Chagall painting.

Living in New York is my dream, but living here with Logan reaches beyond my wildest dreams. On our own, unencumbered by rules and roles, we seem to fit well together. He has his moods, to be sure, but he doesn’t snore too loudly, and he makes me feel like a sexual goddess every minute of every day. There is the age difference, but maybe we can overcome that? There’s his reputation, and my lack of one. Can we bridge that? In our own little world, I feel as if we could conquer anything, but I remind myself I’ve not met anyone from his life, nor he from mine. When I think about that, my doubts surface. My parents would never approve, of course, but I’ll be risking their support and approval just by moving to New York. And what would Logan’s reader-fans think if the bad boy of literature settled down with a wet-behind-the-ears college grad? Could that affect his established yet still burgeoning career?

Regardless of where my imagination is taking me, is Logan just playing out a fantasy with his muse? All he said was, “
If
we lived here…”. Maybe it means nothing. I’m just a painter, but I’m well aware that the world of “
what if
” is a writer’s playground. And he hasn’t brought it up again since yesterday.

I wander around a snowy Washington Square with these thoughts bouncing around my brain.

After a mid-morning visit to the Museum of Modern Art, Logan escorted me back to the apartment and then left to meet his agent, Lowell. I was feeling restless, I decided to take a walk and discovered this wonderful square where, even in the middle of winter, scores of people wander with their thoughts and quiet conversation. A very bundled up old woman sits on a bench tossing seeds to the pigeons. The two inches of snow on the ground lends a quality of hushed sound and glowing light. I feel as if I’m walking through a postcard.

When my fingers get too cold, I return to the apartment and fire up the Nespresso machine. I scan the packed bookshelves and find a slim first edition of
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
. I settle in to read until Logan returns.

I manage to skim the first thirty pages before I hear the locks click and retract.

Logan returns from having coffee with his agent.

“He was impressed with the weight of that stack of pages. Now I’ll have to wait to see if that impression extends to the words themselves.” He absently bites at his thumbnail.

“He will be,” I say to reassure him. But what do I know? I’m guessing, for a writer, this is one of those tense stretches of time when you wait to find out if you’re on the right or the wrong track. The unveiling of a painting isn’t so time consuming. It’s initially perceived in a matter of seconds, but writing takes hours, days, or weeks to assess. A different kind of patience is required.

“By the way, Lowell invited us to an art opening in Chelsea. At first I said no—I hate those stuffy gatherings—but then I thought you might enjoy it. Would you?”

I smile. “Yes. Thank you for thinking of me.”

“I do that more often than you might imagine.”

I smile again. That may be true but I doubt it’s as much as I’d like. There are more thoughts in this man’s brain than I’ll ever know. I’m glad to at least occupy a tiny space in there.

“When’s the opening?” I’m thinking we may have some time for a little fun first.

“Seven. A wine and cheese thing. We can go out to eat after.” He tosses his Fedora onto the dining table.

“Or come back here?” I sidle up to him. My hands push against his tweed lapels until the jacket falls from his shoulders. I start to work the buttons of his shirt. He dressed so nicely to meet his agent. I now want to balance out the nice with some naughty.

“And eat each other?” he says, playing along.

I nod, trailing my fingernails across his recently revealed pecs until he shivers. “Because you are the most delicious thing I’ve ever
tasted
.”

I unbutton his slacks and slide my hands around back so I can grab his glutes. I pull him toward me, pressing his growing erection against my pubic bone. He tips his head to kiss my lips. Both of his hands dig into my hair and hold my face tight to his. At the end of the kiss, he pulls away and whispers.

“Oh, Ava, what ever did I do to deserve you?”

“Why would you have to do anything to deserve me?”

With my hands still on his ass cheeks, I bend my wrists and push his loosened slacks off his hips. The soft fabric falls quietly to the floor. My knees soon follow as I kiss my way down his chest to his abs and his belly button. My hands cup the front of his boxers, one hand rests along his hard length, the other palms his balls through the thin jersey fabric. He moans lightly as I slide my hands up his legs and under his boxers. I grip his shaft of warm, hard skin, letting my fingers trace the ridge of his glans. The fingers of my other hand feel the soft tender not-quite-roundness of each ball.

“I’ve done less than nothing to deserve this,” he says hoarsely.

“Do you want me to stop?” I look up at him as I pull the back of his boxers down. His cock falls forward slightly and brushes my lips. His breath catches as he looks down at me. He’s shaking his head. “Please, don’t stop,” he whispers.

I take him in my mouth, my eyes still on his. I know how much he loves this and yet his eyes look rather pained. I kiss and suck gently, lovingly fondling his balls and letting my fingers occasionally caress his ass and thighs. When I look up at him again, his eyes look dark and haunted… and a little wet.

At first I think he’s disappointed, and I’m about to grip him firmer and suck faster and deeper, but then I feel his finger on my chin, and I hear him say the word, “Stop.”

He drops down to the floor beside me, kicking off his shoes and the slacks and boxers bunched at his ankles.

“Didn’t you like it?” I say, wiping away the saliva that’s gathered around my lips and chin.

With a slightly choked voice, he says, “I love it. I just…” Logan is not someone I’ve ever known to be at a loss for words. He reaches for a tendril of my hair and stares me in the eyes, unblinking. His erection hasn’t faded but the ardor’s gone out of him.

“You didn’t lack for anything growing up, did you?” he says quietly.

“I guess not.”

“Your parents adored you and gave you everything you ever wanted.”

I’m not so sure about that, but it’s true that they doted on me. Still do, in away that’s irritating and inappropriate at my age. I settle beside him and wrap my arms around my knees.

“Did they ever hit you, Ava?”

I shake my head quickly. “Never.”

My father had a slight temper, but my mother was always there to curb it.

“Not even a spank?”

I don’t remember any. “I’m pretty sure not.”

Logan and I sit on the floor facing each other. The pale winter light from the windows reflects off the bare skin of his chest. I stare at the scar near his collarbone.

“Spanking’s mild compared to what my father did to me.”

I wince at the thought. I don’t know the details but I can imagine, and it hurts to think of Logan as a young boy in pain. I wish I could take that pain away.

He takes my face in his hands, turns my eyes up to his.

“You’re lucky to have been so loved,” he whispers. “You deserved that.”

“So did you,” I say, feeling tears begin to prick behind my eyes. He closes his eyes and shakes his head.

“The past is over, gone. I try not to let it haunt me now. But sometimes…”

I reach up and touch his scar, ever so lightly. I feel him start to tremble.

I take his hands away from my face so I can lean in and kiss his chest. His arms slide around my shoulders and he draws me close.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go to that dark place,” he says.

“It’s all right.” I say. “I’ll go there with you.”

His arms tighten around me. He buries his head in the crook of my neck. “No,” he says. “Be
here
with me.”

“Yes,” I say.

To myself, I add,
always
.

It’s getting chilly on the floor so I guide us up to the couch. We spoon together under a cozy blanket. Logan’s arms around me feel so warm and protective, as if anything bad that has happened or could happen can’t ever really hurt me. We lie like this, napping lightly, until it’s time to go to the art opening.

On our way to the art gallery I try to talk to Logan about his father.

“If he was so awful, why do you wear his old hat.”

“I told you, it’s a reminder.”

“Of
bad
things. Why does anyone need to be reminded of bad things?”

“Everyday each of us is standing at the edge of the worst and the best of what we could become. As much as we aim for our aspirations, we must remain aware of the demons that could pull us down.”

“What demons?”

“You’re too young to have them.”

“That’s not fair. You’re not
that
much older than I am.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Old enough so that most of the bad stuff that happened
to
me happened before you were born. What happened after I did mostly to myself. And others.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and doesn’t offer more.

“Stuff happened to me, too, you know.”

“Like what? Let me guess. Plenty of good meals, a warm cozy bed, the love and praise of your parents. Probably ballet and music lessons, summer camp, and I bet you even went to Disney World. And probably not just once.”

“Three times,” I mumble, frowning. “Do you really hate people who haven’t suffered as much as you have?”

He chuckles. “Not at all. You give me hope. Though, I admit, hope is pretty fragile in my hands.”

I reach for one of those hands. I love his hands. I remember that I want to paint them.

“Everybody suffers Logan. Even people who get to go to DisneyWorld. And everyone needs hope. True hope is resilient, not breakable. Like true love.”