Dissonance (34 page)

After Alex and Eli had momentarily separated themselves to send us on our way so they could be alone, I’d taken a minute to embrace each of them. Alex just gushed repeatedly about planning, and dresses, and me being her maid of honor. Eli, however, was much quieter in his excitement.

“I’m so happy for you, E,” I told him.

He squeezed me tighter. I thought maybe I was getting the strong, silent big brother in that moment, but he surprised me by whispering to me just when I was going to pull back. “Let him in, Lottie. You two can have this. He can be the one to save you, like Alex and I saved each other.”

The words kept running through my mind. Alex had been the bright spirit to Eli’s dark brooding period in his twenties. She flounced into his life and showed him that bad situations didn’t warrant a bad attitude. Her hopefulness and the exhilaration she got out of life brought back a side of my brother I hadn’t seen in years. And Eli had saved Alex from making a decision that would have ruined her life. She had been on a crash course to destruction before he pulled her up. Could we compare to all of that?

November

Three months after the proposal, I was ready to tap out of the wedding entirely. Alex and Eli had decided that they wanted to be married on March 6th. Seven months to plan a wedding to Alex’s standards was a bit of a tight schedule, but they wanted to do it on the anniversary of their move to Seattle. The two of them were sentimental that way.

The result had been three months of inspecting card stock types for invitations, choosing the correct table settings, looking at endless combinations of flowers, and, most dramatic of all, dress shopping. We’d gone to six different stores before Alex finally found the dress she wanted. She had been at the edge of a nervous breakdown over it, knowing that she needed to leave time for the dress to come in and to be altered. When we went into boutique number six, she was insisting that if she didn’t find one that day, they’d have to postpone the wedding.

Like I said, dramatic.

As much as I loved her, I was glad to have a guaranteed break from the wedding for one evening. Not that I was excited about what my night off from my maid-of-honor duties entailed. Instead of diffusing an over-stressed Alex, I would be meeting Logan’s parents for the first time.

That meant it was my turn to be out of my mind with anxiety. I had chosen and changed my outfit more times than I could count since Logan suggested that we do Thanksgiving with his family. A small amount of the nausea that hit me like a Mack truck was eased when he said that Eli and Alex were invited, but I still felt my stomach flip every time the dinner came to mind.

I’d called my brother half frantic, needing the two of them there with me if I was going to face Logan’s parents.

“What’s up, Lottie?” he’d answered unassumingly.

“Please, please, please tell me that you’re going to the Westfield’s for Thanksgiving. I can’t do this by myself. What if I fuck this up? I need you guys with me,” I’d rushed out at him, pacing a hole in the living room floor.

“Charlotte, breathe. Jesus, you need to calm down. Alex and I are coming, so you won’t be alone, but I guarantee you wouldn’t need us. Logan’s parents are great. His mom is one of the nicest women I’ve ever met. They’ll love you.”

The only part of his statement that I’d actually found reassuring was the fact that they were coming. Eli would be a comforting presence, and of course I wanted to spend the holiday with him, but my main concern was Alex. She was my buffer when things went wrong. She’d been my wingman for awkward situations for so long, knowing she’d be there if this dinner blew up in my face was almost enough to calm me.

Almost, but not entirely.

Logan had been assuring me up and down that I had nothing to worry about, but I could not stop the creeping sense of dread as the evening approached. He loved his mother more than anything, and I doubted there was a man he respected more than his father. What if they were able to see what he couldn’t, that I was a horrible choice for him? If anyone knew how much Logan deserved, it would be his parents. I knew he wouldn’t be mine forever, but I was not ready to give him up. Despite how hard I tried to keep the reality of our short time together in mind, being the object of his affection was comforting and addicting. Each day I found myself falling further. I was so deep, I doubted I could ever make it back out.

I had been up all night confronting those thoughts. When Logan stirred around six, I was so high strung that my very skin had started to feel too constraining. I was sitting up in bed, minutes from pacing the room, when he began to rouse. One arm lazily reached out to me, looking to pull me close like he always did in the mornings. His eyes opened slowly when he came up empty.

“What time is it?” he mumbled in a sleep-heavy voice.

“Almost 6, I think.”

He seemed confused at first, probably as to why I was awake already, as he looked around the room that was only beginning to lighten from the dawn. The peaceful remnants of sleep on his face disappeared the minute he met my eyes.

“Have you slept at all, angel?” he asked in a strained voice.

I didn’t answer him. We both knew I had not, and while Logan may not have known the whole reason, he knew enough.

He wrapped me in his embrace, pulling me down into his warmth. Rolling above me, he braced his arms on either side of my head, bringing his face close to mine. His sleep-warm body pressed against mine, revealing the hardness I had come to expect from him in the morning. Suddenly, I was restless for a whole new reason.

“You need to relax,” he insisted. “There is no reason to be so worked up about this, I promise.” One hand shifted so that his fingers could graze my neck, my already building desire caused me to lift into his touch.

Logan read my body immediately, the recognition of my desire showing in those brilliant eyes. “I think what you need,” he whispered in the deep, sexy tone that drove me mad with lust, “is a distraction.”

There was nothing I could do to keep my body from pressing against his at the insinuation. I knew just how incredible Logan was at distractions.

His lips captured mine, soft at first, coaxing. But when I opened my mouth to him, the fervent heat I needed came to the surface. It was how things were for the two of us. Logan always tried to be sweet and gentle, but his desire overtook him. The truth was I lived for the moments when he lost control that way, when he showed me just how great his need was.

It took him no time at all to reach for the hem of the t-shirt I’d taken from his drawer to sleep in the night before, and as soon as he had it in his grasp, it was leaving me. With just my thin panties and his boxers separating us, there was no room for any thoughts that didn’t involve the delicious things Logan could do to my body.

His lips moved down my neck, my collarbone, my chest, until he pulled away from my skin ever so slightly with the most salacious look in his eyes. Without breaking eye contact, he leaned in and ran his tongue over my hardened nipple. It was too much. My head shot back against the pillows, and I released an uninhibited moan.

Logan’s tongue, teeth, and lips worked at each nipple, until I was certain I would orgasm from that contact alone. My breathing was choppy and punctuated by tiny gasps. My back was arched as high as it could go, straining to feel every bit of him.

With a thrust of his hips against me, Logan groaned, “You are so incredibly sexy. I need you, Charlotte. I can’t hold back.”

I gasped out, as clearly as I could, “Don’t hold back.”

And he didn’t.

With a rumbling growl and a look in his eyes that was simply feral, he reached down to grip the sides of my panties. In my haze, it was all I could do to lift my hips so he could shimmy them off. He was only gone from me for a second to fling them away. His touch immediately returned to the skin he had just uncovered.

His fingers moved between my legs, swirling coaxingly, causing my hips to churn and press against him. Without warning, he was on his feet, leaving my heated body exposed to the cold air. My hips rose toward him, seeking the pleasure he’d been giving me a mere second ago. But Logan did not leave me wanting for long. He shoved his cotton boxers down his legs almost violently and was overtaking me again.

“Hush, baby. I’m right here,” he rumbled. Even through the lust in his voice, I could tell he was enjoying my wanton behavior. He had been coaxing it out of me for months, watching me let go was a prize he finally got to enjoy. He had gotten me to the point where I could not have held back if I had wanted to.

The feeling of him at my opening had any conscious thought splintering into nothing. There was only the blissful connection of our bodies. He entered me in one smooth motion, hesitating when he was deep inside to meet my eyes. Only when he had confirmation that I was as desperate as he was did he let loose.

Each pounding thrust sent us climbing higher. Wave after wave of pleasure accompanied his furious pace. With his arms wrapped around me, holding me tightly against him, there was nothing I could do but drown in him as my first orgasm hit. Even as I screamed out his name and pulsated around him, he never let up his pace.

There was no coming down from the high before he was tipping me over the edge once more. His pace only faltered when I exploded the second time, every muscle contracting and my back arching off the bed. Squeezing me even tighter to him, Logan thrust as deep as our bodies would allow and emptied himself inside of me.

Neither of us moved from that position for long minutes as our bodies struggled to come back down. Only then did Logan position us so that I was lying on my side with him behind me. For the first time since he’d fallen asleep the night before, my muscles felt relaxed. There was no tension left in me when Logan began running his fingers through my hair gently.

“You still have time. Sleep now, baby,” he whispered.

“I don’t know if I can fall asleep,” I admitted.

And then, Logan did something I never expected. Shifting us around so that I was lying with my head on his chest, he continued to play with my hair as he sang quietly to me. The Avett Brothers song took a minute to recognize, his voice sounding so much more like a lullaby than the original. My last thought as I finally succumbed to my exhaustion was not of the evening ahead of me, but of the poignant lyrics Logan sang to me. My head was full of doubt; I just hoped he never came to understand why.

Charlotte was a mess. I’d managed to distract her enough to allow her to get some sleep, but I knew she would still be anxious when she woke. When I realized she’d been up all night worrying herself sick, I was torn between concern and anger. Why didn’t she wake me? I knew she never woke me when she was jolted awake by nightmares. Hell, I even pretended to sleep when she’d bolt upright in bed beside me. She never cried out or seemed to panic when she woke; she’d just do so suddenly and then eventually settle back beside me. I had considered asking her about her dreams multiple times, but dismissed it. They would no doubt fall under the ever expanding umbrella of topics she did not want to talk about. But staying up all night, panicking about meeting my parents, and just letting me sleep soundly beside her? I had to draw the line there.