10. Heidi
I almost suggested we stay at the campsite for the night. But, he’d done so much of the work to break it down and pack it away that I chickened out. Once I stopped shaking and Logan said my lips were no longer blue from the cold, I helped him hike his gear back down to his truck.
He laughed about how much harder it was to get it all up to the campsite, but I thought he missed that feeling of when he first arrived with all the cameras and study equipment in tow. Those things must have come with a sense of purpose. Lugging his backpack out, now empty of food and toiletries that had been used up, felt a little lonely.
The ride back to my house was quiet. I wished I hadn’t pushed him to talk about Rebecca. Even her name was more sophisticated than “Heidi.” God, how I wished I was smarter about talking to people. If I’d known all the people I’d avoided were practice so I could talk to Logan, I would’ve made more of an effort to try. But, here we were. I wanted the man so badly, parts of my body were waking up that I hadn’t really considered before. Now, he wasn’t flirting. I didn’t think I’d miss the outrageous things he’d said that no one would believe. I did, though, and racked my brain for anything to say that would draw out the funny, sweet man I was getting so attached to.
“I still can’t believe this is your neighborhood,” Logan said as he looked all around him.
I slumped in my seat. “The homes are a little rundown, I know, but we’re right next to the industrial center. You can’t expect that I live like a queen.”
“You have a master’s degree.”
“I work for the government and spend $300 a month on gas to get out to my station.”
“I see.” I could see the gears working in his head, ticking off yet another basic life failure on my part. The list was ever growing in my head, and each new item sat in my stomach like pebbles, weighing me down. Virgin, check. Antisocial, check. Poor, check. High risk for cancer, check. As I went through the list, I realized if I were him, I wouldn’t want to date me, either.
“It’s nice on the inside, remember?”
He laughed. “It’s gorgeous on the inside. Your yard is nice, too.”
I smiled, but the sudden ache for Butterscotch tugged it off my face. “I kept it nice for Scotchie. She loved being outside, even after a day in the woods. She couldn’t get enough running around and playing.”
“That’s probably why you got to have her for so long. She was the best cared-for pup on the planet.”
“Thank you. I did my best, but it’s nice to hear that I did a good job.”
“When do you ever not do a great job? It’s one of the most intimidating things about you. You excel at everything you do. God. If I tried to count the number of times I’ve just flat out failed, I’d run out of fingers and toes, and I still would’ve missed something.” He rubbed his thumb over my knee as we pulled up to the house, and I hid my embarrassed flush by looking out the window.
Excels at responsibilities, check. I wasn’t sure if it was on the bad list or the start of a good list, but the thought floated around in my belly on butterfly wings. He held the door for me and walked me up to the front door as if it was the end of a date. I glanced up at him and wondered what he’d do if I kissed him, then scoffed at myself.
“Are you mocking me in your head?” he asked.
I chuckled. “As a matter-of-fact, I was mocking myself in my head. You’re off the hook, for now.”
He waited for me to unlock my door, and then held it open for me, too. He carried his clean luggage in and hefted it in his hand as he looked around. “The master’s over this way, right?” he asked and headed straight toward it. After a moment of shocked hesitation, I chased after him.
Please, God, let me stop him before he sees it. I hurried around the corner and crashed into his back. He stood in the middle of the doorway, staring up at the trio of enlarged photo prints above my bed.
“Wow,” he gasped.
I stammered, trying to explain that I’d bought them long before we’d met, but he held up a hand for me to be quiet.
“Those are some of my best work. I’m so humbled to see them like this.”
I opened and closed my mouth soundlessly.
“You really do want to see mountains, don’t you?” He glanced over at me.
I nodded. “I loved the stark lines of the sharp cliffs, and the goats, suspended up there, with no idea how any creature could do that.”
“I’m going to take you to the Rockies,” he declared, and I laughed.
“Is that before you take me on a date, make love to me, and marry me, or after?” I asked, ticking off his current list of promises on my fingers.
“Does it matter where it falls on the list? It’s added; that’s the important thing.” He slid his free hand down my back and leaned over to cup my butt in his palm. “If you’d like, we could knock love-making off the list, for the sake of efficiency. You need a shower. I need a shower. We could do right by the environment and get naked together.” He grinned at me, and I shoved his hand off me.
“Even if we shared a shower, what makes you think you’d get me to have sex with you?”
“Spoken like someone who’s never shared a shower before,” he teased.
I let him have the shower first, despite his protests that he was sure he’d die of dysentery if I wasn’t there to clean that hard to reach spot in the middle of his back.
I picked out clean underwear, a pair of jeans, and a clean button-down western shirt, and waited for Logan to finish. When he came out in nothing but the little bath towel I’d used for Butterscotch, I fled to the bathroom without my clothes. I could not be trusted not to throw myself at him if I was alone with him while he was undressed. Water had gleamed on his chest and trickled down to the top edge of the towel, and my stomach had jolted as I fantasized about dragging the towel off him completely and licking the water off his chiseled stomach
Instead, I started the shower, and as an afterthought, I locked the bathroom door as quietly as I could. After all, I didn’t think Logan would try to join me, but I’d still only known him a few days, and I’d already tried to start things I didn’t know how to finish. The hot water beat down on me, and I imagined all the ways I wanted to touch him. I may not have had firsthand knowledge of how to please him. However, I was intelligent enough, and creative enough, that when the time came, I hoped he wouldn’t be disappointed.
My fingers traced all the paths I wanted him to take, and my body responded instantly with a rush of pleasure that had as much to do with the man waiting outside the door as it did with my fingers playing with that sensitive nub at the apex of my thighs. My free hand braced against the shower wall and pressed my forehead to the cool tile as my fingers stroked and flexed between my legs faster and harder.
I bit off a moan and panted quietly as my fingers slid over my wet, warm folds and the water beat down on my neck. My knees began to shake, and I turned so my back was to the wall. I wanted Logan, not a moment of pleasure that I didn’t share with anyone. I let the water flow over me as my heart slowed. Loneliness had been my life for so long, I was afraid of not being alone anymore. The water started to cool, and I washed and got out as quickly as I could. There was a hard body with a ready smile and enough confidence for both of us, waiting to take me to dinner.
I wrapped my hair up in a turban I wound out of a towel and tucked a larger bath sheet around my torso. The linen closet was a mess. It made me smile to see how hard Logan had worked to tempt me with his body. I snuck a peek around the edge of the door before stepping out into the bedroom. My intention was to grab my clothes and run straight back to the bathroom to change, but as I turned toward the bed, the clothes were gone.
“Oh, good, you’re done. Do you mind if I pick you out an outfit?”
I gripped the towel tight and gasped. “Yes, I mind very much. I picked out what I want to wear. Where did you put it?”
He rolled his eyes and compared two dresses, putting one away and holding out the other one for me to take. “I put it away, of course. It wouldn’t be any good to leave clothes out all over the place.”
“They weren’t all over the place, Logan, they were folded neatly on the…” I paused, finally noticing his nakedness once he wasn’t holding the dresses up in front of himself. I averted my eyes and he chuckled, a purely masculine sound that made my legs tremble. “You’re naked, Logan.” I stared at his eyes, afraid to look anywhere else.
“I appreciate your sense of respect and fair play. But I was sitting out here, thinking about what I’d be doing in there,” he pointed at the shower through the open bathroom door, “and I realized how jealous I am of anyone but me touching you.”
“Even if that other person is me,” I clarified.
“See? You were thinking about me, too, weren’t you?”
“Logan. That I want you isn’t under dispute. Only the appropriateness of being together like that when we don’t know each other very well.”
His face fell, and he stood there buck naked, pouting at me. “To be honest, I just like being naked. I have no body shyness. But I understand taking it slowly.”
“You do?” I smiled at him, still holding my bath sheet closed across my chest.
“Hell, no.” He closed the distance between us. “But since my naked body makes you uncomfortable, now I’m close enough that you can’t see anything. Especially not how my body reacts to you. Because the reaction has been very strong, and it’s likely that no matter how long we know each other, I’m always going to react to you this way.”
I bit my lip. “I can kiss you,” I offered. “I don’t want you to think I don’t want you when clearly, I’m having difficulty maintaining my own standards because I want to be with you so badly.”
He kissed me, a soft, chaste brush of his lips on mine. Like he had before, he slowly and gently deepened the kiss until he was searching the inside of my mouth with his tongue, his teeth nipping at my lips and drawing little moans of pleasure from my throat.
He gently pressed me back until I was sitting on my bed, and he slid his hands to my thighs. I started to pull back and refuse to let him touch me, but his hands tucked under my legs and he slid me further onto the bed. He followed, so he was still kissing me, and now was lying on top of me, his legs between mine, my towel the only thing between us.
“You owe me nothing,” he whispered, as he tugged the towel out from between us until it laid open underneath me. His mouth went to my breast, and I arched my back, giving him more to draw into his mouth. I could feel him pressed hard against the spot I’d imagined him just minutes before. I rocked my hips and rubbed myself along the length of him, and tipped his face back up to mine so he would kiss me again. He slid his hand down my stomach as our tongues warred inside the warm cavern of my mouth. I cried out as his fingers slid between the damp folds of sensitive skin and gently stroked me until my legs trembled and fell open with him between them.
“I won’t do anything you don’t want, Heidi. Just tell me, and we’ll stop immediately.”
I shook my head. “You got me here, now show me.”
I rocked against his hand between my legs and he gasped and chuckled.
“Show you what, though?”
“Everything.”