Page 52 of Obeying

I haven't felt safe in someone's arms in so long I forgot what it was like. What it was like to even want someone. But right now, lying underneath him in this cabin in the mountains with his hand on my face and his eyes asking permission, I want him. I want him so much it scares me. And of all the people in the world it could be, it's Logan Maxwell. My rival. I almost want to laugh at how insane that is.

But more than that, I just want him closer. I pull him to me in answer and kiss him.

His hands are careful where mine aren't. Every touch is a question, his fingers trailing along my skin, across my collarbone, down my ribs, waiting for my body to answer before he goes further. I can almost feel the restraint in him, the control, the way he's holding himself in check even now because he knows what I've been through, and he's giving me every chance to change my mind.

But I don't want to.

His mouth moves down my throat. I arch into him, and his hand slowly slides up my side, until every nerve ending I have is awake. The roughness of his palms against my skin makes me pant. He touches me like I'm something worth being careful with, and I didn't know I needed that until right now.

"Kristen." My name against my pulse point. Just my name. Nothing else.

I close my eyes, and I let myself feel it. All of it. Years of tension, years of arguing, years of pretending this was less than it actually was. All of it collapsing into his hands on my body and my hands on his.

His mouth moves from my lips to my jaw to the hollow of my throat, and then lower. He kisses across my collarbone, slow and deliberate, and his breath is warm and unsteady against my skin. His hands slide down my sides, and his lips follow, pressing into the space between my ribs. My back arches off the bed.

"Kristen, I want you," he says against my stomach, his voice rough, and it goes straight through me. "You have no idea."

His mouth moves lower. He kisses one breast, then the other. He's thorough. Even here, even now, he's so perfectly Logan about it that I'd laugh if I could breathe. He finds the places that make me gasp, and he stays there. When he moves to the other side, he does the exact same thing, like he's making sure no part of me is neglected. I grip the sheets and bite my lip. He goes even lower, really low, and in my mind, my mind that is always running, always planning, always three steps ahead—there is suddenly nothing. Just him, his mouth, his hands. A heat builds low in my body, starting from where he is.

He comes back up and kisses me, and I can taste myself on his lips mixed with the wine we had earlier. I pull him closer, harder, desperate for his weight on me. I want all of it.

"You taste incredible," he murmurs against my mouth, and I feel the words more than I hear them.

"Logan." I moan his name and lift my hips to him.

He laughs against my skin, and the vibration of it sends a shiver through me that I feel everywhere.

Then he moves, and my body goes still, shocked by the sudden length of him. My head tips back, and his hand slides behind my neck. As if from somewhere far away, I hear myself make a sound I didn't know I had in me. He's gripping my hip with his other hand. I pull him closer with my legs. We're not careful anymore. We're not patient. My nails drag down his back, and he groans against my collarbone.

His composure is gone. It's in the way his body moves against me, his breathing hard and uneven. Logan Maxwell, who never loses control, is losing it right now. Because of me. And something about watching this man, this man who holds everything together with an iron grip, fall apart under my hands, makes me dig my nails in harder and pull him deeper.

"You're perfect," he says, and his voice is wrecked. This is him. Just Logan. Undone.

I press my mouth to his ear. "So are you."

He groans. His grip tightens on me, and his pace shifts. I stop thinking entirely and just enjoy the sensation. His skin against mine, the heat between us, the sound of his breathing and mine tangled together, his hand finding mine and pressing it into the mattress, fingers locked.

His forehead drops against mine, his breathing ragged, and he's everywhere, every part of him against every part of me as we reach our peak together.

"Kristen." My name on his lips is like a prayer, broken and desperate.

I gasp, and my body arches into his. For a few seconds, there is only us. His hand squeezing mine, my face buried in his neck, both of us trembling, both of us falling apart together.

Then there's stillness. His weight is on me, his breath is slowing against my skin, and my heartbeat is calming down. Yet neither of us lets go.

Afterward, we lie there.

My head is on his chest, and his heartbeat slows down under my ear. His arm is around me. His fingers are tracing lazy patterns on my shoulder, and neither of us is talking because we don't need to. The room is dark now. The mountains are black shapes against a blue-black sky through the window, and the air coming in is cool and clean. I pull the blanket higher and press closer to him.

I think this is what it's supposed to feel like. This is what I didn't know I was missing. Someone holding me because they want to, not because they own me. Someone touching me and my body eagerly anticipating it.

I fall asleep in his arms. There are no nightmares. Just rest.

When I open my eyes the next morning, the first thing I see is mountains.

Sunlight pours in through those floor-to-ceiling windows, there's green everywhere, and the lake in the distance catches the light. It's beautiful and disorienting, and for about three seconds, I don't know where I am.

Then I turn my head and see Logan Maxwell asleep beside me.