When they were clean and dry, Logan blanketed them both, and they led them to their stalls for a treat of sweet grain. By then, Honor was much warmer, but she still felt a deep chill. Country cold was just different, it went deeper, and she’d never been so far out in the winter wild before their ride today. She leaned on the stall door, watching Hank munch in his bucket, and another hard chill jolted her.
“Hey, you okay?” Logan came up behind her and pulled her close.
“Still a little cold.”
His beard brushed over her ear as he dipped close to kiss her cheek. “All that big talk about being from Wisconsin and knowing what cold was. What’d I tell you?”
“Yeah, yeah, you told me so.”
“Yes ma’am, I did.” He tucked his face against her neck, and his hands eased under her closed parka, over her sweater, and cupped her breasts. “I know how to make you warm.”
“Unless you mean back in the house, in bed, under the covers, with a fire going, it ain’t happenin’, cowboy.”
“That’s exactly what I had in mind.” His fingers swirled over her nipples, the touch powerful enough, even through three layers of clothes, to pull them to stiff peaks.
Honor’s shudder had nothing to do with the cold. Nor did the moan that left her lips as she sagged back.
His chuckle shook against her back. “Come on, darlin’. I got plans for you.”
*****
Back in their room, Honor untangled herself from Logan’s persuasive embrace and ducked into the bathroom. After three hours on horseback and another hour in the stable, she wanted to freshen up first. While she found the distinctive mélange of horse and ranch and work enticing on Logan’s skin—most of the time—for herself, she preferred to perpetuate the fiction that she’d been born smelling like lilies of the valley that had been lightly dipped in sandalwood.
When she came out, lily-fresh, Logan stood before a new fire, stripped down to just his jeans. The glow of the young flames flicked over his bare skin. She paused in the doorway, leaning on the jamb, and appreciated the view—his broad shoulders and sleek muscle, his flat belly, his powerful arms. The blunt angles of his waist. The gentle wave of his hair, and the way it brushed his shoulders. The medallion that always sat just below the notch in his throat, and the new leather thong that held it in place. He was every bit as magnificent as the snowscape they’d enjoyed earlier.
Over the months of their relationship, Honor had become perfectly familiar with every part of Logan’s body, and yet it caught her breath each time she saw it. He was like the land itself: too beautiful to take for granted.
Two months after the stabbing, the scars on his chest and back were still dark red, but the swelling was gone, and he showed no signs of lasting pain or damage. He was healed, and those scars would fade in time. Already her guilt was fading. Like his scars, that guilt would always be present in her, but the wound of it had closed. And now that she had a new plan for her future, she could imagine that the days of stalkers and psychopaths might be behind her. Jasper Ridge was quieter, safer. Life as a country lawyer might be, too.
His sloping, sidelong grin told her he was fully aware of her gaze and happy to let her look.
Standing in the bathroom doorway, Honor shimmied out of her underwear and bra. She went to him, and he watched her come, that perfect, lazy grin firmly in place.
“Hey, beautiful,” he murmured. When he reached for her, she sidled up close, into his arms, and he bent and kissed her neck, just below her ear. “Mmm. You’re warm. Maybe you don’t need me after all.”
“I always need you.” She was beginning to understand that need and dependence weren’t synonymous.
With a kiss at the corner of her mouth, Logan led her to bed.
She slid under the covers, and he stood at the side of the bed and opened his belt and jeans. He pushed his jeans to the floor and stepped free of them. When he stood straight again, before he moved to join her on the bed, Honor reached out and wrapped a hand around his excellent cock.
“I love your cock.”
He arched his back, and his hips rocked close. “It loves you right back.”
Curling toward him, she swirled her tongue around his tip, tasting his need for her.
“Honor,” he breathed. His hand fell to her head, his fingers insinuated themselves into her hair. “Suck me in, darlin’.”
She did as he wanted. Gripping his base, cupping his balls with her other hand, she sucked him as deep as she could, to the back of her throat. When she moaned, he let loose an earthy sigh and pumped gently into her.
“Ah, Christ. That’s it.”
Honor enjoyed giving head. Before, she’d liked it because it put her in charge, when men hardly ever wanted to give up control. Plenty of men thought they were still in control in this situation as well, thrusting and grabbing, but they’d been wrong. Their pleasure had been hers to give or deny.
With Logan, it was the same, and also different. Considering their complicated negotiations of need and dependence from even before they’d actually been a couple, the question of power was always between them. So she enjoyed feeling that rush of knowing she could give or deny him pleasure at will.
But there was something else, too, something new that had evolved. It had happened after the Fourth of July, when he’d told her to go away and she had. When they’d said I love you for the first time. Logan had changed on that day. Once the words were said, he’d owned them completely. He’d dived into the feeling and been steady thereafter. It was Honor who’d wavered after that.
But now, when she gave him head, there was no sense of shifting power. He simply handed it over. He loved her, he trusted her, and when she took him in her hands and her mouth, he dived into the experience, let it pull him under, let her have her way. His thrusting hips and twisting fingers weren’t domination; they were appreciation.
“Honor, goddamn,” he groaned as she picked up the pace of her bobbing head. “Wait, I need …” He didn’t finish, and he didn’t try to pull her off. He was asking.
Sucking him like a popsicle so he cried out as she let him go, she licked her lips and looked up. “You like?”
“You know I do. But I don’t want to stand here and get off. I need to be in there with you.” He combed her hair back. “Come on, darlin’, let me feel you.”
She lay back and lifted the covers, and Logan slid in at her side.
He covered her with his body at once, claiming her mouth, holding her close, taking over, but Honor didn’t mind. There was nothing like the sleek heat of his body on hers. His wet cock dug at her thigh, and she turned her leg out of the way, seating him perfectly at her center.
But he didn’t move to enter her yet. First, he focused on the closeness, holding her, kissing her. Honor held on, matched the writhe of his tongue, savored the rasp of his beard, and the pinch of his arms where they tried to push under her. She’d stoked his need to frenzy with her mouth, and now his wild breath chugged around her, filling the room.
Suddenly, he tore from her mouth with a grunt and dropped away. Honor opened her eyes and almost protested the loss, until she felt his hot mouth on her breast, sucking hard, pulling, and her mouth formed a plea instead. Then she felt his rough fingers at her other breast, and she grabbed his head and held him there. Her heartbeat throbbing in her ears, in time with the demands of his mouth, Honor’s body seemed to open wide. Oh god, she was so wet, she could feel the slick of it, and he was right there, his cock bobbing against her upper thigh, nudging at her pussy, her clit. Almost, almost, almost.
Following nothing but her searching body’s need, Honor clamped her arms and legs around Logan’s body and surged up. She slid back and forth along his cock, rubbed her clit on his shaft—and that was it, oh that was good, oh god oh god oh—“Yes! Fuck! Fuck!” As her orgasm pummeled her, kicking through all her muscles from her knees to her scalp, Logan, still sucking her breast, shouted something unintelligible and shoved into her, balls deep. That single m
ove made him rear back and roar, and Honor’s climax bumped up to a level so intense that every joint in her body locked up.
Their bodies went limp almost simultaneously, and Logan muttered, “Goddamn,” as he let his head fall with a loud thump to her shoulder. “That … wasn’t quite what I had in mind.” His words were slurred and muffled.
“Good, though,” she sighed and brushed his sweat-soaked hair back from his temple.
He heaved himself onto his elbows and looked down at her, his expression contented and relaxed, but serious. His chest pushed against hers with each heavy breath. “Yeah. That was somethin’.” His fingers toyed with her hair. “I want to say something, but I don’t want you to think it’s a line.”
She played his medallion over her fingers. “Do you feed me lines?” she asked with a smile.
“Maybe one or two back in the day, but not now. You get all of me now.”
And that was it—he’d dropped his guards when he’d first spoken the words I love you. And she’d picked hers up.
But they were past all that now. There was balance between them. “Then I’ll believe anything you say.”
Before he told her, he studied her carefully. “There’s nothing about being with you that’s familiar to me. Everything I feel, everything I do, with you is new. I never had sex like we have it. It’s not that I haven’t had sex this way, but … I don’t know. It’s just different. And so damn much better.”
“That’s because I have all of you.” She cupped his face and gazed deeply into his eyes. “And you have all of me.”
******
“This is good, darlin’.” Logan stood behind her and drew her tightly to him. “It’s a new start. No more hiding behind all these electronic bodyguards. Now you got the Cahills at your side.”
“I know.” Standing at the window of the loft apartment she’d been so proud of, enjoying a last glimpse of a view that had given her peace on hundreds, thousands, of evenings, Honor let herself lean back into his embrace. Behind them, her apartment had been stripped of anything that showed her personality. The closets, the drawers, the cupboards, all empty; their contents had either been packed up in Logan’s truck, or donated, or discarded. Her photos and awards and the few knickknacks of sentimental value were all packed away. What was left was only what the agent had said would help for staging. She was selling her apartment. Moving to Jasper Ridge. Opening a law practice on Ridge Road, above an old-timey photo shop.
“I’m scared, though.”
“I know. It’ll be okay.” He turned her to face him. “It’s a step forward, counselor. Not a step back.”
He was right, and she knew he was. But this was the move that closed the case on her failure in Boise. She’d taken stardust and turned it to ash. Because she’d thought she was worth more than she was.
No, that wasn’t true. More to the point, it was defeatist. With a stern shake of her head to put her thoughts in place, she smiled up at the man she meant to marry. “Okay. We should go. Lizbet gets dramatic when she’s made to wait.”
“Let’s go, then.” He stepped back and took her hand, but she held back.
“Thank you for this, coming to this thing tonight. I know you don’t really like my friends.”
Smiling, he came close again and kissed her. “I like them fine. And I’m still trying to work off the bad first impression I made this summer.”
“I think you’ve worked it off by now. And they were pretty obnoxious that day, too. Be prepared for more obnoxiousness tonight—we don’t take Christmas very seriously.”
“Do you ladies take anything seriously?”
“Our friendship.” She dropped his hand with a squeeze and went to the island in her soon-to-be-former apartment. Picking up the elaborately tacky wrapped Christmas present, she turned back to him. “Ready?”
He took the package from her. At the front door, she turned and considered the place that had been her first real home in Boise. The first home she’d owned anywhere. An item checked off on her list of things to strive for. And now she was walking away.
But the only reason she wasn’t behind on her mortgage was that her parents had paid the last two payments.
Not an achievement after all.
She turned off the lights, and they left.
*****
“So, Logan,” Lizbet poured the last of their fourth bottle of expensive wine into his glass. “You didn’t draw from the Secret Santa Sack, so there’s no goodies for you.” She turned and smirked at Colin, her own date—apparently he’d been elevated to the status of boyfriend, if he was here tonight—“Not you, either, darling, but I’ve got something for you later. It’s leather.”
Colin swallowed a slightly embarrassed chuckle, and Honor saw a look pass between the two poor men who’d been subjected to this meal. They were good sports, both of them, and, though she was getting tipsy enough that her vision was sort of blurry around the edges, Honor was pretty sure everyone was having a good time, and they hadn’t yet achieved dirty-looks-from-strangers obnoxiousness.
A Christmas tradition among Honor’s friends, before they all scattered to spend the actual holiday with their families, was to meet at a nice restaurant, enjoy a good meal together, and exchange gifts. At first, they’d done the normal thing and exchanged gifts each with the others, but all those presents, three for each of them, of varying sizes and values and seriousness, got to be a bit much to manage. One year, they’d gotten drunk enough to leave all their packages behind, never to be seen again.
So they’d decided to do Secret Santa instead, one gift apiece, given and received, a fifty-dollar limit. They drew names from a sack in November. It wasn’t long before that new tradition evolved into gag gifts wrapped as tackily as possible, and now the challenge was to find the innest of inside jokes, the kind of gift that the receiver would understand right away but no one else would—until the penny dropped and everybody got it and laughed.
It wasn’t easy, but that was the fun. This year, Honor had drawn Emily’s name, and she thought she had a pretty good gift for her. Hopefully not too obscure.
When Honor and Logan had arrived at Chandler’s—a popular Boise steakhouse, one that kept up with the times a bit better than the Cahill family favorite, Angelo’s—Emily and Lizbet had already been seated—and Lizbet had brought her new guy, too. She’d come back from her summer trip to Italy with an affected Italian accent and a new lover—Colin Laughlin, the colleague who had invited her on that trip. The accent had faded quickly, but Colin had stuck. Lizbet didn’t often get serious with men, but she’d been with Colin almost as long as Honor and Logan had been together.
Every part of Honor’s life seemed to be in flux these days. Even her best friends. Maybe someday the monthly girls’ night would become a couples’ thing. She hoped not. For Christmas, sure. But monthly, she wanted her little group of four to stay as it was, with the Bechdel Test rule firmly in place.
“That’s all right, Liz,” Logan said and switched his wine glass with Honor’s empty one—he was driving, and, with one notable exception she knew of, the night of the Founders’ Festival and their very worst fight, he never had more than two drinks when he drove. “I’m just here for the spectacle of the thing. You ladies never fail to put on a show.”
“We try, cowboy, we try. What is life, after all, without spectacle?”
“Damn dull.”
“Exactly.” Lizbet nodded with drunken wisdom. She was pretty close to dirty-looks-from-strangers territory. As usual, she’d gotten there first.
Two servers came by to clear the leavings of their dinner and offer dessert menus. When they left, Callie picked up a knife they’d left behind and tapped her water glass. “Let’s do presents before dessert.”
Logan pushed back from the table. “Hey Colin, you want to head over to the bar with me? I’m feeling a little lightheaded from all the estrogen at this table.”
“Ah, that’s what it is,” Colin shot back. “I thought it was all the perfu
me.”
That exchange got the round of affectionately offended groans they’d both meant to provoke. Honor punched Logan’s arm, and he pretended that she’d hurt him. But she also smiled and blew him a kiss as he led Colin away and left the table to be just the four friends.”
“Okay,” Emily said as soon as the men were clear of the table. “I’m invoking the Bechdel Test Rule until they get back. No boy talk. Yes, they’re dreamy, whatever. Two of us are the odd chicks out in all the gooey lovebird bullshit, so no boy talk. Let’s do presents. Honor you go first, because that ugly-ass thing is a work of art. I gotta know who it’s for.”
Honor picked up the overwrapped, stickered, glittered, beribboned, bowed box she’d worked so hard to make as ugly as possible. “It’s for you.”
*****
That night, in their hotel room at the Grove, Honor lay on Logan’s chest and listened to that steady heart. Sixty beats per minute, like the most perfectly built watch. The only time she’d ever heard it beat in any other rhythm had been when he’d lain in a hospital bed, pale and weak from blood loss and trauma. That had been a different sound, the electronic beep of a machine echoing his struggling heart.
When he was strong, though, he was steady.
“You’ve got good friends.” He kissed her head. “I like to see you with them. It’s a different part of you that you share with them.”
She tilted her head up so she could see his face. “You have all of me, Logan. There’s nothing I don’t show you.”
Someday (Sawtooth Mountains Stories Book 2) Page 28