The Elements Series Complete Box Set

by Brittainy Cherry

  His lips traveled down to my neck, where he massaged me with his tongue, sucking it slowly, making me push my hips up in his direction.

  “Logan, I…” My voice was shaky as we lay in the darkened room. “I’ve never…” My cheeks heated up, and I couldn’t say the words. But he already knew.

  “I know.”

  My stomach fluttered as I bit my lip. “I want you to be my first.”

  “You’re nervous?”

  “I’m nervous.”

  He grimaced slightly. “If you don’t want to—”

  “But I do.”

  “You’re beautiful.” His fingers combed my hair behind my ear.

  “Still a little nervous.”

  “Do you trust me?” he asked. I nodded. “Okay. Close your eyes.” I did as he told me, my heart beating faster and faster each second. What was going to happen first? Would it hurt? Would he hate it? Would I cry?

  Tears were already forming in the back of my eyes.

  I’d cry.

  His mouth kissed the edge of my lips. “You’re safe, High,” he promised me. His hands slowly started to lift my oversized pajama T-shirt, and my body stiffened up. “You’re safe,” he whispered against my earlobe, sucking it gently. “Do you trust me?” he asked once more. My body relaxed, and I began to cry, not because I was nervous anymore, but because I’d never felt so safe.

  “I do. I trust you.”

  Each time a tear fell, he kissed it away.

  He lifted the shirt off of my body inch by inch, tossing it to the side of the room. His mouth started high, and he worked his way down. Licking my neck, sucking my chest, his tongue outlining the curve of my bra, kissing every inch of my bare skin. “Alyssa,” he whispered, before reaching the edge of my panties. My breaths were heavy, and my hips arched up, needing him to keep touching me. My hands fell against my chest, feeling the way he controlled my heartbeats.

  His voice filled with concern. “Tell me to stop, okay? If you need me to stop—”

  “No…Please…”

  He edged my panties down my legs, and each inch they moved, the faster my heart raced. “Alyssa,” he said once more. He looked up to me, locking eyes with me for a split second before spreading my legs wide on the bed and allowing his head to lower. When his tongue found me, I gasped out from the bliss of it all. My fingers twisted the sheets into my palms, and his tongue slid in and out of me. My mind was spinning. My heart somehow found a way to both speed up and completely stop beating. It was as if every few seconds I’d die, and his lips, his tongue, his soul, resuscitated me. I’d never known something so simple could feel so…

  Logan…

  “Please…” I panted, twisting and turning as he slid two fingers inside of me, thrusting them in slow, and pulling them out slower. Then, they thrust harder, faster, deeper…

  Lo…

  I was seconds away from exploding as I twisted my hands in my sheets. I was seconds away from begging him to take me to the edge, and allow me to freefall. “I want you, Logan. Please.” My breaths sawed in and out, my body becoming accustomed to the pleasure he brought to me.

  “Not yet,” he said, pulling away, removing his fingers from me.

  Our eyes locked, and the way he looked at me made me feel as if I’d never be alone. “Alyssa,” he said. “I love you.” His voice was shaky, and his eyes watered up, yet the tears fell from my eyes.

  You’re my best friend, Lo, I thought.

  We were closer than I ever knew any people to ever be. He was a part of me in every way possible, our lives twining together as if we were one flame burning together in the dark of the night.

  When he felt like crying, the tears always came from my eyes first.

  When his heart wanted to break, mine shattered.

  You’re my best friend.

  He bent forward and kissed me. He kissed me with promises that we never made to one another. He kissed me with apologies for things he never did. He kissed me with all that he was, and I kissed him back with everything that existed within me.

  He stood up and removed his pants and boxers, and even though I felt safe, the butterflies still formed in my gut. “You can change your mind, High,” he swore. “You can always change your mind.”

  I held my hands out to him, and he took mine in his. He came back to me and climbed on top, widening my knees. When his hips brushed against my upper thigh, I let out a light moan, my legs tingling with desire, with fear, with passion, with love.

  “I love you,” I whispered, making him pause. His lips parted but no words came out. He seemed surprised that someone could love him. “I love you,” I repeated, watching a softness come to his eyes. “I love you.”

  “I love you,” he whispered, placing his lips against mine. Tears fell from his eyes and intermixed with my own. I knew how hard those words were for him. I knew how scared he was to expose himself like that. But I also knew how much I loved him.

  “Tell me to stop if I hurt you,” he said. But I didn’t need to. The pain was there, but the want was more. He was my security blanket, my safe haven, my most beautiful Lo. He rocked his hips against mine, sliding himself deeper into me.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  He thrust once.

  “I love you…” he said once more.

  Twice.

  “I love you…” he murmured.

  Three times.

  “Logan…I… I’m going to…”

  Once, twice, three times, four…

  High.

  Low.

  Heaven.

  Hell.

  Him.

  Me.

  Us.

  We released, shaking against one another, falling apart yet somehow becoming whole. Losing ourselves, but finding each other.

  I loved him.

  I loved him to my core, and he loved me back.

  He kept his promise. He made me feel safe the whole time. He was the person I went to each and every time anything hurt or whenever I felt afraid.

  Like home.

  Logan was home to me.

  “Alyssa, that was…” he sighed, lying beside me, out of breath. “Amazing.”

  I grinned, turning my head away from him. My fingers wiped away the tears that still fell, and I tried my best to laugh away the feeling of bliss that held an ounce of worry. What would happen next? “If I had a dollar for every time I heard that.”

  He narrowed his eyes, knowing that my joke was to hide my nerves, before pulling me closer to him. “Are you okay, High?”

  “I’m okay.” I nodded, meeting his stare. He bent down and kissed the few tears away. “I’m better than okay.”

  “I want this to be us. For always, I want this.”

  “Me too. Me too.”

  “For always, High?” he whispered.

  “For always, Lo.”

  He took a deep breath in, and his eyes smiled along with his lips. “I’m so happy right now.” Those were his last words of the night, and I thought they perfectly described my entire being that evening.

  The ceiling fan rotated round and round overhead as we lay beside one another in my bed. The vinyl record played on top of the dresser, hiccupping every few seconds yet also sounding completely whole. The scent of rose refreshed every few minutes, and we inhaled and exhaled.

  We were quiet.

  9

  Alyssa

  Logan and I had officially been in love out loud for two months now. I didn’t know our friendship could grow stronger just by us falling in love, but somehow it did. He made me laugh on the sad days, which meant the world to me.

  When you found someone who could make you laugh when your heart wanted to cry—hold onto them. They will be the ones who will change your life for the better.

  I’d been planning out a lot of details, too. In three weeks, I was off to live on the campus of my college, but I planned out Logan’s visits. We’d stay just as close as we were now, and we’d fall more in love. He said he loved the idea, which was great,
because I loved him to my core.

  I’d been floating on a cloud for weeks now, and when I came home from work, Mom was there, ready to bring me back down to solid earth.

  “Alyssa!” She called after me right as I walked into the house. I tossed my shoes in the foyer, paused, and picked them up, placing them in the front closet.

  “I already picked them up!” I hollered in her direction.

  “That’s not what I was going to say,” she replied from her office. Walking toward the sound of her voice, I glanced into the room. Her eyes were glued to her computer, and a wine glass was in her hand. “I made a meatless meatloaf using protein powder and tofu. Toss that into the oven for me.”

  That’s not a meatloaf, Mom. “Okay.”

  “And your father wrote you a letter.”

  My eyes widened, a burst of excitement hitting me. “What?”

  “He wrote you a letter. It’s on the kitchen counter.”

  Dad wrote me a letter today.

  Dad wrote me a letter today!

  My excitement built more and more as I raced to the kitchen, snatched the envelope which wasn’t sealed shut, and pulled out the paper.

  Sweet Aly,

  Already off to a promising start.

  My eyes danced across the pages from the left to the right, taking in each word, each note, wanting nothing more than a line that mentioned how much he missed me, how much he loved me, how much he cared. There were so many words, so many pages. Pages filled front to back, pages filled with some words that were long, others so short. There were periods, question marks, and exclamations points.

  He had wonderful handwriting that was sometimes hard to read.

  My chest was on fire with each letter I came across, letters building words, words building sentences, sentences building apologies, apologies that felt fake because who could do this for real?

  I won’t be around much.

  I took a sharp breath, reaching the final paragraph.

  My music is taking off. I’m the lead of this new band.

  Another sharp breath.

  Focused on my career…

  My thumb fell between my lips. When I hit the final page of the letter, I set it down, staring at five pieces of paper completely filled with words front and back.

  I won’t be around much, Sweet Aly. I hope you understand. Keep the music alive.

  My father broke up with me through five pages of paper, and when the meatless meatloaf came that night, Mom said, “I told you so.”

  I couldn’t eat. I spent most of the night in the bathroom, throwing up my insides. I couldn’t believe a person could do something so heartless. He wrote the words as if they actually made sense to him, too, which made me even sicker.

  I spent the rest of the night on the bathroom floor, debating what I did wrong, and wondering why my father didn’t love me anymore.

  “He broke up with you through a five-page letter?” Logan asked, shocked. I spent the past five days away from him, feeling embarrassed by the letter. Each day I could hardly keep anything in my stomach without it coming back up. What bothered me the most was how pleased Mom seemed that Dad let me down. She always seemed happy that I was hurting.

  I sat with Logan at the billboard, knowing the five-page paper by heart. “Technically he broke up with me through ten pages since they are front and back.”

  “Give me the envelope,” he ordered. His nostrils were flaring, his face red with anger. I didn’t know he’d get so upset by the letter, but he seemed on the edge from snapping.

  “Why?”

  “The address he sent the letter from, that’s probably where he lives. We can go there. We can confront him, we can—”

  “There wasn’t an address on the envelope. He dropped it at the house I think, in the mailbox.”

  His hands ran over his face. A weighted sigh left him. He began flipping through the pages once more. “What about the name of the band he’s in? Did he say?”

  “No.”

  “This is bullshit.”

  “It’s okay,” I shrugged. It hadn’t hit me yet. A big part of me still thought he was coming back. Hope was dangerous when you were relying on unreliable people. “I’m over it.” I wasn’t though. I was far from over it.

  “Well I’m not!” he shouted, standing up, pacing back and forth. “It’s not fair. What have we ever done to these people? Your parents. My parents. What have we done wrong?”

  I didn’t have an answer for him. Many people probably couldn’t understand why Logan and I connected. We were different in so many ways, except for the one which was the biggest fire that burned in us: we both longed to be loved by our parents.

  “You’re a good thing, Alyssa. You’ve done everything to be a good daughter to him. You went above and beyond with this dick and then he doesn’t even have the balls to break up with you in person?! I mean, come on. Who breaks up with their daughter via snail mail?!” he hollered. “What kind of parent breaks up with their kid at all?”

  “You see why I told you to break up with Shay in person, instead of via text?” I tried to joke. He didn’t laugh. “Logan, come on. It’s okay.”

  “You know what? Screw him, High. You’re going to do great things. You’re going to change the world without him. You’re going to succeed beyond his wildest expectations. You don’t need him.”

  “Why are you so upset?”

  “Because how could he do that? How could he turn his back on you? On you, High. You’re the most beautiful, genuine, gentle person I’ve ever met. And he left you. For what? For music? For money? Fame? It’s crap, because none of that adds up.” He sat back down beside me, his breaths still heavy with irritation. “I’m just trying to understand, that’s all,” he said, hanging his legs off of the edge of the billboard as we stared out into the distance.

  “Understand what?”

  “How anyone could ever give you up.”

  That night it finally hit me. Dad wasn’t coming back. He didn’t want to be a part of my life. He gave me up for music, which was ironic because to me, he was my music. I spent the whole afternoon sick, wanting nothing more than for the empty feeling inside of me to leave.

  Me: Can you come over?

  Logan showed up to my house around eleven that night. I gave him a tight smile as he stared my way, wrapping me into a tight hug.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Lie?”

  “Lie.”

  “Truth?”

  I shrugged, my eyes watering over. “Can you just hold me?”

  He grew extremely concerned, pulling back a little to study every inch of me. “High… What’s going on?”

  “He really left me.” I swallowed hard. “He didn’t want me.”

  He led me to my bedroom, closing the door behind us. As I climbed into bed, he moved over to my vinyl record collection and thumbed through each record. When he found one, he put it on, making my eyes water even more.

  As Sam Smith’s song “Life Support” began to play, Logan shut off the light and crawled into the bed and wrapped his arms around me. As he pulled me closer, making me curve into him, I began to shake as he began softly singing the lyrics into my ear.

  I began to cry. As he continued to sing, my body kept trembling against his. He pulled me closer, he held me tighter. The song played on a loop, over and over again. He kept singing against me, into my soul, taming the wild fire, making me ache.

  His voice put me to sleep, his arms kept me safe.

  When I woke in the middle of the night, crying from a nightmare, Logan was fast asleep. His arms had fallen to his sides, his breaths fell through his mouth, and I stared at him, tears still falling down my cheeks.

  “Lo,” I whispered. He stirred.

  “Yeah?”

  “I had a bad dream. Can you hold me?”

  He didn’t hesitate. He pulled me close once more, allowing me to rest my head against his chest, feeling his heartbeats
.

  “You’re okay, Alyssa Marie Walters,” he sighed against my skin.

  I cried more, pulling him closer. “I’m okay, Logan Francis Silverstone.”

  10

  Alyssa

  When it rained, it poured.

  My mom always said those words whenever she was in the middle of a court case, and bad news came rolling in. When one bad thing happened, something worse wasn’t that far behind. I never truly believed in that saying, because I was the optimist of the family, the glass-half-full girl. But lately, it seemed true. It was only a week ago since Dad broke up with me, and I hadn’t had time to process that event before the world came crashing down on me once again. I could hear Mom’s words playing on repeat in my head.

  “When it rains, it pours, Alyssa. That’s just the truth about the world.”

  “So,” Erika sighed, standing beside me in a grocery store aisle. “How many should we get?”

  It’d been two weeks since I’d been throwing up each day. What I thought was created from nerves was now a bigger fear as we stood in front of the pregnancy tests. I didn’t know who else to call other than my sister, and when she heard the tremble in my voice, she was parked right outside of the house forty-five minutes later. Even though Erika was realistic and driven like our mom, she wasn’t so heartless. She loved me for my creative ways, and quirky personality, and I knew she’d do anything to help me.

  “Maybe two?” I whispered, my body shaky.

  She placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “We’ll do five. Just in case.” We walked up to the cashier, and they looked at us as if we were crazy for having so many tests. She grabbed a jug of water, too. As I was about to run out of the store humiliated, feeling the judgment coming through the cashier’s eyes, Erika huffed. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it’s rude to stare?”