Just before the sun is slipping away Logan pulls me around to the other side of the orchard, where I can just make out a path cut into the tall, golden stalks of corn. A maze.
“You ever done one of these before?” he asks, and I shake my head. “Good,” he says, and he takes off running like crazy, tugging me along behind him by the hand.
We’re racing breakneck through the maze, choosing paths at random, skidding around corners to the rustling of huge leaves on stalks higher than my head and my hair is flying out behind me and I’m clinging to his hand with both of mine and laughing out loud.
As suddenly as he started Logan stops, breathing hard. We’re somewhere in the middle, secluded by the tall stalks of corn. I tumble into the side of his arm and he steadies me with his hands on my waist under the sweater, pulling me up onto my toes against him. My breasts press against his chest and he hungrily claims my mouth, sliding his tongue over mine, and then yanks away, grinning. I sway toward him, still trying to catch my breath, and he slowly backs away, his smile turning devious.
I step after him but he evades me with a wide step to the left, and then again, holding my gaze as he avoids my touch. On my third attempt he meets me halfway, catching me against him and kissing me eagerly. But two can play at that game so I fist my hands in his hair and bite down on his lower lip, sucking it into my mouth and reveling at his groan before I release him. I slip into a path at my right, walking backward like he had, and his eyes are burning as he follows me. He reaches and I skirt away, my heart pounding as he stalks me. Again he reaches for me and I turn and run, laughing. I can hear him chasing me so I move even faster, the hem of my dress flying up, my heart pounding at the game.
When I glance over my shoulder he isn’t behind me anymore.
I stop, waiting for him to catch up, but he doesn’t and I feel the smile fade from my lips. I retrace the two turns to where I’d last seen him, but he isn’t there. And it looks different. The paths are laid out different than I remember and I spin around, squinting down the rapidly darkening trails, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. I’m not sure which way to go, or if I should just stay put, but losing him suddenly like this with Erik’s warning still rolling around in my head spooks me. There’s too much resentment boiling around him for it not to break eventually.
I want him back. Now.
“Bree?”
I whip around at his voice, jogging along the passageway, sure I’ll find him at the turn at the end, but when I reach it all I see is another empty length of corn.
“Bree!”
This time the sound is from closer to where I’d just been, but there’s no junctures there, it’s just an unbroken line of corn. He’s one, maybe even two pathways away from me. I’m grabbing for my phone before I realize I’m not wearing my usual jeans, and without any pockets to carry it in I’d left it in the car.
I’m starting to wonder if I should just try to squeeze right through the stalks – I can’t remember how thick the walls were when it was still light out enough to see - but he’s moving again, I can hear him calling for me, his voice getting further and further away.
“Bree? Bree!”
I follow, paralleling him until I can find a branch leading off in his direction, travelling slower and more carefully now as the light is almost gone and I can’t see where I’m stepping on the uneven ground.
“Bree!” Logan’s voice changes as he continues to call for me, sounding worried at first and then almost panicked when the minutes continue to crawl by in silence, the near total black of night settling over the field. “Breeee!”
The alarm in his voice stops me dead. My heart is hammering loudly and goosebumps skitter over my flesh because I know how to stop this. I know exactly what I need to do for him to find me, easily, and it’s so simple it’s pathetic.
I take a deep breath, but that doesn’t work so I take a few more, pulling air into my lungs like I’m drowning in the middle of a corn field. But when I pry my lips apart my throat closes off and tears spring to my eyes because I can’t. I can hear Logan calling for me, running through the maze, searching, and I can’t call out to him. I can’t make a single sound.
My breathing is completely out of control. I’m sucking air with an open mouth, trying to fight past the sheer terror choking off my throat, just trying to make One. Single. Fucking. Sound.
When Logan finally follows the horrible gasping noises I’m making, skidding around one of the shadowed corners nearby, he finds me there crying, clutching my stomach and heaving for air.
“Fuck. Bree!”
He tears across the patchy ground, crushing me in a tight hug.
“Okay, you’re okay,” he murmurs in my ear as my chest hitches and jerks. “It’s okay.”
But it isn’t okay. I’m not okay. I’m broken and ruined and hollow and I can’t even do something so simple as call out to this guy who had become everything to me; this guy who is, without question, the most important thing in my life. Not without asphyxiating myself.
“Hey, come on, let go,” Logan softly says, pulling at my arms that are smashed between our bodies. “Bree. Let go.”
I realize I’m holding my left wrist against my stomach in a claw-like grip and I let him drag my arms apart, let him flatten my hands against his chest instead. I can feel his slow, steady breaths beneath my palms and focus on matching them, pulling air in and out of my damaged lungs in time with him.
I’m in his arms and it’s safe and it’s him and it helps, just like it always helps.
Logan rubs my back, swaying with me in his arms. I drop my face to the middle of his chest. He’s solid and strong and I close my eyes, wishing I could just disappear, melt into him, under his skin.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, but I shake my head. It isn’t his fault. It’s mine.
He cups my face in his hands and lifts it, pushing my hair back from where it’s stuck to my lips. “Hey.” Hunched slightly in front of me, his face is inches from mine in the dark. “Okay?”
I take another deep breath and nod, wiping at the mess on my cheeks. My hands come away wet and smudged with mascara and I just stare at them until Logan chuckles softly and pulls out one end of his shirt.
“Here.” He wipes my hands off on the dark fabric.
It’s so sweet, cleaning my fingers off on the tail of his shirt. I lean in, leaving my hands there, tangled in the fabric, while I push up onto my toes and kiss him on the cheek.
I can hear his smile in his soft exhale. “You’re welcome.”
And then he freezes as the backs of my fingers brush against the warm skin of his stomach under his shirt.
He’s standing there motionless and I turn my hands over, pressing my palms against his flat stomach. I hear his shaky exhale into my hair as I slide them over the slight dip of his belly button, down over the line of warm hair.
When my fingers dip under the top edge of his jeans Logan stiffens with a quick, indrawn breath, and then he crushes his mouth down over mine. His tongue sweeps over my lower lip and I slide my hands around to his back, his skin smooth and hot and mine. When I open for him he licks his tongue into my mouth in slow motion, savoring each sensation.
I feel his hands slip down to the small of my back, his fingers lying against the very top of my butt over the thin fabric of the dress. He bends at the knees and then slowly, ever so slowly pushes back up, sliding the hard length of him against me, never breaking the kiss. A second time; his hands dropping, tightening over my butt and pulling me firmly against him as he pushes, hard, with his hips.
His eyes flicking between mine, Logan pulls back slowly, breathing shakily with just a sliver of cool night air between our lips.
“Better?”
I don’t nod, because he already knows. The only thing affecting my breathing now is desire for him.
He leans down, kissing me sweetly once, and then again, light touches that make me shiver. When he straightens, still hugging me against him, he tilts his head to look over
my shoulders at the endless stalks of corn.
“So. You don’t happen to know the way out of here, do you?”
I burst out a laugh and Logan takes my hand, weaving our fingers firmly together and choosing a direction at random. Unhurried, we start walking, the darkness a concealing fog around us. We manage to find our way easily back out of the maze, the crunching of the dried grasses and broken stalks beneath our boots the only sounds above the boisterous chirping of the crickets.
Logan glances down at me. “I told her about you,” he says casually. “My shrink.”
I know he can’t see my expression, but he answers as if he had.
“Not a lot. Told her I met this beautiful girl at school; that she doesn’t ever talk. That she’s the only thing that’s ever been able to help me sleep.”
. . . oh.
All I can hear is that he just called me beautiful, but then . . .
“Told her I’m trying to help you if I can, but I don’t really know how.”
He doesn’t have to know how. He doesn’t have to know or do anything but be him, here, with me. That’s enough. More than anything else.
“And she told me that not speaking is a way to deal with strong feelings of anxiety, that (she called it selective mutism) is a natural response to significant trauma.”
My spine stiffens, an automatic reaction, and I know he feels it too.
Significant trauma. Yes. I guess that’s as good an explanation as any. And though I can feel him looking at me in the chilly darkness, I don’t respond. I can’t tell him that. He knows enough – too much - already, without me saying a word.
Logan leads us back to the car. It’s the only one left in the secluded, unlit parking lot; the orchard long since closed down. There are no outside lights to illuminate our path and the night is thick and flawless; near perfect, total blackness. I shiver in the cold and tighten my hold on his hand.
When we reach the shadow of his car, Logan presses the button to release the trunk and lets go of my hand just long enough to pull a thick blanket from inside and slam the trunk closed. Then he leads us behind the dark outline of the buildings, out across the grassy field where long, dry grasses scrape at our boots. We walk to somewhere in the middle when Logan stops, spreading the blanket at our feet.
“Believe it or not, I didn’t bring you out here just to lose you in a corn maze.”
He drops down onto the blanket and pulls me down between his bent knees, leaning back on his hands as I settle against his chest. The autumn night air would be chilly without his body, warm and solid at my back, and I snuggle into him. On either side of my hips are his raised knees, encased in tight, dark denim, and I can’t help but rub my hands over the firm stretch of his thighs, needing to touch him.
“Look up,” he whispers.
Resting my head back against his shoulder, I do.
It’s staggering. The sky is transformed. Out here, without the deadening haze of suburban lights, the stars have multiplied by the hundreds against a deeper, more deserving blackness. The inky night sky is bursting with them, extravagant and boastful.
It’s absolutely beautiful.
“Like it?”
I love it. More than that, I love that he’s sharing it with me.
I don’t think about it, I just twist in his arms, turning to face him. Logan watches me silently as I push up, kneeling between his legs. The blanket is soft but cold against my shins and I lay my hands on his chest for balance, holding his gaze as I lift my right knee, sliding it over his leg. He lets me, lowering it down to the ground. I do the same with the other, slowly hooking it over his leg until I settle down onto his hips. I’m straddling him, my dress hiked up on my pale thighs, and he’s motionless, drinking me in.
My eyes flick to his lips and I lean forward, palms against his chest, just touching my mouth to his. He kisses me back restrainedly, holding himself back. He’s still leaning back on his hands, not touching me, letting me do as I wish. It’s thrilling and infuriating at the same time and I let my hands slide up over his shoulders, stabbing my fingers into his hair as I deepen the kiss. He groans into my mouth, angling his head, grinding his mouth into mine, but he still isn’t touching me.
And I need him to. I need his hands on me, need to lose myself in the feel of his touch, lose myself in him.
I grab his wrists, yanking his hands from the ground. He lets me guide them, placing them on my hips over the bunched fabric of my dress. Logan’s eyes are black in the darkness as I look back up at him, my heart racing. His lips are parted and his hair is mussed from my hands and I grab the front of his shirt and drag him back to my mouth.
And that’s when he finally loses his control.
His fingers bite into my hips, yanking me down at the same time he thrusts himself firmly up, crushing our bodies together. Through the thin strip of my underwear I can feel the swollen shape of him beneath his jeans, pressing hard against me. I moan and he does it again, still watching me as he grinds our hips together, the rough denim of his jeans rubbing between my legs so I’m fighting to keep my eyes open, breathing in short, shallow pants.
I want him. Ferociously.
Logan is breathing heavily as he stills his hips, ignoring my soft sound of frustration as he moves his hands over me, atop my dress, his fingers grazing my waist, the juncture of my thighs, the swell of my butt. His hands are impossibly warm as he draws them down, letting them skim over the bare skin of my thighs. Then he pushes them slowly up, under the fabric of my skirt. He slides them higher, massaging my legs, and I can feel myself writhing, seeking his touch. His fingertips barely graze the edges of my underwear, his thumbs between my thighs and my legs fall open, inviting him.
I’m throbbing with need for him when he finally drags the pad of one thumb, torturously slow, over that painful ache, and my head falls back, my hair cascading down over my butt as I cry out. I grip his shoulders desperately and he does it again, languidly pulling his thumb over me atop the thin cotton of my underwear, and I think I might die from how good it feels. My heart is slamming violently and I’m squirming against his hand, straining for more, mindless with need.
I’m taut and trembling above him, my thighs squeezing his hips when he suddenly shifts, slipping his thumb beneath that last barrier of cloth and sliding it over where I’m wet and waiting for him. Suddenly he’s rubbing in quick, tight circles against my heat and the hard throbbing under his touch coils and tightens and shatters.
I come in a wild, moaning rush.
Logan watches me come, watches the orgasm rake over me, watches as I finally collapse against his chest, shaking and gulping for air. His arms come around me, massaging over my back, letting me recover as he watches the sky. When I can breathe again he presses a warm kiss to my hair and lays his cheek on my head.
“I love you.”
I still in his arms. Under my ear I can hear his heartbeat thrumming steadily, and I close my eyes under the crush of pain.
I love him. Of course I love him. I love him and I need him and I can’t breathe right when I’m away from him and isn’t that what love is?
He’s everything.
And I’m so broken I can’t even tell him.
“Hey.” He hunches down to look at me, cupping my face when I resist and lifting it under his gaze. And with the zealous light of the stars overhead there’s no way he can’t see the tears on my cheeks.
“What’s wrong?”
I shake my head. More tears fall.
I love you.
But he can’t hear me.
I grab his head and kiss him. Frantically. Logan falls back onto one hand, catching himself on the blanket, and I press against him, following him back. He wraps his free arm around me, clutching me against him, obviously sensing my urgency but not questioning it. He just lets his head fall back a little, lets himself be kissed as the muscles in my arms tremor, clinging to him, like any moment he might be torn away from my grasp.
When I finally pull back he consid
ers me quietly before wiping away the wetness on my cheeks for the second time that night.
Logan opens his mouth to say something else but then his eyes shift and widen.
“Holy shit. Bree, look.” But I don’t move fast enough so he does it for me, gripping my shoulders and turning me, pointing up at the sky. “Make a wish.”
Tearing down across the twinkling night sky is a fizzing ball of glaring white, silent and electric and beautiful.
A shooting star.
And then it’s gone.
I stare out at the night where the blackness has reclaimed its infinite field, the meteor already disappeared, and I’m utterly amazed. When Logan leans over to see my reaction he chuckles at what he must find in my expression and readjusts me so I’m sitting between his knees again, his arms wrapped around my shoulders.
“Finally,” he whispers, but I can hear the smile in his voice.
Logan holds me like this as we watch for more meteors, but no more come. The night is getting colder and when I shiver against him he pulls me in tighter, pressing the insides of his thighs against my legs, warming me with his body. I curl up in his arms and I don’t want to leave. I want to sit underneath this vast, elusive sky with him forever, but I know I can’t.
When I shiver again, Logan squeezes me closer for just a second before pushing to his feet, kissing the side of my neck like he’s as reluctant as I am to let this night end. He helps me up and grabs the blanket, shaking it out and slinging it over his arm as we make our way back to the car. He holds my hand, what I can see of his face impassive, and I wonder what he’s thinking about.
A More Deserving Blackness Page 17