A More Deserving Blackness

by Wolbert, Angela

  “Logan,” I gasp, and his mouth covers mine and his hands are low at my stomach, fumbling with the button of my jeans. He tears it open and yanks down the zipper and then his hands are down the back of my pants, kneading my butt, crushing my hips against his, his long fingers almost, almost touching me where I need him to.

  I grip his shoulders and rub against him, and I can tell from the tension in his muscles, from his frantic, panting breaths that he’s as close as I am.

  The touch of my fingers at his stomach makes him groan into my mouth, and suddenly he’s jerking at his jeans, ripping them open for me and then stiffening and crying out when I fist a hand around him.

  He draws back just enough to look at me while I touch him, stroke him, his eyes wild and burning. And then they slide closed and his breath comes out in a gritted rush when I squeeze him, hard, in my hand.

  He yanks my pants and underwear over my hips in one swift jerk, and I kick off my shoes as he impatiently pulls them off me. And then his hand cups me and the length of his finger slides against me and my knees almost give out. He rubs over me once, and then again, watching the need build in my eyes, my body jolting with each hot pass of his finger.

  He jams a hand into his pocket and shoves both his jeans and boxers down to mid-thigh, ripping open the small packet and covering himself urgently. Then he pushes his shoulders off the wall at his back, hooking his hands under my thighs and lifting me easily as he lurches forward, wrapping my legs around his hips and smashing me against the opposite wall as he thrusts himself inside me as far as he can go.

  Logan groans into the side of my throat, driving into me, my butt bumping the wall, his strangled breath hot on my skin. My fingertips are biting into the muscle of his shoulders, mindless with need. I feel him going rigid in my arms, feel the desperation in his rhythm, and tighten my legs around him, arching in his hands and digging in with my heels. His hips are pumping furiously, slamming into me faster and harder, his hands almost bruising on my butt, and I can feel it, the waves of blinding pleasure sucking at me with each thrust.

  I wrap my arms around his neck as it builds and then breaks and I scream my orgasm into his throat, my body tightening with my release, pulsing over and over where he’s still buried inside me.

  Logan follows me almost instantly, crying out raggedly and coming in a violent rush, his hips bucking and his body shuddering uncontrollably.

  His arms are shaking when he drops his forehead against the wall with a thump, both of us still breathing heavily, and lifts me off of him. He sets me on my feet but doesn’t release me, wrapping me in both arms, tangled in my long hair and clinging to me as we both tremble.

  “Are you okay?” he whispers unsteadily, his mouth in my hair, and I nod, still catching my breath.

  When he pulls back he falters slightly, catching himself with one hand on the wall over my shoulder. His brow furrows.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He shakes his head, smiling past the grimace and hooking an arm around his battered ribs.

  Crap.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He laughs, but that only makes him wince again. “Best sex of my life? I think it was worth it.”

  My cheeks flame but, “I didn’t mean to -”

  “Stop. I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine.”

  Logan shoots me a look and then hikes his jeans up over his hips, not bothering to zip them as he disappears down the hall, his movements slow and exaggerated from pain. While he’s gone I right my bra and slip back into my clothes, worried about him. I’m hanging both the black leather jackets on the hooks by the door when he returns.

  “Come here.”

  I turn and go to him where he’s standing in the living room, wearing just those jeans, now zipped and buttoned, and nothing else. In one hand is a collection of adhesive bandages and a tube of antibiotic ointment. He waves me to sit on the couch in front of him and when I do he crouches down in front of me. He carefully positions my left arm on my leg, and as he does I see the blood seeping around the bandages, some of the deeper cuts freshly broken open. I hadn’t even noticed.

  “Why’d you do it?” Logan asks grimly, peeling the old bandages from my skin.

  I try not to wince, watching his dark head bent over me. “You know why.”

  “Why not use your thumb?”

  “I did. It wasn’t enough.”

  He looks up at me, the long gash on his cheek black from scabbing and his eyes heavy. “Because of me.”

  I falter, unsure how to answer. “Logan . . .”

  He closes his eyes and sighs. “Did it help?”

  “For a minute,” I answer honestly. “Then, no.”

  Logan takes his time smoothing cream over the exposed cuts and unwrapping the bandages, applying them to my skin. I watch him for a minute, wishing he’d look back up at me, wishing he’d say something, wishing I didn’t feel like I’d ruined him all over again.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask when I can’t stand the silence anymore.

  He finishes, gathering all the wrappers in one fist on his thigh before looking up at me. His eyes are devastating.

  “I’m thinking I hate that you did this. I’m thinking I gave you the idea and it makes me so sick I think I might puke. I’m thinking I was just sitting here last night, right here, just killing time while you were across the street in so much pain you were hacking at yourself to try to make it stop. And I’m thinking I’d do almost anything to keep you from feeling like that again.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Breaking my promise to you.”

  “Yeah, well,” he shifts, painfully pushing to his feet. “I haven’t slept for three whole days so I think we’ve both proven we’re not worth shit without the other.”

  He turns and walks out of the room, and I can hear him banging around in the kitchen, hear the microwave for a minute before he comes back holding a steaming mug of tea.

  “Here. I don’t know how you drink this stuff.”

  I take it gratefully, wrapping my fingers around the warm ceramic and sipping deeply while he slowly, carefully lowers himself next to me. I can taste the honey he’d stirred into the simple green tea, sweet and smooth. Logan slouches way down on the cushion, folding his hands over his stomach.

  “How do you know?” I ask as I sip. “You don’t drink tea.”

  “I thought it might help me sleep, but . . .” he trails off and shrugs, grimacing at the movement.

  “When’s the last time you took painkillers?”

  “I don’t know. This morning.”

  I shove up from the seat, pushing the tea onto the coffee table as I go. When I come back I hand him a pill from each of the bottles I’d found on the counter and a glass of water. He barely sets the glass down before his eyes start to close.

  “Sleep,” I tell him, pulling his head down to my lap.

  He goes easily, but then grips my arms in his hands, blinking at me blearily.

  “Stay,” he mumbles.

  I kiss him on the forehead, my fingers in his hair. “I will.”

  I awake later, fully clothed and atop the covers in Logan’s bed, where I’d retreated to once he’d slipped into exhaustion on the couch. The windows are black and I glance at the clock on my phone. Four-forty.

  I roll onto my side, missing him beside me. It’s strange to be in this bed without him, to be so far from his side. How quickly I’d slipped back into the habit of him, like all along, through everything, deep down I’d known exactly where I belonged. Where I was home.

  Quietly I slip off the bed, sneaking down the hall to check on him. He’s still asleep, his motionless form shadowed in the dark of the living room, one bare arm hanging in limp abandon off the edge of the couch. Succumbed wholly to the oblivion of sleep after so long a deprivation. I hesitate a second, just watching him, content just to be near him.

  He’d heard me. Like I’d heard him. Somehow, on that terrible n
ight, we’d heard each other’s voices through the horror. Somehow we’d connected to each other, needed each other. Two years before we’d even met.

  I love him so much I ache with it.

  Silently I creep back to the bedroom, closing the door and leaning against it, my arms behind me so I feel the cool slab of the door around the freshly changed bandages on my arm. The twinge of pressure doesn’t give me any satisfaction, though. Not like it would’ve as little as ten hours ago, when I was still, impossibly, trying to adjust to the idea of a life without Logan.

  He was right. Just like Trish was right. I’m not okay, and I’m not worth shit without him. I need him.

  But maybe he’s not okay either, and maybe, just maybe, he needs me, too.

  By the time I go to lie down again the light on my phone is blinking on the bedside table. I pick it up and open the message.

  Okay?

  I smile despite myself and type, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.

  Are you okay?

  Yes. Then, No. Then, my hands shaking over the phone, I love you.

  I wait, but nothing else comes through, and the screen blinks off in my hands.

  But then the handle slowly twists in the door and Logan is standing there, shirtless and shadowed in the doorway, staring at me with his phone in his hand.

  “You’re finally talking and I get it in a text,” he says disbelievingly, raking over me with dark eyes.

  I take a shaky breath and let it out. “Do you remember what you said before, about Scarlett O’Hara?”

  He blinks once at the unexpected shift in the conversation, but then, “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s me. That’s how I feel. I’m Black Death in a dress. And I don’t deserve you.”

  Logan considers me quietly before slowly coming into the room. He grabs a shirt from his dresser and pulls it over his head, yanking it down over his bruised chest and then taking my hand and snatching up a tangle of blankets from the bed. “You’re not wearing a dress. Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  He leads me down the hall. “Outside.”

  I follow unresistingly. Logan pauses in the entryway to help me into my coat, easing my hair free of the collar with soft hands that make me shiver. As he slips on his own he notices the blush on my face as I glance at the wall beside the coat hooks and grins but doesn’t comment.

  “You going to impress me some more?” I tease, to cover up my embarrassment.

  Logan shoots me a sober look. “I’m sure as hell gonna try.”

  “I love you.”

  He’s facing away from me, his hand on the door handle, and he stops, turning back to me slowly. For a second, while my heart pounds, he studies me, his eyes flicking over my face. And then he leans down and gently covers my mouth with his; a sweet, slow, seductive kiss. He kisses me reverently, savoring the unhurried touch of only our mouths, and then draws back, holding my gaze.

  Logan unlocks the door and leads me outside by the hand, pulling it shut behind us, cutting off the light from the house and leaving us in a deep well of black. I shiver when the air hits me, crisp and cool, already hinting at winter. Logan draws me down into his lap in one of the chairs with his hands on my hips and covers us with the blankets, enveloping me tightly in his arms.

  I snuggle into him and look up past the overhang of the porch to the stars overhead. The black night is clear and cloudless, flaunting its immense assortment of perfect, twinkling stars.

  Logan presses his lips to my temple before he speaks, staring up at the sky with me.

  “Of the millions of meteoroids to impact the atmosphere every day, only a minute fraction of them actually make it to the earth. Most just burn up into nothing, vaporizing in the heat. But some survive.” He pauses, shifting to look at me, waiting until I drop my gaze from the black of the sky to his equally black eyes. “And if you’re lucky enough to find one that made it, it’s all burnt up and blackened, this broken thing . . . But hell, how many people get to touch a fallen star, you know? So it’s still the most beautiful fucking thing you’ve ever seen.”

  There are tears in my eyes when he kisses me.

  And I’m just sitting there thinking how I could spend the rest of my whole damn life just being broken together with him.