Chapter 17
Logan
Elise didn’t go homethat night. Every time she seemed to be thinking about leaving, I touched her, or she touched me, and we ended up kissing on the couch, and in the kitchen, and in the bedroom.
I pinned her down to the bed and fucked her slow and steady until she was a begging, sobbing mess, coming undone under me and looking beautiful all the while.
I didn’t hold back from praising her, telling what a good girl she was, how lovely she looked like that, and clearly she was too far gone into her pleasure to care that I was being more affectionate than usual.
It was hard to know if I should say something about my feelings. I didn’t know howshefelt. Elise had come over, unprompted, because she wanted to have sex with me, and she’d never struck me as the type of woman to just want meaningless sex, but I didn’t know if that meant anything or not.
I didn’t know how to ask, either.
So we fucked and then I told her she was fine to sleep in my bed if she wanted.
“I have the next two days off,” I murmured, reaching up to brush hair back from her face. “So you could stay. Be my favorite new toy for a bit.”
As expected, she rolled her eyes and hit me, but she didn’t say no. That counted as a win in my book.
We weren’t quite cuddling when we finally passed out, but I could feel the warmth of her skin against me as we settled in.
It was still the middle of the night when I woke up from a dream about Jasmine.
She had been standing in front of me, wearing a wedding dress, but definitely not the one she'd been dropping hints that she wanted in reality. No, this one was frilly with puffy sleeves and ruffles around the hem, leaving her looking more like a porcelain doll than the woman I'd wanted to marry.
She had her hands on her hips, and she was staring at me, somehow looking down even though I had more than a few inches on her. That haughty look on her face cut me to my core, and before she opened her mouth, I knew what she was going to say.
"It's over, Logan. I can't do this with you. It's not what I want."
That was what she'd told me in reality, too. That she wanted something different. Someone different, it turned out.
It hurt less in the dream. When she'd told me for real, it had been like a sickening gut punch, hitting me right where it hurt the most. I'd crumbled, asked her what she needed, what she wanted to stay.
But there was nothing. It was just me she hadn't wanted.
In the dream, I just stared at her with cold eyes, and eventually I woke up.
It wasn't with a start, but my pulse was racing. I stared at the ceiling and then nearly jumped out of my skin when a leg was thrown over mine.
Elise. She was still there.
I hadn’t expected her to leave in the middle of the night or anything, but I also hadn’t expected to feel so... good with her in my bed.
She was the only one I’d spent the night with since Jasmine, and I didn’t think it could be that good again. Usually, I preferred to sleep alone. I liked my space, liked being able to spread out in bed whenever I wanted.
I’d spent money on a nice, top of the line mattress and expensive sheets because a good night’s sleep was rare and precious to me. And apparently, having Elise there just made it even more so. She was a welcome weight in the bed, and her leg thrown over mine just made me feel more connected to her.
I watched her shift under the covers and sigh softly, nuzzling deeper into the pillow, and I knew I’d been right before.
I wanted to be with her. For more than sex. I wanted her around more often, and I didn’t want to play the game where we came up with a reason to fuck and then didn’t see each other for days on end. I wanted more than this.
I just had to figure out how to tell her.
