This is it, the old voice whispers.This is where she leaves. You kept her out to protect her, and now she thinks she’s the problem. Just like you made her think before Sweden. You’re doing it again. You’re always fucking things up by shutting down—even when you speak up. Why can’t you just benormal?
There is a life, a whole alternate universe, where I let that voice win. I blink stupidly, say nothing, let myself shrink so far into shame that I never come back out again. Maybe that’s what I would have done a year ago—hell, maybe even a few weeks ago—before Audrey came back and rewrote the source code of my existence.
But I look at her, the way her jaw is set, the way her hands are white-knuckled with the effort of not breaking, and I see it—the same expression she wore when I blocked her kiss. The same confusion, the same hurt, the same desperate question:What’s wrong with me?
I did this. Again. Made her feel like the problem when the problem has always been me.
Something detonates in my chest. I stand. I cross the gap between us in three steps and pull her to her feet. “No. God, no. I’m not ashamed of you. I could never?—”
My voice is breaking apart. I force myself through it. “You’re the only thing in my life I’m not ashamed of.” I need her to believe me. I need her to feel it, the way I feel it.
“Audrey, you’re the only thing that’s ever been truly mine. The only person I’ve ever wanted to bring home, anywhere. I just—” Years of self-preservation battle the urge to tell it all, to spill my guts in the middle of the sterile lab. “I just can’t stand the thought of them getting their hands on you. You think I don’t let you in? I’m afraid if I let you into that part of my life, it will poison us. Poison you. My parents…they are not people you want to know.”
She stares, looking for the lie. I don’t blink.
“I could introduce you to my parents,” I say, my voice desperate now, “but you wouldn’t meet the parents of the man you care about. You’d meet two strangers whose only superpower is making people feel absolutely fucking small.”
She still doesn’t waver. “Then let me in. Show me. Let me see the thing you’re trying to hide. You can’t keep drawing boundaries and expecting me not to notice—not to feel like you’re hiding me.”
I’m short-circuiting. I want to give her everything—God, I want her closer than I’ve ever wanted anyone—but the years of running interference, of living these two separate lives, are screaming at me to shut it down. I’ve spent so long reinforcing my boundaries that I hardly remember what I’m keeping in and what I’m keeping out.
But Audrey is here. She’s not my parents, not my past. She’s real, and she wants all of me or nothing. There’s a clarity in that, a kind of pull I don’t ever want to let go of.
“Jesus, Audrey.” I cup my hands on either side of her face. “Don’t you understand? You. are. all.” I close the gap between us, pressing my mouth to hers hard. All anger, all desperation. Her lips open under the pressure and I drink in the sound she makes, low and almost frightened. I don’t stop. I can’t. I kiss her like I’m starving for her, which is the only honest thing I’ve done all day. My hands are in her hair, tilting her head back, and then I have her pressed flat to the edge of the worktable, the heels of her hands braced behind her.
“Take off your panties,” I whisper, halfway between a plea and a command. My mouth is still on hers, my words getting lost in the heat of her breath.
She blinks. “What?”
The lab is empty, the door locked, but still she glances past my shoulder as if someone might walk in and catch us. Like exposure is only seconds away, and she’s furious and mortified and God, so fucking alive under my hands.
“Take them off.” I say it again, slower this time, so she knows it’s not a request.
She holds my gaze, and in it I see not just the friction, not just the anger, but the hope that lives under both. She wants me. She wants to be wanted, even in this, even now. Her hands move almost on reflex, sliding under her skirt, and I hear the whisper of fabric and feel the shake in her breath as she slides them down her thighs. She steps carefully out, the motion both clinical and obscene. I can’t stop looking.
“Get up on the table.” I want to be gentler, but my voice comes out earthquake rough. “Now. Spread your legs for me.”
She moves without argument, hoisting herself onto the broad epoxy countertop. Her skirt bunches up at her hips, framing her, bare and vulnerable and wild and open and daring me to do whatever I want, not what I think I should.
I sink to my knees, not even pretending I’m anything but desperate for her. I grip her thighs, thumbs digging in just hard enough to leave marks, and she gasps—sharp and shocked, like she didn’t expect it, which makes me want to mark her everywhere. I don’t look up. I want her focused on sensation, not uncertainty or anger.
I taste her before I touch her, and the heat of her overwhelms every other sense. I flatten my tongue against her, slow and deliberate, mapping the exact way she opens for me when I lick her hard and steady. Her thighs tense around my head, and I press forward, unrelenting, my mouth sealing over her clit with a hunger that borders on feral. She bucks against me, one hand flying to my hair, fingers tangling and pulling hard enough to sting, but the pain only sharpens my focus, turning everything into a feedback loop of her gasps and my tongue’s insistent rhythm. I don’t let up—I swirl and suck, alternating pressure until she’s trembling, her breath coming in short, jagged bursts that echo off the sterile walls.
“Logan,” she moans, the word half-protest, half-prayer, and I feel the shift in her body, the way she arches into me like she’schasing the edge of something inevitable. I slide two fingers inside her, curling them just right, matching the pace of my mouth, and she clenches around me, wet and hot and so fucking responsive it makes my cock throb painfully against my jeans. This isn’t about me, though—not yet. This is about showing her what I can’t say with words, about breaking open the walls I’ve built and letting her see the mess inside.
Her hips grind against my face, desperate now, and I can taste how close she is, feel the quiver building in her thighs. I glance up, just once, and our eyes lock—hers wide and wild, mine probably looking as wrecked as I feel.
“Come for me,” I murmur against her, the vibration of my voice making her jolt. “Show me how fucking perfect this cunt is.”
She shatters with a cry that’s muffled by her own hand slapped over her mouth, her body convulsing as the orgasm rips through her. I don’t stop until she’s spent, until her legs go slack and she’s slumping back on her elbows, chest heaving, curls plastered to her forehead with sweat. Only then do I stand, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, my heart pounding like I’ve run a marathon.
She stares at me, dazed and flushed, and for a second neither of us speaks. Then she reaches for me, but I catch her wrist gently, pressing a kiss to her palm.
“I want to share my life with you, Audrey,” I say, my voice still rough. “So, if you’re still willing to meet my parents, I’ll make it happen. This weekend. I’ll call them tonight.”
The words leave my mouth, and I wait for the panic. The familiar certainty that I’ve just made a catastrophic mistake, that I’m about to destroy the only good thing in my life by exposing it to the people who’ve spent thirty-four years making me feel worthless.
The panic doesn’t come. Or maybe it does, but it’s quieter than her. Smaller than what I feel when I look at her.
