Madame X (Madame X #1) (21 page)

Finally, Logan stands up, wipes his face. “Gotta go outside, Cocoa?”

Cocoa barks and, with a clicking scrabble of claws, tears across the house to a back door and plants her haunches on the gleaming hardwood, thick tail flailing wildly, her head swiveling between Logan and the door. Logan pulls the sliding glass door aside, and Cocoa lunges through the opening as soon as it’s wide enough to fit her bulk. The outdoor space—which I hadn’t realized existed in Manhattan—is small but elaborate and beautiful. A small terrace of cobblestone, a round wrought-iron table with four chairs, a gleaming silver grill, and a plot of green grass maybe a dozen steps across, flowering bushes lining the back fence. Logan follows Cocoa out, and I follow him; we stand together, watching the dog prance around happily, circle three times, and then squat to do her business.

It’s quiet here. Even in the middle of the day, there is no babel of traffic sounds, no horns or grinding engines or sirens.

“This isn’t where I imagined you living,” I say, apropos of nothing.

“Expected some downtown high-rise, probably? Big views and lots of black marble?” He shoves a hand in his hip pocket, scraping at the cobblestone with his boot toe.

I nod. “Pretty much.”

“I had that, for a while. I hated it.” He shrugs. “Found this place, kind of by accident. Bought it, reno’d it myself, and adopted Cocoa. Having somewhere quiet to go, at the end of the day? It’s priceless. Having somewhere outside with some green and some privacy? Even
more so. And Cocoa to keep me company . . . can’t get any better.” He glances at me. “Well, it
could
, but that’ll happen in time. I hope.”

Is he talking about me? He’s looking at me as if he might be. But I don’t know what to make of that, what to say to it, how to process it. This is unfathomable to me. A dog, a yard, peace and quiet. No view of the city, no endless parade of stories to invent, crossing thirteen stories beneath me. No expectations on my time. Choosing my own clothing. Discovering what I like . . .

It’s all too much. I’m choking on possibilities. I turn away, yank the glass door open, dart through, find the hallway and the open door showing me the bathroom. I don’t even bother closing the door behind me, I just collapse onto the lid of the toilet, face in my hands. My shoulders heave, and I feel tears sliding down.

I don’t know why I’m crying, but I can’t stop it.

I jump a mile into the air when I feel a cold nose touch my cheek. She doesn’t lick me or bark or jump on me, she just lays her chin on my knee. I laugh through my tears at her expression, wide dark eyes gazing at me, as if she could somehow commiserate, as if she’s trying to communicate to me. Comforting me with her presence.

And it works.

I bury my fingers in her soft, silky, short, chocolate-brown fur, scratch her floppy ears, pet her thick neck.

“See what I mean?” Logan’s voice, from the doorway. “There’s a reason we call dogs ‘man’s best friend.’ This is why.”

I sniffle and feel a fresh wave of tears flow over me, hide my face against Cocoa’s shoulder and cry on her; her only reaction is to put her chin on my shoulder and very gently lick the lobe of my ear.

Eventually, it passes. I look up, and Logan is sitting on the floor beside me, legs stretched out, back against the wall.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, wiping my face. “I don’t know why—”

“Stop,” he interrupts. “You don’t have to apologize. I know—I
get the feeling you’ve been through a lot. You don’t have to tell me anything, I just . . . I’m here to help, okay?”

I struggle for calm, my emotions still running on high, turbulent and mixed up. “Why, Logan? You don’t know anything about me. Why do you want to help me?” I wipe at my eyes again. “You just made yourself an enemy of Caleb. And for what?”

He moves to kneel in front of me, nudges the bill of his hat up out of my face. “Don’t you worry about him. Okay? Caleb is not your problem anymore. He’s mine.” His fingers brush over my cheekbones. “As for why I’m doing this? I wish I could say it was pure altruism, rescuing the damsel in distress because I’m just that kind of knight in shining armor. I can’t say that, though.”

I have to focus on blinking, on breathing, on not letting myself dive forward and inhale his scent and feel his muscles under my hands and taste his tongue and lips and neck. Instead, I just stare at him, and hold myself utterly still. “Why not?”

“Because the truth is, I have far more selfish motivation. I mean, yeah, you didn’t belong there, and I just . . . I
had
to get you out. But . . . getting you away from Caleb’s cameras and security gorillas . . . getting you alone . . .”

“You wanted me alone?” Why is
that
the only thing I’m seizing on?

“Yeah. I did.”

“We’re alone now.” I’ve whispered it, my voice dropping to nothing at all, a tiny sound, a breath. His face seems closer, and I can smell him now, and feel his hands on my thighs.

“Yeah,” Logan says, his voice not much louder than my own. “That’s true.”

But then Cocoa barks, a happy
ruff
, as if she too wants to be in on the moment.

Logan stands up. He’s breathing heavily, brows lowered, eyes
intent. He gestures at the glassed-in shower. “You wanted a shower. I don’t have any girly shower stuff, unfortunately, but you can get clean, at least.” He pats his thigh, and Cocoa leaves my side to sit at his, tongue lolling out. “I’m going to take Cocoa on a little walk, give you some privacy, okay? I’ll lock up and arm the alarm when I leave. Towels and washcloths under the sink. We can go get some lunch whenever you’re ready.”

He slaps the post of the door, offering me a quick smile. And then he’s gone. I hear something jingling, hear claws on the floor, the door open, beeping of the alarm as he enters the code. Then the door closes, and I’m alone.

For the first time that I can remember, I am truly, completely alone.

There are no cameras watching my every move, no hidden microphones recording my every sound. No security waiting somewhere, should I try to leave on my own. No Len, no Thomas . . .

No Caleb.

I have a flash of memory, Caleb’s eyes on mine, dark and intense with the fury of orgasm. Hands on me, a moment of something like connection. Face-to-face, for the one and only time.

Had Caleb stayed, what could have been? There is much behind those nearly black eyes, a world of emotion, a world of thoughts indecipherable and deep. Caleb admitted things to me, truths I never thought to hear.

But Caleb walked away.

And now I’m alone.

When showering . . . before . . . I would always disrobe in the bathroom, and dress there as well. If there was any room in that condo that I might have had any privacy, it would have been the bathroom. And I didn’t like the feeling of being watched as I did something so private and personal as change.

But now, I can do whatever I want.

I am
alone
.

It feels like the greatest freedom to walk out into the living room, to examine the huge TV and the brown microfiber couch, the stereo, the artwork on the walls ranging from band posters to classic paintings—to do so alone, unobserved. The silence is thick, blissful. The sense of isolation is lovely.

There is a staircase, a landing. On the wall facing the rising stairs is a painting.

Starry Night
, by Van Gogh.

I wonder if it means something personal to him, as it does to me, or if it’s just another piece of art?

The kitchen is small, clean, inviting. A small dining room, a round table with two chairs, one pulled out as if recently sat in. A pile of magazines and envelopes, a set of keys on a ring.
Logan Ryder
, an envelope says, with an address.

A thought seizes me as I stand in the kitchen; before I can second-guess myself, I reach up behind my back, tug down the zipper of my dress. My heart hammers in my throat. I shrug out of the garment, let it pool to the floor. Bra, and then underwear. I’m naked now, in Logan’s kitchen. There’s the sliding glass door, the backyard, the high wall. Trees beyond, but no buildings, no one to see unless it’s a helicopter flying overhead.

Daring, a little afraid, nervous, I step outside, just for the thrill of it.

I’m outside, totally nude.

I want to dance and scream in joy at the feeling, the freedom. I dare a half dozen steps out into the yard, look around me at the fence rising a dozen feet over my head, blocking my view and that of the neighbors.

And then I hear a voice from behind the fence to my left, and I dart back inside, shaking. I waste no more time getting into the
shower, the water just a little too hot. There’s a bottle of two-in-one shampoo and conditioner and a bar of soap; I smile to myself as I lather my hair and scrub at my scalp, remembering Logan’s claim to not have any “girly shower stuff.”

I take a long, long time scrubbing my body. Scrubbing the memory of Caleb off me. Trying to scrub away a lingering thought, a faint, almost guilty wish, a wondering at what could have been, had Caleb stayed.

I scrub that wish away until my skin feels raw. Caleb didn’t stay; I was taken, used to sate some kind of need, and then left alone yet again, as always.

But I cannot, no matter how I try, pretend there wasn’t a moment, however fleeting, when Caleb’s eyes met mine and a moment of intimacy existed. That happened. It was real. I know I didn’t imagine it. As quickly as it occurred, however, Caleb squashed it like an offensive bug.

And that, more than anything else, helped prompt my desire to escape. I dared hope for intimacy, for a glimpse of who Caleb is. A glimpse of the man, rather than the figure, the master, the
owner
. But such a hope was—and always will be, I now believe—in vain.

I twist the hot-water knob until my skin tingles with the heat, as if I could scald the hurt away.

Even after all I’ve endured, my weakness for Caleb remains. I fear him, yet I need him.

And I
hate
myself for it.

I am here, I think, to try to scour away that need. To replace it, perhaps, with need for someone else.

I am drawn to Logan, hypnotized by him, mesmerized, entranced, enthralled.

He is so kind. So thoughtful.

So warm.

But beneath that is a core of ice and steel; behind his indigo eyes
lurks the cunning of a predator, I sometimes think, the ferocity of a warrior.

And that, as much as I fear it, also makes me feel safe.

Eventually I know I can linger in the shower no longer, and I turn the water off, find a thick rust-red towel folded into neat thirds under the sink, wrap it around my tingling body. Wrap another around my head to sop up some of the water; my hair is so thick that without a blow dryer, it will be damp for hours. I peek my head out of the bathroom and sense that I’m still alone. I find the bag with my new clothes in it by the front door. I have it in my hand, and at that moment, the deadbolt knob twists, the door swings in toward me, and my heart leaps into my throat.

BEEPBEEPEBEEPBEEP

Cocoa leaps at me, barking, puts wet paws on my bare shoulders.

Utter chaos ensues for a wild moment.

Logan is shoving at Cocoa, who is blocking the doorway, which in turn has me stumbling backward. Beyond Logan, rain is sluicing down in hammering bucketfuls, so thick it obscures my view of the street beyond.

The alarm is beeping faster and faster, and Cocoa is on top of me, barking, tail wagging, smearing muddy paw prints on me and on the towel, and her claws catch in the cotton of the towel and loosen it, threatening to tug it away. Logan steps over Cocoa, stabbing at the alarm panel to disarm it, then slamming the door closed.

I shove Cocoa away with one hand, trying to stand up while holding the towel in place with the other.

Logan is soaked to the bone, his gray T-shirt all but see-through now, sticking to abs so grooved and ridged and hard they could be carved from stone, sticking to his lean upper body, hard, chiseled pectorals, broad shoulders. His hair is lank and stringy and sticking to his cheeks and chin.

Rainwater puddles at his feet, and his eyes are hot blue orbs, locked on mine. Neither of us moves. I am not breathing.

The towel covering my torso is hanging loose around me, held up only by one of my hands, the other still fending off Cocoa’s muddy and exuberant greetings.

“Cocoa . . .
sit
.” His voice is faint, as if he has to remember how to speak. “Stay, Cocoa.”

The dog sits . . . on my feet. Wet fur, on my feet. She stinks of wet dog, a pungent smell.

I unwind the towel wrapped in a turban around my hair and hand it to Logan, who, without looking away from me, kneels beside his dog, unclips her leash, and wipes her down carefully and lovingly, each one of her paws, her legs, her long body, her floppy ears, over and over until she’s wiggling to get free.

“Go to your room, Cocoa. Go lie down.” His voice is still faint, and he’s still staring at me, and I can’t move, paralyzed somehow by the superheated blue of Logan’s gaze.

Cocoa barks once, and then trots into her room.

My back is to the wall, cold against my bare spine. I need to cover myself, but I can’t.

Logan is in front of me, standing tall and broad mere inches away, and he’s wet, too, but now he’s so warm he feels like he could be steaming. I smell him, man-scent as pungent as wet dog.

He lifts his shirt, peels it off, baring a torso that is a sculpted wonder of lean, corded muscle. He isn’t a mammoth bear of a man, not like the only other male body I’ve seen in this state of undress. Clad in those faded blue jeans and nothing else, he is tall, over six feet, but he is a man of razor sharpness, each muscle defined as if cut into his body, each muscle lean and hard. He has no spare flesh or muscle, nothing extra, nothing unneeded. He is all hard lines and deeply etched grooves. There are scars, too. Thin white lines
crisscrossing his left pectoral, his right bicep, and left forearm high up near the elbow. Two round puckered scars on his right shoulder, one in the meat of his muscle, the other higher up on the collarbone, and a third lower down, just beneath his ribs. There are tattoos coloring the skin on his shoulder, a nearly indecipherable jumble of images on his left arm from collarbone to just above the elbow, so that they’d be all but hidden if he wore a short-sleeve shirt. I see cartoon pinup girls and flames and a Jolly Roger made of a grinning skull and crossed assault rifles and initials in Old English lettering nearly hidden in a snarl of barbed wire, phrases I can’t quite make out in the same lettering. The whole tangle of images begins just above his elbow, designed as if to grow out of a tree whose roots wrap around his bicep, the jumble of images and designs forming the trunk, and the branches extending in skeletal fingers across his collarbone and back toward his shoulder blades.