For a moment the room is silent but for our thundering heartbeats. Logan and I gaze at each other as though both afraid we might be dreaming. That would be a logical explanation for how perfectly everything has fallen into place, for how he came out of nowhere and changed everything about my life. It certainly
feels
like a dream, or as though every element of the universe, or something equally as powerful, has been coordinating to bring us to this precise moment. Inexplicable, like magic. Unfaltering, like clockwork. Whatever it is, it leaves me utterly stunned.
I stare at Logan in sheer amazement.
He breaks the silence, saying, “Yes?”
“
Yes
,” I whisper again, more urgently. “Yes, yes, yes,
yes
,” I tell him, my voice getting louder with every confirmation.
Abruptly my stunned stupor abates and happiness infiltrates every pore, every cell of my being. I lunge forward, kissing him ardently. I’ve never felt as happy as I do right now, not even fucking close! My heart hammers harder and louder the longer we kiss, and I play his question repeatedly in my head:
will you marry me
? It’s so soon, there’s no denying that, but it just doesn’t matter to me. All the things that I don’t yet know about him are not a deterrent. I know enough, I’m unalterably certain of that, and the more I accept it, the more emotional I get.
After a few impassioned moments, I can’t hold back any longer. I well up, tears spilling from my eyes, interrupting our kiss. As we break apart, Logan’s hand glides smoothly over my cheek as our eyes pour into each others. He looks so overcome by this moment, tears of joy pooling in his eyes too.
“I’ve been so in love with you for so long, Gemima,” he says quietly, his lips barely an inch away from mine. “The second I laid eyes on you I knew I wanted this moment to come.”
“I know,” I cry again, feeling utterly overwhelmed. “I love you too,” I tell him, over and over again.
He presses his lips against mine, and nothing in my life has ever felt so right. He murmurs a moment later, “There is something that you don’t know, something that I was so close to telling you last night, but,” he smiles, “I guess I needed one more day to find my courage.”
“You can tell me anything, Logan,” I promise him. “I don’t care if you have five illegitimate children and like to be gay every second Tuesday, I’d still love you and I’d still marry you.”
Logan laughs loudly, looking at me like he can’t quite believe his luck. I share his sentiment entirely. How did
I
get so lucky, so blessed?
“Tell me,” I urge.
“It’s deep, baby,” he warns me.
“I like it deep,” I say, before immediately rolling my eyes at myself.
Seriously
,
Gem
? Even now, during this beautiful, intimate moment, my American Mouth finds a way to say something like
that
!
Logan chuckles again, and tears fall freely from his eyes. I inch even closer to his body, cupping his face in my hands, wiping away his tears with my thumbs, while my own fall freely.
“Last night I told you that most of the guys I was friends with in my youth are now dead,” Logan says, and I nod. He takes a breath. “What nobody knows is that sometimes I’ve wondered why I survived,” he says. “It’s not self-pity, or survivor’s guilt…it’s just a question. Why? What’s my purpose?” His bottom lip quivers, and it’s clear to me that this question, whether heavy or not has plagued him for a long time. Confirming this, he continues, “For fourteen years it has lingered in the back of my mind — why was it so important that
I
have a second chance, that
I
have a second life when those other guys didn’t? What was waiting in my future that was so significant that I
had
to survive to experience it?” he asks me. “It was never about building my company, it was never about just being alive, there’s something more…”
“Me,” I murmur quietly.
“
You
, Gemima,” he nods surely. “You answered that question the moment I saw you at that party. Everything made sense, and it didn’t
matter
about Jerry and it didn’t
matter
how many years I had to wait, because I
knew
that being with you was my reason—”
“Logan,” I stop him, “you can’t give me the credit for the amazing way you started your life over.”
He smiles through his tears, looking breathtakingly beautiful. I am entirely enthralled by him. “I know I worked hard back then, long before I ever knew your name…but I’m giving you a bit of credit, even if that makes me mad,” he grins.
“Completely crazy,” I say against his lips. And yet I understand it, even if it awes me. Is it possible that I’m so happy I’m now bordering on insanity? Madness, passion, and love all infused together, coursing through my bloodstream. Logan’s eyes mirror my own internal state of awe, as does his next sentence.
“You are everything I want in the world, and that I am everything you want too defies belief,” he half laughs, half cries. Then, unable to hold himself back, he kisses me once more. Forget about cloud nine, I’m on cloud nine-hundred. “Is this what everyone feels like when they’re
really
in love?” I whisper to him. “This wild euphoria?” I’m not used to feeling like this; my life before Logan was numb.
His lips brush softly against mine. “I don’t know,” he whispers. “I tried to explain it to Buddy. We spent our entire business meeting last Monday talking about you,” he smiles.
“So, he knows?”
Logan nods. “He’s my best man, though I realise how backwards it is to ask him before asking you.”
I laugh, and more tears fall. “You’ve known him longer,” I allow. “A lot, lot,
lot
longer.”
Logan looks at me adoringly. “It’s fast,” he concedes. “But I don’t want to wait,” he says, his voice suddenly quiet as his emotions overpower him once more.
“I don’t want to wait either, Logan,” I tell him wholeheartedly. “Besides, you’ve waited long enough.”
“I thought you’d say that,” he whispers as new tears roll down his face. “And I knew you’d happy-cry, I just didn’t think that I would. This is new for me.”
“I like it when you happy-cry,” I steal his line.
“Good, because I’m over the fucking moon, and it’s all because of you, Gemima,” he says, slipping his hand behind my head and kissing me headily.
I was asleep a few minutes ago, I muse. Now I’m engaged and feel like I’ll never be able to sleep again. My body and mind feels so awake, so enlivened, and I know it’s not just me who feels like that. Logan keeps kissing me with more passion and eagerness, and his hands glide down my back and under the hem on my nightie. He holds me like he did a moment ago, but now we’re skin on skin.
Much better
, I think.
Minutes pass like seconds as we make out, but I want to be entirely naked with him, as naked physically as I am emotionally. I want to commemorate this moment the way it deserves to be.
“Logan, make love to me,” I breathe, no longer crying. I want to let our bodies do the celebrating and use up the sudden influx of energy and adrenalin that’s flooded us both.
He’s as fervent as I am to honour this moment. He opens his robe, revealing his naked body and waiting erection, I stand quickly to pull my nightie off and step out of my underwear before settling on his lap once more. Then he does exactly as I ask, taking himself in hand and placing himself at my entrance. My body shakes as he enters me with only his tip, just breaching me, like earlier today. However, unlike earlier, he stays here, his widest part against my tightest.
Ah
!
We’re still for a moment, Logan leaning back against the headboard, me leaning back, resting on my hands. It’s an entirely new sensation to spend an elongated amount of time united like this. My eyes, like Logan’s, are glued to my opening, where the sight of my sex wetting his and willing him to enter further, has me suddenly panting, even without any big movements from either of us. It’s the natural, involuntary twitches of our bodies that create such heightened arousal and excitement. It feels amazing, and the more I look at the erotic sight, the more my body responds.
“
Fuck
,” Logan mewls in pleasure, “I can feel you gripping me.”
He’s right, I am, though it feels entirely out of my control. Down below I’m so ready, so zealous to take him all the way into me. After one more delicious minute spent as we are, I slide onto him fully with a long, satisfied moan, and a frisson of pleasure moving through my body. He feels phenomenal and every infinitesimal pulse of him turns me on even more.
He stays permanently buried deep inside of me, and I start to grind my hips in small circles around him, creating a friction that we’ve never played with before. Logan’s hands run up and down my legs as I work against him. We gaze at each other across the open space, our mouths open, both mesmerised.
Forever
, I think, moving my hips faster and faster. We’ll have forever to play and explore and make love like this, and that notion is enough to make me wild with desire.
Pushing myself forward, I flatten my body against Logan’s, needing to be close to those delectable lips. I kiss him fiercely, moaning into his mouth, while down below I start to pulse up and down on him.
Holy shit
! I’m close, incredibly, gratifyingly close.
“
Logan
,” I whimper.
Oh
!
Ah
!
Reading me perfectly and knowing exactly what I want, Logan sits forward as well, he puts his arms around me, his forearms lying from my waist to the middle of back, allowing me to arch backwards, feeling entirely supported as I call out, on the verge. He holds me like this, in total service to me, until I come around him a few glorious moments later. The sensation of me gripping him inside, pushes him over the edge too. He buries his face into my chest, his body shaking as he orgasms, his voice muffled and sexy as hell.
“I would love to record the sound of you coming and use it as my ringtone,” I muse breathlessly.
Logan chuckles and I can feel his heart beating overtime. He starts kissing my breasts, and murmurs against them, “Then you’d never pick up.”
“That’s true,” I laugh, tangling my hands in his hair and letting out a long sigh. That was incredible.
“I’m never going to tire of doing this with you,” he says, his breathing laboured as he looks up at me. “From the first time I felt and watched you orgasm to right now…it always seems too good to be true. The way you let go, receive me, feel me, respond to me, it’s the best feeling in the world.”
“I agree, Funny Valentine,” I say, referencing the Friday night in a dimly lit gymnasium when I first felt his sensual touch. I lean forward to smile against his lips.
Jeez
, I wanted him so badly that night.
He smiles back and when I rest my head on his shoulder, his lips shower my exposed neck with kisses, and his hands caress my naked back. “Before seeing you that night I’d been swimming for two hours straight to try and get you off my mind. It didn’t work at all,” he laughs. “And I went to the gymnasium because slack-lining was the only thing that I could think of that would make me focus on something else.”
I laugh too as I think,
that certainly didn’t happen
!
Logan says into my shoulder, “Low and behold, there you were, sitting outside, and it felt as though I wasn’t
meant
to get you off my mind. And now I never will.”
I relish his words, and try my best to snuggle even closer to him, a hard feat given that he’s still buried inside of me and he couldn’t be holding me with more ardour if he tried. It’s astounding how quickly things can develop and change and grow. I marvel at the memory of that night. I marvel that that drunken girl in that little black dress, who was quietly but passionately infatuated with the man in the gymnasium, is now engaged to him.
I wrap my arms around his neck and hold him to me, not saying a word, but just feeling him, breathing in time with him, and trying to come to terms with the most amazing experience of my life so far.
I then start laughing to myself as the prospect of sharing this experience with others enters my mind. Before meeting Logan I would accuse a couple of being deranged if they decided to get married after being together for three months, let alone three weeks!
How little I knew
.
“People will say we’re mad,” I tell Logan with a smile. Maybe we are, I think. Or maybe we’re brave. It suddenly occurs to me how completely honest we’ve been about our feelings right from the very start. Completely open to the possibility of love, but in being so we were also vulnerable to the potential of heartbreak. It was a gamble, and it just paid off.
Big time
. Maybe the game was fixed, I wonder. Maybe this level of happiness is the only true option there is when there’s no red tape, no bullshit, no drama woven into the fabric of our relationship. Or maybe madness and bravery are one and the same.
In his signature, sexy, self-assured manner, Logan tells me, “I’m not concerned about what people will say. I’m only interested in what
you
say.”
“I believe I said yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” I rattle off the word very quickly and enjoy the way that Logan’s face lights up when I do. “And just so you know, baby, I have no plans to defend the decision we just made. I won’t defend something that feels so incredibly right, no matter what anyone may say. To defend it would belittle it,” I say and Logan nods in agreement. “And anyway, in time our relationship will speak for itself.”
“
And
time will prove that we’re not just getting married because you’re pregnant,” he grins. His eyes then scan my face, looking entirely besotted, and speaking his thoughts out loud, he reveals, “I can’t believe you said yes.”
“You thought I’d say
no
?”
He shakes his head, explaining, “No, I thought you’d say yes, I
knew
you’d say yes, but,” he shrugs, “when you’ve wanted something for so long and you finally get it, it’s…”
“A gigantic let down?” I giggle.
“No, baby,” he laughs. “It’s surreal,” he says meaningfully, and it seems that he too needs time to let this sink in. “Besides, I wasn’t prepared to ask you tonight, I had everything organised for Sunday,” he tells me.