Page 46 of Until You Found Me

Kissing is something he’s avoided whenever he could. Hasn’t been difficult considering few women have fallen over themselves to make out with him once they realize he’s broke and sick. Not that he has a habit of letting anyone get far enough to know.

He wouldn’t let Lydia kiss him beyond that first night in the bar, when he was two glasses of whiskey in, knowing the last thing he should be doing was drinking. It felt like leading her on after that so he would turn his head unless she grabbed his chin and forced it back, asking him if she disgusted him. It was only then that he felt guilty enough to comply.

Words, gestures, touch, it’s all a minefield for Logan, has been his whole life and so the fact that they’ve slipped into whatever this is so easily, shocks him because there is something wrong with him, he’s certain of it.

He can appreciate a beautiful woman, but his interest has always been shallow and without any sort of emotional connection, his brain does a good job of keeping his dick down. It’s a defect on his part. It has to be. Society tells him that he shouldn’t need to feel anything for the person he’s fucking, yet no matter how often he has tried to conform to those expectations, it never works in his favor.

To let someone in, he needs to feel safe, but the fact that he’s antisocial enough to make that process such a struggle is probably a defect, too. It’s why he didn’t say a damn thing when he found out his ex was dosing him with Viagra. He let her do it because he couldn’t give her what she needed otherwise. His desire to be normal didn’t do a damn thing to make his cock work for someone he didn’t love.

His attraction to Tessa is both unexpected and confusing.

He can still feel her warm and wet around his fingers, so tight that he aches at the idea of being inside her, and that doesn’t happen to him. He has to be caught in nothing but stimulus-response without any input from his brain to make it work and yet the throb still lingers now as he sits at the edge of the bed, stressing about how to tell her something she has the right to know.

Uncertainty at his own body’s reaction mingles with anxiety at his impending confession and that coveted erection begins to wane.

He drops his head, feeling her shift behind him. When he looks up, she’s lost the towel for one of his t-shirts, and fuck, he’s never seen anything better. Briefly, he considers ignoring this whole conversation and slipping his hands under the soft cotton to touch her.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me.” She rests a hand betweenhis shoulder blades. “Did I do something?”

“What? No. Hell no, it’s not you.”

“What then?”

“You need to know something about me before it’s too late and you find out while it’s happening.”

She frowns but stays silent beside him, covered but naked from the waist down, and he wonders if she’s leaving a little wet spot on his sheets. If he laid her back and pushed his tongue between her legs, would she be ripe and ready for him like a juicy peach or has he already ruined any hope of that?

“Sometimes it doesn’t work,” he blurts out, facepalming, and then he can’t stop talking. Words tumble over each other in an effort to explain while digging himself deeper into embarrassment. “I mean, it works, just not always with someone else, and don’t want you thinking it’s you because it’s not. Don’t know why it happens but you should know that it could, and if you wanna use the pills to be safe, it’s okay. My ex used to slip ‘em in my drinks. But I’ll take one for you, it’s no big deal.”

He’s ready for the rejection and disgust sure to come. Why would she want to take a chance on someone who can’t even fuck her properly?

When she finally speaks, it’s carefully, as if he might shatter right here on the bed. “I know what I felt before that man showed up outside. And I know what I saw tonight. It looks like everything works fine.”

“Not consistent,” he replies. “Can’t be sure without the drugs, even then it’s a toss-up sometimes.”

“What drugs?”

“The blue ones in the kitchen drawer. I kept a few when she left. I dunno why. Maybe it’s good I did.”

“Logan, can you look at me?” she says softly.

He turns his head, meeting the acceptance in her eyes that he already knows he doesn’t deserve. She offers him a sad smile, slipping her hand into his with a warm squeeze.

“You said she slipped them into your drinks?”

He shrugs. “Don’t blame her. I never gave her anything she needed, so what was she supposed to do? Forcing it to work while I was asleep was the only way and—”

“Wait, what?”

“Wasn’t her fault, it was mine. If I was awake, the pills might not have worked as well. My fucking head ruins everything. It’s my own damn fault I don’t work right. I never have.”

“Logan, she shouldn’t have done that. It’s not okay.”

He bristles, pulling his hand away, the pit of his stomach churning with acid at her implication. “I never told her to stop.”

“You couldn’t have told her to stop if weren’t awake.”

“Even when I woke up, even when I figured it out, I let her do it. It’s fine. It’s fine.”

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